Betrayal

Betrayal.

The impact of that single word was enormous. A thick silence fell over the room, so deep that one could have heard a pin drop.

"...Betrayal, you say."

Finch didn't react with any particular shock. Instead, he shook his head as if the accusation were merely pitiable, then let out a long sigh.

"It has been twenty years since I swore my loyalty to the Oldone family. That's longer than you've been alive."

He looked down at Simon with frigid eyes.

"And you, who spent all of three days here as a hired hand, dare to question my devotion?"

"Whether it's betrayal or not,"

Simon fired back without yielding an inch.

"isn't something that can be smoothed over with emotional appeals about time served or age. Only clear facts matter."

"Then what, pray tell, is this clear fact that paints me as a traitor?"

"The pirates you conspired with have confessed."

Murmur, murmur, murmur.

The servants began to whisper among themselves, faces frozen in disbelief.

"The naval soldiers of Blue Harbor heard the pirates spill everything, too."

"Spill everything? If you call yourself a necromancer, wringing the answer you want out of a prisoner's tongue should be as easy as yawning."

"Then let's go down to the beach together and see."

Simon said, tilting his head with deliberate insolence.

"There's more than one or two captured pirates. Would it really be possible for me to get my hands on every single one of them in that short a span of time? Let's sort out the truth there, shall we?"

"This is wartime. With pirates rampaging across the entire territory, there's no room for such luxuries."

It's over.

Simon thought so as he slowly lowered his stance.

"Then set the Count down first, and we'll talk. You're a suspect of treason."

"I believe I said I would accept no compromise where the Count's protection was concerned."

"Uncle Finch."

Shun, still clutched in Finch's liquefied arm, spoke with a stiff face.

"Put me down."

"......"

A direct order from the Count himself.

Whether temporary hire or ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠anyone else, Finch, now under suspicion of betrayal, had no grounds to refuse. The mood of everyone around them had already solidified against him.

Finch sighed once more, long and deep.

"Very well."

The moment he spoke those words of resignation, his knees bent — and then he launched into the sky.

At the same time, green spheres dropped from his subspace, hissing chiiiEEE! as they began spewing toxic fog and paralytic gas in every direction.

"Kuh!"

"Watch out! Cover your noses!"

Everyone clamped their hands over their noses and mouths. In that window of chaos, Finch's lower body dissolved into smoke, and he vaulted clear over the manor's roof.

"F-Finch, really did..."

The head butler's pupils trembled, as though he couldn't bring himself to accept reality.

Simon, his nose pinched shut, shouted at the top of his lungs.

"I'll chase after Finch! Everyone else, spread the word about his betrayal to the navy and the other authorities!"

"......"

The head butler bowed his stiffened head.

"Please. Save the Count, I beg you..."

"Leave it to me."

Simon stamped down on his Jet-Black and sprinted off in the direction Finch had vanished.

Finch flew a great distance with Shun in tow.

Past the manor, past the burning city, past an empty stretch of sandy shore — and finally, out over the sea.

A heavy sea fog still hung over the water. As he sliced through the mist, a single pirate ship drifting on the waves finally came into view.

Thud.

Finch alighted on the pirate ship. There wasn't a trace of life aboard; only a deep silence flowed across the deck.

Finch bound Shun's wrists tight with rope and tossed him onto the deck.

"Ugh!"

"Stay put."

Shun lifted himself up with a pained groan — and only then did he realize that the bodies of dead pirates lay strewn all across the otherwise deserted ship.

And beneath those corpses, a magic circle had been drawn. Finch muttered an incantation and activated his black magic.

Clack. Clack.

Shun scrambled backward on his rear in horror until his back slammed against the mast.

Flesh sloughing away from the corpses, skeletons rose one by one, joints swaying loosely as they stood.

'S-Skeletons...!'

"Get to work, you trash."

At Finch's command, the skeletons clattered and clattered as they scattered busily about.

Some hoisted the anchor, others took hold of the wheel, dividing the labor of preparing to sail among themselves — possible only because these skeletons retained the strong memories and habits of their lives.

