Episode 3
To encounter someone familiar in this party hall filled with strangers—how very.
……Unpleasant.
Robert recognized Isaac the moment he saw him. The only reason he had failed to notice Isaac, a man built so large he stood a head taller than most men, in the party hall was entirely because of that Miss Grayson.
His only concern had been whether Osmond could lure Miss Grayson out or not, so he had not so much as glanced toward Isaac, who had been tucked away in a corner of the party hall, guzzling liquor.
Isaac stared for a long while at the short, squat man who was staring at him, Robert, before belatedly recognizing who he was.
“Robert Bloom.”
“…….”
It was Robert Bloom, the administrative soldier from the special duty battalion Isaac had belonged to before he was drafted into the 4th Infantry Regiment.
“Never thought I’d see you in a place like this.”
Isaac muttered with a face that suggested it was no great matter. Truly, that was the extent of his reaction.
But not Bloom.
“……Captain Pinscher.”
Absolutely not Bloom.
“There are guests out on the terrace.”
Meanwhile, the butler Jason frowned at the maid’s report.
The outdoor terrace. It was the place they had put the most effort into for this party, but because the weather had ruined everything, they had piled all sorts of luggage there—and now there were guests there, she said.
“Guests? How many?”
“Mm…… From what I saw at a glance, three? It was dark, and honestly, the place is a mess, so I thought I should guide them to a guest room instead, but one of them was smoking. So I just passed by.”
“The guest rooms are full of ashtrays.”
The maid looked at Jason and merely shrugged, as if to say, Should I go back, then? In many ways, the outdoor terrace was currently not a suitable place to offer to guests.
After thinking for a moment, Jason went to Sasha and informed her of the matter. Sasha happened to be twenty minutes into listening to Mrs. Thompson talk about how exceptionally handsome her nephew was, and how good he was at hunting.
Sasha escaped from Mrs. Thompson with a grateful expression, and after hearing Jason out, she thought for a moment before saying this.
“I suppose the gentlemen are enjoying a conversation among themselves. It’s still chilly at night, so won’t they come back in soon? Ah, but close the door so that no other guests go that way.”
＊＊＊
It was the very picture of a guilty conscience.
“……If you talk, you won’t find it amusing.”
Robert Bloom said it through clenched teeth, his face flushed red as if it might burst at any moment. No, to be precise, he outright threatened Isaac.
How much did he hear? No, that bastard heard everything. He was already here when we came in. And he lurked there like some gloomy bastard, hiding his presence while listening to everything we said. That damned, overgrown……
“I won’t find it amusing?”
“…….”
“……What amusement?”
Isaac asked as he tossed away his cigar and approached him. The scent of the cigar wafted heavily from the enormous man.
Cedric Osmond looked up, a little sickened, at the huge man who had come up to him and Robert in an instant.
It was not a good situation. Robert and this unidentified man knew each other. And unfortunately, it was clear they were not on good terms.
The man, Captain Pinscher, was truly tall. Even Cedric, who was on the taller side compared to the average man, had to raise his chin slightly to look up at him. His frame itself was also massive. Cedric looked, somewhat dizzily, at the buttons of the captain’s shirt, which seemed ready to pop off at any moment.
“Bloom, wait. Who on earth is this……?”
“The joke we just made. If you tell anyone else about it, you won’t find it amusing.”
As if Cedric’s attempt to intervene had been for nothing, Robert threatened Isaac once more.
Old grudges and an inferiority complex that Cedric could never fathom had already consumed Robert.
“……A joke, you say?”
Isaac muttered, casting an enormous shadow over them. There was a hint of laughter on the face that had looked like death all along.
Isaac truly could not hold back his laughter.
Seeing a mere administrative soldier, who had once bowed and scraped to him whenever they crossed paths in the special duty battalion, threaten him—there was nothing to do but laugh.
“……Right. If it’s a joke, then all the more reason to tell that refined lady. It’d be too much of a waste for only us to know such an amusing joke.”
“Um, Captain…… sir. Wait a moment.”
Isaac stopped his ominous muttering and cast, however briefly, a chilling gaze at Cedric Osmond, who had desperately cut in.
His blue eyes gleamed. When Cedric’s eyes met his, he felt an inexplicable chill.
Cedric quickly opened his mouth in a calm manner.
“……You’re a little drunk. Aren’t you? And Bloom too, this fellow has had a lot to drink and is quite drunk. It was something said under the influence. So let’s not hurt each other’s feelings…….”
“Tell me what you’ll do if I talk, Robert Bloom. How exactly do you plan to take away my fun? Hm?”
As Cedric had pointed out, Isaac was a little drunk. He had already been accumulating stress since morning because of this damned party, and in the midst of it all, the low-ranking administrative soldier he had met for the first time in ages had threatened him as if asking for a fight.
Ignoring Cedric’s attempt to stop him, Isaac took a step toward Robert. Robert tucked in his chin and glared at Isaac’s intimidating bulk before muttering.
“……You washed-up has-been bastard.”
For a moment, silence fell.
To Cedric, that brief instant felt as horribly long as eternity.
“Robert, stop!”
“Who would believe a word you say?”
“No, Robert!”
Cedric shouted his name in disbelief.
Was he really a lunatic? Why was he suddenly trying to blow this up like this?
After all the threats he had made, telling Cedric not to ruin things, seeing Robert now charge at the other man as though determined to start a fight left Cedric not merely dumbfounded, but utterly at a loss.
