Translator: Nox

65 - The Time of the Blind Beast (15+ Revised Edition)

Chapter 65

At first glance, Dr. Briman’s admiration was understandable. Rose’s handwriting was exceptionally neat and elegant, a script that perfectly mirrored her disposition. Ezekiel read through the calm sentences Rose had written. The letter was very short.

I bring you news from Derosa, Lord Ezekiel. The surgery was successful. However, they say it will only be possible to know how much vision has been restored once the surgical site has healed. This will likely be the last report I send.

As you still require assistance from those around you, I will remain here for a few more days before fulfilling our prior agreement, before you open your eyes. You need not worry about the future, as I will not be entering Claris. I respectfully decline the reward you proposed through the messenger.

Rose’s initials were written at the end of the businesslike sentences. There was no room for further doubt. Ezekiel’s eyes scanned Rose’s signature before fixing on the last paragraph again.

“Messenger?”

He had been wondering all along. Why had Rose had to disappear?

But now he understood. His family had contacted Rose through a messenger.

In Derosa, no one was unaware of the relationship between him and Rose. Ezekiel hadn’t particularly tried to hide it. After all, she was the woman he intended to spend his life with, so why bother being careful in front of the staff?

However, if his father had been keeping tabs on the news from Derosa and learned of Rose’s existence in the process, he would never have condoned their relationship.

He could vividly imagine the pressure his family must have exerted on a woman already burdened by the Valdemara family.

His jaw twitched involuntarily. Ezekiel clenched his teeth and strode into the mansion.

“Are you determined to see your brother’s blood after all?”

That was his father’s first question upon confronting Ezekiel.

Amidst the sharply tense atmosphere, only Ezekiel remained composed. The staff, faces pale as if about to faint, carefully moved about, tidying the ransacked mansion without a sound.

Ezekiel replied calmly, without so much as a twitch of his eyebrow.

“I already have.”

His father, returning late, saw the devastated state of the Valdemara mansion with its shattered windows and seemed to have a general idea of who had returned and what had transpired when the two sons, who should not have met, had crossed paths. However, he apparently hadn’t noticed the scattered traces of Achenaus’s blood on the ground in the dim light.

“What have you done the moment you returned!”

His father shouted in shock.

“I merely returned what was owed.”

Even then, it wasn't fully repaid.

He had already crossed an irreversible river with Achenaus. The bond of blood had completely ended the moment that man had hired an assassin through a woman, and they had pointed rifles at each other.

“Did you kill him?”

“Not yet.”

His father, perhaps speechless at Ezekiel’s cold response, closed his eyes deeply, his brow furrowed, before opening them again.

“…Where is he?”

“I don’t know.”

“You really don’t know?”

His father gazed at Ezekiel, whose expression remained unchanged.

“…Even after your sight recovered, you didn’t return home immediately. Do you think I wouldn’t know why you were delayed?”

Ezekiel calmly met his gaze.

His father wasn't surprised to see him return with his sight restored. Furthermore, he knew that Ezekiel had left Derosa quite early.

“Are you returning to the main house? When?”

“Right now, if possible.”

As he had informed Madam Serva. Ezekiel, who always kept his word, departed without delay. However, his destination had changed. There were people he needed to meet before returning to Claris.

“Wow, it’s like you’ve lived your life completely without seeing the light. Major, your skin is whiter than that of newly enlisted boys!”

His subordinates from the 37th Regiment.

The subordinates who had rushed to the Valdemara mansion and carried the blinded Ezekiel to Madam Serva were overjoyed to see their commander returned perfectly, just as he was before.

Feder, with his deeply tanned skin, was the first to crack a joke. Moncam also grinned.

“We knew you would return safely, Major.”

Upon meeting Moncam, Ezekiel swallowed the bitter regret that rose within him. It was the sharp pang of his petty jealousy, his refusal to show Rose to his subordinates first.

He shouldn’t have done that.

He should have revealed Rose’s existence to Moncam, to his subordinates.

So that his subordinates, who traveled all over the country, could bring Rose to him if they found her.

“We had matters to discuss and were waiting for your return, Major. It seems Dabis’s spies have crossed the border.”

