* * *
The old man rose, dusting off his apron with a displeased expression.
“I cannot let that comment slide. I have worked in this spot for over twenty years, and I have never once sold a weapon that didn’t match its price.”
“You said it was a sword that would never break. That’s why I paid extra for its forging. And yet…”
The man brandished the tip of the sword in his hand.
Upon closer inspection, the blade currently aimed at the apprentice’s throat was indeed snapped at the end.
The old man stepped closer to examine the weapon more thoroughly.
In response, the ill-tempered man threw the sword in the opposite direction—right next to the chair where the old man had been tempering steel.
“Ho, goodness me.”
Glancing at his assistant, who had scurried into a corner to catch his breath, the old man walked back to his original spot.
He picked up the sword and began to inspect it meticulously.
The deep wrinkles around his eyes grew even more pronounced.
“No, this is…!”
The old man’s pupils shook—a reaction far more intense than when his only apprentice’s life had been at stake.
He looked at the man with an expression of pure disbelief.
“My heavens! Just what on earth were you trying to cut?”
❖ ❖ ❖
It all began with a single comment from Aiden.
Because the sunlight was harsh, Cassian and Aiden were having a simple tea time under a canopy on the terrace of the annex, not far from the main mansion.
They were exchanging trivial hunting stories—about which monsters were caught where, or rumors of rare beasts appearing in certain regions—when Aiden suddenly set his teacup down as if remembering something.
“It looks like Cedric is about to manifest soon, doesn’t it?”
In that instant, a murderous glint flashed in the eyes of Cassian, who had been admiring the view rumored to be the most beautiful in any noble territory.
“What?”
“I guess you didn’t know. Hasn’t Cedric mentioned it yet?”
The tips of Cassian’s fingers, which were holding his cup, trembled with suppressed rage.
The black tea inside swayed precariously.
“You endured all that hellish successor training, and now look. It seems you’re about to lose it all to your little brother. I heard a huge amount of money was placed on you becoming the next head in the gambling circles. I’m not a gambler, so I didn’t place a bet, though.”
Recently, a secret gambling den accessible only to nobles had opened bets on who would become the next head of the Hestian family.
Since there was a candidate whose appointment was considered a foregone conclusion despite no official announcement, the money was heavily skewed toward one side.
Cassian himself had bet his entire fortune under the pseudonym ‘Toucan.’
His younger sister had declared she would leave home to become an archaeologist as soon as her coming-of-age ceremony was over, and his younger brother was terminally ill and practically at death’s door.
Naturally, he thought he was the only choice.
He had bet everything on that conviction, so what was this nonsense?
Above all, he could not believe that someone like Cedric was becoming a manifested person—something Cassian himself had failed to achieve.
“You must be mistaken. There’s no way he’s manifesting.”
“It’s no mistake. And there’s another manifested person in the mansion.”
“Which bastard is it?”
Cassian’s voice was cold, unable to hide his raw emotion.
“I don’t know who it is. But I felt two types of pheromones coming from Cedric.”
Aiden explained that while walking in the garden with Cedric, he smelled both grapes and roses on him.
Since the garden was full of roses, he had brushed it off at first, but the rose scent followed Cedric every time they crossed paths.
Eventually, the concentration became so thick it made Aiden feel nauseous.
He realized that Cedric was in regular contact with an Alpha’s pheromones, and because of that, he was manifesting as an Omega.
“I’m just giving you a little tip so you can pull your money out while you can. Toucan… that’s you, isn’t it?”
“Are you certain? That there’s an Alpha brat in this house? And that he’s giving Cedric a ‘pheromone shower’?”
“I’ll bet my entire armory on it.”
Nobles were taught about secondary genders from a young age.
Among those lessons, it was a tedious fact that regular exposure to a pheromone shower increased the probability of manifestation.
Cassian gnashed his teeth.
If Aiden’s words were true, the pedestal he had painstakingly built toward the position of family head was about to crumble.
Without even a chance to compete, he would have to hand everything over to his brother—unless Cedric voluntarily gave up the position.
He recalled the defiant attitude his brother had shown him recently.
It seemed Cedric had something to rely on after all.
Unlike the past, when he acted like a useless husk, the current Cedric felt like someone who wouldn’t back down easily.
But who was this Alpha brat in the mansion?
‘Among the bastards buzzing around Cedric, only one is likely to manifest as an Alpha.’
The face of Locke immediately came to Cassian’s mind.
Fortunately, it wasn’t the worst-case scenario yet.
According to Aiden, Cedric’s scent was still so faint it was hard to detect properly.
If he cut off the Alpha’s pheromone shower before the manifestation was complete—and if Cedric died during that window—the succession would proceed as planned.
“Is that so? Well, it can’t be helped. The law grants priority to manifested individuals; who am I to go against that? As long as the family prospers, it doesn’t matter who takes charge.”
“As if I don’t know what’s going on in that head of yours.”
“Enough of this. Just drink your tea.”
Cassian slightly parted his stiff lips and took a sip of tea.
Though he seemed to brush it off indifferently, Cassian summoned all the servants the very next day.
He met each one with a chilling gaze.
The servants, already terrified of the most fearsome person in the house, trembled without knowing the reason for the summons.
