“How bad are his wounds?”
“There were pottery shards all over his back and arms… They cut him so deeply that he was bleeding!” The man’s expression twisted as he remembered the sight of Claud’s injuries. Leticiel’s face stiffened. They were worse than she had expected. “Despite that, they took him away… Claud was just covering for me! This is all my fault! I’m the one who’s responsible…”
“Wait a second. No one treated his wounds?” If he was that severely injured, he would have needed medical attention. But according to this man, that hadn’t happened. Leticiel struggled to believe that such a horrible possibility could be true.
“Yes. He was locked away even though he had several cuts on his arms and back.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me…”
Naturally, she was worried about Claud. But at the same time, she seriously doubted the duke and duchess’s humanity. They had never been good parents, but she couldn’t believe they were this cruel.
“Claud’s injuries are that bad?!” Nicole pressed a hand against her lips in shock, her face pale.
Lowering his head, the young man mumbled, “I’d better prepare myself to apologize to the duchess…”
Leticiel frowned, crossing her arms and closing her eyes.
“My lady, what should we do?” Ruvik asked, giving her an anxious look. There was a touch of panic in his eyes.
Leticiel kept her head lowered in silence for a while. When she finally opened her eyes, her heterochromatic eyes shone with a quiet flame. “I’ll go to the duke’s manor right away,” she declared. “I’m worried about Claud.”
She couldn’t agree with their treatment of him. It was true that mistakes had been made with the breaking of the pot, but she couldn’t forgive Diane’s unfair punishment and her inability to treat the wounds of a servant who had risked his own body to protect her.
“I’ll go with you, my lady.”
“Yes, please prepare the carriage.” Ruvik nodded and flew out of the manor. “And you,” she said to the gardener, “please come with us, as well.”
“Y-Yes!”
While Ruvik was getting the carriage ready, Leticiel turned to Nicole. “Nicole, please take care of the manor while we’re gone.”
“Yes, leave it to me!”
“Drossell, what’s going on?” While she was waiting in the entryway for Ruvik to return, one of the doors opened and Tina and Deet peeked out.
“Will you two wait for me here? I need to go out for a bit.”
“Are you going to save someone? We’ll come with you.”
“What?”
“We can’t let you save your friend all alone!”
After a pause, Leticiel gave in. “Thank you.”
Nicole saw them off as they left the manor. The carriage had already been moved in front of the main gate, ready to leave at any time. Ruvik jumped up into the coachman’s seat. Leticiel wondered where the twins would sit, but they chose to sit on top of the carriage.
“Ruvik, let’s hurry.”
“Yes. I’m ready to go.”
“You get in too,” she said to the gardener.
“Huh? A-All right!” The young man seemed hesitant to ride in the same carriage as the daughter of a duke, but he understood that this wasn’t the time to worry about such things and climbed into the carriage with only slight trepidation.
Ruvik immediately snapped the reins to get the carriage moving. It raced through the capital’s southern gate as fast as it could. The sun was low in the sky, leaving the city of Nirvaan dimly lit. Few people were on the streets. Taking advantage of that fact, they charged through thoroughfares that were less likely to be populated and reached the duke’s manor in about ten minutes.
I didn’t expect to pass through this gate again less than a month after leaving, Leticiel thought to herself as she jumped out of the carriage and headed for the front door.
“Miss Drossell?!” Having heard the sound of the carriage’s rough stop, the duke’s head butler appeared at the front door, his eyes widening at the sight of Leticiel. She tried to stride right inside, but he hurriedly stopped her, saying, “No! You mustn’t, my lady!”
“Why can’t I? I belong to this family, do I not?”
“Th-That is true, but…”
“By the way, where is Claud?”
The head butler froze at Leticiel’s abrupt question. She pressed even further. “Is it true that he was locked in the cellar even though he’s injured?”
The head butler said nothing, but the blood was draining from his face rapidly and he was trying to convey something with his eyes. Leticiel was convinced that something had happened to Claud.
“Well, whatever. Please move.”
“P-Please wait!”
Slipping past the head butler, who was using all his might to try and stop her, Leticiel marched into the entrance hall and asked, “Where are Scarlough and Diane?”
“N-No, my lady… His Grace currently has a visitor—”
A familiar voice came from further in the manor, cutting the flustered butler off. “Daniel, what is all this noise? You know we have a gu…” A door facing the hall opened to reveal Diane, who covered her mouth with a fan despite not trying to hide her displeasure. She trailed off when she caught sight of Leticiel. The hand she was using to hold her fan began to tremble and the highest visible points of her cheeks were flushed red in anger. “You! Why in the world are you here?”
