Chapter 65

"Sir Leandros."

At the sound of someone calling, Leandros answered without even turning around.

"I thought you were going to bet, but have you given up, Your Highness the Crown Prince?"

"You don't need to be so polite. I know you've separated from the other knight who was following you."

Leandros looked at Yurik's game bag.

It was still slender, suggesting he hadn't been properly hunting.

"What brings you here?"

"I came to make you a proposal."

"If it's the same proposal, I must decline. As I've told you before, my disposition now depends on His Grace the Duke."

"I know that well. But the new Duke tends to respect your will, doesn't he? He has quite a soft character. Rather weak too."

"What is your point?"

"I'll be straightforward."

Yurik and Leandros's gazes collided.

"Join the royal knightly order. Then I'll guarantee the safety of the Hartmann ducal family."

"You're making the same proposal to me that the former Duchess rejected."

"Because your master has changed now."

"I must decline."

"Even if I promise to give up on Hartmann's revelation?"

Leandros remained silent.

It was always the case that Crown Prince Yurik was plotting something sinister.

Moreover, he had heard something from the Duchess about Hartmann's revelation.

The Crown Prince, demonic beasts, and revelation.

Those three elements could not be separated.

Leandros asked Yurik, who wore a dignified smile.

"Your Highness has wanted me to become part of the royal family since before Hartmann. If I may dare to ask now, is Hartmann's revelation just bait to obtain me?"

"It was at first, but now I consider it a second-best option."

What kind of second-best option could it be?

From Leandros's perspective, Yurik's persecution of Hartmann was pressure to give himself up.

He had understood revelation as merely an excuse for pressure.

If revelation became a second-best option, what did that mean?

What was he trying to do by obtaining control over demonic beasts in the first place?

Leandros briefly bowed his head.

"I ask for your understanding that the honorable proposal exceeds my position and I dare not accept it."

"I expected that."

Yurik smiled faintly.

For someone who had chased after him during the hunt, it was a remarkably unresentful attitude.

Leandros was turning his horse around without regret, but he had to stop at Yurik's words that followed.

"I'm hurt again today. I do like that you're always consistent, but I still get hurt."

"You should go to the royal physician."

"But heart wounds can't heal. I have a bit of a bad personality, and when I don't get what I want, I tend to get twisted."

"Discipline your heart through training."

"Recently, I've come to prefer eliminating the cause of the wound rather than training. But I can't eliminate you, can I? So I've decided to blame the person responsible for you."

"...?"

Yurik tilted his head.

"The torment might be a bit excessive, but it seems the Duke won't die easily. My intuition tells me so. Shouldn't you go see, even without me telling you?"

Something was happening outside that he didn't know about.

Leandros left the place immediately without even responding.

Yurik waved his hand as he watched Leandros's back disappear, riding his horse roughly.

The recruitment of Leandros had failed again this time.

It seemed that his expressions of dislike toward Yurik were becoming more evident with each passing day.

Yurik felt a sense of fulfillment as Leandros disliked him more.

Those who simply reach out their hands tend to be forgotten instantly.

But if you build up hatred, you can never be forgotten.

Yurik gazed in the direction Leandros had disappeared with a feeling both tender and joyful.

"You should hurry, so that everyone will know you."

Around the time Yurik disappeared into the depths of the forest while muttering this, Leandros was racing frantically.

Since when? From where?

The reason the forest had lost its human presence wasn't simply because everyone had scattered for hunting.

It was because they had vanished.

"Russel!"

He called for Russel several times with a voice that could shake the forest.

Game was no longer of any concern.

After calling out for quite some time, Russel, with startled eyes, hurriedly joined him on the forest path.

"The one I was about to catch just got away, senior!"

"That's not important. We need to go back."

"What? It's still a long time until the hunting ends..."

Russel was about to question it but nodded after seeing Leandros's ominous face.

When the two, who had traversed the forest in an instant, came out, there was no one left at the waiting area or anywhere else.

Only silence flowed.

Russel, who had jumped off his horse, said in bewilderment.

"Senior... senior?"

Leandros had his back to Russel and was examining something.

As Russel approached, Leandros quietly said.

"We're too late."

What was at Leandros's feet was a round, rolling, worm-like being.

It was so large for a worm that it was creepy.

Constantly flailing its legs and making strange sounds, only its body was inflated into a spherical shape.

Leandros surveyed the waiting area.

Disheveled or overturned chairs.

Invisible people.

Bloodstains left on the grass.

If attacked, the soldiers at the hunting ground would respond first.

And the remaining people would have fled to find a safe zone.

Then that safe zone would be.

"We're going to the banquet hall. I'll search the east, you check the west and confirm survivors."

"Yes, senior."

"And one more thing."

After hearing Leandros's additional order, Russel answered with a sharp "Yes!" as if standing at full attention.

The not-too-distant banquet hall.

