The Villain Family’s Strongest Butler
Chapter 5
I did not know how he took my words, but the faint furrow between the Grand Duke’s brows deepened.
He did not seem particularly pleased.
With half-lidded eyes, the Grand Duke fell into brief contemplation.
‘Is he wondering whether to kill me right now or ask the last question first?’
I would have thought the same if I were in his shoes.
No one would leave a person alive whose identity was unknown and whose every word carried suspicious weight.
The Grand Duke’s violet eyes wandered over the table for a moment before returning to me.
‘Here it comes.’
The Grand Duke posed his third and final question.
“Did you come to kill me?”
“……”
Did I come to kill him……?
It was a question I had somewhat anticipated. Yet, it gave me a great deal to think about.
‘We are undeniably enemies.’
Because we were enemies, we were destined to point our swords at each other’s throats again someday.
‘However, that was only true when Sia and the Grand Duke met on the battlefield.’
Right now, though…….
‘Could I even kill that man with this body, lacking both proper swordsmanship and aura?’
Of course, the thought of taking the Grand Duke’s head and returning to my homeland had crossed my mind, but not now.
‘If anything, I’m curious.’
About what the Grand Duke is like outside the battlefield.
So this question, too, was too ambiguous to answer with a simple yes or no.
Just then, my lips moved once more.
“I……”
Count Norbert Millard returned to the Grand Duke’s office after moving the unconscious woman who had collapsed.
“The physician says there is nothing wrong with her body. He also said she should wake up by tomorrow.”
Under the Grand Duke’s orders, the woman had been given a clean room instead of a prison cell, and a physician had even been sent to examine her.
“……It truly ended at three questions, just as said.”
“Indeed, Your Grace.”
Norbert nodded, reading Kadrian’s expression before asking,
“Did you obtain the truth you sought?”
Kadrian sat before his desk, quietly gazing at the sofa.
The woman who had been sitting on that sofa, and the look in her eyes, naturally came to mind.
“I did.”
At that, Norbert pouted with a disappointed look.
“I did not expect you to send even me out.”
“There was no reason for you to stay.”
“You are truly heartless.”
Kadrian chuckled softly and picked up the documents on his desk.
It was a signal that he was going to begin catching up on his work, so Norbert should leave.
Yet instead of leaving the office, Norbert looked steadily at Kadrian.
Lately, Kadrian’s condition had been visibly poor.
From the heavy exhaustion around his eyes to the way his gaze occasionally drifted blankly out the window.
‘It doesn’t seem to be merely because of the attack on Trensha Village…….’
It was obvious that something else had happened aside from the matter with Trensha Village.
Kadrian was not a man to display his emotions openly. However, having observed Kadrian for many years, Norbert could sense the Grand Duke’s subtlest shifts in mood.
He remembered how, a week ago, Kadrian had dumped the matter of Trensha Village onto Norbert and hurriedly departed with his aide, Ed.
Though Kadrian had tried not to show it, a fleeting trace of anxiety had been visible on his face back then.
If so…….
‘If there is someone who could disturb His Grace’s mind to this extent…….’
Norbert asked with heartfelt concern,
“Your Grace. Has something, perhaps, ……happened to the ‘Master of the 5th Floor’?”
“……”
The Master of the 5th Floor.
The Main Building of the Valot Grand Duke’s Residence was five stories tall, but the servants of the residence were only allowed to roam freely from the first through the fourth floors.
And the fifth floor.
‘The problem is that fifth floor.’
On the fifth floor of the Main Building resided an entity shrouded in mystery.
The only person who knew exactly who that entity was was Kadrian, the head of the Grand Ducal family.
Because although there was a staircase leading to the fifth floor, the Grand Duke was the only one permitted to climb it.
‘Ah, his aide, Ed, knew as well.’
The Grand Duke’s aide, Ed, was also someone who could ascend to the fifth floor.
He had even managed the fifth floor on the Grand Duke’s behalf whenever Kadrian was away from the residence.
The Former Grand Duke and Former Grand Duchess had known of the entity’s existence as well.
However, after the Former Grand Duke died and Kadrian inherited the headship of the family, the Former Grand Duchess had moved out of the Grand Duke’s Residence. Thus, the only people currently able to enter and leave the fifth floor in the residence were the Grand Duke and Ed—just those two.
Norbert recalled the black iron door firmly barring the entrance to the fifth-floor stairs.
An unknown space one must never wonder about, and even less peer into. That was why the servants of the Grand Duke’s Residence called that presence the ‘Master of the 5th Floor.’
“Your Grace. Your complexion has worsened ever since a week ago. Since you dumped the incident of Trensha Village’s attack on me, it could hardly be the reason for your haggard look.”
