Ch.5454. Count Leon’s Territory (6)

The third son of Count Lyon, he was a man notorious for his arrogance and delinquency even within the count’s domain.

Far from lacking in status, he had an abundance of noble birth and parental standing. He wasn’t an illegitimate child, nor was he particularly unloved by his parents.

Yet somehow, he had gone astray, consumed by a strange sense of inferiority. His life became marked by all manner of misconduct and deviance, until finally, his father, Count Lyon, could no longer tolerate it.

“Get out! Leave at once! Don’t ever let him back into the castle!!”

“F-Father…!!”

Despite being well into adulthood, the third son had been living in the inner castle. Now he was expelled with just a few coins in his pocket.

The money he carried amounted to 50 gold coins. While certainly a substantial sum, it was insufficient to support decades of idleness. Moreover, the third son possessed neither special skills nor physical prowess.

The only abilities he could boast of were literacy and basic arithmetic. In an era where education was the privilege of the upper class, such skills might secure decent employment, but would his unnecessarily inflated pride allow him to make such a choice?

For several days, he shut himself in the house that the count had given him out of parental affection, lamenting his situation. Eventually, the third son accepted reality… and decided to use his background to make money.

Though his parents may have quietly distanced themselves from him, he was still the lord’s son. At least within the lord’s castle, he could live with treatment close to that of a quasi-nobleman.

So he contacted his usual “friends” and approached the underworld of Count Lyon’s domain. Before long, based on his status and connections, he became a kingpin in the smuggling industry.

…Of course, in reality, he was merely a figurehead, but how could the third son, with his poor judgment, have known that?

Anyway, that day was not much different from any other for the third son.

“Ugh… I’m dying…”

Perhaps it was because he had desperately drunk himself into oblivion all night to forget yesterday’s “humiliation.” The third son clutched his throbbing head, trying to calm his churning stomach.

“Urgh…”

Having guzzled down strong, poorly made moonshine, the third son grimaced at the nausea threatening to erupt at any moment. Then suddenly, in his spinning vision, he caught sight of something that made him doubt his eyes.

“What is that…?”

Beyond, covering the floor of the shadow-darkened corridor, were countless glowing red dots. At first, he thought it might be an illusion caused by his hangover, but no matter how he looked at it, the third son couldn’t convince himself he was seeing things.

As he stared at the red lights that somehow seemed to be clearly watching him, the third son began to feel as if someone had poured cold water over his head.

What were ‘those’? What on earth could ‘they’ be? After being wrapped in eerie feelings and fear for quite some time, the third son noticed something.

They were living creatures. Living, breathing entities. And their form was none other than… rats?

‘Rats? You mean I’ve been afraid of such things?!’

The fear that had filled the third son’s heart vanished in an instant. In its place came anger—rage stemming from the fact that he, a nobleman’s son, had been frightened by mere rats.

He picked up the familiar feel of the arming sword at his bedside. For a moment, he thought it might be excessive for killing mere rats, but the third son’s anger easily overrode his reason.

‘These damned things!’

Anger toward his subordinates who had ‘dared’ to let rats swarm right outside his bedroom. Anger toward the rats that had caught his eye. His mind was completely filled with pathetic rage.

And amid the third son’s anger, a cautious question arose.

‘…But why are there so many of them?’

Once a question arises, it never truly disappears. Rather, it seemed to amplify, even expanding to other questions.

Why had his subordinates left the rats unattended? Why were all these rats just staring blankly at him? As countless questions flooded his mind, the third son suddenly caught a peculiar, fishy smell.

‘…’

A fishy smell with a metallic tang. For the third son, accustomed to violence, the familiar scent of blood instantly froze his expression.

Though he hadn’t noticed due to his hangover and the smell of alcohol, by now he couldn’t deny it. Something horrifying had happened in this space, and the culprits were likely the rats before him.

Unable to bear the goosebumps rising all over his body, the third son suddenly realized another fact through his returning sobriety.

There were many rats. Too many. Their numbers had slowly increased without him noticing, and now they seemed to exceed several hundred.

[[[…]]]

“Hii, hiiieek!!”

The situation was that over hundreds of black rats were staring at the third son with gleaming red eyes. Goosebumps covered his entire body as he collapsed, his legs giving way. He tried to move his body to escape somehow, but…

-Kuguuuuuuuuu—-!!!!

The rats that surged from within the shadows engulfed the third son faster than he could react.

The rats’ speed was terrifying. Instantly attaching themselves to his limbs and then his entire body, they devoured his tender flesh relentlessly. No organic matter was spared in this frenzied feast.

The third son’s end was miserable. As his entire body was being eaten, he couldn’t even scream before being buried under thousands of rats. His fate was not much different from that of his gang.

…All that remained were fragments of his torn nightclothes.

※ ※ ※

In the inner castle of Count Lyon’s estate, in the count’s office.

“My lord, your third son has gone missing.”

“Is that so…?”

Upon hearing his aide’s report that his third son had gone missing (in this era, “missing” was often synonymous with “dead”), the middle-aged man, Count Lyon, wore an indescribable expression.

It was too calm to be the face of a parent who had lost a child. Nor could he be seen as a nobleman pleased that a useless burden had conveniently disappeared. He was merely confirming the identity of the prime suspect in the incident.

“Gregory… Aleinos, is it.”

“Is there something problematic about that, sir?”

“…No. I just found it curious that it’s a name from old legends. A druid with the surname Aleinos, this is… I see.”

But if one thing was certain, the emotion the count felt now was annoyance.

Having long since discarded any affection for his third son, the count wasn’t particularly sad about this incident. He was merely irritated that the operation to flush out cultists using his worthless son had ended in such an ambiguous way.

“What about those people?”

“They seem to be in disarray, My Lord. The purge is mostly complete except for the lowest ranks.”

“…A blessing in disguise, I suppose.”

The reason the count hadn’t particularly interfered with his third son’s involvement in criminal organizations was that he had been using him as bait to identify and completely root out the cultists within his domain.

These cultists—vampire worshippers—had been clinging to the domain since before he became lord, gradually building their influence and even planting followers within the lord’s castle.

No one knew how far their influence extended, and with their characteristic thoroughness, there was a risk of casualties numbering in the thousands or tens of thousands if handled incorrectly.

Now that the mid-level vampire who could be considered the leader of these cultists and his subordinates had been eliminated by the druid, the incident itself could be considered largely resolved.

However, it was also true that this man, Gregory Aleinos, had unintentionally interfered with their plans.

“My lord, what shall we do about this druid, Gregory Aleinos?”

Therefore, the count’s aide asked about how to deal with this man, and the response was… quite unexpected to the count’s aide.

“Leave him be.”

“…Pardon?”

“Leave him alone. He is an Aleinos. If possible, I’d prefer not to make an enemy of him.”

“Yes, understood.”

“Good. And prepare for the cultist purge. We must sweep them all away while we have the chance.”

Of course, the aide had only momentarily questioned this. For the count’s aide, trying to resolve situations based on his own judgment was something he should never do, so he quickly stopped thinking and moved to follow orders.

The disturbance in this domain was thus quietly resolved without spreading further.