“Rain?”

Frost stiffened his expression and slowly lowered his head.

The Angelus Knight Commander kneeling before him bowed his head, unable to meet his eyes.

“We checked Her Highness Rain’s chambers and reception room first when the mansion was attacked… but she wasn’t there. It seems… she went out.”

Frost’s gaze lingered on Leo’s arm, slashed by a sword.

“It seems? So you didn’t directly see her going out?”

Though the sharp energy that wasn’t contained seemed fierce enough to burrow into the flesh of the large kneeling knight, it didn’t miss the blood dripping from the untreated wound of his subordinate.

“I ordered you not to take your eyes off Rain for even a moment. How long has it been since the carriage attack?”

Leo slammed his forehead to the ground. Knowing how superhuman his lord’s efforts were to suppress his anger, he couldn’t raise his face.

“I’m sorry, Your Highness…!”

The head maid Rosalinne rushed over to speak up for Leo.

“It’s not Commander Leo’s fault. It’s my fault.”

The head maid, who had been impeccably neat without a hair out of place, now had hands covered in blisters from burns sustained while rescuing servants engulfed in flames. Her dress, burned in places, suggested how urgent the situation had been.

“After confirming that she had taken her tonic, saying she felt a cold coming on, I left my post. I thought a medicinal tea good for colds would be beneficial, so I was preparing it…”

Frost clenched his fist so tightly that his knuckles stood out.

He thought it fortunate that Yuriella wasn’t in the mansion and thus avoided danger. Seeing that Popo wasn’t visible, it seemed she had accompanied his wife, so there shouldn’t be much risk.

Frost tried to suppress the rising anxiety as he turned towards the mansion.

Following behind him, Leo gave a brief report.

“Their advance party hid in a food delivery wagon to infiltrate. First… there was an explosion sound from inside the mansion. While we were busy putting out the fires, a sudden attack occurred.”

A groan escaped Frost’s lips as he entered the mansion.

Not only the furniture and curtains on the first floor, but even the paintings decorating the walls were burned or melted beyond recognition. The chandeliers from the lobby ceiling had fallen and shattered, their fragments scattered messily across the floor.

Servants who weren’t injured by the flames were bustling about, carrying medicine and bandages to the temporary infirmary set up in the second floor banquet hall.

Entering the infirmary, Frost bit his lip until it bled.

The screams of knights and servants receiving emergency treatment and the smell of blood were overwhelming.

“Ugh…!”

“It hurts… It hurts so much…”

The head butler Alexis, who hadn’t had time to wipe the soot from his face, rushed over to report on the infirmary situation.

“There are a total of 17 fatalities, which we’ve temporarily laid to rest in the basement. Seven Angelus knights, ten mansion servants… There are 32 injured in total.”

Leo, having lost cherished knights, placed his hand on his sword as his dark gray eyes flashed.

“We can’t let this slide. Not without going mad! You absolutely must not forgive those who dared commit such atrocities in broad daylight!”

His face looked ready to rush to the imperial palace and behead the emperor or empress dowager at a moment’s notice.

“Don’t act rashly, Leo.”

Leo clenched his fist and growled, filled with resentment.

“Theo and Gemino are dead…! Eskil lost his right arm. The maid Rose who burned to death was only sixteen years old…!”

Why do we always have to endure, he asked.

They kill us and wound us indiscriminately!

Why is it always us, the victims, who have to find and prove their wrongdoings?

The knight commander, who had always silently obeyed his lord’s orders, questioned with reddened eyes.

“Shall we just sweep them all away?”

The Grand Duke answered through gritted teeth, his eyes as red as Leo’s.

“Should we burn down Swan Palace to catch the monsters, and blow up the Imperial Palace?”

The pain of his people dying and being injured never lessened no matter how many times he experienced it.

“Or should we turn the wide eastern plains and the capital into mountains of corpses and rivers of blood like Colina Rosa, drying up the Emperor and Empress Dowager?”

“I’m saying this because it’s too unfair. Because it’s too frustrating.”

Leo bowed his head deeply, wiping away the thick tears flowing down his face with the back of his uninjured hand. His sturdy shoulders shook.

