Chapter 6 - Misunderstanding (1)

Daily life in Rodmil had given Alon a great deal of satisfaction. He had spent only three days there, but the town had proved ideal for enjoying the quintessential noble life he had imagined.

Waking whenever he wanted.

Sleeping whenever he wanted.

Eating whenever he wanted.

It was a place where he could freely indulge in the three things he believed made people happiest when they could do them as they pleased.

"... Whew."

As the funeral of Leo Pallatio, House Pallatio’s eldest son, dragged on, Alon let out a silent sigh and looked ahead. Leo lay pale and bloodless where Tonio and Count Pallatio had once lain. Despite himself, Alon’s expression turned incredulous.

'I don’t even know where to begin picking this apart.'

He thought this because Leo’s death had diverged so drastically from what he had expected.

'Leo was supposed to be certain to die six years from now.'

He shifted his gaze, examining Leo’s entire body. The formal clothes concealed any wounds, but...

'Evening primrose.'

By the kingdom’s tradition, evening primroses—blue flowers native to the kingdom—were placed over major fatal wounds or large wounds the deceased had borne in life. On Leo’s body, an evening primrose rested on his chest.

'... Killed by a blade through the heart, huh...?'

Even as he considered Leo’s cause of death, Alon wondered who on earth had done this.

'... Well, if I had to think of suspects, there are plenty.'

After all, he knew Leo had been committing every conceivable kind of depravity in the underworld. He understood that nothing anyone did to Leo would be surprising. The number of people Leo had killed, directly or indirectly, would easily exceed a thousand. And yet Alon kept questioning it because he knew Leo’s future.

'Who was it...? Who on earth killed Leo?'

With that thought, Alon looked around. Quite a crowd had gathered for Leo’s funeral: the house’s servants, retainers, and knights were all in attendance. He had heard that a few other nobles had come and gone, but by the time he returned, those who had visited to offer condolences had already left. In other words, everyone attending the funeral now worked for the count’s house.

And...

"..."

Every one of them was hunched over, trying to escape Alon’s gaze.

A servant who had always complained about him, casually joking that he would have died on the streets if he had been born a commoner, bowed their head, sweating profusely. A knight who had picked fights over every little thing whenever Alon briefly left the mansion on an errand deliberately looked aside to avoid his eyes.

'I suppose it makes sense. If the count’s third son you’d mocked so enthusiastically became the heir overnight, anyone would worry about their job...'

Yet the reason Alon kept noticing how they avoided his gaze was that their reactions went further than that. Whenever he looked their way, the servants not only shuddered, but their hands trembled as well. Earlier, he had merely met that knight’s eyes and shrugged as he usually did, only for the man to drop his ceremonial sword in the middle of the funeral—a disaster that might have been funny under other circumstances.

That series of reactions made it perfectly clear how the servants now saw him.

'They one hundred percent suspect me... No, they’re not suspicious. They’re convinced.'

Two hours later.

"Young master."

"Yes?"

"It’s beyond anything I imagined."

"... How bad is it?"

"You have now become the mastermind of the count’s house, powerful enough to make Avalon vanish overnight."

Alon realized that, without his knowledge, he had become the mastermind of the count’s house—a man wielding an absurd amount of power.

####

"I was just making toast..."

Alon let out a low groan. While those rumors were spreading through the count’s house, he had been making utterly unremarkable toast in Rodmil.

"And while making toast, you became a mastermind with a Swordmaster-level assassin at your command."

"I’m not in the mood for jokes."

"I wasn’t joking, either. That really is the rumor going around."

"... How on earth did a rumor like that start?"

At Alon’s bewildered, frowning question, Evan began recounting, one detail at a time, the information he had gathered on his hurried visit to the Information Guild.

A little later.

"So, to sum it up, within a day of Leo’s death, Avalon—the group he ran—vanished from the underworld without a trace?"

"Yes."

"... And people think I did it."

"That’s correct."

"... Why?"

"Because you’re the only person who benefits from this?"

"I suppose that’s true, when you think about it..."

In truth, it was a situation in which Alon could hardly avoid suspicion. With impeccable timing, Leo had been murdered immediately after Alon left the mansion for Rodmil, and even Avalon, which Leo controlled, had been wiped out. Anyone could see that Alon benefited most from those circumstances. He had been on his way to Rodmil, giving him an excellent alibi as he became the heir to the count’s house.

Moreover, Avalon’s destruction had completely severed the ties to the underworld that had clung to the house like thick tar. In other words, even the underworld influence that might have caused him trouble had been thoroughly eliminated.

"But did you really not do it, young master?"

"You... were right beside me, buttering toast."

"I was, but everything worked out so perfectly for you that I thought I’d ask."

"To think you’d suspect me..."

"It’s not suspicion, but you do quite often give me work without telling me what it’s actually for."

Alon fell silent at Evan’s words. That was true. Rather than answer, he began reasoning through it.

'... Was there anyone capable of killing an underworld heavyweight with that much clout in the east? The Night Parade of a Hundred Ghosts? No, they don’t appear for another six years... Then “Root”...? They’re based near the eastern lands. There’s no reason they’d come here.'

Alon shook his head as he thought. However he considered it, he knew of no organization powerful enough to bury Avalon in an instant.

Just as he reached that conclusion and was about to abandon the matter...

"... Oh."

Something Evan had said suddenly came back to him, and he asked,

"Evan."

"Yes?"

"Didn’t you mention something like that last time? An organization that hunts other organizations."

"Oh, do you mean Blue Moon?"

