Chapter 72
72
"Plea, please allow me to explain. There's a misunderstanding… This is definitely…!"
As Count Penyak trembled and tried to approach, Duke Dubled spoke.
"This is quite amusing."
"Yes, yes?"
"You, who haven't seen the situation at all, are offering an explanation when you didn't even listen to a single word from my child."
"Th, that's…"
"It seems I've been too lenient. To see those who don't know their place sticking their necks out."
As the Duke's voice deepened, Billy Penyak desperately shouted, "No!"
His face pale yellow, he trembled and forced himself to stand up.
"I was only, only trying to grant the little miss's wish!"
"My daughter's wish, you say. What is it?"
"The little miss likes me, so I was going to marry her…!"
Bang!!
With a deafening roar, the floor of the second-story corridor buckled.
Henri stared intently at Billy Penyak.
"Excuse me. I missed my aim because I was so dumbfounded."
"……."
"I was aiming for the head of that crazy bastard."
The Penyak family's faces turned blue.
"So, LeBlaine, do you know what this crazy person is talking about?"
Henri asked with a friendly smile, and LeBlaine frowned.
"I don't know. He's been saying strange things since earlier. Like he'd teach me how to seduce men."
As she spoke with a sulky face, Billy Penyak shouted.
"N, no! My parents said so. They said you liked me…!"
Count and Countess Penyak's faces turned blue.
'That crazy bastard!'
It was like pouring oil on a fire that was already about to swallow their entire family.
"Y, Your Excellency…"
It was the moment Count Penyak opened his mouth.
Bang-!!!
Another roar erupted. This time, it was Count Penyak who fell. Black aura flickered from the Duke's hand.
"There will be much to hear."
The faces of the entire Dubled family were grim.
Count and Countess Penyak knelt at Dad's feet, wringing their hands.
Billy looked as if the sky had fallen, seeing his parents, who had always been like great mountains to him, groveling so desperately.
They immediately stamped their seals on the documents to transfer the harbor for free, and not only that, but they also handed over two of the three mansions in The Capital under the Penyak name.
But I shook my head inwardly. There was no way Dad would forgive them even if they did that. He had already ordered Noth to "cut off their funding first" a long time ago.
I headed to Isaac's room.
But there was a guest who had arrived before me. It was Henri.
"Idiot."
"……."
"Moron."
"……."
"Simpleton."
"Aish!"
Isaac, who had been silently listening to Henri's insults, burst out in anger. Henri applied ointment to his younger brother's forehead as if he were punching it, his expression sour.
It was an injury he sustained when he failed to avoid the fragments that flew from the broken wall when he used his strength on Billy.
"LeBlaine spoke up, but do you know that if you had kept your mouth shut there, you would have taken all the blame?"
"I know. But, I didn't want to let the little one hear 'those words' again…"
"You should have made up another excuse then."
"Like what?"
"Like that bastard was out of his mind and attacked first."
"But he was in his right mind."
"He can go out of his mind afterward. Circumstances can be fabricated as much as you want."
Henri, what are you teaching a child…?
Isaac said.
"…Anyway, you're trash, hyung. So cool."
As he gave his older brother double thumbs up, Henri applied the medicine again as if he were slamming it on.
"Anyway, …good job. For punching that bastard."
Isaac's eyes widened. Soon, he scratched his reddened earlobe. It seemed he was embarrassed and awkward because it was the first time Henri had praised him.
The sight of the two of them made me feel warm. I giggled and went into the room, draping my face over Isaac's bed.
"You guys are getting along~?"
When I said that because I was in a good mood, Isaac and Henri immediately frowned.
"No!"
"No."
"Why? Getting along is a good thing."
"……."
"……."
The two, who had become quiet, glanced at each other.
In my previous life, in the life before that, and even in my first life, the Dubled young masters were aloof. It was well known that they didn't even try to meet each other unless it was a family matter.
But in this life, the two of them got along quite well. They bickered, but they stuck together, and they took care of each other, though very, very subtly.
'That's a relief.'
I looked at the two of them with a happy feeling.
'It would be nice if they became close with the first young master too.'
Yohan Dubled.
I had never seen him. He never came to the estate even during the academy's vacation, and he only visited the mansion in The Capital once in a blue moon.
The only news I had of him was when he sent letters to Dad as if he were reporting on his work.
The academy abroad was a place where only one person was selected from the academy, so the older brothers seemed to have met him a couple of times when he came to the academy to train the juniors.
'He's graduating next year.'
I've heard rumors about him often because of his involvement with Mina, but I don't know what kind of person he is.
What kind of person is he?
As I pondered, I looked at Henri and Isaac.
"What kind of person is Yohan?"
