You Dared Raise a Hand

Inside the carriage bound for the Viscounty, the Duke fired off one question after another.

"I don't see the Dorset heir having the guts to cook up something with a dark mage. Am I misreading him?"

I shook my head. "No, you're reading him exactly right."

Kaylen tilted his head. "Then all the more reason to wonder. The watch the dark mage took from you, Teacher—he clearly has it in his possession. Which means it was passed along to him somehow…"

"Well, we'll find out when we get there."

As I said it, my eyes drifted to Everlein, sitting quietly across from us. As immaculate as ever in his uniform, he seemed lost deep in thought.

"Sir Everlein. You've been awfully quiet. What's on your mind?"

"……Pardon? Ah, I was regretting that I didn't cut that man's Achilles tendon when I had the chance."

"……Sir Everlein, make a habit of consulting me *before* you act on anything."

"I will make an effort."

By the time that exchange had wound down, the carriage had pulled up before the front gates of the Dorset Viscounty. The gates swung open without the slightest resistance, and we filed cautiously inside.

"Why is no one here?"

I murmured it, scanning the empty central hall where not a single soul had come to greet us.

"That's what I was thinking……. Could it be that Your Grace spirited away not just the laborers, but the servants as well?"

"Pardon? You poached the Dorset household's people? When exactly?"

The moment my eyes went wide, the Duke shot Kaylen a withering glare. "Adjutant. I thought I stroked you thoroughly enough last time, but apparently it wasn't enough. Or has your brain actually turned into broccoli?"

"I'm sorry……."

Kaylen's shoulders sagged like a scolded puppy caught in the rain. The Duke narrowed his eyes at him for a long moment before turning back to me.

"All I did was offer the laborers the *option* of higher wages."

"Isn't that exactly what poaching is? What on earth have you been doing behind my back?"

At my question, the Duke and Kaylen clamped their mouths shut as if they'd rehearsed it. Just as I was gearing up to press them again—

"I believe it's in here."

Everlein, who had reached the end of the corridor first, spoke up. I drew a short, deep breath and flung the door open.

"Adrian! Give me back my watch, right now!"

And then—silence.

The room was dark, just as I'd expected, but the blazing fireplace kept everything from dissolving into shadow. What bothered me far more than the darkness, however, was something else entirely.

……What is that smell?

A sour stench hung thick in the air. The men around me, sharing my disgust, wrinkled their noses and looked about the room.

"Lionel. You finally came."

The enormous lump of blankets on the bed wriggled. Adrian, huddled beneath it, lifted his head. "I've been waiting for the day you'd show up."

I froze on the spot, blinking several times in sheer disbelief.

"……Adrian?"

"Yeah, it's me. ……Uuurk!"

Mid-answer, Adrian suddenly buried his face in the wastebasket and vomited. Only then did I place the sour smell—it was the stench of Adrian's vomit, spat out all over the room.

"How much have you been throwing up?"

"Uuurk…… I don't know. Uuurk……."

Adrian kept retching miserably into the basket while I stood there, utterly at a loss for how to react to this absurd tableau.

Adrian had grown thin. Strikingly, pathologically thin. Even a rough guess put it at thirty kilograms gone.

How does anyone lose that much weight in barely a month? How? He never had a chronic illness.

In the end, only one conclusion remained. "Adrian. Don't tell me…… the dark mage gave you something. And you took it?"

Adrian answered, his hands trembling. "Th-that person was a dark mage? He just told me it was, it was weight-loss medicine. He said if I got, got thin, you'd look at me again, Lionel, so I……."

I clapped a hand over my mouth. What kind of dangerous substance had that mage concocted to warp a person into *this*?

I hurried to question him. "Adrian. Where is it?"

"Huh?"

"The medicine he gave you. Hand it over, now."

"Wh-why? Look at me. I got so thin—look at me, please……."

Adrian's voice cracked into a sob. I forced my voice into the calmest register I could manage.

"Adrian, listen to me carefully. This is no joke—you could genuinely die. We need to treat you right away—"

"KYAAAAAH!!"

A shrill shriek cut me off. I turned to find a middle-aged woman standing in the corridor, dressed in a workman's uniform caked with dirt.

I knew exactly who she was. Adrian's mother—and my relative, too. Lady Patricia Dorset.

"Oh my heavens, Adrian!! What in the world happened to you……. How did this happen?"

