38. Honorary Count Deon Hardt (3)
Honorary Count Deon Hardt left the banquet hall and the banquet was already coming to an end.
Among the nobles leaving the banquet hall one by one, Starbe Illuster and Cruel Hart were quietly strolling in the open garden of the nearby imperial palace.
Duke Starbe walked ahead and Cruel followed, and Starbe, who was silently walking towards a deserted place for a while, stopped at some point.
“When you asked me to be your sponsor and claimed to be on my side—” I
turned and faced Cruel Hart.
Starbe also had an unknown smile on his face as he looked straight into the solid green eyes.
“I asked Sir why.”
“….”
“──Was it for protection?”
The only two survivors of an extinct family.
Cruel Hart is the only survivor, except for Deon Hart, who appears to be the main culprit.
When he lost everything and came to me and asked me to become his sponsor, instead of immediately kicking him out or accepting, Stabe asked why.
The answer was rudely short.
Just for ‘protection’.
“What?”
It was a short phrase with no subject or object, but Stave didn’t ask any more questions.
People who have something to protect become more faithful than anyone else. He wasn’t stupid enough to kick a faithful dog that came to his feet.
It may seem like you roughly know what the missing object is, but even if you don’t, you will find out someday, so there’s no need to ask and make them feel rejected.
And today, the moment he saw Deon Hardt’s eyes, which went beyond hostility and were filled with murderous intent, he became convinced of what was included in the ‘object’.
“Me.”
“To protect myself.”
Reason suppressed the instinctive cry that it didn’t seem like that and that there must be something more.
“Was it to protect Cruelhart himself from Deonhart?”
“….”
All that comes back is silence.
Duke Stave chuckles as if that is enough. Cruel stared at him and quietly closed his eyes as if to chase away fatigue.
The duke’s soft voice could be heard vaguely.
“It’s not something I would say carelessly as I don’t know other people’s circumstances, but… it’s foolish.”
If the goal was purely to survive, there would have been countless ways.
‘Still, it was a welcome choice from our perspective.’
Stabe laughed.
He is a duke and the head of a noble faction. He has the power to overpower quite a few things, and there is also ample reason to eliminate Deon Hardt, the ‘Emperor’s Dog’.
No. ‘The Emperor’s Dog’ is just an additional reason, even if you exclude that reason─
‘Deonhart… is a person who must be killed.’
They are a cancerous being on this earth.
He touched the area around his heart and smiled lightly.
“….”
Cruel didn’t bother to answer.
Before I knew it, the scene from that time was flashing back onto my black retina.
The entrance to the mansion that no one guards. A hallway full of blood. And inside the room, he pulls out the dagger stuck in his father’s heart and looks back—
[Brother.]
…Deon.
My own younger brother.
Cruel glanced at the bodies of his mother and father, who were relatively intact compared to the others who had been torn to pieces, and raised his gaze again.
The blood that flowed from the red-stained hair down the forehead beaded at the corner of the eye for a moment and then flowed down the cheek again.
Unlike the tears that flowed down his face, Deon was smiling.
Blood drips from the dagger in both hands.
[…You.]
The moment Cruel was watching that and was about to say something, Deon threw the dagger he was holding.
***
As soon as I left the imperial palace, I refused Lord Lien, who offered to support me until the end, and crawled back to the mansion on my own feet. For a moment, I forgot my face and rubbed my eyes.
I see a lot of guys who shouldn’t be in my house. Is this something strange with my eyes?
He is not even wearing ordinary clothes, but a pure white knight’s uniform.
Let’s put aside the fact that those clothes look familiar.
‘Why is the front yard of my house, which was fine until I left, on fire?’
Is it still a hallucination? It must be a hallucination. I seem to be very stressed out these days. Or maybe he’s old.
“…That can’t be possible. “What the fuck is this!!”
Even the heat I felt on my skin couldn’t be a hallucination.
At my shout, the guys who were huddled together on one side of the burning yard, surrounding something, turn around.
