After I was officially announced as the Proxy Blood Fate's successor to face off against Syl, the world around me changed overnight into something entirely different.
The first thing to change was the annex.
The servants who usually clung to me under the pretense of "taking care of me," but in reality spent their days monitoring and exploiting me.
Those scum were now...
"P-Please, spare us! Mercy...! We were just following orders!"
"Y-Young Master! Give us a chance to beg forgiveness from the Family Head—!"
"Aaaagh!! No—!! Please!!"
The moment I stepped into the annex, I was greeted by screams begging for life and the stench of blood.
As if to show that the very air in this mansion had changed, the corridors were filled with the family's direct guards wielding swords, methodically cutting down fleeing servants and leaving them sprawled on the floor.
A servant whose thigh had been sliced open mid-escape.
A maid who knelt in repentance only to have her neck snapped and crumple backward.
Even a guard who drew his sword while wailing about injustice, only to be riddled with blades from all directions in an instant.
Before a single verse of a song could be sung, the entire annex had been swept clean in a purge so brutal it could hardly be called mere "cleanup."
And the culprit behind this chaos.
Seratina Argent.
She wasn't here.
Because just moments ago, she'd already been summoned by the Family Head and was kneeling in another room, barely able to breathe as she awaited her judgment.
The moment her surveillance network was exposed, her fate had been sealed far quicker than that of the other servants in the annex.
The annex was a bloodbath of splattering crimson and pandemonium, but Seratina had been brought before Agram first and was already in a state of suffocating dread, waiting for her disposal.
And all the screams grew thicker by the moment, fueled by their ugly survival instincts as they betrayed and sold each other out.
With every one who died, another wailed even louder.
Begging for life... or ratting out the guy next to them.
Amid that hellish cacophony, I leaned against the doorframe with my arms crossed, slowly letting a smile creep across my face.
"If I weren't underage, I'd crack open a bottle of liquor right now. Where else am I gonna find appetizers like this...?"
Right then.
"M-Master... over there..."
"Hm?"
Piel, who had been sticking close to my side, cautiously pointed to one spot.
The annex's people collapsing into bloody messes.
The ones who had been screaming, shrieking, crawling, and dying just moments ago.
At the spot her tiny finger indicated, someone had crawled right up to my feet.
Covered in blood, on the verge of death.
But like she was grasping at her last lifeline, a woman knelt before me.
Karen.
It was Karen, my former exclusive maid.
"L-Lucas, Young Master! It's... it's me, Karen!"
"Oh, Karen. What is it?"
Karen rubbed her hands together frantically, practically slamming her forehead to the floor.
"P-Please, just spare me! I'm the servant who's been with you the longest...! They say even hatred can turn to affection over time—surely you won't really kill me, right?"
Her voice was like a crumpled sheet of paper, completely crushed.
Eyes that would cling to anything for survival.
And honestly, the saying about sour grapes turning sweet wasn't entirely wrong.
Karen had been Lucas's nursemaid since the day his mother died, raising the child at the snap of a command.
Of course, her methods were the problem.
She'd jab needles into him before even speaking to wake him, force him to bathe in the filthy water used to mop the mansion floors, and skim all his food budget, leaving Lucas a scrawny chick with bones showing through his skin.
Still... affection does build for those you've seen for a long time.
I gently wrapped my arms around Karen's shoulders.
Embracing her tightly.
"Of course, Karen. After all the time we've spent together, how could I ever forget you?"
"Y-Young Master...!"
Karen's face instantly relaxed.
A sigh of relief escaped her trembling shoulders.
Piel quietly drew in a breath.
Her eyes showed no tears, no pity—just calmly watching the scene.
I glanced at her briefly before turning back to Karen.
Today was the day to settle that long-standing "sour affection."
"Karen, listen carefully from now on."
I placed my hand on her kneeling shoulder.
"This is a direct order from the Family Head, so... I can't openly save your life. But faking your death and letting you escape? That much I can do."
"Ah, aah! Young Master, really...!"
A spark of hope burst from her despair.
Karen's eyes lit up in an instant.
And right then.
"Lucas, sir, that maid over there...?"
"Step back. We'll handle it per the Family Head's orders."
The guards cleaning up the bloody mess in the annex finally approached us.
Karen's body froze, trembling like ice.
That shiver transmitted straight to my fingertips.
I tilted my head slightly to meet Karen's eyes.
Slowly, meaningfully, I winked at her with one eye.
"About that handling..."
I stood up slowly and turned toward the guards.
"I want to do it myself."
"Y-Yes?!"
"You mean you wish to do it personally, Lucas, sir?"
"Yes."
I nodded.
As if revealing a deep resolve from my heart.
"This Karen sitting here... she's like the nursemaid who raised me. If she has to die, isn't it less cruel for me to send her off with my own hands than to let strangers tear her apart?"
The guards fell silent for a moment, exchanging glances.
Then I calmly extended my palm and said,
"So, the bows and arrows you're using right now. Lend them to me, just for a bit."
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
They say even if the sky falls, there's a way out—and this moment was exactly what they meant.
