When I Finished Playing the Terminally-Ill Villainous Omega C21

Chapter 21

Leaving Locke behind in the underground cell, I immediately went to find Butler Howard. He was wholly my father’s man—one of the few people beyond Cassian’s reach.

When I hurried to him, he quietly set aside the book he was reading and rose.

“What is the matter, young master? And why are you sweating so profusely?”

“There’s no time to explain. Go at once to the square and deliver this letter to the blacksmith Hagen. It must not be seen by anyone. And this one—send it to Mother.”

Howard accepted the letters with care, slipping them into his inner pocket. With a measured expression, he asked,

“Is this related to what happened last night?”

“I’m sorry. For now, we need to move. I’ll explain everything when Mother returns.”

“Wait, young master. I’ve heard rumors.”

I had turned to leave, but stopped and looked back.

“Rumors? What kind?”

“That you have been showing particular favor to a certain servant.”

“……”

Had it really become gossip that I took care of my own people? I said nothing, only met Howard’s gaze.

“If this matter concerns him as well, it may be wiser for you not to step forward directly. Such scandal would benefit neither you nor the boy.”

Scandal, he said. So it wasn’t merely talk of me looking after a servant. It was absurd.

“Howard. It isn’t that I favor Locke—I simply have no one else by my side. If you stood with me too, I would protect you with everything I have. Is that so strange?”

I spoke calmly.

“As you know, my condition worsens by the day, and my appearance grows more haggard with it. I told him it was painful—watching myself change like this. If a servant listened to that and gifted me roses, wouldn’t it be natural to grow attached?”

“But roses are a gift of affection.”

“That may be true among nobles. But do you think a servant who tills fields, tends gardens, and nurses a sick young master knows aristocratic customs so precisely?”

“…It seems this old man has been overly sensitive. Please forgive me, young master.”

Thankfully, Howard did not press further. He bowed his head, his expression subdued.

“Oh—and Howard. Prepare lunch for two. I’ll be eating in the underground.”

Howard’s lips parted as if to object. Anticipating it, I spoke firmly once more.

“What if, while I’m distracted, my brother cuts down an innocent man? Wouldn’t that be the true disgrace of the house?”

“…I will see to it at once.”

“Thank you, Howard. If you stand with me, I’ll feel truly fortified.”

My business with Howard concluded, I left the study and headed this time to the barracks where the estate’s knights were quartered. I needed them to help move the body within the barrier. I didn’t know what madness had driven me there in the night, but the domain of Allure was not a place someone like me—unable to wield magic or even a blade—should have entered alone.

Panting, I finally reached the barracks after nearly an hour’s walk. Something was off. At this hour, the knights should have been drilling, yet not a single one was in sight.

“What… why is no one here?”

I wandered through the empty quarters and training grounds until I encountered a servant hanging laundry—the one assigned to the barracks. When I asked why there was no one about, my heart dropped.

Cassian had come early that morning, he said. The atmosphere had been tense, and after Cassian left, all the knights had packed up and gone out for cavalry training. The marching routes had been split into two groups—clearly a pretext about lax discipline.

The reason was obvious. Once sent out for training, only the minimum number of guards would remain at the estate. And Cassian would have assigned their zones himself. Scattering the knights like that made it easy to explain away the disappearance of one man as a lone defection from his assigned route.

It was a thin attempt to buy time until our parents returned.

“So that’s how you want to play it?”

It felt as though we were testing whose feet were faster. I couldn’t outrun him. Which meant there was only one way to catch up.

My head.

Leaving the barracks, I began searching for knights who could help move the body. After many twists and turns, I finally found one finishing an outer patrol and about to rotate shifts. I persuaded him—again and again. Fortunately, Cassian’s influence hadn’t fully reached this far; a single gold bracelet sufficed.

Together we headed into the forest. I described the location where I had found the body in detail. When I mentioned the large boulder and the zelkova tree the size of a hillock, he recognized it at once—said he’d hunted there once with Cassian. That I happened upon this knight at all could only be called luck.

