Let’s go to my room together, he said.
This is troublesome. Truly troublesome. Because right now, in my bedroom, an intruder who failed an assassination attempt was tied up alive.
“…Is it not okay?”
Perhaps taking my silence as refusal, Lenox became noticeably dejected.
“Just for today…”
“…”
“Just, if Hyungnim would stay by my side…”
Seeing that face, I couldn’t bring myself to refuse. I made a groaning sound and gripped the kid’s shoulder.
“Do you really have to sleep in my room? Hm? You have your own room too.”
“But my bed will be too small for Hyungnim, won’t it?”
“Well, that’s true…”
But right now, my room is absolutely out of the question. For the mental health of a growing ten-year-old, it’s out of the question no matter what.
I put strength into the hand gripping Lenox’s shoulder and spun his body around. It was a direction with his back to my room.
“There are plenty of rooms in this castle. You can use one of the guest rooms. I have urgent business to attend to, so if you go to a room first and wait…”
But I couldn’t finish my words. Because Lenox turned around half a circle again to face me.
The blue eyes were directed at my hand. Precisely at the bloodstains on my hand.
In the silence, the trembling eyes rolled like marbles. The collar crumpled messily with dust and blood, and the wound on the shoulder…
“…Hyungnim?”
I eventually tilted my head back and let out a deep sigh.
‘I’m screwed.’
Truly, nothing in life ever goes smoothly.
I ended up receiving emergency treatment in Lenox’s room.
The kid, with eyes that looked like he’d cry at any moment, diligently wrapped a bandage around my shoulder. Despite his attitude that felt serious to the point of being solemn, his touch was clumsy, but since Billy, who had just left, had already done the urgent treatment, it didn’t really matter.
“Hyungnim is really too much.”
Perhaps the fact that I had nearly died and even tried not to tell him was quite shocking, Lenox’s lips were still pouting.
“Why don’t you understand my feelings at all? You don’t care at all how I feel, do you, Hyungnim?”
“Why wouldn’t I care? I hid it because I didn’t want to worry you…”
“Finding out this late makes me worry more!”
Since the kid shouted loudly, I quickly covered my ear with one hand.
“Okay, okay. I get it, so tie the bandage gently.”
“Ah, I’m sorry!”
Thanks to the little one busy being shocked, worried, understanding yet resentful, my ‘Chaos Meter’ was also jumping around energetically.
Around the time I’d reasonably dealt with the wound and roughly calmed Lenox down, Billy, who had gone out to handle the aftermath, returned. He was with Knight Commander Wieg.
“We’ve finished dealing with the intruder, Your Imperial Majesty.”
Wieg glanced at Lenox beside me and continued his report in the most refined expression possible.
“We’ve safely imprisoned him in the underground dungeon and cleaned up the room as well. We gagged him so he couldn’t commit suicide.”
“Body search?”
“We did it. And we found this pouch…”
The pouch he handed over looked ordinary at first glance, but when I turned the inside out, a strange pattern was engraved. Judging by the unique appearance of the string as well, it certainly didn’t seem to be a simple possession.
The problem was that’s all I could tell. Unless a family seal was openly engraved on it, it was difficult to guess the mastermind with only such fragmentary clues.
As I held the pouch between my thumb and index finger, turning it this way and that while pondering, a youthful voice suddenly interjected.
“A diamond-shaped snake head and a cross knot… Could it be Count Kalt’s family?”
The gazes of everyone in the room turned to Lenox. I was no exception.
“Count Kalt’s family seal is a knotted viper. Because the founding count was such a tremendous hunter that he could catch snakes with his bare hands.”
“Count Kalt’s family…”
It was an ambiguous feeling, as if I might remember something.
I shoved the name that gave me a strange sense of déjà vu into my head and signaled to the two people.
“Leave for now. I’ll interrogate tomorrow.”
“Yes, Your Imperial Majesty.”
