Chapter 30

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Translator: Harry Potta
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: The Mad Duke's Basement
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*Click, thud.*

The sound of the door closing echoed through the room.

Now, only Diello, the Argenta intelligence agents, and the two traitors remained in the bathroom.

*Drip, drip.*

Other than the sound of water dripping from the traitors’ wet hair, there was only silence.

Diello slowly turned his gaze to the two traitors.

His mind was still dominated by Croire’s lingering presence.

*‘Yes, you’re the head of the family, Diello.’*

Her whispering voice. Her hand patting his shoulder.

Diello smiled in spite of himself.

If he were truly a ‘pure’ man, he might have willingly let himself be colored by her.

His bride, quite adorably, seemed to think he was a field of fresh, fluffy white snow that no one had ever stepped on.

But he wasn’t.

He was the one who stained even those who approached him pitch black.

It was a delightful misunderstanding.

*Clack.*

He slowly approached the bathtub and stopped before it.

“Is she telling me to dispose of them with my own hands, or…”

As he neared the tub, he could smell the water.

Perhaps because it had been touched by Croire’s hand, it wasn’t unpleasant.

*Splash.*

Diello dipped his hand in the water and flicked it.

Perhaps because the water had been infused with Alloje’s magic, he felt a tingling resistance at his fingertips.

Nevertheless, the rippling sensation of the water was strangely pleasant.

Even though, for an Argenta like him, it should have been nothing but uncomfortable.

“Is it because she’s too soft-hearted to take a life herself?”

he murmured.

As he felt the water, he was thinking of Croire.

In his eyes, it was Croire who was pure white.

Someone who has never easily taken a human life has a certain air about them.

They couldn’t escape the gaze of Diello, who was accustomed to blood. He smiled silently.

He was certain.

His bride had never killed anyone.

Compared to him, she was so very white.

“Phew.”

Meanwhile, the traitors seemed a little relieved now that Croire, known as a villainess, had left.

Had they been Argentas from the fourth floor, they would never have made the foolish mistake of feeling relieved upon seeing Diello’s face.

But as it happened, they were Argentas from the third floor and below, where information was limited.

They did not know Diello’s true nature.

They seemed to think he was just as he appeared to the outside world—a soft-hearted man.

So they immediately tried to win him over.

“Please, just spare our lives, my lord.”

“If you let us live, we’ll live as if we were dead!”

They looked up at Diello with desperate faces.

Diello gave a faint smile.

“I can’t simply ignore what my bride has taught me.”

The traitors flinched at his smile.

*Is he really going to let us live?*

*This easily?*

“Seeing that Croire left you alive, I believe she meant to teach me mercy.”

he said in a gentle voice.

At that, a glimmer of hope appeared on the traitors’ faces.

Diello waited patiently until that spark of hope spread across their faces and completely consumed their thoughts.

Then, in a soft voice, he continued.

“However, unlike my bride’s expectations, I am an ungraceful beast.”

“...!”

The traitors’ faces hardened.

There was nothing more to ask them anyway. The thirteen names they had spewed.

And not just the location of the traitors’ list, but also the information that this annex was their main meeting place.

He had found out everything he needed to know.

They were useless now.

“Still, my bride did say I have no need to cut down people myself.”

*I should follow what I’ve learned, right? Besides.*

“And she would be startled to see this beastly side of me.”

He leaned toward the traitors.

*Fwoosh!*

Flames erupted from the empty air where there was nothing to burn.

Fire on water—it was a bizarre sight.

But the flames of Argenta made it possible.

*Fwoooosh!*

The bathtub caught fire. Diello turned away.

“I’ll let you choose one of two ways to die: drown in that water or burn in the fire.”

*I must practice the mercy my bride taught me, after all.*

The fire began to spread, climbing the walls of the room.

He frowned at the sight.

Argenta, the wielders of fire.

He was the head of Argenta, who had nothing to fear in a blaze, but he did not like being engulfed in flames.

That was why he turned away quickly.

“Wh-what is this…!”

Though they were floating in the water, the traitors couldn’t get out with their hands and feet bound.

Diello said as he turned.

“Report that a fire broke out in this room due to an unforeseen accident. And bring the list of traitors they mentioned to my office.”

“As you command.”

The intelligence agents bowed their heads.

“Wh-what is this!”

The traitors, who had only ever seen the gentle side of Diello Argenta, thrashed in terror.

But it was already too late.

***

“It’s just the first-floor knights again.”

I stroked my chin.

I was on the first floor of the main building.

Right before I discovered Mirta’s betrayal, the fourth-floor knights had definitely been here.

The movement of troops is a significant matter.

Moreover, the Argentas on the third floor and below were treated distinctly differently from those on the fourth floor.

There must have been a reason why a fourth-floor knight was specifically assigned here.

“What’s inside there?”

