Chapter 200
Even as a ruined noble, a noble was still a noble—Phiren lived with more than twenty servants.
But when I arrived today, the guard who used to stand at the main gate in pairs was alone.
In the main house, only Isabel was attending to Phiren.
“Margon, the servants who are still here... how many are left?”
When I went up to the bedroom, Margon had gone to the annex to greet his old colleagues, saying it had been months since he’d returned.
He rolled his brown eyes as he counted in his head, then opened his mouth with an uneasy expression.
“Only seven left. The rest all quit recently, apparently.”
“....”
“Now that I think about it, it’s a bit strange. They all worked here for a long time... Did Lord Phiren suddenly fall into poverty?”
Phiren, who lived and died by appearances, would rather starve himself than let his household look lacking.
There was no way he’d dismissed people because he lacked money.
I looked back down at the name list. Then I pointed to one of the names that wasn’t crossed out.
“Margon, among the people we saw today, were any of their names crossed out?”
Margon scanned the paper again and shook his head.
Maybe because of my anxious reaction, he lowered his voice, unease creeping into it.
“Lord Ceryl... do you have any idea what this list is?”
I wiped my face with both hands, trying to calm my pounding heart.
Varen, who had been flipping through magic books nearby, also stepped closer. Both of them fixed their eyes on me.
I pulled the scattered clues together one by one in my head and opened my mouth.
“Phiren said he couldn’t conduct a proper experiment without me. That he couldn’t confirm whether it was loyal to its master.”
At my explanation, Margon immediately looked down at Leobin’s name on the paper.
“But... he said he couldn’t do a proper experiment, not that he couldn’t experiment at all. To confirm whether this magic works, there are two things you have to check.”
“What do you need to check?”
“One is whether they’re absolutely loyal to their master—whether they’ll risk their life to protect them.”
As I answered Varen’s question, I met his eyes.
His blue gaze, heavy with displeasure, stared straight at me.
“That’s why he needs me. To confirm life-risking loyalty, the master has to be put in danger.”
“...I’ll burn them alive....”
Varen muttered under his breath and glared up at the ceiling, quietly cursing Phiren, who was probably sleeping soundly somewhere above us.
“What’s the other one?”
Margon asked quickly, his voice tight. He was already soaked in a tension he didn’t understand.
I rapidly pieced the information together in my head.
And as I drew closer to the conclusion, the words leaving my own mouth made my skin crawl.
“The core of this magic is that a human bound by it doesn’t die even when they die. Leobin... even with his lung pierced and an arrow through his neck, he couldn’t die.”
“.......”
“To check whether they die or not... you’d have to kill them first.”
Silence fell over the underground laboratory after I finished speaking.
Margon blinked in shock, then looked back down at the list. He murmured the names that were crossed out and the ones that weren’t.
After a moment, as if he had organized his thoughts, he let out a strained breath.
“Then... the crossed-out names... are already... dead?”
“Most likely.”
“...The ones not crossed out yet... they don’t die, right? Right?”
It seemed Phiren had used countless sacrifices to complete this cursed magic.
At first, he must have bought people whose deaths wouldn’t matter. And when it became harder to secure test subjects, he must have turned to the servants of the house.
Should I be grateful that not all of them are dead yet?
The thought twisted in my chest, and a sigh of remorse slipped out.
“...They’re still alive for now. But if Phiren resumes the experiments, they might die soon.”
Damn it. I lied that the magic had failed just to buy time.
If Phiren started experimenting again to find an error that didn’t even exist, more names would definitely be crossed out.
I ran a hand through my hair, anger simmering quietly. I thought it had just been a figure of speech—but Phiren really did treat human lives like toys.
Toys you played with until they broke, then threw away and replaced.
As I checked the remaining names again, a memory suddenly surfaced. I grabbed Margon’s shoulder in a hurry.
“Did Leobin have a younger sibling?”
“What? What are you talking about? Leobin didn’t have any sibling—”
“He said there was one still in this house. They should still be alive.”
