Chapter 12
Mist stared at Charon, who was staring intently at her.
Swear loyalty.
Taken by themselves, those words might bring to mind the loyalty contract Mist had made with Abel.
But this was different in nature.
It was an ancient ritual of the assassins belonging to Shadow.
An absolute contract under which their blades would never be turned against the ducal house.
"No."
From that perspective, she had not yet sworn loyalty to Abel.
After all, she did not regard a one-year short-term contract as a vow of loyalty.
Knowing that well, Mist lightly denied Charon's words.
"Ahaha. What a relief, truly."
Reassured by her firm answer, Charon relaxed his expressionless face and returned to his usual smile.
The chill pressure Charon had been emitting had vanished long ago.
"If you suddenly swore loyalty before the true head of the family had even been chosen..."
Resting a hand over his pounding heart, Charon sighed in relief and continued in a casual tone.
"It would create the possibility of having to kill you, you know?"
[Shadow]
The strongest and most secret sword of the ducal house.
Shadow adhered absolutely to a single rule.
Be absolutely loyal to the duke.
Yet the ducal house's current position was quite dangerous.
What if a Shadow assassin swore loyalty to one of the illegitimate children, and another illegitimate child became head of the family?
There was only one action to take in such a situation.
Purge.
"I don't like bloody battles where people kill and are killed."
Put simply, it was safe to say that none of the illegitimate children currently seemed likely to become head of the family.
Kaizen was too hasty and too quick to judge people,
while Bella, whose elitism was evident even from a simple report, was out of consideration as well.
In that sense, Abel might be acceptable.
"Of course, Lord Abel does seem better than the other illegitimate children."
She wasn't stupid.
Judging by Mist's reaction and Lord Sebastian's, she could infer the general situation.
The duke's sudden worsening condition.
The timing of that worsening, immediately after Lord Abel arrived at the ducal house and underwent his test?
Moreover, Sebastian—that man—was paying attention, whether he realized it or not?
All the information in her mind led to one conclusion.
[Abel and the duke fought, and the duke suffered internal injuries.]
Grin.
How delighted he had been upon learning that.
In fact, Charon had been looking forward most of all to hearing about Abel today.
But.
"It's just that he doesn't seem interested in becoming the duke."
Heir training: absent.
Unlike the other illegitimate children, Abel's leisurely behavior gave only one answer.
He had little interest in becoming head of the family.
In a way, his situation was different from that of the other illegitimate children—he was not suited to becoming head of the family.
"That's why I was worried."
Besides the five people selected for Shadow, assassins and combatants secretly raised by the ducal house were still searching for illegitimate children who carried the ducal bloodline.
Normally, Charon had only been supposed to guide them here before moving on to somewhere else.
But because of the current duke's order, he could not even do that, and now he had to attend to an illegitimate child—something that had never been part of his fate.
"Ah, this mission is a bit much."
With that, Charon slowly left the library.
...
After quietly staring at the spot where Charon had been, Mist also left the library and headed toward Abel's room.
[Take control of this family.]
It was a kind of mission the head of the family had given the illegitimate children. The assassins of Shadow had also received one additional special mission.
[Monitor or assist the illegitimate children.]
Everyone in Shadow who heard those words immediately understood the duke's intentions.
Take control of this family.
If so, then Shadow, the most dangerous shadow of this family, was also something they had to control.
But he had assigned one member of Shadow to each of them?
There was only one possible meaning.
[The members of Shadow must judge the illegitimate children according to their own judgment and choose either to monitor or assist them.]
In other words.
"If you can't even win the heart of the person closest to you, don't even dream of becoming head of the family."
Mist muttered that to herself.
***
...
...
It was early morning, around the time when people slowly began to rise.
I woke to the birdsong coming from the window and saw Mist sitting in a chair near my head, quietly watching me.
"Don't you get tired of doing this every day?"
My voice was low and hoarse, as I had just woken up.
It had been a month since I came to the ducal house. She had clung to me like a burr, waiting on me under the pretext of serving me.
"What do you mean?"
"I mean watching me while I sleep."
At first, I thought I was suffering from sleep paralysis.
When I woke up feeling as though something was watching me, she had been standing silently at my bedside, staring at me.
Even for me, waking up every morning to the gaze of a woman silently watching me from beside my bed was not a particularly pleasant experience.
At first, even when I told her to stop, she would not listen, so I proposed a compromise.
Watching me was one thing, but she had to at least sit in a chair while she did it.
"I only did as you ordered, Lord Abel."
