Chapter 46
#46 Servant Cedric (Cedric) (12) - Anxiety and a Handshake
The lord's residence was thrown into chaos.
After all, assassins had reached the lord's bedroom. There was no way the residence could remain calm after that.
“…It seems some guards who resented the former deputy lord being driven out cooperated with the assassins. We caught all the men who tried to flee after realizing the operation had failed and put them in prison.”
Chief Butler Vestian reported with a grim expression.
“My lady—no, my lord. This is absolutely not something we can overlook. We must hold the guards accountable and restore discipline so that nothing like this ever happens again.”
At Vestian's words, the captain of the guards' complexion darkened sharply.
Even so, he did not offer any kind of rebuttal, because there was no way he could.
It was already a serious problem that the guards had been breached and the lord's life put in danger. On top of that, the cause had been betrayal from within the guards themselves, leaving him with nothing to say even if he had ten mouths.
Claudia looked at the captain of the guards, who had lowered his head like a criminal awaiting judgment, then declared,
“Those who stood watch today will have one month's pay docked. The captain will go three months without pay, so keep that in mind.”
The captain's eyes went wide, and the other retainers also looked flustered.
The punishment was far too light compared with the seriousness of the incident.
Some nobles would behead an entire escort force just because their charge suffered a minor scratch, so this ruling was merciful to the point of being beyond words.
“My lord, however—”
“I've already decided, and I'm not accepting objections. And don't mistake this for simply letting things slide. I will show no mercy to those who actually collaborated with the assassins.”
The captain of the guards dropped to his knees before Claudia, overcome with emotion, and the guards trembling behind him also bowed their heads deeply.
“Thank you, my lord! From now on, we will devote our lives to your service!”
“““We will devote our lives to your service!”””
“I'll be counting on you from now on.”
Claudia answered indifferently, but this was only a façade; inwardly, she was fairly surprised.
‘…Honestly, I was planning to smash every last one of them.’
These days, she was trying in her own way to cultivate dignity and mercy, but her essential nature was not something that could change easily.
Especially since she clearly had justification this time.
Even so, she had reached this conclusion because of Cedric's advice.
Claudia had thought that if she failed to handle something like this decisively, her subordinates might come to take their lord's life lightly. So Cedric's method of winning loyalty through mercy instead of harsh punishment was remarkably refreshing.
Moved by their lord's mercy(?), the guards interrogated the traitors and assassins with bloodshot eyes, but unfortunately, the results were not very impressive.
It was not that the traitors and assassins possessed extraordinary willpower and refused to talk, nor had they used some deadly poison to kill themselves and keep the information hidden.
Their mouths, in fact, opened fairly easily.
The problem was that the information they had obtained was utterly useless.
“The order was, ‘Scare her as much as possible without killing her.’ The client was a criminal organization unaffiliated with the one these men belonged to. If we go after that organization, they'll probably name another organization. A subcontracting chain of a subcontracting chain of a subcontracting chain, perhaps.”
Claudia frowned at Cedric as he shrugged.
“Information came out, at least. If we raid the organization that hired these men, then raid the organization that hired that organization, and keep working our way up, won't we eventually reach the real culprit?”
“If they went to such lengths to use a troublesome method like this, several links in the chain may be entirely fictional and never have existed in the first place. The trail will probably fizzle out during the investigation.”
“Tch.”
Claudia clicked her tongue in displeasure.
Cedric said to her,
“Besides, you already have a rough idea of who the culprit is, don't you?”
“My older siblings must have done it. They're the sort who shudder whenever they see me doing well.”
Although Claudia called them her older siblings, there was not the slightest trace of familial affection in her voice.
There was no complicated love-hate relationship, either—only pure, simple dislike.
At this point, it was more accurate to say that they were family only on paper, and in reality had a relationship worse than strangers.
Claudia let out a deep sigh.
“I can't say I didn't expect it, but this is happening too quickly. And it doesn't look like this will end with just one attempt. Should I recall some Blood Beasts and assign them to my guard?”
Cedric shook his head.
