Chapter 89

So the one really behind it was Cherity.

But the emperor was almost certainly behind Cherity.

The assassin's guild was wiped out, and unless they'd lost their minds, they wouldn't pull the same stunt twice — they'd be fine for a while.

The two knight orders couldn't stay at Lecashe forever, either.

Lecashe wasn't shameless enough to keep them planted there indefinitely.

"Thank you for everything you've done for us. If you ever need anything, please call on us at any time. We'd come of our own accord then — wouldn't even need our lord's order."

The men, packed up for the road, said their goodbyes with regret on their faces.

The knights had grown fond of the famously talked-about Lecashe couple.

They were nothing like the rumors.

If you spent any time around them, the knights were sure, anyone would come to like them.

Lately the rumors had shifted, and the knights had been unsure what to think — but now they were certain.

"Thank you for saying so."

A few knights had been lost, but they'd gained more by their stay at Lecashe than they'd lost.

The captains especially had sparred directly with the Grand Duke Lecashe and come away the better for it, which wasn't bad news for Marquis Bilson or Count Elton.

The two orders rode out of the territory after receiving thanks several times over.

A few days passed.

Lyssel and Iberin had confirmed each other's feelings, but nothing really changed.

They were already married, after all.

The estate started to settle back into its usual rhythm.

Lyssel picked up the work he'd dropped when Iberin had woken, and got even busier than before.

If anything, he was harder to catch sight of now than he had been.

"Drink it down, Lady Iberin."

Iberin's recovery dragged, and she still couldn't get out of bed.

This wretched body of hers healed at a crawl.

Today she had to choke down another bitter dose.

"How long do I have to keep drinking this stuff?"

Iberin popped a candy into her mouth and asked, on the verge of pouting.

"Until you're fully better, naturally."

"I'm fine now, though."

"No, your strength is still weak. You need to rest a bit longer."

"Why is Lyssel so busy lately? He doesn't even have time to see my face?"

Iberin grumbled a little.

"Oh, my."

Rotte's face split into a wide grin at that.

"What."

"You're not even hiding it now."

"He confessed in front of everyone, didn't he."

"Hehe."

"So — what is Lyssel doing?"

"Hm, I don't really know either. His Highness says he isn't sure yet, so he hasn't told even the head butler."

What on earth was he up to?

A worried look crossed Iberin's face.

---

Lyssel wanted to break the hypnosis that had been laid on him.

He'd met Iberin, and recognized that he was under hypnosis.

Even when they'd tried to do the same thing to his own son, Ether —

"It was strange."

"Yes?"

"When I realized I was under hypnosis, I wasn't all that angry."

"Ah. Now that you mention it."

For someone who was the victim, Lyssel was unsettlingly even-keeled.

"I didn't think much of it at the time, but something kept nagging at me."

When they'd tried to kill Iberin, fury had come crashing down on him.

"I don't feel a single thing toward the emperor. No anger, no hatred, no loyalty."

It was like every feeling had been cut out at the root.

"Cherity's surely got the emperor behind him."

"Because the hypnosis hasn't been broken."

"That's what I'm working from. But the caster who put me under is already dead at the emperor's hand."

He'd heard the man's tongue had been cut out first, then he'd been killed in a rush — apparently the emperor was worried it might blow up bigger.

"I can guess at the gist of what the hypnosis was for."

Which was exactly why he had to break it.

Otherwise he'd be used his whole life and die that way.

"But where do you even find a hypnotist?"

"I didn't find one."

The phrasing was odd.

Pons must have caught it too, because he asked carefully,

"You've found another way, then?"

After the emperor killed Marquis Civelli, the hypnotists vanished without a trace.

As if they'd gone to ground somewhere together.

Lyssel didn't think the hypnosis Civelli had laid on him was anything simple.

This was conditioning that took hold of a person's emotions and made them move to someone else's will.

There'd be ranks among hypnotists, and Civelli and Elvin had both been at the higher end.

On top of that, this was hypnosis designed to use Lecashe.

They wouldn't have handed a marquisate to some run-of-the-mill caster.

"Kal."

"Kal?"

Huh.

Pons had answered on reflex, then made a sharp, breath-catching sound.

It was true — he'd heard the boy had gone through unspeakable things at Marquis Civelli's hands.

He hadn't seen it himself, but the state of the children who'd come in with Kal had been beyond words, so he could guess at the rest.

"How…?"

"When Iberin sent the boy to Lecashe. Honestly, I'd been thinking about it before that."

"Don't tell me."

