Ch.73Again, you? #4

Originally, the time after sunset is an extremely personal time.

Though personal, it was actually spent indulging Helena and Ellen’s whims and freely expressing our mutual desires, so it was somewhat far from complete rest.

I also had to mediate between the two women who glared at each other as if they wanted to devour one another with me in the middle.

However, tonight I couldn’t spend time as usual.

It was because of the contents of the letter sent from Killinear.

“Is it today?”

“It is today.”

“Yes, it’s today.”

We nodded, exchanging the word “today” without context.

It was because today was the day the assassin guild they mentioned would come looking for me, pretending to assassinate me.

Originally, assassination by definition targets the time when a person’s vigilance is most lowered,

in other words, it’s standard practice to strike when one is most defenseless.

That’s why assassinations typically occurred late at night when humans naturally close their eyes and fall asleep.

But this assassination was different.

Since it was a staged operation, there was no need to strictly adhere to timing.

Rather, the longer they delayed, the more tired the waiting person would become, potentially irritating them.

“So much for being a gentleman.”

Suddenly, Helena’s voice, mixed with a sigh, rang in my ears.

Though I couldn’t sense it, it seemed the assassin guild members had infiltrated the mansion and were approaching us.

Ellen seemed to know this too, silently nodding her head.

They’re still far away.

I didn’t necessarily need to become one of the continent’s strongest, but moments like this—when I sensed presences a beat too late—left me feeling deflated.

It was because both women’s intuitive abilities were exceptionally outstanding.

However, perhaps because of this, a drop of poisonous superiority occasionally raised its head.

When I saw these women hanging on my every word and following my orders completely, it sometimes gave me the illusion of being a god.

Whenever that happened, I would scold myself for being an absolute idiot and erase those arrogant thoughts.

“…Ahem. Excuse me.”

With a creaking sound, a wide glass window opened, and an unfamiliar voice was heard.

There were three men wearing dreary black robes.

The one who spoke was the man presumed to be their leader.

“Yes. Stay right there. I’d be very displeased if you entered the room with your dirty feet.”

Even though this was staged, they were still unwelcome guests.

As if to remind them of this fact, Helena furrowed her brow elegantly and blocked the men who were about to step in from the railing.

“Ah, yes! We apologize!”

The men quickly knelt on the terrace railing and apologized.

Perhaps they instinctively knew that if they disturbed the Sword Master’s mood, their necks would be the first to fly.

Or maybe it was because they knew that with a deal started for such unfavorable reasons, they couldn’t know when the thread might snap.

Anyway, Helena was the first to rise and move toward the men. I and Ellen naturally followed behind her.

“Well. Seeing your faces again isn’t pleasant at all, even though I’ve accepted this arrangement.”

“…We apologize.”

They hadn’t harmed Helena personally, but their guild was a different matter.

In the past, the assassin guild had tried to assassinate Helena, linking her with Cain Crouser who had died a violent death long ago.

It was an extremely uncomfortable relationship, and they knew it best.

I was truly surprised when I later heard that a young Helena had personally stormed an assassin guild branch.

I had felt her fierce determination when she killed Cain, but destroying an entire guild branch alone was a different matter.

Helena looked down at the trembling assassins who were completely intimidated, and only after a short sigh did she address them.

“Hoo…! Just thinking about that time makes my blood boil, but I suppose I have to let it go. Anyway, hand over your badges and daggers first.”

“Y-Yes!”

They wouldn’t kill the assassins, but they needed evidence to fake their deaths and prove they had come to kill Helena.

The moon and dagger emblems that proved guild membership, along with their daggers, served that purpose.

“Ellen. Pick them up and put them on the desk.”

“Yes, Duke.”

Though this was a clandestine meeting, it was still a formal encounter with other humans.

Ellen, understanding this, nodded obediently and collected the badges and daggers the three assassins offered, heading toward the desk.

“Hmm. Now that we’ve collected the evidence… stand up.”

“Y-Yes!”

“Lower your voice. If you raise it loudly one more time, I’ll really cut off your head.”

The assassins hurriedly stood up, terrified by her calm yet menacing words.

It felt like watching new recruits who had just entered a training camp, tense and nervous.

Some people are relaxed from the start, but most would probably look like this.

“I’m going to cut you now. I plan to draw blood to prove I killed assassins.”

“…Yes, understood.”

It would be too strange if she killed assassins without spilling a drop of blood.

Having reached that conclusion, Helena drew her sword toward the still-trembling assassins.

It had to be done, regardless of whether they were frightened or not.

Helena briefly scanned the assassins with a sharp gaze, then slashed the body of the man standing at the front.

The diagonal cut of her blade was perfectly precise without the slightest tremor.

“Ugh?!”

Though it might have appeared as a random swing, Helena’s blade had precisely cut only a few layers of the assassin’s thin skin.

Despite blood seeping from his chest, the man’s wide-eyed reaction and muttering “This actually works?” showed how precise the cut was.

Helena’s sword subsequently cut two more men, and as a result, their crimson blood stained the tip of her blade.

The terrace floor was also stained with blood splatters that Helena had deliberately scattered.

“I only cut the skin, so you won’t die. Anyway, bandage yourselves here and leave before too much blood spills everywhere.”

“Ah, understood.”

It would be strange if a supposedly dead man went around splattering blood everywhere from the balcony.

