Time of the Blind Beast - Chapter 66

Ezekiel didn’t even give a hollow laugh.

“What utter nonsense.”

“D-do you think I don’t know? I saw the letters! You and Father conspired to blind me, ugh, ugh…”

The moment he mentioned his eye, the one struck by a bullet throbbed tenfold. His stomach twisted and bile rose. Akenaus dry-heaved.

But Ezekiel didn’t even pretend to listen to Akenaus’s outburst.

“As if I, who couldn’t even see, could’ve written a letter.”

“The woman, there was a woman! She wrote the letter and sent it, urgh…”

“A woman?”

The finger that had been lightly tapping the trigger suddenly stopped. Ezekiel, with eyes cast down, stared blankly at his brother.

To dismiss it as a desperate attempt to stall for time, Akenaus’s plea sounded too genuine.

Besides, something clicked. There had been one woman who had written letters for him.

Rose.

That dearly missed name struck his chest violently. For the first time, Ezekiel listened to Akenaus.

“Say that again.”

“So… ugh!”

Akenaus spat out the bitter blood trickling down from his lips.

He had never been shot before in his life. It hurt this much, the blood poured like this, his head spun like this—and yet in the midst of it all, he was observing Ezekiel’s reaction and trying desperately to stay rational. He found himself incredible and strange.

Still, this was his chance. He had to provoke Ezekiel’s interest by any means. He didn’t know which part had caught his attention, but getting Ezekiel to ask again was already a huge step forward.

“The letter said your surgery was successful, and that it would be the final report to send…”

“And?”

“It didn’t specify what kind of promise, but it said they would fulfill a promise…”

“Promise?”

“Just… it only said ‘promise’…”

“What else.”

“Ah, right! The handwriting was very pretty, so I thought she must be a well-educated woman!”

That final detail blew away even the last remaining doubt. It was definitely Rose. Dr. Brehman, who had received several letters from her, had also especially admired Rose’s handwriting.

“You have quite the capable maid. I was surprised by how beautiful her handwriting was.”

“Rose is good at writing too?”

“Yes, exceptionally so. Truly impressive.”

But she had been in contact with the main house?

This was the first he’d heard of it. It couldn’t have been under Madam Serva’s orders either. Madam Serva could read and write letters herself. Moreover, Rose had never shown any sign of such a thing. Of course, if she had intentionally hidden it, there would’ve been no way for Ezekiel to know.

But would she have had any reason to? For what purpose?

His heart pounded irregularly. No matter how he considered it, the letter writer had to be Rose, but he couldn’t make sense of how she was involved with the main house.

He needed to understand the situation more precisely. Ezekiel asked again in a calm voice, “What’s the name? The person who sent the letter.”

“I don’t know. It was signed with just initials, so it was practically anonymous… That means letters had already been exchanged multiple times, and Father recognized the sender even without a name…”

Akenaus, searching through his memory, slowly shifted his remaining left eye. Judging by Ezekiel’s reaction, that wasn’t the answer he wanted. Moreover, Ezekiel’s rifle remained unwavering, aimed at his left eye, causing cold sweat to drip.

At this rate, he might really lose his second eye.

Having already experienced Ezekiel’s merciless hand, Akenaus was desperate. He didn’t know what part of the letter had intrigued Ezekiel, so he had to blurt out whatever came to mind.

“The letter—I kept it myself!”

He remembered rummaging through his father’s study, reading the letter and absentmindedly crumpling the whole envelope into his coat pocket. As it happened, he was wearing that very coat now.

“If I don’t tell you, you won’t be able to find it.”

He had to stall for time without revealing the letter’s location. Akenaus quickly thought it through.

He didn’t know what was so important about a single letter, but if it could make Ezekiel lower that rifle, he had to milk it for all it was worth.

The news in the letter may have been shocking for Akenaus, who had been excluded from all information, but for Ezekiel himself, it wasn’t likely to be anything surprising. Still, if he exaggerated it cleverly enough, Ezekiel might just fall for it.

Just as he was contemplating how to spin it—

“You begged me to spare your life, didn’t you?”

“…What?”

“I’ll spare you.”

The reply came without a moment’s hesitation, before he could even attempt a deal. Akenaus looked at Ezekiel, inwardly surprised.

“If you hand over that letter, I’ll spare your life. For now.”

It was unexpected. On Ezekiel’s face, which had consistently remained cold until now, a strange emotion could be sensed.

