Chapter 5 – Becoming the Power Behind the Count’s House (5)

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Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

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Two more years passed after Alon rescued all five future Sins.

He had now been exchanging letters with Yutia for four years.

There were six years left before the original story began.

Then Count Palladio died.

Officially, the cause was heart failure.

But anyone inside the family, or anyone even slightly informed, knew better.

He had overdosed on narcotics.

It was an ending appropriate for a dark fantasy count.

Yet no one mourned him.

The servants and retainers accepted the news calmly.

The count had already ruined himself beyond repair and had spent his final days sprinting toward death in a fog of drugs and women.

No one could claim they had not seen it coming.

Even when the news spread beyond the estate, not a single noble came to offer sincere condolences.

His two remaining sons were much the same.

Leo, the eldest, acted as if he had long expected this.

He seemed far more interested in his recent clashes with Blue Moon than in his father’s death.

Alon was no different.

The count had never once intervened when the eldest and second sons openly tormented him.

In all the time since possessing this body, Alon had not had a single proper conversation with the man.

They were little more than strangers who happened to share a roof.

So the count’s death ended quietly, in silence, without a single tear.

* * *

A week later, the seat of family head remained vacant due to a long-standing Palladio tradition: no new head was appointed in the same year that the previous one died.

In practice, nothing changed.

The count had done nothing for years anyway.

The retainers had been managing the house while skimming whatever they pleased.

And during that same time, Alon had been learning magic.

“Young master, I know I’ve said this before, but it really is astonishing.”

“Why?”

“Reaching the second circle in two years without entering a mage tower or having a teacher.

Do you realize how absurd that is?”

He was learning magic for one reason only: self-preservation.

Half of a talent, though.

Alon watched the three small spheres revolving over his palm, then let them scatter and sighed lightly.

Discovering that he possessed magical talent at all had been a delight.

In this world, magic could only be wielded by those born with talent.

And his talent was excellent.

Ordinarily, reaching the second circle took a mage about four years.

Doing it alone in two meant that, if not heaven-sent, his talent was at least extraordinary.

Even by his own judgment, his ability to control mana precisely was far beyond the norm.

The trick he had just performed, making three lightning spheres revolve over his hand, was functionally useless, but it required exquisite control.

If only my mana core had been larger.

That was the problem.

Every human was born with a mana core, and Alon’s was small.

Not just a little small.

Extremely small.

Training could expand it slightly over time, but in his case the natural size was so pitiful that expecting much would be foolish.

Mana cores were, quite literally, the inborn measure of one’s capacity.

If it really comes to it, there is a way around that… though I’d rather not.

While he was thinking that over, Evan asked:

“What do you plan to do now, young master?”

“About what?”

“Next year, the eldest young master becomes head of the house, doesn’t he?”

Evan nearly called Leo “that bastard” before correcting himself.

Alon understood the question anyway.

“I’ll leave.”

“…You intend to leave the territory?”

“Not completely.

Just further south.”

“To Rodmill?”

“Exactly.”

Rodmill was a town about four days south of Pallion, the Palladio territory proper.

It was prosperous enough while still remaining unimportant.

“That’s where I’m going.”

“…Why?”

To Evan, the decision seemed odd.

To Alon, it was the natural destination of everything he had planned.

His goal from the beginning had been simple: rescue the Five Great Sins from the misfortunes that would twist them, prevent the allied kingdoms from being destroyed, and then live out the rest of his life in comfort as a noble.

And in that future, Rodmill was ideal.

First, there was a villa there built by the third Count Palladio.

Second, the town was developed enough to be comfortable, but too middling for Leo to covet before his own death.

Third, it was far enough from the main estate that once the protagonist of the original story began sweeping through evil nobles, Alon could remain completely removed from the plot.

As far as Alon was concerned, moving to Rodmill meant his plan had succeeded.

Of course, explaining all that to Evan would be a nuisance, so he only said:

“Everything has its proper time.”

