A loud "clang" noise echoed throughout the whole manor itself, before a faint wheezing, coughing sound was heard. The butler was holding his neck that had blood trickling down his arm and chest, looking up at Ludwig, his eyes looking at him with disdain. He then looked down at the shortsword that was on the ground, the blade being broken in half, then looked at Ludwig, then at the longsword wielded by him.
The butler wasn't able to speak without coughing a fatal amount of blood, but muttered "D-dull.." Before dying from the amount of blood that he bled through his neck.
Ludwig stared at the butler who just now had fallen, "why doesn't he have a VHC insignia, the Azure family alongside the butlers of it are associated with the VHC, yet why is there no insignia." He then inspected the butler closely, before realising that the VHC insignia was in fact on the clothes of the butler, but a different, "strange" insignia was knitted over. "Not G.A.A. nor any other branch of the VHC, as well as any other smaller organization's insignia.." He thought deeply before he stood up and walked through the corridor.
"Perhaps I should investigate what that insignia is." He sighed before slicing an incoming arrow from behind. "Ludwig..why did you return here." A familiar male voice asked him in confusion. The male voice was from a man who was in his late 20s, who wore an eyepatch with scars engraved all over his body.
"Elias?" Ludwig asked as he instantly recognized the man. Ludwig had another vision, specifically 7 years ago when he was 15. "Oh right, I remember him the most out of any of my relatives, he wanted to help people, people who were in poor conditions, he would constantly give the nearby village some of the leftovers he had secretly stolen from the manor, and feed it to the young children of that village."
A woman with long brunette hair alongside 2 knights was holding a torch lighting a house on fire. "But after mother, the head of the family that time, found out about his doings, she went to the village personally alongside 2 other family members, and trapped them inside the village elder's home then burned the home with everyone in the village, including the women and children inside." Ludwig was seen peeking through the gap of the door his mother and Elias were in and witnessed his mother holding a small dagger inching it closer to Elias's eye. "She would also punish Elias by plucking out his eye."
"Then a year later, he helped Abel and I escape, but he would also get punished further by having one of his arms tied to the tallet roof, leaving him dangling through the winter, with one of the 2 knights shooting an arrow from his own bow that had scraps of food attached at him. The arrow was also shot precisely in a way that made it so it wouldn't kill him."
"I only found out about this from a note that mother sent me after my escape."
Ludwig then felt a hand patting his shoulder, waking him up from his vision. "Go find your mother, there are more people coming, and they are not welcoming, I'll fend them off, and I'm doing this because I'm confident you can free us from this horrible family." Elias assured as several butlers and maids alongside a group of knights approaching.