Chapter 36

Judging by the fact that his hand was on the sheath of his sword, it seemed he had been about to cut down the werewolf immediately.

But with Lucas suddenly barging in, he seemed to have stopped what he was doing.

“...Introduce me, Father.”

The boy closed his mouth, scratched the back of his neck, and frowned.

At his unexpectedly docile attitude, mister, who had been staring blankly, belatedly came to his senses.

“Ah, hmm. Right. First, the introduction is late. This is Young Lord Lucas Kreutz. Recently...”

As the explanation continued, people’s eyes gradually widened.

“How fascinating. So that is a young lord of the Kreutz direct line... I believe this is my first time seeing him.”

“I saw him once when he was three, and he has grown so much.”

“And with that level of power, too. Then the heir... will naturally become Young Lord Lucas, won’t it?”

Meanwhile, Lucas was—

“Dandelion, are you all right?”

“Ah, mm.”

He was only looking at me.

“Sorry I’m late. I meant to attend the regular meeting properly, but the servants thought I was sick and didn’t wake me on time...”

He meant to attend?

I blinked in confusion.

“Young lord. Weren’t you not going to come to this regular meeting? You said back then that just seeing nobles’ faces made you want to throw up and scared you.”

“Who said I was scared! I only said I hated it!”

No, either apologize or get angry. Pick one....

This young lord always loses control out of nowhere.

When I stuck out my lips, he crossed his arms, huffed, and turned his head away.

“And! If I don’t participate just because I hate it, would that make me Kreutz direct line?! Huh? You think anyone can be direct line? It takes someone responsible like me!”

“Then what about me?”

Lucas raised his brows as if it were obvious.

“You too! With that pathetic little body, you took part in the candidate trial in my place! Of course you’re Kreutz direct line too! You’re my younger sister!”

“......!”

Woooow.

At the young lord’s words, light poured from my huge eyes.

Hearing that from Lucas, who was born direct line, feels different.

Just then—

“That’s impossible!”

Someone scrambled down from the audience seats and rushed into the training grounds.

It was Marquis Lilith, draped in fur clothing covered with jewels.

Was he truly that resentful?

Perhaps his mind had even gone from it, because the first thing he did was point at us without warning.

“Young Lord Lucas suddenly appears? That makes no sense. Your Grace, the young lord went missing! Finding him should have been impossible, so how in the world...!”

“Marquis.”

At first, I was confused about who had called the marquis.

The authority and chill in the voice made me think it was mister.

But Lucas, who had been standing quietly while holding my hand, took one step closer to Marquis Lilith.

As if telling him to look straight into his eyes.

“Don’t you remember me?”

At the boy’s question, the marquis’s excited face began to stiffen subtly.

“Wh-What do you mean by that...”

“Look closely. You should accurately check the quality of the product you sold, shouldn’t you?”

At that derisive reply, the gaze of Calypse, who had been shielding me, narrowed strangely.

“...Product?”

“What does that mean?”

The people watching were the same.

“Well now. I also d-don’t know what you mean. It seems the young lord has spent too long outside and can no longer distinguish between what should and should not be said.”

Marquis Lilith let out an awkward, hearty laugh.

But Lucas did not seem inclined to let this pass easily.

After glaring at the marquis for a long while, he gave a faint laugh and took something out.

“Will this make you remember?”

“Th-That’s!”

The marquis screamed as though his eyes would pop out and tried to snatch the paper away, but—

Whoosh—

Mister, who was even faster, snatched the paper from Lucas’s hand.

Having risen from his seat, mister stared at the paper in silence for some time.

[Slave Trade Contract]

His slightly confused blood-red eyes seemed to read the largest words written there.

[Slave Number 1242] [Signature: Luce]

And last.

As he read the transaction record, which did not even have the name Lucas written on it, he slowly closed his eyes.

“...A slave? Surely it doesn’t mean the young lord was sold as a slave, does it?”

When someone with sharp eyes read the words on the paper even from far away and murmured—

“Wait a moment. Are you saying Marquis Lilith sold the young lord as a slave?”

“Wasn’t the young lord missing? Even when every family head in the north searched their own regions thoroughly, they couldn’t find him....”

“No matter how badly he wanted to make his own son direct line, selling a noble as a slave?!”

The people’s reaction grew even more intense.

As fellow nobles, the situation of a noble being sold as a slave applied only to nobles who had fled after a crushing defeat in war.