“I believe this is still my family home. What is so wrong with me coming here?”
“There is no place for you here!”
“Great, I don’t need one. The feeling is mutual.”
Leticiel’s cold attitude and casual remark fueled Diane’s rage even further. “What is with that attitude?! How conceited of you!”
“First of all, may I see Claud?”
“I’m not obligated to let you see him!” Diane shouted.
Leticiel put her fingers to her chin in a deliberately thoughtful gesture. “Why can’t you bring him here? Don’t tell me he’s been badly wounded and you can’t call for him…or something like that.”
“Wha…? Of course not!”
Showing no concern at all for the glare Diane sent her way, Leticiel tilted her head even more. “I see. However, I’ve heard that you selfishly and unjustly punished a servant without even tending to the wounds that he got from protecting you.”
“Wh—?! Are you belittling me?!”
“Not at all. I simply want to verify if the story I’ve heard is true or not. Besides, as the duke’s daughter, I believe I have the right to see his servants.”
“Y-You…! How dare you speak to your own mother in that tone of voi—?!”
“I couldn’t care less about that.” Leticiel was starting to get tired of Diane’s arguments; it got them nowhere. “Will you bring Claud here? I need to tend to his wounds.”
Leticiel’s last comment pushed the limits of Diane’s patience. “Shut your mouth! There’s no need for me to follow the orders of an abomination like you!” Diane’s shout filled the hall as she huffed, looking down her nose at Leticiel. “Not only did Claud destroy Christa’s beloved flower, he almost injured me! Plus, he ruined my dress! In fact, I’d say he got off lightly with this punishment!”
Diane’s selfish excuses were the straw that broke the back of Leticiel’s patience; the barely-there sound cracked, echoing down the hall. Chills ran down Ruvik’s back at the sight of his mistress’s quiet anger. Diane, absorbed in her own world, was the only one in the hall who didn’t sense it.
“You’re neglecting another human for a selfish reason like that?” Leticiel’s tone lowered. As a noblewoman, Diane was supposed to protect those below her. Leticiel had known that the aristocrats in this day and age were different from the nobles a thousand years ago, but she still couldn’t pardon such foolish nonsense.
Diane rolled her eyes and sneered mockingly. “Selfish? Don’t make me laugh! It’s a huge deal for us! I suppose you don’t understand that, seeing as how you’re a noble in name only.”
“I don’t want to understand it. I simply expressed an opinion that I thought was natural as a human being. Do you not understand the pain and distress being hurt can cause?”
During the Astorian War, it was normal for the nobility to set up conscription and tax revenue systems to protect their people and take the lead when heading into battle. At the time, nobles were expected as leaders to be shields for their people. Leticiel couldn’t understand how these nobles could neglect their duties when this country had also gone through war before.
“Of course I don’t! I’m a duchess, you know! That man may have bled a little, but his wounds weren’t that bad! In fact, he should feel honored to have gotten his wounds from saving me.”
Diane was born into a good family, married into the house of a venerable duke, and was surrounded by people willing to put their lives on the line to protect her. She believed it was only natural that she be protected, which was why she didn’t care about those who got hurt defending her.
“Oh? His wounds aren’t that bad, huh?” A cold wind blew through the entrance hall. Leticiel fixed her icy gaze on Diane, a frosty smile on her lips. Diane’s scream caught in her throat when ice started to spread from Leticiel’s feet. “If they’re not that bad, why don’t you see what it feels like for yourself?”
Her eerie words seeped into Diane’s ears. At the same time, a sharp pain ran through her back. Diane writhed, experiencing pain for the first time. The pain didn’t disappear; the more time passed, the more it swelled, as if to exert its existence.
“Noooo! Ow, ow, ow, ow!” She was struck by a burning pain in her back. Even when she closed her eyes and covered her ears, the sight and voice of the girl standing in front of her was stuck in her mind as if to mock her.
It was a physical representation of the twisted rituals that had been going on in the manor for the past sixteen years. The person who ridiculed and the person who was ridiculed. They had simply switched positions.
“I’m sure Claud is in even more pain than this.” The despicable child’s figure arose from the darkness. There was not a hint of emotion in her expression. “Can you still say that his wounds aren’t that bad?”
Everyone in the hall started to panic when Diane screamed that she was in pain even though she wasn’t injured.
“My lady, what did you do to the duchess?”
“I let her experience the agony a wounded person feels. What other choice did I have when she refuses to listen to words?”
Leticiel had used a spell technique that caused hallucinations. The pain she was experiencing was what someone would feel if they had multiple light lacerations on their back, but to Diane, it felt like a horrific injury.