Chapter 13

Chapter 13

As soon as Valeta spoke, Reinhart’s expression shifted, making it hard to tell what he was thinking, and he brushed his thumb against her lower lip again.

“It appears that my dear master doesn’t approve of what I’m doing. Why don’t you step back and let me take care of everything?”

His face broke into a relaxed smile.

“As much as I want to disembowel that man for turning you into a spectacle and treating you like a circus clown, I won’t because you might find it disagreeable.”

Valeta stayed quiet. His words were beyond cruel, and listening to him say them with that perfect smile sent chills down her spine. She was about to open her mouth to give a retort, only to find that it was sealed again. She gave up and simply looked at Reinhart.

“I want you to wait here. I’ll save you for last,” he said. He lovingly stroked Valeta’s messy hair, as if she was the most precious person in the world, before turning around to face the carnage.

Saving me for last, Valeta thought. Her face hardened. Damn it. This is it, then.

Reinhart glanced at her, giving her a reassuring smile. Then, he strode in the direction of Count Delight, nonchalantly stepping on the dead as he went.

There was nothing more to say. The sight that unfolded before Valeta’s eyes could only be described as a massacre. Two hooded men captured every living person left in the manor and threw them into the dining room. Then, Reinhart tossed weapons at them as they trembled in the midst of the slaughter, almost as though he were giving them a chance to fight for their lives.

But the difference between Reinhart’s innate ability and theirs was the difference between heaven and earth. The servants had struggled, desperately and in vain, but were immediately subdued with a wry smile and the single snap of their opponent’s long fingers.

“I’m giving you a chance.” As if that wasn’t enough, Reinhart, in a sweet voice, said, “Run. If you manage to escape the dining room, I won’t lay a hand on you.”

Despair washed over the servants.

In her past life, Valeta had read a fairytale called The Sun and the Moon. She wondered if the voice that had lowered the life-saving rope in that story sounded something like Reinhart’s: sweet, tempting, and generous—as if the speaker were genuinely giving them a chance.

But the reality was tragic. All the servants’ legs were either crushed or severed. There wasn’t a single soul in the room that had working legs. Just who was he granting this chance to?

Yet, some of the servants still tried, desperate to live. Reinhart looked down at one of them, smiling softly as he watched her attempt to crawl away.

“Oh. Come to think of it, you kicked me with this leg before, didn’t you? Called me annoying,” Reinhart said to the crawling maid.

“Herk... Agh...” she gasped. “N-no, i-it wasn’t me... I didn’t...” The maid, who was attempting to suppress the pain as she crawled, frantically shook her head.

Reinhart gave a low chuckle as if he had heard a funny joke. However, his eyes and mouth were narrowed, unsmiling.

“I hate lies.”

With the single crook of a finger, a loud snap pierced through the silence. The maid’s leg was bent at a strange angle.

“Ahhhh!”

Valeta winced at the terrible shriek that followed. Not being able to smell the blood didn’t make the sound of breaking bones any more bearable.

Reinhart glanced at Valeta and, noticing her discomfort, raised a finger again. The maid’s mouth snapped shut, her shrieks no more than a muffled groan.

“Shh. You’re scaring my master,” he said with a theatrical whisper.

Your bloody face is scaring me more, Valeta thought. The magician gave her an innocent smile and began to move quickly around the room.

The same event continued to repeat itself: Reinhart would recite the details of the crimes each had committed against him over the last ten years before hurting them anew. Even Valeta was shocked at hearing the awful things that had happened to him.

“Weren’t you the one who threw books at my head? And you used me as a chair,” he said as he stepped on the backs of an attendant and a maid. He spoke clearly—it was like he wanted Valeta to hear every single word.

This was nothing like the novel. If Reinhart was different from the novel version of himself, it was because he himself had fundamentally changed.

So what? Is he trying to make me feel guilty?

While Valeta listened, she couldn’t shake how dumbfounded she was. She swallowed hard as her vision started going white. She felt no guilt at all. She tried her best, but nobody had listened.

She snorted. They were the ones harassing and tormenting him, and though she’d done what she could to stop them, the abuse was far worse than even she had imagined. She had no pity left in her heart for these people, she didn’t even want to feel pity for them. They deserved it. The way they carried on, they had been asking for it.

“Ugh... Argh...”

“Oh, I nearly forgot.”

