Chapter 111
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 111
The new butler Kinder chose was not blindly devoted to the marquisate, but a man driven purely by self-interest. His loyalty extended only as far as the power and money Kinder provided. He was nowhere near as devoted as Lak, but it remained to be seen which of them would ultimately be of greater help to the household.
“He is someone who will work harder for the marquisate than you,” Kinder said.
“I see.”
Lak accepted the news calmly. Lost in her own turmoil over the letter, Kinder couldn’t tell if her words satisfied him or caused him pain.
She took Melek’s hand and left the basement.
There was much she needed to tell Gabriel, and it couldn’t wait. She quickly wrote about Duke Hosaquin and Lak’s unverified testimony, then sealed the letter.
* * *
Because the public believed Marchioness Toten had severed ties with Evangeline, the letter was sent under a different name.
“Commander, the letter you’ve been waiting for has arrived.”
To avoid Bishop Marik’s watchful eyes, it was addressed not to Gabriel, but to his adjutant, Raphaella. Of course, since everyone knew Raphaella was Gabriel’s loyal subordinate, it was a flimsy deception at best. Raphaella handed Gabriel the letter from ‘Gamigin.’
“Thank you, Raphaella.”
Just as Gabriel reached for it, Raphaella playfully hid it behind his back. Gabriel frowned, his glare a silent rebuke for joking at a time like this. At the sharp look, Raphaella sighed.
“If I give you this, you’ll just run yourself into the ground again, insisting you have to stay one step ahead of Bishop Marik.”
Although Raphaella hadn’t figured out ‘Gamigin’s’ true identity, he had deduced that this person was acting as Gabriel’s informant.
Whenever a letter from ‘Gamigin’ arrived, Gabriel would take a small, elite force and lead the charge in purging heretics himself. It was a complete reversal of his previously passive stance during Bishop Marik’s discussions of the pagan massacre, but Raphaella knew Gabriel’s true intentions.
Still, he needs to know when to stop.
Raphaella pouted and grumbled sarcastically.
“Do you realize you look like a corpse that just crawled out of its grave? I wouldn’t be surprised if Bishop Marik threw holy water on you the second she saw you.”
Born noble and raised without ever needing to flatter anyone, the knight didn’t know how to mince his words. Raphaella’s tone was incredibly insolent, but no one stopped him.
Gabriel truly was a mess. Dark circles hung heavily under his eyes, as if he hadn’t slept in days, and his gaunt frame made the corpse comparison no exaggeration. In truth, Gabriel had barely slept lately. Whether from fatigue or the constant pressure, he was on edge. His usual indifferent demeanor was gone, replaced by the look of a fierce predator. If he were placed next to Evangeline Rohanson right now, they would look exactly like a demon and her minion.
“Commander, I think you need to rest. You look exhausted.”
Even Uriel chimed in, urging him to take a break. He studied Gabriel’s face with deep concern.
“I am fine.”
But Gabriel could only ignore their worried looks. This was no time to be resting.
“Fine? You haven’t even been eating properly, let alone sleeping, ever since the incident with Lady Uvala.”
“...Raphaella.”
The Pararos Knights clearly wanted their commander to rest, even for a moment, but Gabriel simply couldn’t afford it.
Bishop Marik had begun to stoke the fires of the pagan massacre in earnest. Less than a month had passed since the Crown Prince’s assassination, yet the situation had changed rapidly. As if his murder by sorcery was merely the beginning, incidents instigated by heretics began erupting everywhere.
Even the incident at the monastery where Daisy had taken refuge—an event they had kept quiet to avoid chaos—was now being blamed on shamans. In truth, several incidents had absolutely no connection to heresy but were nevertheless declared pagan acts by Bishop Marik.
And she did not hesitate to punish them. Her methods were brutal. Under the pretext of punishing heresy, she burned entire bloodlines to death, and the targets of this “atonement” included the servants who worked for them.
For instance, House Figaro—whose patriarch was a close aide to the Crown Prince and had always been hostile to the Temple—was branded a family of wicked pagans and utterly annihilated. Bishop Marik set fire to the Count’s estate without a flicker of emotion.
The paladins reportedly surrounded the burning mansion, cut down anyone who tried to escape, and threw them back into the flames. Not just blood relatives, but every single member of the household.
Even young children were no exception. By the time Gabriel arrived, it was too late. Nothing remained but the blackened ruins of the mansion.
So how could he possibly rest? When Bishop Marik acted, she was ruthless, wiping out entire households so that not even a single rat survived. That was why Gabriel had to step forward, purging the heretics himself before she could.
The incident at Viscount Uvala’s estate, which Raphaella had mentioned, was no different.
The Uvala family had attended the Crown Prince’s birthday banquet. Because the Viscountess was pregnant, the Viscount and his wife left early, leaving their debutante daughter, Lady Uvala, with her chaperone. If only they had known the twisted spell circle Bishop Marik had manipulated would have such a malevolent influence, they would have taken her with them.
When Lady Uvala returned from the banquet, she seemed to be out of her mind. The Viscount and Viscountess assumed it was shock from witnessing the Crown Prince’s corpse, but she had been bewitched by the spell circle.
Furthermore, as a devout believer, Lady Uvala remembered that spell circle. She realized it was identical to the one in a painting at the Temple—the same one used to assassinate the Crown Prince—and became obsessed with reconstructing it perfectly. Unable to render it with her own clumsy skills, she developed a twisted obsession with finding a painter. This was partly influenced by the fact that Jim Nopedi had been a painter.
It was said that she imprisoned painters, cutting off their fingers and severing their arms if they failed to perfectly reproduce the spell circle.
