I Became The Sword Of The Sword-Obsessed Male Lead (18 Chapters Left to Complete) - Chapter 4

The Delgado family’s Elder Council was composed of several branches descended from the Delgado lineage.

True to its long and storied history, the Chronotia Empire housed numerous cadet branches originating from Delgado.

The elders of each branch frequently convened at the Duke Delgado’s estate for council meetings, whose influence was quite substantial—

so much so that they intervened in the succession of the vacant dukedom after the former Duke Delgado perished in war.

This situation was partly due to the late Duke Delgado himself, who had departed without clearly designating a proper heir.

“You’ve arrived.”

An elderly butler in a black three-piece suit with a bow tie bowed deeply in greeting.

“Where are the elders?”

“They’ve already arrived. They seem displeased about being summoned so late in the evening.”

“Considering how much money they’ve quietly siphoned from the Delgado estate, they shouldn’t dare complain.”

Dietrich snapped coldly and halted directly before the large door ahead.

Beside him, the elderly butler added quietly, as Dietrich made no move to enter immediately.

“The Duchess has just arrived. She’s inside.”

Dietrich immediately clenched his fist tightly, then slowly released it.

The current Duchess of House Delgado—

She was the mother of his twelve-years-younger half-brother and the benevolent mistress of the Delgado estate.

“…She’s certainly diligent.”

She was probably going mad with curiosity about Dietrich’s abrupt summoning of the Elder Council.

‘Thanks to “Harpe,” whom I happened to find today, this tiresome succession dispute should finally come to an end.’

A cool evening breeze drifted in through the open corridor windows.

“His Highness Prince Dietrich Delgado has arrived.”

The attendant standing by the door flung it wide open.

Every gaze in the Elder Council, seated in a circle around a central table, instantly fixed upon him.

Their stares were far from friendly.

Yet Dietrich showed no sign of intimidation.

As always, he strode into the meeting room with confidence and composure, and the attendant outside shut the door firmly behind him with a thud.

[This is the timeline separator]

“I wonder if Dietrich is handling things well?”

Inside an empty room—

So stark and barren that I briefly questioned whether this was even meant to be a place for rest or sleep—I sat dazedly on his bed.

He must have summoned the Elder Council as soon as he found me, eager to resolve the dukedom succession issue as quickly as possible.

But it wouldn’t be that easy.

If the succession matter could be settled so effortlessly, Dietrich wouldn’t have suffered so deeply in the original story.

‘Besides, the Duchess will surely throw a wrench in everything.’

I slowly recalled the Duchess as depicted in the original novel.

With ample time on my hands and boredom setting in, revisiting the original story wasn’t a bad idea.

Leriana Delgado was said to possess extraordinary beauty.

Though she was a commoner, her dazzling looks caught the eye of Duke Delgado.

On his return from war, he chanced upon her, and the two fell deeply in love, vowing eternal devotion—Leriana thus naturally entered the Delgado estate.

At that time, Kate, the duke’s official wife, was already present, but the duke had no qualms about it.

What returned to Kate—who had waited endlessly for her husband from war—was not the kind and warm man she remembered, but a stranger holding another woman in his arms.

Though young at the time, Dietrich couldn’t have been oblivious to this reality:

that he and his mother had already fallen out of his father’s favor.

Leriana soon became pregnant, ushering House Delgado into a new era.

There were two sons now: Dietrich, Kate’s son, and Julian, Leriana’s.

Though Julian was too young to be a viable heir, it was clear who held the duke’s affection.

Around that time, Dietrich’s mother was expelled from the Delgado estate.

Though Kate was the youngest daughter of a count’s house, the novel never explained in detail how she was driven out without protest.

That part was merely a brief mention, meant only to illustrate how lonely Dietrich’s upbringing had been.

Thus, Dietrich grew up alone in the vast estate, deprived of his father’s love.

After Duke Delgado fell in battle, a dispute arose over who should inherit the dukedom.

This was the very beginning of the novel.

Even though Dietrich brought Harpe, the ancestral sword of Delgado, the Elder Council still couldn’t reach a decision.

Undoubtedly, the influence of the Duchess—the de facto power behind House Delgado—had swayed them.

And then…

‘What did Dietrich end up doing with Harpe?’

Lost in thought for a moment, I jumped at the sudden sound of the door swinging open and turned my head.

Standing there was Dietrich, radiating such a fierce, icy aura that it seemed to freeze the very air around him.

His teal-tinged blue eyes were filled with a mixture of anger and irritation.

One wrong word now, and I’d be reduced to dust.

For a brief moment I wanted to ask how things went, but I quickly decided to stay silent and merely observed him, holding my breath.

He looked furious—but his face remained, as always, devastatingly handsome.

Whom did he take after?

Was Duke Delgado really that handsome too?

Or perhaps his mother had been a renowned beauty?

