“So you do understand,” he replied without any emotion in his voice. “For those such as Craig Bauer, whose punishment is to be kept alive, matters might have been different. However, for all others, His Grace’s standard response would have been execution. Even if he had judged me useful to him so long as I carried out my duties flawlessly, the moment I made even the slightest mistake...he would have killed me without any hesitation.”
“Wait, that means if I’d been the old me, you would’ve died!”
“I already possessed sufficient confidence that such was not the case; as I said a moment ago, that question was merely for the sake of obtaining proof. If you were not, in fact, His Grace, then His Majesty would kill you without fail. I did not wish to become collateral damage, and so it was necessary that I promptly acquire incriminating words that could serve as corroborating evidence when His Majesty judged you to be an impostor.”
Still, it had definitely been a gamble. The facts were, Eberhart had been suspicious of that implausible report, and even if he’d felt something off about me, it had taken a long while before he’d actually given up on me. But, well—it had all worked out this way in the end.
“I give up,” I said. “You’ve beaten me completely.”
My hands were finally starting to be able to move again, and I raised them loosely in a pose of surrender. Right at that moment, the carriage tilted as it hit a sharp curve, and in accordance with inertia, my body slid over to the other side. As I lay plastered against the door, I turned to look at Karl. He was perfectly composed, sitting in exactly the same spot he’d been this whole time.
Is his sense of balance so good that he can just ignore the laws of physics? Damn.
“You’re actually pretty talkative, huh? Early on, I thought you were basically a machine,” I said.
“I served in a workplace where a single ill-considered remark would result in death. I could never be as foolish as Craig Bauer.”
“Huh? Oh, actually, that reminds me—I got the feeling you two really didn’t get along. Why was that?”
Each of them had been ready to sell out the other without any hesitation. What sort of baggage did those two have?
Karl’s face muscles normally never budged at all, but for once, they twisted into an irritated scowl.
“I would face death if I did not make my decisions optimally at all times, while he was permitted to live no matter how recklessly he conducted himself,” Karl spat. “I also found his readiness to sacrifice his own life rather irksome.”
The frustration in his voice was directed at Craig. But at the same time, I felt his words prickle at my chest too. That absurd world, where even the slightest mistake led to instant death, had been the work of my own past self. Karl had definitely been competent to begin with...but I was the one who’d forced him into an unnatural perfection. He was just like the estate’s flawlessly kept garden—the people looking at it might marvel, but the people maintaining it spent their days in sheer terror.
I’d already realized it, on some level. Karl hadn’t seemed like he took any particular pride in his work—but he’d always carried out every job I gave him to perfection. He’d never disobeyed his master’s orders—but he’d never involved himself in anything beyond what was instructed. All of those things were habits Karl had picked up for the sake of his own survival.
He was a hard guy to read, but those principles of his had helped me out a lot too. Eberhart wasn’t interested in anything other than Heinreid, so I’d predicted that Karl wouldn’t report on Craig quietly releasing prisoners behind the scenes. Obviously, that tyrant was a depraved villain just like Heinreid—if Karl had given him a report he hadn’t requested, his response easily could’ve been “Did I order you to report on anything other than Heinreid? How dare you bring me this unimportant drivel? To death with you.”
I’d placed my unasked-for faith in Karl, and he hadn’t let me down. Not a single “unimportant” report had reached the king—even if it was actually incredibly important information. Karl had found a place for Angelica to flee to, and he hadn’t leaked it to anyone else. All of that had been motivated by self-preservation, of course, but I was still nothing but grateful.
I felt like maybe I ought to thank him. I tried to come up with the right words to say, but before I could open my mouth, Karl dropped in another remark.
“Well... Even setting aside any of those reasons, the man annoys me fundamentally. He’s simply not my type.”
I stared at him in shock. Those utterly casual feelings coming from this perfect butler caught me totally off guard, but I gradually felt amusement welling up inside me until a laugh burst out.
“I take it all back,” I said. “You can be pretty human after all, Karl.”
“Indeed. I am one.”
He looked down his nose at me with disdain, as though to say, Did you seriously not know that?
Wait, when I take the time to read his face, he’s actually pretty expressive too, isn’t he?
I was starting to see a new side of my former butler, and I wanted to talk with him a little more. But unfortunately, before I could bring up another topic, the carriage pulled to a stop and a soldier opened the door from outside. I obeyed his gruff command to get out—now that my body was finally moving again, I was able to step down from the carriage myself. As I left, I turned to look inside just for a moment.
“So long, Karl. Stay alive out there.”
“I intend to. Take care, my former master.”