“You…shameless bastard!”
Brod shouted out to Shalom while protecting Joachim. Even though he personally thought Biyom was trash, he still respected Biyom as one of the Count’s family. He thought Biyom shouldn’t be discarded and treated like some kind of diseased animal.
“Hmmm, you call me shameless.”
Shalom smiled mockingly just like the older knights in front of the inner gate.
“…Are you really responsible for spreading the diseases?” Joachim asked carefully.
“Yeah. I spread it.”
“For what reason?”
“For judgment!”
Like a lord making a stern judgment, Shalom said this with gravity and assurance. And from this, Zich found the answer to one of his most pressing questions.
‘Ah, that guy is not Fest.’
The Fest he was familiar with would not say something like that.
‘Now, there’s only one suspect left.’
While Zich calmly made deductions about Fest’s identity, the conversation between Shalom and Joachim continued.
“What do you mean by judgment? Your words are absurd. If you are so great that you can make judgments, who are you judging in this situation? Is it my family?”
“Yes. I have a lot of people in mind, but the first group that I have to judge the most harshly and cruelly is you and your family. It is my greatest regret that I left you to that robed man. I should have also judged you with my own hands.”
‘Also?’ Joachim repeated Shalom’s words inside his mind. Since Shalom said ‘also,’ there must be other people who he wanted to pass judgments on; Biyom was obviously included in this group of people, but Joachim felt that Shalom meant something else. An awful thought emerged from his mind.
“Wait, was the reason why my father fell ill—!”
Shalom laughed out loud. His laugh was cruel and evil. “Yep. I did that.”
“You bastard!”
Joachim’s efforts to remain calm went up in smoke. His wrath erupted forth and it was so intense that it felt almost tangible.
“It was really difficult to turn your father into this state. Unlike weak asses like you and your brother, the Count was a really strong person. His natural resistance against diseases is unbelievable. But whatever, I was successful in turning him into this pitiful state.”
“Why! My father was the one who let you work as a butler when you couldn’t work as a knight anymore! How can you pay back his generosity with revenge! Bastards like you are—!”
“Shut up!” Shalom’s shout rang throughout the house. “Generosity? You say generosity? Your father forcefully held me captive as a butler! How can I feel thankful to this asshole!”
“He held you captive?”
“Yes! He held me captive! As his accomplice, he wanted to spy on me and keep me in check so that I wouldn’t spout out his secret!”
An accomplice. It was definitely not a positive word. Considering what Shalom previously said about making judgments, Joachim became more confused about the situation.
“…What the hell happened?”
“Heh! Are you curious? Fine. Since the situation has turned to shit, I will tell you what happened. Do you remember how infectious diseases spread around this estate ten years ago?”
“…Yeah, I remember.”
Infectious diseases were not calamities that appeared once every hundred years. They were common occurrences and spread quickly among people. However, Joachim remembered that the infectious disease that spread ten years ago was particularly dreadful.
Shalom pointed his fingers at the unconscious Count.
“At that time, this guy employed all efforts to stop the spread of the disease. Many people died as a result, but his tactics showed some favorable results. However, the estate also suffered a heavy financial loss.”
Since many of the populace died, the amount of available human labor and taxes greatly decreased. At the same time, the Count’s efforts to stop the spread of the disease caused a serious dent in the estate’s finances. As a result, the estate possessed a massive amount of debt. Even though they were able to stop the disease, there was an intense “side-effect.”
“I know that as well. However, my father did an excellent job in overcoming this dilemma.”
“Excellent? Overcome?”
Shalom’s face twisted like a demon. He looked as if he wanted to pull out Joachim’s tongue and stuff it back inside his mouth to stop him from talking.
“You spout nonsense because you don’t know anything! In order to save the estate’s finances, your father screwed over a whole lot of people!” His shout carried tremendous pain. “The disease that spread ten years ago was Horim!”
Horim—out of the known diseases in the world, it was renowned for being deadly and ferocious. Out of all the diseases, it competed at the very top places with other dangerous diseases in fatalities and transmission rates. Horim was called a devil’s curse because it not only completely destroyed people but animals as well.
