Joel moved quickly, pulling a black hooded cloak tightly around himself.
Fortunately, slipping out of Count Gray’s boisterous castle was not difficult.
When he arrived at the spot marked on his map, he saw a man standing by a horse, smoking a cigarette with a lazy, thuggish posture.
“Are you Joel?”
The man spoke in an unfriendly tone the moment he spotted him.
“I am, but…”
Joel replied hesitantly, eyeing the man.
The rough-looking stranger looked at least twice Joel’s age.
It was impossible to tell when he had last shaved, and he reeked of an unpleasant smell of alcohol.
His first impression was the absolute worst.
Joel looked back and forth between the untrustworthy man and his incredibly worn-out, rickety cart.
“Wait, it’s not a carriage?”
“You’ve got a lot of nerve complaining for someone running away in the middle of the night. You should’ve paid more if you wanted luxury.”
The man grumbled and crushed out his cigarette.
He abruptly thrust out a hand to Joel.
“Call me Jack.”
Joel stared at the hairy hand with a look of disgust.
The reason for such blatant rudeness was obvious, even though the man must have known Joel was a noble.
He looked down on Joel for being young, an Omega, and a runaway.
Joel began to doubt if asking his father to arrange his escape had been the right choice.
After a reluctant handshake, Joel stood there staring at the filthy cart with uncertainty.
The man suddenly snapped at him.
“Come on, get in already! We’re gonna get caught at this rate.”
“Alright, alright! I’m getting in.”
He really didn’t want to ride in it, but as the man said, time was of the essence.
“He sure is cranky,” Joel muttered grumpily as he climbed into the cart with a reluctant face.
Once the man confirmed Joel was safely inside, he mounted his horse.
As the cart began to move with violent jolts, Joel anxiously checked the seams of the wood.
It felt like it might fall apart at any second; he wondered if they would even make it out of Count Gray’s territory, let alone all the way to the Kingdom of Palein.
The journey was starting with a very bad omen.
The next day, Robert woke up late.
His head throbbed from the lingering effects of the alcohol.
Wincing, Robert thought to himself, ‘Still, the banquet last night was really fun.’
He hadn’t realized it before, but he and Felix got along quite well.
Even Young Master Benjamin was humble and cute for a noble.
For the sake of Benjamin, who looked like he was about to cry after losing repeatedly at cards, he and Felix had teamed up to lose two games in a row on purpose.
Benjamin had cheered happily, completely unaware.
In a way, he was a young master who was even more naive than Joel.
“If I knew Felix was such a fun guy, I would’ve befriended him sooner.”
Robert muttered to himself, remembering how he had nearly died of boredom inside the supply wagon on the way to Sir Bennet’s estate.
He regretted that the journey would have been much less tedious if he’d known Benjamin and Felix were such pleasant company.
Since Count Gray had announced that the festivities would last for ten days, there was nothing left to do but eat, play, and relax.
‘I should play cards again tonight,’ Robert thought idly as he got out of bed with a hum.
He was looking forward to whatever delicacies the Count would serve for dinner.
Perhaps because the Crown Prince could arrive at any moment, this banquet was exceptionally grand.
Furthermore, once they returned to the capital, the Crown Prince would surely pay him handsomely for looking after Joel so well.
He had felt resentful toward Joel when they first set out, but now that everything was settled, he was glad he had come.
After washing his face and feeling refreshed, Robert belatedly remembered that Joel had returned to his bedroom in the middle of the banquet last night, claiming to be tired.
Come to think of it, that glutton had barely touched his food during the party.
Was something bothering him? Worried, Robert immediately headed toward Joel’s bedroom.
“Joel?”
There was no answer when he knocked on the door.
Robert carefully opened it.
Even though they were close, it was an intrusion, but he couldn’t help but worry that something might be wrong.
Peeking his head inside, Robert felt a wave of relief when he saw a lump under the blankets.
Judging by the size, it looked just like Joel’s small frame.
Thinking he was still asleep, Robert tried to back out quietly, but his gut feeling felt strange.
He slowly approached the bed.
“Joel…?”
As he got closer, he saw that one end of the blanket was rolled up oddly.
When he pulled the covers back, the body that should have been lying there was nowhere to be seen.
Panicking, he looked around, shouting, “Joel? Joel, where are you?”
That was when he saw a single sheet of paper placed neatly on the desk.
Praying it was nothing serious, Robert walked to the desk and picked up the letter.
The pressed-down handwriting was definitely Joel’s.
As he read the contents in one breath, the last of his alcohol-induced fog vanished instantly.
Clutching the letter, he ran frantically toward Count Gray’s bedroom.
The Crown Prince headed toward Joel’s bedroom with a weary face.
After more than ten days of running up and down stairs and searching without a moment’s rest, he was exhausted.
He felt like he might collapse at any second, yet his mood was better than ever.
The search that had lasted over ten days had finally borne fruit.
Contrary to his initial hope of finding evidence of Count Lucas’s deal with the demon quickly, the demon John had not been as foolish as the Prince thought.
No matter how much they searched the study and the vault, no traces related to Count Lucas had appeared.
However, the Prince did not give up.
After a persistent search, he eventually found a bundle of letters hidden behind a loose brick in the hallway—correspondence between Count Lucas and Heath Hales.
The Crown Prince was already certain that Count Lucas had made a deal with the demon regarding the Heath Hales rebellion.
If the problem was so great that even the cunning Count Lucas couldn’t solve it with his own power, it had to be something massive.
Moreover, the Prince knew from the Emperor that Count Lucas had been sending large sums of money somewhere every three months for a long time.
The Emperor, who had long suspected the Count, had been secretly monitoring his every move.
However, no matter how much they investigated, they couldn’t figure out where that large sum of money was going.
Escaping the relentless surveillance of the Imperial family was not something possible by human effort alone.
It made sense if the demon had covered up the Count’s tracks regarding the rebellion and was blackmailing him for money periodically.
Furthermore, for a demon to blackmail the clever Count Lucas, they would need physical evidence of the Count’s dirty past.
Following that logic, the Prince had scoured the demon’s mansion and finally secured proof of Count Lucas’s treason.
Inside the yellowed letters, there was clear evidence that Count Lucas had funded Heath Hales’s private army.
The Crown Prince placed the bundle of letters in a sturdy wooden box and sent them to the Emperor along with a report.
He was looking forward to seeing his father’s face when he received it.
According to messages from the capital, the Emperor was recovering at a remarkable speed.
While the Imperial doctors said he wasn’t fully cured and still suffered from severe symptoms like coughing up blood, the Emperor could now move freely and handle official business for two to three hours a day.
Now, all that remained was to punish Count Lucas.
The Crown Prince also held a personal grudge against the Count.
He now clearly remembered the events of the erased past, and in addition, he had ordered an investigation into how Joel had been treated by Count Lucas over the last three years.
He intended to ensure Joel’s revenge was carried out before he cut off the disgusting Count’s head.
Once Count Lucas was executed, he could live happily with Joel without any worries.
In his letter to his father, the Prince emphasized twice that the evidence would never have been found without Joel’s tip.
Since Joel had performed a great service in taking down the Emperor’s nemesis and was currently carrying the Imperial grandchild, it was certain that his stubborn father would no longer oppose their marriage.
“On the way back to the capital, I should stop by Count Gray’s castle and pick up Joel. I have things I need to say to him.”
The Crown Prince muttered to himself as he stretched.
His heart began to flutter at the thought of finally seeing Joel.
He was smiling, imagining how Joel would welcome him, when someone urgently knocked on his bedroom door.
