Chapter 11

Chapter 11

It had been a week since Valeta’s last proper night of sleep. She remembered that in the novel, Count Delight’s murder took place on the morning of her twentieth birthday, but it was now a whole week since that day had passed. Valeta looked down, narrowing her eyes.

—The guard came running after receiving the report. He found Count Delight in the entryway, covered in blood. The farther the guard made his way inside the manor, the more and more blood he saw. By the time he reached the dining room, the terrified guard had no choice but to flee.

Mangled bodies littered the floor of the dining room. Documents detailing Count Delight’s illicit affairs were scattered on top of the bodies, as if on display. As if this were retribution.

And on a special stage of her own, on top of the dining table was Valeta Delight. Her neck was bent at a strange angle, and her mouth was ripped grotesquely into a makeshift smile. In front of her was a mountain of corpses with candles mercilessly stabbed into them, flames still blazing away. It looked no different than a birthday cake.

There were twenty candles in all, for that day was Valeta’s twentieth birthday.

Valeta recalled the scene from the novel clearly. It was a very dramatic one, one she supposed was intended to leave quite an impact on the reader.

How could she not be afraid of that lunatic? She considered Reinhart one of her favorite characters, but only in the novel. She never wanted to meet someone like that in real life. However, there had been some subtle differences between her life and the novel, and since things were going differently now, did that mean it was all over? That the event wouldn’t come to pass?

Valeta pondered. If that was the case, she felt sorry for what she’d done to Reinhart.

But I know what I saw. That look in his eyes was real. He wasn’t smiling at all. Perhaps he didn’t feel the need to kill Count Delight anymore?

It was possible that Valeta had been able to protect Reinhart to some extent, preventing him from becoming as hostile as he had been in the novel. She took a deep breath.

“It’s been... a week.”

Was it safe for her to let her guard down? Reinhart could still become the head of the Magicians’ Tower, but maybe he wasn’t as crazy as he was in the novel.

“Is there another reason?”

Did he have a change of heart? Valeta anxiously held on to the ends of her hair as she sighed yet again. She wanted nothing more than for this to end quietly. She had been sick with anxiety because of all this.

All that’s left is for Reinhart to run away, she thought as she released another sigh. He was an adult now, so she presumed that it wouldn’t be long before his departure. After that, they would have no need to be involved with each other.

“What a relief...”

The girl sighed again as she laid back on her bed. She started to relax as the anxious thoughts that filled her mind began to dissipate. Her head cleared as her tension dropped.

“What’s taking the maid so long? Is she harvesting ingredients with her own two hands or something?”

Valeta was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hadn’t realized just how long the maid had been gone. It must have been about one, no, two hours since she’d sent the maid away.

Did she forget? It was already dark. The moon was rising across the sky. Valeta was starving after she had spent all her energy worrying about pointless things.

“I should go check.” Valeta hopped out of bed, put on her fluffy slippers, carefully cracked the door open, and poked her head outside. The manor was quieter than usual. Could she still be in the dining room? Maybe Father didn’t give her permission to leave.

It was possible that the count didn’t want Valeta taking her meals alone in her room.

“Where is everyone?”

The manor was quiet. Too quiet. Valeta slowly walked through the dreary silence, one step at a time.

“The servants should be finishing up for the day.”

Has the manor always been this quiet? Because she usually ate in her room, Valeta rarely wandered around her house in the evening, but the gloomy silence was sending chills down her spine.

She looked down the corridor, barely illuminated in the flickering candlelight.

Should I just go back?

Valeta stopped in her tracks and glanced behind her. She looked down the long corridor she’d come from and, for some reason, was less inclined to go back.

“She was just supposed to bring me my dinner. It’s not like she took a bow and went hunting for game herself,” she grumbled. If this was Count Delight’s way of letting her know he wasn’t allowing her to dine in her room tonight, then Valeta had no choice but to have dinner in the dining room.

He usually tells me of his decisions, though. To be honest, Valeta was annoyed by the count’s authoritative behavior. If it wasn’t for the bracelet, she would have fled from this place long ago.

“Have all the servants left for a get-together?”

A feeling of dread started settling in her stomach. No matter how much she thought about it, it was strange how she hadn’t run into any of the dozens of attendants that worked here.

“No... It can’t be.”

Valeta shook her head as a horrible thought crossed her mind. She didn’t want to assume that this was the worst-case scenario, but she couldn’t help imagining that the worries that had plagued her for the past week were coming to life.

It’s been a whole week. What happened in the novel was supposed to happen a week ago. But if she thought about it, there were a lot of differences between the novel and the world she was living in now.

Unlike the original Valeta, she wasn’t obsessed with Reinhart, nor was she madly in love with him. On top of that, the original Valeta didn’t have these special powers, and she wasn’t engaged to the crown prince, either.

There were so many differences. And if it had already been a week since the incident was supposed to happen, that meant her story was going in a different direction than the novel, right? Valeta tried to convince herself that it was true and nodded her head. Her steps were slower now.

On the other hand, if things don’t go according to the novel, that means something could still happen a week later, right? Another anxious thought crept up, and she assumed the worst had happened again. Her slow steps came to a halt. Isn’t the house too quiet for there to be a massacre going on?