“Because your father was pressured by his piling debts, he secretly collected the corpses of infected animals. And then he spread it around the places that he owed money to!” Unimaginable words came out of Shalom’s mouth. People’s faces became pale. A shiver ran down their backs, and their hearts thumped fiercely. But most of all, Joachim’s face was as white as a corpse.
Shalom continued, “Then, of course, Horim appeared a second time to plague the people around us! And the new cases concentrated in places that your father owed money to. Places that trusted your father and his estates to pay their money back to! And as expected, the great amount of debt your father owed disappeared, and the estate was able to escape its dangerous financial situation.”
“Don’t lie! If places that my father owed debts to were the only ones to get plagued by the disease again, everyone would have definitely become suspicious of my father!”
“It was because your father secretly borrowed money while accepting the high interest! While borrowing the money, he made excuses like he did not want to discredit the estate anymore!”
“The people who lent him money didn’t even leave a promissory note?”
“Don’t you know that places infected by Horim are burned completely to the ground! Everything has to be burned! Even the building with the promissory notes was burned to the ground!”
Joachim could no longer talk.
“And as you said, your father is not stupid. He also spread Horim to other areas besides the places he owed money to—in places that would not affect the estate if they completely disappeared. At this point, people just thought they were experiencing a second wave of Horim. No one thought that someone would purposely release it again.”
According to Joachim’s memory, he recalled that Horim significantly disappeared at one point and then rose up again a second time.
“Of course, not everyone died. Some people were not infected by Horim, and there were also some places that still had their promissory notes. The Count was very good at repaying the few people who were left. However, the estate was stable because a lot of the debt was gone. And most of all, it was because the place that the Count owed the most debt to collapsed.”
At this point, Shalom’s bloodlust rose a level higher.
“The Bargot Business.”
People held their breath. They remembered Greta Bargot’s great efforts to contain the epidemic.
‘Is he saying that the Bargot Trading House collapsed because of that old man lying on the bed?’
Zich stared at Count Dracul.
“Do you know what’s funnier? The Bargots lent their money out of the kindness of their hearts, unlike places that did it for their personal gains or to obtain interest from the money they lent. The Bargots said that since they started their business at the Dracul estate, they wanted to get involved and help as much as possible.”
“I can’t believe it!” Joachim denied Shalom’s claims.
He didn’t want to believe his father’s faults, which he had never even heard of before. Yet, Shalom relentlessly crushed Joachim’s hopes by continuing, “Who do you think carried out his orders? Do you really not understand why the Count forced me to become the butler of this household and why all the older knights took my side?!”
“…You guys are the people who executed my father’s plans.”
“Only people with tight lips and high resistance to diseases could move the corpses of people and animals who died from the epidemic. At that time, I thought that his orders were what was best for the Count, the people, and this estate. And above all, I was still caught up in the delusion that a knight had to always be loyal to their lord at all times.”
A delusion—that’s how Shalom described the loyalty that a knight should have for their lord.
“I was young, foolish, and ignorant. I was so beyond help that I can’t describe myself with all the insults in the world. But insulting myself doesn’t erase my past actions, so I thought…I should atone for my sins by placing you all under my judgment!”
“And with that mindset, you decided to spread infectious diseases to multiple villages and kill numerous people?” Zich spat out his words and mocked Shalom who was self-justifying his actions.
“And what is the problem with that? They were foolish people who pledged loyalty to Count Dracul without knowing anything! They should also know the pain of those who died and suffered for the sake of their land!”
‘Man, this guy is completely out of his mind.’ Zich had seen many different types of revenge, but not all of them were alike. There was revenge that was only aimed at the person who harmed them, and there was revenge that stretched its vengeance to the offenders’ family members and everyone who had a relationship with them. Likewise, there were also many different types of methods to complete an act of revenge. Some didn’t want to stoop to the level of their offender and tried to minimize the impact their revenge had on others as much as possible. On the other hand, there were some who thought nothing mattered as long as they completed their revenge and didn’t mind inflicting harm everywhere.
