Chapter 1 – Becoming the Power Behind the Count’s House (1)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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In the Kingdom of Asteria, east of the continent’s center, there was a small room on the right side of the second floor in the Palladio count’s estate.

“…Was the order carried out successfully?”

“Yes, it was.”

At the question from the man sitting on the bed, the knight standing before him lowered his head.

“Just as you ordered, I rescued the children from the orphanage in the small village east of the kingdom.

Or rather… from the human experimentation site.”

“And the orphanage?”

“Handled properly.

Just as you instructed, I left it in the care of a girl named Yutia.”

“…And the baronial house that governs that village?”

“Once I showed them the documents related to the experimentation site, they accepted every one of our demands without resistance.

Even the compensation.”

The knight, Evan, pulled a leather pouch from inside his coat and set it on Alon’s bedside table.

“Good.”

Alon opened the pouch, looked at the gold coins inside, and smiled in satisfaction.

After hesitating for a moment, Evan spoke again.

“Young master… may I ask you one thing?”

“What is it?”

“You said you raided Baron Alphon’s laboratory to save that girl, Yutia.”

Alon gave a slight nod for him to continue.

“She was extraordinary.

I’ve been a mercenary for a very long time, but…

I truly cannot understand why a girl like that was trapped in a place like that.”

“So?”

“…Why did you simply leave her at the orphanage?”

It was a reasonable question.

If Alon had gone to the trouble of saving Yutia only to gain nothing from her, then by Evan’s standards the whole affair had been pointless.

But that only held true from Evan’s perspective.

From Alon’s perspective, this had been more than worth it.

I just removed one of the flags for the end of the world.

That’s enough.

Yutia.

Her full name was Yutia Bloodia.

Ten years from now, she would become one of the Five Great Sins, the Sin of Wrath.

She would erase two of the five allied kingdoms from the continent and leave hundreds of thousands dead or wounded.

If anyone asked how Alon knew that, the answer was simple.

He was a transmigrator.

Not only that, he was someone who knew this world was the setting of Psychedelia, a dark fantasy RPG where everything would be shattered beyond repair ten years in the future.

“Haa…”

As he recalled first waking up in this body two months ago, Alon pressed a hand to his throbbing head and let out a deep sigh.

When I realized I’d transmigrated into a fantasy world, I spent three days in misery.

When I found out this was ten years before Psychedelia’s main story, I spent another ten.

At first, merely being thrown into a fantasy world had been enough to make him despair.

But once he slowly adapted, the situation had not seemed quite so bad.

Being a noble was, surprisingly, very livable.

He woke when he wanted.

He slept when he wanted.

He did what he wanted.

He ate when he wanted.

He might have been only the third son of a count’s house with no real power, but that also meant he could enjoy all the pleasures of privilege with none of the responsibility.

Compared to his old life of seventy-eight-hour workweeks and a barely-above-minimum wage job at a miserable company, noble life was luxurious to an almost absurd degree.

Not having the internet was fatal, admittedly.

Even so, life as a noble had been satisfying enough to make up for it.

For a little while.

That changed the moment he learned the name of this continent.

Ampellan.

And when he learned the name of the family he had possessed into, House Palladio, his mood had darkened even faster.

Ampellan was the exact same continent name from Psychedelia, the game he had squeezed into his schedule whenever he could.

And House Palladio was a noble family that briefly appeared in one of the game’s quests.

Then came the final blow: realizing this was ten years before the main scenario began.

That despair had felt about as bleak as being told, for the third month in a row, that his paycheck would be delayed again because the company was “having a hard time this month.”

Because this was the world of Psychedelia.

Which meant that in ten years, every living thing, whether noble or commoner, would be ground to dust.

And among all the doomed kingdoms, Asteria, the kingdom House Palladio belonged to, always vanished from the continent the instant the Five Great Sins appeared, no matter what route the player took.

In other words, it would be destroyed.

The kingdom would vanish.

The nobles would vanish.

The cities would vanish.

Which meant that in ten years, Palladio Alon’s leisurely noble life would come to an end.