“That would only mean dancing to their tune. You would be undermining Eched Territory's growth.”
“…Really? I suppose that's true. Then instead, you can stick close to me and guard me. How about moving your room to the one beside mine?”
Despite the serious subject of measures against her own assassination, there was a slightly excited note in Claudia's voice.
She thought this would be a good excuse to keep Cedric by her side.
“As a servant, I have no objection to protecting you. However, if I move rooms and devote myself entirely to guarding you, the guards will feel relatively slighted. They may think that although you claim to forgive them, you do not actually trust them.”
Cedric turned down her proposal, saying there was no need to throw away with his own hands the trust and respect he had earned by showing magnanimity for once.
“Hmm.”
Claudia puffed out her cheeks.
She wanted to say that it hardly mattered if people who had already failed were disappointed, but she could not bring herself to open her mouth.
She was afraid that if she acted so childishly, Cedric might become disappointed in her.
“Then you're saying you won't worry about guarding me?”
“I will, of course. And since this happened inside the residence, it makes no difference whether I am beside you or farther away. If you call, I will come running immediately.”
“R-really?”
Claudia's face brightened again, as if her dissatisfaction moments ago had been a lie.
His words, ‘If you call, I will come running immediately,’ sounded surprisingly sweet.
They even seemed a little similar to a line from [Roses and Pocket Watches].
The next part surely had the two of them trapped in a villa on a rainy day and embracing each other…
“My lady? Lady Claudia?”
“…Huh? Yeah? Why?”
“No, you suddenly went blank and stopped speaking. I suppose I was inconsiderate. After experiencing something like that in the middle of the night and immediately moving on to deal with the aftermath, it would hardly be strange for you to feel tired.”
“No, I'm fine. Really.”
After repeatedly clearing her throat to dispel her embarrassment, Claudia changed the subject.
“Anyway, let's say we handle the guard detail that way. Is there anything else we can do? Should I just hire some assassins and send them out?”
“We don't know exactly which of your siblings is responsible, do we? And if you make a reckless move while your power base is still weak, there is a high risk that they will turn it against you instead.”
“Tch. Then you're telling me to sit around and do nothing?”
“Not do nothing. We need to increase the number of Blood Beasts and govern the territory properly, after all.”
“That's too ordinary.”
“It's good precisely because it's ordinary.”
Cedric grinned.
“If you keep repeating that, the other side will be the ones growing increasingly anxious.”
***
Even after hearing that the criminal organizations dispatched to Eched Territory had gone silent, second son Ervin and third daughter Mira remained relaxed.
The people who had acted on the ground had no idea who their true employer at the very top was, after all.
Even if they had been captured, that meant Claudia had no evidence she could uncover.
It was a one-sided attack with everything to gain and no risk even if it failed.
Thus, the conversation between the two siblings at their meeting was almost cordial on the surface.
“What was Claudia's reaction?”
“She's quiet. She hasn't made any move to recall her Blood Beasts, and she hasn't run around declaring that she'll take revenge, either.”
“Hmm, that's strange. With that temper of hers, there's no way she'd stay quiet after being attacked first.”
“Isn't she just being stubborn? Wait a little longer. We're already preparing new ones.”
“This time, I'll send some myself as well. If we keep her under pressure day and night, even that tenacious bitch will eventually break.”
They sent out new assassins with sinister smiles.
And, as expected, they failed.
“Hah, she stopped them? It looks like her guards are reasonably competent.”
“What a joke. After taking all that money, they couldn't even make a proper threat. This is why I hate dealing with trash.”
“Next time, we should send only people of Rank 3 or higher. No matter how well ordinary soldiers are trained, they have their limits.”
“It would be a good idea to provide additional scrolls, too.”
The third assassination attempt was made after equipping them properly and selecting capable personnel.
The result was failure once again.
“…Does she have a fairly powerful knight with her?”
“Does she have someone at least Rank 4? What could anyone possibly see in that foul-tempered bitch?”
“Still, she is a Redbell, after all. There must be at least one idiot taken in by her empty reputation. We can't help it. We'll have to change our methods.”
