Chapter 13
Isaac looked down at the palms of his hands; they were small, pale, and delicate, the hand of a child without a single callus.
And yet, he could not deny the fact that this hand had taken a human life.
In that moment, he truly felt the majesty, the peril, and the sheer inhumanity of magic. Not a single blade had clashed, no steel had been drawn, and yet, the infamous monster, towering in stature, had crumpled in an instant.
He recalled the emotions surrounding first kills that appeared in countless books, but none spoke to what he felt.
He felt no rush of omnipotence.
No void of emptiness.
No pangs of fear.
No thrill of ecstasy.
Only the certainty that much more blood would stain these hands in days to come. Only the resolve that he would not hesitate when it came to protecting what needed protecting.
He still didn’t know how he had returned to the past. But he had already chosen how he would live from now on.
And when the day came to leave this life again, he would do so without the weight of regret pressing down on him; unburdened.
“Young Master, may I enter?”
Hans’s voice carried from beyond the door.
“Come in.”
“Good day, Young Master.”
Enette stepped inside alongside Hans, holding the hem of her skirt as she dipped into a graceful curtsey. She bowed her head.
Isaac was glad to see her, though he gave no sign of it.
“Yes. I heard you went through quite an ordeal.”
“Yes, I paid the price for my foolishness. If you hadn’t persuaded the chamberlain, both Clara, Hilde, and I would have been dismissed from the estate. I truly thank you.”
“I simply preferred not to see the estate staff changing faces so often.”
Isaac answered as though it were nothing.
Of course, the entire staff already knew he had raised his voice and argued fiercely with Schiller over the matter.
“How are you feeling?”
“I was only held for a few days, so I’m fine. Hilde and Clara, though, are a different story. They weren’t harmed, per se, we were treated as merchandise, not victims, but being confined in that place was torture enough. It takes more than an ordinary mind to endure the horrors that happen there.”
“I imagine so.”
Isaac nodded unconsciously.
Sewage Row, the wastewater district.
The slaughterhouse maintained in Nias’s territory used people, nothing less than people, as meat.
Even with the mental fortitude of someone who had lived over seventy years, the sight had left him shaken. He hadn’t slept well for days, and everything he ate threatened to come right back up.
So what must it have been like for the maids, who were still just teenagers?
“Can you tell me what happened?”
“Does it matter?” Enette replied flatly. “In the end, we escaped with our lives thanks to a twist of fate and the fickleness of the bandits.”
She was exactly as Isaac remembered.
Her dark chestnut hair was neatly braided and pulled back. Her eyes were long and slender, her nose small and sharp.
But one thing had changed — her demeanor.
Where once she had worn the air of someone perpetually shrouded in shadow, now she gave off the impression of a girl with just a bit of bite to her.
“I’m curious.”
“…If that’s what you wish, Young Master.”
Enette sighed lightly and explained succinctly.
Hilde and Clara, who admired the life of nobles they had only seen in racy novels, firmly believed the rumor that noble sons in the south avoided marriage due to the ugliness of southern women and took concubines instead.
Thus, seeking a broker to send them south, they fell for the bait of Nias’s organization.
The broker kidnapped Hilde and Clara at intervals, aiming to maintain the “freshness” of the ‘goods’ while saving on storage costs and avoiding suspicion from the unbribed guards.
When Clara, who promised to send a letter while passing through the capital, didn’t send word, Enette went to find the broker and was kidnapped herself.
The slave traders refused to buy Hilde and Clara because they acted like madwomen.
“They might have genuinely gone mad. It was that kind of environment.”
“I see.”
“If I’d stayed even a few more days, I would have gone mad too. The cage door was broken; honestly, I could’ve escaped anytime. But the slave trader seemed to like me and was planning to take me in three days. Meanwhile, Clara was right next to me in another cage, unable to control her bodily functions, laughing insanely all the time… I’m sorry. You probably didn’t want to hear that.”
“It’s fine. You answered because I asked.”
Only then did Isaac understand what Enette meant back when she spoke to him.
She had escaped alone, leaving Clara behind to survive.
Normally, no one from the mansion would have searched the slums and sewers so thoroughly just to find three maids.
“It must have been hard to recall. Thank you for telling me. You may go.”
“…………….”
Isaac neatly wrapped up the conversation to maintain their distance, but Enette hesitated.
