Villain Family’s Strongest Butler - Chapter 13

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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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Episode 16

Click—.
I closed the Grand Duke’s bedroom door and leaned against it for a moment to catch my breath.
My energy had drained away.
“A butler who panics just because I undressed in the bathroom? I’d have real problems with a butler like that.”
His words had cut deep.
They forced me to reckon with the last six months.
I hadn’t been a butler for long, but I’d prided myself on becoming nearly perfect at the role.
Yet it seemed I’d only been acting the part all along.
‘To deceive an enemy, I should have deceived myself first.’
I’d simply meant to win the Grand Duke’s trust through careless deception and then take his life—I’d never truly absorbed the role of butler into my being.
“Ah, and one more thing.”
As I turned to leave the bathroom, his parting words found me.
“Soap isn’t something you eat, butler.”
“…….”
The Grand Duke had seen through everything from the start, and he’d made that abundantly clear, grinding fresh shame into me once more.
‘I’ll kill him. I swear I’ll kill him, Grand Duke.’
I clenched my teeth and walked slowly down the corridor.
My steps felt heavier from mental defeat than physical exhaustion.

***

“See you tomorrow, Freya!”
“Yes, get some rest.”
It was well past midnight.
The clock already pointed to two in the morning.
“Freya! Come over here and have a drink with us!”
The drinking party at the Knights’ Dormitory was finally winding down.
A knight who’d been pressing drinks on me all evening raised his cup high and called me over.
By the looks of him, he’d be passed out like the others any moment now.
I politely declined and continued on my way.
The Ballot Grand Duke Residence in the deep hours before dawn felt not just quiet, but desolate.
It was hard to believe the Grand Duke and his knights had actually returned.
I finished my final inspection of the Main Building and Annex before heading up to my quarters.
Since becoming a butler, my room had been moved to the fourth floor of the Main Building.
It was on the same floor as the Grand Duke’s study and directly above his bedchamber.
When he was away, I hadn’t thought much of it, but now that I knew he was below me, something about it felt oddly charged.
Careful not to wake him, I moved quietly and began preparing to wash.
Checking the time again, it was already past three in the morning.
‘It’s been a hectic day.’
The tension from the Grand Duke’s return had drained me of more energy than usual.
I let out a long sigh and loosened the hair I’d pinned up high.
‘I need to wash and get to bed.’
I hadn’t even managed to stop by the Training Grounds today.
There was no help for it on days when such unusual circumstances arose.
I drew hot water into the bathtub and settled lightly on its edge.
As I stared blankly at the stream of water falling into the tub, it happened.
Whiiiiine—.
A sharp, piercing ringing stabbed through my left ear.
I jolted upright instantly. I rushed out of the bathroom and switched off all the lamps I’d left on in my bedroom.
Then I dashed to the window and pressed my face close to the glass to peer outside.
Beyond the pane lay only darkness—so absolute that sight alone could reveal nothing.
But I could feel it.
An Assassin had come to the Ballot Grand Duke Residence again, right on schedule.