Leo knows too.

That his lord is now swallowing back even more pitiful tears than himself. That he is trying hard to suppress his desire for revenge while biting the inside of his mouth until it bleeds.

“I will not take the path of becoming a monster to catch monsters.”

Frost raised his piercingly blue eyes that had been lingering on the injured to look directly at Leo.

“The empire I will build together with His Highness Lewis, the new path I will pave for him, must not be a path stained with the unjust tears and blood of innocent people.”

A fair world where the victim doesn’t have to struggle to prove the wrongdoing of the perpetrator.

A country where laws and systems are in place so that not even the emperor or privileged nobles are free from crime and punishment.

A society where, regardless of status, talented individuals with ability are given equal opportunities to showcase their talents.

That was the blueprint for the new empire he envisioned.

There were times when he had wavered momentarily.

When he heard the news that Solas Moretti had disappeared like dew on the execution ground, Frost found it difficult to contain his burning desire for revenge.

He wanted to sweep everything away.

Instead of taking the slow and difficult path, he wanted to kill the emperor who killed Solas and the empress dowager who assassinated his parents, and dye all of the east, their lifeline, with blood and dry it up.

They had mercilessly slaughtered his land and people. What was there to hesitate about in returning what they had received?

With a life that could end at any unknown time, if he took them down on his final journey, wouldn’t it rather be a great gift and blessing for those left behind to continue living?

What held Frost back then was Lewis’s upright and kind heart. It was a praiseworthy thought that considered others’ pain over his own grudges.

If it weren’t for Lewis, a bloodstorm would have already blown through the capital and the east.

And his northern lands too would have shed countless blood, caught in an irreversible war for the sin of having a lord blinded by vengeance.

“Where are they? Those who dared attack my house in broad daylight without fear.”

“The attackers are all dead… though I’m not sure if ‘dead’ is the right word.”

At Leo’s grim reply, one of Frost’s eyebrows raised.

“What do you mean?”

Just then, a knight rushed in urgently. He was one of those who had been collecting the bodies of the intruders who attacked the mansion.

“Your Highness! There’s still one alive!”

Suppressing the urge to rush out and search for his wife, Frost followed the knight down to an empty storehouse next to the wine cellar in the basement of the mansion.

The stench was noticeable even before opening the door, and upon entering the storehouse, it became nauseatingly horrific.

The bodies of the intruders who had detonated unidentified explosives in the Grand Duke’s mansion and ruthlessly cut down knights and servants were laid out in a row on one side.

One attacker who was still breathing was struggling, tied to a chair by all four limbs.

As Frost approached, a senior knight swiftly removed the intruder’s hood and cloak. The stench of long-decayed corpses permeated the air.

Frost grabbed the intruder’s chin and lifted it up, his fingers sinking into the rotting jaw of the foul-smelling intruder with a squelch.

The intruder’s murky gray eyes seemed to have lost the vitality of the living long ago, and the flesh around the crushed nose and cheekbones was rotting and melting away in a yellowish hue.

“This is a corpse that died long ago.”

Frost tossed the intruder aside and removed his gloves, sticky with clinging flesh.

The body that had lost its mind rolled from the chair to the floor, letting out an eerie groan of “Ugh” before ceasing even the slightest movement, becoming nothing more than a lump of rotten flesh.

Frost lifted the sheets covering the intruders one by one, checking their condition.

They were all decayed corpses that had reached the end of their lives even before coming here.

They were the same as the assassins who had attacked Yuriella’s carriage last time.

“Didn’t you say that those who attacked Rain’s carriage weren’t from the imperial assassination guild?”

Frost turned to Leo and asked.

Leo, holding his nose against the stench, nodded with a frown.

“Yes. According to our investigation, the assassination guild of the Huturui Kingdom has recently hired black magicians, specializing in necromancy that can reanimate corpses.”

“Huturui? The barbarian country beyond the eastern border?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“They must be connected to the Empress Dowager.”

“I’ll send people to Huturui to find the connection between that assassination guild and the Empress Dowager.”

“Keep in mind the possibility that Duke Figuera and the Huturui Kingdom have joined hands in your investigation. Report to me immediately if anything comes up.”

