“Lady Odely!”
At that moment, the door flew open.
Theodore rushed into the room with the captain of the royal guards and several knights in tow.
“Are you unharmed?”
His eyes quickly swept across the room.
Zeke was still curled up on the floor, clutching his head, mumbling incoherently through sobs.
“What in the world…?”
Since they didn’t seem to understand the situation, Odely briefly summarized what had just happened.
“A man who has been embezzling the castle’s supplies for ten years was caught in the act of stealing and attempted to commit murder in a panic, so I subdued him.”
Theodore stood there dumbfounded for a moment after hearing the rapid explanation, then finally voiced the question that came to mind.
“…Who subdued him…?”
“I did.”
“…Pardon?”
The experienced butler somehow managed to understand her overly condensed explanation.
Accepting it, however, was another matter entirely.
With a frozen expression, Theodore asked,
“Lady Odely… you alone… subdued him…?”
His gaze shifted back and forth between Zeke, who was trembling violently on the floor, and Odely.
“It just happened that way.”
“……”
An awkward silence settled over the room.
The captain of the guards forgot himself for a brief moment, then snapped back to his senses and began tying up the barely conscious Zeke.
Even while writhing in indescribable agony, even as his entire body was bound, Zeke desperately shouted,
“Lady Odely knows nothing!”
His eyes overflowed with desperate obsession to survive and hatred toward the unbelievable reality before him.
“She keeps calling me an embezzler and a thief, but that’s nothing more than the accusations of an outsider! Who is really accusing whom here?!”
Beating his chest, Zeke pleaded his innocence.
“I’ve worked in this castle for ten years. Ten whole years!”
From his tone to his expression, he looked exactly like someone suffering from a terrible false accusation.
Odely simply looked down at him in silence.
Her gaze seemed to pierce straight through him.
Zeke’s composure gradually unraveled, and his voice became increasingly frantic.
“Even if my job was only managing the warehouse, I always gave it my all! I don’t even know what you’re accusing me of stealing. I only came back tonight to finish organizing what I’d forgotten earlier today…”
“Enough.”
Odely cut him off firmly.
As cleanly as a sharpened blade slicing through flesh.
With that single word, the air in the room turned icy.
“……”
Zeke still believed there was a way out.
Normally, once someone was caught red-handed, there was no coming back from it.
But this situation was different.
The only witness to the crime was Lady Odely—an outsider.
And the other person here was the butler.
Theodore had a soft heart.
Zeke knew Theodore clung so stubbornly to principles precisely because he wanted to hide that weakness.
He had planned to appeal to his emotions.
He could act as much as necessary.
If he knelt with a wronged expression and a trembling voice, surely even the butler would waver…
But…
Strangely, he couldn’t get another word out.
It felt as though something were choking him.
His normally silver tongue refused to move.
A spoiled noble girl who had grown up pampered simply because she was frail.
The Lady before him looked nothing like the image he’d carelessly pieced together from rumors.
He felt like a fool who had foolishly challenged a mountain with nothing but a sword.
Zeke swallowed hard without saying another word.
“Let’s stop pretending that years of service somehow grant immunity.”
At last, she spoke.
Her tone was quiet, but colder than ice.
“The evidence of everything you’ve done can be found in the ledger. I figured you’d kept a double ledger, so I searched for it… and, as expected, I found one.”
Odely opened the desk drawer.
Then she took out a ledger she had prepared in advance and held it up before his eyes.
The moment she presented the irrefutable evidence, Zeke’s eyes nearly bulged out of their sockets.
The color drained from his face.
“H-How did you…?!”
“I found it beneath the loose floorboard under your bed.”
Odely answered expressionlessly.
“In novels, that’s usually where people hide things. So I checked on a whim… and there it was.”
In truth, she knew its location from her previous life.
But she lied without batting an eye.
For a moment, Zeke could only stare blankly.
Wait…
She entered my room?
When?
Just this morning, he had confirmed the ledger was still safely hidden.
So that meant sometime after then…
“If we compare the handwriting, it’ll be obvious you wrote it. And once the records in the ledger are compared against the actual inventory, there won’t be any room for doubt.”
Odely calmly exposed every one of his crimes, but Zeke was no longer listening.
“Y-You broke into my room without permission? Who’s the real thief here?! You’re the thief!”
His face flushed bright red as he screamed at the top of his lungs.
Because beneath that floorboard, besides the ledger, were the jewels he had stolen from the annex.
Sweat trickled down his forehead.
But even at his desperate outburst, Odely didn’t so much as blink.
“Oh? I merely wanted evidence. Isn’t it rather absurd for the one who kept a double ledger to be the one losing his temper?”
She neither raised her voice nor mocked him.
Instead, she calmly, quietly, and mercilessly crushed him beneath her words.
Her tone remained composed, yet the sheer pressure behind it left Zeke feeling as though he couldn’t breathe.
If only the double ledger had been discovered, he might still have found some way to escape.
But if the stolen jewels were discovered as well, there would be absolutely no way out.
Stealing minor castle supplies and stealing valuable jewelry were crimes of entirely different weight.
One was misconduct.
The other was a serious felony.
But…
Why isn’t she mentioning the jewels?
Is she… just letting that part go?
“…!”
A thought suddenly flashed through Zeke’s mind like lightning.
Don’t tell me… she pocketed them herself?
Impossible.
No way.
Why would Lady Odely of House Cardel covet a handful of jewels?
The Cardel family was one of the richest houses in the Empire.
More importantly, they were the famed Hero House, admired by everyone.
And yet…
Was she stealing from a thief?
But Zeke didn’t dare voice that suspicion.
The moment he admitted he’d stolen the jewels from the annex, he would be finished.
Odely turned to Theodore and the captain of the guards.
“I don’t believe there’s any value in hearing anything more from him. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“……”
After a brief silence, Theodore nodded.
“…I have no objection to Lady Odely’s judgment.”
The captain of the guards grabbed Zeke roughly by the arm and yanked him to his feet.
“Get up. Someone like you has no right to keep talking.”
“W-Wait! Please let me speak with Lady Odely! I think Lady Odely took something that belongs to me—something precious!”
“What? Lady Odely? Stop talking nonsense.”
Only then did Zeke begin struggling desperately, but no one paid him any attention.
In the end, before he could even finish his final plea, he was dragged out through the door.
Comments (0)