Chapter 147
Chapter 147
"I've never told anyone about it, nor has anyone ever asked me, so……."
Lucius cautiously broached the subject of why he had continued to lose ground to his uncle.
"The very act of discussing this subject is rather delicate, you see."
Why make it so serious? You're making it hard to listen to.
"If you really don't want to talk about it, we can just do it another time……."
"No. If it's you, I think I can tell you."
"……."
He was even shaking his head as he steeled his resolve.
The human heart was a truly devious thing.
Even after asking first because I thought it would be good to hear him out, the moment I heard such weighty words of trust as "If it's you, I can tell you," I was suddenly frightened and wanted to avoid it.
Judging by that, I really didn't seem to be all that nice a person, either.
"Should I explain it on the premise that you know absolutely nothing about our family?"
Lucius's question.
This was hard to answer.
Still, honesty was best, so I would have to leave out the terrifying fact that chunks of text had been hammered straight into my head.
"Don't take it personally."
"I can't promise, but I'll try."
Ouch. That stung.
"Until recently, I didn't know. Not at all."
"So you learned about it recently. How much have you heard?"
"That the previous family head died suddenly, and that he was entrusted with something important on a national level. That's about all I learned."
"Did you learn that through the Court Count?"
A calculator started running in my head.
What should I say?
According to that old bastard Wilhelm's overbearing demand, the correct answer here would be to dodge the question with, "Yeah, my father told me," but.
If I said that, I'd be lying to the guy right in front of me who trusted me enough to turn himself inside out and show me his guts.
Right. There was such a thing as solidarity between men.
"I can't tell you in detail how I learned it, but I didn't learn it through my father."
"……."
At my answer, Lucius stared at me for a moment, then.
He soon replied with a silly upturn of his lips.
"I understand. If you say so, then I suppose that's how it is. I believe you."
This bastard was the quintessential narrow-eyed character.
His default setting was to suspect and distrust everything around him for his entire life because no one could tell what was going on inside.
But once he happened to click with someone and opened his heart, he sent unlimited trust to his own people without a second thought.
I wanted to jab him with a comment about laying the act on too thick, but the topic passing between us was too heavy, so I decided to hold back.
"Then let us proceed on that premise."
Lucius straightened his posture.
"After the previous head of the family died suddenly, I hastily inherited the succession amid the ensuing confusion."
Lucius continued with a slightly bitter smile.
"However. Because I took it over too hastily, something went wrong in the process."
So he knew how to make this kind of wounded smile, too.
If we were truly bosom buddies, I could even sit beside him and put up with three days and nights of drunken rambling, understanding every bit of what he felt.
"So now, I'm practically at my uncle's mercy, with him holding a fatal weakness over me."
Even from that rough explanation, more than one cliché sprang to mind.
And after hearing the intimate circumstances of their family on top of that, a few things clicked into place with a flash.
'Looks like his father never handed over the key to the family coffers or anything, huh?'
It's not just any family; it's the Imperial Family's covert agent family.
A family that had frequently carried out covert operations throughout the Empire would surely have told its successor at least the location and key to wherever it had stashed all the state secrets and the family's core assets.
'……No. I suppose there was reason not to tell him.'
At the time the previous head died, Lucius would have been a child of ten or thereabouts at best.
This world only wore the shell of the Middle Ages; at its core, it was a romance-fantasy setting, so adulthood was unequivocally defined as beginning at twenty.
In the actual medieval period, ten might have been young, but it would have been considered an age when one should begin preparing to become an adult.
But in this romance-fantasy world, ten was, in Korean terms, exactly the level of a third-grader in elementary school.
There was no way the previous head, leader of a covert organization that managed the nation's top-level secrets, would have transparently revealed every dangerous detail to a little child like that.
Conversely, there would be nothing strange about his younger brother having shared the practical affairs while working alongside the elder.
So, roughly speaking, this was what had happened.
Think of this guy as the ill-fated boy king Danjong, and his father as Munjong, who died young.
Then if that greedy uncle was something like Grand Prince Suyang, the situation fit perfectly.
The Gyeyujeongnan hadn't happened yet, though.
"There are two things I must take back from that man."
Lucius's voice grew even colder.
A savage, razor-sharp anger I had never once seen before simmered in those blue eyes.
I could tell without hearing him say it.
"Somehow, I get the feeling one of those two things is his life."
"……How did you know?"
Lucius looked surprised in a way that was unlike him.
Fuck. I wanted to crack a "Why is this actually real?" joke, but honestly, it was obvious if you thought about it.
"If I were you."
I lightly tipped the whiskey into my mouth and said,
"Of course I'd feel the same way."
Yet Lucius's reaction to my answer was somehow strange.
The fingertips of the hand he had braced on the table trembled slightly, then.
"……Compared with every shallow expression of sympathy I've heard in my life."
