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Translator: penny
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: Debts Are Meant to Be Repaid
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After I was officially announced as the Proxy Blood Fate heir set to face off against Syl, my surroundings turned into a completely different world overnight.
The first thing that changed was the annex.
The servants who usually stuck to me under the pretext of "taking care of me," but in reality spent their days monitoring and exploiting me.
Those pieces of trash were now...
"P-Please, spare me! Have mercy...! We were just following orders!"
"Y-Young Master! Give us a chance to beg forgiveness from the Family Head—!"
"Aaagh!! No—!! Please!!"
The moment I set foot in the annex, I was greeted by screams begging for life and the stench of blood.
As if to show that the air in this mansion had changed, the corridors were lined with the family's direct guards wielding swords, methodically cutting down fleeing servants and leaving them sprawled on the floor.
A servant whose thigh had been sliced while trying to run.
A maid who knelt in repentance only to have her neck snapped and collapse backward.
Even a guard who wailed about injustice, drew his sword, and was instantly turned into a pincushion by blades flying from all directions.
Before even a single verse of a song could be sung, the entire annex had been swept clean—too brutally to call it mere "cleanup."
And the mastermind behind this chaos.
Seratina Argent.
She wasn't here.
Because just moments ago, she'd already been dragged away by the Family Head's summons and was kneeling in another room, waiting for her judgment.
The instant her web of surveillance was exposed, her fate was sealed far quicker than that of the other servants in the annex.
The annex was a bloodbath right now, but Seratina had been taken to Agram's room first, where she couldn't even breathe properly as she awaited her disposal.
And all the screams grew thicker by the moment, fueled by their ugly survival instincts—backstabbing and betraying each other.
Every time one died, another wailed even louder.
Begging for life... or selling out the guy next to them.
Amid that hellish cacophony, I leaned against the doorframe with my arms crossed, slowly smiling.
"If I weren't underage, I'd crack open a bottle of liquor right now. Where else am I gonna find appetizers like this...?"
Right then.
"M-Master... over there..."
"Hm?"
Piel, who'd been glued to my side, cautiously pointed to one spot.
The annex's people collapsing into bloody messes.
The ones who'd been screaming, shrieking, crawling until they died moments ago.
Someone had crawled right up to my feet where Piel's tiny finger pointed.
Covered in blood, breath on the verge of stopping.
But like she was clutching at her last lifeline, the woman knelt before me.
Karen.
It was Karen, my former exclusive maid.
"L-Lucas, Young Master! It's... it's me, Karen!"
"Oh, Karen. What is it?"
Karen rubbed her hands together frantically, practically slamming her forehead into the floor.
"P-Please, just spare me! I'm the servant who's been with you the longest...! They say even hatred breeds affection—surely you're not really going to kill me?"
Her voice was like a crumpled sheet of paper, completely crushed.
Eyes that would cling to anything for survival.
And honestly, the saying about sour grapes turning sweet wasn't entirely wrong.
Karen had been the "nanny" who raised me on command ever since Lucas's mother died that day.
Of course, her methods were the problem.
When waking me, she'd jab needles before words; baths were with filthy mop water from cleaning the mansion floors; and she'd siphoned all my food budget, leaving me a scrawny, bony chick.
Still... affection does build with long acquaintance.
I gently wrapped my arm around Karen's shoulders.
Embracing her tightly.
"Of course, Karen. After all the time we've spent together, how could I forget you?"
"Y-Young Master...!"
Karen's face relaxed in an instant.
A sigh of relief escaped her trembling shoulders.
Piel quietly inhaled.
Her eyes watched the scene without tears or pity, just calmly observing.
I glanced at her briefly, then turned back to Karen.
Today was the day to settle that long-standing "sour affection."
"Karen, listen carefully from now on."
I placed my hand on her kneeling shoulder.
"This is a direct order from the Family Head himself... so I can't openly spare your life. But faking your death and letting you escape? That much I can do."
"A-Ah! Young Master, really...!"
A spark of hope burst from despair.
Karen's eyes lit up in a flash.
And right then.
"Lucas, sir, that maid over there...?"
"Step back, please. We'll handle her per the Family Head's orders."
The guards cleaning up the bloody mess in the annex finally approached us.
Karen's body froze and began trembling like ice.
That shiver transmitted straight to my fingertips.
I tilted my head slightly to meet Karen's eyes.
Slowly, meaningfully, I winked with one eye.
"About that handling..."
I slowly stood and turned toward the guards.
"I want to do it myself."
"Y-Yes?!"
"You mean you wish to handle it personally, Lucas, sir?"
"Yes."
I nodded.
As if revealing a deep resolve from my heart.
"This Karen sitting here... she's like the nanny who carried me on her back and raised me. If she has to die, isn't it less cruel for me to send her off with my own hands than to let strangers tear her apart?"
The guards were speechless for a moment, exchanging glances.
And as I calmly extended my palm,
"So, lend me the bow and arrows you're using. Just for a bit."
They say there's always a way out even if the sky falls—must be talking about moments like this.
