Hyde Poisons the Count's Heir! #3

Dihon's body began to be wrapped in something like a crimson mist.

It almost looked as though a border of red light had formed around his frame.

"Power is surging through my body…!"

At last Dihon thrust both hands high into the air and cried out.

Looking at him now, no one could have believed he was a boy suffering from heart disease.

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"Hyde, what in the world is going on here! My son Dihon has truly recovered after eating ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠witch's herb! I always knew that stuff was a poisonous weed!"

Count Doban seemed utterly unable to make sense of the situation.

I decided to explain it briefly.

"An Aura user's body is far healthier than one might think. Just look at Young Master Dihon, who has endured all this time even after suffering through Selim's cult-like treatments."

For Aura users, poisons tended to lose their potency while medicines sometimes displayed intensely powerful effects.

Loras had chewed raw castor seeds for days on end and still survived, even though he wasn't an Aura user. So I had wondered whether Dihon — who might well have the potential — could overcome the toxic energy and absorb only the medicinal components that much faster. And it turned out I was right.

"I feel better!"

Pah, pah-pah—.

Dihon threw a few experimental punches this way and that.

"My son Dihon's illness is cured! Is it true! Dihon!"

"Dihon, are you truly all right? Let your mother hold you!"

Everyone rejoiced at the sight ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of his healthy vigor.

Only Selim stood frozen in horror.

"Th-this can't be…"

"All right, Selim. Now go bash your head against the wall and die."

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"……!"

Selim was thoroughly rattled.

Looking at the expression on his face, I was seized by the familiar premonition that I was about to hear the words "It was only a joke!" Oscar and Loras had both pulled that exact stunt before.

But this time there was something Selim could not run from.

"Selim, looking through the ledgers, I found some rather unclear entries regarding the twenty gold coins you received every month. Ten of those gold coins were always sent off to Fierenzo, weren't they? No other notes or explanations written down."

"Th-that's—!"

At my question, Selim's face turned extremely ugly.

Ten gold coins a month.

One hundred twenty in a year.

Selim had been handling the treatment for five years, which meant a full six hundred gold coins had vanished into his mysterious remittances.

"That money was sent to Sir Parmas…! I was always receiving advice from Sir Parmas on treatment methods and the proper use of medicinal herbs…!"

"Is that so? Then we can simply contact Sir Parmas and ask him how much money he received each month."

I figured Selim had almost certainly skimmed a portion of that sum for himself.

After all, once you set aside the money supposedly sent to Parmas, the ledgers were kept quite diligently everywhere else.

But I did not trust people.

Human beings were creatures who betrayed, lied, and fell easily into sin.

Selim was surely no different, and if he had been pocketing money, my bet was that he had stashed it away from these very remittance records.

That was when Selim spoke up.

"C-confirmation bias! You've already decided I'm the culprit and you're just spouting whatever sounds plausible! Hyde, and right now you're even insulting my master, Sir Parmas!"

Confirmation bias, huh—.

The bastard was using fancier words than I expected.

"Hyde, I demand a trial!"

A trial, he says.

I had to go through that whole tiresome mess again just because of a small-time rat like Selim?

Why could people never simply admit their own guilt?

Selim shouted at once.

"Lady Milione! Please serve as a fair witness for this trial! Sir Parmas will act as my defense counsel!"

At the sound of her name, Milione wore a thoroughly bored expression.

Looking as if she might die of tedium, she examined her own fingernails for a moment before opening her mouth with complete indifference.

"I can't be a witness. After all, I'm going to become this Hyde's second wife. The Archibold family will recuse itself from this trial to ensure a fair judgment."

"S-second wife?"

Selim looked utterly flabbergasted.

The news that I would take Lady Milione as my second wife was still something of a secret known only to a select few.

Apparently Selim had been a little behind on the gossip.

"That's impossible. Lady Psyche allowed something like that? It's a lie. Hyde, why…! Why only you…! I'm smarter than you…! Why won't anyone recognize my true worth!"

"You're smarter than me?"

That was not a claim I could simply let slide.

Challenging someone who could memorize entire books by rote to a contest of memory would have been far too dull.

I decided to settle it in Selim's own specialty — rhetoric.

"Selim, ask me anything you like. Even one of those math problems you enjoy so much is fine."

"Fine! Tell me what 3,275 times 3,214 is!"

Multiplication of two four-digit numbers, was it?

It would take a little time.

Fortunately, back in my childhood a volunteer abacus instructor who had visited the orphanage had drilled mental arithmetic into me until I was razor-sharp at it.

