Chapter 29
By coincidence, Aria had bumped into someone, scattering some documents—and of course, all the crucial details were written on them.
They contained the amended bill and a clear explanation of how it would benefit the retainers. It was all neatly laid out for them.
Not even a secretary who had studied legal codes from childhood could easily notice the differences.
And yet, of all people, she read it!
“She picked up the fallen papers and somehow understood the whole situation? And she’s only ten years old? Impossible!”
But Aria didn’t stop there.
“Bribery, false establishment of institutions and embezzlement, tax evasion, assault on women… I could go on. Was this how you intended to defile the Valentine family?”
She didn’t raise her voice. She didn’t make a scene. Her tone was flat, devoid of emotion, as if passing a death sentence.
“How dare you.”
Damn it.
The secretary had carefully written everything out for the ignorant retainers who knew nothing about law—and in doing so, exposed all the corruption.
It was a ridiculous mistake.
“Is it true?”
“……”
“I asked if it’s true, Count.”
Tristan, who had been watching Aria with a peculiar gaze, asked the question.
Lloyd silently flicked his sword out of its scabbard and back in, letting it click.
“Why only me?!”
All the retainers’ eyes turned to Count Beaufort, who was holding the relic as their representative.
“How did it come to this?”
The Count desperately glanced around, as if trying to pass the bomb to someone else.
But the retainers simultaneously avoided his gaze, pretending to be disinterested.
Faced with their unhesitating betrayal, Beaufort ground his teeth.
He had no choice but to answer the inevitable question once it had been asked by the Duke.
From the moment the relic appeared, the answer had been decided.
“A-actually… Baron Stewart, isn’t your crime the greatest?”
The Count handed the relic to the secretary beside him as if passing off responsibility.
“Eh? I just followed your orders, Count! Didn’t you promise me the position of enforcer if I did this?”
“Oh, when did I ever? Don’t make up things!”
But the relic did not react at all—proof that the secretary’s words were true.
“They’re digging my grave so thoroughly.”
Aria watched with a tsk as the retainers tried to pass the blame and ended up destroying themselves.
“You’ve tampered with the law, so you know better.”
Tristan, observing the retainers’ futile struggles, leisurely rose from his seat.
Then one of the knights drew his sword and spoke.
“You are all to be executed immediately.”
Aria flinched instinctively.
It was the same deadly aura she had felt before.
The mountains of Ingol had first introduced her to Tristan. And then when Lloyd had burst into the palace.
It was a presence that made her feel utterly insignificant, a creature so small it seemed meaningless before it.
“….”
Like the Duke, Lloyd, who had also drawn his sword, stopped his action and fixed his gaze on Aria.
He had read her unease.
With a short exhale, he raised his hand to block her eyes.
At the same time, the sound of a blade slicing through the air reached her ears.
It wasn’t a sharp cutting sound but rather a dull, crushing one.
“Arrgh! Aaah!”
“Y-your Highness, please show mercy… ugh, aaah!”
One by one, the retainers’ screams echoed and then stopped.
Breath fading.
The metallic scent of blood.
Vincent suddenly stepped next to Aria, covering her ears with both hands.
“…Huh?”
Caught between the two boys, her eyes and ears blocked, Aria froze.
Count Beaufort’s final desperate words echoed through the basement.
“Your Highness, please hear me out! I came here because I know an enormous secret.”
It was now do-or-die.
The Count could not die alone.
Now that things had reached this point, he intended, as he originally planned, to pull out the second prince as well.
“Do you know why the second young master was in the feeding pit? Because he is the son of a prostitute!”
“His origins don’t matter,” she thought he might say.
But could he still claim it didn’t matter?
Pausing briefly, the Count smiled knowingly and met Vincent’s eyes.
Aria felt the boy’s hands, covering her ears, tremble slightly. It revealed his inner disturbance.
Beaufort scoffed inwardly, then spoke with an even more dramatic tone.
“He is the son of a feeder!”
This was what Vincent had tried to hide until now.
