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Chapter 84
Alfredo immediately replied.
“I already told the young master to stay inside his room for now.”
“Well done.”
“And since something like this has happened today, it seems better for him to return to the Academy tomorrow instead.”
At a time like this, if someone calling himself Gabriel were to meet Michele, the conversation would be obvious.
He would shed all kinds of crocodile tears, delightedly claiming Michele as his son.
‘Good heavens.’
Just imagining it made my breath catch in my throat.
How must it feel for a child when someone claiming to be his father comes knocking several times a year?
Dealing with that kind of hypocrisy would wound the boy too.
‘Michele…’
Hearing that his nephew was suffering discomfort, Ezekiel burned hotter with rage.
He had dealt with impostors for so long that Michele no longer expected anything at all. That resignation was pitiful in its own way.
“That bastard. To show up today, of all days.”
With a rare curse, Ezekiel stalked down the corridor like a prowling leopard—charging straight toward his prey.
Storming into the reception room, Ezekiel confronted the man who claimed to be his brother.
But the moment he laid eyes on him, Ezekiel’s face darkened.
As if he had anticipated this, Alfredo said quietly:
“This is why I couldn’t just drive him away.”
In the past, I wouldn’t have understood what shocked them so much. But now I did.
The face of the man in the reception room was exactly the same as the face Ezekiel had once shown me of his older brother.
The man sat calmly until he spotted us. Then he brightened.
Black hair, eyes of clear blue—he looked startlingly like Ezekiel.
“Little brother.”
Even though it wasn’t directed at me, hearing him call Ezekiel that made my skin crawl.
Could he really be the real one?
But then again, how could someone they’d failed to find for years suddenly reappear now?
And on top of that, right after I entered this household under the title of successor. If he were real, wasn’t the timing far too coincidental?
Still, if I thought about it another way—was there really any reason to assume he wasn’t the real brother? Maybe he had simply been destined to return now, after being lost so long.
No matter how twisted things had gotten, it might just be unfolding as in the original novel. And since I had never finished reading that book, I couldn’t make any certain judgments.
Conflicting thoughts clashed fiercely in my head.
“You.”
But Ezekiel did not greet him kindly.
He had told me once: impostors usually became angry at this point, when faced with a hostile younger brother.
Yet the man only regarded Ezekiel with calm understanding.
“I’m sorry—for causing such confusion.”
He lowered his head.
“I took too long to come back. You must have suffered greatly.”
“Don’t act like you’re already my brother.”
“If I made you unable to trust people, then until you can believe me, I’ll let you test me however you like.”
“Then answer more questions.”
This was Ezekiel’s method: after the impostor answered the first round of questions, he would follow up with extra ones.
No one had ever managed to answer those final questions.
Even under that pressure, the man only smiled faintly.
“All right. Ask me anything.”
“First question. What nicknames did we call each other?”
“I called you Ttuk-ttuk—because you were such a curt, expressionless little brother. And you called me Ambition, because I was always filled with grand ambitions to roam the world.”
Ezekiel’s jaw tightened.
“Next. What toy did you once hide away in your closet?”
“Wasn’t it that ugly teddy bear? The one that, when you squeezed it, played a recording from a magic stone shouting, ‘Idiot!’”
Heavy silence fell. The man continued lightly:
“By the way, that ‘idiot’ voice was yours. You recorded it.”
Ezekiel bit his lip. Realizing he was shaken, he turned the questioning over to Alfredo, who was skilled at keeping composure.
“From here, Alfredo, you take over.”
Following Ezekiel’s orders, Alfredo asked a series of prepared questions.
Ezekiel folded his arms and listened from behind as the man answered one after another.
The more the answers came, the drier Ezekiel’s mouth became.
“Your Grace. What do you think?”
“…They’re correct.”
Not wanting to show his turmoil, Ezekiel turned his back and ordered the final question.
“The last question. When you two were thirteen, you tripped during a sword duel and tumbled. What happened then?”
“What do you mean exactly? Could you be more specific?”
“Tell us everything you remember about what happened after you fell.”
“Ezekiel and I rolled, ended up in the bushes, and I got scratched by vines. I ended up with a wound.”
I stepped forward and checked Ezekiel’s face.
He was pale as paper—so pale he looked almost ghostlike.
“And if I recall, it wasn’t when we were thirteen. Weren’t we only nine back then, Zeke?”
My mouth fell open. Zeke—that was Ezekiel’s childhood pet name. It had only been used when he was very small.
“To even remember the age correctly…”
Grinding his teeth, Ezekiel turned and stepped up to the man.
“Show me the scar.”
“Here.”
The man revealed it without hesitation.
Alfredo and Ezekiel examined the scar as if cross-checking it together.
“The location matches. And it’s faint but real, just like an old scar should be.”
“Bring water.”
Even after scrubbing it with water to make sure it wasn’t painted on, Ezekiel finally broke down.
“So… he’s real?”
The man gave a bitter smile and approached Ezekiel.
“Circumstances kept me away, but I’ve finally come back. I’m truly sorry.”
When Ezekiel’s certainty grew stronger, his hurt flared sharp and raw.
“What circumstances? You could have come back sooner! Everyone was half-crazed searching for you all those years! In the end, Father and Mother died without ever seeing you again!”
“I was kidnapped in Ionel. Locked away for years by a criminal organization.”
Shocked, Ezekiel covered his face with both hands.
“Kidnapped?”
“They imprisoned me, forced me to do dirty work for them.”
His hands—Gabriel’s hands—were thick with calluses.
“In that country, even the guards were in league with the criminals. Escaping carelessly would have been suicide. But I kept talking about our parents, over and over. Eventually, one member of the group pitied me. One night, he let me go.”
“What was this group?”
“They called themselves the Black Dragon of Ionel.”
His tale was wretched. Even I, listening, felt his misfortune far outweighed my own.
“They called me nothing but ‘brat’ for so long that hearing my name feels strange.”
He sighed softly.
“Won’t you say it once? I want to hear my name from my little brother’s lips.”
After a long hesitation, Ezekiel squeezed his eyes shut and finally spoke the name the man had longed for.
“…Brother Gabriel.”
At last, he had returned. The one who should have been there was home again.
The news spread across the whole of Vetra within a day. But instead of cheering, people whispered with worry.
“Wait, isn’t a ducal title supposed to pass to the eldest son?”
“If the elder brother is back alive and well, and he’s the rightful heir…”
“Then… shouldn’t Gabriel Vetra become the Duke again?”
The legitimacy of Ezekiel’s succession, as the younger son, was suddenly thrown into question.
The next day, the atmosphere at the breakfast table had changed.
Where there had been three chairs for Ezekiel, me, and Michele, there was now a fourth.
Gabriel Vetra sat in it.
“I have no desire for the title. I’m sorry that my return has caused you such trouble.”
“Brother. But if people are questioning it, we must also face it.”
Ezekiel’s voice was tight.
“If you truly are of our bloodline, then by principle of succession the title should be yours. That would silence the rumors.”
But there were also those who mocked, doubting Gabriel was real. Many suspected the sudden return was too suspicious.
Perhaps knowing this himself, Gabriel quietly offered:
“Then why not conduct a bloodline test?”
