บท 3: The Nightshade mansion
***
November 3rd, year 781 of the Imperial calendar
Irene Nightshade was in her office, going through last month's documents.
"How complicated...", she muttered. "I'll just let Alfred handle this like always..."
She was about to just dump all of her work on her personal butler like she always did when suddenly—
"Huh? What's this?"
—She noticed a peculiar letter.
Now, the letter wasn't anything special to say the least. No seals, no insignia, no nothing. It looked just like a regular letter commoners would usually send her to complain about some insignificant things.
However, she couldn't help but to give the letter another look as she vaguely recognized the name of the sender.
"Karin...?", she stared at the letter in absolute confusion. "Why did she decide to contact me now after so many years...?"
After all, nothing good ever came out of a commoner being too close to a noble like her. So if it wasn't for something extremely important, Karin wouldn't have contacted her like this in the first place.
Irene paused her thoughts there and opened the letter. Upon seeing the first letter, a sense of nostalgia suddenly washed over her.
'The handwriting, it's definitely Karin's!'
Even after several years, Karin's signature horrible handwriting hadn't changed.
Irene's eyes became slightly moist as she started to recall her time with Karin, whom she cared for like a little sister. However, her nostalgia soon turned into confusion as she finished reading the first line.
===
Rene, I can't explain this but you have to take care of Theodore for me!
===
"What the actual fuck...? Did I read it wrong?"
And with those words, Irene reread the entirety of the letter again, and again.
Upon the 5th time of her rereading the letter, Irene sighed as she finally accepted the situation.
"You dipshit! I'm a viscount, not a nanny, for fuck's sake!"
The request of taking care of Karin's child was extremely absurd and incomprehensible, even to Irene, who considered Karin to be her sister.
However, Irene soon calmed down and thought about this matter a bit deeper. Eventually, she sighed as she decided on what she would do.
Glancing over the candle on her table, Irene hovered the letter over the small flame and burnt it. With the smell of burnt paper still fresh inside the room, she shouted. "Alfred!"
Clank—!
Instantly, the door to her room opened, revealing a middle-aged man donning a butler outfit.
Closing the door behind him, the butler - Alfred spoke with a professional tone. "Yes, milord?"
Still focusing her gaze on the burning paper, Irene spoke. "Cancel all my schedules for tomorrow"
"But milord!", Alfred exclaimed, suddenly breaking his previous professional demeanor. "You have an appointment with viscount Tyeranz tomorrow!"
At his words, Irene's became blank as she stared at not the burning paper, but the orange flame now. While she looked like she was seriously deliberating whether to cancel her appointment or not, however, she was just trying to recall who the fuck Tyeranz was.
'Ah...! The guy with the perverted son!', Irene exclaimed inwardly as she remembered what him, or more specifically, his son tried to do to her in a banquet she had to attend a few months back.
As such, she commanded Alfred with no remorse. "I'm not changing my mind, cancel all my schedules. Oh, and if viscount Uqas Typeranz is dissatisfied with it, tell him to go fuck himself"
Sighing, Alfred walked out of the room and left the eccentric viscount to herself.
...
Next morning, Irene got into a carriage to travel to where Karin wrote her house was in the letter.
"So this is where she lives...", Irene muttered under her breath as she laid eyes on a cozy-looking house.
Knock—! Knock—!...
After uselessly knocking on the door for 2 minutes straight, Irene sighed and decided to kick the door open.
"Let's just get this over with"
BAM—!
Focusing on her senses, Irene quickly moved towards the only presence in the house.
"A child?", she lets out a gasp of surprise as she saw a boy, perhaps the same age as Krista - her daughter, lying face-first on the floor.
Checking for his pulse, Irene heaved a sigh of relief as she confirmed that the boy was not dead, only unconscious.
"But why is he out cold on the floor...?"
It didn't take long for her to find the thing responsible for knocking the boy out.
"What do you have here on your hand?", Irene muttered to herself as she gently pried the piece of paper that the boy was clutching onto.
However, upon reading the piece of paper, her face hardened. "Huh? Did I read it right?"
Rereading it again and again for god knows how many times. Eventually, she accepted that—
"Karin you IDIOT!"
—She hadn't read the paper wrong, and the content of the paper was as infuriating as she had anticipated it to have been.
'Her son was only 10 for fuck's sake. How could she abandon him and run away?'
Irene was friends with Karin since they were little. Thus, she knew all too well about Karin's careless personality.
'Even so, she had never been this rash... Well, now that I think about it...', Irene suddenly remembered a certain memory.
It was the memory of Karin running away from her father and came to her for protection.
