Chapter 181

Chapter 181

* * *

The sun brought greetings of a new day. The ground was still soaked from the drizzle that had come down throughout the previous night. The trial that had been forced to adjourn early was set to recommence that afternoon.

Noel was once again being kept in unofficial solitary confinement in his room. Thanks to his unhinged outburst from the previous day, the other clan leaders thought it best to increase the number of guards outside his door. That, coupled with his countless attempts to escape his room in order to find his precious puppet even after the hearing had adjourned, had only served to offer more grounds for his imprisonment.

As he regularly slept through breakfast, his lunch came at the same time nearly every day. And every day, Noel hardly looked at the meal. The clicking sound that came from his anxious and incessant nail-biting echoed throughout the otherwise quiet chamber.

“Nix...”

His impatience had peaked from the moment he made contact with the puppet at his trial. Despite having to endure the continuation of the proceedings, the hearing itself still meant little to him at all.

“I... I need to see Nix, so why...?” Why are they all getting in my way? Nix is mine. I need him in order to save Dante. Why else would I have come all the way to Yggdrasil?!

But just as the white-haired steward had once told him, reclaiming a puppet that had already been taken from him would be a difficult feat. That seemed to be the very reason his right-hand man had devised so many plans to accomplish that goal while he was still alive.

Of course, they had nearly all turned to dust upon his death. The Gold Master had been too busy crying over the void left behind by both his puppet and his Luna’s absences, that his very memory of the bespectacled man’s wise words nearly escaped him. Even so, there was still something that only Noel Vertium was capable of. However, the uncertainty as to whether he was doing the right thing or not had been haunting him ever since he left Vertium.

The absence of anyone to either praise or rebuke him anymore had been weighing on his mind as well. Before long, he had chewed his tattered nails down to nubs.

“Dante... Nix...”

Indeed. Getting the puppet back had to remain his top priority. Nothing else mattered after having come that far already. A flicker of madness played upon his emerald-green eyes as he continued to bite down on his now blood-soaked fingertips.

* * *

The atmosphere inside Yggdrasil castle had become much heavier after the spectacle in the great hall the previous day. And, of course, Black Agrece remained at the center of it all.

Each time members of the other clans beheld the Agreces, they turned to their nearest companion to gossip in hushed tones amongst themselves. Of course, they did so slightly more openly when and wherever the Agreces were absent as well. Attitudes toward the Black clan hadn’t changed overnight, so members of the other clans were still hesitant to approach them first. However, the blatant hostility they had always faced seemed to have subsided ever so slightly.

Nevertheless, there were still three individuals whose expressions darkened at the mere mention of the “A” in Agrece. The link between those specific Fipellions was that they had participated in a game of cards with the Agrece siblings and had been on edge ever since. In fact, they seemed to repeatedly find themselves in the midst of similarly peculiar incidents that they dare not disclose to others.

The most recent incidents always seemed to occur while they were asleep since they would wake up feeling full of tense and inexplicable suspicion. At first, they noticed certain items in their respective rooms were either altered or had been moved from their original places.

For example, candlesticks that had been aligned perfectly along the walls at night would consistently wind up slashed in two by morning. Or flowers that the castle attendants had placed in a vase in their rooms would be pruned to stems by daybreak. Other times, their indoor slippers that they left near their beds before turning in for the night would be between their fingers or toes when they awoke.

The severity of the occurrences was simply irritating at best, so the victims simply chose to doubt their own memories at first. However, as the peculiar incidents continued to occur with growing frequency, they accepted that they weren’t mere coincidences. After all, their fingernails couldn’t dye themselves various colors while they slept, unless the three had developed odd sleep-walking behaviors around the same time. But being the victims of these absurd events on a daily basis made them highly agitated. And no matter how many times they bullied the castle attendants to change their rooms, the same ills continued to befall them.

Even bolting their doors with multiple locks was useless. In fact, as if to mock the three Fipellions, the culprits would break in and place the picked locks inside their pajama pockets. Of course, those particular White clan members knew exactly who was behind their torment.

There was no doubt in their minds that the soulless Agreces were the responsible party. However, the incidents lacked enough severity to convince others of foul play. Not to mention that the three lacked evidence that the Black clan members were the culprits. Thus, the most they could do was continue to writhe in agony and exhaustion—sleepless night after sleepless night.

That was the very reason they had little to no energy left to take any interest in all the gossip surrounding the Vertium puppet. The previous night, the trio had even tried to fend off sleep in anticipation of the culprits’ arrival, but their fatigue was far too great and weighed so heavily on their eyelids that they fell asleep in almost no time at all. By the time they awoke, they shuddered as they found white flowers laid across their beds as if arranged for their funerals.

That had caused one of them to finally break down and rush to the castle’s infirmary to rest. Meanwhile, the other two attended the garden tea party scheduled for that day as a way to show the Agrece siblings that their pride could not be broken as easily.

“Ugh! M-my... My stomach!”

