At Flora Rinco’s sudden appearance, the alarm bells of instinct blared loudly, and Grace stopped all movement. A very ominous intuition surged over her entire body like a sudden disaster.
Flora had appeared while all eyes were drawn to the Inspector. This could not be a coincidence.
Then, a chilling sensation swept through her body like cold water brushing past a riverbed. Her palms grew damp, her heart pounded heavily. This was not a feeling to be brushed aside. Because she had experienced this unpleasant chill a very long time ago.
The day she had held her parents’ funeral. Because it was the funeral of Duke and Duchess Taylor, numerous nobles had flocked from all regions. When she had been kneeling before her father and mother’s coffins in the chapel full of mourners, exactly the same chilly air had licked up the nape of her neck.
‘Child.’
A voice like a devil’s whisper flowed along her earlobe, squeezing her small heart tightly.
‘If you do not wish to end up like your parents, quietly, very quietly— live on merely breathing.’
Tears frozen with fear rolled down her chin in drops. That day, Grace could not even dare turn her head, nor could she roll her eyes. Simply caught in the fear engraved in her instincts, she had only cried until the ceremony ended.
For so long, how much she had regretted that day.
“Come here and sit. Have a cup of tea with me. It’s a good time for tea, isn’t it?”
Grace turned her head toward Flora, who was pouring tea. A portion of Flora’s long, loosened pink hair swayed ever so slightly. In a place with no wind.
Grace rotated her right wrist and moved her steps.
The prediction that the Inspector would be the game changer had been wrong. Grace snatched the teapot Flora was holding by surprise, then swung it with all her might toward Flora’s right side.
“What the—, agh!!!”
The teapot struck someone and shattered, splashing her hand, but she felt no heat. The moment Grace pressed Flora’s body onto the table, a sharp blade sliced through the empty space where Flora had stood. Holding a piece of the broken teapot, Grace shouted outward with all her strength.
“Is anyone there!!!”
The true ‘game changer’ of Count Rinco’s family was none other than Flora Rinco.
＊ ＊ ＊
“Execute that man.”
The moment Ivanka Tirien’s dignified voice rang out, the hall was enveloped in silence. Then, in an instant, a small commotion arose.
“What?”
“Did she say to execute Crimson Isaac?”
Ivanka widened her already round eyes even further and planted both hands on her hips.
“Punish that man for the crime of insulting His Majesty the Emperor!”
If someone were to ask her how she had come to wield such great power, Ivanka would say this:
“Predict your opponent, but become someone who cannot be predicted.”
To Ivanka Tirien, this was an exceedingly easy thing.
Nobles unconsciously followed etiquette and customs, but she had no interest in such things. Etiquette and customs engraved in the subconscious dictated the behavioral patterns of the Dekan nobles, and in the vast majority of cases, Ivanka’s predictions were exactly right.
Even now, it was the same. The sight of them unable to step forward, only blinking their eyes as they watched the situation. She was confident she could keep everyone gathered here, all night long, in this hall with the matter of Crimson Isaac’s execution.
But regrettably, there was one thing she had overlooked:
“It seems this Inspector’s mission is not to deliver a congratulatory address, but rather to incite discord.”
The man seated beneath the eagle emblem likewise did not regard etiquette, customs, or such things as even worth the dirt beneath his nails.
When Ivanka flinched and turned back, the Duke had his long leg crossed over the opposite knee. Naturally, his posture forced him to sit leaning backward, and such a posture made him look extremely authoritative. Needless to say, his expression was exceedingly insolent.
They say he grew up at the Wall of Death, so does he know no courtesy toward an Inspector?
Ivanka quickly turned her gaze to Eliza, the Grand Duchess seated beside him. She was of imperial princess lineage, so surely she wouldn’t be as rude as the Duke...?
“If you’ve come to offer congratulations, kindly do so and leave. Don’t cause needless discord in another’s house.”
“…….”
If anything, this side was worse.
Perhaps the grandson happened to take after his grandmother, for the two’s expressions were identical, as if stamped from the same mold. Far from being agitated at the words to kill Crimson Isaac, neither of them so much as blinked an eye.
But it was an undeniable fact that Crimson Isaac had committed rudeness.
“How can you speak like that without knowing what rudeness he committed against me!”
“If it were Joseph or Sirius, perhaps, but Crimson wouldn’t do such a thing.”
