With her strength completely drained, she nearly crawled over to Rude and begged with all her might.

“Young master…! Please save our young lady! You know she’s not the kind of person to commit such a thing! Please…”

“Stop crying, it’s hurting my ears. Instead of wasting time, shut your mouth and save yourself. The young lady you’re talking about is still alive and well.”

“Really! Our young lady would never harm you…”

“I know.”

“…What?”

“I said I know. Why would I not know that she’s not the type to do such a thing?”

Karin’s face turned deathly pale in an instant. With tears in her eyes, she asked in disbelief.

“You know? Then if you knew all that, why… why did you do this to our young lady…?”

“She abandoned me.”

Even though I pathetically begged her not to leave me like an idiot, she still left me behind.

Rude spoke, blatantly expressing his anger.

Karin, who had been sitting there blankly at a loss for words, suddenly let out a scream.

“No! That’s not it… The reason the young lady tried to leave the castle! It was because the family head ordered it!”

“…What?”

“The family head ordered it! Saying she had to urgently leave the castle, the young lady was so apologetic to me…”

– Karin. I’m leaving this place now and will never return. So take this money and leave the castle by today as well.

– What? But young lady! This… this is too much. How can I take all this money!

– Listen carefully. After I leave, the family head may try to capture and dispose of you for some reason. I hope that doesn’t happen, but hoping isn’t enough, so we have to act assuming the worst. That goes for you too.

– Why… Why do you have to leave so urgently?

– …Because I received an order.

– Don’t tell me! Did the family head do this again? Why, is he telling you to leave this place forever now?!

– Karin. I wish for your safety. …And I’m also leaving this place to protect someone. I’m sorry I can’t look after you more.

She was clearly being threatened by the family head to leave. To protect someone.

Although Karin didn’t know who her young lady was trying to protect, she knew Merche was someone who would willingly give her life to protect her loved ones.

“She kept apologizing to me… until the very end…”

Karin, who had collapsed to the floor with her hands on the ground, burst into tears, unable to contain her grief.

After wailing loudly for a while, she suddenly lifted her head and glared at Rude as if she wanted to kill him.

“Our young lady treated you so well… Even enduring that terrible hardship, she let go of everything as soon as you arrived! How could you do this to the young lady?!”

“…Wait. My head hurts, so stop yelling and speak slowly. What nonsense are you saying about Merche leaving on the family head’s orders…”

“If it weren’t for you! All the cruel times our young lady endured, all that abuse wouldn’t have been in vain! It’s all because of you, yet how could you do this to our young lady?!”

“…Abuse?”

He couldn’t just let that word slide.

Rude firmly grabbed Karin, who was screaming at the top of her lungs, and asked with a stiff face.

“What abuse? Other than her studying like hell for those weird XYZ subjects, what else is there?”

“…Haha, ahahaha!”

Karin laughed like a madwoman, tears streaming down her face without wiping them.

“Those damned lessons, our pitiful young lady was locked up in a secret room for days on end, kneeling to study them all. If she made even one mistake, they wouldn’t give her anything and starve her, locking her up all day. But even so, our poor young lady never once cried…”

Was that all?

In the past, when Elizabeth suffered from neurosis, she would occasionally summon Merche and shower her with all sorts of insults and reprimands, but Merche, not even ten years old, would stand there and listen to it all without a word of resentment.

At such a young age. What wrong had she possibly done to deserve such resentment?

Ah. Right. We absolutely can’t leave out the blood drawn from that corpse either.

Whenever Merche failed to properly control the Wolf Corps, Genovefa, who was displeased with her, would make her drink the blood extracted from the previous family head’s corpse.

On days when that happened, Merche would spend the entire day with a deathly pale face, vomiting several times and suffering from stomach pains.

Karin poured out her anguish, asking how she felt seeing that pitiful sight.

“…You’re a devil! Putting such false charges on our young lady despite knowing everything. How could you do such a thing? If I had known you would lead our young lady to her death, I should have found and killed you long ago!”

