Chapter 25

The carriage which I had been crammed into so crudely, shook violently. I hit my head so hard that stars danced behind my eyelids.

The road to the castle wasn’t that bad, but the soldier in charge of being the coachman (I believe he was the man who represented the admirers of Heinreid) seemed to be going pretty fast. My body, which had not yet been completely rid of the poison, was rocked around and bumped all over the place.

On the contrary, Karl was sitting across from me and had his legs crossed, carrying a nonchalant air.

“…It would’ve been a more comfortable ride if you were the one holding the reins.”

I muttered to myself as if I was doing a monologue, thinking that Karl would ignore me; but surprisingly, he responded.

“Then, in that case, the one who is currently controlling the horse will be sitting here. He holds a considerable amount of grudge against you, even if he used to be among your admirers. So, I think you will just get beaten up by a fist instead of an inanimate object.”

“Don’t say something so unpleasant with a calm face…”

Well, betraying those who believed in you would have its own repercussions, wouldn’t it? Though I didn’t have much sympathy for them, considering what they had done with Heinreid.

“By the way, how long have you been on Eberhardt’s side after all?”

He seemed willing to entertain me, so I took the chance to ask him about what I didn’t understand.

Even though we were going fast, it would still take some time for us to arrive.

“I thought you knew?”

“No… I only became certain of it yesterday.”

I didn’t think that Karl was loyal to Heinreid since the beginning, but it wasn’t until I returned from the castle and dragged my unsteady body around the estate, that I realized he was completely on the other side.

Karl had executed my order to clean up too perfectly. Even though it was still a good thing that Prison One had been vacated, the soldiers who had been thrown in there must have held a grudge against me. Yet, the fact that they didn’t ambush me when I came back was too unnatural. There was even the possibility of killing me, but… the result, as expected, was that Karl had given them an opportunity for revenge and had successfully put them together, making them his pawns in this way.

This butler was so seamless and so perfect, that I didn’t really realize who he was working for until just then.

So the things I noticed about Karl early on, were more… obvious, normal things.

“It’s difficult to say exactly when, but His Majesty ordered me to monitor you when I officially took over the job… after the death of the previous butler. Up until then, I had been nothing more than a humble servant.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes. My predecessor must have taken on that role until then. When I took over his room, I found this at the bottom of the drawer that was securely locked.”

He said something like, ‘it’s an authorization I could use to my advantage if needed,’ as he reached down his shirt and pulled out a ring, which he wore on a thin chain.

Huh, but that’s just… Gah, a signet ring?! And the fact that it shows the pattern of the amaryllis means…!

“…You were the one who wrote that letter?”

“I didn’t think my handwriting was that perfect.”

“As if I could check the handwriting of all those dense, tiny letters all at once.”

After releasing Elmer from Prison Two, Karl brought a terrifying letter from Eberhardt. It was all black, so I didn’t bother rereading it, but I did think it arrived too quickly… I guess Karl was writing on his behalf.

Normally, forging a letter from His Majesty the King, would be considered a serious crime, but he allowed this guy to do it.

Perhaps its original purpose was an emergency deterrent, in case Heinreid moved too much as he pleased, but… even so…

You’re really out of your mind, Eberhardt.

“Still, I was basically in the service of the lord. All His Majesty wanted was a regular update on how he was doing, not for me to switch sides… However,”

The ring was twirled around with his nimble fingertips and disappeared back into his lapel.

“My Master, the one I served, had disappeared. From that point on, the frequency and content of the reports changed a bit.”

Karl said so indifferently, as he nervously fixed the slight distortion on the front of his collar.

“…So, when exactly did you notice that he ‘disappeared’?”

“It’s when you didn’t immediately execute Carlos Bureau after you woke up.”

…Well, I guess that was just as expected, since he handed over the letter the day after I woke up. But wait, that was almost from the beginning, right? No matter how I looked at it, he was too quick to conclude.

“I only became certain of it, when you released Elmer Kisch from Prison Two. At that time, I asked you: if it was my lord’s decision to send him home. And you said it was.”

“…Is that it?”

“The question is also strange in and of itself, but it is wrong for you to have answered it in the first place. You only ordered me to gather information about Prison One. If I pry into matters outside of my orders, my lord will…”

“‘Who told you to ask about Prison Two? You’re asking a lot of unnecessary questions, Karl. Execution.’ is the correct response, I guess.”

