Chapter 1:  The End

A luxurious round black table.

The wood grain was so vivid that each line seemed alive, beautiful to behold.

On top of it rested a brilliant golden goblet.

It looked as though any cheap liquor poured into this cup would taste like something divine.

Even if its contents happened to be the deadly “poison.”

I picked up the golden goblet calmly.

Then, I humbly drank it.

While gazing at the solemn portrait of the previous Grand Duke of the North.

“――――――.”

While I drank, it was terribly noisy outside the mansion.

As if the citizens of the Empire had started a rebellion, countless footsteps echoed from the first floor.

The noise was so loud that the tightly shut glass windows trembled.

I knew exactly what that commotion was.

A thirty-year-old man who had recently been declared an emergency wanted criminal.

The footsteps of knights trying to capture me, Julius Roger.

I had been the chief secretary of Duke Luton, the Grand Duke who ruled over the northern provinces of the Empire.

The person closest to the Grand Duke, entrusted with the management of his vast wealth.

Yet perhaps it was because I came to handle such enormous power.

I had committed a grave mistake.

I had laid my hands on the Grand Duke’s property.

“You search the first floor! The rest of you, follow me to the second!!”

The crime of embezzling the wealth of one of the most powerful figures in the Empire.

To prosecute that crime, the North’s most elite knights had gathered here.

Yet I felt no agitation at the approaching footsteps.

On the contrary, while the knights made their way here…

I simply and quietly admired the beautiful masterpiece hanging on the office wall, as if I had all the time in the world.

“When was it that I acquired that?”

A young girl in a ball gown, dancing gracefully.

A painting so famous that everyone who saw it would recall their first love from their purest days.

Because of that, its value had soared beyond measure.

High enough to buy several buildings with ease.

But everyone had mocked the idea that anyone would invest a fortune in a mere pile of paints.

In fact, when I suggested purchasing this masterpiece, even the shrewd Grand Duke tried to dissuade me.

Nevertheless, I pressed on insistently and, in the end, hung this work here in the office.

And to this day, the Grand Duke’s eldest son, now head of the family, still occasionally praised my decision to buy it.

The reason was simple.

All the wealth the Grand Duke had accumulated over the years.

All that murky money others had offered as bribes to climb higher…

I had hidden it beneath that girl’s skirt.

Assets with unclear origins were always at risk of being seized and investigated for taxes.

But with art, whose value shifted in real time, it was hard to define it precisely as wealth.

Maintaining the artwork’s value was simple.

No—there wasn’t even any need to put in the effort.

The mere rumor that the Grand Duke of the North had invested in it was enough advertisement.

Rather, as the days passed, the price climbed higher still, and it came to be regarded as a legendary masterpiece.

In this way, over the past ten years, I had collected dozens of such works in the mansion.

“It probably doesn’t mean anything anymore…”

With a lonely gaze, I looked around the chief secretary’s office.

As though I were about to set off on a long journey from which I would never return.

Perhaps I was afraid of that long journey, for my legs gradually began to tremble.

Even my well-fitted suit clung to my body as if it were drenched in water.

Yet, I betrayed no sign of discomfort.

Never showing unease before others.

Quietly supporting my master like a shadow.

That was the secretary’s duty.

To reach this position, I had been rigorously trained in those rules.

Thanks to that, it seemed I had long forgotten how to show any emotion at all.

“……”

I simply closed my eyes slowly.

Then, before departing, I waited for the last guest of the ducal house I would meet.

The harsh sounds of military boots came from outside.

The moment they finally halted before the door…

Bang――――!!

The grand door of the office swung open with all its might.

At that thunderous sound, my tightly shut eyelids slowly lifted.

“Julius Roger.”

The cold voice of a female knight filled the office.

At her entrance, even the golden chalice resting on the round table quivered faintly.

For the one standing before me was the most composed person in the Luton household.

“Lady Echina.”

Golden eyes gleaming within her fine black hair.

Echina Luton—the Grand Duke’s second daughter, whom I had served for ten years, and now the current commander of the knights.

“I did not expect you to come arrest me yourself.”

Wearing a white uniform tailored precisely to her figure, the knight pointed her sword at me.

Yet in those golden eyes of hers, there was neither murderous intent nor anger.

“Was it truly your doing…?”

There was only a desperate sincerity.

As if she still could not believe that I was the culprit who embezzled the estate’s wealth.

“What are you referring to?”

When I answered in my usual friendly tone, the Grand Duchess raised her other hand into a clenched fist.

The knights accompanying her began to retreat a step at a time.

“You know exactly what I mean. Was it truly you who funneled my father’s wealth out to another nation?”

She was a woman who, more than anyone, rarely let her feelings show.

For in order to survive as a knight in this frigid northern land, one had to be colder still.

“Answer me.”

But now, she was straining to conceal the turmoil in her heart.

Her soft, red lips trembled ever so slightly, proving it.

“…Yes.”

Within my black hair, my vacant eyes gleamed faintly.

Even the black mole beneath my eye, like some sly betrayer, seemed to smile.

But.

“No—it is not.”

As expected, none of it worked on her, who had grown up in this household with me for over ten years.

Rather, she glared coldly, as if resenting me for lying even to her.

“You’re only taking the blame because Eric’s misdeeds came to light—because there was no other way.”

Echina’s sharp gaze wavered ever so slightly.

Like a golden sea gently rippling.

“Just as all the secretaries before you have done.”

As she said, it had always been my task to cover up the ducal family’s mistakes.

That was the secretary’s duty.

But this time, even she could not understand me.

That I, a mere commoner, would shoulder the blame for the embezzlement of slush funds committed by Eric—

Her own elder brother and the Grand Duke’s heir.