So if he wanted to keep enjoying his peaceful aristocratic lifestyle, he had to get rid of the future human slaughter machines known as the Five Great Sins before they ever became that.

That was what he was doing now.

“Well… that’s how it is.”

Naturally, he could not tell Evan the truth.

“It simply isn’t time yet.”

“…It isn’t time yet?”

“Right.

In any case, make sure nothing about this leaks outside.

Keep supporting the orphanage and give them whatever they need.

Ah, and one more thing.”

Alon took a letter from inside his clothes and handed it over.

“Give this to her.”

“…This letter?”

“Yes.”

Strictly speaking, it was no ordinary letter.

What he had written there was a line from a mandatory event in Psychedelia, a line that always appeared when the player first encountered the Sin of Wrath.

“The affliction of what is dark, the thoughtlessness of what is bright.

One talent, one belonging.”

In the game, a suspicious archbishop NPC from the Holy Kingdom recited that line in an attempt to calm the Sin of Wrath.

It failed immediately.

The archbishop exploded into a puddle of blood, and Wrath, looking thoroughly annoyed, said only, “Too late,” before the battle began.

So why was Alon sending that line now?

Because the current timeline was the “past” Wrath had mentioned back then.

And because after seeing that event dozens of times over repeated playthroughs, he also remembered the explanatory text that described it as a spell capable of befriending the Cursed Blood clan.

Of course, the idea that memorizing one sentence could make you friendly with a lunatic race that borrowed eldritch power felt ridiculous.

Then again, those people worshipped things like that.

In a strange way, maybe it did make sense.

Fanatics were impossible to understand.

As Evan bowed and left the room, Alon rolled one shoulder and thought:

All right.

One land mine down.

Time for the second.

* * *

A few days later, Evan returned to the orphanage and handed the letter to Yutia exactly as ordered.

“A letter.”

Even while doing so, he could not hide his discomfort.

The girl before him was strange.

Against her white hair, her red eyes held no emotion at all.

Not even the faintest fragment of feeling.

It was absolute emptiness, as though she viewed every being in the world as nothing more than an object.

With the same expression she had worn when he first rescued her, Yutia took the letter and silently slid it open.

As Evan watched her, he found himself once more unable to understand why someone like her had ever been confined in a place like that.

He had not yet reached the rank of Master, but he could control mana, and anyone who wielded mana could faintly sense the temperament of others.

Evan was particularly talented in that area.

He sensed things more sharply than most knights.

That was why he knew.

No matter how I look at it, this makes no sense.

The woman standing before him was not someone who should ever have been trapped in a shabby experimental facility.

And then another question rose in his mind.

Just who exactly was the third son of House Palladio, the man who had hired him in a tavern a few months ago?

According to the rumors Evan had heard as a mercenary, Palladio’s third son was an unwanted bastard with no talent, constantly bullied by his notorious elder brothers.

So how had that same powerless noble known about a secret laboratory hidden by a baronial house?

As Evan wrestled with that question, his eyes widened.

The corners of Yutia’s lips had curved into a deep smile.

More than that, mana had become so dense around her that it was nearly visible.

Visible mana…?

That was a feat one normally associated only with Masters.

Then Yutia spoke.

“The one who sent this.

You said his name was Alon?”

The reptilian vertical slit in her crimson eyes fixed itself on Evan.

That alone was enough to send a warning through the instincts of a seasoned Expert.

“Yes,” he answered steadily.

“Why didn’t he summon me himself?”

How would I know?

The answer rose to Evan’s tongue, but his instincts told him not to say it.

Instead, he repeated the same line Alon always used.

“…He said the time has not yet come.”

“I see.”

It was only a short reply, but the long curve of her smile made it clear that it was the answer she had wanted.

Yutia Bloodia.

Or rather…

The first daughter of the Cursed Blood, Yutia the Bloody Queen.

Clutching the letter with its secret phrase as if it were a precious vow known only to her master, she twisted her lips into a strange smile.

“…I understand.”

“His will.”