Rude didn’t even blink at her words about how she should have killed him.

Instead, what he angrily recalled was the part about “you leading the young lady to her death”.

“She won’t die. I won’t let your young lady die. Even if she ultimately doesn’t choose me… Damn it. Still, I absolutely can’t kill her!”

“What are you saying…? Regardless of what you do, the family head will kill the young lady anyway, so what are you going to do about it now?!”

“You’re the one talking nonsense, it was the family head who told me how to keep her alive by my side in the first place. That bastard said he would make it so I couldn’t leave Merche. How could he kill her…”

“Are you stupid? You believe such an unbelievable lie? Think about what you just said, does it even make sense?!”

Karin trembled with rage, her whole body convulsing.

Her eyes blazed like torches, as if they would burn Rude to death.

“If the family head had told the young lady to stay here from the beginning, she would have done so. If he had told her not to leave your side and stay with you, the young lady would have followed that order. Then why would he deliberately make you and the young lady miss each other and frame her? Why would he deceive even you and put such false charges on her?!”

This is a simple story.

No matter how brainless one is, if it’s spoonfed to this extent, one should be able to understand this clear logic.

Shedding thick teardrops, Karin shouted at Rude.

“Why don’t you go directly ask that scoundrel you call your father?! Ask if he can swear not to kill the young lady! Make him swear on his life and this family!”

Karin’s words were as compelling as the anger they contained, and Rude grew suspicious.

A pit where some terrible monster must be lurking, one that should never be seen.

A pit he wouldn’t have to face if he just didn’t look into it with his own eyes. But Rude decided he would peer into it after all.

“Swear it.”

“…What are you trying to say now, Rude?”

“I said swear it in front of me. Swear that you won’t kill Merche, putting your life and this damn family on the line.”

“Did you hear something from someone? Son. I helped you so that you could have Merche. I’m also your father. How could I deceive you?”

“Cut the bullshit and just swear. Right now.”

The darkness in the black pit lifted.

From within the pit, thick as night fog, the monster connected to him by blood raised its head and looked at him.

“Son. It’s all for your sake.”

Genovefa’s eyes softened as if in pity.

The slight shaking of his head conveyed not even the faintest sincerity.

At that moment, Rude felt an extremely cold chill.

As if all the blood in his body had frozen. Even the breath he exhaled and inhaled was cold and eerie.

Knowing that each word he uttered was suffocating him, he still asked.

“You’re going to… kill Merche?”

There was no answer. But that in itself was his answer.

That he had been played by Genovefa’s sinister scheme from the beginning. That he had truly driven Merche to the brink.

He could no longer be unaware.

“…You son of a bitch-!”

I’ll kill him. I have to kill that worm of a man right here.

Rude charged at Genovefa, his energy raging.

But unfortunately, in terms of physical strength, he was still beneath his father.

“You senile, crazy bastard! I’ll kill you no matter what, I’ll crush your head and trample it!”

“My, my. Did I not say it time and time again? There is nothing more foolish than acting out of line without knowing your place. To think you still don’t understand that, you must have lived a long and lowly life.”

Genovefa lightly grabbed Rude’s neck and forced him to his knees, then placed his foot on top of his son and summoned his subordinates.

“Lock him up in his room so he can’t cause trouble.”

Dozens of knights rushed in to subdue the wildly thrashing and struggling Rude.

As they barely managed to restrain Rude like a beast and drag him away, only then did the office finally become quiet.

“…Lord. I have carried out your orders.”

Soon, the steward who had been waiting entered the office. He had a dry expression, showing little agitation even after seeing Rude being dragged away.

“As you instructed, I found the physician named Gerald Burke.”

“Good. Did he know anything?”

“He said he doesn’t know the exact location since he always entered the mansion blindfolded. However, he mentioned a maid named Stella who worked and lived at the mansion, and he knows the herb shop she frequently visited.”

“Then we just need to find that maid. Capture her and make her spit out the mansion’s location. You can torture her as long as she’s still breathing.”

“Yes. I will report back if there are any meaningful results.”