Chapter 36: Confusion — Part 2

At that sound, the two men sprang to their feet.

“Stay here.
We will return immediately,” they said before rushing out.

As my brother left, he said, “Take shelter in the bedroom.”

So Lloyd and I headed to the bedroom at the back.

I quickly opened the glass door and stepped onto the balcony.

Looking out over the garden, I saw that the gazebo was on fire.

A fire!?

But there had been an explosion.

What?

“Lloyd, what is this?”

“It is probably explosives.
This time it appears to be a real attack.
Young Lady, please stay in the room.
I will go confirm that the estate is locked.
Because of the private discussion, we left no guards nearby.
Once I leave, please bolt the bedroom door.
Do not open it until Lord Eric and the others return.”

I pressed myself against the balcony railing again and looked outside.

Knights were running toward the garden.

Half the roof of the gazebo had been blown away, so they seemed to be breaking it apart to extinguish the fire.

Several men kicked at it and stamped out the flames from scattered burning fragments.

I could not see the attackers.

That made it even more frightening.

Spies were completely different from knights.
Their way of fighting was entirely foreign.

Could the knights of this estate defeat them?

Another dull boom sounded.

Where was that this time?

The sound seemed farther away.
Perhaps the barracks?
Had someone come to rescue their comrades?

Servants began running through the corridors, and the inside of the mansion grew noisy as well.

I wandered around the room alone, waiting for news.

After stepping out onto the balcony several times to check outside, I heard someone knocking on the door from the antechamber.

“Lord Eric, are you there?
The Count is calling for you!”

It was the anxious voice of a maid, faintly muffled.
She kept calling out.

I stepped out into the sitting room.

“My brother went outside.”

“Young Lady?
Are you safe?”

The voice sounded muffled, as if the speaker’s mouth were covered with cloth.

At the same time, the door between the antechamber and the sitting room began rattling as the lock was tampered with.

Only Lloyd and my brother should have had the key.

Before I could run back into the bedroom, the door clicked open, and an unfamiliar woman slipped inside.

She wore the clothing of a servant of the count’s household.

She was a middle-aged woman with an unremarkable presence, but I had never seen her in this house.

With swift movements, she stepped between me and the bedroom.

“Who are you?
You are not one of our servants.”

“So you are Lady Maria.
I came to take your accessories.
The ones inherited from your grandmother.
A stone with a cat pattern.
Does that ring a bell?”

She spoke casually, almost warmly.

Because of that friendliness, it was strangely difficult to feel wary.

Was this woman also a spy?
Most likely.

But even spies did not know what the stone actually looked like.
Why?

“I do not know.
What kind of pattern is it?”

“Well, that is the problem.
All I was told was ‘a cat.’
Only royalty originally knew the details, and the tradition was broken forty years ago.
So no one knows.
Do you recall anything that might resemble it?”

Suddenly a thought struck me.

Perhaps the king had lost his memory and forgotten even the appearance of the stone.

“So it belonged to the royal family?
Then surely people close to the king—his parents or siblings—would know what it looked like.”

“The previous king died early, and the king ascended the throne while still young.
The ones who attempted to assassinate him were his stepmother and half-brother.

“The king’s carriage fell from a cliff, but he only lost consciousness.
His body had not a single injury, even though the carriage was shattered.
However, he struck his head and lost part of his memory.”

Was it because of the stone’s protection that he escaped injury?

I tried to imagine falling from a cliff unharmed, but I could not picture it.

“The assassination attempt was exposed, and since the royal treasure had also been lost, the stepmother and half-brother were condemned.”

What a brutal story in every sense.
Just hearing it made me feel sympathy for the former king.

“They searched that cliff for nearly a year, but never found the stone.
When it was later discovered that the king could not remember even its appearance, the confusion that followed became legendary.
Of course, I only heard the story secondhand.”

So no one actually knew what the stone looked like.

Should I hand over some random object to deceive her?
Or give her the real one and let her leave?

I hesitated for a moment.

“Oh?
It seems you remember something.
That is helpful.”

She said this casually while approaching.

Her movements were quiet, yet the pressure she gave off was intense.

I could only retreat step by step.

Cornered against the wall and unable to move, I decided to hand over the real one.

“I do not know if it is the one you want, but there is only one stone that looks like a cat’s eye.
If I give it to you, will you leave?”

“Of course.”

She answered lightly.

But the tone of her voice reminded me of the dead man’s words to Merry:
“I will make it so you will not mind.”

In that moment, I understood clearly.

Even if I handed it over, she would kill me.

So I was destined to be killed in this life as well?
Just like Merry?

A quiet resignation spread slowly through my chest.
It felt as though strength was draining from my body.

“Give it to me,” the woman said, extending her hand.

But when I heard that flat voice, the faces of everyone who had fought beside me today suddenly filled my mind.

They were the exact opposite of her voice—lively and full of strength.

That image gave me courage.

Thanks to that, I realized that I absolutely did not want to die quietly without doing anything.

But there was little I could do.

So I asked a question.

“The second explosion earlier—was it placed at the barracks?
Did you come to rescue the captured thieves?”

The woman smiled faintly.

“I came to kill them.”

The words caught in my throat.
I swallowed hard and forced out my voice.

“They were not your allies?
You killed them all?
Our knights too?”

Realizing that possibility, the color drained from my face.

I covered my mouth with my hand, trying to steady myself.

Seeing this, she said,

“You are quite composed.
Not what I heard.”

The same words the man had said.

So she really was his colleague.

“What happened to the knights of this house?”

“Most of them ran outside after the first explosion.
Those guarding the barracks also went out to patrol the area.
Which means the people inside were trapped and could not escape.
That worked well for me.
Killing your household’s knights was never my goal.”

Hearing that calmed the trembling in my legs slightly.

Then I tried another question.

“The cat stone belongs to the royal family, right?
Why is it in my house?”

“The former king gave it to your grandmother as a pledge of love.
He promised he would definitely return for her.”

The woman suddenly looked delighted and grinned.

“Tell me, was your betrayed grandmother unhappy?
What do you think?”

She asked eagerly, clearly curious.

“She was cheerful and laughed often.
She got along very well with my grandfather.
When I asked our long-serving butler, he said she had always seemed happy.”

The woman looked genuinely surprised.

“Really?
Perhaps women are stronger after all.”

She said it with a slightly bored tone.