Chapter 94

Chapter 94: The fall

Chapter 94. The fall
The source that had allowed her to play the role of the lady of this house had disappeared.
“What?”
“Isn’t something weird?”
The voices of the men chatting outside pierced her ears.
They started chatting about that matter as if it were even more important than chasing the mansion’s intruder.
“I feel as if my head has cleared up.”
“It’s true. A strange sensation just hit me hard.”
“What is it? What were we involved in?”
Then, one of them inquired:
“Come to think of it, didn’t that phantom thief call Tilda a witch, that damn woman?”
“Did that witch really use some trick?”
“It could be.”
At the same time, she heard footsteps approaching this way.
“No!”
Tilda instinctively ran toward that door and bolted it.
Click-click!
“Open the door, Lady Tilda!”
“Are you alright? Please, say something!”
Bang-bang!
They pounded on the door, but Tilda didn’t answer.
The confusion soon turned into anger.
“She really was a witch, just like that phantom thief said!”
“That witch definitely cast magic!”
“Break down the door!”
Everyone who had been loyal to her shouted at the top of their lungs due to the backlash of the magic breaking.
A cornered rat, nothing more.
“I have to flee.”
But Tilda had prepared even for the worst of these scenarios.
She ran to the bathroom, threw the rope she had prepared out the window, and climbed down.
She untied and retrieved the rope so no one would know where she had fled; then she escaped the mansion and started running.
The last sound that emanated from the chaotic mansion was this:
“The head of the family has passed away!”
“That damn witch killed even the head of the family!”
Rico Dandolo’s death.
Tilda didn’t know how or why, but it didn’t matter anyway.
She was the witch who had undone the mansion’s magic, an unforgivable existence.
She had kept her life, but only for a moment.
Her life was like a candle in the wind.
“Where should I go?”
How could she survive in this, the worst of situations?
She thought and thought, but there was no future.
She was an incompetent, just as Yor had said.
She had wanted everything, but lacked the qualification to possess it.
She had even obtained power, but couldn’t protect it.
“I will survive.”
Even so, she struggles pathetically.
She ran and ran through the dark forest.
“I will survive!”
But even that thought soon dispersed like a midsummer night’s dream.
“Aah……”
The shadows hidden in the dark night twisted and revealed themselves.
Men wearing black masks approached her.
Tilda Pascal tried to resist, but ultimately lost consciousness.
— —
A road not far from the Dandolo Mansion.
Three wagons disguised as a merchant caravan waited there.
A man with a brown ponytail boarded a wagon and let out a heavy sigh.
“Phew! It wasn’t as easy as I thought.”
“Did you really have to go to all that trouble?”
Jed smiled smugly and replied:
“I had to. Otherwise, I never would have finished in a single day, you know?”
“No loose ends?”
Garnet asked with a “are you serious?” face.
“Barnie Swallow?”
“Funny name, isn’t it?”
Garnet glared at him fiercely, but Jed countered with a smile.
She sighed as if admitting defeat.
“I knew you had a uselessly skillful silver tongue, but I didn’t know you also had that kind of skill.”
“It’s our clan’s secret technique. Disguising ourselves as a circus troupe to scout the victims we’re going to pluck.”
“Don’t the troupe leaders usually do that?”
“It can’t be helped when your old man is the troupe leader.”
“I see. So that’s how it is.”
Garnet nodded.
Jed perceived a presence outside and took a look.
Men with masks were carrying a large bundle.
“And what about that lady?”
“She will be delivered to the castle. We have to move according to the contract.”
“Hmm, then we are heading to the same place. No problem, right?”
“……Not entirely none.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Wuuung, Hehe?”
The moment he heard that nasal voice, he realized.
A pink-haired woman in a bunny girl outfit, sitting across from Garnet, was chuckling with a smile.
Like someone completely drunk.
“What’s wrong, Pepe?”
“Uhehe, Hehe. I was totally amazing, right? For something I practiced for a day, I did fucking well, right? Huh? Huh?”
“……?”
“Where in the world is there a phantom thief like me? Even I think I’m fucking sexy. Look. Sexy~.”
“……Did this girl hit her head?”
Garnet nodded calmly.
Jed glanced at the back of her head and saw an arrowhead stuck deep in it.
No wonder she’s gone.