She'd tormented Lucas his whole life... yet astonishingly, even in this slaughterhouse, the Young Master wore an expression promising to spare such a Karen.
The recipient was inwardly renewed with gratitude and emotion... like hell she was.
"Pfft!"
The tears she shed like a mask weren't from, but calculation.
She was sneering inside.
Because from the start, she'd been steadily siphoning Lucas's living expenses in cahoots with the annex staff, amassing "escape funds" to one day flee this mansion.
This was actually an unexpected corruption purge.
When the Family Head's direct soldiers burst in and servants started dropping one by one amid screams, Karen truly thought it was over in this hell.
But—
Paths to survival always open in unexpected places.
Thanks to the naive Young Master who still mistook Karen for his "affectionate old maid," clueless to the ways of the world.
"Karen."
Lucas, handed the bow, whispered in a low, quick voice.
Too quiet for the guards to hear.
"The moment I draw the bowstring, run for the mansion entrance. That's how you'll live."
Hearing that alone convinced Karen she would survive.
What more did she need when the Young Master himself promised to let her go?
"Young Master. Thank you!"
Her lips trembled in feigned emotion, but deep in her chest, a wholly different feeling bloomed.
'Stupid bastard... thanks to you, I survive again.'
And the moment the signal came, Karen bolted without looking back.
An "arrow" whistled through the air behind her.
Or was it really whistling?
Thud, thud—
It fell weakly to the ground, the perfect display of the Young Master's utter incompetence with a bow.
Well, Lucas had been starved by her since birth, never even properly holding chopsticks.
His always-shaking arms from hunger could barely scoop thin, chunkless soup.
No wonder an arrow from him lacked the strength to pierce the wind.
Karen, knowing this all too well, glanced back twice while running, smirking all the while.
Even fleeing alone from the blood-soaked chaos, her lips curled not in fear, but triumph.
'People really do need luck to survive.'
As the exit came into view, Karen's mind raced ahead to life after escape.
Just get past this, and it's done.
With the money siphoned from the Argent annex, she could live leisurely forever.
Lifetime shopping? Luxury?
Or— keh, something even more fun.
Images flashed of the official heirs treating their slaves like toys.
There was fear, but honestly, "envy" outweighed it.
She'd abused Lucas freely enough, but always had to keep him just shy of death.
That had always been her regret.
"Once I'm out... maybe I'll start a slave business myself?"
Not on the Argent scale, but she could pick and choose boys to her taste, toy with them mercilessly, and revel as a "queen" watching them scream.
Lost in that sweet fantasy, Karen nearly screamed inwardly at the exit right before her.
Right then—
Pfuk!
"...Huh?"
A "foreign sensation" surged through her right arm.
Pain followed immediately.
As her gaze trembled down to her arm, she saw the arrowhead firmly embedded, piercing her flesh.
"Kkh...!"
Before she could even feel the pain—
Pfuk!
This time, her left arm.
With both arms limp, she couldn't run—could only stumble forward.
Still desperate to live, dragging her feet toward the threshold—
Pfuk!
"Kh, aaagh...!"
Now her right leg.
Three arrows, precisely hitting non-lethal spots.
Thoroughly avoiding vitals while completely blocking escape... masterful precision.
'W-Why? Whywhywhy!?'
Karen's mind went blank.
The Young Master was a bastard kid who'd never touched a crossbow, let alone a bow—one of nobility's basics—until today?
No, more than that, he'd clearly promised to let her live!
As those desperate thoughts tangled, another—
Pfuk!
The final arrow pierced her left ankle.
Snap.
Her ankle nearly severed halfway, her body buckled backward.
Karen sprawled on the floor, unleashing a bloodcurdling scream unrelated to blood ties.
Her overturned vision flipped, revealing Lucas Argent's face amid the blood-soaked forms.
And—
His moving lips.
The moment she read that one sentence, even dying, Karen felt her breath "stop."
"Karen. This is the order you stabbed me in when I was a baby."
Only then did the memories resurface.
Right arm.
Left arm.
Right leg.
Left leg.
Whenever baby Lucas tried to crawl, Karen would block him and pull out needles.
To silence his cries and immobilize him, she'd jab in sequence: right arm, left arm, right leg, left leg—forcing the child still.
A tale over ten years old.
Crimes from when the baby couldn't possibly remember.
Yet he repaid them exactly, without a single deviation.
"A-Ah... Aaaaaah—!"
Karen had stopped after four jabs, but Lucas had no reason to.
"S-Spare me... please, let me live! I'm sorry... I won't torment you anymore, I'll pick on other kids, please!!"
It was the first time.
For her, the bastard she'd crushed her whole life, to beg him sincerely, staking her life.
Lucas looked down at her and smiled instead.
As if thankful, as if he'd waited ages.
And he drew the bowstring.
"Karen."
Karen's eyes bulged.
"Thanks to you, I think I can finally sleep easy."
Pfuk.
The arrow plunged straight into her gaping throat, as if to pry it open.
Blood sprayed across the floor like ripples.
Thus, Karen's body fell still—not toward the "new life" she'd craved forever, but settled with the bill for her past sins.
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