It felt like urgent, anxious, and desperate longing, or like the pain of someone suppressing an insane amount of agony.

Either way, it was a look never seen before. Even his family found it eerie how Ezekiel so rarely revealed his emotions. That made him all the more unpleasant and detestable. Acting so lofty despite being younger. Acting like he was the only capable one.

Akenaus glanced furtively at Ezekiel’s unfamiliar expression.

Was it not the content of the letter that mattered? Was it the woman who sent the letter that was important?

A memory suddenly resurfaced. Now that he thought of it, the place that had ultimately won the bid for the red diamond at the auction had been listed as the Valdemaira residence in Derosa. It had been baffling.

At the time, he thought Madam Serva, known for her business acumen, had competed with him. After all, rare gemstones tend to appreciate in value the longer they’re kept. He had assumed she had dusted off her old skills to prepare for the future of her blind former master. But if there had been another reason behind it all…

Could it be that he wasn’t holed up in the countryside dying alone, but was actually with a woman?

But he was blind. He kept a woman at his side whose face he couldn’t even see? What did he trust in to do that?

He wasn’t the type to let people into his space easily…

It was surprising and bizarre. Moreover, with that stiff character of his, if he had gone as far as digging through an auction for a symbolically meaningful gem like a diamond, it could never have been for an ordinary reason.

What kind of woman could have bewitched him that badly?

If only his condition were a little better, or if the situation were just a bit more manageable, he would have tried to dig deeper. But his instinct to survive sounded the alarm first.

Now was definitely not the time to test that patience. If he tried to fish for more with the letter, the result might be worse than saying nothing at all. For now, he had to focus on surviving. He had to make it out of here if he wanted to plan for later.

“Handing over the letter isn’t difficult…”

Akenaus pressed his palm to his wounded eyelid to stop the bleeding, trying to steady his dizzy mind.

“But you’ve got a gun. How am I supposed to believe you won’t shoot me after you get the letter?”

As soon as he said it, he recalled hearing a similar question somewhere before.

It had been a long time since he last thought of that woman. The one who had knelt before him, begging for her parents’ lives—her appearance was a mess from running in desperation, but her face had very much been his type.

“…How can I trust that you’ll keep your promise?”

When he threw her a vial of poison and told her to find a way to save her family on her own, she had shivered for a long time before finally asking that question.

Now that he was on the receiving end, he understood. That woman must’ve felt incredibly miserable.

If she had a way, she probably would have killed him. Just like how he now felt about Ezekiel.

“Fine.”

At Akenaus’s suspicion, Ezekiel immediately tossed his rifle behind him.

Only then did Akenaus let out a deep breath. With the gun no longer pointed at his eye, he felt a slight sense of relief. But he still couldn’t trust Ezekiel. The man could easily overpower him unarmed, especially with Akenaus disarmed and severely injured. That’s likely why he had discarded the rifle so casually.

Akenaus glanced sideways at Ezekiel and laid out his condition.

“Don’t move from that spot until I’m out the door.”

First, he needed to create a safe distance from Ezekiel.

“The letter.”

“The letter… is on me. I’ll throw it your way when I step out. Until then, don’t take a single step. If you approach, I’ll crumple it and swallow it whole.”

With a single letter offering a way to survive, there was no reason not to hand it over. Akenaus planned to gain enough distance in advance and escape while Ezekiel bent down to pick up the letter.

Ezekiel gave a hollow laugh at how desperate Akenaus was to secure his own safety.

“Alright.”

As soon as Ezekiel agreed, Akenaus began inching backward, slowly crossing the garden. Fearing that Ezekiel might break his promise and move, he kept his eyes fixed on his younger brother’s planted feet.

Gradually, he widened the distance and neared the front gate. Meanwhile, Ezekiel remained far behind. From how tense he was, his back had already grown damp with sweat, and he shivered from the cold.

At the front gate, Akenaus paused and reached into his coat pocket with a blood-soaked hand. Ezekiel continued to stare at him motionlessly with an eerie aura.

Akenaus pulled out the crumpled wad of paper and hurled it with all his strength toward Ezekiel. Then he immediately turned and fled.

Ezekiel coldly watched Akenaus’s retreating figure before striding over and picking up the letter rolling across the ground.

“…She never even left me a single letter.”

He hadn’t expected to get a letter Rose wrote here.

He opened the envelope and took out the stationery.