“Ahaha! Arrows came whizzing at me, I couldn’t dodge them all~. Ah~ who would’ve known one would get stuck in my head!”
“Hey, hey, don’t shake your head.”
She laughed emptily and grabbed Jed’s arm.
Garnet sighed and said:
“Verified, there’s a high probability it’s just a temporary shock, so there’s nothing to worry about. We’ll meet a healer on the way, they can extract the arrowhead there.”
“What’s wrong, young lady? Are you sexy AND smart? Wanna burn the night with this unnie? I’ll treat you right.”
Penelope grumbling like a dirty old man.
Garnet put on a stone face and spoke seriously:
“It seems a severe head injury twisted even her sexual preferences. It’s dangerous if it’s not treated quickly.”
She was always like this.
But it was hard to bring oneself to say it.
— —
Tilda opened her eyes in the darkness.
She didn’t know where she was, but one thing was certain.
That she couldn’t escape her own karma.
Who is the one carrying it out?
Merkat?
Stefan?
Herman?
Or Rico??
All sorts of thoughts crossed her mind and her breathing became erratic.
Either way, survival was unlikely.
Creak—
Soon, a door opens in the dark space.
Someone enters.
Click-clack
Visible by a single candle on the wall: neat black dress shoes.
“We have met before. Tilda Pascal.”
The voice of a young man, but carrying the weight of a middle-aged man: a strange sensation.
Tilda knew this voice well.
It was the voice that had humiliated her.
“Fe, Ferda Regent-nim……?”
He leaned back against the chair and then leaned forward.
Gray hair and blue eyes reflected in her eyes.
“Tilda Pascal.”
Ferda called her name again.
“From our first meeting I didn’t like you…… But you are beyond imagination.”
Not a shred of emotion in that voice.
That’s why it was infinitely cold, it felt like an icy blade.
“Did you think you could harass a merchant who supports the Grand Duke’s Territory and survive?”
Tilda opened her mouth.
“It wasn’t me. It was all my fiancé……”
Slap!
Ferda picked up a document and threw it on the floor.
The document contained Tilda Pascal’s background.
The information had been provided by the Black Bandana’s side.
“Keep talking.”
Tilda could only close her mouth like a clam.
But only for a moment,
“……I had no choice.”
Her mouth trembled and words poured out.
“That bastard of my father only intended to leave it to that damn Stefan from the beginning.”
She exploded with emotions she had suppressed for so long.
“It makes no sense! Why can’t I have it? I’m of the same blood! That blood……! I also contributed to the Pascal Company, so why only me……!”
The emotion she was feeling.
Ferda could understand her.
A boy named Ferda who wanted to live as a proper member of a knight’s family, but was always below the standard.
There was no warmth to feel from the family.
Ferda hated such a father.
“Even so, the fact that you harmed the Grand Duke’s Territory doesn’t change.”
“I deeply reflect on that sin. Really! I will make up for it.”
Tilda struggled while tied to the chair and slumped forward.
She hit her head against the floor and begged:
“From today on I will live a life suited to my position. Please, take pity on this girl and show mercy.”
Tilda cried, sobbing.
Ferda silently looked down at that Tilda.
“There is one thing I am curious about.”
Ferda spoke.
“If you answer that correctly, I will consider letting you go.”
“W-what are you curious about? I will answer anything.”
“Jed told me.”
“Jed……?”
“The bastard who broke into your house. And the bastard who broke the medium of the Garden Contract.”
She clenched her fist tightly and showed brief anger at that name.
Ferda continued:
“Anyway, he said. That the medium you chose was a family photo.”
What Jed saw was a family portrait with everyone drawn in it.
A childhood photo where everyone was smiling and having fun.
“Why did you choose a family photo as a medium?”
Ferda was curious about the reason.
Why would a woman desperate to devour her family choose a family photo?
He needed the answer to that contradiction.
“That is……”
Then she answered in tears:
“Because they are my beloved family, of course.”
Ferda looked down following those flowing tears.
“So that’s how it was.”
Ferda muttered.
“D-did that answer your doubt? Will you spare my life?”
“I never intended to kill you anyway. You will live.”
At the word “you will live” issued, she felt something strange.
A nuance as if he were going to take everything except her life.
“I answered, didn’t I? Why……?”
Ferda looked down at her.