If the sibling he mentioned had already died, there was no way Leobin wouldn’t have known.
Leobin had known everything about how I was doing, and he had said it wasn’t yet time for Margon to come.
Margon’s eyes darted in confusion. He searched his memory, then let out a low sound and spoke a name.
“Milo... I think. Not a blood sibling, but someone Leobin cared about like one.”
I hurriedly checked the list.
Milo, Milo, Milo... When I confirmed that the name wasn’t crossed out, I let out a breath of relief.
The night was still deep, and there was time before sunrise. But now there was something else I had to do. I shoved the list into my pack in a rush.
“Let’s get out of here for now. Margon, go bring Milo immediately.”
“Yes, understood.”
At my command, Margon dashed out of the basement.
I stood still, but my breathing grew rough as my heartbeat accelerated.
My fingertips trembled with anxiety, but I gathered everything in sight and slung the pack over my shoulder.
“Varen, did you take everything we need?”
Unlike Margon and me, Varen was leaning casually against the desk, completely at ease. The sight made my insides twist.
I grabbed his wrist and pulled him up, but he stopped dead and didn’t follow.
When I turned back with a frown, he asked in a flat voice.
“Can I kill the humans in this house?”
“...What?”
I reflexively asked back at the sudden question. Varen tilted his chin up and looked toward the ceiling.
“Two men, one woman. Only three humans sleeping in a house this large.”
The two men would be Phiren and his son, Days. The woman would be Isabel.
Isabel had worked in this house longer than anyone. She was completely on Phiren’s side, but her kindness had never excluded the young Ceryl.
I remembered her smile and answered quickly.
“No. Don’t kill the woman.”
“Why not? She’s human. One of the ones who made you suffer.”
“Isabel never hurt me. And as for Phiren and Days...”
I trailed off after saying their names.
If I had to name the person who had caused Ceryl the most pain, it was unquestionably Phiren. He was the one who had dragged Ceryl’s life into the mud.
Days Lavier hadn’t directly tormented Ceryl. But Phiren had wanted to put his son on the throne.
To do that, he killed his own older brother to eliminate a rival, brought in the young Ceryl, and used him like a chess piece while conditioning him.
So in the end, both of them had caused Ceryl pain. Just saying their names made my chest burn.
If I could, I wanted to kill them with my own hands. Especially Phiren, who had given me a life more painful than death—I didn’t want him to die easily.
I wanted him to suffer the worst possible death... one that would make him scream to be killed quickly instead.
“...No. Not yet.”
I let out a breath and pressed my fingers to my forehead. I had almost been swallowed again by Ceryl’s storm of emotions.
The rage and desire for revenge I felt right now weren’t mine.
I knew that clearly in my head, but my heart kept getting swept away by Ceryl’s emotions whenever it found an opening.
I have to stay calm at times like this.
I repeated it to myself over and over. It didn’t clear my thoughts, but I still shook my aching head.
After steadying my breath, I spoke again in a calmer voice.
“Phiren is connected to the higher-ups enough to place Ceryl into the fifth magical creature management facility. And in the past few months, he’s gotten even closer to the king.”
“So that’s a reason not to kill him?”
“It’s not that. It just means... it’s not time yet.”
Phiren knew nearly everything about the army of the dead.
If we could dig into that magic—the biggest variable in the coming war—and obtain detailed information, it would definitely give us an advantage.
And the network he had carefully built would also be useful. If we could reach King Laskar and his inner circle, we might even avoid a full-scale war against the royal army.
As I fell silent in thought, Varen tilted his head slightly and asked,
“Ceryl... is it because they’re your family?”
“What? What are you talking about?”
I snapped back sharply at his words.
Family? To the one who killed his parents? That was absurd.
I wasn’t some pacifist to begin with, but for those two, not even the smallest shred of human sympathy remained.
I frowned and shook Varen’s wrist.
“I’ve never once thought of those bastards as family.”