For a moment, the tips of his fingers stopped twitching. The damp, foul smell that irritated his nose was not merely because the basement was humid. Yuder silently stood up from where the fainted man lay and moved closer to the corpse with agile motions.

The sight reflected under the flickering light was truly horrific. Beneath the torn dress and formal wear, severed limbs were piled like a heap of broken dolls, and pale, cold faces were visible, mouths agape in terror. Though soaked in blood and the hair was tangled, their identities were still recognizable.

They were the second younger brother and his wife of Baron Willhem, who had disappeared without returning after changing their clothes.

‘It looks as though the clothes and bones were all cut simultaneously, and I can feel a terrible rage. This method... it's almost identical to how the Knights of Tainu were killed in Great Sarain Forest.’

Yuder's mind briefly recalled the face of the woman who had been beside Nahan before it vanished.

‘Her name was... Ershi, wasn’t it?’

Though the small flicker of light made it hard to confirm, there were almost no bloodstains on the ceiling and walls, and only the floor was sopping wet. Blood was still trickling from the corpses. If they hadn't been dead long, the murderer might still be nearby.

‘Were they killed somewhere else and then brought here?’

Without caring that the formal wear he wore was getting dirty, Yuder knelt down and examined the corpses a bit more under the light, noticing that their clothes and shoes were already soiled with something other than blood.

‘...Mud? Or some other filth?’

Standing up to look around, he faintly saw a small door beyond the barrels filled with alcohol and preserved food. Yuder carefully moved towards it. The door led to stairs going up, seemingly leading to the garden rather than inside the house. Though he strained his senses, he felt no signs of anyone.

‘This is where the servants bring in supplies… So the fugitive came here as well.’

Yuder didn’t go outside but turned back inside. In such a situation, he couldn't afford to wait for the fainted man to wake up. As he slapped his cheek without hesitation, the man's eyelids fluttered open with a faint moan.

“Uh... Uh?!”

The man, upon seeing Yuder, was shocked, struggling with his bound hands. But before he could resist, Yuder quickly grabbed his collar and forcefully lifted him so he could see the corpses. The man’s eyes widened and his mouth gaped at the sight of the blood and bodies illuminated under the flames.

He had intended to silence the man if he screamed, but thankfully he didn’t.

“Baron Willhem's younger brother and his wife were killed. Did you participate in the murder?”

“What? No!”

“Then why were you sneaking around here?”

Voices were heard from the upper floor. People were about to rush in. The man also sensed it, as his breathing quickened.

“I, I came to find someone.”

“Someone?”

“People from our village who were driven out and disappeared from the security management team's prison...!”

As Yuder's eyes widened at his words, a voice from the upper floor shouted, “There they are!” Before he could understand the situation further, people had come down. The servants, armed with weapons and torches, saw Yuder, covered in blood, and the corpses beyond, and all screamed in unison.

“A corpse! Someone has been murdered!”

“Someone fetch the Baron!”

“Don't move!”

Yuder, looking at the weapons aimed at them, inwardly clicked his tongue. To anyone looking, this was a situation ripe for misunderstanding. It seemed like the conversation was going to end here.

—---

“...So,”

Kishiar muttered as he exhaled deeply.

"Do you wish to send my assistant to the Security Management Team just because he was the first to discover that place? How is that different from saying you'll arrest him?"

"Your Highness. My sibling Fayfe and his wife Nellisabel were brutally killed in my own home, in the basement no less!"

Baron Willhem, whose face had turned as pale as a blank sheet of paper, opened his mouth in a sharp voice.

"The examiners assert that cutting a human body in such a way is something that can't be done by someone with ordinary strength. They said it must be the work of an Awakener, if not a knight skilled in swordsmanship. If two Awakeners were caught at the scene, shouldn't both of them be sent to the Security Management Team for investigation?"

"Just because you want to send your servant to the Security Management Team there is no reason for my assistant to follow him. The priority right to investigate and punish the Cavalry members lies with me, the Commander, and His Majesty. I have no intention of sending anyone under my command there."

"But...!"

