"T-That..."

I stared in silence at the results of my actions. The butler was a shell of the man he used to once be. He couldn't even look at me in the eyes as he started to tremble.

'....I'll need to handle this carefully.'

My problem with the situation was that he was closely tied to Julien's father who appeared like an extremely meticulous person.

I'd expect someone like him to notice the peculiarity.

But still, that was of no concern to me right now. I had other priorities.

"Were you the one to plant my obsession with the sword?"

"I... I..."

Despite being scared of me, Richard, the butler, was hesitant to speak. It looked like the fear that I had engrained deep into his mind was still not enough to push him to talk.

But that was fine.

I raised my hand and his eyes visibly constricted.

"Hiek....!"

He screamed, covering his face.

I didn't care and prepared to slap him in the face.

"I'll talk!"

...Or at least, attempted to. I stopped right at the last moment as he shouted in desperation.

"Haa... haa... haaa... I'll talk! I'll taaalk!"

"That's good."

I smiled, shifting my hand away.

'Looks like the slaps were the trigger.'

I had made sure to closely emphasize the slaps during the dreams. I didn't just slap him whenever he got something wrong.

I also injected 'fear' whenever that happened.

....The goal was to directly influence his mind into associating extreme fear with the slaps. The plan was flawless with the results right before my very eyes.

"Speak."

I lowered my tone, bringing my face closer to his while carefully studying his face. While I couldn't see if anyone was lying, under such extreme stress, they were more than likely to slip.

If he so dared as look away, stutter, or start tapping his foot...

"Haa... It's, yes."

He licked his lips.

"....I was the one who did that."

"Why?"

"It was... It was to-Hiek!"

Richard hurriedly covered his face as I raised my hand. His entire body trembled as he covered his face.

He looked pitiful, but he wasn't worth my pity.

"You were about to lie just now. Think carefully. You make one mistake and you know what will happen, right?"

"Ah, yes, yes..."

Richard hurriedly nodded his head.

"Look at me in the eyes as you speak."

"...Okay."

Richard visibly swallowed before opening his mouth to speak once again.

"It was to convert you into the Inverted Sky... The Evenus Household recently showed a lot of promise, and the organization tried to implant several spies in order to get to your father, but..."

Richard paused, taking a deep breath.

I frowned at the sight.

"But what...?"

"But your father managed to find each one and get rid of them."

His words took the words right out of my mouth.

He managed to find each and every one of them before getting rid of them...?

Then...

I suddenly shuddered.

'He probably knows about the butler as well.'

I felt my skin crawl at the realization as my heart started to speed up. A lot more questions started to arise from deep within my mind as I processed the situation.

'No, does he actually know about the butler...? There's a chance that he doesn't know, but there's a higher chance that he does know.'

I thought back to the plan that we were about to execute and felt my heartbeat drum inside of

my head.

Ba... Thump!

Aldric Evenus.

I didn't know the man very well.

However, from what I had seen, he was an extremely ruthless individual who waited for the most opportune time to strike.

For him to keep the butler who was involved with a powerful organization that was planning

on taking over the Household... His plan became clear to me.

'He was probably waiting his time before striking at them.'

.... And I feared that he probably knew about the fact that they had tried to manipulate the

previous Julien.

He knew and yet did nothing.

It was clear what he wanted to achieve.

'He wanted to use Julien to get to them.'

It was only a hypothesis, and there was no real concrete evidence that pushed to this face, however, thinking about what I had seen so far, I shuddered to think about this possibility. Aldric Evenus, from what I had observed, was a man who was very capable of pulling

something like this off.

"Hoo."

I took a deep breath to calm my raging mind.

'Since he doesn't show his thoughts, there's also a chance that he noticed a peculiarity with

me.'

....The only reason why he didn't say anything was because, he either believed it was due to the Organization, or because he didn't care.

I wasn't sure if either one of the assumptions were correct but I kept them in mind as I turned

to look at the butler.

"You said there's nobody else besides you, correct?"

"Ah, yes, yes."

Richard hurriedly nodded his head.

"Alright."

It didn't seem like he was lying.

"Next question. Did you give me an enhancer in the past?"

"Eh...?"

The butter blinked his eyes in confusion.

"Enhancer? When?"

I elaborated.

"....A strange liquid with the ability to possibly improve my swordsmanship talent. Or perhaps

a fake in order to increase my obsession."

"Hm?"

Richard frowned, lowering his head as he thought deeply.

As time passed, his brows furrowed further before eventually, he raised his head and shook it.

"No. There's no such thing."

I looked straight into his eyes.

His eyes were clear, his body was trembling, but not from nervousness, and his complexion

appeared normal. He didn't seem to be lying...

'Strange.'

If it wasn't him, then who...?