"Whew."

Finch slumped lazily into a chair on the deck, looking exhausted. Watching the skeletons at work, Shun turned his head and spoke.

"Uncle Finch."

Finch smirked.

"You still have the presence of mind to call me 'uncle'?"

"Why are you doing this to me? If I've done something to upset you...!"

"It isn't you."

Finch pulled a cigar from his trouser pocket and clamped it between his lips.

"The root of all evil is your father."

"...What?"

"The death of my sister — your mother."

The corners of Finch's mouth twisted grotesquely.

"Do you know the truth of it?"

Finch Nikiman.

He had been born into a worthless, fallen house, but his talent alone was genius. From a young age he displayed overwhelming achievements, and word of him spread across the entire Federation — to the point where people whispered he was the most likely candidate to be the next Kizen's Special Admission No. 1.

While the great families scrambled to claim such a Finch for themselves, the most aggressive of all was the wealthy House of Oldone, based in Blue Harbor.

Finch's elder sister married the Oldone family's eldest son, and Finch himself signed an early contract as the family's exclusive necromancer.

It seemed like a flawless opening move — so where, exactly, had it gone wrong?

At the following year's Kizen admission season, Finch received no offer of Special Admission. And Special Admission wasn't the worst of it — swallowing his pride, he sat for the entrance exam itself, and failed, as if it were some cruel joke.

The Oldone family became a laughingstock overnight. They had poured a fortune into recruiting Finch and even married their heir into a house with no standing — and in return they got one defeated man who never so much as set foot on Kizen's threshold.

In the end, Finch enrolled at Aland, one of the three great necromancer academies — a tier below Kizen, but respectable nonetheless.

There he kept his grades firmly within the top five and remade himself into an elite student, but the ridiculous stigma attached to him — the prodigy Kizen rejected — and to the Oldone family never faded.

Even so, Finch threw himself into his studies with desperate intensity. What he believed in was the transfer system, the pipeline through which students of the three academies could ascend to Kizen. Without a doubt, Kizen would call for him. So he believed.

Then one day, while he studied day and night for that ascent, a letter arrived from his sister, married off to Blue Harbor.

It wasn't hard to imagine how the Oldones treated her. And he knew, too, that her suffering existed because of him. But the more he understood it, the more a poisonous rage curdled inside Finch.

But no matter how he clung to the top of his class at Aland, the summons from Kizen never came.

Day after day slipped away in futility, and then, just as he was on the verge of graduating from Aland—

Finch received word of his sister's death.

The family cited illness as the cause. But when Finch attended the funeral in Blue Harbor, he waited until everyone had fallen asleep that night, pried open the coffin lid, and examined his sister's body from head to toe.

Bruises from beatings covered her whole body — beatings that could only have come from her husband. And above all, half-hidden beneath her thick burial clothes, there it was: a unmistakable rope mark around her neck.

There it was.

She had taken her own life.

Finch wailed, though he strangled every sound. Before that coffin, voiceless, he hiccupped back sobs and begged his dead sister for forgiveness, over and over. But the dead do not return.

All a necromancer could do was puppet a corpse whose breath had fled — turn it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠into a skeleton, a walking shell. The knowledge he had spent three years studying with his whole life on the line was useless. The realization drove Finch into despair all over again.

When he finally dragged his weeping, spent body back to the mansion in the dead hours before dawn, the sounds of a man and a woman gasping shamelessly drifted out from the family head's chamber.

It was revolting.

His sister's corpse hadn't even gone cold. And yet the man — the very husband who had driven her to her death — was sporting with the daughter of another house that had attended the funeral.

Blood trickled down from his lip, where his teeth had torn through.

Standing before that door, eyes bloodshot, the heated moans leaking through the wood, Finch made his resolve.

He would bring this ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠family to ruin.

He would strip this family of everything it had.

Time passed. The family head wasted away from a mysterious illness and died, and his son Shun inherited the Countship at a tender age.

"Heh... heheheheh! HAHAHAHA!"

Finch laughed like a madman.

