Villain Family’s Strongest Butler - Chapter 2

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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 5

I couldn’t say how he’d taken my words, but the faint crease between Cardrian’s brows deepened noticeably.
He did not look pleased.
Cardrian sat with his eyelids half-lowered, lost in thought for a moment.
‘Kill me now, or ask one final question before he does? That’s what he’s weighing.’
I would do the same in his position.
A man of unknown origin, speaking in riddles—I would never let such a person live.
Cardrian’s violet eyes wandered across the table for a breath, then returned to me.
‘Here it comes.’
Cardrian posed his third and final question.
“Have you come to kill me?”
…….
To kill him? That was the question.
I’d half-expected it, and yet it set my mind spinning in a dozen directions at once.
‘We are enemies, make no mistake.’
Enemies destined, someday, to cross blades again across some battlefield.
‘But that was when Sia and Cardrian faced each other on the field of war.’
Here, now……
‘Could I, stripped of proper Swordsmanship and Aura, truly end this man?’
I’d entertained the thought once—returning home with Cardrian’s head. But not now. Not like this.
‘What I feel, instead, is curiosity.’
Cardrian outside the battlefield.
And so this question, too, refused to be answered with a simple yes or no.
My lips moved again.
“I am…….”

***

Norbert Millard moved the unconscious woman to a clean room and returned to Cardrian’s study.
“The physician says there’s nothing wrong with her body. She should wake by tomorrow.”
On Cardrian’s orders, she’d been given a proper chamber instead of a cell, and a physician had been sent to attend her.
“……Three questions, and she answered all three, exactly as promised.”
“Remarkable.”
Norbert nodded, studying Cardrian’s expression before asking, “Did you find the truth you sought?”
Cardrian sat at his desk, quietly gazing at the sofa across the room.
The woman who’d sat there. Her eyes. He could see them still.
“I did.”
Norbert’s mouth tightened in disappointment.
“I hadn’t expected you to let her go.”
“There was no reason to keep her.”
“Very cold, if I may say so.”
Cardrian let out a soft laugh—ha ha—and reached for the documents on his desk.
The gesture was clear: he had work to do. Norbert should leave.
But instead of turning to go, Norbert studied him carefully.
Cardrian’s state had noticeably worsened of late.
The fatigue etched around his eyes. That distant stare out the window at odd moments.
‘It’s not just the attack on Trensha Village,’ Norbert thought.
Something else had clearly happened—something beyond the village crisis.
Cardrian was not one to show his emotions openly. Yet after all these years watching him, Norbert had learned to read the subtle shifts in his mood.
He remembered, a week ago, when Cardrian had hurriedly entrusted the Trensha matter to him and left with Ed in obvious haste.
For all his restraint, there had been a flicker of barely concealed urgency in Cardrian’s face that day.
Which meant……
‘If there exists a presence capable of troubling his mind so deeply……’
Norbert spoke with genuine concern.
“Your Highness. Is it possible that something has happened to the Master of the 5th Floor?”
…….