“You will cough up every single thing you know about what’s happening in this house. Anyone who can’t say a word has no reason to remain under my roof.”
In his mind, there was only one reason a manifested servant would hide the truth and cling to the dying Cedric: he was surely trying to get a noble pregnant to climb the social ladder.
It was annoying that Cedric might become the head, but honestly, it wasn’t a huge problem.
He was going to die anyway; he could just think of it as letting him sit in a fancy chair once before he croaked.
The gambling money was a waste, but he could always make more.
But if Cedric married or produced an heir, the story changed completely.
The position of family head passes to a child, not a sibling.
If a child were born, the first in line for succession would be Cedric’s child, not Cassian.
Terrified by Cassian’s threats, the servants began to speak one by one.
That night, one servant told Cassian about the roses.
Someone had been gifting roses to Cedric, and seeing as they didn’t wither even after several days, it seemed they were being replaced regularly.
In the early hours of that morning, Cassian—watching the rose garden from a darkened room—spotted a black figure wearing a robe.
Nothing was clearly visible because the figure was completely covered, but the silhouette revealed by the moonlight was enough for him to deduce who it was.
“That distasteful brat just can’t stick to one thing, can he?”
He pulled a cherished sword from a glass case.
It was a pair known as the Twin-Headed Swords; one was for monsters, embedded with a magic stone, and the other was for general use, embedded with a gemstone.
“Largo.”
When Cassian called, a magical beast curled under the sofa pricked up its ears and lifted its head.
Its eyes, usually brown, had turned transparent with moisture.
Truly, everything goes well for those destined for success.
He believed even the heavens wanted him to be the head of the family.
Nothing was better than rain for washing away the traces of a murder.
“It seems I’m destined to be the head after all, little brother.”
Whoosh—
Everything went according to Cassian’s plan.
Aiden and Locke didn’t know the secret of the sword.
The reason they were called Twin-Headed Swords was that the gemstone in the general-use one looked exactly like a mana stone.
A person with mana would have noticed immediately upon touching it, but a mere servant couldn’t possibly have mana.
If he had, he would have fled this hellish mansion long ago to seek his own path.
The rain poured down at the perfect moment, as if it had been waiting. He ordered the knight who had escorted Aiden back to the mansion to confirm Locke’s body—with the order to finish him off cleanly if he were still alive.
The knight was a man more ambitious than others; if promised a commander position, he was the type to do anything.
Since he wasn’t very bright despite his greed, Cassian thought him the perfect man for the job.
But Cassian was a cruel man.
He intended to kill the knight, who was dreaming of a promotion, from the very beginning.
He planned to make it look like the knight had accidentally killed Locke during a hunt and then threw himself off a cliff out of guilt.
Anyone who knew the plan had to be removed to ensure no future trouble.
A while later, the knight returned after dealing with Locke.
“I have disposed of Locke as ordered.”
Cassian was puzzled.
The direction the knight appeared from was a dead end where the cliff and valley met.
The face bowing before him was certainly his knight, Lowell Jackson, but there was a subtle, inexplicable sense of uncanny dissonance.
Was it his eyes? Or his gait? Or perhaps…
A nagging feeling took hold, but whatever the reason for the dissonance, he couldn’t let the man live now that he knew the secret.
Without a moment’s hesitation, he thrust the Twin-Headed Sword into the knight’s side.
But in that instant, black smoke suddenly billowed from the knight’s body.
It poured out of every orifice—eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
“Dammit, what is this now!”
Cassian pulled out the sword and swung it at the smoke.
Realizing that the magic tool’s attack wasn’t working, he sensed danger.
He immediately bolted toward the mansion, only to discover upon arrival that the tip of his sword was broken.
When he returned to look for the fragment of the broken blade, nothing remained.
It seemed to have been washed away by the heavy rain, but what if that brat, who was running wild to find his servant, had seen the body first?
“Tsk, how bothersome.”
Cassian swept his hair back.
Inside his blue eyes, directed toward the mansion, a violent wave of murderous intent surged as if to sink someone forever.
❖ ❖ ❖
After parting with Cedric, Locke was locked back in the dungeon.
He turned as if to sit in his place, but then glanced back at the door once more. He approached the door and engaged the lock.
He looked up at the cobweb-filled ceiling and laughed hollowly.
“Just what am I doing?”
As he stood there, something squirmed and undulated along Locke’s shadow.
A dark gray shadow began to crawl up his back, only to be caught by Locke as he spun around.
To be precise, it was caught by Locke’s own shadow, which reached out into the air.
The shadow, reflected on the wall by the lamp, fluttered its wings.
Locke softened his sharp gaze and obediently let it go.
“Erebos, I believe I told you not to show yourself without an order.”
The shadow, shaped like a snake with legs, let its wings droop downward.
After a moment of thought, Locke brought his right hand—which still had a trace of blood—close to the shadow.
“Do you think you can catch his scent?”
The shadow shook its head.
“I see. It was just a coincidence, then.”
He looked a bit disappointed as he went to sit on the cot. He remained lost in deep thought for a while before lifting his head and muttering to himself.
“Find the owner of this blood. Go and watch him.”
* * *