“In the Mist Valley of the western continent, there is a monster called Fluriman. Do you know what it is?”
She doesn’t know.
There’s no way she would know.
“It remembers the last words of the beasts it devours. And when it is devoured in turn, it speaks with the voice of that beast. Why do you think that is?”
Ferda answered coldly:
“Because it knows that if it says that, its life will be spared. It doesn’t know what it means, but it knows its life will be spared.”
Ferda knows why she chose the family photo.
To appeal for recognition and survive until the bitter end, struggling pathetically.
“Your actions are no different from that.”
The words about contributing were lies.
The words about doing terrible things were also lies.
Everything was just lies thrown for her own survival.
“Thank you.”
Ferda told her sincerely.
“For turning yourself into trash that doesn’t even need to be remembered.”
Ferda stood up from his seat.
He disappeared from the light into the darkness.
Creak—.
Thud.
The door closes.
Alone in the space again.
The question of whether she could survive lasted only a moment.
She was not alone in this room.
Someone had been there since before Ferda entered.
Just waiting in the darkness, invisible until now.
It walked this way and revealed its identity.
Tilda doubted her own eyes.
What her two eyes saw: silver scales and a pair of horns piercing the sky.
That form alone was dignity, became wonder, led to awe.
A dragon.
“That is……”
Her pupils trembled.
“Fake.”
There’s no way a dragon like that could be in such a cramped space.
Common sense, logically, it was obvious.
She tried to hypnotize herself that way, but it was useless.
Immortal mystery that paralyzes even that reason and logic.
With each exhale, the hot wind and a low rumble that faintly vibrated in the eardrums became clearer.
Infusing Dragon Fear.
Even if she hypnotized herself thinking it was fake, the unknown source becomes truth.
And that truth becomes a fear that a simple human cannot withstand.
“Kyaaaaaak!”
A long scream echoed powerlessly.
But there was no one there to hear that scream.
— —
Garnet and the Black Bandana agents in black robes waiting outside the castle gate.
With things in the final stage, they grew impatient.
Soon, a man emerged from the castle gate.
Garnet stepped forward and greeted politely:
“I greet the Regent of Valdrova.”
“I have prepared it as requested.”
Shortly after, Tilda Pascal appeared.
She was ruined beyond belief for a beauty who had received countless suitors.
Disheveled hair, emaciated face, unfocused eyes.
Saliva flowed openly from her blank mouth.
She descended the stairs with staggering steps, not even resisting Ruri’s touch.
Alive but not living: a walking corpse.
The mind shattered by overwhelming fear, only the body remained.
Garnet expressed her gratitude politely:
“Thank you for keeping the promise.”
“Too early to give thanks.”
“Is there something else?”
“There is.”
Ferda pointed a dagger at Tilda Pascal’s throat.
Garnet was startled by the sudden hostage situation.
“What is the meaning of this, Regent-nim?”
“Isabella told me. How corporate acquisition works.”
Ferda spoke.
“Mobilizing all knowledge, search imperial laws and precedents, but no matter how you look at it, normal acquisition is difficult, she said. Even with the Black Bandana involved.”
“Are you saying we lied?”
“I am curious too. One of the two lied to me, but I can’t tell who.”
Ferda tilted his head slightly.
“So you tell me.”
“……I didn’t lie.”
“Then Isabella lied?”
Garnet bit her lip and then answered:
“That person didn’t lie either.”
“There won’t be a third time. You will have to convince me.”
“That is……”
Garnet couldn’t open her mouth easily.
She had a duty to keep secrets.
At the same time, she had to complete the mission.
Especially at a critical time like this, letting it go wasn’t easy.
Garnet knew it, and Ferda knew it too.
It was an impossible situation, but Ferda needed an answer.
Who was the client, and why did they try to drive her crazy.
“It is entirely possible.”
Instead of Garnet’s excuse or explanation, a middle-aged man’s voice was heard.
That voice continued:
“If the CEO judges that corporate management is impossible, he can delegate a new manager under his own authority. That is the rule in the Dandolo Company.”
A middle-aged voice.
A voice from among the men wearing black robes.
The voice from among them stepped forward and took off the hood.
“You are……”
But the client was truly unexpected.
That man approached and greeted Ferda thus:
“The heir of the Dandolo Family, Henri Dandolo, greets the Spouse of the Great Fire.”