"On my way here, I saw bandits fleeing the Belturia estate. There were even some children and women among them. I would like to know what happened."
"Yes, they ran away from my city. I sent a search party, but they couldn't find any traces of those bandits you speak of."
"Why did they run away?"
"They said that they wouldn't live in my city. Rude fucking peasants."
Balbaca clicked his tongue with a distorted face.
"It's always the commoners ridiculous stupidity that makes them run away from the nobility. They know that if I catch them, I'll mutilate them and kill them on the spot."
"Is that so?"
Asher let out a laugh.
'I may be nothing but a retired Captain of the Imperial Guard, but I know better than anyone that this man is not Balbaca, let alone a true noble of the Empire.'
Asher recalled his memories from the past, and looked at Balbaca with an unusual grin.
"May I ask you one last question?"
The indifferent eyes turned towards Balbaca.
"What is your name?"
"What nonsense are you talking about you stupid servant?"
Balbaca smiled in vain.
"I am Balbaca Belturia. The master of the Belaturia estate and a great hero."
There was no hesitation in the words spoken.
"Balbaca Belturia. I see."
Asher mockingly spoke. He lifted himself up.
"Let me tell you something interesting then 'Mr. Balbaca Belturia'."
***
"No!"
Charon hit the table with a red face. Fragments of wood shattered and flew everywhere.
"You can't do this Lady Reika! How can Balbaca do this?!"
Balbaca was becoming more and more blatant as time went by. Boros, who had already been the target of the political marriage at first, had long been placed as a backseat driver.
And today, Balbaca even called Reika to his room separately. Charon grabbed the sword.
"I can't stand this!"
"Then what can you even do?"
Asher clicked his tongue at Charon, who was about to run to Balbaca's room right away.
"Are you going to start a feudal war with the Belturia estate? Lord Halvark would be very pleased with you if you do I'm assuming.", Asher mocked at Charon.
"Then are you going to stay still as well?!"
Charon shouted and drew the sword.
"I am a loyal knight to Lord Halvark. I can't watch his daughter being played around with by an old man!"
"Oh, how loyal."
Asher continued to mock Charon and try to get him to think rationally. Charon first called Balbaca a great hero when they were traveling there, and now he was calling him an old man. The visible change of heart made Asher laugh.
"There are no more heroes of the past.", Asher spoke bluntly.
Charon clenched his teeth and walked to the door. The moment he tried to open it roughly, the door opened on the other side.
"…Mr. Boros?"
"Good morning."
Balbaca's son, Boros came in with a gloomy face. He glanced at Charon.
"Are you going to my father's room?"
"…Oh please."
Charon looked down at Boros with contempt.
"There's nothing to be spoken by a successor who can't even keep his fiance away from his old man."
"It's not me who wanted the engagement in the first place."
"That's what I'm talking about!"
Charon's muscles swelled up. Boros murmured again.
"It's an engagement that no one wanted except for my father."
"...."
Charon suddenly paused. Boros came inside.
"You don't have to worry, Mr. Charon. My father is a weak drinker. He won't even be able to tell the difference between Reika and some maid or prostitute. She will be safe as long as he's drunk."
Boros glanced away at Asher. Charon opened his mouth in embarrassment.
"Oh, how can you be so sure then?"
"Well, maybe it's because I distrust that man is even my father as well."
Boros touched the ornaments on the wall in a melancholic way.
"I run an information organization that my father does not know about."
"What?"
Charon asked again with a surprised expression. It was a common perception that information organizations were the work of low-class people. Charon looked in disbelief at Boros, the heir to the Count, who had suddenly said he ran one of these organizations.
"I used to like that kind of trade when I was learning my academics when I was younger. But that's not the only reason. My lord, my father has cut off all interactions with the outside world and for me to get news from the outside, I had to run such an organization to find out anything going on outside the territory."
"He blocked the exchange of information himself for the past 20 years? That was Balbaca's decision?"
"Yes."
Boros said with a bitter face.
"There's been no information coming out from us for the past 20 years, our entire territory has been living like this in isolation."
"…how come?"
"Why would you ask that?"
Boros looked at Charon.
"You said you had met my father before. Do you think my Lord is the same as he was back then?"
Boros spoke, without using the term 'father', and instead put emphasis on 'Lord'.
"...."
Charon couldn't answer. Boros replied alone.
"No, Lord Balbaca is not a hero now. He's been a different person for over 20 years now."
Asher listened quietly to their conversation. Boros looked out the window at the houses outside.
"Look at the village. People are starving to death, they are homeless and cold, and my father only wants more jewelry. He just overworks people and raises taxes on them for no just reason."
Boros clenched his fist.
"My father is as I said, nothing but a simple monster."
"...."
"But people are still grasping onto the false hope in their minds. That the great Lord, the hero of the past, will come back to his senses one day."
Boros laughed at his own words.
"What a vain hope."
"How can a great hero…."
"Hero?"
Boros smiled bitterly.
"There's something my father has always said since I was born. 'Son, I will put my name and soul and make an Oath. An Oath that will allow you to marry the one you love'."
It was practically impossible for a noble-born child to marry the one they loved. But Balbaca was called a hero because he practiced such ideals and even wanted to let his son have his own freedom from his title as a Count.
"I believed that once. However, my father changed and became strange, but I still believed it at that time."
Balbaca was a hero that swore at the risk of his own soul burning in the form of an Oath. It could not be a lie. Boros thought so as well.
"Five years prior to the 20 years of isolation, He got to know a woman from outside. She wasn't a noble, but she was a good natured woman he and I both thought. She was the kind of woman that everyone would love. My father brought her to the estate and showed her around."
Boros spoke calmly.
"But…. The next day, she was dead."