She'd tormented Lucas his whole life... yet astonishingly, even in this slaughterhouse, the young master wore an expression promising to spare Karen.
The beneficiary was overcome with gratitude and emotion... like hell she was.
"Pfft!"
The tears streaming down her face like a mask weren't from感动—they were calculation.
She was sneering inwardly.
Because from the start, she'd been steadily siphoning Lucas's living expenses in cahoots with the annex staff, amassing "escape funds" to one day flee this mansion.
This was actually an unexpected corruption purge.
When the Family Head's direct guards burst in and servants started dropping one by one amid screams, Karen truly thought it was over in this living hell.
But—
A path to survival always opens in the most unexpected places.
Thanks to the naive, worldly-ignorant young master who still saw Karen as his "affectionate old maid."
"Karen."
Lucas, handed the bow, whispered in a low, quick voice.
Too soft and fast for the guards to hear.
"The moment I draw the bowstring, run for the mansion entrance. That's how you'll live."
Hearing that alone convinced Karen she could survive.
If the young master was personally letting her go, what more did she need?
"Young Master. Thank you!"
Her lips trembled in feigned感動, but deep in her chest, a completely different emotion bloomed.
'Stupid bastard... thanks to you, I survive again.'
And the moment the signal came, Karen bolted without looking back.
An "arrow" whistled through the air behind her.
Or rather, could you even call it whistling?
Thud, thud—
It fell limply to the ground, the perfect display of the young master's utter incompetence with a bow.
Well, Lucas had barely even held chopsticks properly because of her, after all.
His always-starving, trembling arms could hardly spoon up even broth without solids.
No wonder an arrow from him lacked the strength to pierce the wind.
Karen, knowing that fact all too well, glanced back twice while running and smirked.
Even fleeing alone through the blood-soaked chaos, what curled her lips wasn't fear—it was triumph.
'People really do need luck to survive.'
As the exit came into view, Karen's mind was already leaping to post-escape fantasies.
Just get past this, and it's over.
With the money skimmed from the Argent annex, she could live leisurely forever.
Lifetime shopping? Luxury?
Or—keh, something even more fun.
She recalled the official heirs treating their slaves like toys.
There was fear, sure... but honestly, "envy" was stronger.
She'd tormented Lucas plenty, but she always had to stop short of killing him.
That had always been her regret.
"Once I'm out... maybe I'll start a slave business myself?"
She couldn't match the Argents, but picking boys to her taste, playing with them freely, and reveling in their screams as "Queen" play? Totally doable.
Savoring that sweet fantasy, Karen nearly screamed inwardly at the exit right before her eyes.
Right then—
Pfuk!
"...Huh?"
An "alien sensation" surged through her right arm.
Followed immediately by searing agony.
As her gaze trembled down to her arm, she saw the arrowhead firmly embedded, piercing her flesh.
"Kkh...!"
No time to even feel the pain—
Pfuk!
This time, her left arm.
With both arms dangling limp, she couldn't run—could barely stumble forward.
Still desperate to live, somehow dragging her feet toward the threshold—
Pfuk!
"Kh, aaaagh...!"
Now her right foot.
Three arrows, precisely hitting non-lethal spots.
Thoroughly avoiding vitals while completely sealing escape... such skill.
'Wh-Why? Why why why!?'
Karen's mind went completely blank.
The young master was a bastard kid who'd never even touched a crossbow, let alone a bow—one of nobility's basic skills—until today?
No, more than that, he'd clearly promised to let her live!
As those desperate thoughts tangled, once more—pfuk!
The final arrow pierced her left ankle.
Snap.
Her ankle nearly severed halfway, her body couldn't hold and buckled backward.
Karen spat a bloodcurdling scream unfit for human ears as she crashed to the floor.
Her overturned vision flipped, and amid the blood-soaked forms spreading across the ground, she saw Lucas Argent's face.
And—
His moving lips.
The moment she read that one sentence, even in death, Karen felt her breath "stop."
"Karen. This is the order you stabbed me in when I was a baby."
Only then did the memory resurface.
Right arm.
Left arm.
Right leg.
Left leg.
Whenever baby Lucas tried to crawl, Karen would block him and pull out her needle.
To stop his cries and keep him still, she'd prick his skin in sequence: right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg—forcing the child to behave.
A story from over ten years ago.
Crimes from when the baby couldn't possibly remember.
Yet he repaid them exactly, without a single deviation in order.
"Ah, aaah... aaaaaaah—!"
Karen had stopped after four stabs, but Lucas had no reason to.
"S-Spare me... please, let me live! I'm sorry... I won't torment you anymore, I'll pick on some other kid, please!!"
It was the first time.
Her begging for her life, staking it all, to the bastard she'd crushed her whole life.
Lucas looked down at her and smiled instead.
As if thankful, as if he'd waited so long.
And he drew the bowstring.
"Karen."
Karen's eyes bulged.
"Thanks to you, now I can finally sleep easy."
Pfuk.
The arrow dove straight into her open throat, as if to pry it wider.
Blood splashed across the floor like ripples.
Thus, Karen's body fell still—not toward the "new life" she'd craved her whole life, but alongside the bill for the evils of her past.
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