Chapter 34 - The Life-or-Death Struggle of the Marquess's Retainer Arveil (Part 2)
The incident occurred at midnight the following day.
A voice was heard shouting that there was a fire. It seemed to be coming from the main building.
Arveil nodded to Ariarein, who had woken up and come out.
"A fire seems to have broken out in the main building. It is not certain whether it is rebels or not, but please prepare yourself just in case."
"Prepare myself? You say that, but..."
Ariarein responded, wondering if she should just tie up her hair.
What she was wearing was not a nightgown, but loose loungewear.
That was the result of a compromise with Arveil, who had insisted that she at least spare him the nightgown.
"I don't particularly mind, you know."
"I and those around us mind."
After that conversation, Ariarein had brought out some slightly old loungewear.
Although he said 'just in case,' Arveil did not think it was a coincidence or an accident.
Whether it was a diversion or the main objective, he surmised that it was undoubtedly a move aimed at assassinating the Marquess's family.
The hallway became noisy, and a faint voice could be heard saying that rebels seemed to have intruded.
"My lady, this way."
He called out to Ariarein, who was sitting on the bed near the window, and had her sit in a chair placed against the wall in the middle of the room, away from the window.
Arveil himself placed a small round stool nearby, but he did not sit down.
"Aren't you sitting?"
"If it looks like it will be long."
From a seated position, one's reaction to something happening would inevitably be delayed.
However, the body and mind are not made to maintain a state of tension for a long time.
One must judge that and give oneself as much rest as necessary when needed.
"My lady, you too will not last if you keep yourself too tense."
As he spoke, Arveil thought that it was not such an easy thing.
In a situation where someone was coming to take one's own life, it was not easy to maintain composure.
"Oh, do I look that way?"
Ariarein, who had tied her hair—simply bundling it in the back using a long decorative cord—tilted her head.
"I'm surprisingly calm, even like this. That's why I told you to stay here, after all."
Taking a small breath, Arveil turned back toward the door.
Even in a situation forced into tension, there are times when one can face it calmly.
For example, it is when one can be certain that they have done everything they could beforehand.
—My lady might be the same.
When something actually happens, there is probably very little Ariarein herself can do. That is why she was thoroughly obsessed with her guard.
To the point of saying whether Arveil would be satisfied with the result if he couldn't say he had done his best because he was worried about appearances or reputation.
The fact that he was that best option was both embarrassing and joyful.
—I might be scolded by his lordship again for spoiling her.
That was fine in its own way.
If he was the best option for the young lady in her time of need.
"If that is the case, then it is well."
He looked back over his shoulder and nodded.
Ariarein smiled slightly—and immediately tightened her lips.
From the next room, the sound of someone violently pounding on the door was heard.
"It appears a large number of rebels have intruded into the main building, we need reinforcements—"
Ariarein's chair made a small clatter.
Through the single door, the tension of the retainers stationed there was transmitted.
To Ariarein, who lifted her hips and questioned him with her eyes, Arveil shook his head.
The fact that they didn't try to gather in one place to protect everyone meant exactly that.
Someone—someone from the Marquess's family—must surely survive.
That was why they dispersed. They could not send reinforcements elsewhere.
"There is no guarantee that those are real."
Saying only that, he reached for a nearby candelabra and blew out the candle flames.
He put out the lights of the candelabras one by one in the same way, and standing before the last one, Arveil gazed at Ariarein.
Confirming that Ariarein was sitting with her back straight despite her tense expression, he extinguished the last light.
The bedroom was enveloped in darkness.
Arveil returned to Ariarein's side relying only on his memory and physical senses, and spoke in a low, whispering voice.
"I am by your side. Please do not worry."
Arveil could not see Ariarein's expression either.
However, there was a faint sense of her smiling.
"I know. Thank you."
Listening to Ariarein's reply, Arveil drew a short sword from the sword belt at his waist.
Forged from black steel, with a short but wide and thick blade, it was a weapon Arveil himself had chosen for ease of handling indoors.
Because of its weight, it required practice to handle, but despite being a short sword, it had enough power to cleave through bone.
A violent sound echoed from beyond the door.
Either the door leading to the hallway itself had been broken, or someone had crashed through the window with their whole body.
Numerous footsteps, the sound of metal clashing against metal, voices shouting at each other, screams filled with pain, the sound of something heavy falling onto the carpet.
The small bedroom and its adjacent room were now enveloped in a clamor similar to a battlefield.
He thought for a single moment about breaking the window and escaping outside, but Arveil gave up on that.
This was the third floor.
If it were Arveil alone, he could manage somehow, but he did not have the confidence to jump while holding Ariarein and have it end safely.
In addition, although the probability was not high, if someone was stationed under the window, that would be the end of it.
In just a brief moment, the sounds from the adjacent room rapidly decreased in number.
Silence fell within the room. The retainers stationed next door must have been wiped out—if the rebels had disappeared, there should have been a report from the retainers.
After a while, the door was opened roughly.
The room was illuminated by the light from the adjacent room.
Beyond the door, the hands and feet of fallen people could be seen.
From the door, which looked like a bright cutout in the wall of the room sunken in dark shadows, three rebels slipped in.
Arveil judged that all of them were appropriately skilled.
From the three who lined up with a certain distance between them, no openings could be sensed.
"The daughter of Marquess Mares, Ariarein—there is no mistake, right?"
The rebel standing in the center asked.
The face slightly illuminated was older than the remaining two. He must be the leader.
"—And if she is?"
Arveil questioned back.
"We shall take her life."
It was a predictable answer.
It might have been something like a ritual.
—And then.
From the hallway that had once become quiet, there was noise again.
Several footsteps running with the sound of equipment.
And.
"Sister!"
Kurtfried's loud voice echoed.