***

The air around him turned cold.
The atmosphere of the Ballot Grand Duke Residence, which he’d heard described only in whispers, was far more desolate than he’d anticipated.
Yet for someone, such silence becomes a golden opportunity.
‘Especially for an Assassin like me.’
The third-floor corridor of the Grand Duke Residence.
According to the map he’d memorized, Ballot’s private chambers lay somewhere along this passage.
Whisper, whisper. Each footfall was the work of an Assassin—soundless, leaving no trace.
He was moving forward step by careful step, recalling the layout in his mind, when—
He froze.
A blade pressed against his throat.
“Who are you……?”
The Assassin hurled the question into the shadows. An answer he hadn’t expected came back.
“You sneak into someone else’s home in the dark, and you ask who *I* am?”
……
The Assassin’s pupils shrank.
‘A woman……?’
He hadn’t sensed her approach, hadn’t felt her draw the blade, hadn’t seen it coming to his throat.
To be subdued in an instant was maddening enough—but a woman?
Worse still, despite knowing he was an Assassin, her voice carried no tension whatsoever.
If anything, there was a lazy drowsiness to it, as though she’d only just woken.
The Assassin stared into the shadows.
Her face remained hidden in darkness, but the silver blade extending from those shadows gleamed with cold light.
He gritted his teeth and spoke.
“What are you? A Mercenary hired by the Grand Duke? Who do you work for?”
His preliminary investigation of the Grand Duke’s household had turned up no woman of this caliber.
‘Which means she was likely hired in haste.’
He pressed on.
“You’re too skilled to remain a mere Mercenary. Why not join us instead—”
Click.
The woman clicked her tongue. Bored. Thoroughly bored.
“You wouldn’t have taken the Grand Duke’s life even without me.”
“……What?”
“It’s almost impressive you made it this far into the estate with skills like yours.”
At the mockery in her voice, the Assassin’s jaw clenched.
Then the blade pressed harder against his skin, drawing blood.
“Let me tell you something.”
The blade bit deeper, and a thin crimson line traced down his neck.
“The Grand Duke’s life is mine.”
……
“He promised it to me.”
In other words—
“Until I’m strong enough to kill him myself, no one else touches him. Understood?”
Got it?
……
What in the hell was she talking about?
The Assassin couldn’t make sense of her words at all.
‘I thought she was a Mercenary.’
He’d assumed she was here to protect the Grand Duke, but instead she was spouting nonsense about the man’s life being hers?
Something was wrong. Very wrong. And then the woman stepped out of the shadows.
A slender jawline and red lips came into view.
She was smiling. That crimson mouth curved upward in a soft smile.
Only then did ice creep down the Assassin’s spine.
He understood, in that moment of pure instinct.
Whether this woman stood with the Grand Duke or against him—
She would not let him walk away alive.
‘……I have to run.’
He had to report back—that there was a woman here, one who didn’t appear in any of their records.
‘That this insane woman might be the one who’s been killing the Assassins they’ve sent to the Ballot household.’
A new investigation was necessary.
‘I need to revise the plan—’
It happened then.
The cold blade pressed against his throat suddenly grew hot, as if it had been thrust into flame.
‘What…?’
A horrible shriek tore from his throat—!
The Assassin clutched at his neck, gasping out his final breath.
“Ugh!”
Moments later, his body crumpled onto the dark corridor with a heavy thud.

***

“Thump.”
The sound of the Assassin hitting the floor was rather loud.
Fortunately, I had thrown up an Aura barrier the moment I spotted him, so none of the commotion should have escaped beyond this place.
‘Of course, the Grand Duke will have noticed that I used Aura.’
I looked down at the Assassin sprawled on the ground.
“With skills like that, and you thought you could kill someone.”
Disappointing. All chaff.
Even I, in my prime, never managed to kill the Grand Duke. And yet this small fry comes charging at him thinking he could succeed.
A moth hurling itself into a flame would have done better.
‘To have any hope of reaching the Grand Duke’s throat, he’d need another hundred years of training.’
I rubbed away the blood spattered across my left cheek with the back of my hand.
But then.
‘Where was he sent from?’
His accent was poor. Based on that alone, there was a strong chance he was an assassin from another empire who’d picked up a crude, half-learned version of Kadean.
As I stared quietly at the corpse, my eyes caught on a Dagger wedged into the Assassin’s belt.
‘Hmm?’
A thumb-nail-sized blue jewel set into the Dagger’s hilt drew my attention.
‘That…?’
It wasn’t unfamiliar. No—it was almost intimate.
Surely not…?
I drew the blade again and swiftly cut away the cloth covering the Assassin’s left shoulder.
A tattoo emerged—one I had seen many times before.
A flame emblem interlaced with a pointed Dagger, the two designs crossing each other.
“Ha…!”
A hollow laugh escaped me.
I knew that tattoo. I once bore it myself.
It was the mark of Ariad, the assassination order of the Tenasis Empire—and I had once led it as its commander.
Yes. I had just killed an assassin of the Tenasis Empire with my own hands.

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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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