“I held back because she might actually die, but I can't hold back anymore. Poisoning, sniping, bribery. We'll have to use anything available.”
They now took the assassination attempts quite seriously.
And, as always, they failed again.
……
……
No matter how they changed their methods, selected capable people, or provided tools and money, not a single one of the assassins returned with word of success.
No, much less news of success—there wasn't even a report that they'd failed in the first place.
Whenever they checked Claudia's information through spies, the reports were always the same.
The number of Blood Beasts roaming Eched Territory was not decreasing, Claudia was actively participating in public events despite not avoiding those with a high risk of assassination, and her reputation and influence were rising day by day. Many residents did not even know that there had been an assassination attempt.
Indeed.
Rather than frightening or threatening Claudia, the assassins they had sent were being so thoroughly ignored that their very existence was treated as a fiction.
As if they were not even worth bothering with.
“It seems we can't rely on others anymore.”
At Ervin's grim words, Mira flinched.
Ervin and Mira both.
They had a separate ‘real sword’ for dirty work carried out directly under their command.
Experts whose abilities were incomparable to those of the outsiders they had merely hired with money until now.
But there was a reason they had not used such people despite having them.
“B-but wouldn't taking action ourselves be too risky? If they were captured alive by some chance….”
There was a world of difference, in both meaning and weight, between criminal organizations acting on their own after accepting a commission from an unknown client and the forces of the Redbell family acting directly.
If they failed, it would truly be difficult to deal with the consequences.
Yet the second son would not budge despite his younger sister's objections.
“Other territories bordering Eched are reaching out to Claudia, asking her to send those damned mutts to their territories as well. If we leave things as they are, a massive faction will form around that bitch.”
“W-wait a moment. If you lower the individual strength of Blood Beasts, it is certainly easier to increase their numbers, but there are still limits, aren't there? Even if she can cover Eched Territory, she can't possibly produce enough to cover other territories too. It will fail even if we leave it alone!”
“Eched Territory's security is already fairly stable. If she relocates the Blood Beasts inside it to other territories, she can do it for show. At the very least, she will be able to produce results worth boasting about to others.”
The two siblings did not take into account the possibility that the number of Blood Beasts Claudia handled would truly increase.
More precisely, they deliberately refused to consider it.
They themselves controlled Blood Beasts, but it was impossible for them to handle anything close to the vast numbers Claudia commanded.
Their pride would never allow them to admit that there was even a single advantage that thieving mother-and-daughter pair had over them.
“We have to abandon this soft attitude of ‘if she dies, so be it.’ We need to act with the resolve to ‘kill her no matter what.’ Before the head of the house takes an interest in that bitch.”
Mira had clearly been uncomfortable with the idea, but after Ervin reiterated his resolve several times, she finally nodded as if giving up.
***
The two had been cautious in their own way, convinced they would avoid detection, but their efforts were rendered meaningless when their movements were conveyed in full to Redbell's true ruler.
And the marquess assessed the situation:
“It's hopeless. Their failure is all but certain.”
“…Is that so?”
The marquess's confidant looked puzzled.
It was true that Claudia had begun building her faction in earnest, but the two siblings had been doing something similar for far longer than Claudia had.
Until now, they had repeatedly been outmaneuvered because they had fought passively out of fear of the risks. But if they began using their power in earnest, that power would utterly overwhelm Claudia.
And yet, the marquess nonchalantly declared Claudia's victory.
“They aren't carefully preparing by assessing their opponent's strength and deploying an even greater force, nor are they using beastlike instinct to strike at an opening. They look down on their opponent, gradually commit their forces, and only rush in after that fails to work. They couldn't be more foolish. They'll all be devoured.”
It was hardly pleasant to discover the incompetence of children he had spent a great deal of money raising.
On the other hand, it was interesting.
“I wonder how much Claudia anticipated. If she has been playing with them on the palm of her hand from beginning to end, then she's a monster beyond imagination….”
The marquess was curious.
And he was a man of power who had no need to restrain his curiosity.
“It wouldn't be bad to spend some cozy family time together after so long.”