Lucius drew a gentle arc with his lips as he smiled.
"Those words are far more comforting. Even more than the comfort Sophia has given me."
It was a rather frightening and vicious conversational turn for it to sound like I had responded to his bloodthirsty declaration about wanting to kill someone by saying, "Yeah, that's true!!"
Still, if even such vicious agreement helped ease that festering, ruptured heart of yours, then good.
"Right. Let's stop there. It's not exactly a pleasant topic to discuss over a meal."
"Thank you."
Lucius slid his empty glass toward me.
"Would you pour me another?"
"Sure."
I generously filled his glass with whiskey.
This time, he lifted his glass first.
Clink──.
Along with the sound of the glasses touching, Lucius downed the strong whiskey in one shot.
"Haa."
Lucius set down his glass and let out a deep sigh mixed with a faint laugh.
Even behind the narrow-eyed character's mask, I felt certain I knew what that sigh and laugh meant.
He really did seem relieved, as though the congestion in his chest had finally cleared.
I gave a short laugh and lifted my glass.
"Drink up, you bastard."
"Gladly."
Alcohol is harmful because it destroys brain cells, but.
In the face of memories more vicious and harmful than that, it sometimes becomes the only medicine.
* * *
The night air was pleasantly cool when we stepped outside the restaurant.
"Thank you for the meal, Lord Cassian. I had an excellent dinner thanks to you."
"I enjoyed it too. Since you were the one who paid."
I stretched lightly and looked up at the night sky.
A pleasant warmth from the alcohol wrapped around my body, while the cool breeze cleared my head.
The sight of two men stepping out into the night air after having samgyeopsal and a glass of whiskey in the very heart of the capital of this unfamiliar fantasy world.
The feeling was disgustingly identical to the one I got after drinking with a coworker or college classmate back in Korea.
"The carriage is ready. Shall I escort you to the Farne estate?"
"Yeah, go ahead."
We climbed into the black carriage Lucius had prepared.
The carriage soon began rolling along the paved roads of the capital.
Rumble, rumble.
The inside of the carriage was filled with a much lighter, more comfortable atmosphere, as though it had washed away the heavy conversation from the restaurant earlier.
"Come to think of it."
Lucius spoke with the back of his head resting against the seat.
"We didn't really get to talk much about the date course after all."
This persona-obsessed bastard?
What was he doing in a situation where it had already been completely exposed that it was all an act?
"No need to hear it. I've already made all the reservations and arrangements myself, so you just have to bring your sister there on time."
"Oh-ho. You sound quite confident that it will be better than what I prepared."
Of course.
It's a course personally mapped out and approved by the head operative of my family's intelligence department—not by me, of course.
Naturally, that was a secret out of courtesy.
"Yeah."
At my answer, Lucius put a hand to his forehead and let out a relieved chuckle.
"I understand. I trust you completely."
"Whoa, it's a little overwhelming when you suddenly lay that trust on so thick."
When I grumbled, Lucius lowered his head deeply against the seat and said,
"I mean it. Even if you took Sophia to a deserted island, I would have no doubt there had to be a good reason."
"Bullshit. Why would I take her to a deserted island?"
Silly, cackling laughter filled the carriage.
Definitely.
After we'd each revealed our true feelings at that barbecue restaurant earlier, even down to the deepest depths.
It felt as though much of the invisible wall and calculating filter between us had been stripped away.
"Oh, and."
Lucius looked out the window, then added as if he had suddenly remembered something.
"I don't know how things with my uncle will unfold, but for the time being, I intend to station a few eyes and ears around Sophia. It may be a little troublesome when she meets with you, Lord Cassian……."
"I don't care. It's a perfectly innocent meeting, so what do I care whether she has an escort or a watcher?"
"Thank you."
Rumble.
Eventually, the carriage gradually slowed and came to a smooth stop in front of the familiar iron gates of the Farne estate.
"We're here."
"Yeah. Thanks for bringing me home. You should get inside and get some rest, too."
I opened the carriage door and stepped outside.
"Yes. Please go in, Lord Cassian. Ah! Good grief."
What?
"Why?"
An incomprehensible remark came from Lucius's mouth.
Yet somehow, I felt I could understand it.
"Come to think of it, we didn't really get to talk much about the date course after all."
Oh.
This bastard?
Did the alcohol really destroy his brain cells?
"Go inside, wash your feet, and go to sleep, you bastard. I'll handle everything myself."
"Yes. Understood."
He put on his characteristic good-natured smile.
Is this crazy bastard maintaining that poker face while dead drunk?
This narrow-eyed-character shtick of his was seriously too much.
"Right."
The carriage set off again as soon as I answered.
Even the coachman knows when to take a hint.
Leaving Lucius, who waved lightly through the carriage window, behind, I walked inside the estate.