The Master of the 5th Floor.
The main building of Balot Grand Duke’s Mansion consisted of five stories in total, but the mansion’s employees were permitted to move freely only across the first four floors.
And then there was the fifth.
‘The problem is that fifth floor.’
On the fifth floor of the mansion’s main building, there existed something shrouded in secrecy.
Only one person knew precisely who that presence was: Cardrian, the patriarch of the ducal house.
A staircase leading to the fifth floor existed, but only the Duke himself could ascend it.
‘Though Ed, his adjutant, knew as well.’
Ed, the Duke’s adjutant, was indeed one of the few who could access the fifth floor.
During Cardrian’s absences, Ed had even managed the fifth floor in his place.
The previous Duke and his Duchess had known of this presence too.
But after the previous Duke’s death and Cardrian’s succession as patriarch, the former Duchess had left the mansion and taken residence elsewhere. Thus, only two people now remained in the mansion who could come and go from the fifth floor: Cardrian and Ed.
Norbert Millard recalled the sturdy black iron door that sealed off the entrance to the fifth-floor staircase.
A mysterious space one dared not become curious about, and least of all peer into. That was why the mansion’s employees had come to call this presence ‘the Master of the 5th Floor.’
“Your Highness. Your complexion has grown noticeably worse over the past week. As for the attack on Trensha Village, you’ve already delegated that matter to me, so that cannot be the cause of your deterioration.”
……
“Then surely it is not… the Master of the 5th Floor that troubles you?”
“Norbert Millard.”
Perhaps it was because the fifth floor had been mentioned again. Cardrian’s voice—calm yet threatening—cut Norbert’s words short.
“I thought I told you not to speak of the fifth floor.”
……
Cardrian’s gaze was utterly devoid of warmth.
It was not the anger of disobedience, but rather a quiet reproach.
Yet before those oppressive violet eyes, Norbert’s body stiffened involuntarily.
Norbert lowered his head.
“My apologies, Your Highness. I overstepped.”
As always, Cardrian would brook no compromise or negotiation when it came to matters concerning the fifth floor.
Cardrian turned another page of documents and spoke as if the matter were trivial.
“And that woman……”
Cardrian brought up the woman who had been dragged away moments before.
“Yes, Your Highness. Speak.”
“From now on, you will take charge of her.”
“……Pardon?”
Norbert’s head snapped up.
Take charge? What in the world did that mean……?
‘Ah!’
He meant dispose of the woman as he saw fit!
Norbert nodded eagerly and replied.
“Yes. As soon as she awakens, I shall have her brought to my estates for interrogation—”
“No.”
Cardrian frowned and set down the documents.
“Have her begin with servant’s work here at the mansion first.”
“……Pardon?”
“You will train her personally until she becomes useful.”
Norbert spoke up in alarm.
“Surely not, Your Highness! Why would you keep such a suspicious and ill-omened person in the mansion in the first place!”
“Suspicious and ill-omened, is it.”
The Duke laughed as if he’d heard something amusing.
“Norbert. Don’t say things you’ll regret later.”
“Your Highness, this is no laughing matter. She could be dangerous! Wouldn’t it be simpler to just put her to death?!”
And besides—you said you were retired!
You’re the one who packed your belongings and said you’d wander about! Why are you doing this now?!
Norbert protested as if grievously wronged.
But Cardrian paid him no mind.
“Prepare a room in the Western Annex and begin her training immediately.”
“Your Highness! Please reconsider! She could be a spy sent by the Nobility Faction, or an agent from another empire!”
So I say again—it would be simpler to just kill her—
“No, you don’t understand.”
Norbert’s plea to execute the woman was cut off once more.
“That is precisely why she must be kept close.”
……
Cardrian recalled the woman who had answered his final question.
“Did you come here to kill me?”
“I……”
She exhaled a long, drawn-out sigh with a faint laugh, then continued.
“Look, Cardrian. I don’t even know why I was on that beach. Come to think of it, I don’t even know why I’m in this empire at all……”
He’d expected a straightforward yes or no, but instead she launched into a lament about how wronged she felt.
“Tell me, Cardrian. Did I walk here to this mansion of my own choice? No, I didn’t. It was your knights who dragged me here from that beach. Does anyone actually want to come to a place like this?”
He’d heard that the Water/Truth Ritual was supposed to compel only simple yes-or-no answers.
Yet this woman had volunteered lengthy explanations for things no one had even asked.
Perhaps the ritual was somehow laced with alcohol.
“Think about it, Cardrian. Do I look like a body capable of harming you? This body? Are your eyes just for decoration, Cardrian?”
……
She ended every sentence with casual speech and his name—Cardrian, Cardrian.
Then she exhaled another prolonged sigh, drawn-out and heavy, her voice growing fainter.
“Look, fine. Maybe I could do some harm. But not right now. Not at this moment, you understand……?”
The woman’s expression turned wounded, and she bowed her head low.
After a brief silence, she spoke again.
“Two years.”
“Two years?”
“That’s right. Just watch me for two years, Cardrian. Who knows? Maybe I’ll grow into someone capable enough to harm you. Wouldn’t you like to find out……?”
……
“So, Cardriiiiian……”
Her speech had suddenly grown slurred. Apparently, with the three questions and answers finished, she had reached the limit of her physical endurance.
Her eyelids flickered, and her body began to sway gently, yet even in that state, she managed one final word.
“So. I……at least, let me live.”
……
She was begging for her life even as consciousness slipped away.
Cardrian found himself laughing without meaning to.
‘Certainly…… this was different from the dark sorcerer who hurled himself at me to drag me into death, or the assassin who had begged to be killed instead.’
It was unmistakable—her will to live, her attachment to life, far exceeded ordinary bounds.
‘Whether that’s fortunate or not……’
Yet something felt strangely familiar about her manner of speech.
‘I feel like I’ve heard her talk like that before……’

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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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