Ulysses looked astonished, then let out a chuckle. Only after laughing did he shake his head solemnly. “Sorry, I can’t go with you.”
“Oh?”
Ye Tang raised an eyebrow.
“It’s not that I don’t believe you, lady. But if what you say is true, I have responsibilities here that I need to confirm with my own eyes. Still, I appreciate your kindness. If I verify that your words are true, feel free to ask me for anything at any time.”
After realizing that Ye Tang already knew his identity as an earl, Ulysses reverted to his usual tone of speech. Though he had been polite when approaching her at the minefield, his words now carried an even stronger sense of the strict education and environment he had grown up in.
“I see. That was me overstepping, then. It seems you’ve already made arrangements for what’s to come.”
Ye Tang withdrew her hand. She pulled her cloak’s hood back on and climbed out the window. “Farewell, Earl. May God bless you.”
Ulysses gave a slight bow toward Ye Tang’s retreating figure. “May God bless you as well, lady.”
Wrapping her arms around Lang’s neck and holding him tight, Ye Tang whispered softly, “Let’s go.”
“…Aren’t we here to save the earl?”
Feeling Ye Tang’s body heat, Lang was momentarily distracted. But he quickly focused his attention back on Ulysses.
In his view, since they were there to save Ulysses’s life, regardless of whether Ulysses believed them or had his own escape plan, they should have knocked him out and dragged him away if necessary. Otherwise, if something went wrong, it would be too late.
“…Is it really okay to just leave the earl like this?”
Stroking the creamy long fur on Lang’s chest, Ye Tang adjusted her position. She leaned close to his ear and whispered an explanation. “Don’t underestimate the earl. His mind isn’t what his appearance suggests. He and his subordinates are much safer together than coming with us.”
The fur in his ears tickled and tingled, causing Lang’s grip to loosen. The entire wolf plummeted downward with Ye Tang in his arms.
A werewolf’s feet were like coiled springs. Even though Lang had let go suddenly, his sturdy body twisted and turned in midair. After pushing off the wall a few times, Lang safely landed with Ye Tang behind the bushes in the courtyard.
To cover his unnatural reaction, he lowered his voice and asked Ye Tang, “Then why did we come to see the earl at all?”
Ye Tang replied righteously, “Of course, to do him a favor and let him know we wanted to help.”
Thinking of the village elders’ evaluations of humans, Lang sighed. “Such wicked wisdom…”
“Oh? Do you hate me for having wicked wisdom?”
“How could I? I would never hate you! In fact, I lo—”
Ye Tang had spoken jokingly, but Lang nearly blurted it out. Realizing what he’d almost said, he roared in his mind, ‘Damn it!’, and quickly changed his words. “…I rather like that about humans.”
“Is that so?”
Holding onto Lang’s arm as she stepped firmly onto the ground and left his embrace, Ye Tang looked around. She heard Lang ask from behind her, “So what do we do next? Go straight home and sleep… somehow I doubt it. …By the way, how did you know Tobias would definitely try to kill the earl tonight? I haven’t heard any commotion yet…”
“No commotion is to be expected. Tobias wouldn’t want the earl’s guards to notice his movements.”
Ye Tang could be certain that Tobias would act tonight for a simple reason.
Tobias was the infamous Scrooge, a stingy miser who loved money more than life. The risks of killing the earl went beyond resistance from the earl’s group—there was also the queen’s inevitable autopsy on the earl’s body afterward.
Werewolves scorned human weapons. First, the sizes didn’t fit. Second, the weapons were too fragile and broke easily in werewolf hands. Third, a werewolf’s fangs and claws were the best weapons. So werewolves mostly fought barehanded.
Human weapons couldn’t replicate werewolf wounds. Even if Tobias framed werewolves, a coroner’s examination of the earl’s body would expose his lie.
Sure, Tobias could bribe the coroner, but who could guarantee the coroner wasn’t an upright sort? What if the queen, grief-stricken, sent a coroner who was a knowledgeable noble?
To eliminate all risks, Tobias’s options were limited. The easiest to think of, most convenient to execute, and the one that made Tobias look like a victim too was only one: burn all the evidence.
As long as the earl’s group burned to rot—or even ash—the chances of finding evidence against Tobias shrank.
