Idoro touched the candle holder that hung on the wall for a few times, then the bookshelf besides him moved with a thump. After the bookshelf moved aside, a hidden door was revealed behind it. The lock has some traces left from being broke just now and as soon as we opened the secret door, a small room came into our sights. In the middle of the hidden room that has been secretly hidden, there was a big arm chair in which a man's body laid there without any sign of life.
"He doesn't seem to be alive."
Ira said so and sighed. The man sat on the arm chair had both of his eyes opened, but not only he didn't look at us, he didn't even have any signs of breathing. I slightly frowned while looking at the dead man.
"…, Isn't he too young to be my father?"
"Have you never met with Count Epheria?"
"Uh, I haven't seen him for quite some time already."
Or so I thought… Based on the current situation, I'm almost sure that it has been a long time since the last time original Silla ever met him. The man that was believed to be the Count Epheria was still young in age and should be in his early thirties at best, furthermore there wasn't any smell coming from him as well. In other words, he didn't die recently.
"He's very clean, as if he was being preserved…"
Miss Ira mumbled as she approached the arm chair. She keenly observed the corpse then reached out her hand. The slender fingers covered with some old scars, swept across the corpse' ear.
Shriikk…
The leather skin got peeled off. As it came off easily, it seemed to have been deliberately made to be detachable. The dead body which face skin has been peeled off looked like a man-made doll. Miss Ira slowly swayed the leather skin in front of us.
"Seems like Count Epheria had long been dead and deliberately replaced by a fake."
"Then… does that mean my father wasn't involved in this matter?"
Ira lightly shook her head to my question.
"Count Epheria married the late Countess (Silla's birth mother) when he's 24 years old. And not long after the late Countess died, he remarried again with the current Countess. Even though we don't see his corpse, based on this leather skin he's clearly in his early thirties. Presumably he was killed when he sensed something had gone wrong and confronted the current Countess. Then the Countess got another man whose physique, build and eye colors similar to the Count's, to act as subtitute."
And he did so by putting on the face skin. Miss Ira said that the Count might have been deceived by the Countess… I wish this was the truth. The Count was tricked to the point of unknowingly offered his own daughter as the sacrifice, and when he learned about the truth, subsequently he confronted the Countess and got himself killed. If that's the truth, then it means Silla was loved dearly by both of her parents.
"Although another man pretended to be the Count, everyone would become suspicious if the Count didn't aged at all and thus the Countess managed everything in the mansion over the past few years. And reality proves that there's almost no one in the mansion ever met face-to-face with the Count. Just now Miss Silla also said that she hasn't seen him in ages."
"Ah, yes."
"Anyway, there's not much information we could get from here. That's too bad."
For Miss Ira, especially the Special Task Squad, this matter was indeed unfortunate, but for me, this was a good thing. If they found out about me being the sacrifice by now, it would put me in a precarious situation. Both the Count and the Countess has been silenced by their death, so it should be unlikely that my real situation got exposed. This is good.
We left the Count's room after we have closed and hid the secret door to return it as it was before. In the end we just got two corpses. Four members of Special Task Squad, including Miss Ira, stayed behind at the mansion to collect the corpses. Meanwhile, Captain Jullius, Clauen, and me left the mansion to return back to the headquarters. Of course Sofia also came with us. Sofia who rode the horse with me still felt anxious that her shoulder kept trembling.
"…, where are we going now?"
Sofia asked in a small voice while glancing at Captain Jullius and Clauen.
"For the time being, we'll stay at the Special Task Squad's headquarters."
I also haven't thought about it yet. Now I need to reconsider it. Sofia once again glanced at Captain Jullius.
The main gate of the mansion was left opened unattended without any gatekeeper could be seen in sight guarding the entrance. Soon, this mansion would be raided by bandits if things went on just as it is now. The Count and Countess had died, then I also left the mansion, and so there's only a young lady left in the house that could do nothing with a young master who's much younger than the young lady. Perhaps a few servants who had quickly grasped the situation, have started to smuggle some stuffs from the mansion that could be resell for money later. Ah, it's truly unfair. Somehow I had mixed feelings about this.
