There Is No Hidden Villain in This Novel Chapter 116

In a word, Capone Jones was jealous of Cassis de Millang.

‘It’s a ridiculous notion considering our different classes.’

Still, Capone Jones couldn’t help but be jealous of Cassis de Millang. That was especially true now, as his thoughts twisted in on themselves, wondering how to resolve the current situation.

…Because even all of this would be transparently clear to Cassis de Millang.

What would be? The sewer rats named Capone Jones, Dietrich Winkel, and Logan Esteban.

Knowing full well what schemes those rats, now in deep trouble, would concoct with their tiny brains, what they would whisper to each other, he orders them into a meaningless state of tension and a dog-eat-dog struggle instead of making their heads explode. For what reason? Obviously, for a moment’s amusement.

‘…With such trivial information, they probably couldn’t have laid a single scratch on that man all this time.’

There was little private information Capone could gather on Cassis de Millang. It was just trivial, everyday talk, like how he never looked tired even when studying. Dietrich or Logan would likely be no different. Could they have handed over more fatal and important information than Capone had?

‘No way.’

Cassis de Millang never gives a straight answer, no matter how much one probes him about personal or public matters.

He just stares intently and smiles a lingering smile.

In the end, no matter how much they prattled on about betrayal and whatnot, it was nothing more than a dog-eat-dog struggle among worthless little rats.

Power, simply because of that.

‘We were the ones scurrying about anxiously like sewer rats trying to hoard cheese in our holes.’

Power and luck had made Cassis de Millang a young lord whom no one could touch, while weakness and misfortune had made Capone have to smile when he wanted to cry. Capone couldn’t cry when he was terrified, nor could he hide. Because Capone was weak, he stained his hands with blood and smiled. He had to smile.

Only the strong can live honestly. The weak must smile even when they want to cry, must remain silent when they want to laugh, and do not break down when they are in despair.

The thing that robs a weak person of even the freedom to be weak—that is what power is.

Of course, inherent power is decided by the luck of the draw. As he himself was one of the privileged, he had no complaints about that fact. Therefore, what made it most unbearable for Capone was that the young lord seemed to understand the weakness of a sewer rat.

How dare he.

How dare he!

‘When he has never once been weak…’

Cassis de Millang, a truly unique man. He was like a noble eagle soaring through the sky, and also like a venomous snake flicking its tongue. When he smiled with his eyes in that bewitching way, it was as if he was revealing his infamy and wickedness to the entire world, and when he showed off his presence with formidable power, he was an untouchable being.

Usually, such powerful beings have certain limitations. They could torment the weak, but there were limits to their imagination and methods. Of course, they were disastrous enough for the weak, but think about it. An eagle cannot hunt a sewer rat hiding in a sewer.

But he.

Despite possessing such untouchable power, he doesn’t miss even the rats in the sewer.

‘As if he had lived in a sewer before…’

Capone had felt this for a long time, and it was a gut feeling close to certainty. He probably understands those who are trampled upon.

…That point was so nauseating it made him want to vomit.

He was going to come out of the sewer in the end and go around trampling on others anyway.

He himself would never be trampled.

Logan Esteban was the calmest of the three.

When Cassis’s thunderbolt of a command fell, Logan felt a sense of déja vu.

Identify the culprit before the school trip ends. All are guilty, but the repercussions will differ depending on who snitches and who stays silent.

‘Isn’t this the prisoner’s dilemma?’

In this situation, Logan recalled the famous theory that deals with the rational decision-making of multiple people. In any case, the situation was similar in that they had to play a game of reading each other and survive in the most rational way.

‘Two of us have to team up and corner one person.’

This was the most desirable outcome. Because right now, there wasn’t a separate culprit; all three of them here had snitched on the young lord. The worst outcome would be to actually reveal that all of them had participated in the snitching and for all three to be dragged away.

To be honest, he thought that Cassis, having figured things out this far, couldn’t possibly be unaware that all three were culprits, but conveniently, he had said to name just one person. Then, the option of using one person as a scapegoat and surviving with an alliance was also possible.

If he could survive, he was willing to put on an interesting show—a dog-eat-dog political mess of them biting, tearing at, and cornering each other. Isn’t that what Cassis wants, anyway? If they gave him a good show, he would really let the other two live.

‘I don’t want to die, and how far have I come to get here? It would be such a waste.’

