Chapter 87
Cassius, the young lord of Edelhyde, appeared before the two of them.
Leon carefully laid Sylvia, whom he had been carrying, down on the floor and stood up.
He adjusted his grip on his sword and stepped in front of Rinoa, as if to shield her. His sharp gaze fixed on Cassius.
Was the figure before him human, or a witch's puppet wearing human skin?
'Judging from the fact that he's speaking, it seems he still has his sense of self.'
But Leon immediately shook his head inwardly.
Given everything he'd experienced so far, it didn't really matter what Cassius actually was.
No one knew when he might lose himself to the witch and attack them.
He would simply cut down anyone who approached.
“Don't come any closer. Take one more step and I'll cut you down.”
Leon’s icy warning rang out.
From the fierce struggle with Lowell just moments ago, he'd realized that a halfhearted capture attempt was pointless.
Cassius, rumored to be the next head of the house, would surely be several levels above Lowell in magical skill.
If he tried to subdue him halfheartedly, even his life could be at risk.
Come closer, and I'll kill you.
It was a warning filled with unmistakable killing intent.
-tap, tap.
Yet Cassius ignored that sharp killing aura and kept walking silently.
“This is your final warning. Step back.”
Even after the repeated warning, the same was true.
Cassius's footsteps did not stop.
In the end, Leon swung his sword.
The compressed sword strike split the air and rushed fiercely toward Cassius.
-Clang!
But it did not cut Cassius down.
In an instant, someone slipped between Leon and Cassius and blocked the strike.
Leon narrowed his eyes.
A man clad in Edelhyde armor. His appearance was all too familiar.
“Sir Zain?”
“Long time no see. I saw you take down Sir Kalven, but seeing it myself, your sword has become much sharper.”
He was Zain, once Rinoa's escort knight.
Zain bowed politely toward Rinoa.
“I greet you, young lady.”
“Why are you here?”
“I have sworn loyalty to Edelhyde. And now that the head of the house has passed, the one I am to follow is Lord Cassius, the young lord.”
A thoroughly textbook, knightly answer. But that still wasn't enough to completely clear Rinoa's suspicions.
“Since when have you been following that man?”
The duke's corpse is currently in the laboratory.
Even if it was only the shell Cersia had borrowed, to a third party the duke should have looked as though he died today.
But Zain said he had started following Cassius after the duke died.
It didn't seem likely that he had found the corpse in the laboratory and immediately sworn loyalty to Cassius.
The truth hidden in that answer was obvious.
“You. You knew from the start.”
Zain had been seeing through it for a long time.
That the head of the house wasn't the real duke. And that Rinoa was of witch blood.
“My apologies, young lady.”
Zain answered obediently without making excuses.
Keeping a blank expression, Rinoa sneered at Zain, who had deceived her by hiding the truth.
“It must have been quite a hardship, watching the witch's daughter. A knight of your caliber, no less. You must have resented me quite a bit inside.”
“Not for a single moment have I harbored any falsehood in my heart while serving the young lady.”
There wasn't even the slightest hint of agitation or wavering in Zain's voice.
Of course, that didn't ease Rinoa's displeasure.
“I roughly understand why Sir Zain is here. But that's a separate matter from whether I trust you.”
Leon once more leveled the tip of his sword at Cassius.
“You never know when you people might turn into witch puppets and attack. So don't come any closer.”
“That's sophistry.”
Cassius answered in a dry, subdued voice as he took another step forward.
“The one lying there is an Edelhyde blood relative and my younger sister, Sylvia. Even if I were a puppet that had lost its self, you, a mere knight, have no right to stand in the way of me, her older brother.”
“That is...”
“The one who should step back is not me, but you lot. If you have a complaint, get lost right now.”
Leon couldn't refute him.
In the end, he could only silently watch Cassius approach.
Cassius passed by Leon and stopped beside Sylvia.
He bent down, lowering himself onto one knee.
His gaze as he looked down at his little sister, who had collapsed after writhing in pain, was cold and still.
“Poor child. Not all that different from you, Rinoa.”
Cassius spoke in a calm voice as he gently stroked Sylvia's cheek.
“Unlike Idella, Lowell, and me, she never once received a father's true love.”
Sylvia was the youngest of Edelhyde, born even later than Rinoa.
What that meant was cruel.
Sylvia had been born not between the duke and the duchess, but between Cersia and Florencia, who had taken over the duke's body.
She was nothing more than a prop created to stage peace within the ducal house.
She had lived her whole life proud of being Edelhyde's noble legitimate daughter, but in truth she was no different from Rinoa.
Sylvia, too, was a victim. Not only her, but Idella, Lowell, and even Florencia.
They were all just victims whose lives had been stolen wholesale by the witch.
Cassius gently covered Sylvia's eyes.
Only then did the expression of the little sister who had been writhing in pain and fear until the very end finally find a little peace.