I was contemplating whether if I should return inside and take out some valuable items, when a group of guards came closer to the entrance gate before I could make a decision. They're the Capital's public security guards. The one who was leading them wasn't their captain but a knight. The knight's uniform he's wearing right now embroidered with an insignia in which I feel like I have seen it before somewhere. I don't think he's someone from Imperial Knights, I wonder which family's insignia was that…
"As far as I know, the Count Epheria household has requested for the Special Task Squad from coming to the Count's mansion. Why did you commit another trespassing again?"
The knight that I didn't remember which squad he belonged to, came forward. I wonder for what reason did he come with public security guards. Even though the Special Task Squad haven't accepted that request yet, but we can't just drag out this deadlock situation for indefinite time. After hearing his question, Clauen answered in Captain Jullius place.
"Today the Special Task Squad came on behalf of the request made by Miss Silla Epheria, Captain Jullius' lover. Recently there were some unidentified person wandered around this vicinity. Miss Silla Epheria was almost got kidnapped before. Due to that incident, our Special Task Squad offered some protection for Miss Epheria. However, Miss Epheria was worried about her home so she returned back home after she had promised that she would met again with us within a certain amount of time. She granted us her permission to breakthrough to the mansion if she didn't get to leave the mansion within the time frame we had agreed upon."
"… unidentified person?"
"Yes. And that mysterious guy killed the Countess and escaped before the Special Task Squad arrived here."
The knight showed a flicker of doubt in his eyes. Turns out that damn Clauen has a way with words than he looks.
"Are there any witnesses?"
"Miss Epheria here and most of the servants inside the mansion witnessed it."
The knight's gaze landed on me and I briefly nodded in affirmation. Most of them were lies but it's true that I saw with my own eyes the Countess was killed by that mysterious guy.
"…, alright. For the time being I will just overlook the violation by Special Task Squad."
That knight reluctantly replied. Then, it's Clauen's turn now to throw him a question.
"But, how come you arrive together with the public security guards?"
"I received their request to join and provide them with some assistances because they had a hard time to deal with Special Task Squad."
"The public security guards didn't ask the Imperial Knights for assistances but instead they asked for help from a personal knight of Duke Lemargos household?"
After I heard Clauen's words, finally I recalled which household had such insignia. That's an insignia from the Duke household. Duke Lemargos is the younger brother of the current reigning Emperor. To be more precise, the current Duke Lemargos renounced his rights for the throne when he was younger and later on was adopted by the late Duke Lemargos. The late Duke Lemargos didn't have any descendants, thus the current Duke inherited the title. I think that's how the story goes more or less. Perhaps there were more than how it looked but I didn't remember it well. Well, anyway it's just another politic intrigue involving the Imperial Family.
"By chance, I was visiting the public security guards' office at that time. What does it have to do with which squad I belong to, when I just want to help them? The safety of the Capital should be our first priority."
He's right. Although the public security guards are large in numbers but they're much weaker in terms of strenght. Hence, they can request for some assistances from the private knights that belongs to certain household and also Imperial Knights. That being said, the timing was too perfect to be ruled as coincidence. Clauen also seemed to have similar thoughts to mine.
The two opposite sides, or should I say Clauen and the Duke's knight to be exact, exchanged some banters before finally they parted ways without anyone gained the upper hand over the other.
(T/N: I just want to inform those who read the manhwa translation and my novel translation about the differences in characters' names. In manhwa translation, it's translated as Duke De Margaux, while I translated it as Duke Lemargos. They are still same person/character. Mind you that nobody is wrong about how we named the characters, it's just we have our preferences in how we understand and translate the Korean Hangul. Hope the readers will understand this and not to be confused ^^)