He had diligently organized and summarized trivial, insignificant pieces of information about Cassis and passed them on to them.

It was a dirty and cheap thing to do, but thanks to it, Logan had become a candidate for family head, and his influence within the family had grown stronger. It wasn’t just Logan who had benefited personally; the family also seemed to finally be able to breathe a little easier.

If he dies, all of this vanishes in an instant.

Alright, fine, to be honest, though it would be a waste, a position like that isn’t that important to him. Aren’t we all born naked and die naked? But does everything end just because Logan dies? What about the people who will lose Logan? The people around him?

‘It’s horrible when someone suddenly disappears from your life…’

So I’m going to survive. It’s a shame for the scapegoat, and a shame for the people around that scapegoat who will lose him, but I’ll survive, survive and…

Logan, Logan, Logan…

To Logan, who was preoccupied with the single thought of survival, a voice calling him was heard. He came to his senses with a start. He was in his room, and there was no one around. That was natural. That voice was his older sister’s voice, and his sister was currently in a coma, so she couldn’t even come near Logan’s room. In the first place, the voice he just heard wasn’t a real voice, not even an auditory hallucination, but simply something Logan had momentarily recalled.

‘I’m covered in a cold sweat…’

He suddenly felt cold as the sweat dried. Who cares what happens to the scapegoat? Who cares about the people around the scapegoat, as long as I survive?

‘You’ve got some nerve. You threw a fit when your sister almost disappeared…’

Logan drank a glass of water. The hand setting the glass down was trembling slightly. The faint voice of a family member. It would have been quite a romantic touch in a movie, but Logan knew what that voice held. It was hatred. So much hatred for Logan that she felt like she would go crazy wanting to kill him, but she absolutely could not, she absolutely must not, so in the end, that hatred with nowhere to go could only arrive at herself.

‘Noona.’

It was a shock that his sister had almost disappeared, but the most shocking and unforgivable part was…

‘…I didn’t even know my noona hated me.’

Logan’s family was harmonious. Or so he had deluded himself. Everyone pretended to be a harmonious family. It was a place where ‘one must not be unhappy,’ so the unhappiness of his sister, who was the eldest by a much larger margin but had to compete for the position of heir because Logan was a genius, was erased.

The harmonious Esteban family was made possible thanks to the scapegoat named noona.

So wouldn’t a passing dog laugh at this? The happy Logan Esteban could sacrifice someone, but the unhappy Logan Esteban could not sacrifice anyone. Not anyone, he couldn’t. Logan realized this before he had even finished drinking the water.

‘But that doesn’t mean I can be the scapegoat.’

He has neither the wickedness to sacrifice others, nor the nobility to sacrifice himself. At this rate, he was disqualified from the prospective family head position he had obtained so cheaply and disgracefully by selling information on Cassis de Millang.

‘Is there no way for everyone to be safe?’

This wasn’t some hypothetical game theory; it was a real situation. And the person making the rules for this situation is Cassis de Millang. The rule to bring only one person was made by him in the first place.

Now, let’s seriously dig into him.

Not to snitch, but to find out about the person named Cassis.

It may sound sentimental, but Logan was in his most rational state since this incident began.

‘If we just comply with the rules he’s set, it’s impossible. If I can just find out a little more about him, so we can somehow get through this smoothly…’

…without any scapegoat.

It was unforgivable that he had pushed his sister into that corner out of laziness and ignorance, but now, to knowingly do a similar thing to someone else—he himself wouldn’t be able to bear it.

Logan had no idea what to do next, and not a single good plan came to mind, but he had made up his mind.

Now it was time to persuade the other two. Let’s not get carried away and act rationally.

Knock-knock-knock-knock-knock-knock.

This rough, impatient knocking was clearly Dietrich’s doing. This was good; he didn’t have to go find him. Logan opened the door and began to explain his plan to the storming Dietrich.

“We can’t go on like this. From now on, we need to, about Cassis de Millang…”

Dietrich cut Logan’s words off with a dismissive wave of his hand.

“Hey, enough.”

“Wait, why are you using mana,”

Logan’s plan had a critical flaw. And that was that everyone participating in this plan had to want to make a rational and correct judgment.

“I thought about it, and you’re the most suitable one, scapegoat.”

“Hey, you crazy bastard. What are you…”

“You die!”

“I won’t!”

While the three traitors were carrying on like that, the date of the school trip was fast approaching.