TLHZ 03

Chapter 03

“Alright, alright. That’s enough for today. Go in and get some rest. We’ll talk again tomorrow~.”
It was already late into the night. Isaac gave Yulia and me a gentle push, and we had no choice but to be herded out.

“Wait…!”
Click.

Before Yulia could protest, the door was locked shut. Clearly, Isaac and Edmond had matters to discuss between themselves.

Left standing alone in the empty corridor, Yulia and I exchanged glances and sighed.

“How much longer are they going to treat us like children…?”
“Exactly. We’re twenty-three now.”
“Tch.”

As dissatisfied as we were, neither of us intended to force our way back inside. All the family’s major affairs had always been handled by those two. Perhaps this matter too naturally belonged in their hands.

We slowly made our way down the hallway toward our rooms. For some reason, the silent corridor felt longer than usual tonight.

“…You.”
Yulia’s voice broke the silence at last.

“When did you know? …About your ability.”
She didn’t say “black magic” outright, as though the words might wound me. Yulia had always been delicate like that.

I studied her face for a moment before replying.
“When I was seven. Remember the rabbit we kept in the backyard? The one we named ‘Ellie’ after ourselves?”
“Of course! We played with her every day.”

She had been the first living creature outside our family that we both grew attached to. Under our parents’ guidance, we had taken good care of her.

“That winter, Ellie grew weak and died. But I… I couldn’t bear to let her go. I wanted her to come back to life, to hop around me like before.”
“…”
“That was the first time. The first time I reversed death.”

That was the earliest memory I had of black magic. Of course, what came back was nothing that could truly be called Ellie anymore.

I left that part unsaid.

“Fortunately, our parents were the ones who witnessed it. They made me promise never to use that ability again.”

That was a blessing in itself. If a servant had seen it first, there would have been no undoing the consequences.

Yulia looked as though she had just swallowed something unbearably bitter.

Guilt… No doubt that’s what she was feeling.

It had been around the time she herself awakened to her gift. Full of pride in her newfound power, she had often teased me mercilessly back then.

At first, everyone thought I was simply a late bloomer. But when I reached fifteen without awakening any ability, rumors spread that I might actually be a “Walker”—a powerless stain on the Walker family name.

They mocked me, calling me “the family’s disgrace.” Yulia’s face had gone pale, as if she were realizing now just how much scorn I must have endured.

I could feel her pitying gaze brushing against my cheek. I answered with the smile I always wore when things became difficult.

“There was a time I resented it. Wondered why I had been cursed with such a gift. But now… I think I understand. Maybe it was all arranged for this moment.”
“…”
“I think it’s a blessing, actually. Without this power, we might have truly lost everyone today.”

Yulia’s eyes flew wide at my words.
“You really are…”
“Hm?”
“…an idiot!”

Bang!

With that, she stormed into her room and slammed the door.

“…Well then.”

My twin still had plenty of rough edges. But to me, it was only endearing.

Just then, a bell-like sound rang softly.

— A blessing? Arranged by fate? Pffft, hahahaha!

“Lev.”

From the crack beneath Yulia’s door, a black cat padded out. To others, it sounded like nothing more than meows—but to me, every word was clear.

— What fool would ever call black magic a divine blessing?

Its golden eyes gleamed in the dark, sharp and penetrating.

— From its very origin, it is something else entirely. And you… you know that better than anyone. Yet you still spout such nonsense with a straight face.
“…”
— So, tell me. How does it feel? Now that you’ve tasted a sliver of that omnipotent power of yours, has your thinking changed at all?

Lev.

The creature posing as my pet cat was, in truth, a demon I had contracted with.

He claimed that revealing his true form in the mortal realm would violate some law of causality, so he lodged himself in the corpse of a cat instead.

— And yet, my great contractor hides away like a frightened rat instead of using this chance to conquer the continent—how pitiful! You’d rather eke out a miserable life in the shadows than bathe the capital in blood.
“Then why did you make a contract with me?”
— You summoned me!!