Since the Butler was the only one that belonged to the Inverted Sky, it was clear that they

weren't involved with the liquid.

.... At least, that was how things appeared to be to me.

"I'll change the question then. Did you ever notice me take a strange liquid, or serve it to my

brother?"

"The second young master?"

"Yes."

"....Hmm."

The Butler's brows furrowed.

"I... I didn't notice any strange liquid being given to the young master, however, I did notice

that after a certain point, he started to experience nightmares."

"Nightmares?"

My interest was piqued by this revelation.

"Yes, nightmares. He's been having them frequently..."

"When did they start?"

"It started several years back. It was a strange event, but the second young master never

talked about them. He also became especially fearful of you."

"Is that so...?"

This wasn't exactly what I was looking for.

However, I did have an inkling that it may hold some importance.

'I'll try to see what exactly is up with this situation.'

"Let's set Linus's matter aside for now. Did you notice my strength suddenly increasing at

one point?"

Surely the butler was capable of knowing this much.

...All I needed was a timeframe of the situation in order to find out about the liquid. The fact

that the Inverted Sky hadn't been the one to give it to me was what was making me so curious.

If not them, then who?

.... Or was it something that Julien picked up on his own?

"A sudden increase in strength? .... Yes, there was."

The Butler said, his eyes suddenly growing suspicious. I managed to pick up on his suspicion

and raised my hand.

"Hieek!"

He immediately flinched and I pressed my hand against his shoulder, injecting fear into his

body.

"Answer my question. Don't have unnecessary thoughts."

"Y-yes... Y-yes...!"

His body shuddered uncontrollably upon hearing my words, and only after a brief moment

did I let go of his shoulder as he started to breathe heavily.

"Haaa... haaa... haa..."

I let him have a few minutes to recover before forcing him to speak.

"....The time after you returned from the gold mine. T-that was when I noticed your strength

increase. Your brother also experienced a small breakthrough, but it wasn't anything

compared to you."

'Bingo!'

Finally some key pieces of information.

'....The time after Julien returned from the gold mine.'

So something happened in the gold mine. Perhaps that was where he found the liquid.

'Good, I'm about to go there anyway. I'll check it out once we resolve the situation.'

I took a deep breath and closed my eyes, formulating a plan in my head. Once everything

became clear to me again, I opened my eyes to stare at the butler who looked at me with a pale

face.

"I previously thought of keeping you like this, but after everything that you told me, it looks

like it's no longer possible. With everything that you've told me, he'll probably notice that something is amiss."

By 'he', I meant Aldric Evenus.

...After our talk, it became obvious to me that he was a man to be feared. He was someone who

picked up on the smallest of details so I couldn't afford to keep Richard in this state.

He'd probably notice within a minute.

'It's a pity, though.'

.....I did spend quite a bit of effort to do this.

I rubbed my index finger where a ring rested and raised my hand.

"W-what are you...!" Richard's face grew pale at my actions, but before he could do anything, I pressed my hand

against his head.

A faint glow manifested over the ring as his entire body grew still.

"Stay still..."

I mumbled, looking down at the butler.

"....You'll thank me late."

Mana drained from my body.

"If you can even remember..."

***

"How long is he going to take?"

Standing in the back garden with several dozen soldiers, Evelyn turned her attention towards

Leon who looked a little worried.

"....Julien's reputation is already pretty bad amongst the soldiers. If he doesn't show up soon,

they'll start ignoring his every words."

"I know."

Leon mumbled, his brows furrowing tightly.

"I told him to take a shower and come down quickly. I didn't expect him to take so long..."

"He's taking a shower?"

Evelyn blinked in surprise.

"For so long? What is he...? A girl?"

"Ye-"

Leon stopped, his mind growing blank as he processed her words. Then, turning his head, he

looked at Evelyn.

"Wait, aren't you also a-"

"Yes, and I also know that we take a lot of time changing. This is just how we are so stop

acting as if I said something out of the norm."

Evelyn crossed her arms while looking back.

The vassals were looking extremely displeased at the moment, all of them sporting frowns as

they murmured amongst each other. Though she couldn't hear what they were saying, Evelyn could tell from their body language that it wasn't anything good.

This was not good.

They were about to embark on an important mission and if the vassals weren't on the same

page as Julien, then things could very well go wrong.

Leon understood this as well as his face tightened.

He was just about to address the vassals himself when a figure finally showed up at the

entrance of the garden.

His back was straight and his expression was calm.

Noticing their presence, he looked towards them before looking at the vassals.

Leon sighed in relief then, but his face grew stiff shortly after as his steps paused.

"This is good."

Julien said, his voice reaching the ears of everyone present. Immediately all eyes fell on him.

Nudging his head at the spot in front of him, he addressed everyone calmly, "....Come here."