And I almost grabbed the back of my neck inadvertently as I saw their faces becoming brighter without understanding the situation.
“Captain!”
Oh, you damn bastards.
“Great ego! “Wow!”
“It’s not the captain, it’s the count!”
“Count!”
“Count niiiiim!!”
under.
My head hurt, so I placed my hand on my temple and scanned their faces with tired eyes.
Why are there rabid dogs in my house? Since when did my mansion become a dog kennel?
Knights of Lofty. No, the Murderous Knights.
All of those members were occupying my yard as if it was their natural responsibility.
The gatekeepers were watching, sweating profusely.
‘What on earth did you do to not stop it?…’
So there’s no reason to have a gatekeeper.
I wonder if this absurd situation is a dream, but the events that happened today are too realistic to say so, and the heat of the fire and the presence of Lord Lien standing one step behind are also too vivid.
She was even yelling at them who were going crazy.
“Full sort!”
“!”
Oh, look at how they line up in an instant.
Lord Lien captured them with such certainty that it was a pity that they were given the dishonorable title of parachute.
She shouted sharply, fluttering her neatly tied up hair.
Oh, I didn’t just shout. I clearly said that my hair was flying.
Pow!
“What are you doing now?!”
“Hehe, it’s all leader….”
“It’s not the leader, it’s the leader. And if you see your lord, you should say hello, but what kind of mentality is it to cry out as if you were looking for a wife who has run away from home? “Why is the Count’s yard on fire!”
Puk puk puk.
The members are shocked by the merciless hand and belatedly say hello to me.
I took turns looking at the burning yard and the members, and called out to Lord Lien in a sighing voice.
“Lord Lien.”
“Yes, Count.”
“Beat more.”
“All right.”
“yes? Oh no, just a moment! Count! Let’s talk for a moment!! “Keuuk!”
What is the story?
I feel like I want to come out and beat him up myself. I held back because I thought if I did that, my wrist would come off first.
Anyway, what is this?
I stared at them as they began to roll on the floor one by one under Lord Lien’s merciless hands.
It’s not like I’m complaining in particular. I was curious about what on earth they were surrounded by.
Because of the heat, I couldn’t get closer, so I just strained my eyes, and something that wasn’t visible when they were huddled together appeared among them.
So, clothes with white birds on a blue background…
‘Revolutionary Army?’
Why are the revolutionary army in my front yard? Could it be that those mad dogs subdued him?
Now that I think about it, those guys were trying to explain something earlier, I guess?
“Lord Lien, wait a moment.”
“yes.”
I stopped her with the intention of hearing the whole story.
Sir Lien immediately stopped his actions like a knight, but because these damn bastards pretended to cry, he was able to hear the full story of the incident only after giving them a few more blows.
“This guy threw a bomb in my front yard?”
“yes! “We happened to see it and caught it right away!”
“Well… I understand for now. But…”
Confident eyes are focused on me as if there is nothing to be stung.
I met each of their gazes and expressed my doubts without hesitation.
“Why were you here at that exact time?”
“Uh…”
“Why did the revolutionary army attack my mansion without me? “There’s nothing in my mansion that would attract them.”
“That…” Everyone
turns their heads and looks the other way, wondering where those confident eyes from a moment ago have gone.
The guy who was unlucky enough to meet my gaze directly broke into a cold sweat and rolled his eyes back and forth.
“I can hear the head rolling.”
“!”
Thanks to this, I was able to infer the cause to some extent.
It’s a shame for these guys, but I’m not that dull.
“You were staying here before the revolutionary army came, right?”
“…!”
“How did you do that…!”
also.
These guys didn’t come because of the revolutionary army, but the revolutionary army came because of these guys.
The revolutionary army wants to cause damage to the emperor, and to do so, inflicting damage on me would be the most effective way.
In order to cause damage to me, it would have been better to attack the Knights, who were my greatest force, and since the location was my mansion, there would have been no reason to hesitate.
I looked at the culprits of this incident with cold eyes.