“...What an incredible rudeness it must have been.”
The expressions of the Duke and Grand Duchess were more biting than anyone Ivanka had ever seen, yet at the same time indifferent. The two spoke maddening words as if by some promise, opening their eyes to slits, and Ivanka’s face turned redder than ever.
“He knew I was the Inspector, His Majesty’s proxy, yet dared to say he would search my carriage! Even when I told him to apologize, he ultimately refused! What is this if not an insult to His Majesty the Emperor?!”
The moment she said that, the Duke’s expression, which until then had been indifferent to the point of arrogance, cracked for the first time. Just as Ivanka thought to herself, ‘As expected,’ the Duke immediately gestured behind her.
“Crimson!”
At his call, Crimson, who had been standing behind the imperial knights, moved. He brushed past Ivanka and flew up onto the platform.
“You—!”
While Ivanka watched him with bewildered eyes, Crimson whispered something into the Duke’s ear. Then the Duke’s momentum changed in an instant, like the wind shifting direction.
＊ ＊ ＊
‘The Unseen Ones’ had hidden their traces after the assassination of the previous Duke and Duchess Taylor.
Why had they hidden their traces?
The military campaign at the Wall of Death had been the process of finding the answer to that question. Ares had scoured and surveyed the outside of the wall, uncovering the reason they had been forced to hide their traces. And so, around the time five years had passed at the Wall of Death, he realized.
They had not hidden their traces; they had reached a state where they could not reveal themselves.
In assassinating the Duke and Duchess—the two who could be called the bedrock of Dekan—they themselves had undoubtedly reached a state of annihilation.
Then was there a possibility they would return?
The remaining five years had been the process of finding the answer to that. Since the answer could not be found outside the wall, he turned his eyes elsewhere. Namely, the village of fugitives. And there, he found the answer.
Those bastards could return at any time. The question was when their army would be formed.
“There was something in the carriage.”
The moment he heard those words, Ares’s five senses came acutely alive.
“Turn some knights back into the castle and search. The likelihood of them ransacking places where documents are kept is hig—”
The end of Ares’s command to Crimson trailed off. Because his eyes caught Jesse Molton conveying something to Lady Rexston. Whatever Jesse had said, Lady Rexston turned to look at him with an expression steeped in concern. Ares rose from his seat without further thought.
“Your Grace!”
Ivanka’s figure appeared outside his focus. He felt the monster inside him, always ready to burst out, struggling to break free. Ares strode down from the platform and spoke to Eliza.
“Please entertain the Inspector in my stead, Grandmother. There is somewhere I must go for a moment.”
However, Ivanka Tirien blocked his path again.
“Your Grace! Then what will you do about punishing Crimson Isaac?!”
Disgust beyond disillusionment welled up within him. Ares quietly stared at Ivanka, who looked back at him with a haughty face. He felt Ivanka flinch, her eyes wide open as if she would never back down.
Ares spoke as if chewing and spitting out each syllable.
“Do you think an Inspector is the equal of the Emperor?”
“…….”
“You carry the Emperor’s emblem, so show the dignity befitting it. My knight only did what was his duty; if you are dissatisfied with that, go to the Empress and formally lodge a complaint against me.”
With those words, Ares urgently descended from the platform as if leaping over it. By the time Jesse, who had been among the nobles, pushed through the crowd and reached the main doors of the hall, Ares was already passing through them.
The Duke asked the moment he caught up to him.
“Andrew is by Grace’s side, isn’t he?”
Jesse prided himself on having been through all manner of hardships and not feeling fear at most things, but his hand trembled at that ice-cold question.
“The young lady ordered me to take the documents to the underground dungeon. She told me to move the documents and have Your Grace pay attention to this...!”
Ares ran before Jesse’s words even finished. He ran like a madman, just as he had run to survive at the Wall of Death, to save lives. He couldn’t feel the snowflakes beginning to fly, scratching his cheeks. He leaped over stairs and dashed through flower beds without caring that his feet were becoming a mess.
‘Why have you come?’
He wished she would ask that with a bright, innocent face. That she would simply smile a doll-like smile, saying it was something that could have been handled by stationing a few knights, while he turned away awkwardly and felt relief.
“Please, Grace.”
Feeling the cruel anxiety rising to the top of his throat, he ran even faster.