Four-digit multiplication was easy enough.

"The answer is 10,525,850."

"What? How in the world—"

"What, surprised I answered so fast? Then it's my turn to ask something, right? I'll ask whatever I want too."

I stepped up to Selim and bit down hard on his skull with my teeth — crunch.

Selim looked thoroughly startled by my sudden attack.

"Gyaaah! Wh-what do you think you're doing!"

"I told you I'd ask whatever I wanted."

"You lunatic! Lady Psyche! Look at this! The man you took as your husband is this rude! My lady! Please believe in my innocence!"

Selim called out for Psyche.

So he planned to use kind-hearted Psyche to wriggle out of this situation, did he?

Unfortunately for him, Psyche was not present.

"Hyde!"

Just then Psyche appeared in the distance.

In her hands she carried a fairly large chest, and with every step she took came a noisy clinking and rattling of metal.

"Hyde! Just like you said, there was a box stuffed full of money under the floorboards of Selim's house! There are so many gold coins! I didn't count them all, but there must be at least three hundred!"

Perfect.

Psyche had found it just as I'd hoped.

"Selim, small-time rats like you hide money inside the house. Want to know why? If you hide it outside, you can't sleep at night worrying someone might notice and take it."

"……."

"That's an absurdly large sum for a mere doctor of theology to possess. Even if you added up every bit of salary you've ever received, it would barely come to a hundred gold coins. So what exactly is this money—"

"You son of a biiiiitch!"

Selim finally seemed to lose all reason.

Every scrap of evidence was plain as day, and countless people had witnessed the entire scene. A man like Selim was never going to keep his composure under those conditions.

"Dihon! If only you'd listened to me! I told you not to drink that medicine!"

Selim now turned and screamed wildly at Dihon.

Of everyone present, had the ten-year-old brat seemed like the easiest target?

"I thought this might be at least a little entertaining, but it's so childish I can't even watch."

In that instant Lady Milione moved.

Crunch—.

She seized Selim's arm and slammed him to the floor in a single motion. The result was a hideous sound as Selim's shoulder shattered to pieces.

"Gyaaah! Uwaaagh! Hweeeek! You crazy bitch! My arm—! You think you'll get away with this? I'm Sir Parmas's disciple! Even Archbishop Archibold can't simply ignore Sir Parmas—"

Thud—.

Milione lifted her foot and stomped down hard on Selim's chest.

With a sickening crack, Selim's ribs shattered.

"Guhhh—."

"Selim here threatened me and insulted the Archibold family. Count Doban. I would like to take charge of this man's person, if that is acceptable?"

Who threatened whom, you lunatic woman!

Selim may have done terrible things, but crippling him in front of everyone like this! Even if the bones healed, he would live the rest of his life as a cripple.

My own body ached just watching!

Count Doban, however, shook his head.

"Selim may not look like much, but he is still a man of House Agarpe. It is only proper that we handle this matter within the Agarpe earldom. Selim, we will hold a trial. Do you request counsel?"

Selim was in no condition to defend himself.

He barely managed to open his mouth and croak, "M-m-ma-ma—," which to my ears sounded like he was trying to say "Master."

He wanted them to request a defense from Sir Parmas, no doubt.

"I have a carrier pigeon bound for Fierenzo. Count Doban. Leave the sending of the bird to me. A reply should arrive within half a day."

Milione sent the carrier pigeon flying toward Fierenzo.

Half a day later, reading the reply that had arrived, Doban spoke.

"Selim, it appears Sir Parmas is excommunicating you. He also insists he has no connection whatsoever to this embezzlement and asks that we believe in his innocence."

"…Ah…"

Selim wore the face of a man who had lost everything after being cast out by the master he had trusted. That was exactly the look of a man who had had every single thing he had ever built ripped away by the roots.

"Selim, you know the law better than anyone. You will almost certainly not escape the extreme penalty, but even so, a man ought to have a chance, don't you think? Well? Will you defend yourself?"

"Auh, aaa—"

How was he supposed to defend himself looking like that?

I spoke to the broken Selim.

"Selim, if you ask for my help, then as a devout man of faith and a man of the cloth I will gladly defend you. I can get the sentence reduced from death to life imprisonment."

"Agh-aaah—!"

Selim shook his head violently back and forth.

At last, making a hideous noise, he was dragged away by the others.

A makeshift execution ground had been prepared.

Ordinarily the local church priest ought to have offered prayers for the condemned, but with both Manaen — the priest in charge of the church — and Oscar Archibold absent, that process was simply skipped.