The lady hurled herself forward and crushed her son in an embrace. Seconds later, Viscount Dorset appeared in similar garb and bellowed, "Adrian!! What the devil is going on here……. You were perfectly fine just days ago!"

"F-Father…… Mother……. I-it's, well, it's like this……."

Adrian only hemmed and hawed, offering nothing resembling an answer.

"Y-you wicked girl…… This is all your fault, Lionel!"

And with that, the viscount couple's arrows came flying straight at me. "Me? Why me?"

"You refused to accept Adrian's affections, so he lost all will to eat or drink and wasted away like this! How do you intend to answer for that?"

What kind of nonsense is that?

I shot Adrian a look. As expected, he said nothing. No—*couldn't* say nothing would be more accurate.

I fired back without missing a beat. "Well. Adrian did need to lose weight, strictly speaking. So if anything, you should be thanking me, shouldn't you?"

I could practically watch the lady's blood pressure climb. Her eyes bloodshot, she kept spitting out her venom. "So being a doctor makes you the authority on everything? And what exactly was wrong with Adrian! He's handsome, and kind, and dependable—"

"Aunt Patricia. As much as you hate me, let's not rewrite the truth. Think carefully. Standing among the men behind me—would you honestly call your son a *handsome* man?"

Her gaze swept rapidly over the men standing at my back. As she took in the fellows she hadn't noticed in her fit of rage, her expression briefly turned girlish.

Though it snapped right back to a mother's scowl a heartbeat later. "Where did you get so brazen……. A man is useless if all he has is a face! Those men are all walking face-values, the lot of them!"

"BAHAHAHA! Oh dear, my sincerest apologies. That was simply too funny…… ahem."

Kaylen, who had burst out laughing at full volume, apologized with a sheepish cough. The Duke and Everlein, for their part, studiously turned their gazes aside as though they'd heard nothing at all.

I folded my arms and narrowed my eyes. "You're right. A man isn't just his face. But if a handsome face is useless…… exactly how much more useless is an ugly one?"

"Why, you……! Shut that mouth of yours!"

"No, I think I'll keep going. You called me brazen, didn't you? Fine, you're right—I am. But then I have to wonder about your son, don't I?"

Adrian's face crumpled as he guessed what was coming. I pressed on regardless. "Compared to the *handsome* Adrian who tried to strip the clothes off a seven-year-old cousin when he was twelve—I'd say I'm positively pure-hearted, wouldn't you?"

"SILENCE!"

A thunderous voice rang through the room. Viscount Dorset shoved himself between the lady and me. "Lionel, I always knew that filthy blood of yours would one day be Adrian's ruin. I should have sold you off to Lavienne ages ago. This is what comes of taking in a bastard child!"

Did these people genuinely still believe the words *filthy blood* and *bastard* could wound me?

I deliberately smiled—a wide, beaming smile. After all, I still had a certain finishing move in reserve, one guaranteed to leave a deep scratch on a middle-aged man's pride.

"Viscount. I think your wife may be going through menopause. You really ought to look after her with a bit more tenderness……. Oh wait, no. My mistake. It's that *you* haven't been satisfying her enough, and all that pent-up frustration has nowhere to go. How pitiable."

And then—let my gaze dip briefly downward before drifting back up.

"You filthy little—!! Your mouth!!"

Right on cue, the viscount took the bait completely, turning red and purple as he raised his hand. He looked ready to strike on the spot.

I clenched my own fist in answer.

I might have accepted a settlement once, but I had absolutely no intention of taking a beating now. Quite the opposite—I intended to pour every ounce of my long-brewing resentment into one solid, well-aimed punch.

"Looks like you need a thrashing to come to your senses!"

The viscount's fist finally came down. But it never reached me.

SLAM!!

"Guhk—!!"

Viscount Dorset was suddenly yanked into the air. Everyone in the room stared up at him in shock.

Lines of blue light, like ropes, were coiling tight around his throat and hauling him upward. The viscount flailed his arms and screamed.

"S-spare me……. SPARE ME!!"

I had never seen it in person before, but I knew this ability's name.

Spectrization—a powerful supernatural gift that split light apart and wielded its fragments as weapons.

And as far as I knew, in the whole of the Riesenberg Empire, exactly one person could use it.

"……You dared—*dared*—try to strike the personal physician of the Carseido Dukedom, in front of me. You have some nerve."

The Duke stepped forward, past my shoulder. Every word that left his lips bled cold.

"Ready to take your beating, Viscount Dorset?"