Villain Family’s Strongest Butler - Chapter 31

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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 34

“Cardrian!”
While I was in conversation with the Duke, I heard a voice calling out to the Grand Duke from a distance.
When I turned my head, I saw something glittering approach.
From the mere atmosphere radiating from his bearing, it was as if he were announcing, “I am royalty.”
As I observed him for a moment, the Grand Duke and the Duke both bowed respectfully toward him.
“We are honored to receive Your Highness, the Crown Prince.”
And everyone around us lowered their heads in unison.
‘So it’s the Crown Prince.’
I too bowed my head, reading the room.
The Crown Prince Artehr approached swiftly and exchanged warm greetings with Cardrian.
“I hear you visited the Imperial Palace not long ago and saw only the High Priest?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
At that, the Crown Prince pouted. He looked like a child throwing a fit.
“How wounded I was. Why did you come all the way to the Imperial Palace and not visit me?”
The Grand Duke chuckled at his playful expression. His reaction was unlike his usual manner. From the Grand Duke’s tone and expression, I could sense that he was at ease with the Crown Prince.
‘They’re close, then.’
Perhaps like the bond between Serhin and myself.
I observed the Crown Prince carefully as he became engrossed in conversation with the Grand Duke.
Smooth, gleaming blonde hair like fine gold thread, pale skin, and eyes as deep and clear as blue sapphires.
I had thought Allen radiant when I first saw him, and the Crown Prince possessed a similar quality.
‘Yet somehow different.’
Allen evoked the image of a golden field shimmering under divine blessing, whereas the Crown Prince felt like a tower of gold ingots stacked to the ceiling beneath a chandelier.
Either way, both were exceedingly pleasant to look upon.
Then, suddenly, the Crown Prince Artehr’s eyes rolled toward me.
He smiled with his eyes creased and studied me carefully before shifting his gaze back to the Grand Duke.
‘What was that……?’
Though it was only a fleeting moment, I could discern his intent to observe me in that gaze.
‘Just as I had examined the Crown Prince, he had just dissected me in return.’
Between his softly curved eyes, which appeared affectionate, those blue irises that had swept over me were clearly not mere goodwill.
Goodwill? Rather, there was something cold about it—even a hint of hostility.
‘They say birds of a feather flock together. This one’s also quite suspicious, it seems.’
It was a mistake to assume he would be favorably disposed toward me simply because I was the butler of his friend.
‘Royalty is royalty, after all.’
Concealing sinister, dark intentions appears to be the same whether they’re royalty of any nation.
And yet the Crown Prince Artehr of the Kadea Empire carried a distinctly different atmosphere from Serhin, the Crown Prince of the Tenasis Empire.
In my mind, a crown prince was someone arrogant, haughty, and pleased with his own superiority.
‘Serhin was exactly like that.’
So I had assumed this Crown Prince would be the same. True enough, the moment he saw me, that piercing gaze felt no different from Serhin’s.
Yet Crown Prince Artehr maintained a smile throughout and addressed everyone with courtesy. His nature was clearly different from Serhin, who had not even bothered to wear such a mask.
The Crown Prince draped an arm over the Grand Duke’s shoulder and continued speaking.
“Ah, Cardrian. Did you hear that news?”
“What news would that be?”
“Well—”
Before the Crown Prince could begin his story, the Grand Duke naturally shifted his position and spoke.
“Shall we continue our conversation over there?”
“Why not? Though—”
At that moment, the Crown Prince’s gaze turned toward me.
“Will you be alright? Leaving your butler alone?”
The Grand Duke glanced back at me briefly. He answered without much deliberation.
“……That will be fine. If I thought him so unreliable that he couldn’t be brought to a gathering of this sort, I wouldn’t have brought him in the first place.”
At that, the Crown Prince clicked his tongue.
“A cruel master, indeed.”
Ha. I laughed lightly, as if unbothered.
‘That’s exactly what the Grand Duke should be like.’
Cruel? Not at all. That’s simply how he’s always been, Crown Prince of Kadea.
‘A man who enjoys tossing a human among beasts and watches to see how they react.’
Try whatever you like, Grand Duke.
‘As if I’d tuck tail and run just because you told me to.’
I lifted my head to meet his gaze.
Our eyes locked—his violet pupils fixing on mine—and I smiled faintly before bowing.
The Grand Duke then gestured to the Crown Prince and spoke.
“Shall we, Your Highness?”
“Let us.”
The Grand Duke and Crown Prince settled themselves at some distance and began their conversation.
With those two men nearby, no one dared approach me or pick a quarrel.
Thanks to their presence, the Crown Prince’s worries never materialized.
Growing bored, I began sampling the food spread throughout the Banquet Hall.
I confirmed that Ed’s praise of the Imperial Palace kitchen staff was well-founded.
‘If only there weren’t so many eyes on me, I’d enjoy this far more.’
Though no one ventured close, plenty of glances still flickered in my direction.
A shame, but this is as good as it gets.
‘I’m a butler for the Grand Duke’s House—I have their reputation to consider.’
The banquet deepened around us.
Unlike the early pleasantries of greetings, political discussion gradually dominated the conversation.
It was time for retainers to withdraw.
The retainers who slipped out of the Banquet Hall made their way upstairs to the Lounge, where they would spend time socializing among themselves.
‘Hmm.’
I glanced back and forth between the staircase leading to the second floor and the corridor toward the Private Quarters assigned to the noble families.
—”You gain information by exchanging with retainers from other noble houses.”
—”You want me to do that?”
—”Oh, no. This time, simply stay in your quarters and rest.”
Advisor Ed had said I needn’t bother with socializing—just rest in my room.
But I’d never intended to merely rest.
—”Don’t let yourself be looked down upon.”
The Grand Duke had given me permission.
‘And there was a familiar face I was glad to see.’
I didn’t deliberate long before heading up the stairs to the second floor.
My steps felt oddly lighter as I moved toward the Lounge.