"Big brother? Big brother is…"
Isaac, who had been staring into space for a moment, shook his head with a slightly disgusted expression.
"A person without emotions."
"More than Dad used to be?"
"He's scary in a similar way. Anyway, big brother is a cold-blooded, monster, a devil… Ugh."
As Isaac shuddered, Henri frowned and said.
"Don't scare LeBlaine."
"But it's true. Hey, little one. Even little brother can't mess with big brother… Ugh!"
Isaac, who was hit again in the end, groaned while holding his head.
'Really, even little brother?'
Henri was someone who wasn't afraid of anything except Dad. Even though he was still a boy, even the Chairman of the Senate and Viscount Dubois treated him like a complete adult.
When I looked at Henri, he, who was closing the lid of the ointment bottle, looked slightly troubled.
"Hyung is the most difficult opponent for someone like me."
Henri had a special talent for intimidation, was a genius at public opinion warfare, and was skilled in scheming. In other words, he was the type to destroy the enemy by digging into their weaknesses.
'Yohan is a strong person who doesn't value anything.'
Henri neatly arranged my disheveled hair and said.
"So, LeBlaine, run away if you see hyung. Don't be with him if possible."
"Why?"
"You should never become an enemy with someone like that. A person who doesn't attach meaning to anything can't be stopped by anything."
"……?"
"Conversely, you shouldn't become his only value either. Because if harm comes to the treasure in his hands, he'll turn into a monster who doesn't consider the consequences at all."
"More than Isaac?"
"This guy is no match."
As he said that, Henri pushed Isaac, and Isaac burst out in anger.
A few days later, I heard that the head of the Penyak family had changed.
I don't know how they did it, but a very, very distant relative, "the cousin of an eighth cousin," who had nothing to do with the previous Count Penyak, took over the Penyak family.
The new Count Penyak bowed his head under Dad's feet and swore allegiance.
Border.
Viscount Misengke and Baron Sugawa, Dubled's vassals, involuntarily gripped their arms tightly and moistened their parched lips.
A mountain of corpses was piled up before their eyes.
The gruesome corpses, their eyes rolled back in death without even having time to close them, were held and fluttered in the boy's white, long hands.
The boy, who trampled on the mountain of corpses and casually threw away the corpse in his hand, asked.
"The identities of these people."
"Yes? Ah, yes, yes!"
Viscount Misengke, his face pale, hurriedly ran over and examined the corpse.
He didn't find anything special in the other corpses, but he found a pattern on the ankle of the man who was dressed the neatest among the corpses.
"B, Bluebeard! Yes, that's right. It's definitely the Bluebeard Mercenary group!"
Baron Sugawa's face, after hearing the identities of the corpses, became even paler than before.
The Bluebeard Mercenary group was at least Tier 2, or rather, Tier 1 in the border area where the mercenary group's base was located, as they took advantage of their geographical advantages.
That mercenary group was annihilated like matchsticks.
By a single boy who had just gone through puberty.
The boy moved slowly. The last remaining person, who couldn't move while his fellow mercenaries were dying, wet himself and stepped back.
"D, don't come… Don't come, you monster, sob!!"
The last mercenary, whose feet were tied by the black aura flowing from the boy's body, fell over with a loud noise.
"Cough!"
The boy stepped on the last mercenary's neck as if he were a bug.
Viscount Misengke shouted.
"What is the reason for daring to attack a carriage with the Dubled crest!"
"Keuhe… sob…"
The moment the last mercenary tried to commit suicide by biting off his tongue, the boy's hand roughly entered his mouth.
The boy's pupils narrowed as he grabbed the tongue, and a sharp glint like murderous intent swirled around him.
The last mercenary shuddered with a trembling body.
"Keuhe… heueut!!"
"Shh-."
The boy whispered in a sweet voice.
"Don't make me more bored."
At that moment, the black aura that sprang from the boy's hand holding the man's tongue flowed into the mercenary's mouth like sewage.
As the mercenary, who was trembling like a bug on the verge of death, slumped, the boy withdrew his hand without regret.
Viscount Misengke swallowed hard and handed him a handkerchief.
The boy, who lightly wiped the dark red saliva from his hand, asked.
"Since when did these puny small fries start targeting Dubled?"
As he asked in a low voice, Dubled's two vassals hurriedly bowed their heads.
The boy, who threw the handkerchief down, said.
"I'm going to the estate."
Dubled's two vassals exchanged glances with pale yellow faces, but they couldn't dare to object.
Silver hair, which resembled Duke Dubled in his youth, scattered in the dry wind of the border.
"Yes, Young Master Yohan."
Viscount Misengke and Baron Sugawa bowed deeply.
It had been five years.
Since Yohan Dubled had visited the estate.