And if this fire happened in Tobias’s mansion, destroying his precious collections, killing a few of his servants, and burning half the mansion down… wouldn’t Tobias look even more like a pitiful victim of misfortune?
After explaining this to Lang, Ye Tang laughed. “But you know Tobias is that guy who’d crawled into the eye of a money needle. He could bring himself to kill, and burning half his mansion was him cutting flesh while it pained him… after all, it was a necessary investment. But asking him to burn the collections he’d spent a lifetime building? He’d rather be drawn and quartered alive than become a bankrupt noble with just a title.”
“But Tobias couldn’t have packed up his collections before the earl moved in—housing a superior noble in a plainly decorated, insufficiently luxurious guest room would be seen as contempt. So you see, Tobias gave the east wing of the master bedroom corridor to the earl and moved himself to the guest rooms.”
After Ulysses moved into the East Corridor, Tobias had only one way to retrieve his paintings, sculptures, snuff bottles, porcelain plates, and tapestries before burning him alive.
“During a big cleanup, pack away some collections and swap others for fakes.”
Ye Tang didn’t need to say the rest—Lang understood.
To avoid delays breeding complications, Tobias would act quickly. So once Tobias’s mansion started a big cleanup for some reason—like a rat infestation—that meant he was launching his murder plan.
“Now do you know what we’re going to do?”
Ye Tang chuckled lightly.
“Of course!”
Lang hoisted Ye Tang onto his shoulder. His massive frame leapt across rooftops and scaled walls once more, climbing toward the mansion’s roof.
“Are you prepared?”
Wearing pajamas and a nightcap, Tobias threw off the covers and sat up in bed. His bulky body made the wooden frame creak, even bouncing his thin, haggard wife like a little toy on the mattress.
“Of course, my lord.”
His personal valet bowed to Tobias. With his hair slicked back glossy with pomade, narrow eyes, and upturned mustache, he looked straight out of a comic book villain.
“Jim just reported that he’s locked the butler’s bedroom door and the maids’ rooms from the outside. He oiled the butler’s window frame during the day, so if the butler tries to jump before the fire reaches his room, he’ll fall to his death.”
If the fire reached the butler’s room, the oiled frame would ignite instantly. By then, jumping would be impossible.
The valet gave a cold smile and bowed with a smug, credit-seeking expression. Tobias grunted in satisfaction and waved him away.
The butler had served him since his youth, so it was impossible to say he felt nothing for him.
But the butler knew the most secrets about him. Any one of those secrets could send him to the guillotine.
Since he was dealing with the earl anyway, why not bury the butler who knew too much? On the surface, losing a “brother-like” butler would make him look more like a victim. The loss of a “dear brotherly friend” was worth him wailing and playing the weakling, making his vow of vengeance against werewolves more believable.
“…Tobias, are you really going to abandon Hans too?”
His wife’s voice drifted faintly from beside him, irritating Tobias.
Women were like that—fussy, emotional. He’d laid out the pros and cons crystal clear, yet she remained indecisive. …Whatever. He shouldn’t expect anything from his wife anyway. A woman’s underdeveloped brain couldn’t grasp a man’s thinking—that was normal.
“Lorena, shut that boring mouth of yours and go to sleep properly. You won’t be able to sleep come the latter half of the night.”
Tears soaked into the covers clutched tightly in Lorena’s hands.
She felt like the thing lying behind her wasn’t a man, but a demon in human skin.
The night wind was cold. Outside the house, the male servant Jim sneezed while smoking.
“It’s about time…”
Too cold even to smoke, Jim tossed his cigarette butt, ground it underfoot, then fetched several barrels of kerosene from the warehouse behind him. He splashed them one by one onto the mansion’s outer walls.
Striking a match, he watched the flame dance in the darkness. For some reason, Jim thought of the little girl in the fairy tale wishing on matchlight.
He grinned involuntarily and wished at the tiny flame. “Let me get promoted and rich…!”
Boom—
The flames blazed brilliantly, lighting up the night. Wood crackled in the inferno.
The servants, graced with a slice of rum-soaked dessert each at dinner, slept soundly in sweet dreams. By the time smoke choked someone awake, the fire had already engulfed the entire East Corridor.
“Wh-what’s going on…!? Where’s this smoke from? No—no! This isn’t just smoke! It’s a fire!!”
The first maid to wake tumbled from bed. She screamed at her companions. “Fire!!!”