A terrible sound like air escaping from a balloon accompanied the red blood that gushed out like a fountain.

Higher than twice the height of a tall man. High enough to reach the chandelier in the hall.

Delphine momentarily forgot to breathe. She felt as if her entire vision was covered in red.

“Kyaaaaaaah-!”

The scream didn’t come from her.

At Anna’s scream, the man turned his head slowly, wiping the blood from his knife with an expressionless face.

As their eyes met, his calm brown eyes widened slightly.

At that moment, Delphine absurdly recalled the day she first met Ioan.

Back then too, he had been in a pool of blood.

But even in this state of complete confusion, Delphine could tell.

Except for those brown eyes looking at her, everything had changed.

“…Oh dear.”

The man who had seemed momentarily surprised returned to his expressionless state and walked towards her with steady steps.

“No! Not our young miss! Get away, you monster!”

Anna, who had been screaming, bravely blocked Delphine’s front.

The man glanced at the old nanny and asked Delphine.

“It’s impossible even for me to spare everyone. Besides this woman, is there anyone else you absolutely must keep alive?”

Delphine didn’t know how to answer such a cruel question.

If he had asked differently about who to kill, she would have been unable to give any answer at all.

However, as the urgent situation approached, her mouth blurted out the names of precious people hurriedly on its own.

“Anna and Wilson, and Mac, Carol, Betty. And…”

“That’s enough.”

He drew the line on the death list as cruelly as a demon.

“Do not leave this hall. I’ve warned you.”

He passed by her and closed the door of the hall as he left.

Bang-.

For a while, Delphine remained frozen, not daring to even turn her head, only staring at the ceiling.

At the chandelier stained with her father’s blood.

If she lowered her gaze even slightly, she would see her father’s body, still bleeding from the severed neck.

At that thought, she simply couldn’t move.

How much time had passed like that?

Suddenly, as she gasped and trembled violently, her father’s stern voice calling “Delphine Pembrook” echoed in her mind.

Delphine Pembrook. Focus your gaze clearly.

Stand up straight wherever you are!

You have a responsibility as a noble.

Following that, her mother’s gentle voice calling “Del” also echoed.

Del, where your gaze is directed is where your path lies.

You must never forget that noble blood flows in your veins.

Delphine suddenly felt strength returning to her fingertips.

‘…That’s right, I am Delphine Pembrook.’

A noble, and the owner of this mansion.

She had a responsibility to her territory and servants.

Delphine tightly closed her eyes, and turned her body towards the door.

“No! Young miss! Absolutely not!”

Anna quickly hugged her and tried to stop her.

“I, I am not the young miss. I am Delphine Pembrook.”

Her voice trembled involuntarily.

Delphine bit her lower lip until it bled and this time murmured in a slightly clearer voice.

“I am Delphine Pembrook.”

That alone was reason enough to courageously go out this door.

She struggled to open the velvet-decorated hall door.

Because of her hands shaking violently, drenched in cold sweat, she kept losing grip on the handle, making it difficult to open the door.

After several attempts, she finally turned the handle and opened the door.

And at that moment.

Delphine gasped at the horrific scene that unfolded before her eyes.

The floor, walls, and ceiling of the corridor were all covered in blood.

Along with the sound of her gasp at the hellish scene, the sound of Anna fainting and collapsing to the floor was heard.

In one corner of the corridor, Wilson was crouched and trembling violently.

‘How long did I hesitate in the hall?’

It didn’t seem like it had been long, but her sense of time had disappeared.

Even the brief moment when she had locked eyes with Ioan felt like an eternity.

“Wi, Wilson. Wilson.”

As Delphine approached unsteadily and shook him violently, Wilson screamed like a person being tortured.

“Save me! P-please just spare me!”

“Wilson! Get a hold of yourself! Where, where did Ioan go?”

“That demon? I don’t know. I don’t know! Don’t ask me, please…”

Wilson’s senses simply wouldn’t return.

Delphine bit her lip hard enough to draw blood.

As she inhaled the strong smell of blood that had hit her as soon as she opened the door, she felt like she might go mad too.

She wanted to faint instead.

‘No, Delphine Pembrook. Can’t you get a grip?’

Delphine harshly whipped herself, wanting to sit down and cry loudly, and tore her dress sleeve with her teeth to cover her nose.

