ITIF Chapter 111

News of Death

The knights gathered in front of the carriage exchanged glances with each other.

“Two of you stay here and guard the carriage.”

The two knights who were pointed out nodded their heads, and the other two knights rushed toward the direction where the scream had been heard.

“……!”

And the knights froze, gasping at the sight they witnessed.

Marquis and Marchioness Latse and the four knights surrounding them were all collapsed on the ground, bleeding.

The knights cautiously approached the Marquis and Marchioness Latse.

Gulp.

Dry saliva went down their naturally parched throats.

The faces of the knights who each placed their hands on the necks of the Marquis and Marchioness Latse to check if their pulses were beating darkened.

Just then, they sensed a presence.

Shing!

The knights quickly drew their swords and aimed them at the other party.

“P-please spare me…….”

Startled by the suddenly thrust swords, a middle-aged man raised both arms high in a gesture of surrender and pleaded, terrified.

Only then did the knights survey their surroundings. Besides the middle-aged man, there were quite a few people standing at a distance, looking in their direction.

“It seems they were hiding in fear.”

The culprit was skilled enough to take down four elite knights in one sweep.

For commoners with no martial prowess whatsoever, hiding and watching would have been their only option.

“Did you see what happened here just now?”

The knight finally lowered his sword and asked.

“I-I don’t know exactly. I just heard a scream and came running just now…….”

The middle-aged man trailed off, sweating profusely. Then someone shouted.

“Bandits, it was a band of bandits!”

The knight turned his head in the direction the voice came from.

“Bandits, you say……?”

An old woman grabbed the child’s shoulder as if telling them to stay still, but the child shouted again.

“Yes, Sir Knight! After harming these people, they went that way.”

The knights looking in the direction the child pointed exchanged glances. After briefly pondering whether to believe the child’s words, one knight asked another knight.

“I think you said you had a child around that age too?”

“That’s correct.”

“Do children lie?”

“Rather than deliberately lying, they sometimes experience confusion with their senses. Sometimes they talk about things that happened days ago as if they happened today…….”

Before the questioned knight could finish speaking, they encountered knights who had returned from checking out an inn for the Marquis and Marchioness Latse to stay at.

“What on earth…… what happened here?”

They too seemed shocked by the horrific scene.

“We’re trying to find that out right now…….”

The knight with the highest rank among the Marquis and Marchioness Latse’s guards looked at the horrific scene with a distressed expression.

Even if his survival was due to good luck, he now had no proper place to return to anyway.

There would be no family willing to take in a knight who failed to protect his master.

****

It was when Giselle Grante, Lady Greykin, and Lady Howard were having afternoon tea time in the garden.

The massive iron gate of the duke’s residence opened and a single horse carrying a knight came galloping quickly.

“I wonder what’s going on?”

Lady Howard stood up with a face full of curiosity. This was because the knight’s figure couldn’t be seen, hidden by the ornamental trees.

“He’s stopping his horse in front of the fountain.”

Lady Howard explained the situation.

“Is that so?”

Then Lady Greykin also stood up and approached in that direction.

Sticking closely together and craning their necks, the sight of the two looking beyond the ornamental trees with interested eyes was exactly like a pair of meerkats.

Giselle Grante was watching the two with a pleased smile on her lips when it happened.

Lady Howard shouted in a somewhat excited voice.

“The knight is rushing quickly into the mansion!”

Lady Howard and Lady Greykin’s heads slowly moved toward the mansion and then stopped.

After staring at one spot for a while, the two simultaneously turned their heads toward Giselle Grante and said.

“It seems there’s some new news?”

“Yes, I think so too!”

Giselle Grante slowly rose to her feet and said.

“Let’s go to the mansion as well.”

The three of them moved quickly toward the mansion without anyone going first.

“…….”

Though their hearts were urgent, the dress tangling around their legs with each step felt truly cumbersome.

After glancing around once, Giselle Grante firmly grasped the voluminous hem of her dress with both hands and walked vigorously toward the mansion.

Lady Greykin, who had been glancing at that sight, grabbed her dress hem and quickened her pace, and Lady Howard also followed the two ahead without hesitation.

“It seemed like something very urgent, but what could it be about?”

As Lady Greykin broached the subject, Lady Howard replied.

