Chapter 179: Showdown
The evening settled slowly over the camp, draping the torn tents and the beastman bodies on the ground in a dim, burnt-orange light.
The smell of blood still hadn't fully cleared from the air. It mixed with the smell of mud and scorched canvas.
Lucian looked away from Touch Me.
The warmth that had been in his expression a moment ago receded, replaced by something more complicated — a guarded unease. His brow drew in slightly, his lips pressed into a line, the look of someone making a difficult decision.
Sebas noticed the shift.
"Lord Lucian?" The old butler's voice carried a faint note of concern. "Is there something else on your mind?"
Lucian was quiet for a moment.
"Sebas," he said at last, not answering directly, "that move Touch Me just used — what do you make of it?"
Sebas paused.
His gaze moved without thinking toward Touch Me's direction — the slight figure of the boy kneeling on the ground, his outline thin and solitary in the fading light.
Something softened in Sebas's expression. When he spoke, there was an undercurrent in his voice that he couldn't quite contain.
"That strike... it genuinely cut through space." Sebas's voice was faint, almost unsteady. "A force like that is impossible for any [Martial Art]. I've read through the compendium of [Martial Arts] you gave me, Lord Lucian. There's nothing in it that resembles what I just saw."
He lowered his voice further. Even with near certainty already settled in him, he still found himself reaching for confirmation.
"That was... an [Innate Ability], wasn't it."
Lucian didn't answer immediately.
He dropped his gaze, as though thinking something through — or perhaps giving Sebas a moment to breathe.
Then he spoke.
"Sebas. There's something I need to say to you first."
Sebas, who in any other circumstances would have been alert to every piece of information in a conversation like this, wasn't paying attention to that tonight.
His gaze was still fixed in Touch Me's direction. That lined face, carved deep by years, held only one thing: a feeling that had no clean name for it.
Lucian's eyes rested on Sebas's face for a moment.
Then, without warning, he broke through whatever Sebas was lost in.
"Sebas."
A beat.
"You're not actually an imperial merchant's butler, are you."
The words fell between them.
For an instant, the air between the two of them went completely still.
Sebas turned his head. His gaze found Lucian's.
His expression didn't change much. What was there instead was a kind of quiet composure — the look of someone who had always known, somewhere in themselves, that this day would come.
Sebas lowered his gaze. A silence stretched between them. When he spoke, his voice was measured.
"When did Lord Lucian first realize?"
The question carried a candor underneath it — the candor of someone who had accepted that the cover was never going to hold forever.
Lucian didn't sidestep it.
"From the beginning," he said. "When we first met on the road, you weren't comfortable with noble etiquette. You handled yourself well enough, but there were small things that couldn't be disguised."
Sebas's brow pressed down slightly, as though turning back to that day in his memory.
"And then," Lucian continued, "you told me you were an imperial merchant's attendant — but you were escorting a young lady into the Kingdom to purchase magic scrolls and materials. The Empire takes magic far more seriously than the Kingdom does. Its resources are considerably richer. A genuine imperial merchant would have no reason to make that kind of detour."
Sebas exhaled quietly.
"Then there was your general knowledge," Lucian went on, his tone unchanged. "There were a number of things you seemed unfamiliar with. You did your best to cover it, but in small details, you would occasionally let a trace of unfamiliarity show through."
He paused, then added:
"And of course, the most obvious thing was your combat ability. No ordinary imperial merchant's attendant possesses that kind of strength."
Sebas was quiet for a long time.
The evening deepened around them. The line of the horizon in the distance had gone grey-purple, and a handful of stars had begun to appear against the darkening blue overhead.
"Lord Lucian's perception is truly something else." Sebas's voice carried genuine feeling. "I was riddled with inconsistencies."
Lucian watched him accept it with that unshaken composure, and felt something in himself — a thread that had been taut for longer than he'd admitted — ease slightly.
Because however small the probability, he hadn't been able to fully rule out the possibility that Sebas might move against him.
"Sebas, my original intention wasn't to bring this into the open." Lucian's voice took on a more deliberate weight. "Everyone carries their own secrets. But what I can say with certainty is that you are a good person — and that's something I confirmed with my own eyes, through everything that's passed between us."
Sebas's gaze shifted faintly.
"But," Lucian said, and his voice dropped. "Today, for Touch Me's sake, I had no choice."
He paused.
"I hope you can forgive me for that."
The wind passed between them, stirring the gold of Lucian's hair and the silver at Sebas's temples.
For a moment, the noise of the camp behind them seemed very far away.
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