Hearing the groan behind him, Reinhart lifted his hand with a look of feigned surprise on his face. A sword that had been lying on the floor suddenly rose into the air and flew straight toward Count Delight’s heart.

There was a ghastly sound, accompanied by sporadic gasps, and Count Delight’s head dropped to one side. Thanks to Reinhart’s… “consideration,” Valeta couldn’t smell the blood that spilled from her father.

Still, the whole affair felt like a movie. Like none of it was real.

How much time had passed?

Bang!

The door to the dining room opened again. The two hooded men walked in, pushing three maids in before them.

“These are the only survivors left in the manor.”

“Perhaps it’s because it’s such a large mansion, but there sure are a lot of pests to exterminate,” said the silver-haired man, his words cold. And before they even had a chance to scream, the three maids were impaled by spears of ice.

It happened so quickly that it was hard to believe that they were still alive only seconds ago.

Wow... How Valeta envied them. At least their deaths were not drawn out, that, in the blink of an eye, they were heading toward the afterlife.

Reinhart looked down at the lifeless bodies, gave a long sigh, and turned around. “Now you’re the only one left, master.”

His voice took on a saccharine tone, like a siren luring a sailor to their unfortunate end, as he slowly approached Valeta.

* * *

Reinhart calmly looked down at Valeta, who had lost consciousness from the shock of seeing the bloodbath around her and the resultant stabbing pain in her heart. As she had collapsed on the floor, his robe was now filthy. She was frowning and groaning, seemingly uncomfortable even while unconscious.

“Aren’t you going to kill her, my lord?” one of the robed men asked as he removed his hood. The other man standing next to him removed his hood as well.

The first figure was a man with jet-black hair and bright yellow eyes, while the second was a beautiful man with sky-blue, shoulder-length hair and equally blue eyes.

“I’m thinking about it,” Reinhart replied.

“Is it because of her alchemy skills? Or because of her elemental abilities? These aren’t common. I think she could be useful,” the man with the jet-black hair said.

“If I wanted her for her abilities, I would have made her mine long ago,” said Reinhart, confident that he was entirely capable of it. The two men were puzzled by his blunt response.

Reinhart crouched down in front of Valeta and threaded his fingers through her bloodstained hair, caring not the blood that now coated his fingers. The once bright red fluid had now hardened into a dark crimson on the girl’s pale, thin cheeks. Her luscious hair was in disarray, spilled out over the floor.

Valeta was in a deep sleep, but she continued to turn restlessly, a deep line creasing her forehead. Reinhart placed a hand around her neck. “If she won’t give herself to me, then it would be better if...”

He didn’t think it would be a bad idea to kill her, to preserve only her body. Reinhart’s red eyes flashed. Then, he slowly blinked. But if he did that, he would never be able to feel her warmth or see her smile again. He brushed the thought aside, his finger traveling up the slope of her neck to rest on her cheek. He poked at it.

“How disgraceful.”

No. If someone were to ask if he wanted to kill her, his answer was no. It was merely that his displeasure with her, with the way she never called his name in the ten years they had known each other, had finally come to a head.

“Silon.”

“Yes, my lord,” the man with the sky-blue hair answered, his voice as light as a spring breeze.

“Do you think it’s possible to live with someone for ten years and never call them by their name?”

“I don’t think it’s impossible, but it also doesn’t seem likely to happen,” Silon replied.

“Right.”

Yet that was exactly what Valeta Delight had done. It wasn’t just Reinhart either. She never remembered or called anyone who lived and worked in the mansion by their names. Whenever she called for someone, it was always “Hey,” or “You there.”

That was it.

You can only call someone by their name if you remember it. But Reinhart knew that Valeta knew his name. That was what made it even more upsetting.

“Father, please get rid of that slave! He’s bound to bring misfortune later!”

Reinhart slowly blinked as the memories washed over him. She had always begged her father to get rid of him or to, at least, sell him to someone else as soon as possible, asking Count Delight every single day for a year. He wanted to ask her why she did that, but...

That will come in due time.

There was no hurry. She was now his, and he had no need to bow his head to anyone anymore.

After collecting his thoughts, Reinhart straightened, scooping up Valeta’s limp body as he rose with one firm arm around her back and another under her knees.

“Didn’t you plan for this to happen a week ago? Why did you delay it?”

“It was her birthday.”

Reinhart slowly lowered his head and kissed the girl on the forehead. The very creature that he had been watching from afar was finally in his arms. He looked down at the girl, a dark smile stretching across his face.