Betrayal Upon Betrayal
Count Valte laughed like the most wicked villain in the world. I don't think I could ever laugh that evilly even if I tried. I'd learned something new.
Count Coulomb looked around in bewilderment, glancing left and right. Countess Rienner Coulon watched her husband's confusion in complete silence. The Count's face made it painfully clear he had no idea what kind of situation he'd walked into.
"What in the world is going on!? Lord Walker! What is this...?"
He looked at me with the desperate hope of a drowning man reaching for a rope.
There was nothing I could say. And before I could even open my mouth, Count Valte drew his sword.
Where had that blade come from? Moments ago he hadn't been carrying any weapon at all. Some kind of concealment item? Well, he could hardly have walked into the lord's castle with a sword in plain sight. Perhaps Countess Rienner Coulon, the alchemist, had given it to him.
"Die! You incompetent lord!"
Count Coulomb was an excellent swordsman, and so was Count Valte. But right now, the only man holding a weapon was Count Valte.
Count Coulomb panicked and scrambled away from the blade. He looked exactly like a rat fleeing a cat.
"Haha! Just like a little rat!"
Count Valte was enjoying every second of it. He'd clearly arranged the whole scene just to mock the man. Truly twisted taste.
Is this even supposed to be an assassination?
The genuine delight on Count Valte's face as he swung his sword bordered on madness. And his wife and daughter were waving their arms and cheering him on.
"Go for it! Completely kill that insufferable Count Coulomb!"
"Father's the greatest! This territory is ours now, right?!"
Watching them, I felt a nasty premonition.
Why had Count Valte invited me here in the first place? He'd clearly asked me to visit in order to draw Count Coulomb's attention. But if he was going to kill the man like this, he didn't need me at all.
Had he invited me so we could watch Count Coulomb's end together and mock him? That didn't seem right either. I'd only known Count Valte a short time, but reading what kind of man he was hadn't been difficult at all.
I didn't come here without a plan of my own. I'll just have to keep watching how Count Valte plays this.
The tedious game of cat-and-mouse between Count Coulomb and Count Valte lasted less than five minutes. Count Coulomb pounded on the parlor door, calling for his knights, but the firmly shut door wouldn't open at all. Count Valte's sharp blade sank into his back.
"Ghk!"
"Farewell. You've done a great many good deeds, so unlike me, you should be able to go to heaven. Haha!"
Count Coulomb's body crumpled. He raised one arm as if flailing in the sea. The trembling limb pointed toward Countess Rienner Coulon. In a shaking voice, he said:
"My wife.... Flee...."
Countess Rienner Coulon turned her head away. Seeing that, Count Coulomb finally realized that even his other half had betrayed him. The shock that crossed his face was incomparably greater than anything he'd shown before.
"Why....?"
Countess Rienner Coulon said nothing at all. Count Coulomb lowered his head. He died in despair like that—not from the sword in his back, but from his wife's betrayal. Count Valte clapped his hands and roared with laughter.
"Kwahahaha! This is truly the greatest comedy! Hilarious! Absolutely hilarious!"
It was closer to a tragedy than a comedy, but from Count Valte's perspective it was undoubtedly a comedy.
He clapped until tears came, overjoyed. After laughing a long while, he pulled a handkerchief from his pocket and wiped his eyes.
"I can't remember the last time I laughed this hard. Today is a truly wonderful day."
Countess Rienner Coulon, who had been silent until now, spoke in a grave voice.
"It's all over now."
Count Valte answered, twitching the sword.
"Not yet. The most important thing remains."
Then he swung the blade—not at me, but at his own wife.
"Eh?"
Shlick!
The sound of a butcher's knife slicing through meat rang out. What actually happened was no different.
The honest blade of a trained swordsman split the neck of the woman whose flesh jiggled like a pig's, clean in two. The cut was so neat that the face that fell to the floor showed not a trace of pain—only bewilderment. A far cry from the despair carved into Count Coulomb's features.
"Ahh~ what a relief. It was for the money, but living with this bitch's face in front of me was such a trial. And I had to look after the child because of that insufferable father-in-law."
"Ah, Father...?"
Unable to accept her mother's sudden death, Lady Valte froze solid. Count Valte's sword turned toward his daughter.
"Don't you dare call me Father. Every time other nobles pointed at you behind my back, I wanted to crawl into a rat hole and hide. The shame of House Valte, you orcish girl. Every time you called me Father I had to hide the murderous intent that surged up inside me."
Surprisingly, Count Valte possessed a perfectly normal sensibility. I almost nodded without realizing it.
"So die for the sake of the family."
Not a hint of hesitation in his sword. Just as it had been swung at his wife, it was swung at his daughter. The girl's head dropped beside her mother's. Count Valte wiped the blood from his blade with the same handkerchief he'd used on his tears.
"Magnificent. To personally murder your own daughter. I offer my sincere gratitude."
I bowed my head with genuine feeling. Count Valte looked at me and smiled thinly.
"You think you'll get out of here alive too?"
"From the look of you, Count, it doesn't appear you have any intention of letting me live."
The reason he'd invited me today. It was to murder me.
So it's come to this after all? Well, I'd more or less expected it. It followed my prediction so perfectly it was almost boring.