...
Mist offered that perfectly reasonable argument without the slightest hesitation or confusion.
"Right. What can I even say to that?"
As I threw off the covers and got out of bed, she immediately held out a basin filled with slightly lukewarm water.
After washing my face with the service I had grown accustomed to over the past month,
I put on the clothes she had prepared and began my daily routine.
Though my routine amounted to reading suitable books or watching videos on a cathode-ray television.
"Lord Abel, here are the seven novels you requested."
"Lord Abel, you seemed a little hungry, so I brought you some light snacks."
"Oh dear, there's a wrinkle in your clothes. Let me smooth it out."
That was my life now: receiving her attention for every little thing I did.
‘Isn't something strange?’
As I read the book Mist had handed me, as she always did, that thought suddenly occurred to me.
Had I become too lazy? That was what I was wondering.
I thought about it quietly.
About my life during the month since I had arrived at this estate.
At first, it had not been much different from my usual routine.
I had no intention of becoming head of the family, and the conclusion I had reached that day was simply to leave everything alone, so I had even less reason to put in any effort.
My contract with Mist meant that if I stayed here for just one year, I would have enough money to live in comfort for the rest of my life. Why would I work hard?
My only concern was what Mist wanted, but she did not particularly object to my behavior, either.
At first, it was comfortable.
She did not interfere with my life in any significant way; she simply took care of the things I would otherwise have had to do myself.
But
Glance.
I rolled my eyes and quietly looked at her standing near my door.
At some point, she had begun attending to all my needs.
Like paper slowly becoming soaked with water, she had been expanding the scope of her service so subtly that I had not noticed.
As if she were trying to turn me into someone incapable of doing anything without her.
That's right. She was a woman who made people—her superior, in this case—lazy.
...All right!
The moment I had that thought, I got up.
No matter how comfortable and pleasant this life was, living this lazily felt a little wrong.
I immediately picked up the cigar from the desk and the car keys from the drawer, then spoke to her as she stood quietly by the door.
"I'm going into town for a bit."
"The town? Then I'll get ready as well."
Seeing her about to move, I immediately waved my hand.
"Ah, no need. I just have a few things to buy, so I don't need your help. I'll go alone."
I was going out to break free of my current lazy routine in the first place. If she came along, it would completely defeat the purpose.
Mist stared quietly at me, then, surprisingly, nodded readily.
...Understood. Before that, your clothes are a little wrinkled.
She carefully smoothed the wrinkles from my clothes, then saw me off as I left the room.
"What a shame..."
I heard her mutter near my ear, but ignored it.
***
After arriving in a town governed by House Nebla, I parked the car in a suitable spot and set out to buy cocktail ingredients.
I was buying unrefined sugar and various fruits when it happened.
"Hello!"
A melodious, nightingale-like voice came from around my waist. When I lowered my head slightly, I saw a child looking up at me with bright, clear eyes.
"Would you like to buy a newspaper!"
"A newspaper?"
The child wore a fairly floppy hat with a button-like ornament near its center.
It was the sort of hat typically worn by newspaper boys during the Industrial Revolution, at least in movies.
They used to call those newsboy caps in my previous life, didn't they?
"Yes!"
"Ah, sorry. I don't really read newspapers."
I politely declined the lively child's offer.
In the first place, Mist sent me newspapers every morning, so I already knew the general news.
"Is that so..."
The slightly crestfallen child spoke regretfully.
"It's a newspaper for gentlemen, containing events and information from across the entire empire, from east to west and north to south. What a shame..."
...
Hearing the child's mutter, I immediately began examining their appearance.
There was soot on the child's cheek, but it was flaking off little by little, as though it had only just been applied.
The clothes were rough and worn, but the occasional flinches suggested that the child did not normally wear such clothing.
And finally, those words.
A code.
It was the contact method of the Nostra Family, one of the empire's many families and the one that dealt in information.
"I've changed my mind. Can I have one? A newspaper just for me."
"Yes, here you go!"
The child handed me a newspaper as though it had been prepared in advance, then immediately disappeared into the crowd.
After staring for a moment at the spot where the child had stood, I leaned against a nearby building wall, unfolded the newspaper, and began to read it.
The contents were not much different from those of the newspaper I had read that morning.
'If there was one difference.'
The spacing between the lines.
By artificially adjusting the spacing between the lines and connecting the first paragraphs, the message read:
[There is a commission. Abel, the Demon of Smoke. If you accept, lift the sheet covering the entrance to the shop at coordinates 44-3.]