“Take the Selwood Operation, for instance. General Churston covered it up for you nicely, but everyone already knows. That you fell for false intelligence and got half your comrades smashed to pieces.”
Yes. He truly looked as though he intended to fight to the end.
Robert was as drunk as Isaac.
“Some of the survivors still defend you, don’t they? Their comradeship brings tears to my eyes.”
Whether it was the Selwood Operation or whatever else, Cedric knew nothing about it. And he did not want to know.
……Truly, he did not want to know.
The moment the word Selwood came out, the huge man froze, and now he was looking down at them without so much as blinking.
“…….”
Only his blue eyes gleamed in his expressionless face.
It was horrifically chilling.
“They’re all idiots.”
Robert kept talking regardless.
“Do those bastards know it was because of you that they ended up like th…….”
Thud!
Cedric stared blankly as Robert toppled backward helplessly like a domino.
All Isaac had done was give him a light shove on the shoulder with that large palm, yet Robert fell backward without being able to resist at all.
“……Keep running your mouth.”
The shadow of that enormous man fell once more over the fallen Robert.
Whether Cedric belatedly rushed in and desperately tried to pull him away or not, Isaac lightly swung his arm and shook Cedric off as though throwing him aside.
Then, without hesitation, he seized Robert by the collar.
Cedric, who had fallen face-first onto the cold floor, endured the pain in his nose and got up. He immediately ran toward the door leading to the hall.
Then he opened the closed door and shouted at a man standing near it, “Please help for a moment!”
The man near the door, who had been leisurely chatting with a friend, seemed quite startled at the sight of Cedric. Cedric belatedly realized that blood was flowing from his nose.
“What, what happened?”
“There’s a fight outside. Could you, could you help? I can’t stop them by myself……!”
Meanwhile, Robert realized the seriousness of the situation as he met the blue eyes that had, at some point, come right up close and were glaring at him with a savage light.
When Isaac’s rough grip seized him with enough force to crush his mouth and jaw entirely, only then did Robert realize that this would not end with a mere punch or two.
Robert had been drunk. Because he was drunk, he was more reckless and violent than usual, and because, deep down, he had always harbored an inferiority complex toward that Pinscher.
……And so.
“Aaaagh!”
Bloom struggled with all his might to escape Isaac’s grip.
But the moment he barely managed to break free and turn his body, a large hand seized the back of Robert’s neck and lifted him up. Robert’s two legs dangled and swung.
“I told you to keep talking.”
Isaac’s cold voice sank into the nape of his neck as if stabbing into him.
Instead of answering, Robert struggled once more.
＊＊＊
Unfortunately, Sasha Grayson remained entirely unaware until that very moment.
Sasha had been caught by Mrs. Thompson again and was listening to her story about pumpkin pie.
Perhaps it was not bad. It was better, in fact. Far better than continuing to hear about her nephew.
Mrs. Thompson was telling a story about how she had put the pie in the oven incorrectly and it had exploded, making a complete mess of the oven. With her dry, knobby fingers, she exaggeratedly mimed something bursting and made a “Boom!” sound.
At that moment, a door on the other side was smashed apart, and some man came rolling into the party hall.
“……What on earth is going on?”
Mrs. Thompson was just as startled as Sasha.
With a bewildered expression, she looked around at the commotion that had happened to match her theatrical gesture.
Then, belatedly, she looked at Sasha and asked with a puzzled face.
Sasha, regardless, stared blankly at the man who had rolled into the party hall—no, to be precise, the man who had been thrown in by someone.
‘……What is that?’
Then she stared blankly as a huge man strode in, shook off the men trying to restrain him, and finally punched the man who had been thrown.
“…….”
As if someone had stuffed waterlogged cotton into both her ears, everything around her went quiet.
Sasha was still staring, stunned, at the center of the commotion.
The man kept punching. Paying no mind to the people trying to stop him.
The people who had shrunk back in fear gradually began to gather to watch the fight.
As if they had no concern whatsoever for her birthday party, they abandoned it and flocked to the source of the disturbance.
“……Excuse me for a moment, Mrs. Thompson…….”
Sasha muttered as if possessed, her face dazed, and moved forward.
Before she knew it, people had gathered in a circle as if they had come to an arena, watching the fight.
Some were clicking their tongues with frightened faces, while others, thoroughly drunk, were excitedly egging him on, shouting, “That’s it, hit him there!”
Sasha pushed through them without hesitation. And she came face-to-face with the man who had one servant of the mansion clinging to each arm as he tried to shake them off.
……It was that man.
The man who had come here earlier, drenched in rain.
“Stop it.”
He was destroying her party.
“……Stop, stop…….”
As if he could not even hear her words.
That madman.
After she had gone to the trouble of letting him in,
……That madman.
“I said stop!”
Without even a moment’s hesitation, Sasha snatched the champagne, glass and all, from the person behind her and hurled it into Isaac’s face.
“…….”
Only then did Isaac, his face thoroughly drenched, turn to look at her.
Only then did the waterlogged cotton that had been blocking Sasha’s ears fall away.
The murmuring noise around her spread rapidly.
The voice of someone frightened by the scene before them and on the verge of tears, then the voice of someone else grabbing another by the collar and shouting, how dare you step on my foot, filled the air from every direction.
The party was already.
Without there being any need to do anything more, the party was already.
“…….”
“…….”
Sasha looked up at Isaac with an expressionless face.
Isaac also looked down at Sasha with an expressionless face.
And then, with his gaze fixed on her, he went so far as to hit Robert one more time.