Chapter 19
Forgotten Juliet, Episode 19
Episode 19
Lennox suddenly raised his head.
“Duke Carlisle?”
“……”
The banquet hall, decorated with childish ornaments, was crowded, but it was an unfamiliar kind of gaze that caught his attention.
Clang! A small commotion arose as someone dropped a champagne glass on the other side.
Light brown hair, loosely braided and draped over one shoulder, was the first thing that caught his eye.
“I’m alright, I’m sorry.”
In the midst of the commotion was a woman in a pale pastel blue dress.
However, it was the woman’s subsequent actions that caught Lennox’s eye even more.
She desperately avoided making eye contact with him, quickly turning her head away, and even hurriedly left the banquet hall.
Lennox nodded vaguely to the Empress Dowager, who was dragging him around and introducing him to people, and chuckled leisurely to himself.
‘If you avoid someone this blatantly, it will only attract more attention.’
He was used to all sorts of flirtations and seductions, but this kind of avoidance was refreshing.
“Duke, this is my niece, Priscilla. You know her, don’t you?”
“Yes. We’ve already been introduced.”
The woman who had fled as if running away would never know.
That thanks to her, all that remained in his mind throughout the boring banquet was the afterimage of her white cheeks, slender white neck, and the silhouette of her exposed shoulders.
As soon as he had forcibly fulfilled his hour of attendance, Lennox immediately left the banquet hall and headed for his private lounge.
“Where to?”
“This way.”
Duke Carlisle’s face, as he loosened his tie, was etched with annoyance and fatigue.
Duke Carlisle, the great lord of the North, only came to the capital once a year, except for the New Year’s ball.
Nevertheless, his attendance at the ball today with his knights was not for the purpose of leisurely dancing.
His visit to the capital, where the summer social season was in full swing, was an impromptu decision. He had received a report from an informant planted in the Imperial Palace that the item he was looking for had been found.
In the lounge at the innermost part of the banquet hall, an informant dressed in a neat court official’s uniform was waiting for him with the item.
The informant who had brought him all the way to the capital was Lord Roger, a chamberlain of the Imperial Palace.
Lord Roger, a lower-ranking nobleman working under the Empress Dowager, was rather taken aback by the appearance of Duke Carlisle.
“…Duke Carlisle, Your Highness?”
It had already been three years since he had been bought and worked as an informant and Spy, but Lord Roger was only now learning that his employer was the great lord of the North.
His Spy duties had only consisted of leaking news coming into the Imperial Palace, or contacting him when an item matching certain conditions appeared on the capital’s black market.
“The item?”
“Ah… yes. This is it.”
Lord Roger skillfully concealed his embarrassment and carefully opened the small box he was holding.
Inside was a women’s jeweled coronet, a tiara, with gemstones set in it.
“The woman who brought this was young? What did she look like?”
Hardin, the Duke’s knight, asked as if to confirm.
“She was definitely a young woman with platinum blonde hair.”
It seemed to be the correct answer.
As Lord Roger watched Duke Carlisle examine the elaborate tiara, he thought to himself.
‘So, the rumors were true.’
There were so many rumors about the Carlisle family that it was impossible to tell what was true and what was false, but there was also a rumor that the family was looking for a family heirloom that had disappeared long ago.
‘So, is that really the Carlisle family’s treasure? How can you tell if it’s real?’
As Lord Roger cast a curious gaze, Duke Carlisle, who had been carefully examining the coronet, suddenly smiled.
Snap.
“…!!”
The fragile jeweled coronet broke in two at once.
“It’s not it.”
“What a waste of time.”
Hardin and Duke Carlisle exchanged calm remarks.
Lennox threw the broken coronet at the shocked Lord Roger and left the lounge.
Finding the lost item was like looking for a needle in a haystack, so Lennox was not particularly disappointed.
In fact, even Hardin, his confidant who handled all sorts of secret affairs, did not know exactly what his master was looking for.
He only knew that it was a treasure that had disappeared more than a decade ago, taking advantage of the vacancy of the head of the family and the ensuing chaos, and that it looked like an ordinary treasure but possessed some dangerous power.
The only other clue was that a platinum blonde woman might have been seen near the treasure.
“I will have the auction houses in the South searched again.”
“Forget it. I’m going back to the North as soon as this ridiculous business is over.”
“Yes.”
Just before leaving the Imperial Palace, Lennox, who had gotten on his horse, briefly gazed at the banquet hall he had just left.
“Are you looking for someone?”
“No.”
The woman who had fled from him about an hour ago must have already gone home long ago.
Nevertheless, feeling an inexplicable sense of regret, Lennox grabbed the reins.
It looked like it would rain any minute.
Bang!
Juliet lost consciousness after the carriage collided violently.
“Master!”
“Get out of the way! Who sent you bastards!”
As her consciousness faded, she only recognized the situation through the fragmented sounds she heard.
“Damn it, don’t move!”
“Lily!”
“No, Cassius!”
Sharp screams mingled together.
“Juliet!”
It was as if someone’s desperate cry had awakened her.
At some point, Juliet barely opened her eyes.
The first thing that came into Juliet’s blurry vision was a red spider-shaped tattoo engraved on a calloused hand.
‘A tattoo?’
Thud.
