Chapter 6 – Misunderstanding (1)

===================

Translated by Jinmu

Read it only at Novelbyu.com & Utoon.net

===================

Life in Rodmill gave Alon a surprising amount of satisfaction.

It had only been three days.

Even so, living there felt almost perfectly suited to the typical noble life he had imagined.

Wake when he wanted.

Sleep when he wanted.

Eat when he wanted.

To Alon, those were the three freedoms that made human beings happiest, and Rodmill was a place where all three could be practiced without hesitation.

“…Whew.”

While the funeral of Leo Palladio, eldest son of House Palladio, continued on and on, Alon let out a silent breath and looked ahead.

Leo lay there pale, where Tonio and Count Palladio had once lain.

Alon could not help making a baffled face.

‘I don’t even know where to start picking this apart.’

The reason he thought that was simple.

Leo’s death had twisted far away from the future Alon knew.

‘Leo wasn’t supposed to die until six years from now.’

He shifted his gaze and looked over Leo’s body as a whole.

The formal clothes hid the wound from direct view, but the answer was still there.

Moonflower.

By the kingdom’s custom, a large blue moonflower was placed over a mortal wound or any grievous injury the dead had borne in life.

There was one placed over Leo’s chest.

‘…So he died with his heart pierced by a blade.’

Even while thinking through the cause of death, Alon kept asking himself who could have done it.

‘…If I really think about it, there are plenty of candidates.’

He already knew that Leo had spent his time in the underworld causing every kind of outrage imaginable.

Alon was fully aware that there were countless people who might want him dead.

Leo had directly or indirectly caused the deaths of more than a thousand people.

Still, Alon kept circling back to the question.

Because he knew Leo’s future.

‘Who was it… Who on earth killed Leo?’

With that thought, Alon looked around.

A fair number of people had gathered for Leo’s funeral.

Servants of the count’s house.

Retainers.

Knights.

They all stood in place for the ceremony.

He had heard that a few nobles had come and gone as well, but by the time Alon returned, those who had come to offer condolences had already left.

Which meant that everyone still present at the funeral was someone who worked for House Palladio.

And.

“…”

Every single one of them was trying to avoid his eyes.

The servant who used to complain about Alon without fail, joking that if he had been born a commoner he would have died on the roadside, was now dripping sweat and lowering his head.

The knight who used to pick fights with him every time he briefly left the estate now deliberately rolled his eyes away so he would not meet Alon’s gaze.

‘If the third son everyone mocked becomes the heir overnight, anyone would naturally start worrying about their position. I do understand that, but…’

Even so, Alon kept paying attention to the servants’ reactions for a reason.

Their fear had too much detail.

Whenever his eyes turned toward them, they did not merely flinch.

They trembled.

Even their hands shook.

Earlier, one knight had merely met Alon’s eyes for an instant.

Alon had only shrugged in the same offhand way he always did.

And yet the man had committed the ridiculous disaster of dropping his ceremonial sword in the middle of the funeral.

Those reactions told Alon exactly how the servants currently saw him.

‘This is one hundred percent suspicion… No, it’s already beyond suspicion. They are convinced.’

Two hours later.

“Young master.”

“Yes.”

“It’s worse than expected.”

“…How bad?”

“At this point, you’ve become the hidden power behind the count’s house, the kind of figure who could wipe out even Avalon overnight.”

That was when Alon realized that, without knowing it himself, he had become the secret mastermind of House Palladio who held impossible power.

* * *

“I was just making toast…”

That low lament escaped Alon, who had in fact been in Rodmill doing nothing grander than making plain toast while those rumors spread through the count’s house.

“So while you were making toast, you became the hidden mastermind of the count’s house who commands a Swordmaster-class assassin.”

“I’m not in the mood for jokes.”

“I’m not joking. That’s genuinely how the rumor is spreading.”

“…How in the world did it turn into that?”

At Alon’s utterly baffled question, Evan began laying out, one by one, everything he had heard after rushing to the information guild.

A little later.

“So in short, a day after Leo died, Avalon, the organization he ran, vanished from the underworld as cleanly as if it had been washed away?”

“Yes.”

“…And people think I did that.”

“Exactly.”

“…Why?”

“Because you’re the only one who profits from it, aren’t you?”

“When you put it that way, I suppose…”

In truth, it was exactly the sort of situation where avoiding suspicion would have been impossible.

Leo was killed immediately after Alon left the estate and went to Rodmill.

And Avalon, the organization Leo controlled, was crushed as well.

In that situation, the one who benefited most was obviously Alon.

He now had the perfect alibi while on his way to Rodmill, and at the same time he became the likely successor to the count’s house.

On top of that, with Avalon gone, the tar-thick ties binding the family to the underworld had been severed completely.

In other words, even the underworld influence that might have troubled him was erased all at once.

“But… it really wasn’t you, was it?”

“You were right next to me buttering toast.”

“True, but the situation lined up too perfectly, so I had to ask.”

“So you suspect me.”

“Not exactly. It’s just that you do make me do things without telling me why often enough.”

At Evan’s words, Alon closed his mouth.

Because that part was true.

Instead of answering, he started reasoning.

