Chapter 48: Devouring Lucian
Afternoon sunlight fell through the windows. The air carried a faint warmth of wood and quiet.
The door closed softly behind him.
Lucian stood in the entryway, boot heels settling onto the dark floorboards with a muffled sound. No lamps had been lit. Light filtered through the half-drawn curtains in narrow strips, tracing bright lines across the floor, dust moving slowly in each column.
"Siel" stood at the end of the corridor.
She was in her standard maid's dress — black-and-white hem past her knees, white apron tied with meticulous precision. Her blue hair was gathered into a low ponytail, a few loose strands falling at her temples. Those amber-brown eyes were half-open as always, carrying thirteen years of unbroken despondency.
But her posture was not what it usually was.
Not her usual perfunctory half-bow — not the lazy, going-through-the-motions sort. This was a formal, textbook-perfect deep bow. Back straight, a slow deliberate bend forward, hands folded in front of her, head lowered to the level of her waist.
"My lord."
Two words, very quiet, like a feather settling on still water.
But Lucian understood.
This was the signal he and "Siel" had agreed between them.
The Theocracy's operation had succeeded.
Lucian stood where he was, watching the figure bowed before him, and felt his heart give one hard beat in his chest.
From Sebas's micro-expressions during the carriage ride, he had already formed a rough guess at the outcome. But a guess was a guess, and a confirmation was a confirmation.
Only now, only with those two words landing in his ears, could he truly set it down.
Lucian drew a slow breath and pressed the surge of feeling back. A faint smile formed on his face.
"No need for ceremony, Siel."
He raised a hand and waved it off, his manner casual and unhurried, his voice as level as if he were commenting on the weather.
"Siel" straightened.
Those amber-brown eyes met his for a moment. She gave a small nod, turned, and walked toward the kitchen at that same unhurried, slightly dragging pace, her hem swaying softly as she went.
Lucian watched her back until she disappeared around the corner. The faint curve at his mouth settled.
"No need for ceremony" was telling her to stop all contact with the Theocracy.
Having Sebas as a neighbor was a double-edged thing.
On one side, Lucian could read how events were unfolding with considerably more precision. On the other — it meant that he and everyone around him was almost certainly under constant surveillance.
So regardless of how many details about the Theocracy's operation still needed to be confirmed, nothing could be said. Not here, in his own house, with every door and window shut.
He pushed open the study door and walked in.
Everything as usual.
"Siel" brought tea in a short while, set it on the desk, and withdrew.
Lucian picked it up and took a sip.
Not scalding.
He set the cup down, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes.
Quiet.
Only the occasional birdsong from outside, and the steady sound of his own breathing.
Lucian felt a stillness he had never quite felt before — because the world, at least, was no longer the world of the original story. The path of fate had shifted. He didn't know where that shift would carry him, but the peace of the present moment was something he was reluctant to let go of.
---
At this moment, in the house next door.
The right-side house.
Solution stood at the second-floor window, left eye closed.
The window looked directly across to Lucian's house, with only a narrow alley and a small neatly trimmed hedge between them. Afternoon sunlight poured down from above, flooding the whole lane with a brightness clear enough to see into the cracks between the paving stones.
After a moment, she opened her eye.
"No anomalies, Sebas-sama."
The voice had shed its young-lady affect entirely, returning to the respectful deference of a subordinate addressing a superior.
She turned toward the old man standing in the middle of the room. A quietly thoughtful expression had settled on that precise face.
"To think there would be someone this naively good-natured among human nobles."
Solution tilted her head, as though turning something interesting over. There was no malice in those eyes — or rather, malice was simply part of her, as natural as breathing, something she had no need to call up.
"If I were to digest him, his dying cries would surely be quite pleasant."
The corners of her mouth spread past any normal range, into a smile very close to coming apart. It held not just excitement but the specific, unhurried pleasure of a predator examining its prey.
Sebas's brow shifted slightly. A trace of disapproval moved through those pale grey eyes.
"Solution."
His voice was not raised, but it carried an authority that left no opening.
"The operations ahead still rely on the Aindra family name. Do not do anything unnecessary."
Solution's smile stiffened for an instant.
Then she let her eyes drop. The expression on her face slowly drew back from its broken shape, reassembling itself into the composed restraint she wore as a young lady. But the disappointment in those eyes was plain.
"Then... after the mission is concluded..."
She looked up at Sebas, a note of careful testing in her voice.
"Could Sebas-sama grant this man to me?"
Sebas didn't answer immediately.
He stood where he was, hands clasped behind his back, his gaze resting somewhere outside the window. Afternoon sunlight lay across his white-grey hair, turning each strand to silver.
A moment of silence.
"My assessment is this."
Sebas's voice was steady and certain.
"Even taking the long view, Mr. Lucian is of use to the Great Tomb of Nazarick."
Solution's lips pressed together.
She said nothing further.
The disappointment on that precise face gradually faded, replaced by a resigned acceptance.
"Understood."
Solution turned and walked deeper into the house, her hem sweeping across the floorboards with a faint, dry sound. Her long fingers curled slightly against her skirt side — gathering in that predatory impulse and pressing it down into her palm. The light in the corridor grew dimmer, shadows climbing her shoulders.
She didn't look back. Her footsteps settled into an even rhythm and faded into the warmth of wood and quiet.
She had no intention of filing a report.
In the original story, the person Sebas had rescued was Tsuare — a human woman of no practical use, one who even required consuming Nazarick's resources. Solution had endured that without filing a report.
It was only when Sebas's stated reason for keeping Tsuare amounted to something along the lines of "her cooking is good, the house is too empty, we need someone here for appearances" — excuses that wouldn't survive any real scrutiny — and when Tsuare's presence created unnecessary complications for the mission, that Miss Solution had finally felt compelled to report over his head.
But right now, the help Lucian could provide to Nazarick was entirely real.
The Aindra family name, his connections in the capital, his knowledge of the noble circles — these were exactly what Sebas needed to complete the mission.
For Sebas-sama's reason for refusing her claim on Lucian, Solution was willing to accept it.
Solution was not particularly fond of filing reports in any case.
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