They Say an Age Gap Like This Doesn’t Even Need Matching - Chapter 87

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Brin Domain.
The Castle Meeting Hall, temporarily occupied.
Thirteen nobles filled the seats around a long table.
Not a single one among them dared speak first.
They merely gauged each other’s reactions.
“…He’s late.”
Finally, one nobleman could not restrain himself and muttered aloud.
“Wasn’t this a summons from Marquis Morak himself?”
“Indeed it was.”
Another replied in a low voice.
“There’s no reason to delay in a situation like this….”
Creak.
The door opened.
Every gaze snapped toward it in unison.
Marquis Silva Morak walked inside.
His expression was no different from usual.
At least, that was how it appeared on the surface.
“My apologies for the wait.”
He offered a calm apology and took his seat.
Yet those seated nearby noticed something.
His hands were trembling ever so slightly.
“What is this about?”
One nobleman asked first.
“Why have you summoned us so urgently?”
Marquis Morak did not answer.
Instead, he slowly surveyed those around him.
One by one, one by one. As if confirming each face.
“Everyone is here.”
He murmured softly, then cast a letter onto the table.
“Look at this first.”
The nobleman nearest to him picked it up.
His face hardened in an instant as he began to read.
“…What is this?”
“Let me see that.”
The letter passed from hand to hand.
One person, two people.
Three.
The atmosphere grew colder with each passing moment.
“This is surely….”
“The seal of Duke Roberht…?”
“Then….”
Someone swallowed hard.
“Is this really authentic?”
Marquis Morak opened his mouth.
“It’s definitely authentic. I verified the seal and handwriting myself—there’s no doubt.”
How much time had passed?
Cracks formed in the heavy silence that had been pressing down.
“Wait.”
An unnamed nobleman rose from his seat.
“This doesn’t make sense, does it? The Duke denying us?”
“‘Us’?”
Marquis Morak tilted his head.
His sharp gaze pierced toward the nobleman who had spoken.
“Who is ‘us’?”
“…What do you mean?”
“Did the Duke know your name?”
Marquis Morak tapped the letter with his fingertip. Naturally, that nobleman’s name wasn’t even mentioned in the letter.
“What about you?”
In that instant, the expressions of the nobles hardened.
“That is….”
“The Duke didn’t even know my name when he denied me.”
It was a statement tinged with despair.
Yet it was enough to silence everyone in the room.
“….”
“….”
No one could continue speaking.
Marquis Morak leaned back against his chair and laughed.
“The connection we believed in never existed in the first place.”
Someone uttered a low curse.
“So we are now….”
“Yes.”
Marquis Morak cut him off.
“Swindlers who sold the names of Imperial Nobility.”
The moment those words fell, the meeting room erupted into complete chaos.
“Listen, that’s something you…!”
“Silence.”
Marquis Morak’s eyes flashed dangerously.
The nobleman who met that murderous gaze clamped his mouth shut with a rigid expression.
“So, what do we do about this?”
One person carefully opened his mouth.
“I didn’t summon you all here to suggest we die together.”
Marquis Morak slowly surveyed the assembled people before speaking.
“I’ve received a proposal.”
“A proposal? From whom?”
An uninformed nobleman asked in confusion.
Soon after, someone else spoke as if they understood.
“So it’s true that a high-ranking Cradian noble has been in the vicinity.”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t actually meet them, did you?”
Marquis Morak nodded.
“He said if we pass a certain test, we’ll be spared.”
Color returned to everyone’s faces.
“Truly, worthy of an Imperial noble.”
“So then, what test did he propose?”
Receiving everyone’s hopeful gazes, Marquis Morak rose from his seat instead of answering.
He then slowly circled the table and began to speak.
“It’s rather like a game of musical chairs.”
His leisurely voice sounded like an announcer heralding the start of a theatrical performance.
“Among thirteen chairs, only one remains at the end. Only one person whose abilities are recognized can claim a seat.”
The air in the meeting room froze.
“Surely not….”
“You kill each other. Just remember—only one of you survives.”
Marquis Morak, standing at the head of the table, gripped its edge and leaned forward.
“You have one day.”
“This is insane!”
“Are you mad? How could you—!”
“Why not? Then you’d all die together peacefully? I don’t particularly care either way.”
Creak.
The meeting room door opened, and thirteen knights entered, positioning themselves behind the nobles.
“First, revise your wills. The rule of this game is that everything goes to the sole survivor.”
The nobles couldn’t easily move their hands even as the wills were thrust before them.
A brief silence followed.
Then one person began drafting their will with a resolute expression.
The rest came to the painful realization that they had no choice but to accept this fate.
The nobles, trembling, sat down and drafted their wills, affixing their seals.
After the process concluded, a lawyer entered and collected the documents.
“Marquis Morak, was this truly the best method?”
One of the nobles stared at him with bloodshot eyes and asked.
“Yes. Either you all die together, or at least one survives. Those were the only two choices.”
Of course, that one survivor would be Marquis Morak himself.
There was no need for them to know.
When Marquis Morak signaled to the knights, they distributed weapons one by one to the nobles.
“Well then, I wish you luck.”
With those words, Marquis Morak left the meeting room.
The knights filed out after him, and the firmly shut meeting room door was thoroughly locked from the outside.
A suffocating silence fell.
The thirteen nobles could not hastily pick up the weapons before them.
Fear, rage, and despair.
Those who had tried to climb higher by exploiting the chaos had now become prey for the very power they had coveted.
Some thought it might be divine punishment.
If they had fought together to protect the nation, if they had defeated Cradian with all their might.
If only that had been the case.
They would not have been forced into such a grotesque ordeal.
But everything was merely belated regret.
The tension that had been tautly maintained shattered at someone’s small movement.
“Die!”
Perhaps it was because they instinctively sensed they would not enter the Garden of the Goddess even in death.
The face of the nobleman wielding his blade in desperation was twisted with terror.
With faces as pallid and cold as corpses, they swung swords, scythes, spears, and axes at one another.
Even as arms were severed, legs were hacked, and blades were driven through necks, they could not stop.
The living hell of the living continued for a full day.
When the meeting room door finally opened.
Click—
The one who walked in was not Marquis Morak.
“There is no hell quite like this.”
A considerable number of the thirteen nobles still drew breath.
Yet that was neither living nor dead.
The architect of this horrific spectacle, Marquis Morak, had already been arrested by an inspector in black robes dispatched from the capital.
For forcing such a number of nobles to write wills and instructing them to commit murder, he would not escape severe punishment.
“Send each back to their own house.”
The family heads, little more than walking corpses, were transported to their respective houses.
Or rather, that was supposed to happen.
On the surface.
The domain folk of Brin would not let the traitors pass through their lands without consequence.
Thwack—
“Die, die!”
Crack—
“You damned bastards!”
Those who could only watch as the respected Count Brin and his family were driven out in disgrace took their revenge by hiding and hurling stones.
The soldiers did not know how many residents were hiding and dared not suppress them recklessly, only hastening to dodge lest they be struck themselves.
The barrage of stones continued relentlessly throughout their transport. The nobles clinging desperately to life gradually suffocated.
When the nobleman being transported became a cold corpse, the soldiers who had been formally escorting him all fled in panic.
People began approaching one by one the body abandoned and left on the roadside.
They looped rope around his neck and dragged him along.
The corpses of those who had attempted to sell out their nation hung from the castle wall.
Their faces, mangled beyond recognition, were twisted into expressions of terrible horror.
As if they had witnessed demons coming to greet them from Hell itself.
The count was precisely thirteen… or rather, fourteen.

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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