Villain Family’s Strongest Butler - Chapter 46

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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 49

That was when I heard it—a sharp intake of breath rippling through the bowed servants.
So something had caught after all.
At Anet’s words, I straightened and turned to face her.
‘Wow.’
Up close, admiration escaped me unbidden.
If she were the Grand Duke’s mother, she’d have to be over forty by now—yet she looked nothing like it.
Perhaps early thirties at most.
She’d said she wasn’t an Aura Manifestation user, and yet she maintained such youthfulness.
Beyond that, it wasn’t just her beauty—it was her physique that struck me again and again.
So this was why my heart had raced watching her ride toward us from the distance.
The build of a female knight I’d always considered ideal: tall frame, broad shoulders, firm forearms and thighs.
And yet to possess all that without a trace of dullness—instead radiating a lithe, lethal grace.
Would a hero’s statue in a temple look like this?
It was a physique that could make one’s breath catch in sheer awe.
‘How is this even possible? What’s your daily training schedule?! How do you plan your diet?!’
I had so many questions I wanted to ask. But every eye in the courtyard had turned toward me.
I swallowed down the admiration that threatened to overflow and spoke in a measured voice.
“It is an honor to meet you for the first time, Anet. Welcome to the Grand Duke’s Residence. I am Freya, the steward.”
“You……!”
Despite my flawless greeting, inexplicable anger hardened in Anet’s voice.
‘Well, I’m not truly ignorant of the reason.’
An unwed employee. More than that—an unwed female steward.
That was what had offended Anet’s sensibilities.
I forced a smile as disarming as I could manage.
‘I have no interest in the Grand Duke. Truly, Anet.’
I gazed at her with sincerity, but the look in Anet’s eyes remained thick with displeasure.
Anet’s firm jaw clenched visibly.
‘Oh…… I didn’t want to be disliked…….’
I rather think I’ve botched the first impression.
As I swallowed that bitter regret, the Grand Duke stepped forward.
“Mother.”
“…….”
At that, Anet’s gaze turned on him—sharp and cold as a blade’s edge.
“Cardrian. Surely you don’t…….”
“……There are many eyes watching. Perhaps we should discuss this inside.”
“…….”
Anet pressed down her anger and nodded curtly.
And in that moment, she glanced back at me.
‘Hm?’
I blinked in confusion. Because the look she gave me was not anger—it was guilt.
‘What……?’
After that brief exchange of glances, Anet and the Grand Duke turned toward the main residence.
I watched the two of them leave.
‘That look…….’
Her initial discovery of me and the anger that followed—that much I understood.
But that second look she’d given me was far more difficult to parse.
‘I’ve seen that expression before somewhere.’
Ah…… and then it came to me.
When the Grand Duke first saw me, and when the aide first set eyes on me—it was that same look they’d given me then.
Anet, too, had looked at me with that light in her eyes.
‘Anet knows.’
She knows who this body’s owner is.
And so another person had joined the list of those aware of my true identity.

***

“Cardrian!”
Anet burst into the Office, her voice sharp as a blade.
“How could you make that child a butler? How could you!”
……
Cardrian said nothing, even as Anet’s fury crashed over him.
He’d learned through letters that the girl had awakened, that her memory was gone, and that she’d been set to work as a maid.
Even then, he’d nearly abandoned the battlefield to rush home.
But a butler? Now?
“The pay is considerably better,” he said quietly.
“Better? You call that an explanation?”
Anet clutched at the back of her neck, swaying as if the world had tilted beneath her feet.
Ed rushed to steady her, guiding her to the sofa. “Your Highness didn’t intend this cruelty, I assure you. Perhaps if you might find it in yourself to—”
“Ed! Not you too! When a lord loses his reason and does something mad, his retainers must stop him with their own lives if necessary!”
“But… surely not with my own life, ma’am—”
“What was that?”
“M-my apologies.”
Realizing he’d stumbled into the crossfire, Ed bowed hastily and slipped out of the Office before the storm could consume him as well.
Now only Anet and Cardrian remained.
“Well then. Let’s hear this grand plan of yours. Do you mean to keep that child as your butler indefinitely?”
“She wishes it.”
“Wishes it? With that collar fastened around her neck? You dare claim you haven’t forced her?”
Anet had recognized it the moment she saw the jewel embedded in the ribbon Freya wore—a Magical Stone, bound with the restraint magic the Grand Duke’s Residence employed.
She slammed her palm against the table before her. Crack!
The table split cleanly in two.
Cardrian pressed his fingers to his temples, exhaling slowly.
“Mother……”
“Cardrian. I’ve told you in every letter, whether or not there are traces of Black Magic—that child must be treated as your fiancée.”
Even stripped of memory, she was the kind of person for whom all eyes should turn in reverence.
“And above all, have you forgotten? For ten years, I prayed—only that she would live. That she would simply live.”
……
When Cardrian fell silent, Anet buried her face in her hands, her voice trembling.
“The heavens. The last heir of the Flangker House, worked as a butler. How can I face the Flangker people after I’m gone……”
……
As Anet’s fury began to ebb, Cardrian spoke at last.
“It wasn’t only because of the Black Magic.”
Anet’s head snapped up. Her golden eyes blazed with fresh anger.
“Then explain yourself. Choose your words carefully. If what you say cannot convince me, don’t bother speaking at all.”
Yet Cardrian opened his mouth again, despite her warning.
As he spoke, Anet’s expression shifted moment by moment.
Disbelief flickered across her face, then her eyes glistened with tears, then her brow furrowed in renewed fury.
When Cardrian finished, Anet buried her face in her hands once more.