'...She was this rash once'
Pausing her thoughts there, Karin calmed down considerably.
"Karin... what happened to you?"
Karin was not the kind of person to do these kind of things out of the blue. After all, she even gave up on inheriting Marcos' massive assets and ran away from him to protect her son. Or so she said.
Thus, Irene concluded that some problems must have came up, serious ones at that.
'Still... how can she just run away and left behind only a piece of paper?'
In fact, Karin did not ask Irene - her best friend - for help. Instead, she left her son for Irene to take care of and dealt with whatever problems there were alone.
Vowing to give Karin a good beating if she ever sees her again, Irene turned her attention to the boy again.
'Well, he's definitely her son'
A cute face with jet black hair, the boy looked like a male version of Karin.
'It will be hard for him...'
After all, he was only 10 years old, and his mom only left him a piece of paper before running off to god knows where.
Irene fully expected the boy to throw a tantrum or lock himself in a room for several days after waking up.
"Magic Eyes...!?", Irene exclaimed in shock as soon as she touched the boy.
Gently lifting his eyelids up to confirm her suspicion, she suddenly felt a sense of... dread. However, such emotions only lasted for a split second, before it dissipated into nothingness.
People with Magic eyes were rare. During pregnancy, if a significant amount of Mana concentrates near a fetus' ocular regions, the child will have the potential to awaken his or her Magic eyes later in life.
Judging by the sensation she felt earlier, Irene concluded the the boy's Magic eyes were the type that affect other people psychologically.
These types of Magic eyes were very difficult to control and were highly unstable as they could spiral out of control if their users' emotions became strong enough.
As such, Magic eyes like his were considered very troublesome, to enemies and users alike.
Although she was tempted to give him a pair of sunglasses or something to cover his eyes with when he inevitably woke up, she decided against it. After all—
'He'll need to do it by himself'
—It was for the boy's own good if he could fully control his Eyes without relying on external help.
...
The boy was still unconscious when they got back to the Nightshade mansion.
'Was the shock that big for him?'
Putting such thoughts asides, Irene placed the boy down on the guest room's bed.
"I hope you'll forgive your mother for this one...", she said as she gently caressed the boy's head.
She was about to turn around and leave when suddenly, a voice called out to her.
"Mom, who's he?"
It was obvious to Irene that the voice belonged to Krista Nightshade, her daughter.
"He's your brother from now on, be good to him." She told her the truth since she was already planning to register herself as his guardian anyways.
"Okay!" Krista exclaimed excitedly before she rushed into the room and sat on a chair, watching the unconscious boy with a curious gaze.
Irene shook her head at this sight and left the room.
Krista had always been a weird child. She was energetic and playful, so much so that Irene sometimes wondered if she was secretly Karin's child.
However, Irene immediately stopped such horrifying thoughts and sighed again.
'She's probably just excited to find a playmate her age'
***
A few hours passed since I had woken up. Much to my delight, no one came into the room and bothered me except for the little girl from before that came in to give me my lunch. Unexpectedly, she left immediately after delivering the food.
'I guess she wasn't the overly energetic type after all'
Thus, I decided that I was wrong to lump her in with Raun.
I had wanted to write down all the main events since I was not confident that I could remember the details clearly after a few weeks. As much as I wanted to immediately get down to writing everything down though, there weren't anything in the room that I could use to write on. I decided to wait until dinner so that I could ask the the girl for a notebook and some pens. There was no way I was risking getting lost in this huge mansion just to look for her.
There were still a few hours left until dinner, however. Thus, I turned on the TV in the room and looked for something entertaining to watch. However boring and plain people think I was, spending several hours staring into empty space did not sound attractive to me.
Luckily, an interesting show was airing. It was an anime adaptation of a novel that Marcos had written. To be fair, the show was pretty entertaining despite its predictable plot. After watching the show for a few hours and comparing it to Marcos' memories, I realized that he did not plagiarize the novel. Instead, he copied it, word for word. Though his photographic memory slightly impressed me, his shamelessness when he claimed that it was inspired by the hardships he faced in life impressed me even more.
'What could they do to him though? I mean, there are no laws about interdimensional plagiarism, right?'
Just as I was wondering whether an interdimensional police force existed or not, the little girl whose name I did not know came into my room with a plate of food.
"Hey...", I called out to her as soon as I received the dinner.
With the girl now fully paying attention to me, I spoke up again. "Thank you for bringing me the meal but... can I have a notebook and a pen?"
Hearing my words, her eyes lit up as she nodded fervently. "Of course!"
She then crouched down and reached her hand down to the floor and into her own shadow. After a few seconds, she stood up back with a pen and a notebook now in her hands.