"Yes. I asked him. Kal said he was glad to be of help."

He smiled often enough these days, but Kal still hated being out in front. He didn't approach anyone outside Lecashe.

"I don't regret the choice, but a little…"

Lyssel trailed off.

Kal had barely escaped the marquis.

Iberin had changed Lyssel little by little, but it had largely been an Iberin-specific thing.

Some of that was still true now, but he'd come to show something almost human toward the people of the estate.

It pained him now to think how little he'd considered what Kal must have been feeling at the time.

"I'm sorry. To Kal."

"Goodness."

"He's precious to me now too."

"So what did Kal tell you?"

"How to break the hypnosis."

"Ah!"

Kal had been Marquis Civelli's hypnosis doll.

To become a hypnotist, you had to have a high level of understanding of hypnosis yourself.

Kal was apparently the standout among those children.

"I've been practicing every day, secretly."

In the middle of the conversation, the door slid open and Lyssel froze.

"Kal?"

It was Kal.

"Your Highness."

"How long—"

"I was here from the start…"

Kal's face was red.

He'd clearly heard the precious line and everything else.

Lyssel's own face flushed to match, and he clamped his mouth shut.

"I had no idea you thought of me that way, Your Highness."

Iberin, sure — but Lyssel was the curt sort.

Tears welled up in Kal's eyes before he could stop them.

"I'm so glad I stayed at Lecashe."

He gave a bright smile.

"Family helps each other when things get hard. Whatever it is. So please don't feel sorry."

"Kal."

Only then did Lyssel huff a small laugh.

"Thank you for saying that."

It had always been a sore spot, getting closer to Kal.

Hearing him say it made some of the weight come off.

---

Kal slipped naturally into the rest of the conversation.

He'd already been helping, so bringing it up wasn't hard.

"This is just a guess of mine, but — this demonic energy that makes me need to kill monsters. Is there any chance that's tied to hypnosis too?"

Pons whipped his head around to look at Lyssel in surprise.

His face said what would even put that thought in your head.

"Now that I think about it, when I was a child I didn't have anything like that urge to kill."

"Goodness."

The urge had come when the previous Grand Duke died and the Seed of Evil was passed to him.

His father — the previous Grand Duke — had told him that when demonic energy from the Seed built up, the urge to kill came with it. Now even that proposition was up for question.

He'd never doubted Lecashe's origin in his life.

But by this point, all of it was starting to feel like a lie.

There weren't even any records left of the first Lecashe.

As if someone had wiped them clean on purpose.

Which meant later generations had no way of knowing whether the first Lecashe, after taking the Seed of Evil into his body, had actually suffered an urge to kill.

All they had was a proposition that had simply been treated as fact for a very long time.

"The range of effects hypnosis can produce is fairly broad — it doesn't sound impossible."

"Really?"

"Yes. It came back to me as you said it. When I was being held in that cellar, I saw them ordering people to kill."

"What?"

Lyssel and Pons both turned to look at Kal in shock.

Kal smiled bitterly.

"On Civelli's orders, that boy killed."

"…"

"More than once. Eventually he killed on his own, without anyone telling him to. Like it was the most natural thing."

If that was true, the hypnotists weren't simple frauds.

They were dangerous.

And so was the emperor, who was shielding those dangerous people.

Ether — who hadn't been hypnotized or conditioned — might inherit the Seed of Evil and be perfectly fine.

That was what would make every piece fit.

But Lyssel couldn't simply pass his burden to Ether right now.

What also weighed on him was that the truth about the Seed was something only he knew.

It was a secret even the Loyetti family, who'd served Lecashe for generations, didn't have.

So Lyssel didn't bring up that particular matter any further.

---

While Lyssel was sharing a warm moment with Kal —

Duke Cherity got word from his retainer that Moana had been wiped out.

"Is that so. And the Grand Duke?"

"He seems quite angry, sir."

"Hmm."

Duke Cherity was still in the Gelta region.

"Will he come for me?"

"Hard to say."

"If he isn't an idiot, he'll have figured out that the emperor is behind me."

"But does the emperor really have a reason to kill the Grand Duchess Lecashe? She'll die on her own anyway, won't she?"

"True. That had been a question for me too."

But ever since coming south, he'd heard until his ears rang about how Lecashe had been changing because of the Grand Duchess.

Only then had Cherity been able to piece some of it together.

"Lecashe must not be allowed to change."

Lecashe was changing in a way that worked against the emperor.

So he wanted to be rid of the inconvenient Grand Duchess.

"What is it, though."

Something was there. He could feel it.