Lev hissed violently, his back arched, fur bristling.

He wasn’t wrong. I shrugged. It had happened when I was eleven. The story of how I ended up summoning a demon was a long one—but ever since then, Lev had lingered at my side in the form of a black cat.

— When I answered your call, I thought: “At last! A human bold enough to summon me! What storms of bloodshed will this one unleash?” And then I found… you.

He gave me an unimpressed once-over. I chuckled awkwardly.

— Don’t laugh! It’ll make me fond of you!
“But come on. If a weak, novice necromancer like me could summon you at all, doesn’t that say something about you, too?”

— Wh-what did you just say?!

His jaw dropped in outrage. Then, with a furious leap, he landed squarely on my face.

— Never in all my existence have I suffered such an insult! Hraaah!
“W-wait, Lev! Agh, not the claws—!”

Black fur filled my mouth as he thrashed wildly. His claws raked my arm, tearing through my bandages.

“Ow! That hurts! I said it hurts there!”

I yanked him off and pushed up my sleeve. The neatly wrapped bandage was shredded, blood seeping through.

“You know that really hurts… You’re so mean.”
— Mean? Mean?! I should dissolve this contract this instant! Do you think I’ll sit quietly after being treated like this?!
“Okay, okay! I’m sorry!”
— An apology won’t cut it!

I spent the next while scrambling around, trying to dodge the furious cat as he lunged at me again.

I really was sorry… though honestly, I wasn’t wrong.

If I said that aloud, though, he’d only go berserk again. So I bit my tongue.

Isaac waited until the sounds of his younger siblings faded down the corridor before turning back.

Across from him, Edmond sat with a grim expression, making no effort to conceal the chill on his face.

It was a look he never showed in front of Yulia and Emily. Isaac, accustomed to it, simply sat down on the sofa.

“Whoa, easy there, brother. Relax your face. If the kids saw you now, they’d burst into tears.”
“Isaac. You already know, don’t you?”

Isaac nodded calmly.

“They’ll come again.”

The assassins had planted explosives in the carriage and even stayed behind to confirm the kill.

“Right. Now that they know we survived, they won’t just let us be.”

Meaning tonight’s attempt was far from the last.

“So which is it? The Archmone dukedom? Or the Bellonde imperial family?”

Both were plausible. Political entanglements widened the suspect pool.

“It could be the Papacy.”
“Ah… they were never fond of us. Something about how divine blessings should belong only to the Church, wasn’t it?”

Isaac had never been particularly devout; such claims always sounded absurd to him.

“In other words, it could be anyone.”

The Archmone dukes, the Bellonde royals, even the Papacy. At this point, it was easier to list who wasn’t a suspect.

“Wow. Been a while since we had one of these. Ever since you settled into your position, we haven’t had nighttime visitors.”
“More than my condition, it’s the uncertainty that troubles me. We don’t know when the next attempt will come. Best to avoid going out altogether.”
“I’ll have the steward submit a leave of absence tomorrow.”

Isaac had a knack for grasping what Edmond left unsaid.

“And Andrea’s guard needs to be reinforced.”
“You mean doubling the knights?”
Edmond nodded.

“Too much has happened today. Fatigue… no, that doesn’t quite apply anymore. I suppose exhaustion is a luxury for the dead.”

Edmond realized, belatedly, that despite the long and harrowing day, his body felt no strain at all.

It wasn’t willpower or stamina. It was as if his body had forgotten what fatigue even was. Only the faint memory of that sensation lingered.

“…All the better. I still have work to finish tonight.”

There was simply too much to do—even on the night he had become a zombie.

“You know, I’m convinced you must’ve died once before. Otherwise, how could anyone be so perfectly suited to being a zombie?”
“Enough nonsense. Go get some sleep. It’s late.”
“Late, huh…”

Isaac smirked, a twisted expression he wore whenever his thoughts soured.

“Tell me, brother. Have you ever seen a zombie sleep?”