Being the son of a feeder was such a shameful secret that it was better to be exiled than revealed.
Vincent’s biological mother came from the sewers and had voluntarily cut her tongue and become food for the sewer rats.
But Vincent had escaped before her tongue was cut and made his way to the Valentine estate.
Even though he was a distant relative of the Valentine family, he was adopted.
“Everyone knows that the offspring of feeders inevitably become feeders. Not a single exception!”
Even if traces were thoroughly erased, a long tail would still be traced.
The Count had overheard this at the brothel.
A noble boy with angelic blonde hair and blue eyes had frequently entered the feeder pits of the sewers.
The rumor spread, and the Count immediately recognized its significance.
“Did you know the young master has been entering the sewers for five years? To secretly rescue his mother from the pit!”
Vincent had always been a thorn in Beaufort’s side, not just now.
“Damn it… someone married a pretentious royal and yet…”
Beaufort came from a long line of nobles. He had even married a favored niece of the former emperor, binding himself to the royal family.
Yet after the old emperor’s death, he was completely sidelined in politics.
Meanwhile, Vincent, because of a distant Valentine bloodline, was adopted, hailed as a genius, and praised endlessly.
“Why does blue blood exist for the nobles? It’s because they are chosen by God!”
And yet Beaufort and his family lived a life worse than the son of a sewer feeder?
It was absurd.
“Trying to rescue a feeder? Do you think he’d kill his own mother to take her away? He would do anything to stay close to her!”
Even poorly covering her ears, Aria could hear everything.
“If we leave this as it is, it will cause grave consequences! Even if he seems fine, he may already be brainwashed—or even if he isn’t now, he could be at any moment by his mother!”
Aria felt Vincent’s strength gradually relax.
So she placed her hand over his, firmly holding it.
As if to say: it doesn’t matter.
As if to say: you have nothing to fear.
His hands trembled slightly, both the ones covering his eyes and ears.
“Origins do not matter.”
At that moment, Tristan echoed her thoughts.
“You know, I’ve never heard anyone say that three times in a row.”
Then, the sharp metallic sound of something being sliced through the air followed.
“I killed them all.”
Breath completely ceased.
The floor was soaked in crimson.
Now, only the three Valentine men, the Black Falcon knights, and the unconscious Aria and feeder remained in the basement.
“Kids, get out.”
With Tristan’s word, they were chased out of the basement.
The Black Falcons respectfully escorted the two young masters and the lady to the hall, bowing before leaving.
“….”
Lloyd was briefly dumbfounded.
Why was he also grouped as a “kid” and forced out?
“This is a matter of major family concern.”
He muttered to himself, wondering if he should storm back in.
Then his gaze caught Aria.
He relaxed his clenched mouth slightly.
“…?”
What was that just now…?
He traced his loosened lips, looking confused.
Aria, noticing his gaze, sent him a curious look.
He spoke flatly.
“I did as you said.”
The boy pulled out the card Aria had given him so abruptly.
It read:
[Is the authority you gave me as Duke still valid?]
Upon seeing the card for the first time, Lloyd thought, “Of course.”
No one in this castle would ever refuse absolute power—and he would never have walked away without using it once.
He assumed she had come back only after the power had been taken.
“Yes. It’s valid.”
Lloyd twisted his mouth into a crooked smile as he replied.
He wondered what she would do with the authority granted by the Duke.
Then…
[Then do as I say.]
Aria suddenly gave him a command.
It was the most astonishing thing Lloyd had ever experienced in his life.
To use the Duke’s authority to command the Duke himself.
It was so absurd that he followed her instructions—but he never expected this outcome.
He had expected something closer to human nature.
“Ugly, selfish human nature.”
Though it was completely off his expectations…
“It’s awkward to say, but this isn’t exactly what I intended to grant authority for.”
Thanks to this, Vincent could avoid being falsely accused and expelled, and the corrupt retainers could be dealt with at once.
It was for the best, even if not the outcome Lloyd had imagined.