After I interrupted him by taking something out from my playing cards, a voice devoid of emotion returned to me, saying, ‘You are well aware of it,’ and continued speaking right after.

“Apart from people like Craig Bauer, whose punishment is to be kept alive, the basic punishment for the rest of us should be execution. If that person had found even the slightest flaw, he would have killed me without hesitation, even if he deemed me worthy for not having shown any signs of weakness.”

“…That is to say, if I hadn’t been the way I was back then, you’d be dead by now.”

“I have always been certain that will not be the case, and as I said before, that was only a question to get confirmation. If you are not the Master but a fake, His Majesty will surely kill you. I did not want to die as collateral damage, so I had to obtain proof as soon as possible to support the decision of giving up on you.”

Even so, it would’ve been a gamble. In fact, Eberhardt seemed suspicious of that unrealistic report, and even though he felt uncomfortable, it took him a while to make the decision to give up on me.

…But well. This was still the final outcome.

“I lost. You win.”

”

”

I managed to move my hands and raised them lightly in a surrendering pose.

The carriage seemed to have approached a curve just at that moment and tilted sharply, the inertia causing my body to slide outward. When I looked at Karl, while I was stuck to the door on the other side… he was still in his original position, calm and composed. Did he have a sense of balance that defies the laws of physics? How amazing.

“But you’re quite the conversationalist, aren’t you? I thought you were like a machine at first.”

“It was a workplace where I could die if I said anything unnecessary, after all. I couldn’t be as foolish as Craig Bauer.”

“Craig? …Oh, speaking of which, you seem to be on bad terms with that guy. Why?”

Both of them would sell the other out without hesitation, after all. I wondered if they had some kind of beef with each other.

When I asked him about it, his usual facial muscles that never moved even a twitch contorted into a rare expression of annoyance.

“…That is because I have to keep on choosing what’s best for me or else I will die, yet that man could keep on being reckless and still be allowed to live. I also do not like the fact that he is prepared to die.”

“…”

The words he threw with irritation were probably directed at Craig, but… at the same time, those words pierced me to the core.

It was a situation that could lead to your immediate death if you didn’t choose the best option at the very least. It was the previous Heinreid, (me) who had created such a strange world. There was no doubt that Karl was better now than how he originally was, but… I forced him into some kind of distortion of perfection.

It was similar to the garden at the estate, perfectly arranged in a manner that not a single detail was out of place. The viewer may have felt deeply moved by it, but the person maintaining it must have been filled with so much fear.

I had somehow noticed that.

Karl didn’t seem to take much pride in his job. However, he completed his tasks perfectly. He never went against his master’s orders. But he never interfered beyond his scope.

All of this… was just a way of life that Karl had learned to protect his own life.

He was a difficult man to discern, but that principle still helped me a lot.

And Eberhardt was only interested in Heinreid after all, so I was able to predict that Karl wouldn’t even report Craig’s steady act of rescuing prisoners.

Needless to say, that tyrant was just as heinous as Heinreid; so if Karl gave him any unnecessary reports, there was a very high possibility that he would say, “Did I order you to give me information not relating to Heinreid? You’ve brought me unnecessary information. Execution.”

And, it seemed that Karl didn’t make any unnecessary (but by no means trivial) reports and didn’t betray my unsolicited trust in him. He didn’t inform anyone else after investigating the location where Angelica ran off to. Of course, it was for the sake of his own protection, but I could only thank him for that.

I was trying to be careful with my words, wondering if I should thank him, but before I could start speaking, Karl added a few more words.

“Well… Even if there is no reason, we simply don’t get along. I simply cannot tolerate him by instinct.”

When I heard that, I was dumbfounded.

His sentiment was too vulgar to have come out of a perfect butler, but it gradually sank in to me and made me burst out a laugh.

“I’m taking back my previous statement. Karl, you’re actually quite human.”

“I am one, after all.”

He raised his chin and looked down to me, as if he was saying, “You didn’t know that as well?”

What the heck. If you really tried to read his facial expressions, you can see he actually has a lot, doesn’t he?

I started to see a new side of the butler and wanted to talk to him some more.

Unfortunately, before I could bring up the next topic, the carriage stopped and the door was opened from the outside.

In accordance with the rough voice telling me to get out, I stepped out of the carriage with my body that was finally able to move properly and looked back inside once.

“Farewell, Karl. You better survive.”

“That goes without saying. Farewell, my former Master.”