Chapter 176

Chapter 176

Cassis returned to his seat with an unreadable expression. It wasn’t that I was intentionally trying to hide my true nature from him or trying to pretend I was a kindhearted person, but at such times I was truly glad that he didn’t have the power to read minds.

“Although the concerned party isn’t here, we still need to hear about the circumstances surrounding the matter at hand.”

The masters attempted to settle the mounting discord in the air since they couldn’t simply dismiss everyone due to Noel’s forced absence. And given how seriously the mood within the hall had intensified, they decided to at least hear from the remaining parties involved.

“Let us first hear from the Blue Heir.”

Cassis stood again to speak to the assembly. It was a clear choice since he had been the first one to inform the masters of the Nix’s existence.

“You may recall that Vertium has on a number of occasions been absent from these gatherings in Yggdrasil.”

He made sure to speak in a calm, unaffected tone so the facts were received by everyone without a hint of his internal hatred toward the Gold clan leader.

The masters nodded in agreement. “Yes, they often sent an envoy to the castle to receive the results of our meetings rather than come in person themselves.”

Those who had been sitting at the back of the hall murmuring amongst themselves also began to pay closer attention to the details Cassis was outlining.

“It was the same case during the gathering just before this one. However, for whatever reason—which I personally suspect was the overwhelming fatigue of repeatedly making the long trip between Vertium and Yggdrasil—their envoy was found unconscious in front of one of the halls.”

If I hadn’t noticed before, I realized that day that he was surprisingly adept at lying. Isidore had already informed me that Cassis had been solely responsible for the Gold envoy falling unconscious in the first place.

Cassis continued, “And so I ordered the castle attendants to look after the unfortunate man while I made my way to the Gold lands along with my lieutenant in order to deliver the letter containing the results of that meeting myself.”

“So you did”

Cassis paused for a moment to allow everything he had disclosed to sink in with everyone before continuing. “However, from the moment I set foot in the Gold manor, all I could see was that puppet attacking Miss Agrece.”

A small murmur erupted throughout the room once again. The story had been passed along from one ear to another since last night, but to hear it directly from the Blue Heir himself had thrown everyone into a near frenzy.

“Thus, I took the puppet into my custody, then ensured her well-being afterward.” He then added that if the leaders needed to do so, they could also listen to the testimonies of Isidore and the two horsemen who had gone with him to the Gold estate since they were also partial witnesses.

“But why was the puppet attacking Miss Agrece in the first place?”

“My understanding was that it was in order to keep her from leaving Vertium. However, I feel it would be best to have her speak for herself regarding this matter.”

As the Blue Heir, Cassis’ words carried credibility on their own, but the fact that he was born a Pedelian and me an Agrece added even more weight to his words and actions. After all, there wasn’t a soul in this fictional world that hadn’t heard about how much our clans despised one another. That made it even more unlikely that the Pedelian heir of all people would lie on behalf of an Agrece.

“Lady Roxana, please explain if you will.”

The masters and everyone in the hall turned their gaze back to me. Jeremy gently patted my hand for encouragement while looking at me solemnly. I had to choke back a giggle after seeing how deeply he was starting to enjoy the whole ordeal.

“I had visited Vertium at that time under a formal invitation from the Gold Master,” I said, signaling the attendants to hand the clan leaders the letter I had received from Noel. They each became irritated while reading the invitation.

If the Gold Master had wanted to, he could have easily denied having sent any such document to me since they could analyze the handwriting to verify if it matched his penmanship. But seeing as the letter was full of veiled threats, it would also stand to reason to think he would have likely told someone else to write it for him. Either way, that piece of paper alone held little to no value. I honestly didn’t think much of the tattered missive either, so it really didn’t matter.

“As you can see in that letter, I was summoned to the Gold lands on the basis that one of my kin was being held there. My last and closest relation is my mother who I had unfortunately not heard from since last winter. And so of course, the first person who came to mind after reading that message was her.”

I had already predicted even before entering the hall that making my brother’s corpse into a puppet and using him to threaten me still wouldn’t be enough to punish Noel to the extent I would have liked.

For one thing, any clan falling under such scrutiny over such a matter was in itself a historical affair. In many ways, the five clans were off-limits to one another. They managed to coexist throughout the history of this world by acknowledging and respecting each other’s unique rights and differences. Of course, experimentation on human subjects was one act the other clans simply couldn’t condone.

Even if the Gold Master were to deny everything, as long as Nix was in chains for everyone to see, the remaining leaders could most certainly find a way to prove that he had been made from a human cadaver. But what mattered most to me was what would come after that.

For one thing, it remained unclear just who would impose any sort of punishment on the Gold clan. Forcing them to permanently seal away the secrets of their puppetism sorcery was improbable, but getting a signed vow from them stating that they would never conduct human experiments going forward was still on the table.