"Then, in the name of Count Doban Agarpe, I shall take the head of the condemned."

The Agarpe executioner appeared bearing a sharp blade, and at last Selim's head rolled across the ground beneath a flash of gleaming steel.

Thud-roll-roll-roll, shhhhhaaa—!

Execution.

Death seemed an excessive punishment merely for stealing money, but in this dark age with neither human rights nor anything else to speak of, that was simply how things were.

"Out of the way!"

"They say a condemned man's belongings bring good luck!"

"He must've been living high on the bribes — look how much blood is spraying out!"

See that—.

People were crowding around wanting to dip their bread in the blood spurting from Selim's severed neck.

In more ways than one, it was a sight that made my vision swim.

"Selim… there was a time when that boy called me uncle and followed me like a son. And yet he took bribes behind my back and betrayed me. There truly is not a single person in this world you can trust. Truly—"

Count Doban staggered as though exhaustion had finally caught up with him.

Countess Wilhelmina and Psyche supported him as they led him away, and only I remained behind.

"Poor bastard. I told him I'd defend him."

I felt pity for Selim.

No matter how I looked at it, his crime had not seemed worthy of death.

After being crippled under Lady Milione's foot, the proper punishment would have been for him to spend the rest of his life repenting in a prison cell.

While I was pitying Selim, Milione approached.

Then she clicked her tongue at me.

"Pity? What's there to pity? He deserved to die. It's because you put on that hypocritical act that people call you a boring, dull man. Still, I can see why that Oscar had such a hard time with you."

Milione seemed to hold human life lightly.

Well, her true identity was Las of Wrath, who herself claimed a Great Sin Seat.

But I was different.

I was Priest Hyde, who knew that a single human life was more precious than the whole world.

"Hyde. You're heading to Fierenzo, aren't you? Not only because of my marriage, but because you plan to ask my father to dispatch troops from the Holy Crusade?"

"That is correct."

"You'd best give up on the troops. Just be content with finishing my wedding ceremony properly while you're there. Though whether even that will go well is another question."

As she spoke, Milione let out a long breath.

She looked as though something somewhere was slightly uncomfortable.

I held out a wooden potion vial toward her.

"Your heart isn't well either, is it?"

"……."

Milione narrowed her eyes and glared at me.

It was the look of someone wondering how I could possibly know her heart was bad.

In truth I had known nothing about Milione suffering from heart disease.

But my cultist partner Las had suffered from heart trouble and taken medicine for it — that much I knew.

Las's explosive superhuman strength put a terrible strain on the heart, after all.

Yes—.

It was precisely because of that experience that I had been able to save Dihon.

So this medicine was a small repayment for that experience.

Of course, Milione only gave a disdainful snort.

"If you think doing this will make me look on you favorably, you're mistaken."

That night—.

I put on a mask and climbed the tower of Agarpe.

Atop the high spire someone was already waiting by prior arrangement, and she too wore a swirl-patterned mask.

"Rust, did you hear? That Milione you raped is planning to marry Hyde!"

"I heard."

"But Milione really hates Hyde. Even if they get married, do you think their marital relations will go smoothly? She's probably been brainwashed by you, Rust — she'll kill Hyde!"

You crazy bitch!

Of course I decided not to say that out loud.

"Milione will come to love Hyde."

"Even if what Milione actually likes is the beastly Rust and not Hyde? You're saying she has to have sex with a man like Hyde? She'll strangle him to death on the wedding night!"

I think you'll be the one strangling me.

Forcibly marrying a man she doesn't even like and making a child with him—? Las was absolutely not that kind of person.

She would tear the groom apart before she ever did something like that.

I spoke with deliberate solemnity.

"Hyde is the most devout man in this world. He would never lay a hand on a vulgar, insolent wench like Milione."

"Hyde is that much of a man? I don't think so. All right, Rust! Want to make a bet?"

"A bet?"

"If Hyde can't hold back and jumps Milione— show me the face behind your mask."

"Fine! In exchange, Las, you are absolutely forbidden from interfering with that man Hyde. I likewise will not interfere with Milione. I'll keep myself out of sight for a while."

"Good. Keep your promise."

Excellent.

Now there would be no sudden appearance of Las trying to murder me — Hyde. Of course, I couldn't swear to it completely.

Whoosh—.

I turned on my heel.

Tomorrow the carriages and the procession bound for Fierenzo would depart.

For a long journey, one had to get to sleep early.