***

‘Sleep won’t come.’

After arriving at the Grand Duke’s Residence and her conversation with Cardrian, night had fallen without notice.
She’d returned to her old Bedroom, eaten a light meal, and bathed.
‘And it was Freya who prepared the bath water……’
Anet had nearly clutched her neck again at the sight of it.
She’d called Freya by her true name—Freya—as she always did.
‘She used to hate that name. Said it sounded too boyish.’
That’s why only Freya and Cardrian knew the pet name they’d created for her instead.
Yet the girl, stripped of her memories, remembered that name alone……?
Could that also be the work of Black Magic?
‘Surely Cardrian isn’t suggesting…… that another soul could have taken over that child’s body……’
Was such a thing even possible through Black Magic?
—”That’s why I’ve been waiting for you to come, Mother. I need to hear your judgment before I decide what to do.”

A decision.
That single word, spoken from his son’s lips, carried an unbearable weight.
‘He must have wrestled with this alone for so long.’
His son—who had waited ten lonely years while watching his fiancée lie motionless—deserved better than this.
And now that Freya had awakened, she should never be treated this way.
Yet Cardrian’s stubbornness could not be broken.
Because no one knew Freya better than he did.
‘What can I do…….’
Anet recalled the brief glimpse of Freya she had caught.
‘Has it really been five years since I last saw her?’
Access to the 5th Floor remained open even to Anet, though she had once been the Grand Duke’s wife.
Before passing the leadership to Cardrian, Anet herself had visited that floor often.
‘How desperately I prayed—if only her eyes would open.’
Did heaven answer that prayer, only for her to return barely alive? For what?
‘Perhaps it’s a different soul altogether?’
What could the Heavens possibly be thinking?
Anet sank onto the edge of the bed as if her legs had given way.
‘If my heart is this torn, what must Cardrian be enduring?’
After a moment of reflection, Anet resolved to trust her son.
‘I’ll stay here at the Grand Duke’s Residence and observe.’
Until she found irrefutable proof that the soul dwelling in that child’s body was truly Freya’s.
That was when a slight disturbance caught Anet’s attention.
‘Tch. This again.’
Damned assassins.
‘They didn’t even hear that I’d arrived at the Grand Duke’s Residence?’
Sensing the presence of an assassin, Anet seized her longsword—nearly as tall as she was—and stepped outside.
‘My mood was already foul anyway. Perfect.’
She was ready to vent her frustrations, but the assassin’s presence vanished abruptly.
Right before her eyes, no less.
‘What in the world?’
Anet hurried into the corridor, but no matter how carefully she searched, she could not sense the assassin’s aura.
As Anet walked the corridor searching for the vanished presence, she suddenly felt the air around her shift.
‘……A Barrier.’
To Anet’s knowledge, only three people in the Grand Duke’s Residence could erect a Barrier of this strength.
Cardrian, Knight Order Commander Jayden, and Deputy Commander Allen.
‘So Cardrian came down himself.’
She’d thought he was still upstairs, but it seemed he’d sensed something and emerged.
Anet waited for the situation to resolve and the Barrier to fall.
Moments passed in silence.
The air shifted again. The Barrier had lifted.
The instant it did, the metallic scent of blood spilled outward.
“Cardrian——”
Anet stopped short as she began to call out his name.
Standing in the pale moonlight that pierced the thick shadows was not Cardrian.
The slender frame before her was scarcely half Cardrian’s build, and the sleek silver blade in her hand suited her perfectly.
‘That’s not Cardrian?’
It wasn’t Jayden or Allen either.
Surely not——
“Freya……, Freya?”
At that, the woman standing over the assassin’s corpse, her boot pressed against his throat, turned her head.
“Is it you, Anet?”
A voice so beautiful and refined it seemed impossible to associate with a ruthless killer reached Anet’s ears.

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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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