Shun's expression, shifting moment to moment as the story unfolded, was immensely entertaining. He laughed, and laughed again, at the boy's hollow, vacant eyes.

"Nephew! Do you understand now?!"

Finch bellowed.

"I poisoned your father! I am your father's killer — and the man who avenged your mother's murder!"

"......"

"And I waited — waited for the moment when everyone connected to the Oldone family would gather in one place, just like this! There is no escape. The people of this island will be wiped out to the last soul by the pirates, and the Oldone name will vanish from history! And the dominion of this Blue Harbor, along ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠with the Oldone fortune, shall pass to the only remaining blood of the family — to me."

Finch's face contorted into that of a vengeful demon.

"Finch Nikiman."

"......"

"So, nephew — what do you think of my plan?"

Shun squeezed his eyes shut. Then he drew in a deep breath and glared at Finch.

"Your plan won't work."

"Hm. And why is that?"

"Because Simon's coming to stop you."

PfffHAHA!

Finch burst into loud, contemptuous laughter.

"Right — you summoning Kizen's Special Admission No. 1 was the single wild card in my plan. But having laid eyes on the man myself, my honest impression was... ha! Good grief. That forgettable mediocrity with nothing remarkable about him in any way is Special Admission No. 1?"

Fury flared in his eyes.

"I was REJECTED from the entrance exam! And a mediocrity like that gets the top seat? Nephthys must have gone senile and blind! Damn you! KIZEN! KIZEN! KIZEN! What's so damned great about that place anyway! I wondered what was so special about them — and THIS is what I get!"

Finch raked his hair back violently and set the cigar between his lips once more. Smoke billowed out in a long breath, and his expression settled considerably.

"Fine. It's all in the past. I'll take you to the Oldone ruins, strip the fortune out of them — and then that Special Admission No. 1, and the pirates both, I'll kill with my own two hands."

"Simon's not going to die!"

At that moment, the hull lurched violently. Finch glared at the skeleton gripping the wheel with an irritated scowl.

"Steer prop—! Hmm?"

Out of the billowing fog, an enormous pirate ship came tearing through the waves without warning.

KUUUUUUNG!

"Whaa—!"

The two ships collided head-on. The deck tilted, the hull shuddering violently.

Shun rolled head over heels across the planks, while Finch anchored both feet to the deck with Jet-Black and pulled himself upright.

He lit the cigar one final time, then flicked his fingers and tossed the stub into the sea.

Thud. Thud.

Once the shock-induced swaying had died down, someone came walking across the deck of the opposing ship. Finch raised his Jet-Black and spoke.

"Who goes there."

Shun stared straight ahead, half in dread, half in hope.

Whoever it was, things couldn't possibly get worse than they were now. Could it be Simon — come to save him?

'It's not Simon.'

Finch's assessment differed.

They had parted ways at the manor mere minutes ago. By any reasonable measure, commandeering a pirate ship and ramming it into another vessel in so short a time was impossible.

And Finch's judgment proved correct. The one who emerged was a black-bearded man wearing a wide-brimmed hat — the very symbol of a captain.

"So this is where you were, Count."

It was none other than the pirate captain Gale. His gaze swept toward Shun, wrists still bound.

"Why are you here?"

Finch asked, brow furrowing.

"Isn't it obvious?"

Gale grinned and thrust his arm out.

"Bring me the Count unharmed! Kill anyone who stands in the way — I don't care how!"

"OOOOH!"

From the deck of the far ship, pirates came swarming over the rails in a flood. Finch snickered and drew his Jet-Black up around him.

'So they betrayed me first, did they?'

He and Gale had used each other according to their interests, but theirs was a partnership structured so that betrayal was inevitable in the end.

Gale despised necromancers. Finch wanted the Oldone fortune for himself.

'Nothing but minnows, anyway. Settling it here and now suits me fine.'

The corners of Finch's mouth curled upward as the pirates charged.

Gale, on the other hand, swallowed hard, his eyes darting restlessly.

'Phew... good thing they didn't catch on. So — what now?'