"If an investigation is necessary, isn't it possible to call those who will conduct it to the mansion? I'm more than willing to cooperate with that."

"Your Highness. Please understand that the more you shield him, the more complicated matters will become!"

Finally, Baron Willhem raised his voice. Yuder sat behind Kishiar, still unable to remove his blood-stiffened formal attire, and let out a small breath. A throbbing headache settled in from the prolonged confrontation.

After the bodies of Baron Willhem's brother and sister-in-law were discovered, the mansion was turned upside down. Yuder was arrested along with another man and immediately isolated in a room. The Baron wanted to send both of them to the Security Management Team right away. The only reason he couldn't send Yuder was thanks to Kishiar and Pruelle, who had rushed over as soon as they heard the news. However, that very action had led to the current situation, and it was not all fortunate.

Yuder calmly assessed the situation. It was a rather aristocratic and absurd affair, but the Baron, while nauseated by the gruesome corpses, seemed not to grieve for the fact that his brother and sister-in-law were dead. The reason he hounded Yuder was not that he believed Yuder was the real culprit, but more likely because he wanted to gain something from Kishiar by doing so.

'If he can catch the culprit here, he can get the cooperation of the Cavalry for free, and stand above Duke Peletta, reversing everything he has suffered so far.'

Of course, he probably thought the real culprit was the servant, so he would likely try to kill him quickly without proper investigation or anything else. Yuder envisioned him torturing the man to extract a confession, since an escape by the Awakener's power would be troublesome.

'But that man is certainly not the culprit.'

Yuder had only exchanged the last few words with the man, and the only thing he remembered was the face he had seen during the Pethuamet lure operation, but his experience and intuition strongly insisted that the man had no connection to the culprit.

The only people who could have come this far in search of those who had been expelled from the Awakener village were the moderate Awakeners who might have been in that village. Since they would be opposed to Nahan, who were allied with Ershi, the possibility of them being involved with the murdered bodies in Ershi's style was low. Although Marty, who was expelled and lost memory but recovered, said that even the moderate Awakeners might have betrayed them, could that really be the case?

'I should have heard more information from that man.'

No matter how much he thought about it, it was terribly regrettable.

'How should I meet him again before the Baron kills him? To get him out as quickly as possible without delay...'

Yuder hesitated for a moment, glancing sideways at Baron Willhem, who was still raising his voice. Following Kishiar's words, he was loudly proclaiming that the knights assigned to investigate would be summoned here, and they must cooperate when they arrived.

“I trust you will not forget your promise to cooperate if we summon the knights here for investigation."

"If the investigation is conducted properly, why would there be any reason to forget?"

At Kishiar's sarcastically gentle retort, the Baron wrinkled his nose indiscriminately and called for the butler who was outside the door.

"Where is Sir Jeymer, the Commander of the Knights, now?"

"Since you ordered it yesterday, my lord, he has been guarding the front of Lord Graham's house, but I heard he will soon return to the Security Management Team for this investigation."

"That's enough now. Leave Graham and the security management team to others and tell him to come here immediately!"

"Yes? But..."

"Hurry!"

Under the Baron's spirited and angry pressure, the butler replied that he understood and quickly disappeared.

“The knights are guarding your brother? It wasn't just a simple illness then?”

“...Lately, there have been frequent accidents around Graham's house, and I was worried, so I asked the Commander of the Knights to take care of it."

"Really? The Knight Commander doing such a thing, you must be close."

At Kishiar's response, Baron Willhem once again clenched his teeth and then eased his pressure.

"Lately, the situation in Tainu has become quite chaotic, so it was inevitable. Of course, Your Highness might not have paid attention to the outside situation since you are here."

"That's right. I've been busy playing with my assistant here."

When Kishiar answered, neither ashamed nor afraid, Baron Willhem was momentarily at a loss for words and then burst out laughing.

At that moment, a rather good idea popped into Yuder's head.

‘Right. If I want to meet him, isn't it a matter of me going to him?’

"Sorry to interrupt your conversation, but may I also say something?"

Yuder quickly interjected, opening his mouth before Baron Willhem could say anything else.

"I don't mind just going to the Security Management Team for the investigation."