“What is Sylvia to you? A blood sister, or an inconvenient stranger?”
“...I don't know.”
“Don't know... huh.”
Cassius drew back Sylvia's arm, which had been reaching out toward Rinoa, and neatly folded it over her chest.
Her small, bloodless hands were stacked together. He draped his outer coat over them.
“That will do.”
What was enough?
Rinoa quietly mulled over the meaning of those words, but couldn't make out even a fragment of it.
Having taken care of the corpse, Cassius slowly stood up.
“Where were you two headed?”
“The young lady guessed that the core maintaining the barrier would be hidden somewhere in the mansion. We were looking for it.”
“To find it, and destroy it?”
“Of course.”
“I see.”
Cassius gave a faint nod.
“Zain.”
“Yes, young lord.”
Zain sheathed his sword and came over. He took out a small piece of paper from inside his robe and handed it to Leon.
“What is this?”
“That's all I can tell you.”
Leon tilted his head.
If that was all he could tell him, all he'd received was a single piece of paper.
But it was a situation he had often experienced while staying with the ducal family.
He immediately guessed that Zain had some reason he couldn't say more.
“Young lady.”
“...”
The silent Rinoa looked back and forth between Cassius and the cold, lifeless Sylvia, then came over to Leon's side.
Rinoa tried to urge her uncooperative legs into motion, but she hadn't gone far before stopping.
She turned her head and pointed a finger toward one side of the corridor they had come through.
“...Idella is over there.”
“I see.”
“...Yes.”
“Understood.”
With that brief exchange, Rinoa moved again.
“If you go there, your friend will be there too.”
Cassius's words came from behind them.
Rinoa did not answer. She simply kept walking silently toward the path ahead.
“Let's go.”
***
“This seems to be it.”
Leon and Rinoa stopped before a wall of tightly packed bookshelves.
The place they had reached was Duke Pascal's study.
What was written on the paper Zain had handed over was a map of the mansion, and they had followed it exactly.
“What are we supposed to do next?”
“There's a mark on the book in the far-right slot of the third shelf.”
Rinoa found the book according to the drawing on the paper and reached out.
She lightly pulled the top of the book forward.
-Click.
Then the sound of an internal mechanism engaging rang out.
Soon after, the huge bookshelf that had been integrated into the wall vibrated, then rotated as a whole to reveal a passage leading inward.
“That's a very typical, old-fashioned mechanism.”
“Really? I thought it was rather innovative.”
“Sigh. This is why uncultured philistines...”
“What?”
“Ahem. Let's go in.”
Ignoring Rinoa's sharp glare, Leon went into the passage first with a shameless grin.
Rinoa glared at his back, let out a short sigh, and hurried after him.
The silly banter they exchanged in a situation where fatigue had reached its limit loosened their nerves a little.
-Snap.
Leon flicked his fingers lightly.
A tiny golden mana sprang from his fingertips, faintly outlining the basement.
“Be careful. The stairs are covered in moss, so they're quite slippery.”
“Yeah.”
They began descending the stairs.
The deeper they went underground, the colder the air became.
The stale, musty smell unique to a sealed room that hadn't seen light in ages. And mingled with it, the faint metallic scent of blood.
“What kind of place is this?”
“Who knows. Whatever it is, it's definitely not a normal place.”
Just by the smell alone, they could tell it wasn't an ordinary space.
How far had they gone?
After descending for a long while, the staircase that had seemed endless disappeared and a spacious underground chamber came into view.
It was a huge plaza.
A bare plaza with no decorations at all.
Only, the space was filled with knights. At the center stood the knight commander, Kalven.
“The Magic Knight Order.”
Kalven and the Magic Knight Order under his command.
The elite troops symbolizing the Edelhyde family's military might were lined up in the darkness.
However, they looked less like imposing knights and more like gravestones standing in a graveyard.
“They're all puppets.”
“Looks that way.”
“Seeing the knights gathered in one place means the thing we want is probably behind them.”
That had to be the core of the barrier.
Cersia had put on a carefree act up front, while behind the scenes she had gathered the knights to guard the core.
How utterly ugly.
“Will you be okay?”
They couldn't destroy the core unless they defeated every knight.
Naturally, Leon would have to do it alone. And while doing so, he also had to protect Rinoa.
“If I say it's hard, can we not do it?”
“...”
Rinoa couldn't answer right away.
If she still wanted to escape the mansion, she could. She could ignore today's events and hide away in some quiet place to live.
But Rinoa still couldn't let go of her ambition.
She had taken more damage than she'd thought.
“Still, it's fine.”
A collapsed building can be rebuilt, and people can be gathered again.
With the Imperial family backing them, they could rebuild the house well enough.
And at the center of that would be Rinoa.
So this would be the last time.
If they took care of this, all the time and hardship would be repaid in full.
For herself and Leon.
“Leon.”
“Yes, young lady.”
“Clear everything in front of me out of the way.”