Chapter 66
“One never knows. While wandering foreign lands instead of returning, she may have gained some advantage by keeping it hidden.”
“…Your Excellency.”
Oscar pulled a cigarette from his drawer, lit it, and gave a flat command.
“Form a search team.”
He tossed over the thirteenth report and continued.
“Based on this report, trace Theresia Bitkenstein’s movements in Danguk. Bring me everything—down to the materials on her targets—within three months.”
Karl was silent for a moment, but in the end, he chose not to add a single word.
“Understood.”
“Three months.”
“I will dispatch them tonight.”
“You may go.”
Karl gave a polite bow and withdrew.
Only the smoke curling from the tip of the cigarette swirled in the room as Oscar sank into thought, his eyes lowered. When the cigarette had burned halfway down to white ash on its own, Oscar crushed it into the ashtray. He then opened the bottom drawer of his desk and pulled out a sealed envelope.
Inside were several drawings. Oscar lined them up along the length of his desk.
They were sketches.
The figure in the sketches aged slightly as the sequence moved to the right.
With his hands shoved in his pockets, Oscar stared at Peter’s face.
Theresia had admitted the completed sketches resembled Peter, but she had been adamant that they wouldn’t be enough to catch him.
“If he wishes, he can become a dying old woman or a pot-bellied middle-aged man. If he’s truly desperate, he’ll even disfigure his own face. So, if you intend to find him with nothing but this face, you will never succeed. Use these only for confirmation after he has been captured.”
Codename: Peter. An intelligence agent specializing in disguise and psychological warfare. And a face.
That was the extent of the information even Theresia knew about Peter.
His father’s Wolves had operated as a cellular organization.
Partly because of the war, but also because the King’s wariness toward Lichtenhardt had reached its peak back then.
The most efficient way to hide an organization is to ensure that even its members do not know the full reality of the group they belong to.
The Combat Team knew one another out of necessity since they were constantly in the field, but for the Intelligence Team operating in the shadows, the cellular structure was extreme. They used codenames, and even those were changed frequently. Each agent knew only their own task; they had no way of knowing how that work aided the higher-ups, where they stood in the hierarchy, or even who their colleagues were. Thus, even if captured, they truly knew nothing and had nothing to confess.
However, the flaw of a cellular organization was revealed when those who controlled and moved the pieces died. That was why, as soon as Oscar began training his own Wolves, he prioritized reorganizing the structure.
Peter, Theresia, the key, Danguk… and that woman.
Every piece felt suspicious, like colors that refused to blend. It felt like a tangled ball of yarn with no visible end to unravel.
It was then.
“Your Excellency.”
The person who entered after a knock announced a guest whose visit was far from welcome.
“The Marchioness has arrived.”
Charlotte pulled the shawl draped over her arm up to her shoulders as she felt the biting chill of the room.
“It is difficult to see your face.”
Despite her words, Oscar did not respond. He simply stood with his back to her, staring out the window, though it was obvious his invisible lips were curled in a mocking smirk.
The wind carried the scent of cigarette smoke toward her.
Charlotte’s lips tightened. As she lifted her teacup to hide her stiff expression, her face crumpled slightly. She set the tea down without tasting it and spoke.
“There is a talented girl among the tea maids Sabine hired.”
“I’m not interested.”
At the answer that came without a second of hesitation, Charlotte turned her gaze toward her son. Oscar, who had been staring out the window the entire time, finally turned around.
Oscar.
Charlotte’s masterpiece, and the most valuable thing she possessed.
Her eldest son walked out with a slow, leisurely stride, perched his hip on the edge of the desk, and stretched out his long right leg. She frowned at his lack of decorum, and her violet eyes drifted toward his attire, which was even more unruly than his attitude.
His jacket was nowhere to be seen, and he wasn’t even wearing a vest, appearing in just his shirt. Even then, his sleeves were rolled up haphazardly, and far from wearing a tie, he had unbuttoned his collar. Oscar actually smirked at her disapproving gaze, which moved from the cigarette in his mouth to his tousled black hair.
“Tea is all the same.”
“If you drink it enough, you realize it isn’t.”