What’s more, Achille wasn’t exactly a matter they could be held accountable for. After all, the person who had delivered his corpse to Vertium was Lante Agrece himself. And if Noel were to deny to the bitter end ever threatening me, then there would be nothing left of our case against them.

Then again, even if he were to admit to doing it, that would result in mere criticism of his morality. In this world, there really was no way that he could be sentenced to prison or any sort of harsher punishment. If anything, the other clans might put pressure on them by seeking their own personal vengeance against their leader. Honestly, the more I thought about the ways of this world, the more baffled I became by how messed up it all was.

I mean, no wonder these one-dimensional bastards did all that wild crap to Sylvia in the original plot. Committing even the most heinous of crimes here is like rolling out of bed on a weekday to the folks in this novel. That’s why I abandoned all hope of seeing any sort of retribution beyond taking his beloved puppet away from the shameless Vertium leader.

“However, once I arrived at the Gold Manor, the person I encountered was not my mother, but a teen boy who looked painfully familiar.” It was imperative that I show those people that the Black clan wasn’t the only one of the five getting our hands dirty. “Noel Vertium even said himself that he had made the puppet from a human corpse.” There was still one thing I wished to get out of the trial. “I just knew the moment I saw that blond creature with his blue eye that he was without a doubt...”

The most important thing to me on that day was figuring out how to best use the fact that the puppet had taken over my brother’s body. Just telling that truth would be enough to hold everyone’s attention. That was why there was little to no need for me to flavor my account with any more lies.

“...the body of my late older brother Achille. Our father had ordered his disposal when he was fifteen, thus the process took place under Lante Agrece’s watch.”

The unfamiliar expression caused an immediate stir in the hall.

“Um... ‘Disposal’? Do you mean to say Lante had the boy killed?”

Roussel frowned as he asked.

“Correct.” I purposefully contorted my facial expression as I replied. Even my half-siblings appeared utterly shocked at hearing my testimony. I suppose they hadn’t expected me to divulge so much of our clan’s inner workings. Of course, it was never like me to become swayed by such things.

“Please understand that I do not speak lightly of such matters. It’s simply that it is one of the practices that pertained to our clan while...” I pretended to hesitate as the room began to grow even more roused. “...when our father was still in power. He was a man who would gladly and without pause deem one of his own children unworthy or faulty, then execute them just as unfeelingly as a means of setting an example for the rest of us.”

The room was louder than it had been throughout the proceedings. To my surprise, the buzz of the assembly’s collective exasperation, despair, and horror began to make me dizzy.

“‘Faulty’? ‘Execute them’?” Hiakin Fipellion reiterated several of the words I had used with an astonished tone as if he deemed such terms unfit to escape from my lips. Meanwhile, Badrisha Castro stared at me as though her lips had been sewn together.

“A total of four of our siblings have met their ends after such a sentence from my father. My brother Achille was among them.”

“Huh?!”

There were those who looked shocked due to the sheer disbelief at how such inhumane acts could have taken place without their own clan’s knowledge. But seeing as how each one of the Agrece siblings was sitting upright and looking on stoically as opposed to the usual lackluster expressions they had become infamous for at the castle, their appearances only served to validate everything I had said to the point that no one dared question it.

“Not a single grave or headstone was prepared for our fallen brothers and sisters once they were disposed of.” I continued my testimony with a tone of solemn resolve. “As it was normal for corpses to either be tossed into one of the demon monster habitats near our territory’s borders or get fed to the ones we kept inside our compound’s monster hutch, many of us were of the assumption that our siblings’ remains had met the same fa—”

“Wait, wait...”

Again, the White Master interjected. The pure disbelief he seemed to be experiencing soaked every inch of his expression.

“You’re telling us that Lante killed not one, but four of his own children?!”

“Yes, sir.”

“And then he tossed their corpses to demon monsters as snacks?!”

“Correct, sir.”

There was no need for me to explain any further about how the determining factor had been the victims’ performances during our clan’s monthly evaluations, or what those exams entailed. In fact, I felt it best to leave the other clans in the dark about what we Agreces were required to learn from birth. There was still the possibility that they might see us as threats and raise their guards around us once again.

“In the case of my brother Achille, my father had never approved of his supposedly weak personality. Lante was also notorious for having little patience when it came to any form of criticism or disobedience from us.”

The most effective course of action proved to be only sharing a spoonful of the dark, murky truth from the bubbling cauldron that was the Black clan. After all, there was still plenty left stewing inside that was sure to spill out none and then.

“How could he...? To his own children?!”

“Our father was indeed...” I lowered my eyelashes slightly and did my best to look frail. “...the sort of man who could take the lives of his own children with great ease for little to no reason.”