“Yes. But… what should we do with those?”

Leo pointed at the corpse mercenaries.

“Call magicians and priests to examine them. Send one corpse separately to the magic tower, and explain the situation here in detail.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Frost gritted his teeth as he looked at the corpse mercenaries.

He vowed never to forgive these monsters who trampled even the peace of the dead for their own use.

To ensure that the suffering these people endured is not repeated, he will, without fail, sweep them away.

*

Below the eastern outer wall of the imperial palace.

Through a hidden dog hole, a saddlebag was tossed to the inside of the palace. And then.

“Oof.”

A young man poked his head out and looked around.

The young man, who had been struggling to squeeze through the narrow dog hole, finally managed to pull his body out.

Standing up and dusting off the dirt on his clothes, the young man looked back at the dog hole and shrugged.

“I must be thinner than Yuriella?”

The young man alternately looked at his body and the dog hole, then started to quickly change into a servant’s uniform he took out from the bag.

[Yuriella. Have you finished changing?]

Popo’s voice came through the dog hole.

“Yes. I’m all changed.”

Popo crawled out of the dog hole.

The young man spun around in amazement and exclaimed.

“How is it, Popo? I don’t look like myself at all, right? The Archmage is truly a genius. To be able to make someone look so completely different with just a ring. Even my voice sounds like a real man’s voice, doesn’t it?”

Before the Archmage returned to the magic tower to treat the coma patients, Yuriella had asked him privately if he could make a illusionary magic item.

Yuriella’s eyes had widened as she watched Ricarion engrave illusion magic onto a jeweled ring right there.

She knew his work would naturally be excellent, but this was truly beyond expectations.

“Let’s go, Popo.”

Popo floated up and slipped into the pocket of Yuriella’s uniform. Popo, with just its head poking out, sighed and said.

[The barrier of black magic is denser from here to Swan Palace, so you must be careful.]

“Okay. I’ll trust you completely, so guide me well.”

[If Frost finds out you came to the palace alone, he’ll try to freeze me to death.]

“That’s why I came secretly. If we sneak in, no one will know. The Grand Duke went to the noble council meeting with His Highness Lewis today, so he’ll be very busy.”

[I still feel uneasy. If you’re in danger here, I can’t step in.]

“Popo, just be my guide. I’ll handle the rest myself.”

Yuriella confidently patted her chest.

“I was the commander of the Imperial Knights responsible for the Emperor’s safety. I know all the secret passages unknown even to the Emperor or Empress Dowager. Plus, I’m perfectly disguised thanks to the Archmage, so absolutely nothing will go wrong.”

Popo nodded slightly. It would be faster to finish the task and return than to try to persuade this stubborn person.

[Then as promised, you’ll only scout Helena and not do anything else?]

“I got it. Stop nagging.”

Following Popo’s instructions, Yuriella quickly arrived at Swan Palace, avoiding the black magic barriers.

Lady Helena was serving tea to the Empress Dowager along with other maids.

The wives and young ladies of the major eastern families who accompanied the noble council meeting seemed to be today’s invited guests.

“It looks like the gathering has just started, so it’ll take a while? I need to catch Helena when she’s alone.”

Yuriella frowned.

Popo, who had been fidgeting in her pocket, stuck its face out and clicked its tongue in dismay.

[It is not so.]

“What do you mean it’s not? Do you think the noble ladies just have one cup of tea and leave when they gather? They drink at least three cups, taste all the snacks prepared by the host, and compliment them before it’s over.”

[That’s not what I mean. It’s not Lady Helena.]

“Huh?”

[Helena is not a small fragment of the corrupted god.]

“She’s not?”

[Absolutely not.]

“Not even a speck?”

[Definitely not.]

“What? You said she was before, but now you say she’s not.”

[I find it strange too. I clearly felt the pitch-black fragment of the god when you greeted that child, but why can’t I feel it at all now?]

Yuriella’s red eyes glinted as she furrowed her brow in deep thought.

“It’s a different person? The one who will become the master of the demon sword…”

The one who was with Helena at that time was Justin Della Ponti.

“Could it be… the Emperor?”