“Is there something else you want to say?”
“The chamberlain said it was just my guilty conscience, but it keeps bothering me.”
Enette clutched her skirt tightly.
“You seem willing to listen to us, young master…”
“What is it?”
“When the bandits tied us up and sent us back to the mansion, for some reason, Hilde briefly came to her senses in the carriage. While Clara and I were overjoyed to be nearing the mansion, Hilde looked terrified.”
“Hilde?”
“Yes. She kept saying if she returned to the mansion, she would definitely die… It didn’t seem like mere fear of punishment from the chamberlain. She repeated it over and over again.”
“She said she would die if she returned?”
“…Yes.”
Isaac couldn’t immediately guess what that meant.
The only information he had about this incident came from Jonas, related to Nias’s.
He hadn’t cared or heard anything about Hilde’s life or death.
“She didn’t say anything else?”
“No, that was all.”
“Alright. If anything comes to mind… I’ll see what I can do.”
Isaac clumsily ended the conversation, unsure how to close it properly.
At his words, Enette let out a soft giggle; though she immediately looked flustered afterward.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything bad by it. Please forgive me.”
“Then why did you laugh?”
“You really seem like a good person, young master. I’m sorry.”
Enette kept apologizing but showed no sign of fearing Isaac.
More than anything, it was the first time Isaac had seen her smiling face, and he found it refreshing.
“Yesterday, I spoke with Rosa — oh, Rosa is a maid as close to me as Clara. She said it might be thanks to you, young master, that the bandits changed their minds and let us go. Sounds ridiculous, right? But somehow, it also made sense. There’s no one else in the mansion who would care about lowly servants like us.”
Was she always this talkative? Isaac wondered. He remembered her as someone who only spoke when necessary.
“S-sorry. I talked too much.”
Seeing Isaac quietly staring at her, Enette blushed.
“I’ll take my leave.”
Enette bowed and hurried toward the door.
“Enette.”
“Yes?”
Isaac called out to stop her.
“Thank you for telling me.”
“Ah…”
“And… never mind. I’ll tell you later.”
“Yes, young master.”
Though puzzled, Enette bowed once more and disappeared.
‘An unexpected talent found here.’
Isaac smacked his lips thoughtfully.
Shortly after killing Nias’s, Isaac’s mana circuits increased to five.
Strangely enough, from that point, his mana sensitivity sharpened noticeably.
Thanks to that, Isaac could feel the size of the mana vessel Enette possessed.
Maybe… it might be worth trying to teach her magic.
Of course, it wasn’t possible right now, but maybe when things calmed down a bit.
“Hans.”
“Yes.”
“Don’t laugh.”
“Yes.”
Isaac glared at Hans, who was grinning proudly as if he had achieved something.
Regardless, Hans did not bother to hide his laughter.
“Go find Bill and bring him here.”
“Understood, my kind young master.”
𝄞 𝄢 𝄞 𝄢 𝄞 𝄢
After the three maids returned, the mansion became a hive of hushed murmurs and quiet commotion.
Their gaunt, half-starved appearance and the foul stench clinging to their unwashed bodies were already enough to set the entire estate abuzz. But it wasn’t their pitiful state that truly captured attention.
What seized everyone’s curiosity was the clash between the chamberlain and Isaac over the matter of the maids’ reinstatement.
The chamberlain had insisted that it would be unwise to entrust duties to servants who had once left the estate — no matter the circumstances. Isaac, on the other hand, had issued a direct order; to give them another chance.
And while Isaac was indeed the eldest son of House Goethe, the chamberlain was a man who had served the family for decades, overseeing every matter large and small within the estate. To question his judgment on the treatment of servants was undeniably overstepping.
The resulting argument between Isaac and the chamberlain had been loud and unmistakable.
And depending on how one spun the tale, Isaac became either a lecherous brat with questionable tastes, or a gallant prince atop a white steed.
“So, Bill, what do you think really happened?”
When it came to gossip, there was never a conversation without Bill in the center of it. His talent lay in spicing up stories with just enough sugar to make them irresistible, whether or not they were true.
Some turned their noses up at such nonsense, but more often than not, people listened — pretending not to care, while hanging onto every word.
“Hey, Bill!”
“What now? Can’t you see I’m busy?”
Bill barked back, one shoulder weighed down by a sack as he trudged along.