“Why are you here?”
“Put out that cigarette and sit in front of me so we can talk.”
“This distance isn’t so bad for a conversation, is it?”
“……”
Charlotte took a breath as if swallowing her rising temper, then forced a picture-perfect smile.
“It is not a matter of distance, but of basic etiquette.”
“……”
“If the jacket is stifling, at least wear a vest. And use some wax to comb your hair back.”
“I loathe feeling stifled.”
“Since there isn’t a single proper maid in this mansion…”
“Just assume it’s because I’m unrefined.”
His languid words cut through Charlotte’s elegant facade. The gazes the mother and son exchanged were equally cold, neither yielding an inch.
Oscar exhaled a long trail of smoke and pulled the corners of his mouth wide.
“Why are you here?”
The fake smile vanished from Charlotte’s face entirely. She rose from her seat and approached her son. Then, in a low, chilling voice, she asked, “Is it so difficult to show your face on Sabine’s birthday?”
A hollow laugh escaped Oscar as he went to put the cigarette back in his mouth.
“Sabine is not merely the daughter of Count Jerome. She is now His Majesty’s fiancée. Though the coronation has not yet taken place, she is effectively the Queen. Even the Great Lady of the Royal Family attended to greet Sabine. You should have attended—not as her brother, but as the Marquis von Reinhardt.”
“One would think she’s already the Queen by the way you talk.”
“Oscar!”
“If you’re doing this because you want to save Her Majesty’s face…”
The mock smile vanished from Oscar’s face as well. Immediately, a fierce and prickly temper bled across his handsome features. The words that followed were like a blade aimed straight for his mother’s heart.
“Instead of lecturing me, her half-brother by a different father, you should make sure she isn’t called a bastard, Mother.”
Slap!
Oscar, having willingly offered one cheek, smiled as if ready to give the other.
“Am I wrong?”
Slap!
Even after being struck twice in a row—or rather, because he had allowed her two strikes—Oscar continued.
“No matter how common bastards are, a daughter born to a mother who openly tried to keep two households becoming Queen…”
However, he had no intention of offering his cheek a third time.
He caught Charlotte’s hand as she moved to strike him again. Her breathing grew ragged. Oscar stared into those violet eyes overflowing with sickening greed and gave a brilliant smile.
“Won’t people be talking about that for a long time?”
“Oscar!”
“So, just become the Countess Jerome already. For the sake of our dear Queen, I’m telling you I’ll gladly be the son from your previous marriage.”
“That cruel tongue, that wretched selfishness.”
“……”
“You truly are just like your father.”
“I wonder.”
Oscar smiled once more.
“Is that so?”
He let go of his mother’s arm and picked up the sketches of Peter.
“Since you’re here, take a look at this. See if it’s someone you know.”
Charlotte, still panting for breath, glanced at the sketches and turned away sharply. She adjusted her hair and her shawl as if fixing her disheveled appearance, then replied in a calm tone, as if nothing had happened.
“How would I know someone from a criminal wanted poster? It isn’t even a proper portrait.”
She walked a few paces toward the door before suddenly looking back.
“Your son said you brought a woman back from Pelfe.”
“Did you take in a woman?”
Oscar, flicking ash into the ashtray, only raised his eyes to look at his mother. Only the wind blowing through the open window swirled between them.
“Check her thoroughly.”
“……”
“There are different kinds of bastards. Regardless of gender, a bastard born from something without roots is nothing more or less than a stumbling block in one’s life. It would be quite troublesome if a lowly thing started hoping for an inheritance.”
With those final words, Charlotte turned and walked away with an elegant stride. She pulled a small medicine bottle from the bag she had left on the sofa. Placing it beside the untouched teacup, she straightened her back and added one last thing.
“It is medicine from Rioher. They say the Emperor of the Empire is quite fond of it. A single pill is said to be enough to raise a dying ox; several royal families in Norfolk are desperate to get their hands on it.”
“……”
“Take care of your health.”
Oscar watched his mother disappear behind the door without even drawing a breath.
The breath crawling up his throat felt dry and gritty, like the air rising from a mine shaft.
