The double life of a count’s bastard

It was late in the evening, on the sixth day of his self-imposed confinement, that Rousseau emerged from his room. Jason was horrified at the sight of the disheveled wretch, and it took the maids to clean him up and restore him to some semblance of humanity.

“Hooaaaaaah!”

Patting his full stomach, Rousseau casually picked up his drink.

“Gulp!!!”

The first drink in six days was sweet beyond expectation. If he had known, he would have abstained from drinking for days before. As Rousseau savored the flavor with a satisfied smile on his lips, Jason gingerly interrupted.

“Master Rousseau, are you feeling all right?”

Jason asked, and Rousseau looked up at him, squinting.

“Why, you don’t want me to be sick anywhere?”

“Of course not.”

Rousseau frowned as Jason answered calmly, not the least bit embarrassed. Jason had been a fun tease when he’d first become his butler, but now he’d lost all the fun.

“It’s not funny anymore.”

“What?”

“Never mind. You still haven’t heard from Viscount Kansler?”

“I haven’t heard from him since he unilaterally canceled. I wonder if the Count is concerned…….”

Before Jason could finish his sentence, Rousseau raised his glass to his mouth, lost in his thoughts.

“He’ll send his knight, Alex, to the Kansler estate tomorrow.”

Rousseau swallowed hard, no longer speaking of what he had experienced in his dream. Viscount Kansler would have welcomed any knight of Count Slater’s with open arms, even if it was an unannounced visit. But this time would be different.

“You’ll be turned away before you even set foot in the manor.”

If the prophecy is true, the Viscount Kansler’s personal affairs have come to a head, and Alex will not be able to get a sip of water before he returns. If that happens, Viscount Kansler’s business will be nothing. The problem is the expedition to the Inkeran Mountains. The first failed expedition in 20 years. Ten years after that, a tragedy that no one could have foreseen will engulf the Earl of Slater. The best way to avoid the tragedy of a decade from now, the end of his dreams, is to somehow make this expedition a success.

‘It’s impossible to make this expedition work now, no matter what I do. Even with a few months to spare, there was nothing Rousseau could do to reverse the outcome of the expedition, which was now ten days away. But he couldn’t go to his father and tell him that this expedition would fail and that it would bring the family to ruin.’

‘It’s a good thing he’s a madman. He’ll be mad at me for wanting the family to fail.’

Even though Rousseau had been a wreck and had turned his father’s stomach, he couldn’t bring the subject of the expedition out of his mouth. In the end, Rousseau realized that the wisest course of action was to make a clean break with what he couldn’t do and prepare for what came after.

‘By the way, Aaron’s going to get hurt pretty badly in the away game…….’

Honestly, at this point, I don’t even care if my second brother Aaron gets hurt on the road or not. I didn’t have an older brother who treated me like a bug, but I didn’t care. But.

“Rousseauoooooo!!!”

Rousseau’s mind flashed back to the image of Aaron flying to save himself and losing one of his arms in return.

“It doesn’t make any sense.”

Aaron, who treats his brother like a bug, sacrifices his own body. Rousseau can’t get over the image of Aaron’s arm being chopped off and him checking to see if his brother was hurt.

“I don’t think I could have dreamed that.”

But it was a vision. Rousseau couldn’t let it go, and he wanted to make sure Aaron didn’t get hurt, at least not on this trip.

‘If you do end up getting hurt like in the dream, you’ll owe me a big favor, and that won’t be a bad thing.’

The thought of Aaron owing him a debt of gratitude seemed to Rousseau to be a pretty good thing. To do that.

“Find out where Lily is.”

“Find out where Lily is,” Jason said immediately. “If it’s Lady Lily, she should be on her way back to the mansion by now.”

“Yeah, but where does she go?”

“She always goes to the shrine to pray at this time of day.”

“Prayers?”

“Lady Lily has been going to the temple every day for a month before her expedition to pray for her safe return. She’s been doing it for seven years now.”

“……Seven years?”

Rousseau was speechless at Jason’s mention of seven years. In those seven years, Rousseau had lived a life of utter bastardization and eaten away at some of the family honor.

* * *

“Brother!”

Lily, who had just returned from the temple, ran into the room where Rousseau was fiddling with a bottle of wine.

Poof!!!

“What kind of a …… big girl is running into a man’s arms?”

Russo scolded Lily, who jumped into his arms and lightly pushed her away.

“Is your brother a man?”

“All the hairy men there are thieves…….”

“Kaaaaaah, don’t say that!”

Lily shouted, pulling away from Russo in annoyance. Rousseau would have laughed inwardly at the sight of her puffing out her cheeks and glaring at him.

“Oh, let go! Let go! Let go! Let go! Let go!”

Lily’s being dragged away by orcs and the horrors that followed…….

Rousseau could never, no matter what, put Lily through such a tragedy.

“Even if I cannot prevent the destruction of the family, I will protect you, Lily.”

Lily was the only sister he had in the world, and he would protect her, even if it meant risking his own life.

“What’s up with my room, anyway? It’s been two years since you secretly left me a present on my 12th birthday?”

“How many times did I tell you it wasn’t me?”

“Pii~!”

Lily smiled broadly as if she knew Russo was lying. Seeing how cute she was, Russo forced his lips to keep from twitching and revealed the purpose of his visit.

“Take this.”

Russo held out a thin necklace.

“It’s Felento’s guardian necklace, isn’t it?”