“…You do know that’s what you say whenever you’re too lazy to explain, right?”

Alon did not answer.

“Since we’re on the subject, start packing.”

And so they began preparing to leave for Rodmill.

* * *

Exactly one month later, Leo Palladio, the eldest son of House Palladio and a hidden power within the underworld through Avalon, watched his younger brother board a carriage with a single knight and leave the estate.

He considered whether he should kill Alon or not.

The truth was that Alon had never particularly bothered him.

Tonio, the brother who had died abruptly a few years earlier, had always bared his fangs and reached for the position of heir.

Alon, by contrast, had spent his life bowing his head and making himself small.

Something about him had changed in recent years, but not enough to alter the basic picture.

Even now, he was voluntarily removing himself to the frontier so as not to offend Leo’s eyes.

Leo had originally considered getting him quietly addicted and disposing of him around the time the count died.

But if Alon was leaving of his own accord, why bother?

He clearly had no intention of opposing Leo.

And yet Leo still hesitated.

Not because he feared Alon might one day steal the position of heir.

Not because he felt offended, as family, by Alon’s humiliating submissiveness.

Leo had never felt any sense of family toward Alon, or toward this house at all.

No, the reason he considered killing him was much simpler.

Alon irritated him.

Something about the younger brother showing up a month earlier, bowing deeply, and requesting leave to go to Rodmill on his own had rubbed him the wrong way.

Perhaps he had simply been in a bad mood because one of Avalon’s branches had failed to meet its quota at the time.

That was all it took for Alon’s life to be placed on the scales.

“Alman.”

“Yes.”

“Quietly follow the carriage.”

Alon’s life was decided in less than a minute.

To Leo, someone like Alon could die on the strength of nothing more than a passing irritation.

But the subordinate who had silently appeared behind him asked an unusual question.

“…Do you mean I should kill him?”

Leo frowned.

For the past two years, the boy he had tested thoroughly and eventually accepted as one of his hands had never once asked a question like that.

Leo opened his mouth to correct the misunderstanding.

Instead, blood burst from it.

His eyes widened.

A sword had pierced his heart from behind.

“You… betrayed…”

The man holding the blade answered in a calm voice.

“This is not betrayal.

I was never your hand to begin with.”

“What?”

“I was only waiting for you to say it.”

At that, shock overtook Leo’s rage.

One face rose in his mind.

Alon’s.

And yet he could not understand.

He had kept Alman, or rather Hidan, by his side for over two years.

For more than a year, he had freely exposed his back to him.

If Hidan had wanted to kill him, he could have done so long ago.

As Leo stared in disbelief, Hidan gave him the answer.

“We cannot move unless commanded.

We are only his blades.

We move only as he wields us.

That is our creed, taught by the Crimson Moon, a creed that must never be broken.

However…”

He drove the sword in deeper.

“There is one exception.

If someone directly attempts to harm the Great Moon, then our blades may move of their own accord.”

He withdrew the sword.

“That is the reason you were allowed to live until now.”

Leo collapsed to the ground, face first, still glaring in fury.

“My men… won’t just…”

“Do not worry.

From the moment you said those words, Avalon ceased to exist on this continent.”

Hidan, a member of Blue Moon and one of Yutia’s direct subordinates, turned away.

“A pity.

The Great Moon gave you a chance.”

Leo died without ever understanding what that meant.

It was a cold death.

* * *

Three days after arriving in Rodmill, Alon returned to the Palladio estate.

He came back because Leo Palladio had died.

And because, along with that incomprehensible death, a new title had appeared around him while he had merely been in Rodmill quietly toasting bread for himself in the absence of maids.

The hidden power behind House Palladio.

“…What?”

He had only come back in a hurry after quietly making toast in a manor without maids.

And somehow, during that short absence, people had begun lowering their voices and referring to him by that absurd title.

The hidden power behind the count’s house.

Alon could only stare.