Juliet, thrown onto the cold stone floor, barely grasped the situation she was in.
The vivid red spider was the tattoo engraved on the back of the hand of an unidentified thug who had carried her over his shoulder like a bundle of luggage and roughly dropped her on the floor.
Only then did Juliet realize that she was lying haphazardly on the stone floor, exposed to the cold rain.
“What do you mean you want more money now!”
“You didn’t say the Count would use a sword! So, of course, you have to pay more.”
Some of the men arguing had foreign accents.
Were they foreign mercenaries? Fortunately, they were so preoccupied with arguing among themselves that they didn’t seem to notice that Juliet had woken up.
‘Where am I?’
Where were her parents?
Juliet thought with a dazed head, when an angry voice was heard.
“Wh, who said to kill them! I just said to take the necklace!”
……Who did he kill?
Juliet’s mind went blank at the familiar voice. She could tell without even looking up. The terrified voice was Baron Gaspal.
“You didn’t say not to kill them.”
“Wh, where did I say that!”
No.
Juliet thought she heard her heart sink.
That couldn’t be. Her father, Count Monad, was a skilled knight who had served in the military in his youth. So, there was no way he could have died.
Leaving the despairing Juliet on the floor, Baron Gaspal and the unidentified men began to argue among themselves.
“Ah, who said they were all dead? The daughter is still breathing.”
“…She’s alive?”
Baron Gaspal flinched.
He was clearly weighing whether it would be better for Juliet to be alive, or whether it would be more advantageous to kill her and eliminate any future troubles.
“Hey, Baron.”
“We lost a comrade because your brother pulled out a sword!”
“Did you think it would be easy to subdue a knight without killing him in the first place?”
“He was old and useless, but do you know how many of us died trying to stop him!”
Clench.
She bit her lip to try to regain her senses, but Juliet couldn’t do anything because she had already lost too much blood. She couldn’t even lift her head, let alone get up.
“That’s……. Wh, so where’s the necklace!”
“I told you, it wasn’t in the place you told me to look!”
‘……The necklace. So, that’s what it was.’
Against her will, her eyelids kept getting heavier, but Juliet’s mind was able to figure out the whole story.
The intruders who had suddenly stormed into the mansion, and Baron Gaspal who had visited the Count’s family the day before. Even in her fading consciousness, Juliet gritted her teeth.
‘I should have killed that bastard a long time ago.’
Suddenly, Juliet noticed something sparkling between the folds of her clothes. It was the key-shaped pendant of the necklace that her father had given her the day before.
‘…Ah.’
So, Baron Gaspal had hired thugs to attack the mansion. Just to steal this necklace.
‘What’s so special about this antique.’
But what they didn’t know was that Count Monad had given the key to Juliet the day before.
And the item they were looking for was now hanging around Juliet’s neck. They were too busy fighting among themselves to have noticed it yet.
“Anyway, I’m going back! Listen carefully. You don’t know me! You’ll regret it if you say anything!”
Baron Gaspal hastily left, threatening them to the end.
“So, we can take care of this bitch?”
Then, the remaining men’s gazes turned to the fallen Juliet.
“What should we do with her?”
“Let’s just kill her.”
“It’s a waste to kill such a body. How about selling her to a privateer? She looks decent, so they’ll pay a good price.”
“They say noble ladies have blue blood, should we check?”
Juliet couldn’t understand the obscene jokes that were being exchanged, but she was in no condition to care about such things.
Her vision gradually blurred and her ears became muffled. And strangely, only the small silver key sparkling before her eyes was clearly visible.
<……?>
‘What?’
Was it a hallucination? Something was talking to her.
<I.>
<We.>
<Will kill them for you.>
The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end.
The strange voice seemed to be audible only to Juliet. Otherwise, there was no way they wouldn’t have heard such a clear voice.
A clumsy voice continued to flow into her head, groping its way in.
Once she became aware of it, it poured in like a flood. There were several voices. Some were gentle, and some were fierce.
But all of them were desperately trying to talk to Juliet, competing with each other.
<I can kill them for you!>
<We are big and strong.>
<You insignificant creatures are worthless.>
<Tear them to pieces…….>
<It’s simple.>
<You don’t have to do anything.>
<Just, let me. Let us. Out of here.>
“……”
Let them out?
It was as if lightning had struck before her eyes.
Juliet realized everything. The voices were coming from the key.
The key.
The guardian, Monad.
And the door that matched the key, which she couldn’t find no matter how much she searched the mansion.
‘Ah, I see.’
Juliet suddenly realized.
‘It was a door to keep them in!’
It was no wonder that she couldn’t find a door that matched the key anywhere in the mansion.
‘Because dangerous things must be hidden.’
They had hidden the door itself so that no one could even find the entrance.
A guardian is someone who protects. So, to prevent what was trapped inside the door from coming out…….
<Our name is …….>
Her eyes kept closing.
In her fading consciousness, Juliet reached out and grabbed the key.
At that moment, a huge door appeared in the center of her vision, which had turned completely black.
Click.
It was an incongruously cheerful sound.
Even with her eyes closed, Juliet clearly saw and heard it.
The sound of the door that had been closed for hundreds of years opening.
And the scene of the beast that the ‘door’ had been trapping being released back into the world.