From a distance, it looked fine, but as they approached, a horrific scene became visible.

The doors of the banquet hall were wide open, and inside, blood was splattered everywhere.

The same was true heading east.

Most of the annex buildings had broken glass windows, and the people who should have been inside had disappeared as if evaporated.

Some houses had destroyed doors, or even holes punched through the walls of the second floor.

Leandros moved slowly.

Nowhere he looked was there anything alive.

Leandros, who had reached a building with a broken ceiling, paused to listen.

His cautious steps headed toward the back of the building with the broken ceiling.

At the back, there was a small warehouse attached for storing annex management supplies.

What he saw upon opening the warehouse door.

"So this is where you were."

Arndt, with the skin of his left arm burning red, and the baron's daughter he had seen once before were sitting on a pile of straw.

The baron's daughter awkwardly stood up to block Arndt, but Leandros completely ignored her.

Arndt, leaning against the wall, was tightly gripping a dagger wet with bodily fluid in his right hand.

Leandros first examined Arndt's arm.

Along with a terrible smell, transparent bubbles were rising from his arm.

Leandros, who had torn off the rest of Arndt's tattered sleeve, supported the arm so the blisters wouldn't burst, and asked.

"Where were you?"

"Banquet... hall."

"His Grace as well?"

"His Grace is here."

"The banquet hall's door was open."

"......"

"Never mind. I won't report it. Which direction did he go?"

"East,"

"Good work."

Leandros immediately stood up and left the warehouse.

Behind him, he could hear Arndt's moans and the baron's daughter asking if he was alright, not knowing what to do.

The bent grass showed its direction.

It couldn't have gone far, as not much time had passed.

Hoping that he had arrived in time, or at least not too late.

The black silhouette ran across the grass as if flying.

But when he stopped running, a cold intuition pierced through his body.

In the distance, worm-like creatures that looked like white balls were gathered.

And a huge demonic beast surrounded by the swarm of worms was bending its long neck to look down.

There was no other movement.

No resistance, no voice to feebly threaten.

Leandros approached and drew his sword, and the sharp metallic sound rang out clearly.

It did not take long before it was all over.

A foul smell vibrated.

The ground touched by the demonic beast's bodily fluid rotted and decayed mercilessly, leaving only black soil.

The same was true for the round, rolling worms.

With trembling legs and thick black bodily fluid dripping, the split insides of these creatures were unpleasant and chilling just to look at.

But none of it could stir emotion in Leandros.

His gaze was directed at the one lying on the ground.

Even the thick, luxurious cloak couldn't fully cover the missing lower body.

"Your Grace."

No answer returned.

Leandros placed his ear against the chest of the remaining upper body.

No sound came.

So Leandros took off his own cloak and wrapped it around the cold body.

The body, which was clearly lighter than the deer he had carried yesterday, felt strangely heavy.

Even though it was just a half.

Leandros knew that Arenheit's choice was rational.

He also knew how much Arenheit cared for people, including Arndt.

He understood the judgment that him dying and reviving might be better than Arndt dying permanently.

Yet Leandros felt like he would never be able to forget this sight.

The knight, who didn't speak much originally, instead of trying to understand this feeling, knelt down and pressed his forehead against the body of his young dead master.

A red number appeared above Leandros's head.

[60/70]

* * *

The blood-soaked hunting festival only ended after the royal palace dispatched the knightly order.

The reason some participants were able to survive until the arrival of the knightly order was thanks to Hartmann's escort knights.

Russel Nabilov and Leandros.

Because they found survivors at the scene and protected them in a safe place, the royal knightly order was able to respond quickly.

However, the unfortunate thing was that the survivors were not intact.

Most of those who survived suffered from mental disorders due to great shock or sustained severe injuries.

The Duke of Hartmann was one of them.

When this fact spread, all noble families directed the responsibility to the royal family that had hosted Schützenfest.

However, when it became known that the Crown Prince had also participated and was injured, those who had neglected the preliminary inspection of the Schützenfest venue paid the price.

Moreover, in the process of interrogating those responsible, it was revealed that some lower nobles and commoner bourgeoisie had colluded to target the Crown Prince and create such a planned tragedy.

The kingdom was instantly in an uproar.

However, there was no one to protest or to raise objections.

This was because most of the nobles who had attended Schützenfest had died.

Families that had lost their heads were preoccupied with wandering or engaging in internal feuds with collateral branches aiming to become the next head of the family.

The power domains of the central nobles in the capital were being reconfigured, and there were provincial emerging nobles who were seizing the opportunity to rise.

It was truly an era of chaos.

Amidst such times, there was a notable family that maintained silence.

The Hartmann ducal family.

Recently reinstated, with the young Duke succeeding the title, and one of the few survivors who saved his life in this disaster.

The place where the Duke, who had been confined in his capital townhouse due to severe injuries, first appeared in public was.

At the memorial service presided over by the royal family.