Unexpectedly, the problem arose when we arrived. The location was correct, yet no matter how thoroughly we searched, there was no body.

There was no mistake about the place. The lamp I had dropped that night was still half-buried in the mud.

After scouring the brush for a while, the knight approached with a puzzled expression.

“There’s not even a bloodstain.”

“It rained heavily that night. The traces must’ve been washed away. Still… for the body itself to vanish without a sign is strange.”

That wasn’t all. Though we had been within the monsters’ territory for some time, the surroundings were unnervingly silent.

Aiden once said that from midway up the mountain, you could hear the eerie howls of monsters, and his own hunting instincts would sharpen like a beast’s. Yet now there wasn’t even the common birdsong you could hear from the estate.

“It wasn’t this quiet then—”

Ssssk.

Leaves rustled. The knight must have heard it too; his grip tightened on his sword.

He cautiously approached the sound, but found nothing, shaking his head. Judging from the lack of magical presence, he said, it was likely a small forest animal.

“Are there monsters that can conceal their presence?”

“If there were one capable of hiding itself beyond my perception, it would be a special-grade monster—something even Young Master Cassian couldn’t hunt.”

“Then that’s disastrous!”

“You needn’t worry. Such a creature couldn’t exist here in the first place.”

“Why not?”

“Because of Allure’s barrier. Neither humans nor monsters can pass through it freely. Only those with the blood of House Hestian can open the way. The monsters here were all brought in by Young Master Cassian himself.”

Hearing that, even I—who possessed no power at all—felt oddly important.

“I see.”

Even so, I couldn’t shake the sensation of being watched by something without form. The knight, trained in monster lore, said he too felt an icy, cutting presence and rubbed the gooseflesh on his arms.

“This feels unsettling. We should turn back. Young master… the body may have been dragged off by monsters, or else—”

“Or I imagined it?”

I finished for him when he couldn’t. His guess was wrong. I wasn’t the only one who had seen the corpse. And if it were a hallucination, how could I explain retrieving the broken blade from the man’s abdomen with my own hands?

“Hah…”

There was indeed a chance monsters had taken the body. Still, the fact that Cassian had moved so early gnawed at me. Knowing monster habits as well as he did, he might have relocated the body to a path they frequented, letting nature do the rest—then summoned the knights only after everything was done.

If he truly used monsters to dispose of it, that was tantamount to refusing to acknowledge the crime. Without a body, the knight’s death couldn’t even be proven.

I couldn’t be certain of the full picture, but with the body gone, I would have to change plans.

“All right. Let’s head back.”

If he widened the story, then I would write mine broader still. First things first—I needed to catch Howard at the square. It seemed I’d have to revise the contents of the letter.

I descended the mountain with the knight.

As the sun dipped behind the peaks, a red hue slowly bled across the sky. Only then did I feel that most of my errands were complete.

After running myself ragged for hours, I rushed back to the estate and immediately asked after Cassian’s whereabouts. Only when Howard told me he had not yet returned did I finally relax, swaying as I made my way to the kitchen.

My stamina was completely spent, but there was a good chance the knights hadn’t properly provided Locke with a meal while I was gone.

On the kitchen table sat a carefully prepared dinner by Marianne, the servant in charge of meals. I lifted a basket holding two portions and hurried down to the underground.

“Locke!”

I peeked my face through the bars of the solitary cell. With both hands occupied by the basket, I couldn’t open the door myself—and he had locked it from inside, so he would have to let me in.

“Locke?”

There was no response. I leaned against the door to look more closely—then heard a clunk as it tilted open. Thinking Locke had opened it, I stepped inside with a bright smile.

But he was lying on the bed.

He was tall, his limbs long, one arm and everything below the knee jutting out beyond the narrow cot.

It hadn’t been Locke who opened the door—the latch had simply been left imperfectly set.

“…Hey. You promised you’d lock it properly.”

I approached slowly and set the basket on the floor. Then I stood there, gazing quietly at his sleeping face.