Having wiped all the blood from the sword, Count Valte spread both arms wide. With the triumphant expression of a hero in a grand epic, he turned a full circle.
"Truly a wonderful day. The very best of days. The day when every tale I planned reaches its completion."
"So the present situation is the Count's comedy, then."
"Heh! Precisely. A simple story. Derick Walker, a man of standing in Coulon, was engaged to the daughter of House Valte, but in truth he was having an affair with Count Coulomb's wife. He even conspired with the Countess to murder Count Coulomb and seize Coulon for himself. He then murdered the Valte daughter who would stand in the way of his marriage to the Countess. But I, having seen through his true intentions, take my revenge and kill him. How is it? Isn't it entertaining?"
Count Valte's targets for elimination weren't just Count Coulomb. I was among them, and even his own wife and daughter.
The reason for killing me was of course to covet my merchant company. Right now I ran the wealthiest trading house in Coulon. On top of that I paid no taxes, so if he were to govern the territory later, my existence would be a massive obstacle.
He'd explained the reason for killing his wife and daughter himself. A marriage of convenience, so of course there was no affection. Once he took Coulon he wouldn't need his in-laws' support either. So he'd taken care of them while he was at it. It wouldn't be hard for the new ruler of Coulon to take a new wife.
But from what he'd said, it seemed Countess Rienner Coulon was also among his targets for elimination. Discarding the hunting dog once the rabbits are caught?
"Betrayal, then."
Countess Rienner Coulon said, looking at Count Valte. He answered with a thin smile.
"Once Count Coulomb is dead, taking Coulon is easier than breathing. In Coulon, House Valte is the strongest family after the Count's own. So I have no need whatsoever for next year's help or the like."
He'd betrayed even his co-conspirator. It suited Countess Rienner Coulon, who'd betrayed her own husband, perfectly. Count Valte had killed his wife and daughter too, so on that point they were even, perhaps?
But Countess Rienner Coulon's atmosphere was anything but ordinary. Despite being betrayed, she showed none of the bewilderment her husband had. A bluff? No—her eyes even held a strange confidence.
"This is what happens when a hen lusts after power. You've learned a good lesson, so when you reach the afterlife, wait on your husband properly. Heh! No—your husband went to heaven, but you'll go to hell, so you won't even be able to meet. What a shame!"
Count Valte mocked Countess Rienner Coulon just as he had Count Coulomb. Then she broke into a bright smile.
It was the first time I'd seen her smile. It was a smile so beautiful it wouldn't have been a waste to pay a hundred gold for it.
"I'll keep that in mind. But may I offer one last word?"
"Hmm? What is it?"
"That kind of shoddy comedy wouldn't sell at all."
The instant her words ended, a dark crimson aura erupted from Count Valte's sword. Startled, he tried to throw the blade away, but it clung to his grip like a magnet and wouldn't leave his hand. Count Valte screamed and dropped to his knees.
"Gyaaaaaaah!"
"How did you like that sword? I enchanted the weapon myself. It has a few special effects hidden in it."
As I thought, that sword had been given to Count Valte by Rienner. The blade she'd handed him to kill Count Coulomb now had him by the throat.
"Gyaaaaaaah! You bitch! What did you do to the sword!?"
"A simple curse. A curse that inflicts agony until the owner dies. Whoever takes a life with that sword is recognized as its owner. You've already harvested three lives, so you're the owner, no two ways about it."
Count Valte collapsed screaming in agony. Unable to endure the pain, his eyes rolled back and he fainted. Rienner watched the entire process without so much as a blink.
"There's no one easier to handle than a man who thinks everything is in the palm of his hand. Count Valte was... just that sort of man."
"He truly was."
I agreed. In truth he'd been a thoroughly unremarkable human being. The play he'd composed was terrible too. The plot holes alone were a mess. It was like a piece of garbage written on nothing but sheer force of will.
"My lady. What do you intend to do with me?"
I asked out of genuine curiosity. She withdrew her gaze from the fallen Count Valte and looked at me. Her transparent eyes reflected my ugly appearance. No matter how I looked at it, it was a body I couldn't like.
"Now that my husband is dead, I intend to govern Coulon. I brought Count Valte in because he was a person of concern. If left alone he would undoubtedly become a troublesome obstacle blocking my path."
She'd plotted this affair to kill her husband, rule the county, and at the same time pull up the toughest weed in the territory.
An astonishingly ambitious and daring woman. If she'd been born a man, she might well have become a king.
"You've learned far too much. My most secret weakness, that is. I bear you no personal resentment whatsoever. But I simply cannot let you live."
She gripped empty air with both hands as if seizing an invisible staff. Then a large wand roughly a hundred and fifty centimeters long appeared. The same kind of magic that had been on Count Valte's sword, perhaps?
"Hah. Betrayal of a betrayal of a betrayal. This is hardly a fitting place for a man whose fortune is built on trust."
"The Snow Sugar you brought was truly delicious. I'll send you off without pain."
At her confident declaration I smiled thinly. Send me off without pain, would she? I'd go one better and send her off drowning in pleasure.
She's no virgin, but a milf—and a widow at that. My cock's going to live like a king today.