A painter who had managed to escape with his pinky finger severed threw himself on the Temple’s mercy. Taking advantage of Bishop Marik’s absence, Gabriel arrived at the Uvala estate first.
When Gabriel tried to force his way in, the Viscount gave a long-winded speech about how devout Lady Uvala was. He was struck speechless, however, when Gabriel revealed a secret room in the annex, where painters were desperately trying to staunch the bleeding from their severed hands as they were forced to work.
One painter, unable to use his hands, was applying paint with a brush held in his mouth. Upon seeing Gabriel, he dropped it and cried out to God. The Temple had recently gained immense renown for rounding up heretics, and the painters believed they had been rescued from the wicked Lady Uvala.
There was no need to tell them that Bishop Marik was the one who had driven Lady Uvala mad, or that their savior was Gabriel, a man who had turned his back on God.
Gabriel captured Lady Uvala and the henchmen who aided her, transferring them to the Temple. In the end, Lady Uvala met her end in the flames, just like the painting she so admired.
By executing Lady Uvala himself, Gabriel had prevented Bishop Marik from intervening. Had anyone else from the Temple arrived, the entire Uvala family would have been annihilated. Still, the guilt of burning a person alive was eating away at him.
No matter how much he had given his heart to Evangeline, the life Gabriel had lived—one of devotion to others, of saving rather than killing—did not simply vanish. This must have been why the beast Evangeline kept had advised him to choose a side.
“You minimized the damage, Commander,” Raphaella comforted Gabriel, who was crushed by his guilt. He refrained from voicing his own feelings—that Lady Uvala deserved to die for the atrocities she had committed.
“The real problem is that you’re trying to handle everything on your own when you have us.”
The reason Gabriel was so exhausted and guilt-ridden was that he left the Pararos Knights idle while taking all the work upon himself. In truth, the only ones he could entrust with these tasks were Raphaella, Uriel, and Michel, who were at least somewhat aware of the situation.
The rest of the knights were left twiddling their thumbs under Gabriel’s protection. It was a stark contrast to the other paladins outside the Pararos Knights, who were fully dedicated to the pagan massacre under Bishop Marik.
“I don’t want to drag you all into this.”
But Gabriel’s resolve was firm. While joining the massacre alongside Bishop Marik was out of the question, using his knights for personal interests was even more unacceptable.
After learning the truth of his birth, Gabriel had severed what little thread he believed had connected him to God. What illuminated him now was not the sun in the sky, too bright to gaze upon, but a pitiful candle flickering as if it would go out at any moment.
While Gabriel was acting for Evangeline’s sake, the majority of the Pararos Knights were not. He refused to exploit devout paladins for his own ends. Doing so would make him no different from Bishop Marik.
“Then at least rest. If you collapse, Commander, I’ll grind those guys to the bone to fill your spot.”
At Raphaella’s threat, Gabriel finally nodded. Only after securing his promise did Raphaella hand over the letter from ‘Gamigin.’
“Who sent it? Someone from the Rohanson Mansion?”
“It’s Madame Toten.”
Because Gabriel trusted Raphaella deeply, he readily revealed the sender.
“Ah… No wonder she’s been so active in high society lately…”
Raphaella nodded, recalling the recent rumors about Kinder Toten. Madame Toten had been attending all sorts of events, gathering and delivering information. She was, after all, a woman who had never hesitated to socialize, even when people whispered behind her back about her son being cursed.
Madame Toten didn’t care that her reputation was being dragged through the mud, with people calling her a bat for abandoning Evangeline Rohanson the moment she lost her backing.
“What does it say? Did she find another heretic or someone suspicious?”
Gabriel shook his head. As he read the letter, his expression softened, a stark contrast to the sharp edge he’d carried lately.
When Raphaella pressed him for the contents, Gabriel offered a rare smile.
“His Majesty kept his promise. He says the Duke will help Lady Evangeline get out.”
“The Duke?”
“Duke Hosaquin.”
“Duke Hosaquin?” Raphaella repeated in disbelief as Gabriel nodded.
What is that old man up to? He swore he would never recognize Lady Rohanson as his granddaughter.
It would have been far more believable if Raphaella’s own mother, Duchess Baal, had stepped forward. Yet Gabriel—the man who had taken a wine glass to the back of the head from Duke Hosaquin while defending his granddaughter—felt no suspicion at all.
“His Majesty must have pulled some strings. Fitting for someone who ascended the throne through schemes.”
“Raphaella.”
“What? Are the guys going to run and tattle to His Majesty?”
Since only the most trusted members of the Pararos Knights were present, Raphaella wasn’t filtering his words. With Duchess Baal, the leader of the noble faction, as his mother, there was no way Raphaella would respect the Emperor. Of course, that didn’t mean he respected his mother either.
“Still, this is great news for you, Commander. Once Lady Rohanson is out, you’ll be able to breathe a sigh of relief.”
Raphaella was also glad that he wouldn’t have to watch Gabriel push himself to the brink anymore.
“Commander, you aren’t planning on showing yourself to Lady Rohanson looking like that, are you? It would be best if you rested a bit… right…?”
Raphaella had been using Evangeline as an excuse to urge Gabriel to rest, but his voice trailed off as he watched his commander’s expression harden the further he read.
As if his brief moment of gentleness had been an illusion, Gabriel’s demeanor grew fierce once more. He glared at Madame Toten’s letter, looking as though he had read something deeply unsettling.
So much for resting.
Raphaella assumed that, as before, Madame Toten had discovered someone showing interest in sorcery and had tipped them off.
“Should we prepare to deploy?”
“No. There’s no need,” Gabriel said, tearing his eyes from the letter. “Just as you said, Raphaella, it would be best to rest for a while.”