Without warning, Duran Fipellion collapsed to the ground while clutching his stomach.

“Duran!”

A cacophony of panic and concern instantly filled the garden.

“What’s wrong?!”

“He just collapsed all of a sudden! Go get the doctor! Hurry!”

A crowd soon formed around the fallen Fipellion. One person in particular leaned in closer than everyone else and acted especially concerned.

“Goodness... Are you all right?”

The voice just so happened to belong to an Agrece. Due to their persistent harassment and trickery, the remaining unaffected White clan member finally lost his ability to restrain his contempt toward the Black clan member and violently slapped away the outstretched hand. “Don’t touch him!”

“Ouch!”

Those from the other clans looked on in stunned amazement at the Fipellion’s violent outburst.

“Now why would you do that? I was only trying to help...”

“Spare me your double-talk! Anyone can see that you tried to kill us by poisoning our tea!”

“Oh my! What in the world is he talking about?!”

A panic-stricken protest echoed over the disagreeable words of the Fipellion and throughout the garden, but the remaining member of the unlucky trio retained his contempt. He was certain beyond a shadow of a doubt that the despicable Agreces had tried to poison them.

They can’t fool me. Why else would Duran be writhing in agony on the grass like a farm animal?

The mere mention of the word “poison” had caused a number of those within the garden to hold their breaths, while others were busy checking their teacups and pots. Here and there, several guests were preoccupied with vomiting what they had already drank out of fear they might be next.

“This is absurd. Just what have we done to deserve such treatment?!”

“Honestly! It’s bad enough that you lot always try to pick fights with us!”

“To tell the truth, I’ve had just about enough of all this! There’s only so much we can take!”

The Black clan members who were present at the garden tea party rose from their seats in united frustration as they were no longer willing to hold their tongues.

“From the second you all laid eyes on us you treated us like we were these unbearable thorns in your side, and now this? How can we be sure you Fipellions aren’t the ones trying to frame us?!”

“What?! You think we’re anything like you Agreces?!”

“What did we even do?! This is precisely the sort of stunt your clan pulled last time!”

As the shouting continued, a soft voice suddenly floated over the squabbling from the garden entrance.

“You say the Agreces poisoned your tea?” Jeremy had returned from fetching the castle doctor and medics. “As master of the Agrece clan, I cannot and will not condone such defamatory accusations.”

* * *

Elsewhere in Yggdrasil castle, the attendants were busy tending to their designated duties. One such individual was heading toward the banquet hall with freshly washed tablecloths when he noticed someone approaching from afar.

The person was a man wearing dark-brown clothing, and something about his movement was off as though he had been injured or was experiencing some manner of discomfort. The concerned servant quickly approached him without any knowledge of which clan the man belonged to. He was himself new to working at the castle, so had yet to familiarize himself with who all the present members of the five clans were.

“Hello, may I help you?”

As the distance between them shortened, the attendant noticed that the man’s face and part of his neck were stained with a brown substance. Thus, upon closer inspection, it appeared that the odd man’s attire had been soiled, rather than brown to begin with.

Was he perhaps caught in the rain last night? It’s certainly possible that he tripped and fell into a puddle.

The attendant reached into his pocket for a handkerchief he could give to the sorry-looking man. All the while, the stranger had also taken notice of him. Unbeknownst to the kindhearted fellow, the mysterious individual viewed him as a mere obstacle.

Only one thought consumed the mind of that creature from the moment it had received orders from its master.

“Find Nix. Bring him to me.”

So just as what had occurred while it passed through the demon monster habitat, another command echoed in its thoughts the moment it locked eyes with the servant.

“Remove any and all obstacles.”

It moved according to the command instilled in its mind.

“Here you are. You can use my handkerchief t—”

In a swift motion, the individual raised his hand toward the attendant, but not to receive the kind token. Instead, he sliced down with his blade-like arm at the man’s throat without a moment’s hesitation.

Slash!

It all happened in the blink of an eye.

Splash!

A red mist swept over the green grass surrounding the two. A bodiless head flew through the air, then crashed to the ground with a splattering sound while blood continued to splutter out from its base as it rolled along its path.

Meanwhile, a puddle began to form around the open neck of the now lifeless body sprawled out on the ground. The white tablecloths fluttered down over the scene only to become stained red as they soaked up the gushing liters of blood.

Creak.

The creature proceeded to move toward its objective once again. Before long, other attendants arrived at the scene one after another. Had it been a demon monster or any other sort of foreign life form, it would have immediately set off the neutral territory’s alarms the moment it attempted to set foot in Yggdrasil. However, no such alert had been triggered since the thing was neither human nor beast.

The barriers in place meant to suppress sorcery were the only things capable of damaging certain parts of the puppet. That had been the reason behind the stiff and slow movements the hapless attendant had witnessed. Even so, Noel Vertium’s initial command continued to rage with violent turbulence in its mind.

A great storm was but mere paces away from entering Yggdrasil castle.