In general, if the revenge-seeker didn’t care how their actions negatively impacted innocent bystanders and the more people they involved in their plotting, there was a higher chance that the individual was out of their mind. In that aspect, Shalom was someone who had completely lost his mind. Thus, Joachim, who was shocked at the things his father committed, burned with rage again.
“Even if you resent my father, that’s no excuse for killing so many innocent lives! Did you not even consider their pain?!”
“It’s hilarious how the son of Count Dracul is telling me this! Your father’s actions were the cause of everything!”
‘Oh, his ability to blame others is first-class.’
Shalom’s firmness and senseless belief that he hadn’t done anything wrong impressed Zich. However, he was only impressed by this, and Zich didn’t take Shalom’s side. Moreover, Shalom had one-sidedly agitated Zich before.
‘He probably was worried that his plans were going to fall apart from the cure I spread.’
But whatever Shalom’s intentions were, the important part to Zich was that Shalom had tried to provoke him before.
“So, you are saying that you caused this whole situation, right?”
“Yeah.” Shalom responded simply to Zich’s question and glared at him. “If you hadn’t intervened, I would’ve gotten my revenge without any trouble! Even the robed guy was right about this—I should have killed you first!”
‘The one who tried to kill me with everything he had was the robed guy.’ But even after Zich learned of this fact, it didn’t change anything. “That’s too bad. But what can you do when your abilities don’t match up?”
Shalom gritted his teeth, but he couldn’t retort. Even though he had planned everything out with so much pain, time, and care, his plan had failed in the end.
“Was it also you who cured the knights and the soldiers in the castle?”
“Yep, that’s right. It wasn’t a serious disease, so even an amateur like me could fix it.”
Zich’s comment seemed to jab at Shalom’s pride, and Shalom’s face reddened with rage. His huffing and puffing rang inside the whole room. However, he didn’t explode with wrath. “…I will admit it. I misjudged your skills. I shouldn’t have thought that as long as I captured Greta Bargot, you wouldn’t hinder me from spreading diseases any longer.”
“So, you took Ms. Bargot for that reason,” Joachim said.
“I thought it was better to have fewer obstacles while I tried to spread infectious diseases. Even I was surprised by the amount of knowledge that Ms. Bargot had. I didn’t expect someone from the Bargot Business to be my biggest obstacle.”
“Where is she?”
“Find her by yourself.” Shalom replied curtly and sighed, “It’s a pity, such a pity. There are still so many people left who I have to pass my judgments onto. I can’t believe I have to be satisfied with bringing judgment to only the Count and his eldest son.”
“You bastard! Immediately release the Count and Biyom!”
The reality was separate from the truth, and Brod stepped forward and shouted to save the two.
“Take them as you wish. It’s too late to save them anyway. They will die in pain in their miserable states. No matter how superb Zich’s medical abilities may be, he can’t cure this disease.”
Shalom made a dark smile, and his viewers could see how refreshed and happy he felt. Shalom’s hatred for the Count was unmistakably real.
“I have devoted so much care and time to this disease. Regardless of how great a person may be, this disease—”
“You talk a lot for someone who didn’t even create the disease.”
Shalom was going on and on as if he wanted to boast, but Zich cut him off.
“What?”
“Why are you desperate to brag about a disease that you didn’t even make?”
Shalom’s face crumpled. “What non—”
“Sir!” Before Shalom exploded in anger, a soldier burst into the room. “We found Ms. Bargot inside the prayer room!”
Everyone’s faces brightened. Since she had played a huge role in calming the situation with Igram, Joachim had placed the matter of protecting her as first priority. On top of that, people felt sympathy and guilt after hearing about what had happened to Bargot Trading House. Thus, people rejoiced as if they had found their own family member. However, Zich’s reaction was different.
“Block the prayer room, and nobody must approach her.” At Zich’s unexpected command, everyone’s eyes shot towards his direction. “The one who spread the infectious diseases isn’t the butler over there.”
Zich smiled at Shalom who was looking at him with wide eyes.
“She—Greta Bargot is probably the culprit.”
Everyone in the room froze at once.