“What do you think, man? You were the one who first talked about the maid scandal!”
“………………..”
Bill turned to the faces watching him, all eager and expectant, and gave them a look of pure exhaustion.
“Pathetic little shits. Do your damn jobs. If you waste all your energy on gossip like this, no one’s going to speak up for you when the chamberlain throws you out.”
That was all he said.
Then he turned and walked off toward the barn.
“What the hell’s his problem?”
“What’s with him today?”
“He’s the one who blabbered on so excitedly before…”
Grumbling followed him in every direction as the maids and footmen shared confused glances and whispered complaints.
Bill heard all of it, every suspicion, every insult, but none of it registered.
After stacking the sack in the corner of the barn, he slumped down against it as though the weight on his back had broken something inside.
“…Shit. How the hell did it come to this.”
Bill. Bill. Bill.
You pathetic bastard.
Your pathetic little life.
He had always assumed he would live out his days slinking through life in cowardice, only to meet a pitiful, meaningless end.
But this, this was never part of the plan.
Now, Bill was the new head of the Sewage Row crime syndicate.
He had become the second Nears.
Not because he wanted to.
Because Isaac had willed it.
To be more precise, it was the binding power of a magical contract that had left him with no choice at all.
The slums. Sewage Row.
It was a place where fugitives, exiles, and vagrants would forever keep streaming in.
Crime syndicates, no matter how many were uprooted, would always sprout anew.
So Isaac had made a decision: if the cycle could not be broken, then at least plant a seed of control.
A reasonable idea, on paper.
The problem? He had no intention of bearing the consequences himself.
He dumped them all on Bill.
Now, whenever a turf war broke out, Bill would be the first to have his throat slit.
And if one of his own ambitious underlings decided it was time to seize the top seat, again, Bill’s head would be the first to roll.
“You called for us, Boss.”
“For fuck’s sake, I told you not to call me that.”
Bill spat the words out with visible irritation, but the two thugs who had gathered in the barn at his summons merely shrugged their shoulders.
“Fire.”
Bill drew a pipe from his pocket and placed it between his lips.
One of the men stepped forward and, with practiced ease, struck flint and steel together to light it.
Fffh—!!!
Smoke curled from Bill’s mouth as he exhaled slowly.
If there was any shred of comfort left to him, it was the fleeting pleasure of swinging this pathetic little scepter of power, even if the price was his own head.
“Are you sure those are all the agents planted in the estate?”
“Yes, Boss… The previous boss told us to keep an eye on the mansion.”
“That Nears bastard… Maybe he wasn’t completely insane after all.”
Despite his notoriety as a lunatic obsessed with black magic, Nears had actually been more methodical than most would expect.
Not that it mattered now.
He was dead, his end orchestrated by a few gestures from Isaac.
“Ugh. It’s fucking cold all of a sudden.”
A chill ran down Bill’s spine.
Sure, the weather was cold to begin with, but the moment Isaac entered his thoughts, his neck felt like ice. He’d pledged his life away to a monster hiding its power behind a boyish smile, all through the binding force of a magical contract.
There’d be no dying of old age for Bill.
“If any weird rumors about Young Master Isaac start spreading, shut them down. Quietly.”
“Understood.”
“Now go. I want to be alone.”
“………….”
“…What? Why aren’t you leaving?”
Bill waved them off with a scowl, but the two hulking men didn’t move.
“Tribute.”
The silent one of the two finally stepped forward and held out his hand.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Knight. The tribute.”
Bill stared at him, confused.
The other one spoke up.
“It’s the time of year we pay tribute. To the Knight.”
“…What Knight?”
“You mean you never heard? From the previous boss?”
“He didn’t exactly talk to me. I cut his head off, remember?”
“We were able to settle in that sewer pit because a Knight had our backs.”
“Okay, so who the hell is it?”
“We don’t know. They just send someone to collect the offerings. We’ve never seen their face, never heard a name. Just that they’re called the Knight of the North.”
Bill furrowed his brow.
Even a goon like this could put a sentence together.
And that made it worse.
He smelled something.
The smell of money.
And the smell of money in the slums always reeked of something rotten.
𝄞 𝄢 𝄞 𝄢 𝄞 𝄢
A few days later.
The Margrave returned.
Bringing with him a condemned criminal.