"Yes, them. Could they have done it?"

Evan shook his head.

"No. The Information Guild also said it probably wasn’t Blue Moon."

"How do they know?"

"Apparently, Blue Moon always leaves a mark after carrying out a job. Besides, they say that wherever Blue Moon has been, there may be ‘pieces of corpses’ left, but no corpses."

"And that wasn’t the case this time?"

"They described it as... a scene from hell. Most of the organization’s members were reportedly killed with blades."

"... So that’s where the rumor about me being a mastermind with a Swordmaster came from."

"Exactly."

Alon nodded at Evan’s explanation.

'An organization that won’t even survive six years from now certainly couldn’t have wiped out Leo and Avalon. It couldn’t... Then who on earth was it?'

... It was a night of endless pondering.

####

"Any traces?"

In the basement of the eastern orphanage, the question came the moment all four regular attendees had gathered. Each answered in turn.

"I left none."

"Me neither!"

"Neither did I. As you instructed, I left as few traces as possible."

Rine continued, her green eyes softly gleaming.

"It seems the Information Guild hasn’t connected us to what happened at Avalon, either."

"Then?"

"From what I’ve gathered, the account circulating is that it was a scene from hell created by a Swordmaster."

At Deus’s words, Yutia fell silent for a moment, seemingly considering something, before speaking.

"Still, keep monitoring the Information Guild, just in case. I’ve told you all enough times that you understand, don’t you? He must never hear about this. Never."

Everyone nodded as Yutia’s eyes flashed red. Yet...

"... Is it really necessary to go this far to hide it?"

Deus asked because she looked somewhat unsettled, unlike her usual self with her endlessly composed smile.

After a brief silence, Yutia answered firmly.

"Of course we have to hide it."

"... Why?"

Her eyes flashed red as she answered his next question.

"I told you, didn’t I? We are his swords. We must not judge for ourselves or think for ourselves—we must be nothing but the swords he wields."

"..."

"And a sword shouldn’t think for itself, should it?"

"But this happened because the count’s eldest son targeted him first—"

"Even so, what’s forbidden is forbidden. There was no ‘order.’ Do you understand? We act only on orders. If he hasn’t spoken, we must not act. Ever."

Deus rubbed his dry tongue against the roof of his mouth and looked into Yutia’s eyes. She possessed such a lofty, steadfast bearing that it was hard to believe she belonged in an orphanage like this, along with an aura that made her seem utterly impossible to oppose. Yet so much about her changed whenever he was mentioned.

Her resolute gaze turned to grotesque fanaticism, and her lofty bearing became ferocious and bizarre.

That was why Deus could not understand.

"So make absolutely sure you erase as many traces as possible. Don’t disappoint him."

She had the power and ability to overwhelm everyone here through her presence alone. How could the mere prospect of being ‘found out’ make her so anxious and agitated?

"Understood."

But despite his questions, Deus had no intention of asking them. He merely bowed his head. As their discussion drew to a close...

"I’m here."

The basement door opened, and a man entered. Though no light reached the room, his radiant silver hair seemed to hold the moonlight of the sky.

"As the boss instructed."

In the destined future, he would become the Sin of Fastidiousness, one of the Five Great Sins.

"Avalon’s remaining forces, 286 men."

Radan delivered his report, his distinct moon eyes gleaming.

"I cut every last one in half and killed them."

Five days.

That was all it had taken for Avalon, the massive organization that dominated the eastern Kingdom of Asteria, to vanish, leaving only a shabby nameplate behind.

"But it seems the job isn’t entirely finished."

"What do you mean?"

"I found more nobles connected to Avalon."

With those words, Radan took a sheet of paper from inside his clothes. It had been folded so meticulously that there was not a single gap between its layers. He set it down on the desk.

"House Altia, the ducal house, is involved. There seems to be a ledger as well, so the connection appears quite deep. There are about four of them, and all seem to be the duke’s children. People this deeply involved are likely to start asking around about what happened. How should we handle them?"

When Radan finished and looked at Yutia, she remained silent for a moment.

"You already know... what I’m going to say, don’t you?"

She murmured, red light spilling from her eyes.

"Indeed. Then I’ll deal with them as quietly as possible."

With that, Radan nodded silently.

####

Since Leo Pallatio’s funeral, Alon had been keeping busy. Apart from beginning to investigate Leo’s death, which had unfolded completely differently from the game, he had acquired duties he had never wanted.

His days passed in a flurry of activity, and around a month after the funeral, he found himself, as he often did, not at House Pallatio but in Estrovan, a territory in the southern Kingdom of Asteria. He was there to attend a regularly scheduled ball held twice a year.

Naturally, Alon’s ostensible reason for coming was to build social connections, but in reality, he had business in the territory. Still, he intended to make some effort toward that ostensible goal as well. Now that he was certain to become count in a year, cultivating friendships with other nobles was extremely important in many ways, both for his social standing and for his own convenience.

... It certainly ought to have been important.

"..."

Alon swept his gaze across the ballroom. Chandeliers fashioned to resemble crescent moons shone beautifully overhead. Beneath them, young noblemen and ladies, dressed in all their finery, flaunted their looks amid the distinctive atmosphere of aristocratic society.

The problem was...

"..."

None of those nobles could even meet Alon’s eyes.

"Eek..."

Watching a young noble lady duck her head the instant their eyes met, Alon fell silent.

"..."

He sighed, anticipating that his ostensible goal of ‘building social connections’ would prove more difficult than he had expected.