After all, she couldn’t hear any dying screams.

“Please,” she whispered.

Valeta resumed her walk, hoping that nothing happened. She prayed the scenario playing inside her head was nothing but her imagination. Eventually, she found herself in front of the dining room. She put her ear against the door, but she couldn’t hear any sounds coming from within.

With a sigh of relief, she placed her hand on the doorknob, took a deep breath, and looked around the corridor once more before pulling the door open just an inch or so. Through the crack, Valeta could see the bright chandelier.

The sudden stench of blood assaulted her nose, and she instinctively let go of the door.

It closed soundlessly.

“No. It can’t be,” she murmured as she spun around. This had to be a dream. She had worried about this for so long that it was now manifesting as a nightmare.

Let’s just go back to bed.

It didn’t make any sense for the manor to be so quiet in the first place. She shook her head frantically, and turned on her heels, about to make her way back to where she had come from, when a sudden light from behind her illuminated the dim corridor.

Valeta froze.

The only thing behind her was the door to the dining room, and Valeta was pretty sure that she had closed it. She couldn’t have reopened it as her back was to the door the whole time.

Her body stiffened as if she had just looked Medusa herself in the eye.

Cold chills ran down her spine.

She couldn’t run away, but she couldn’t turn around and face her opponent either.

“Why didn’t you come in?” the voice asked.

“I took a wrong turn.”

“If I knew you were awake, I would have invited you.”

“I must decline...” she said quietly.

“What brings you to the dining room?”

“I was hungry, but I changed my mind. I’m going back to bed,” Valeta replied, her back still turned to the voice. There was a stiffness in her own voice that she couldn’t hide. They were having an utterly meaningless conversation, but what else could she do?

Their exchange was beyond ridiculous, given what she had just seen in the dining room. It wasn’t as if she could just waltz in there to fill up her plate with food. Valeta could hear a low laugh at her desperate reply.

“Oh... That maid from earlier must have been yours.”

She didn’t respond.

“If I had known, I would’ve spared her. But she just kept screaming, so I couldn’t help it and...”

Valeta inhaled sharply at his words. It didn’t take a genius to figure out what he’d done next. Forcing her frozen arms to move, she rubbed her face with her hands. The footsteps behind her were coming closer, but she kept still.

Her mind was screaming at her to run, but her legs wouldn’t move. She could feel his breath right behind her.

“My dear master, it’s quite admirable the way you’re desperately trying to look away, but I’ll be very sad if you don’t look at me properly.” Reinhart’s fingers, which were long and slender like a pianist’s, gently stroked the nape of Valeta’s neck before his palm flattened against her skin as he grabbed it. “Look at me, master. It’d be a shame if I ended up snapping your neck by forcing you to look at me.”

“You can keep doing whatever you want. Just leave me out of it.”

Reinhart’s eyes widened before he burst out into laughter at Valeta’s frigid reply.

“You’re as cold-hearted as always,” he said with a chuckle. “Not just to me, but to others too.”

Valeta had already imagined the worst in her head dozens of times, and if the things she’d pictured were to play out right in front of her eyes, she wouldn’t have so much as flinched. She swallowed when she heard Reinhart’s reply. She didn’t know why, but his voice sounded quite cheerful.

He tapped Valeta, who was still staring straight ahead with her back to the dining room, on the shoulder.

“Look at me, master.”

The hand on her neck felt cold, as if all blood had been drained from his hand. Valeta slowly lifted her head and turned to face Reinhart. At some point, the door to the dining room had closed again. All she could see were his glowing red eyes that flickered in the candlelight.

“Good girl,” he murmured as he gently stroked her head. How could Valeta tell this lunatic that she had turned not because she wanted to, but because she had to?

“I was trying to be as quiet as possible because I thought you were sleeping. I even drew the curtains, but I guess I didn’t need to do that after all.”

He poked at the air by the dining room entrance, and Valeta saw a transparent wave ripple across the door. It was hazy, but she could sense that there was certainly something there. That was the reason why she couldn’t hear anything. Her face contorted.

“Yes, I should have just stayed in bed. I’ll forget that I saw anything.”

So please let me go back, she ardently wished as she looked into his eyes.

He chuckled at her reply. The scrawny boy that Valeta once knew had now grown into a tall man, a whole head taller than herself. The shabby tunic he used to wear was replaced with a robe made from fine silk that was probably waterproof, dustproof, and flameproof—no doubt made by magicians.

“Since you caught a glimpse, you must stay until the end,” he whispered into her ear.

Valeta could feel the hairs rising on her neck. Some people smelled sweet if you were close enough to them, but to her, this man only smelled of blood.

“The smell of blood...”

“Oh.”

Reinhart moved to take off his robe. Valeta couldn’t help but notice that the bottom of his dark gray robe was wet and darker than the rest of it.

She tried hard not to stare, pretending not to know what the stain was.

Reinhart flung his robe around her shoulders. The fabric still carried the lingering warmth of his body heat, and Valeta’s cold body felt instantly warmer.

What the hell is he doing? Valeta lifted her head and gazed blankly at Reinhart.