Lily recognized the necklace Russo held out at once, for she had one of her own. It was a rare magical artifact, made by the archmage Felento, that triggered a protective spell when the wearer was in danger, and it was a very expensive treasure. Despite its value, Lily, who knew better than anyone what Felento’s protective necklace could do, frowned at Russo’s behavior.

“I don’t need it anymore, I mean, why would a guy like me need it in the first place, so…… Lily, you have another one.”

“You mean that…….”

“Just take it, and I’ll give you some money. You have some money saved up, right?”

At Russo’s request for money, Lily’s expression went from bewilderment to disbelief.

“You’re trying to sell me Felento’s guardian necklace?”

Lily raised both eyebrows and glared at him, but Russo didn’t blink.

“I can’t be bothered to sell it to anyone else, and I don’t want to have to listen to my father’s nagging if he finds out.”

Lily stared at her brother, unable to contain the smug look on his face, and then sighed.

“How much money do you need, never mind this.”

Lily reached for Felento’s guardian necklace again, but Russo slapped her hand away.

“Keep it as collateral until you pay me back because I don’t want to be the last person to extort my sister’s money.”

Russo’s face hardened, and Lily couldn’t take the necklace back anymore.

“Then I’ll keep it.”

Lily lent her 50 gold from her emergency fund, and Rousseau took it and left without another word.

“Haaaaa.”

Left alone, Lily could only sigh in frustration, wondering when her only real brother would wake up. On the other hand.

“Now we just need to get Lily to give Felento’s guardian necklace to Aaron.”

It was no small task, but this was Russo.

* * *

Rousseau had a plan, a risky one, but one that might save his family and Aaron from the tragic fate he had seen in his vision. He would need to convince Lily to pass the necklace on to Aaron, ensuring his brother’s protection during the expedition. He couldn’t do it directly, but he could manipulate events to make it happen.

As night fell, Rousseau began to set his plan in motion, knowing that the days ahead would be crucial. The fate of his family, and perhaps the entire empire, depended on his actions.

* * *

As the date of the once-a-year expedition to the Inkeran Mountains drew nearer, Count Slater’s days passed as quickly as an arrow off the bowstring. To make matters worse, several nobles from neighboring estates, who always participated in the expedition, declared their absence as if they had made a promise. This made his days even more hectic than before.

“Are we sure this expedition is going to be okay? Even compared to last year, it’s so much smaller this time.”

“More than the other lords, it’s the absence of Viscount Kansler and Viscount Collector. Hmph. Honestly, I have a bad feeling about this expedition.”

“Honestly, I feel the same way, but… we haven’t had a failed expedition in the past 20 years, have we?”

“Don’t worry, the expedition has always been a success with Count Slater at the helm, so it won’t fail just because it’s smaller.”

The knights from the other fiefs who had been sent to join the expedition were uneasy, but they had faith in Count Slater’s abilities. Rousseau, watching the scene from a distance, washed the bitter taste from his mouth with a sip of wine. As expected, or perhaps even premonitory, the knight Alex traveled to the Kansler estate, only to be turned back at the gates. Another dream come true.

“Fucking…”

Letting out a small curse, Rousseau raised the bottle to his mouth.

“You don’t heed my warnings?”

Rousseau turned his head slightly at the cold voice behind him. It was Aaron, glaring at him with a gaze as cold as his voice.

“Do you think we’d be drinking so quietly if we ignored you?”

At Rousseau’s retort, Aaron’s eyes twitched out of the corner of his eyes, and then he walked past him as if he didn’t want to face him anymore. Ugh! Rousseau cupped the bottle in his mouth and checked the necklace around Aaron’s neck, the one that held Felento’s guardian locket. ‘You should thank me,’ he thought, ‘I saved you from being bedridden for over a year.’ That’s not all. On the expedition, Aaron severely damaged the muscles in his left arm, leaving him permanently disabled.

“Is that why you gave up your left arm and saved me?”

Rousseau doesn’t know what Aaron was thinking when he willingly gave up his left arm, but he didn’t want to make it happen in real life. He glanced back at Aaron and took another drink from his bottle. The sight of Rousseau drinking like he was a big boy made the bystanders begin to gossip amongst themselves.

“Isn’t it wonderful,” said one, “that he’s drinking alone while everyone else is busy with the expedition?”

“It’s not even worth mentioning, he’s an asshole from the earldom.”

“I don’t know how the Slater family came to have such an asshole…”

As if it didn’t matter what they were saying about him, Rousseau let out a smirk and turned away. It hadn’t happened in a day or two, so he wasn’t moved, and he didn’t blame his detractors, since it was a cause he’d created in the first place. And above all.

“What’s wrong with being an asshole? It’s so easy.”

Rousseau kept the bottle in his mouth as he walked down the street.

He knew the whispers and glares would follow him, but he also knew that protecting his family, even from the shadows, was the most important task he had. The future he had seen, the dreams that haunted him, drove him forward. If being an outcast meant saving them from a fate they couldn’t foresee, he would bear it gladly. For now, he had to ensure that everything was in place, that his sister was safe, and that his brother’s future wasn’t marred by the same tragedies he’d witnessed.

The expedition to the Inkeran Mountains was looming, and with every passing day, the tension grew thicker. Rousseau’s mind raced with plans and contingencies. The Count’s absence at the helm and the missing lords’ support meant the expedition was weaker than ever. But if there was a way to turn this around, Rousseau was determined to find it. Even if it meant playing the fool for a little while longer.