“But this time, it’s not something that can be brushed aside so easily.”

Life imprisonment, of course, and possibly torture to track down the embezzled funds.

“You might never see daylight again.”

As the commander of the knights, she knew this all too well.

That was why she had wanted, more than anything, to prevent me from becoming the tail to be cut off.

She simply could not understand why I had chosen a path that was practically suicide.

“Even someone as slippery as you…”

The tip of the sword she aimed at me quivered slightly.

The Grand Duchess of the North slowly shook her head with a sorrowful look.

“So…”

As she shook her head, a single hot tear slid down her cold face.

The Grand Duchess of the North, who was so famous for her unfeeling nature.

“Please, stop…”

I averted my gaze from her trembling face.

Because I had no idea how to react to the sadness in Echina’s eyes—something I was seeing for the first time in my life.

Even for me, a secretary of ten years, this was not a common thing.

“Yes. No matter how cunning I am, this time, it will be difficult to escape.”

Since drinking the liquor, an unbearable pain had been steadily rising in my stomach.

In the midst of that agony, I barely clung to my fading consciousness.

“I will have to bear alone all the sins the current Grand Duke has accumulated.”

When I blankly looked up at the ceiling, my head felt as though it were spinning.

It seemed as if the blood flowing through my entire body were surging back against itself.

“And so, wouldn’t it be more convincing to the Imperial family if a man of my standing were captured as the culprit?”

“So you mean to shoulder everything yourself… and end it here…?”

The black-haired knight slowly approached my staggering figure.

At that moment—

“…!!”

With practiced ease, she caught me as I collapsed.

And in the emptiness of my body, like a shell hollowed out, she finally realized how grave the situation had become.

“No…”

As I fell, the golden goblet that had rested on the round table clattered to the floor.

The black liquid inside began to seep slowly across the ground.

Realizing what that liquid was, the Grand Duchess bit her trembling lip.

“Ten years ago… Do you remember?”

I slowly looked up at her, her eyes tightly shut.

And I spoke softly.

“When my family was on the brink of ruin and bankruptcy, on that day, Duke Luton reached out his hand to me.”

I tried, somehow, to dress my choice up in rational words.

Because I thought it might ease the guilt of the family I had served.

“From the moment I took that hand, I made a vow.”

No matter who became the Grand Duke.

No matter what he ordered me to do.

“I would always protect the house of the Grand Duke.”

That was the secretary’s duty.

“This isn’t like you…”

Echina supported my collapsing body.

My head slowly came to rest on her warm, comforting thigh.

“So reckless and extreme…”

Not like me.

At those words, I couldn’t answer for a moment.

‘Perhaps she really was right.’

By all rights, I should have already drunk from the chalice and locked the office door behind me.

I should have closed my eyes quietly.

So that when Echina came to track me down, she would not be hurt in any way.

Like an old dog hiding away to die so its master wouldn’t have to witness it.

But for some reason, I simply couldn’t bring myself to do it.

As though I were in some belated adolescence, I wanted to see someone before I died.

And perhaps… I wanted someone to know about this hollow death of mine.

It was, without question, a selfish act—something completely unlike me.

“Perhaps you’re right.”

With great effort, I reached out my hand and brushed the cold cheek of the Grand Duchess.

Soft skin and a single trail of tears.

I savored that sensation, which might be the last touch I ever knew in this life.

“But it seems you have changed too, my lady.”

With the final strength I had left, I lifted the corners of my mouth.

And I forced a smile at Echina, who had lived all her life as the fierce second daughter of the ducal house.

Even she, who once felt as little as I did—

Now, in this moment—

Was able to weep.

“Because you’ve learned how to feel ‘compassion’ for others.”

But—

Even as she saw my smile, the Grand Duchess did not smile back.

Instead, she bit her red lip as though trying to hold back the ache boiling up inside her.

“It’s not pity…”

Her cold, official tone, the voice she’d used to come here on duty, had changed.

It was warm and familiar now, like the voice of family.

“It’s not pity, Julius.”

At the sight of how much she had changed, even my smile finally faded.

Because I had only now realized the meaning of the tears she was shedding.

“It wasn’t Father or Eric—”

The Grand Duchess sank to the floor, still cradling my face.

Because she bowed her head, her fine black hair fell over me like a veil.

In that instant, her hair shut out the rest of the world, leaving only the two of us behind.

And in that space, she let out an emotion she had never shown me before.

“What am I supposed to do now… when you leave me like this…!!”

Her golden eyes, always hard as amber, began to shake.

At last, tears spilled hot and bright from her eyes.

“My lady…”

On my face, which had been turning cold, her fervent feelings fell.

And for just a moment, they reignited the fading ember of life within me.

“All my life, I have only ever lived for others.”

I looked up at Echina, whose eyes were brimming with tears, and felt a quiet pity.

And with the last strength in my body, I smiled again.

“That is why… there were so many times when life felt empty to me.”

But this smile was different from all the false ones I had worn until now.

“But in this moment… I’ve finally understood.”

With what little strength I had, I reached out and brushed her soft cheek.

And as I met her shimmering gaze, I spoke.

“Perhaps… I’ve lived a life more blessed than I ever deserved.”

As I looked upon her face for the last time, my consciousness began to drift away.

That I had to die before a woman who had cared for me this deeply—

It filled me with a bitter regret.

“Thank you.”

Leaving behind the final words I had always wanted to say to her, I closed my eyes.

At last, the boisterous mansion of the Grand Duke of the North fell quiet.

Brilliant noon sunlight poured over us.

And in that light, the Grand Duchess of the North held the bloodless man in her arms and wept as though her heart would break.

That was the final moment of my life.

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