Thanks to the steady exchange of updates and instructions via mail, the subordinates naturally accepted Ezekiel’s return. After a brief moment of joyful reunion, Ezekiel immediately entered into a meeting to catch up on the intervening period.

“If they’ve crossed the border and are prioritizing surveillance, it’s obvious who they’re after. Likely those who have achieved merit in war, like yourself, Major.”

“They must be particularly watchful of the ‘King’s Army’.”

“Honestly, they probably spent the most time searching for your whereabouts. The rumors were quite rampant at one point.”

After hearing the news he hadn’t received fully by mail, and upon learning after returning to Claris that Achenaus had gathered his guards, he thought: the spies might have approached Achenaus.

Ezekiel secretly summoned some of his subordinates and ordered them to keep an eye on Achenaus. That was why he couldn’t show himself at the main house any sooner.

Letting Achenaus go alive was also part of that plan. Achenaus would believe he had survived by sheer luck, but Ezekiel had no intention of killing him from the start. Only after confirming that no suspicious individuals were lurking around Achenaus, and after resolving all official matters, would he enact his personal revenge.

He still had one more eye to reclaim.

Dr. Briman and Polina had told Ezekiel that the reason his eye had been damaged was poison, which was why the antidote had worked. If he had been shot or physically assaulted, treatment would have been impossible, and his eyeball would have had to be removed. There would have been no hope then.

So, he had deliberately shot him.

So that one setback could lead to two setbacks.

So that that man could never dream of hope in his remaining life.

So that he would live in terror, never knowing when he might appear to steal his remaining eye.

Instead, he had a different concern. If his father denied the existence of the messenger monitoring Derosa, and claimed not to know Rose, it would likely lead to a weary war of nerves. In that case, Ezekiel was prepared to search through every connection linked to Valdemara to find that messenger.

However, his father had brought up Ezekiel’s actions first. With suspicion that Ezekiel, who had the authority to command a company, wouldn’t have let Achenaus go easily, and as a warning that as long as he had Valdemara blood, he was still within his grasp.

It was a very fortunate turn of events.

Ezekiel seized the clue his father had dropped.

“Since you’re informing me that you had people monitoring me, this will make things faster.”

What mattered now was only Rose, who had to endure lonely times in a place beyond his reach.

She, who had seemed so worried about something before her surgery.

She, who had gradually become less talkative and started to lose herself in her own thoughts.

“You know Rose.”

He didn’t ask indirectly.

“What did you do to Rose?”

“There was no need to do anything.”

His father didn’t deny it either.

“That girl told me herself that she had no intention of staying by your side. She was quite good at assessing her own position.”

“You said ‘assessing her own position’?”

It was as if a spark ignited at the word his father chose.

Ezekiel took a deep breath. Rose was not a woman to be belittled with the phrase ‘assessing her own position.’

“What position did Rose need to assess?”

“It was praise for her intelligence in understanding the situation from her place and acting appropriately. That girl did not wish to stay by your side.”

“It wasn’t that Rose didn’t want to; you’re the one who forced the situation like that.”

“You seem to believe I drove that girl away through authority or threats, but rather, I offered her a reward. As the head of the Valdemara family, I was willing to pay a sufficient price.”

And the result of that offer was something Ezekiel had already read in the letter.

I respectfully decline the reward you proposed through the messenger.

Rose, without any greed, cared for him, but then retreated, unable to overcome the barrier of Valdemara.

“Does offering a reward mean you didn’t drive her away? Ultimately, didn’t you, by any means necessary, urge Rose to leave?”

“Ezekiel,”

His father called his name softly.

“You are now questioning me about that girl’s well-being, but my heart aches when I think of your brother, whom you don’t even know how you harmed and drove away. You are my son, and Achenaus… he too, is a member of the Valdemara lineage, isn’t he? Aren’t you concerned about your mother, who went to recuperate suffering from neurosis because of you two?”

“I only just learned that Mother went to recuperate.”

Ezekiel scoffed coldly.

“Because no one told me such things. Thank you for reminding me anew how neglected I have been in this house. I had forgotten.”