If there was one fortunate thing, it was that Lenox, whose mind was occupied with this chaos, had completely forgotten about the nightmare. That doesn’t mean I planned to let him sleep alone though.
When I took Lenox to a nearby guest room and we lay down side by side, the fox that had followed us with quick steps naturally burrowed between us.
Normally I would have scolded it, saying where does a beast think it’s climbing onto a bed where people sleep…
‘Whatever, I don’t know.’
I didn’t feel like kicking out the one that was purring with its rear stuck right against my body. Besides, since Lenox seemed to like this situation very much, I thought I’d let it slide just for today as a way of comforting him.
And so we fell asleep huddled together with our heads touching.
***
The next morning that arrived. As soon as day broke, I opened my eyes and prepared to go down to the underground dungeon.
“You make absolutely sure Lenox doesn’t come down.”
“I’ll try, but… he’ll be looking for Your Imperial Majesty.”
Billy replied carefully.
“Not only your back, but the wound on your shoulder was particularly severe, wasn’t it? If you say he can’t see you right away, he’ll be anxious.”
“Still, what’s not allowed is not allowed.”
But Billy’s words had a point too. Since I’d practically snuck out while the kid was asleep, once he came to his senses, he’d be looking for me first.
In the end, I came up with a compromise.
“You wait for the kid to wake up and immediately convey the message. Tell him that once I finish my work, I’ll come see him right away, so he should wait obediently without taking a single step outside.”
“…”
“…And that we’ll eat breakfast together.”
“Understood, Your Imperial Majesty.”
On the way down to the basement, Albert, holding a pile of documents, followed behind me. Instead of looking back at him, I hastened my steps and said.
“The belongings from that bastard might be related to Count Kalt’s family.”
“You mean the pouch?”
“Yes.”
“I also looked through various materials all night and came to the conclusion that it was an item used by a member of Count Kalt’s family.”
I quietly admired inwardly.
‘I was right after all.’
It wasn’t surprising that Albert was knowledgeable, but Lenox was unexpected. That a 10-year-old could grasp the situation so calmly and cleverly. As expected, the protagonist is different from the beginning.
“Tell me more about Count Kalt’s family.”
The answer didn’t come right away. I thought it was because he was organizing what to report and waited silently.
“Actually, it’s a family that doesn’t live up to its title. They only managed a humble village in a mountainous region.”
If what Lenox said was true, Albert would talk about the founding count. That there was a famous snake hunter in that region, and that person became the beginning of Count Kalt’s family.
But the story that followed was far too different from my expectations.
“Actually, discussing such things now doesn’t have much meaning. That territory has now become an ordinary village.”
“A territory became an ordinary village? Why?”
“Count Kalt’s family was annihilated, Your Imperial Majesty.”
I chewed on the unnatural and uncomfortable taste that the word ‘annihilated’ gave. It couldn’t help but be a strange expression. If it was a humble family in the mountains, there wouldn’t be much difference whether they existed or not, so why were they annihilated?
Most of all, I thought that if they had naturally disappeared, the expression ‘annihilated’ wouldn’t have been used.
Which means someone intentionally destroyed that family.
“Who annihilated them?”
Then the footsteps following me stopped abruptly. When I glanced back, Albert was looking at me with a complicated gaze.
The reason for that look was soon revealed.
“It was Her Imperial Highness the Imperial Consort Betius.”
Achille’s birth mother.
“They say only one person escaped the calamity at that time—the young viscount. He was around Your Imperial Majesty’s age. He came to the imperial capital several times, and since he spent all day in the library, I spoke with him a few times in passing.”
“…What kind of person was he?”
Somehow, it felt like the inside of my throat was being squeezed tight. I struggled desperately not to make a stupid-sounding voice.
“I mean that young viscount.”
To me hesitating and stepping back, Albert said.
“He was weak and timid, but I remember he treated even servants like us kindly.”
“…”
“…At least in my memory, he was a good person.”