‘…Was there anyone in the east strong enough to kill a major underworld figure and bury Avalon in one blow? Hyakki Yagyo? No, they don’t appear until six years later. Then Root? No. Those people are based near the east, not here…’

After thinking through several options, Alon shook his head.

No matter how he examined it, there was no organization he knew of at this point capable of burying Avalon in an instant.

Just as he was about to stop thinking there.

“…Ah.”

He remembered something Evan had said before and looked up.

“Evan.”

“Yes?”

“Didn’t you mention an organization that hunts other organizations?”

“Ah. You mean Blue Moon?”

“Right, them. Could it have been them?”

At the question, Evan shook his head.

“No. The information guild said it probably wasn’t Blue Moon.”

“How do they know?”

“Apparently Blue Moon always leaves a mark after they finish a job. Also, wherever Blue Moon passes through, even if corpse fragments remain, whole bodies never do.”

“And this time it wasn’t like that?”

“They said it looked like a scene from hell. Most of the organization was cut down by blades.”

“…So that’s why the rumor added the part about a hidden mastermind with a Swordmaster.”

“That’s right.”

Alon nodded.

‘Of course. An organization that doesn’t even survive six years later wouldn’t be the one to erase Leo and Avalon. It wouldn’t… So who was it?’

That question kept running through his head.

It became a long night.

* * *

“Any traces?”

Beneath the eastern orphanage.

The moment all four of the people who always gathered there had assembled, that question was asked.

Each answered in turn.

“We left nothing behind.”

“Me neither!”

“Not on my side either. Just as you said, I removed as much trace as possible.”

Rine, her green eyes glowing softly, continued.

“It doesn’t look like the information guild is tying what happened at Avalon to us either.”

“Then what are they saying?”

“As far as I can tell, it’s being treated as a hellscape created by a Swordmaster.”

At Deus’s words, Yutia fell silent for a moment as if thinking through something.

Then she said,

“Even so, keep watching the information guild. I’ve all told you this many times already, so you know, right? This must absolutely never reach him. Absolutely.”

At Yutia’s red eyes flashing, every one of them nodded.

But then.

“…Do we really need to hide it this thoroughly?”

Deus asked.

Unlike her usual self, who always wore a relaxed smile, Yutia looked slightly unstable now.

After a short silence, she answered firmly.

“Of course we do.”

“…Why?”

At Deus’s continued question, Yutia answered while her red eyes flashed again.

“I told you before. We are his blades. We must not judge for ourselves. We must not think for ourselves. We must become blades moved only by his hand.”

“…”

“And a blade thinking on its own isn’t acceptable.”

“But the eldest son of the count’s house targeted him first…”

“Even so, wrong is wrong. There was no command. Do you understand? We move only on command. If he did not say it, then we must not move. Ever.”

Deus ran his tongue across the roof of his dry mouth and stared into Yutia’s eyes.

Even without understanding everything, he knew this much.

For someone who belonged in an orphanage, she possessed far too much dignity and restraint, and an atmosphere no one could ever oppose.

But whenever the conversation turned to him, so much about her changed.

Her restrained gaze became grotesque fanaticism.

Her noble air turned violent and uncanny.

To Deus, that difference never stopped feeling strange.

Still.

“…Understood.”

He nodded in the end.

“Good. Then continue erasing anything that might remain.”

And at that moment.

Without anyone noticing when he had arrived.

“Most of it is already done.”

Radan stepped out of the darkness.

Silver hair.

A neat smile.

At this point he was still only an assassin of the underworld, but in the future he would become one of the Five Great Sins.

“How far did you take it?”

“The remnants of Avalon are gone. The linked routes are collapsing one after another too. If things keep going this way, there won’t be anything left to trace within a few days.”

“Good.”

Yutia gave a small nod.

Radan continued.

“There were also people on the noble side involved with Avalon.”

“How deep?”

“Deeper than expected. House Altia is tied in as well. It looks as though one of the duke’s children was practically in the middle of it.”

That made the atmosphere in the underground room shift slightly.

Yutia’s eyes narrowed.

“Can it be handled?”

“It can.”

“Then handle it quietly.”

“Understood.”

Radan answered lightly, but his smile had grown thinner.

And that was how.

Without Alon knowing anything about it.

The underworld route tied to Leo Palladio was erased.

With almost nothing left behind.

* * *

During the month after that.

Alon stayed busy.

He had become count sooner than expected.

There was work to sort out inside the family.

He also kept turning over questions about Leo’s death and Avalon’s collapse.

And once the funeral period and the immediate confusion ended.

He left for the Kingdom of Asteria.

Specifically, for Estroban in the south.

One of the twice-yearly noble balls was being held there.

There were two reasons to go.

One was to build at least the minimum noble connections now that he was almost certain to become the proper count in a year.

The other was that he had separate business in the territory.

Still, even if politics itself meant nothing to him, a minimum web of acquaintances was useful if he wanted to live peacefully.

At least, that had been the thought.

Then he arrived.

The hall was beautiful.

Chandeliers in the shape of crescent moons hung from the ceiling.

Noble sons and daughters in fine dress stood beneath them.

And the instant Alon stepped in, every trace of ease vanished.

People lowered their voices.

They looked away.

Some even retreated.

Alon slowly exhaled.

Apparently building noble connections was not going to be as simple as he had hoped.