I needed some pointless thoughts like these just to ignore his murderous glare.

But my act of nonchalance didn’t last long.

“…Hah.”

Dietrich glanced down at Harpe, carelessly lying on the bed, and let out a short sigh.

Had he brought the sword to the meeting, he might have just cut down all those old fools.

Roughly sweeping back his silver-gray hair, he picked up Harpe.

He then glanced sideways at me, sitting quietly nearby, and muttered under his breath,

“You went and picked up a useless sword.”

That bastard—he was definitely talking about me!

It was obvious at a glance that things hadn’t gone according to his plan.

[Now that you’ve brought Harpe, we can finally decide on the dukedom succession. It’s time to make a proper decision.] […Oh. I’m sorry, Your Highness, but although you did retrieve the ancestral blade, only the one who can truly wield it may become the true head of House Delgado.]

Recalling the words of one of the Elder Council nobles, Dietrich murmured,

“Maybe I should just kill all those old geezers.”

His lightly furrowed brows twitched with unmistakable frustration.

“I anticipated this outcome, but it’s still infuriating.”

As expected, the Elder Council had postponed the succession decision.

I didn’t even need to ask—I could see exactly how it went.

“Didn’t go well?”

Oops.

At those words, his already tense expression tightened further, his eye twitching slightly.

“Hah! You should’ve just brought me to the meeting! Why didn’t you take me?”

I hurriedly added the second part to smooth things over, but it seemed to have no effect.

Dietrich looked at me with chillingly cold eyes and said,

“It wouldn’t have mattered even if you’d come. They’d have found every excuse imaginable to delay the decision, even with the sword right in front of them.”

I knew that well enough.

The Elder Council didn’t want Dietrich to inherit the dukedom.

Showing Harpe to them was a waste—and worse, the Duchess, who coveted every valuable belonging of House Delgado, might have set her sights on it.

Fuming over the council’s indecisiveness, he raised the sword he held in his hand.

Harpe, gripped in his grasp, exuded a majestic presence—as if it had always belonged to him.

A beautiful sword in the hand of a beautiful man.

Unlike ordinary swords, a deep green gemstone was embedded in the center of its scabbard.

While wealthy nobles sometimes adorned decorative swords with gemstones, real swordsmen never committed such foolishness.

Embedding gems into swords—items frequently replaced and never carefully preserved—was simply a waste of money.

Thus, Harpe was clearly an exceptionally rare and precious blade.

Indeed, it was the ancestral sword of House Delgado, the empire’s finest house of swordsmen.

A treasure anyone would covet.

Apparently, not this infuriating male lead.

“I don’t need this damn sword anymore.”

With a careless toss, Dietrich dropped Harpe onto the floor and gave me a dismissive nod.

“Go back to the cave where you originally were.”

“What? What did you say?”

What kind of absurdity was this!

Thanks to Dietrich’s ever-shifting moods, life was never dull.

Actually, I wished it were a bit duller.

I stared up at him with a dumbfounded expression and cried out,

“What do you mean ‘go back’ all of a sudden? And I don’t even know where that cave is!”

“Then I’ll just sell it. It’ll be troublesome if the Duchess finds out about it. Somewhere you’ll never see again.”

Sell it? Sell what?!

His casual talk of selling the family’s ancestral sword jolted me wide awake.

Naturally, I felt a surge of panic.

‘He’s already made up his mind.’

Judging by how intently he was staring at the sword, he truly seemed to be pondering how to dispose of it.

No matter how you looked at it, selling the family’s ancestral blade was just…

Though we’d only met a few hours ago, I was already exhausted by Dietrich’s unpredictable temperament.

“Sell it? I’m still a treasure of House Delgado, you know…”

“So what if you’re a treasure? You’re no help with the dukedom succession. Besides, I don’t need some fancy sword to wield a blade perfectly well.”

Annoyingly, Dietrich wasn’t wrong about anything.

Even with Harpe, the Elder Council remained lukewarm, and Dietrich could still become duke without it.

But I was different.

Without Dietrich, I might be abandoned in that cold cave, bound there for the rest of my life!

“Ah, since it’s useless anyway, the best option is probably to smash it and throw it away.”

When he went so far as to suggest destroying the ancestral blade, I shouted out in horror,

“You’ll die if you do that!”

“…Hah.”

Heaving a sigh, he turned his head slightly and gave a dry, mocking laugh, as if he’d just heard something ridiculous.

“Are you just saying whatever comes to mind because you’re scared of being discarded?”

“It’s not like that! You really will die!”

Ah, forget it.

Either way, whether I’m cast away or discarded due to a lie, the end result is the same.

I planted my hands on my hips and spoke brazenly,

“The moment you picked up this sword, you became my master. If you try to cast me far away, the contract will kill you.”

Dietrich’s handsome face, now suddenly burdened with involuntary mastership, froze in utter disbelief.