Pielle answered my question.

“It’s the way to the basement.”

“The basement?”

*What was in the basement of the Argenta main building?*

The original novel never described it in detail.

[It was a special area that the servants were not allowed to enter.]

That was the only description.

If it was an important place, the fourth-floor knights would have guarded it all the time, so why was a fourth-floor knight down here on that day specifically?

*Was there something important inside?*

*What could be important to Argenta at this time?*

Just as I tilted my head in thought.

“Have you heard the story of the mad count who told his wife she could enter any room but the basement?”

a soft voice drifted over.

I turned to see Diello. I blinked.

“Are you, by any chance, playing the part of that mad count, Diello?”

*In other words, he’s telling me not to go into the basement?*

Diello corrected me in a light tone.

“The mad duke.”

*So he admits to being mad?*

I raised an eyebrow.

And I turned to leave.

If it was a place I wasn’t supposed to enter, I had no intention of going in.

I’m the kind of person who hates it when characters in horror movies shout “Hello?” and walk into an abandoned house.

*Why go where you’re told not to?*

Just then, Diello spoke up unexpectedly.

“Would you like to see it?”

At his words, I looked back at him.

“The count in the story tried to keep the door locked.”

“But I’m a duke.”

Diello spread his hands.

*So, unlike the story, because he's a duke and not a count, he won't stop me from going into the basement?*

It was truly absurd logic.

…But I was, in fact, curious.

If he wanted to show me, I had no reason to refuse.

“Alright.”

As I answered, he held out his hand.

I took his hand, and he gently caressed the back of it before tenderly leading me forward.

“...”

The door opened between the first-floor knights, who bowed their heads in silent acknowledgment.

Just as Pielle had said, behind the door the knights were guarding was a staircase leading down to the basement.

*Fwoosh!*

As Diello stepped inside, the candles in the dark basement lit up on their own.

And when we descended, what came into view was…

“...A statue?”

It was a statue of a deity.

Diello smiled faintly.

“It’s a statue dedicated to the sea god.”

*Why is that in the Argenta estate, and in the basement of the main building, of all places?*

*Did Argenta value the faith of the sea god this much?*

The moment I had that thought.

“Welcome, my lady!”

A cheerful young man popped out.

The man, who had dark green hair, gave me a deep bow.

with one hand over his heart.

“I am Rick, a faithful servant of Argenta.”

*Rick? This man?*

I knew his name.

Those in Argenta who truly knew him called him the ‘cheerful psycho.’

As the head of Argenta’s intelligence department, he possessed an absolute faith.

But that faith wasn’t in the sea god here…

...it was supposed to be an absolute faith in Argenta, wasn’t it?

“It is truly an honor to meet you, my lady!”

“A pleasure.”

I barely managed to retrieve my hand from Rick, who was shaking it so excitedly it felt like he might tear my arm off.

As I did, I glanced sideways at the statue of the sea god.

Rick beamed.

“I was just offering a prayer to the god. May you protect Argenta, which stands before the sea, today as well.”

He bowed his head.

[May you protect Argenta, which stands before the sea.]

But in the original novel, the one Rick addressed with those words wasn’t the sea god, but the head of House Argenta.

In short, Rick was lying.

*Was this altar really here from the beginning?*

“It seems my bride wishes to take a closer look, so you may leave.”

Diello gestured.

“Yessir!”

With a bow, Rick quickly disappeared.

“As I understand it, Duke Diello, you don’t believe in the sea god.”

The Argenta family tradition, which places a special emphasis on ability, did not permit reliance on gods.

Diello nodded at my words.

“Yes, which is why this place was originally a dungeon.”

*...A prison in the main building where the family head resides?*

Then again, perhaps it was only natural to place a prison where the strongest person in the estate was.

“Then why is there an altar here now?”

“I thought that perhaps you might want one, Croire. Since Alloje believes in the sea god.”

Diello smiled faintly.

In fact, the Croire Alloje from the original novel was a believer in the sea god.

As a member of a family born with the power of water, it was perhaps only natural.

In its own way, it was a gift that Diello had carefully prepared.

“I was going to show it to you when everything was ready, but it seems that I, or someone else…”

Diello narrowed his eyes and glanced up the stairs we had just descended.

“...must have made you curious, Croire.”

To be precise, I had only noticed that the knights had been changed.

I shook my head.

“It wasn't anything like that.”

“Then I’m glad.”

Diello smiled beautifully.

His flawlessly pure smile was strangely unsettling.

The mad count in the fairy tale kept the basement securely locked with a key to hide his secret.

Of course, as he said, Diello was not the mad count, but his most powerful ‘key’ had been guarding this place.

*Isn't that a rather excessive key just to hide a gift?*

I gazed once more at the silent statue.

***

And that night, I heard news of a fire in the annex.