“Wouldn’t it be something related to Marquis Antares?”

“I suppose you heard something related to that from that person in the Imperial Palace?”

Lady Greykin asked, lowering her voice a bit.

She still didn’t know who Lady Howard’s friend in the Imperial Palace was.

“No, that’s not it. This is just my speculation.”

Lady Howard waved her hands with a troubled expression, and Lady Greykin sighed softly.

“Ah…….”

When the three entered the mansion, a maid standing at the entrance bowed at the waist.

“Where did the knight from earlier go?”

When Lady Howard asked, the maid answered.

“He went to Duke Cardia’s study.”

“Let’s go there too.”

Saying that, Giselle Grante moved toward the study where Kavelaseth was.

Inside the study were Kavelaseth, Count Preston, and the knight who had arrived on horseback earlier.

Seeing the three entering the study, Kavelaseth said.

“Good timing. I was just about to send for you.”

As the three approached the knight, Kavelaseth gave him a look telling him to speak.

“Marquis and Marchioness Latse have died.”

“……!”

A moment of silence fell over the study. But soon Count Preston asked.

“Has it been determined how that happened?”

Instead of speaking immediately, the knight observed the young ladies’ complexions.

He seemed to be gauging whether the noble young ladies would be shocked by the dreadful story.

“I’m fine.”

At Lady Howard’s words, Lady Greykin, with a pale face devoid of color, also agreed.

“Me too. Please continue.”

Giselle Grante also nodded. Only then did the knight continue explaining the situation.

“I received orders from His Grace not long ago to follow the Marquis and Marchioness Latse. Although I pursued them urgently, since the Marquis and Marchioness Latse left in such a hurry, I couldn’t catch up closely.”

The Empress had probably deliberately made the Marquis and Marchioness Latse leave in a hurry to prevent pursuers from following.

Since she was misunderstanding that Marquis Latse’s family was trying to side with Duke Cardia, one could roughly guess what the Empress’s purpose had been.

“While hurrying after them, I encountered the Marquis and Marchioness Latse’s party in a small town in the west, but by then the Marquis and Marchioness Latse had already become cold corpses.”

“Who did it?”

At Kavelaseth’s question, the knight shook his head and said.

“I didn’t witness the scene with my own eyes, but those who were there said it was the work of a band of bandits.”

“Bandits?”

As Kavelaseth raised one eyebrow questioningly, the knight nodded and answered.

“That’s correct.”

“……That’s strange.”

As Giselle Grante subtly raised a question, Lady Howard asked as if she didn’t quite understand.

“What’s strange about it?”

Giselle Grante and Kavelaseth exchanged glances, and then the knight explained.

“The number of knights escorting the Marquis and Marchioness Latse was absolutely not small. They wouldn’t have been lacking in skill either. The fact that trained knights were annihilated by mere bandits doesn’t make sense no matter how much I think about it…….”

Only then did Lady Howard nod with an understanding expression.

****

After the knight finished his report and left, those gathered in the study also dispersed.

Lady Howard and Lady Greykin returned to the garden saying they would continue their briefly interrupted tea time, and Count Preston left the Duke Cardia’s residence saying he would check on the external situation.

Giselle Grante returned to her bedroom to quietly organize her thoughts.

Lindsey, who was standing by the window holding a wool duster, saw Giselle Grante and asked puzzled.

“……Hm? Miss, did you forget something?”

“I just–have something to think about alone, so I came up first.”

“Ah…… I was just finishing cleaning, shall I prepare some tea?”

Giselle Grante lightly shook her head.

Then Lindsey nodded as if she understood and quietly closed the bedroom door and left.

Approaching the window, Giselle Grante looked down at the young ladies still conversing in the garden visible from her room.

She couldn’t tell what the two were talking about due to the distance, but the conversation seemed unending.

Lady Howard periodically visited Duke Cardia’s residence to relay messages from Lady Blatnik, who had become the Empress’s lady-in-waiting, and Lady Greykin had been staying here continuously since the Empress’s assassination attempt.

Whether they liked it or not, they had to keep seeing each other for a while, so it was fortunate that Lady Howard and Lady Greykin seemed to get along well.

Giselle Grante, who had been watching them with satisfaction, thought about the sudden deaths of the Marquis and Marchioness Latse.

‘Was their death really a coincidence?’