“Th-there was an accident!”
It was a spontaneous outburst. Before my mind even caught up, my mouth started to improvise a way out of the crisis. Oh well, I don’t know. Let’s just blurt something out and see.
“An accident? What accident are you talking about?”
“Well, um. It was a carriage accident. I fell off the carriage…”
“…”
Karl’s eyes narrowed. It seemed like he was silently challenging me to keep blabbering.
“I hit my head a bit. Lost my memory…”
“You lost your memory? From hitting your head?”
“Yes, exactly.”
The classic drama plot, an accident and amnesia. Remembering this now probably pushed my improvisation skills to the limit.
“So, I lost my previous memories. And the post-accident trauma lingered, so I came here quietly to recuperate. But suddenly, someone brought a child and claimed it’s mine… I have no idea what happened, so the best I could do was to call a detective. That’s the situation, roughly.”
“Hah. You expect me to believe that now.”
“You don’t have to believe. Because it’s the truth.”
What if they don’t believe me? Since I have no clue, I can’t even ask the speechless baby if I’m her mother or who her father is.
I glanced at Hannah beside me. Hannah sent me a look that said, “Well done, my lord!”
Karl shifted in his seat, only moving his eyes to look at the child in my arms. Snuggled in warmth, Valarie seemed to be drifting back to sleep, making soft cooing sounds. It was a typical sleepy behavior.
Yes, go to sleep. It helps.
Handing Valarie back to Hannah, I asked her to put the baby back to bed in the room.
As Hannah tried to tuck Valarie in, Karl stood up and spoke up.
“I suppose we need to verify.”
As Karl stood up, the knights’ eyes fixed on my face.
“Yes? What’s going on? Why are you all… staring at me?”
This time, the knights glanced at the potion on the table, then back at my face.
Ah, finally, I understood. Oh, so they want to verify if Valarie is really Celeste’s daughter with that potion, directly?
“I must check whether the count is lying or not.”
I had to watch as the knights swiftly placed the detective’s one arm on the table and aimed a dagger at it at Karl’s words.
What’s going on? Why is the detective examining the relationship between Valeri and me?
Not understanding their actions, I blinked my eyes, only to suddenly realize.
It was clear that Karl was suspecting the relationship between the detective and me now.
The potion test required blood from the test subject. They were moving so aggressively to extract that blood.
The detective, trapped by the knight’s strength gripping his wrist, let out a short groan. Blood droplets emerged from the back of his hand.
Was it really necessary to resort to a dagger?
Recalling the detective offering to draw a drop of blood from me last time in a gentle manner, I thought this was unnecessarily harsh. Seeing him enduring needless pain made me cringe.
As a drop of dark red liquid fell onto the clear potion, the knights’ eyes shifted again. There were three potion bottles on the table, all confiscated from the detective.
Why was the detective carrying multiple vials like this if he wasn’t running a paternity testing facility? The more I knew, the stranger he seemed.
“Bring the child here.”
“Oh, no, just a moment…”
As the man’s command fell, the knights surrounding us menacingly approached Hannah. They snatched the child and pushed her arms and shoulders down, immobilizing her.
The child was moved from the lap of the tallest knight, who sat as Karls’ aide, to the arms of a distinguished knight with a red medal on his chest, likely the lieutenant of the knights.
Anyway, the imposing knight, who looked as if his gaze alone could freeze a person, surprisingly skillfully embraced the child. That was unexpected.
“Daddy.”
Although she could cover her face, the child seemed to like the medal on the uniform. Playing with it enthusiastically, there was no end to her excitement.
“As long as I hold her, anyone will do just fine.”
As a strange sense of betrayal crept in, the knight’s voice spoke emotionlessly, much like reading a book, snapping me back to reality.
“Now we need to draw a drop of blood from the child too.”
It’s tough for adults to endure the prick of a needle, let alone a tiny baby, right?
Karl nodded at the knight’s words. That was permission.
The men here are all sociopaths? It was chilling to see them approaching a little child without even blinking an eye, ready to extract a drop of blood.
But there was no way out. We were only two against more than ten of them, all knights and much bigger in size. It would be useless to resist in this situation.
But we couldn’t just stand still.
“Where do you think you can prick with that tiny hand holding a needle?”
“Yes. Please do not touch the lady Valeri’s body carelessly!”
I exclaimed in anger, and Hannah also joined in. However, the knight just looked at Hannah briefly and continued what he was doing.
I looked at Karl as a sign to intervene, but Karl remained unmoved. His arrogant posture as he looked down at me was infuriating.
The child remained oblivious to the impending pain about to be inflicted.
One man, wiping the needle tip with a handkerchief, grabbed the child’s hand embraced by the knight. Annoyed by the interruption, the child began to squirm and whimper.
“Waaah, waaaah!”
The needle grazed the child’s tiny fingertip, causing tears to flow immediately. The once bright smile vanished in an instant, replaced by a red face with tears streaming down.
As the man struggled to extract enough blood, the child’s cries pierced the heart.
I remembered the man’s face. Let’s wait and see. I stared at the knight who made Valeri cry, vowing useless revenge.
“…like these sociopaths.”
“Alright, take her back.”
After finishing his task, the knight handed the child back to me. Valeri, overwhelmed by sharp pain, couldn’t calm down easily.
“There, there. You’re good, it’s okay.”
Why are these humans so indifferent to a child crying so sadly?
Feeling upset, I held Valeri and tried to soothe her, but she continued to cry loudly. Making a lively child cry like this, what kind of act is this? Annoyance surged within me.
“Now, do we just wait?”
“After adding two drops of blood, you should gently mix the potion and leave it still for a few minutes.”
The knight shook the potion bottle a few times and placed it carefully on the table.
“If the blood spreads and the potion turns red, it means the two bloods are not related.”
“And if they are?”
“Absorbed, it will become transparent.”
“If it turns red, it’s not blood. If it becomes transparent, that’s blood.”
“That’s right.”
The man took out a pocket watch from his pocket and placed it next to the potion bottle.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock. The sound of the clock hands filled the air with tension.
I wasn’t the only one here who wasn’t curious about the outcome. It was a complex situation.
Even if the original storyline was twisted, there was no way the detective from a rural village and Celeste, whom I didn’t even know by name or face, could have a connection. After all, in the novel, she was a serious appearance-oriented person.
So, the most likely opponent here would be Duke Albrecht. Needlessly, an overly handsome male protagonist.
Tick-tock. Tick-tock.
Everyone held their breath, watching for changes in the potion. In the tense silence, a thought of the magic stones hidden on the first floor crossed my mind, the closest one being hidden right under the pillar behind which the knights stood.
Was it time to use that magic stone to escape now, or not? Speculations were being made. The potion mixed with the blood of the detective and Valerie turned red.
“The color of the potion has changed.”
Of course, it did. How could one even suspect the relationship between the detective and Celeste? By the way, what was the spell to activate the magic stone?