'Is she a Space mage?'
However, I quickly shook such thoughts from my mind. After all, I didn't feel the Space mana around me move at all when she took out these things.
Mistaking my silence for something else, the girl hurriedly left the room. "Guess you're not completely well yet... I hope you get better soon!"
I nodded absentmindedly at her words and turned my attention towards the notebook again as soon as she left the room.
"Haaah... let's get this over with..."
And with that thought, I began to frantically write down all the events and locations of important items I could recall from Marcos' memories.
As I was getting to the important characters - the heroines, I suddenly realized something.
The little girl from before was viscount Nightshade's daughter, and she was also a heroine destined to be the protagonist's lover.
"Well, that's a bit surprising...", I muttered.
I was fairly surprised. After all, the heroine, Krista Nightshade, was cold, uncaring and filled with grief. She was nothing like the girl that were here moments ago.
"Well...", I muttered as I recalled the so-called 'character arc' of the heroine. "...I guess it does made a bit of sense considering what she has yet to go through."
Around 2 years from now, viscount Nightshade would be assassinated by people hired by the Void fiends - the enemy of this world.
As to why they were so fixated on killing her, it was because viscount Nightshade had a unique elemental affinity, [Extreme - Void manipulation]. It allowed her to hijack the control of void beasts from the Void fiends, even giving her direct control over the body of a Void fiend in special cases.
Furthermore, she was able to manipulate the Void element that was supposed to be unique to the Void fiends into whatever shape she desired.
The protagonist, being the pushover he always was and will be, consoled the heroine, telling her that it was not her fault that her mother died (when it clearly was).
The heroine somehow felt better because of this and eventually fell for the protagonist.
'Well, that's not my problem'
While I could warn viscount Nightshade about the assassination, I decided not to do so.
Why? Because the heroine desperately trained for revenge after the death of her mother, getting much stronger in the process.
And I could not risk losing the sure-fire way to have a powerful individual as my companion just to save the person I barely met for 5 minutes. After all, I lacked the thing every shounen protagonists had - the overflowing sense of justice.
I finished writing down everything and fell asleep almost immediately, only to be woken up by a loud shout 10 minutes later.
"Why are you shouting in the middle of the night?" I asked while trying not to let out my annoyance since the person responsible for separating me from my precious sleep was viscount Nightshade's daughter, the heroine.
She seemed a bit taken aback by my question. "What are you talking about? It's morning."
'Seriously?', I thought as I peeked through the curtains of the guest room, only for the searing sunrays to hit me right in the eyes.
"Arghh!", I rubbed my throbbing eyes as I fell back onto my bed.
'Shit... my eyes were too used to the darkness!'
Just as I was cursing myself for having stayed up all night, however, I suddenly noticed the heroine reaching for the notebook with shinning eyes.
"Hey, what did you wri—"
The heroine tried to ask but I didn't let her finish the sentence as I shoved her away and secured the notebook.
"Sorry...", I apologized as I calmed down, realizing that I pushed the viscount's daughter down onto the floor in her own mansion.
"That hurts", she pouted, before getting up and curving her lips into a wide grin. "My my, assaulting a noble, a very serious offense indeed!"
Thinking that she was serious, I was fully prepared to kneel down and ask for forgiveness.
Seemingly aware of what I was trying to do, she quickly stopped me from getting down on my knees and continued speaking.
"Well, you don't want anyone to find out about your blunder, correct?"
"That is the case, my lady." I nodded.
'Please don't tell the viscount. Please don't tell the viscount'
Hearing my words, she broke out into an even winder grin before miserably failing to contain the excitement in her voice. "Then, help me with my pranks!"
I stared at her blankly, trying to process what she had just said. Eventually, I pinched the bridge of my nose as I sighed in frustration.
'I've been had...'
This kid, she was never serious. I really wasted my time conversing with her.
'I take it all back, I was correct to group her with Raun'
Since I didn't have any energy left to deal with a second Raun, especially after the all-nighter I pulled yesterday, I really wanted to refuse her.
However, it would be really troubling if this kid cried after her plan failed. Considering her personality, she would definitely do so, especially after getting too excited by herself before I even gave my answer.
And... the viscount would definitely suspect that I was up to something if someone saw her daughter running out of my room, bawling her eyes out.
And thus, I complied to her request and braced myself for the annoyance that was sure to come. The only good thing about this situation is that I would get on the good side of the would-be heroine and future viscount if I played my cards right.
'Well, she's only 10. Her antics can't possibly be that troublesome, right...?'
That seemingly logical thought process led me to a very unpleasant predicament.