But the son of a war hero was sold as a slave.

“Is he insane?!”

With the situation gradually tightening around his throat, Marquis Lilith gulped.

He quickly turned his head to search for allies, but—

“.......”

Everyone was closing their eyes and pretending not to notice.

In the end, after backing away one or two steps, the marquis stammered.

“Is there proof that I did that? The signature says Luce. Surely none of you have forgotten my name, have you? I am Lilith. Not Luce!”

Of course, that was true too.

“Bring proof that I am Luce! Until then, don’t accuse an innocent man! It seems the young lord had no one to blame, so he chose me as a scapegoat!”

“Luce must be a nickname!”

When someone who could no longer stand it shot up from his seat—

“I’m telling you to bring proof that Luce is my nickname! You don’t have it, do you? Huh?”

Perhaps believing this method had worked, Marquis Lilith put his hands on his waist and shouted loudly, brazenly turning the tables.

Of course, that would only last so far.

“I have proof.”

Because I was here.

“......?”

“?”

When I suddenly raised my hand, everyone’s gaze focused on me.

I rummaged through my pocket.

“When Marquis Lilith barged into the ducal estate without permission.”

“Wh-Who barged in...!”

“You left this behind.”

When I pulled the gold pen from my pocket, the marquis’s face, which had looked ready to refute me like a machine gun at any moment, went white.

The gold pen.

“The engraving is here!”

I especially pointed with my finger, showing the part engraved with “Luce.”

“Th-That doesn’t prove it’s mine...!”

Then I shall show you again.

I turned the pen and kindly pointed to the back.

“And here is the shape of the seal too!”

“.......”

“.......”

“...Well, my.”

Thud—

In the end, Marquis Lilith, who had been staring at me in disbelief, collapsed where he stood.

And then.

“You kidnapped my son.”

A trace of laughter seeped into Calypse’s voice as he quietly watched.

It was not born from amusement.

It was a self-mocking, hollow laugh that had gone beyond fury into something almost deranged.

“You even sold my son as a slave.”

But at the low, killing-intent-laced voice that followed, the breath of everyone, Marquis Lilith included, stopped.

Calypse said nothing after that.

No, instead of words, he answered with action.

“P-Please listen to me, this is a misunder— urrgh!”

Thwack—

Using his long legs, he strode over and kicked Marquis Lilith in the stomach as the man knelt and begged.

“Urgh, ack!”

The marquis’s deathly cries continued, but Calypse did not budge.

He merely looked at him with an irritated gaze as if looking at an insect, kicking him, kicking him, and kicking him again as he pleased.

“P-Please...”

The marquis finally burst into tears and crawled away, placing both hands on the ground to escape.

“.......”

But not a single person helped the marquis or stopped Calypse.

They knew.

At this moment, Calypse was not the head of the Kreutz family.

He was simply one child’s father.

***

“That can’t be. I definitely sent him to the free states, so how did he get all the way here... Impossible....”

Marquis Lilith did not take responsibility for his choices until the end.

Even as the knights dragged him away, he muttered like a madman. That it could not be true.

At his empty, broken appearance as he muttered that his plan could not have turned out this way, Tex, who had been sitting in the audience seats, burst into tears.

“Father—!”

Tex ran after Marquis Lilith belatedly, even with snot running down his nose.

“Leave my father alone, you bastards—! Give me back my father!”

It was certainly unfortunate, but... who told him to commit evil deeds?

I huffed and crossed my arms.

Just then, the knights brought in a strange man who had been trying to flee.

“Your Grace. It concerns the werewolf that behaved abnormally during the match. It appears this man injected something into the werewolf.”

“What?”

The knight held out an object that looked like an empty syringe.

“...Huh?”

Wait a second.

I’d seen that somewhere before.

Pat pat pat—

As if bewitched by the familiar object, I ran over and stood on tiptoe between the knight and mister.

“I know this. This is a madness enhancer made by the Pose family.”

“How does the young lady know that...”

When the knight looked at me with a slightly startled expression—

“They gave her a tour.”

“Pardon?”

“Before the adoption, they took her overseas once for a tour.”

Mister explained that absurd statement in a serious tone.

“...I see.”

The flustered knight blinked.

“Anyway, who is that bastard?”

The dazed knight finally came to his senses at mister’s question.

“Ah, he is the man who had the syringe. But as it turns out, he says he is Marquis Lilith’s aide.”

“...Damn it.”

With that, everything was explained.