Not much time could have passed.

He must still be in this mansion.

“Ioan! Come out! Is anyone there?”

It felt like walking through hell.

Delphine passed by the abundant blood and fallen corpses, dragging the survivors out of the mansion.

In total, there were only six.

Herself and Wilson, and the four loyal maids whose names she had called out.

That man was not in the mansion.

At that moment, a bloodstained pocket watch fell from Wilson’s grasp as he lost his mind and clutched his head.

4:44.

Seeing that, Delphine realized that only 10 minutes had passed since she left her room.

“It can’t be…”

There were over seventy people in the mansion.

In this vast mansion, he killed all those people and disappeared so quickly?

Delphine sat down on the ground and stared blankly at the huge mansion.

The Pembrook mansion that had turned into hell in an instant.

Shortly after she sat there in a daze, a messenger from the Imperial Palace arrived before her.

He said that Count Pembrook had been summarily executed by the Emperor’s special envoy on charges of complicity in treason.

Then what about herself?

As the daughter of a traitor, she too should rightfully die.

“The disposal of this mansion and you has been handed over to Lord Pryde.”

Lord? Lord Pryde?

“…What do you mean by lord?”

“Didn’t Lord Pryde receive the title of Marquis from His Majesty the Emperor a year ago?”

A year ago?

What is this nonsense? How could a slave become a marquis in this class-based society?

Even if that were true, there’s no way she wouldn’t have known about it.

She looked up at the man with a face distorted by confusion and pain, but the Emperor’s messenger was expressionless like a doll.

He looked down at her with an indifferent face and said.

“Lord Pryde has demanded marriage to you as a reward for suppressing this rebellion. The wedding is in two days.”

A definitive and casual tone.

As if he were informing her of a restaurant reservation.

That heartlessness made her laugh ironically.

Delphine threw her head back, looked at the sky, and burst into laughter like a madwoman.

Where else could you find such a comedy?

Lord Pryde?

That surname was something she had given him in the past.

To that very slave who had cut off her father’s head.

The sound of an animal crying came from somewhere.

Delphine, who was walking in the garden, suddenly raised her head.

At that time, she was twelve years old, and she was in a very good mood thanks to her new pink silk dress.

But from somewhere beyond the garden, a low howling sound kept coming.

A dog? A cow? Definitely not a cat.

Delphine, who had always been unable to resist her curiosity since she was young, approached the direction of the sound even though she thought it was scary.

It was a sound coming from the stable.

Then is that a horse? But horses don’t cry like that.

The young girl carefully held up the hem of her new dress to avoid getting mud or horse dung on it as she headed towards the stable.

And there she discovered a very unexpected person.

In the empty stable without a single horse, her father was standing.

“Father…?”

Delphine tilted her head.

Her father was fiercely whipping a creature crawling on the stable floor.

Is that a chicken?

Oddly enough, that’s what Delphine thought at the time.

She had once accidentally seen the cook killing a chicken.

The chicken with all its feathers plucked had disgustingly bumpy white skin.

They said they also beat it vigorously with a stick to make the meat tender.

But it’s too big for a chicken. Then a turkey?

At that moment, as it crawled forward trying to avoid her father’s beating, Delphine could finally realize it was a person by seeing those long, white arms and legs.

In that instant, all the blood in her body froze cold.

Its back skin was so tattered that you couldn’t tell it was human skin, and the dirty blond hair was caked with blood, so she couldn’t recognize it was a person at first.

Delphine’s heart beat rapidly and her head spun.

Even in this situation, her two hands that were still holding onto her dress hem were shaking violently.

At that moment, her father, whose face had turned bright red and was even sweating profusely as he whipped, noticed her in the doorway.

“What on earth are you doing here!”

She flinched greatly at the thunderous shout, but Delphine couldn’t look at her father.

Because that thing, no, that… person raised its head as the beating stopped.

Their brown eyes met.

Though she couldn’t gauge his size as he was curled up, his face looked like that of a boy three or four years older than her.

The boy’s brown eyes traveled from her neatly braided red hair to her pink silk dress, and down to the shiny toe of her brown shoes.

From a pit of mud and horse dung, hay fragments that horses eat, and his own blood mixed in.

The boy was looking up at the dazzlingly shining figure of the girl.