***

Because I’d left the Banquet Hall late, there seemed to be no place for me to slip into easily. The retainers gathered in the Lounge were busy chattering among themselves.
“Did you see? That one was definitely female, right?”
“Trousers or not, with that face and figure? No way that’s a man.”
The retainers in the Lounge were already gossiping about me.
“But didn’t they say other butlers didn’t last even a month before they all died? Was that just a rumor?”
“No, my friend’s older brother entered the Grand Duke’s House as a butler and came out as a corpse in half a month.”
“How dreadful!”
“Yes, I heard it firsthand. The second son of the Milhend Family too——”
As if waiting for their cue, stories poured out from every corner about butlers who’d entered the Grand Duke’s House and exited as corpses.
Then someone raised their voice.
“Quiet! Does it matter how many died and how they died? The real question is—why is that female butler still alive after half a year?”
“How should we know? Maybe no assassin has shown up in all that time.”
A retainer beside him shrugged.
“Or maybe she’s being protected in the Grand Duke’s bed.”
Laughter erupted at once.
‘How crude.’
Because honestly—I wouldn’t crawl into that particular bed if you begged me on your knees.
‘Did you guys see? Between those legs? That greatsword the Grand Duke swings around—something that size down there? Standing tall!’
…Why was it so hot all of a sudden?
Heat crept up the nape of my neck for no reason.
‘Ahem!’
In any case, these fools kept prattling on, clueless as ever.
‘Tch.’
I stopped waiting and shoved open the door to the Lounge.
All eyes turned toward me. The men who’d been laughing and chattering so loudly just moments before went silent, their mouths snapping shut as though they’d been struck dumb.
He kept his mouth shut here in the Lounge as well, but the way he looked at me was altogether different from the Banquet Hall.
Not the subtle glances he’d cast there, but open, unsheathed hostility.
‘Quite another matter when there’s no nobility watching.’
So the Grand Duke’s House did know how to read a room.
‘They simply believe they needn’t bother when the Grand Duke himself isn’t present?’
How foolish.
What they failed to understand was that when the Grand Duke was absent, I had no reason to restrain myself either.
‘I play by the same rules you do, little ones.’
A faint smile tugged at my lips as I stepped into the Lounge.

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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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