CHAPTER 3     The Killer’s First Deed?!

The next day, Cecilia found herself in the woods behind the cottage, striding briskly through the dense undergrowth amid the green of nature. She had no set destination in mind.

Looks like I finally lost him…

Sighing, she looked behind her. The reason she’d come all the way out here was to shake off Oscar, who was trying to follow her around wherever she went.

If I head to the library to read, he follows. If I go to rest under the shade of a tree, he sits right next to me. Even when I talk to Lean or Gilbert, he’s always! Right! There!

If she took a single step away, he’d ask, “Are you all right?” and attempt to trail behind her. She knew he was just being conscientious of her (ostensibly) poor health, but considering how she couldn’t let him see her full face, it was supremely irritating to deal with.

He’s not this clingy when I’m Cecil…

Although she was aware he didn’t have any ill intentions, it was nevertheless exhausting. After telling him she was going to the powder room, she’d fled all the way out here. He was probably tearing the cottage apart looking for her right now. She honestly did feel bad about that.

Cecilia surged deeper into the forest. She couldn’t see the cottage behind her anymore.

That reminds me. What did those two discuss last night anyway?

The memory of Lean and Gilbert leaving the room the night before popped into her mind. Once Lean returned, Cecilia had asked her what had transpired, but she’d refused to say. All she’d said was, “It’s nothing you need to worry yourself about.”

And Gil looked pretty sour-faced this morning, too…

He hadn’t seemed like he was mad, but he also hadn’t looked very happy. When she tried to talk to him, he wouldn’t give her a straight answer. But his expression said there was more to the story.

What could he have needed to speak to Lean about?

Cecilia puzzled over that. After pondering it for a while, a bolt of realization hit her.

“Oh! What if he told Lean he likes her, but she turned him down?!” she cried aloud, utterly thrown.

That hadn’t occurred to her at all. It had been a complete oversight on her part. Everyone knew Lean and Huey were a couple. Gilbert hadn’t really reacted to the news, but he should be carrying a secret torch for Lean. After all, in the game, she’s supposed to be his first love, the one he falls head over heels for at first sight.

He didn’t let any of that show, huh? Oh, but actually, now it makes sense why both Oscar and Gilbert reacted that way to Lean’s news.

Oscar’s reaction had also been pretty indifferent for someone getting his heart broken, but it might just have been that the men of this world considered it embarrassing to let their disappointment show on their faces.

Still, what should I do? How should I comfort him? Or should I just let him be?

She really wanted to console him somehow, but a pep talk from his big sister might not exactly cheer him up. And while an old saying had it that the best way to get over someone was to get with someone new, she didn’t have any other girls she could introduce him to.

“Once again, I just end up being the one relying on him…”

Feeling truly terrible for being useless when it counted, she gave a slightly dejected sigh. “But still, I can’t believe how much Gil’s grown up. He was so little when we first met.”

She stretched out a hand to somewhere around her knees, reminiscing. Never mind the fact that back then, she’d been just as tall as he was.

“Kinda makes me feel a bit lonely.” She sighed, sounding as if she were a mother whose child was leaving the nest. Did all parents feel this way? It was a little heartbreaking.

Hmm?

Suddenly, she stopped. Then, glancing all around her, she frowned.

Oh no. I may have gone a little too far from the cottage.

She could be outside the guards’ range by now. Cold sweat trickled down her face.

The lookouts were positioned in numerous concentric circles around the cottage to prevent intruders getting in. However, security was at its tightest at the center. The guards on the outer edges were spread much thinner. Of course, with so many layers of security, it was impossible for anyone to slip through all of them. Normally, that would be enough to catch someone like Mordred. However…

Maybe I’m just really lucky today.

Cecilia hadn’t run into anyone on her way here. A guard in the innermost circle had stopped her, but she’d smiled and told him she was going to pick some flowers, so he’d let her go.

But of course he had. The guards’ job was to prevent outsiders from getting in. They had no orders about keeping people from getting out. Besides, few household staff could dispute their employers’ wishes.

This is still House Sylvie territory, so I don’t think any strange people will show up, but since I’m outside the security ring, it’s a bit dangerous to be here. I’ve got to head back…

Cecilia turned around, but just as she did, a sharp voice called out, “Hey!”

Hesitantly, she glanced back to see a pair of young men with leaves in their hair and on their shoulders.

One had dark-brown hair and black eyes. A little taller than Cecilia, he was long, lanky, and not very broad or muscular. Although he wasn’t too unattractive, his attitude was somewhat arrogant.

The other boy had bobbed hair and spectacles. He was short and small. Compared to the boy next to him, he was trembling like a leaf.

Their clothes were of fairly high quality, so perhaps the pair were sons of nobility.

They kind of look like a neighborhood bully and his lackey.

“You live around here?”

“Um…”

They were on Sylvie territory, but this section wasn’t rented out to anyone. Her father loved bird-watching, so he’d kept this tract of land as part of a nature preserve for him to use.

“Well, yes…,” Cecilia answered vaguely, unwilling to reveal more than she needed to.

Bully approached her, brushing leaves off his shoulders. “I came because I heard Duke Sylvie has a cottage around here. You know anything about it?”

“Ah…,” she hedged, giving another vague nod. While the dwelling wasn’t hidden, neither was its existence a matter of public information. Only a select few knew of it. That meant this boy was included in that select few—or was someone who could take action against one of them.

Which means he won’t just go away if I lie to him…

He must have been the son of her parents’ friends or relatives. Whatever the case, she couldn’t help but wonder why this had to happen now.

Bully used his chin to jerk behind Cecilia rudely. “Then lead the way.”

