The False Burial
A few minutes earlier.
“We’ve received information regarding Helena Morton.”
Dupont approached and reported.
Killian raised his gaze to check the time.
It was nearly the hour when Decon Gold was scheduled to bring one of the Knox coalition’s trading partners. The man had repeatedly requested a meeting with Killian, claiming he could assist with the recent complications in their dealings with the Crollin Kingdom.
Under normal circumstances, Killian would have simply summoned Dupont again an hour later.
“I’ll call for you again shortly……”
Dupont, sensing the prior appointment, was about to withdraw when he stopped short. Killian had extended a hand toward the report.
The intelligence report, now under Dupont’s responsibility as of yesterday, passed into Killian’s hands.
Knock, knock.
“Your Grace.”
Decon knocked on the office door around the same time.
While Killian remained absorbed in reading the report on Helena Morton, Dupont granted them entry.
“Helena Morton is dead?”
Killian asked, his thick brows furrowing.
“Yes. They held a funeral at Wickers a week ago, according to our sources.”
The news had come from a spy planted within Wickers. After searching for Helena Morton for the past year, Wickers had finally captured and killed the former count’s enemy.
“A coffin was carried out of the mansion, and a new gravestone was erected in the Wickers family cemetery.”
“A gravestone?”
“Yes. It bears the name ‘Helena Wickers.’”
“To hold a funeral for the traitor who killed their boss and even grant her the Wickers name on her tombstone……”
Killian muttered with a twisted smile, as if amused.
“The new alpha of those wolf pups.”
The new alpha of those wolf pups. It was a mocking reference to Wickers’ emblem, the red wolf.
“It seems Edward Wickers wants to mark Helena Morton as his territory.”
Killian’s eyes grew cold.
“However, it is highly likely that Helena Morton’s death itself is false.”
“Of course it is.”
Helena Morton was not a woman who would die so easily. The funeral Edward Wickers held was a declaration of sorts—that he would no longer pursue Helena Morton for the crime of killing Benedict Wickers.
Therefore, if the day came when Edward Wickers found Helena, she would no longer be Helena Morton. Since a funeral had already been held, Helena Morton was now the name of the dead.
‘Edward Wickers has probably hidden Helena Morton somewhere only he knows……’
Killian moved as the thought formed. Turning around and taking a step back, he caught sight of a figure in his shifting vision raising a foot high in a kick. The tip of that foot, aimed precisely at his chest, gleamed with a blade the length of a finger.
Chrrrrk!
Dupont unfurled his weapon, the chain, from beside him.
‘Too late.’
With that brief assessment, Killian’s gaze shifted to the ankle of the Green Merchant Guild member flying toward him. The man had been leaking killing intent toward him since appearing at the office door. As long as the insect had a mouth to spill information, that was enough. One unnecessary leg would easily detach from his body.
Thud!
If the assassin had not suddenly been violently shoved aside by someone and staggered.
“Gah!”
With a scream and a sharp crack, the sound echoed through the office. An organization member who had appeared out of nowhere had elbowed the assassin’s jaw after the man lost his balance from the unexpected attack. The moment the Green Merchant Guild member’s eyes rolled back from the heavy blow to his chin, the organization member moved again with swift precision.
Crack!
The sight of the blade that had sprung from the tip of the shoe being decisively stepped on and broken looked particularly small, causing Killian’s eyes to narrow.
“Your Grace!”
“My lord!”
Decon Gold and the nearby knights rushed over with pale faces.
“Aaaagh! Let go!”
While Dupont’s chain bound the man’s legs and the knights slapped on handcuffs, the assassin thrashed and screamed. But the surprise attack had already succeeded. Struggling like a mounted specimen with all four limbs pinned was meaningless.
“Killian Knox! I have to kill you! I will, I will!”
Blood vessels burst in the Green Merchant Guild member’s eyes in an instant, and drool spilled from his mouth.
“You demon who deserves to burn in hell! You will soon……”
Killian, listening expressionlessly to the curses, kicked the assassin in the head.
Thud—!
“Ugh……”
The Green Merchant Guild member’s eyes rolled back and he fainted. A gag was forced into his slack mouth to prevent suicide.
“Drag him to the basement and keep a close watch.”
At Dupont’s order, the knights carried the Green Merchant Guild member out like luggage.
