Free Web NovelChapter 25: 25: A Slap for a Slap
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The guard’s eyes looked at Lucard from head to toe. At first, they seemed serious. Then one of them noticed Lucard’s young face and the Vardros mark on the identity seal hanging from his belt. His serious expression slowly changed.
The guard on the left raised his chin and asked, "Who are you? What business do you have at House Ravencroft?"
Lucard looked at him calmly. "Lucard Vardros. I came with Jenny Vardros and Jake Vardros yesterday. They should have entered this manor before night."
The two guards looked at each other.
Then the guard on the right laughed.
"So you are him?"
The left guard smiled too. "The bastard son?"
Lucard’s eyes became colder.
The right guard did not notice it, or maybe he noticed and did not care. To him, Lucard was only a young man from a fallen baron family. More than that, he was the illegitimate son. In noble society, even guards serving a strong family could look down on a weak noble if that noble had no backing.
"So the bastard finally came," the right guard said. "The hot girl and the little mouse were waiting for you all night."
The left guard chuckled. "Careful. He might cry. I heard mudbloods are sensitive when people speak about family."
Lucard did not move.
His face stayed calm, but his fingers twitched slightly under his cloak. It would be easy to kill them. One step forward, one hand on the throat, one pull of blood, and the two guards would become dry bags lying under their own gate. But he was not alone in the wild now. This was House Ravencroft’s manor. He had come here for Jenny and Jake, and killing gate guards before understanding the situation would create trouble too early.
He swallowed the anger for now.
Not because he was afraid.
Because he wanted to know how deep the insult went.
The right guard waved his spear lazily toward the road inside. "Go in. Follow the side path to the left after the main garden. Your people are there."
The left guard smiled. "Do not wander into the main manor. This is not a place for mudblood to get lost. If you step somewhere you should not, you may end up in the prison cells."
The right guard added, "Or the family graveyard. House Ravencroft has many empty spots."
Both guards laughed again.
Lucard looked at them for a moment longer. He remembered their faces. He remembered their voices. He remembered the way they laughed.
Then he walked through the gate. fгeewebnovёl.com
The path inside the manor was long. Lucard followed the direction the guards had pointed.
After walking for some distance, he saw Peter.
The knight captain was sitting on a flat stone near a side garden. His sword lay beside him, and his face looked worse than yesterday. He had dark circles under his eyes, and his wounds had not healed properly. He looked tired, ashamed, and angry at the same time.
Lucard stopped in front of him.
Peter slowly raised his head.
"Young Master Lucard."
Lucard looked around. The place was not near the guest hall. It was not even near a proper servant building. There were gardening tools, broken pots, piles of soil, and an old wooden cart nearby. The path was dirty, and the air smelled of wet earth and fertilizer.
Lucard’s expression became cold.
"Where are Jenny and Jake?" he asked. "And what are you doing outside, sitting on a rock like a punished dog?"
Peter lowered his eyes.
He did not answer.
Lucard’s gaze sharpened.
Peter raised one hand and pointed toward a small broken room near the side of the garden. The room looked like it was used to store gardening tools. Its wooden door was half cracked, and the roof had a hole near the corner. Some shovels, rakes, and empty pots were leaning outside. It was not a room for guests. It was not even a room for lower servants to sleep in unless the servants had offended someone.
Lucard walked toward it without saying anything.
He pushed the door open.
Inside, the smell of fertilizer and damp wood hit his nose. The room was small and dirty. Several fertilizer bags were stacked near one wall. A few broken tools lay on the ground. Bugs moved in the corners. There was no proper bed, no blanket, no clean water, and no fire. A noble family had given this room to the survivors of their ally.
Jake was sitting on the fertilizer bags.
The moment he saw Lucard, his face broke.
"Brother!!!"
Then he started crying.
"Big Brother Lucard."
Jake ran toward him and hugged his waist. His small body was shaking badly. He must have been holding his fear for too long.
"They gave us this room to stay," Jake said while crying. "There are bugs everywhere. They told us if we go outside, they will put us in prison. I am scared. Sister Jenny told me to be brave, but I am scared."
Lucard stood still for a moment.
He did not like children crying. Not because it made him sad, but because the sound was sharp and useless. In his old life, crying children were usually far below his concern. But this body reacted again. The heart curse tightened with a dull pain. It was not as painful as before, but it was enough to remind him that Jake was not something this body could ignore.
Lucard placed one hand on Jake’s head.
The movement was stiff.
He did not want to do it, but he needed to calm the boy down.
"Stop crying," Lucard said. "You are alive. That is already better than most people from our house."
Jake sniffed and looked up at him. "That is not very comforting."
"It is true."
Jake cried a little less, maybe because the answer was so bad that even fear became confused.
Lucard looked around the room again. His anger became colder. This was not just neglect. This was humiliation. House Ravencroft had not placed them here by mistake. Someone had given an order. Someone wanted Jenny and Jake to understand that House Vardros no longer had a face.