“Excuse me?”

“Did you not hear me? I told you to escort us there, peasant.”

“……”

This was how he acted when asking someone a favor? Even if Cecilia had been a commoner and he a nobleman, his behavior was beyond the pale. It was enough to make her worry about what his parents and tutors were teaching him.

She bit her tongue to stifle the retort threatening to spill from her lips. Then she pasted on the biggest smile she could muster. It wouldn’t be wise to anger him now. “Um, excuse me, but who might you be?”

“Ticky Coulson.”

“Did you just say…Coulson?”

“Yeah. As in Duke Coulson.”

“And I’m…B-Bernard Broussais…,” stammered Glasses and Bob Cut in a faltering voice from behind Bully.

Cecilia was shaken to her core.

T-Ticky and Bernard?!

Both were characters in Holy Maiden of Vleugel Academy 3. Moreover, Ticky Coulson was Duke Coulson’s second son—and Gilbert’s biological older brother.

Wh-wh-what are these two doing here?!

Cecilia was reeling now that she knew why she’d been feeling such déjà vu.

Ticky and Bernard didn’t appear in the game’s common route, just the romantic ones. She’d only seen them in Gilbert’s route and Jade’s route.

And neither of them is good news…

Ticky Coulson generally appears alongside Bernard or with his older brother, Nichol Coulson. Whenever he shows up, it’s usually to bully Gilbert. He smirks at Gilbert when he’s walking around town with Lean, and when Gilbert is selected as one of the knights, he tacks up an anonymous sheet reading: “It was just a coincidence that you got knighted. You’re the shame of the Coulson line. Pathetic shut-in!”

He gets no character development to flesh him out as a good guy or to reveal he actually has a tragic backstory. Ticky exists purely as a wall for Gilbert to overcome.

And that Bernard Broussais next to him is just as eccentric. His very first appearance is as Ticky’s lackey, just like now. In reality, however, he’s at the heart of a series of violent crimes. In the dead of night or in empty alleyways, he beats women and small children until they pass out. He’s a total loser who randomly preys on people he’s stronger than. Jade’s route largely revolves around chasing down the perpetrator of his assaults. He and Lean use exchange diaries to keep track of clues and hunches, culminating in them chasing Bernard down.

Which makes him the final boss of Jade’s route… And incidentally, Bernard is responsible for half of Cecilia’s deaths that occur after starting down it.

I’m guessing they’re not going to just leave…

For the sake of her future and so many other things, she desperately wanted to drive them away.

But based on what’s in the newspapers, Bernard isn’t committing those crimes. And Ticky also hasn’t tried to contact Gilbert at all. Maybe their personalities diverge slightly from in the game…

“What the hell are you spacin’ out over, dum-dum?!”

“Eek!” she cried, stumbling back as Ticky shoved her shoulder. She had stayed perfectly still while lost in thought, so his push made her fall flat onto her behind.

“Hurry up and take us there!”

Excuuuuuuuse me?!

She glared at him.

I take back everything I just thought! I’m chasing them off! These two are out of here no matter what!

Insults were one thing, but she would never stand for violent treatment.

“What do you think you’re doing, glaring at me like you’re some big shot? Do you think peasants like you are allowed to look at me like that?!”

“S-stop it! Ticky! Look at her clothes. They’re tailored to be easy to move around in, but they don’t look like anything a commoner would wear…”

“Bernard! You shut up!”

“Eep!” he shrieked, cowering in on himself.

That was when Cecilia rose to her feet. As she suppressed the fury welling within her, she pasted on the face of a well-behaved lady. Brushing off the mud on her dress, she straightened up to her full height. “Is that how someone born to a duke behaves, Ticky Coulson?”

“What did you just say?!” he snapped, grabbing her arm hard and glowering.

But she recomposed herself in seconds. “Oh my. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear? Allow me to speak more plainly this time. Ticky Coulson, as a son of the illustrious House Coulson, are you certain it’s quite all right for you to treat women with such vulgarity?”

To illustrate just how calm she was, Cecilia used the arm he wasn’t grabbing to run a hand through her hair. “I dare say even a wild monkey would stop to think a little more about his behavior.”

“Listen—”

He tightened his grip on her. The pain made it difficult to maintain a placid expression. But what counted right now was guts. She couldn’t let anything show on her face until he got what he deserved.

If he knew the girl he was harassing was the daughter of House Sylvie, even this brute wouldn’t be acting so beastly.

“Ah, that’s right. I haven’t introduced myself.”

“Huh? Who gives a—?”

“My name is Ceci—”

But before she could finish saying her name, something whooshed by her ears very loudly. With a thwack, a familiar-looking sword stabbed into a tree in front of her. A red line appeared on Ticky’s face—his cheek had gotten cut.

“I finally found you, only to walk into this mess,” growled the man who had just thrown the sword, his voice lower and harsher than usual as he approached.

Cecilia couldn’t see his expression, but it must have been contorted with fury. Ticky let out a stupid-sounding whimper and loosened his grip on her.

“Get your hands off her, Ticky Coulson. That’s my future wife.”

Cecilia turned around to see Oscar looking absolutely incensed.

“Leave,” was Gilbert’s first word to Ticky after hearing the gist of what had happened from Cecilia.

He sounded uncharacteristically harsh and unyielding; Cecilia’s heart lurched fearfully even though he wasn’t addressing her. Both Ticky and Bernard looked scared witless.

They were all in a room of the cottage. Cecilia was watching the situation unfold while getting her bruised wrist bandaged up. Oscar was there, too, standing by the door with his arms crossed and his eyes fixed right on the boys.