“……”
“Is it, as expected, ……because of the Master of the 5th Floor?”
“Norbert Millard.”
Perhaps because he had brought up the fifth floor again, Kadrian’s calm yet menacing voice cut Norbert short.
“I believe I told you never to speak of the fifth floor.”
“……”
Kadrian’s gaze was exceedingly dry.
It was not anger over a disobeyed command, but a gaze that seemed to quietly reprimand him.
Even so, before those intimidating violet eyes, his body froze uncontrollably.
Norbert bowed his head.
“……I apologize, Your Grace. I overstepped.”
As always, Kadrian was completely uncompromising whenever it came to anything concerning the fifth floor.
Kadrian turned another page of the document and spoke nonchalantly.
“And as for that woman……”
Kadrian brought up the woman who had been carried out earlier.
“Yes, Your Grace. Please give your orders.”
“From now on, you will take charge of her.”
“……Pardon?”
Norbert’s head snapped up.
Take charge of her? What on earth did that mean……?
‘Ah!’
He means I should dispose of her as I see fit!
Norbert nodded vigorously and replied,
“Understood. As soon as she wakes, I will take her to the Count’s Residence and interroga—”
“No.”
Kadrian set the documents down, his brow furrowed.
“For now, have her begin working as a maid in the Grand Duke’s Residence.”
“……What?”
“I am telling you to train her personally and make her useful, Count.”
Norbert hurriedly asked,
“N-No, Your Grace! Why in the world would you keep such a suspicious and ominous person in the Grand Duke’s Residence?!”
“A suspicious and ominous person, you say?”
Haha, the Grand Duke chuckled as if he had heard something amusing.
“Norbert. You shouldn’t say things you’ll regret later.”
“Your Grace, this is no laughing matter! She could be dangerous! Wouldn’t it be far easier to just kill her?!”
No! More than that, I already retired, remember?!
Why are you doing this so suddenly, when you were the one who told me to take my packed bags and go traveling?!
Norbert pleaded aggrievedly.
Kadrian, however, didn’t even pretend to listen.
“Give her a room in the Western Annex and begin her training immediately.”
“Your Grace! Please reconsider! She could very well be a spy sent by the Aristocratic Faction, or a spy from another empire!”
So I say again, just killing her would be—.
“You have it backwards, Count.”
Norbert’s argument to execute the woman was cut off once again.
“All the more reason to keep her right before my eyes.”
“……”
Kadrian recalled the woman answering his final question.
-“Did you come to kill me?”
-“I……”
Phew. Letting out a long sigh, the woman had continued.
-“Listen, Grand Duke. I don’t even know why I was on that beach. No, honestly, I don’t even know why I’m in this Empire in the first place…….”
He had thought she would answer the question directly, but instead, she had started venting her grievances as if deeply wronged.
-“Hey, Grand Duke. ……Did I walk to this Grand Duke’s Residence on my own two feet? No. It was your knights who dragged me here from that beach. You think I came here because I wanted to?”
He had clearly been told the sap would only allow simple yes or no answers.
Yet that woman had rambled on, explaining things she hadn’t even been asked at unnecessary length.
Was there really alcohol mixed into the sap after all?
-“Think about it, Grand Duke. Do I look like I have the body to harm you in the first place? This body? Are those eyes just for decoration, Grand Duke?”
-“……”
Speaking casually with every word, throwing around “Grand Duke, Grand Duke.”
Then, with another long sigh—pheeew—she had spoken in a slightly deflated tone.
-“……Fine. Sure, maybe I could cause harm. But not right now. It’s not right now. Understand……?”
The woman had hung her head low, wearing a look of bruised pride.
After a brief silence, she had spoken again.
-“Two years.”
-“Two years?”
-“Yeah. ……Just watch me for two years, Grand Duke. Then who knows? Maybe I’ll grow into someone formidable enough to harm you. ……Well? Aren’t you curious?”
-“……”
-“So, Grand Duuuuuke…….”
Her voice had suddenly slurred and trailed off. Having completed the three questions and answers, she seemed to have reached her physical limit.
Her eyelids fluttered and her body began to tilt slowly, yet even in that state, she stubbornly managed one last remark.
-“So. Just…… keep me alive, for now.”
-“……”
Begging to be spared even as she lost consciousness.
Ha. Kadrian let out an involuntary laugh.
‘She was certainly…… different from the black magicians who lunged at him intending to die together, or the assassins who begged to be killed instead.’
It was plain to see that her will to live and sheer attachment to life went far beyond the ordinary.
‘Should I call it a relief……?’
And yet…… her manner of speaking was not unfamiliar.
‘I’ve heard that way of speaking somewhere before.’