I want to hit them in the back of the head right now and ask them why they came…
“…let’s clean up after ourselves first.”
Turn off that fire too.
Even though I kept my distance, my eyes feel a little sore.
I unconsciously raised my hand to rub my eyes, but I felt a foreign body in my hand, which should have been empty. And a desperate cry is heard at the same time.
“Count!!”
“…?”
The only time Lord Lien shouts like that is when something unusual happens.
I stopped acting based on my instincts.
It was at that moment that I realized that I was holding something in my hand that wasn’t there just a moment ago.
“…what is this?”
The familiar shape is quite ominous. Where did you see this?
…Okay, that’s what I remembered.
I threw it away almost immediately. Desperately, as if my only goal was to get this horrible thing out of my hands.
What I thought I had thrown upwards flew behind me, landed on the floor, rolled over, and came to a stop after hitting someone’s feet.
Pow!!
“No Count!!”
“Are you okay?!”
Lord Lien and the members came rushing in to check on my well-being.
Anyway, I stared blankly at the place where the explosion occurred.
‘I almost died.’
Even if a bomb were to fly, I never thought it would fly right into my hand. I survived thanks to catching it by chance, but honestly, I’m not happy.
Sir Lien, who had somehow interpreted the meaning of my gaze, walked towards me, touched the charred corpse with his sword sheath, and said,
“You don’t have to feel guilty. “This guy is a revolutionary army.”
And the way he looks at me… I think he’s shouting, ‘You have a warm heart, too!’ with just his eyes.
It’s not like that.
“I never thought I would have a friend. “It seems that while that guy threw the bomb and caused chaos, the other guy was planning to escape with his captured comrade… but you can see the result.”
I followed with my eyes where Sir Lien’s gaze was directed.
And at the end, I was able to see the old butler mercilessly overpowering the revolutionary soldier who was running away while carrying his comrade.
…No, Remember?!
‘Is it okay for a grandfather to be like that?!’
“Anyway, I was impressed.”
“…yes?”
“I was transfixed and thought something big had befallen the Count. But I never thought you would catch the bomb.”
“ah…. “That’s…”
“As expected, you are amazing.”
That’s a coincidence.
The bright eyes are quite burdensome.
Unable to look her in the eye, I ended up running away, leaving only a few commands to sort out the situation.
“I will take you there.”
“….”
Of course, she made even that difficult.
I think I need to start looking for stomach medicine as soon as I get to my room.
Shit.
***
“Damn it, even if I had to die, I should have killed the emperor’s dog…”
A voice full of regret flowed from the mouth of the revolutionary soldier who had been completely suppressed.
There are several major obstacles on the way to bringing down the emperor. If I were to pick just the most important ones, there would be around three.
Nemeseus was the commander-in-chief during the Eight Years’ War and is currently the emperor’s personal bodyguard.
Prime Minister Ardal stabilizes public sentiment toward the emperor through excellent policies and financial management methods, both during the war and now.
Honorary Count Deonhardt, who was the vanguard during the Eight Years’ War and is currently the emperor’s dog, accepting any order he gives without reservation.
The most annoying of these is Deon Hart.
The other two use sunny areas as their main stage, so their actions are limited, so they can be predicted to a certain extent and are easy to monitor, but Deonhardt’s main stage is in the shadows.
In other words, it is difficult to predict where it will fly and difficult to monitor.
It started with the fact that I had no idea where I was going and what I was doing this time.
‘Of course I didn’t go there purely to subdue monsters…’
It would be difficult to keep losing track of things like this.
Therefore, the revolutionary army was working hard to eliminate Deon Hardt, a dangerous variable.
Aside from regret, the members of the Murderous Knights paused for a moment and looked around at the voice that did not contain a single trace of regret.
The Count and the leader entered the mansion, and the butler was leading the manpower to put out the fire in the yard.
In other words, there is no one to overhear this conversation or stop their actions.
“Who is the emperor’s dog?”
Immediately the wild dogs showed their teeth.