Though it was unlikely that people staying at the Crouser mansion would notice, and even if they did, they would likely keep quiet about it… it was better to leave no traces if possible.

Perhaps thinking the same, both Helena and the assassins following her orders seemed to comply willingly.

They took out bandages from their pockets, stopped the bleeding and covered their wounds, then quickly retreated.

“As expected of the Duke.”

“Why do you say that when you know better? Any Sword Expert of intermediate level could wield a blade like this.”

Helena responded indifferently to Ellen’s praise, which had somehow appeared by her side, as if not particularly pleased.

No, she even furrowed her brow elegantly as she turned her gaze toward Ellen’s smiling face.

“You’re praising me to induce my mercy, then planning to be the first to taste it, aren’t you?”

“…Tch. I wish you hadn’t figured that out.”

To show such behavior at this brief moment, and right after something not particularly pleasant had happened.

I inwardly sighed as I watched Ellen, who was subtly engaging in psychological warfare, and Helena, who shook her head after discerning her intentions.

“Both of you, stop it. Even though this is all staged, it’s still a day when blood has stained a blade. So I’d like us to sleep quietly tonight.”

“What?! That can’t be! Receiving the Grand Duke’s affection is the joy of my day…!”

“Jion! There’s no need to worry about having blood from such vermin on the blade! And it seems too solemn considering we didn’t actually kill anyone…”

Wait. Until just now, they were glaring at each other and arguing, but why are they suddenly of one mind and clinging to my arms?

It was a display of perfect synchronization that would be impossible unless they were in on it together.

I think it would be nice if the two women were always like this, but I also thought that their constant vigilance and jealousy of each other might actually be because their rhythms match so well.

If their relationship truly had cracks, they would have caused trouble at the first opportunity.

“Not tonight. If you keep insisting, I might sleep separately tonight.”

When I put on a deliberately stern expression and lowered my voice, the two women became even more flustered and didn’t know what to do.

Especially Ellen, who hadn’t been sharing my bed for long, seemed to feel the disappointment more keenly than Helena.

Of course, Helena was also panicking as if she might die right then. She was so desperate that she used formal speech, which she usually only whispered in bed.

“No, please! Anything but that! I, I was wrong…”

“Alright. I won’t sleep separately, so calm down… Ellen.”

I placed my hand on Helena’s shoulder to calm her extreme anxiety, then called Ellen’s name as she stood beside us, twisting her body in confusion.

“Lord Jion! I was wrong too, so please forgive me…!”

“I’ll forgive you, so please calm down.”

“Ah… thank you!”

Ellen bowed as if she was about to kneel and prostrate herself, but I quickly raised her up, avoiding what would have been an excessively burdensome sight.

It was both burdensome and pleasing that she liked me this much, and also somewhat amusing.

I cleared my throat to change the atmosphere and draw Ellen’s attention to my voice, then slowly opened my mouth.

“Ahem! Ellen, you said you could use water magic to grind up bodies, right?”

“Yes. We discussed that when considering how to answer questions about body disposal. Should I just make a show of it?”

“Please do.”

Ellen nodded after placing her hand over mine on her shoulder, then unleashed her spirit magic.

The wave of mana from the magic use spread widely from this point, and a large water droplet, big enough to easily fit several people, formed above Ellen’s head.

The droplet, propelled by the force of wind and the power of water itself, was spinning violently like a blender.

It was clear that anything entering it would be ground up without leaving even a bone fragment. One should definitely not touch it by mistake.

“This seems sufficient for disposal, so I’ll disperse it now.”

I couldn’t tell myself, but if Ellen said so, it must be right. When I nodded, the water droplet Ellen had created dispersed like mist.

For something that seemed capable of devouring everything in its vicinity without a trace, its end was elegantly quiet.

◎◎◎

“…Good. Well done.”

A few days later, at night.

Luke felt his mood greatly improve upon receiving the report he had been hoping for.

The guild members officially reported as deceased by Helena’s hand would be quietly laundered through criminal guilds, but that was not his concern.

The only important thing was that this had brought him to the final stage of securing justification.

He would move the moment Crouser officially lodged a protest.

At that time, his brother Rock would rage, claiming it was a false accusation, but no one would believe him.

No one would believe the excuses of a man trying to escape a momentary crisis, especially from someone who had been his greatest political enemy.

Remembering the fake evidence he had prepared, Luke raised the corners of his mouth.

“Heh. Heh heh…”

The noble faction and the royal faction. They were enemies in terms of factions, and he had joined hands with the Duke’s family, whose incompatibility with his own could be instinctively felt just by observing their behavior patterns.

That fact was both amusing and frustrating due to the unnecessary confusion it caused, but in the end, everything was going well.

Luke almost mistakenly thought that Helena had orchestrated this because she liked him.

In fact, he had momentarily entertained such thoughts.

But he realized in an instant that this thought was an absurd delusion.

Helena’s extreme love for the Grand Duke was too well-known, and hadn’t it caused an uproar in the Killinear Duchy?

Anyway, even if not friendly, the hostile tension between them would likely decrease from now on.

Luke chuckled quietly like a deranged person, thinking about what he would do after eliminating his brother Rock.

Now that he had perfectly secured the foundation of power for himself, it was time to use it. That thought pleased Luke.