Chapter 50

Chapter 50

* * *

Scratch!

“We’ve caught him! The intruder’s over here!”

Lante immediately turned in the direction of the guard’s voice.

“You found him?” He was ready to pounce on the Pedelian rat, but to his dismay, it had been a false alarm.

“Um... Master...”

Screee!

The trap had ensnared a baby carantul. It had evidently escaped during the recent mayhem after Maria’s last tea party and had been in hiding since then. Despite how little it was, the toxic creature did its best to release poison in its unsuccessful attempt to get free.

Lante’s expression turned to stone.

“It appears this young carantul tripped the intruder alarm, Master.”

Not only that, but none of the other guards had found any evidence of a break-in. That such a small creature could have caused such chaos that late at night was anything but a minor disappointment.

“For now, just take it inside alive.” There was no hiding the annoyance in the head Agrece’s voice. Sensing the turn of events had soured their master’s mood, the guards quickly snagged the baby carantul and tossed it inside of a satchel.

In order to ensure that it had indeed been the culprit, they placed the living creature inside of a magic circle. As instructed, the guards took the satchel inside and dropped the young, yet man-sized creature in front of the sculpture in the mansion’s lobby. Upon doing so, all the alarm bells fell silent.

All the while, Lante had been cursing under his breath. Then without warning, Roxana suddenly appeared on the main staircase.

“Is that the intruder, Father?”

As there was no light on the second floor, Roxana was almost entirely cast in shadow. In fact, the white moonlight coming through the window behind her only highlighted her outline. Meanwhile, Cassis stood a little behind his keeper on the landing.

“Yes, a minor nuis—”

Scratch!

Before Lante could finish explaining, the creature inside the satchel began to thrash and shake. It was doing its very best to get out.

“Then I think whoever it is deserves a welcome present.” Roxana suddenly yanked the chain around Cassis’s neck in the direction of the satchel, then—

Flutter!

A swarm of butterflies appeared out of nowhere and began to attack him mercilessly. There were hundreds of them, so they appeared to practically swallow the Blue Heir whole.

Munch, munch!

Crunch!

As the tiny crimson monsters gorged themselves, bizarre and creepy sounds echoed throughout the mansion.

“Ah... Aaah...!”

The butterflies steadily chomped away at their writhing prey. Eventually, all that remained of Cassis Pedelian fell to the floor with a sickening thud. Everyone in the lobby watched, transfixed to the spot where they stood.

Crunch, crunch...

Once the screams had stopped, only a bare outline of a corpse remained visible on the floor. With most of the body gone, there was very little left to suggest that the butterflies were feasting on human remains apart from a few bits and pieces.

It was a most cruel and shocking sight—one that would be difficult for all who witnessed it to shake from their memories.

Drip, drip

Everyone on the first floor continued to watch in a stupor as the blood flowed down the staircase. Then before long, even the blood was gone as the butterflies voraciously lapped up the thick liquid that had escaped from their slain victim. The fluttering creatures’ process could be seen as almost clinical since they left next to no trace of their human victim behind.

“Oh my... So it wasn’t a Pedelian?” Roxana’s beautiful, yet somewhat cross voice had been the first sound to finally break the silence in the hall.

At the same time she spoke, everyone seemed to let out a collective exhale. Even Lante seemed to suddenly wake from a dream. He turned his gaze to where Roxana was glaring.

The baby carantul had successfully managed to peek its head out of the satchel.

Roxana scrunched up her face before speaking again.

“Curses. I had intended for the intruder to witness his master’s death. I was delighted at the thought of him watching the one their clan has been searching for die right in front of him.”

As she voiced her disappointment, the butterflies lifted off from the floor one by one. Their crimson wings reflected in the moonlight before disappearing as Roxana bid them to. The living, breathing person who had stood behind her just moments ago was also completely gone. Still, there wasn’t a hint of remorse or guilt in Roxana’s expression as she glanced down at the empty murder scene.

“Oh, well... My butterflies had been nagging me to allow them to feast on my toy, so I suppose it’s just as well.” As a single butterfly came to perch on her finger, Roxana smiled that beautiful yet deadly smile of hers at the crowd below. “With these cute, new pets around, I don’t need that sorry toy anymore anyway.”