Arveil did not miss the gap of half a second when the rebels turned their consciousness toward the outside of the door.
He lightly kicked the small round stool at his feet toward the leader.
At the same time, while closing the distance toward the rebels all at once, he threw a dagger that appeared in his left hand like a magic trick at the man on the right in a single motion.
The blade plunged deep into the throat of the man who couldn't avoid the dagger. The man collapsed backward.
Arveil forcibly changed direction just before entering the leader's range and stepped toward the man standing on the left, swinging his short sword.
The leader, who had reacted to the charge, caught the small stool with one hand and clicked his tongue softly.
The rebel, who barely dodged the slash aimed horizontally at his neck, aimed for Arveil's arm with a dagger.
Arveil slapped the rebel's arm with his left hand to deflect the blade, then kicked the rebel's leg to break his posture.
He took the right arm of the rebel whose body was swimming significantly and plunged the dagger held in that hand into the rebel's own left leg.
Finishing the offense and defense of a few moments, he leaped back two or three steps and readjusted his stance with the short sword.
Before his eyes, the rebel stared at the dagger plunged into his own leg with a look of terror.
"Hi..."
In the single breath it took for him to hurriedly pull out the blade, in that brief time, it had taken effect.
"A-Ah—Gwah, Aaaaaaaaaaaaaa!"
The rebel collapsed as if clutching his own leg.
"A-Ah, gah, gah..."
His body folded, and his arms moved as if scratching at his chest, but of course, it had no effect.
He repeated a coughing breath two or three times, and each time, he spat blood from his mouth.
The area around his mouth where the spat-out blood touched was visibly festering.
Soon, the rebel stopped moving.
Only the time of a few breaths had passed since the dagger was stabbed into his leg.
Behind Arveil, there was the sound of a small gasp.
"[Blood Eater], huh,"
Arveil muttered.
The only remaining leader did not answer and drew his own dagger.
That blade was wet and black even to his night-adapted eyes.
[Blood Eater].
It was a fast-acting and lethal poison for assassination.
[Blood Eater] does not possess toxicity by itself.
However, the moment it mixes with blood, it transforms the blood itself into a powerful corrosive deadly poison.
Even if only a small amount enters through a wound, the blood that has turned into poison circulates through the whole body.
The heart and lungs are no exception.
As a result, the victim is granted a certain death along with short but intense agony.
Antidotes and neutralizing agents do exist, but once it enters the body, they are of no use.
Because life is surely taken before the medicine can take effect.
From the hallway, a clamor like a battlefield could be heard again.
No matter how skilled he was, the idea of the Marquess's son holding his own against a rebel with that poison blade was almost impossible.
—In the end, the young master is also the young lady's younger brother, and the grandson of the previous lord, huh.
Arveil smiled slightly.
He must have cut his way through his own crisis and then run through the manor.
To save his sister, Ariarein, the next Marchioness.
However, Arveil tightened his lips.
If he fell here, not only Ariarein but even Kurtfried's life would be in danger.
—At the very least, I must bring it to a mutual kill. But...
Whether he could win without letting even a graze from the blade of the rebel leader holding the dagger in front of him touch him.
Arveil had no confidence at all.
—Then.
He immediately steeled his resolve and closed the distance.
It was a movement that seemed almost careless, but he placed his own body between the leader and Ariarein.
Without minding the leader who was checking Arveil with his gaze and shoulder movements, he stepped in from half a step outside the range and swung his short sword.
The leader, who dodged by a hair's breadth, circled around to Arveil's left side.
While recovering his posture, Arveil swung up his short sword.
Because of its weight, the movement was slightly delayed.
The strike of the dagger aimed at his left shoulder, the blade coated with the poison that brought death—Arveil caught it with his left hand.
The dagger pierced from his palm to the back of his hand and finally stopped at the guard.
Half a second later, the eyes of the leader, who had plunged the poison blade and was certain of victory, widened in shock.
The short sword Arveil swung had cut off Arveil's own left arm between the wrist and the elbow.
With a return strike, Arveil sent the leader's right wrist and hand flying, then stepped in further and thrust the short sword into the leader's neck.
After a soft sensation, a hard response was transmitted to Arveil's right hand.
When he pulled out the blade, the leader, whose cervical vertebrae had been severed, fell forward without a word.
Retreating one or two steps while still holding the short sword, and confirming that the leader was not moving and that the death brought by [Blood Eater] was not coming, Arveil finally let go of the short sword.
Listening to the muffled sound of the short sword falling onto the long-piled carpet, he knelt down.
He pressed his left arm with his right hand to try and stop the bleeding, but an immense amount of blood had already been lost.
His body's sense of balance was lost, and the floor and walls spun around.
"I..."
To the ears of the fallen Arveil,
"Noooooooooooooooo!"
Ariarein's scream, which he had never heard before, reached him.
Arveil's consciousness, which had begun to fade, connected again.
"No, I won't have it, Arveil."
A trembling voice.
With trembling hands, she tore off the decorative cord that had been holding her hair as if ripping it out, and
"This, I won't have this!"
With surprising strength, she wrapped it around Arveil's arm and tied it.
"Please, I'm begging you!"
Her arms went around his neck as if embracing him.
—Your clothes will get dirty.
Thinking that somewhat like it was someone else's business, Arveil felt droplets hitting his cheek.
Looking up with only his gaze, in a vision where the surroundings were blurred, Ariarein was crying with her beautiful face distorted.
"—My lady."
Arveil, with a faint smile, called out and raised his right arm.
Just doing that required an effort that used up all his remaining willpower.
The raised right hand touched Ariarein's cheek.
—Please do not make such a face.
He intended to say it, but it did not become words.
With the sound of someone's footsteps rushing in from the door as the last thing he heard, Arveil let go of his consciousness.