“Your Grace, are you all right?”
Killian did not answer. He was simply staring intently at something.
“Your Grace?”
A puzzled Dupont followed his gaze downward. Beside the spot where the assassin had been lying moments ago, a boy was sitting on the floor. Killian’s golden eyes were fixed on that small figure.
A young man sitting on the floor of the ducal office.
Rip—
A faint sound, like something tearing, reached Dupont’s ears. The boy, who looked young but was clearly a member of Knox, had torn a long strip from his clothes and was tightly binding his arm below the elbow.
“Huh……? You’re the one from yesterday……”
Dupont belatedly recognized him and widened his eyes. But the boy remained crouched, focused solely on tying his own arm.
“What on earth are you……”
Dupont frowned and approached the boy. It seemed the boy had been injured while subduing the assassin. There was a cut on his wrist from a blade. But the color of the wound was strange.
“Poison?”
The flesh around the bleeding wound had already turned black. Startled, Dupont was about to rise to fetch an emergency antidote when—
“Ah, damn it. Too late……”
The boy muttered something under his breath before slumping sideways and collapsing.
***
When I opened my eyes, a white, high ceiling came into view.
Where is this?
“Have you regained consciousness?”
At the unfamiliar voice, I lifted my head and quickly assessed the other person. Mid-thirties, platinum blond, dark navy eyes, refined features. Though neatly dressed, the clothing was made of the highest-grade silk from the Luman territory in the western continent, and he wore the star-shaped badge on the collar that only Knox executives could wear.
‘Why is Decon Gold here?’
My last memory was being poisoned from a minor wound while taking down the Green Merchant Guild member. This must be Knox’s medical ward. As one of the seven executives, Decon Gold could access anywhere except Killian Knox’s bedroom, so the medical ward wasn’t off-limits……
“What are you doing?”
“I was waiting for Runelk to wake up.”
That’s the problem.
“Why would the guild master……”
“Well……”
As Decon Gold began to answer, footsteps echoed from the end of the hallway. They were very light and soft—sounds an ordinary person wouldn’t hear. Though Decon Gold managed the merchant coalition, as an executive of Knox he was skilled enough to detect the approaching footsteps and turned toward the door.
Creak.
A young woman with loosely tied brown hair gave Decon Gold a slight nod of greeting before approaching and asking me,
“Runelk Eins?”
“Yes, that’s me.”
As I answered and tried to sit up, Decon Gold’s proximity made it difficult.
“Um, Guild Master Gold. I need to get up and sit……”
“Ah, shall I help you up?”
“No, that’s not it. If you could just move back a bit, I’d appreciate it.”
“……Oh.”
Decon Gold finally grasped the situation and awkwardly lifted the corners of his mouth before sitting properly in the chair beside the bed. I quickly sat up from the bed I had been lying in and pretended to straighten my clothes while checking my body’s condition. Seeing no black hair visible, my chest still flat, and my clothes unchanged, I was relieved the artifact hadn’t come undone.
Of course. If a low-ranking grunt had suddenly turned into a woman, I wouldn’t have woken up in the medical ward but in the torture chamber.
While I inwardly sighed in relief, the physician spoke.
“That was close, Eins.”
“Yes.”
“I said it was close, didn’t I?”
Of course it was. I had subdued a madman charging to kill Killian Knox and gotten poisoned in the process. As I tried to gauge the physician’s intent in repeating the same words to someone who had just woken from unconsciousness, I realized—
‘Ah, she wants acknowledgment.’
There were occasionally people like that. The type who, even after doing what they were supposed to do, still wanted recognition. I bowed my head toward the physician.
“Thank you. Thanks to you, I survived.”
“No, that’s not what I meant!”
The woman pounded her chest in frustration before glaring at the innocent Decon Gold.
“This is Dr. Valeska Heinzel, the head of the medical ward.”
I already knew. Valeska Heinzel, the young genius physician praised for having the “hands of god.” She was also Killian Knox’s longtime friend and personal physician. She handled matters so thoroughly that no information could be extracted through the medical ward, and I had struggled with that in the past.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you. I am Runelk Eins……”
“Yes, Eins. Do you not understand what the problem is right now?”
……Surely she hadn’t stripped me while I was unconscious?
A chill ran down my spine at the horrifying thought.