The moonlight shining in from the window only continued to make her slender figure appear more stark.

“Ha...”

Despite almost never being at a loss for words, Lante couldn’t say much apart from starting to laugh.

“Ha.... Ahahaha!”

His laugh grew louder and louder until he seemed unable to contain himself.

“That truly was the most fitting end for that Pedelian rat.” His crimson eyes glimmered with drunken menace. The grotesque scene he had witnessed a mere seconds ago had been implanted itself deep within his thoughts and was replaying over and over again to no end. “I really have to hand it to you, Roxana. That was truly ingenious!”

Lante seemed overjoyed at the fact that Roussel Pedelian’s son had met such a tragic death of being eaten alive down to his literal bones. But to add insult to injury, his bones had been eaten as well.

“My only regret is that the intruder wasn’t a Pedelian. How marvelous would it have been if we had killed him in front of that damn Roussel?! Oh, why didn’t I think of that before?”

“How right you are, Father. But since his son was fairly powerful, I expect my butterflies will at least benefit a great deal from feeding on him. In fact, it was a rather honorable death for a cretin like him.”

“I couldn’t agree with you more, Roxana. It was far too honorable of a death for the likes of him.”

Lante seemed to have completely forgotten the funk he had been in due to the false alarm and was instead nodding with vicious enthusiasm at Roxana’s every word.

She in turn, continued to smile. “But goodness, look at the time. Why don’t you return to your room to rest, Father? I think I shall turn in as well. I am rather tired.”

“Of course. Go and get some sleep.”

Roxana turned to head back upstairs with the smile still fixed on her face.

* * *

“Lady Roxana.”

Emily had just returned from completing the task Roxana had assigned to her. She had in fact been the one who had instigated the baby carantul’s havoc.

“You’ve done very well, Emily.”

Emily nodded slightly before responding. “Per your orders, I will ensure that no one enters your room tonight.”

And with that, Emily left the room in silence.

Before her attendant’s footsteps had properly faded away, Roxana collapsed to the floor while clinging to her sofa.

“Ergh... Blegh.”

Without fail, the blackish blood began to spew out from between her lips. She was grateful that she had managed not to lose consciousness this time, and even thought it was probably thanks to Cassis imbuing her with extra energy. Her pale hand that was clutching the sofa handle began to tremble slightly. She tried to catch her breath in between retching up more blood.

The butterflies she had just used were not killers, but the ones with hallucinatory properties she had hatched in her first successful batch. She had already tested them out on Charlotte before, but since that day, she had continued to fine-tune their behavior until she could get them to obey her every direction. This process had proven rather stressful to Roxana.

In order to get away with what she had done that night, she made sure that everyone was aware that she was rearing killer butterflies. In the meantime, however, she had concentrated all her efforts on breeding and multiplying the hallucinatory ones. She knew they would be essential to staging Cassis’s death in front of all those witnesses.

It was critical that no one doubted his demise if he were to escape all the way to the Dark Forest without fear of being pursued. On top of that, Roxana had to ensure that she wouldn’t suffer any consequence of setting a prisoner free once his absence became apparent the next day. She couldn’t deny her relief that the butterflies had developed just as she had hoped they would.

Where might Cassis be right about now? Would he already be out of the Dark Forest?

As she pondered about her freed toy, a sharp pain seemed to rake across her stomach and caused her to vomit even more blood.

She had actually arranged for the killer butterflies to accompany the Pedelian search party until Cassis reached them. She had even placed them along the walls of the secret passage leading to the Dark Forest in order to help guide Cassis to the scouts as swiftly as possible. Having fed them more than enough demon monsters, her winged companions were more than willing to do as she commanded.

To her own surprise, Roxana suddenly let out a guffaw. Out of the blue, she began to reminisce about her former toy—a young man who couldn’t seem to help his decent nature in spite of himself. Even in all that haste, he had made sure to heal her burned hand despite hardly seeing the point of thinking about it herself. Her mind finally rested on the thought of the last image she had of him—those golden eyes.

Though she suspected that she might just be feeling overly hopeful, she felt overcome with the belief that Cassis wouldn’t die in the Dark Forest.

“Ha... Haha...”

Laughter continued to tumble out from between her bloody lips.