November 6th, year 781 of the Imperial calendar
There we were, hiding inside viscount Nightshade's office and holding a bucket of water.
Yes, splashing water onto other people, a very childish prank, even for a 10-year-old kid's standards. But the heroine insisted on doing it, to the viscount of all people.
Unlike the heroine, viscount Nightshade was barely mentioned in the novel. As such, I have absolutely no insights into her thought process and personality.
This was what I hated the most: Unpredictability.
I accepted the heroine's request since her personality right now is very similar to the one she had during the middle parts of the novel. As such, I knew that if I complied with her request, she would look at me favorably. What I didn't expect though was that the first thing she'd make me do was to pull a prank on the viscount.
Hence, my current predicament. I, a commoner, had to try to ambush a viscount in her own office and drench her in water.
And the worst part was... I had no idea how she would react to the prank.
Worst case scenario, I would be locked in a dungeon and be executed. Pinning the blame on the heroine wouldn't change anything either since I'm the only commoner involved.
'This is not going to work', I thought.
No, I was making sure it wouldn't work. I purposefully intensified my presence, alerting even the blindest of people to my current position.
Viscount Nightshade was at <B+> rank as of now, so there was absolutely no way she wouldn't notice something as obvious as a goblin's shit in the middle of the road.
If, by some miracle, the prank did work, I was going to have a really hard time.
'Was the heroine hating me already?', I wondered.
Was this her way of getting back to me just because I considered refusing to be her accomplice? If that was indeed the case, then she was going to be more of a annoyance than I initially thought.
Her plan was a very solid one. For her, a 10-year-old, to think of killing me this way without dirtying her hands, I worry about the protagonist's future. Just a bit though.
After a few more minutes, I could hear the door slowly creak open as viscount Nightshade walked into her office.
'It's too late to pull back now!'
And the heroine made sure it would be that way. She overlapped her hands with mine, jumped out of the corner, and dumped water all over her mother.
'What? It... worked...?', I widened my eyes in surprise and horror.
However, I soon calmed down.
'No, there's no way in hell the prank would work!'
The viscount was definitely aware of us. The only explanation was that she was playing along with her daughter pranks.
And, judging by the fact that she wasn't really lashing out at me nor the heroine, and was just... standing there, sighing as if she was regretting her life decisions, I was even more sure of my theory.
However, I was absolutely horrified when I processed that information again.
The viscount allowed herself to be the victim of the heroine's antics, which would mean that this was not the first time she had done so.
I sighed, cursing my past self for accepting the heroine's proposal.
'Now she will definitely drag me along every time she does her stupid pranks'
'She should really save her energy', I grimaced as dark thoughts surfaced in my mind. 'After all, she will need all the energy she can muster up to even accept her mother's death'
Why was I worrying about that? I guess she started to grow on me the same way I started to enjoy my time with Raun. After all, she was like a copy of him.
Although it had only been 2 days from my perspective, I really missed Raun. Now that I think about it, wasn't Krista my second friend? It seemed that I had subconsciously considered her to be my friend.
'No, get yourself together, Theodore!'
I shouldn't have thought of her like that. She's a heroine, one of the most powerful the trump cards the Empire has in the war with the Void fiends at that, and a pawn that will help me reunite with my mother.
'Just think of her as mere words on a book page, a cardboard cutout, and everything will work out just fine...'
Pausing my long thoughts there, I turned my attention toward the mother-daughter duo again.
The heroine was giggling uncontrollably as she hurriedly ran out of the office, leaving me alone in the room with the viscount.
We stared at each other in absolute silence for a few seconds.
My eyes drifted toward the water droplets that were dripping from her blonde hair and counted them to distract myself from this awkward silence.
'One... two... three... four... fiv—'
It was then that the viscount broke the silence.
"As you can see, my daughter can be a handful", she gave me an apologetic smile. "Please take care of her from now on."
'What do you mean 'take care of'?'
Before long, my expressions turned into that of absolute horror as I realized the implications of her words.
The viscount had just indirectly ordered me to control that little troublemaker of hers and clean up after her mess.
And judging by the even more apologetic look on her face, I was sure that she knew that I knew too.
Caught in a deadlock, I decided to just accepted the situation, albeit begrudgingly.
I would be meeting the mother-daughter duo a lot of times from now on and I didn't exactly have a good reason to refuse, it would be for the best to accept her 'request' for now.
And thus, my life at the Nightshade mansion officially started with a mop, a bucket and the longest sigh that have ever escaped my mouth.
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APieceOfRock
APieceOfRock There will be some actions soon, I promise.
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