Chapter 42: Ghost Hunted

A tremendous pressure descended upon the place when a strange night-blue aura crescent emerged from the sword, heading straight towards Rolan ghost, who turned with a look of terror towards

Don’t worry, brother, everything will be alright...

But eh? ...

My blow was deflected and channelled out through one of the huge windows, causing an explosion in the sky that triggered an earthquake. But before the shockwave could spread, I saw about five of the Requiem Knights completely extinguish it. In the end, only a gloomy wind blew around the area, and then all eyes turned to me as my personal servant spoke, much like the side characters whose sole role to comment on events in a monotonous tone, like a mindless puppet

"Young master..."

"Shut up," I ordered him,

"Using your powers inside the castle without cause..." he continued anyway

"Shut up!" I ordered, but he carried on in a very low voice

"The punishment is at least a hundred lashes or confinement in the tower for a while."

Eh... I glared at him.

"Are you telling me this now?"

I may be a outcast son, but that doesn’t mean I’ll be spared punishment— no... for that very reason, I won’t be spared punishment!

He bowed to me indifferently as he apologised

"This servant failed in his duty by not reading the young master’s thoughts and his destructive intentions; This servant deserved the punishment."

He certainly does, but why is he trying to make me look like the villain here?

No, wait... he deserves punishment for the stupid way he spoke to me!

"Alex, what on earth is this?"

"Second young master, fourth young master, is everything all right?"

"Fourth young master, please answer: what was the reason for the attack?"

Suddenly, chaos broke out when I found several Requiem knights surrounding us. I looked at them with annoyance, then at Rolan ghost.

I pointed at him and they all looked in that direction. It seems they’re able to see him, and since they didn’t shout ’Ghost!’ or ’Imposter!’, that means this ghost is quite malicious. So I wisely concealed the truth as I replied

"There was a spider."

???

???

???

Everyone was taken aback for a moment, and strangely, the ghost went along with me for some reason. He sighed dramatically and continued with the excuse:

’Good heavens, Alexander, if there was a spider around me inside the castle, that means it’s one of my tamed monster.’

Strange. Why is he hiding the truth? Is this a conspiracy? I looked at him strangely and changed my mind before anyone could speak; I replied seriously, cutting him off

"He’s an Imposter—that’s why I attacked him. I wasn’t sure, but since this bastard went along with my lie, I’m certain now: real Rolan didn’t even have a tamed spider-type monster because he disgusts it."

He looked at me with betrayal and frustration.

"What’s your problem, you bastard? I went along with you because I didn’t want you to get into trouble."

"See, he’s an Imposter. The real Rolan would certainly have accused me of murder by now and blown the whole thing out of proportion to double any punishment."

I looked at Requiem Knights, who were also eyeing him suspiciously. Even his valet hesitated for a moment, but eventually took a few steps to the side and distanced himself from him. So the deceitful ghost glared at his valet as he threatened him.

"I’ll certainly sack you after this, you bastard. Don’t you recognise your master anymore?"

For my part, my valet suddenly made a comment in a flat tone, as if answering a question I’d asked him—but I hadn’t! Or had I?

"Yes, young master. I also asked the servants of the other young masters, and it seems they encountered strange situations four days ago. They suspected there was an intruder, but the first young master and the third young master said nothing, so the matter was left at that. Although the third young master suddenly injured that night, he ordered that the matter not be investigated. As for the first young master, he left the Grand Duchess’s mausoleum just five minutes after entering, though he usually spent more than half an hour there. -The fourth young master was also attacked by an unknown entity that night, whilst the second young master had already disappeared before that evening and was suddenly seen reappearing in the castle without warning after midnight; the gate guards had not observed the second young master entering the inner castle."

"..."

Hmph, a deceitful ghost.

I looked at him coldly.

"Why do you think I attacked so suddenly? I can clearly see that you are not my brother Rolan. You deceiver, who are you?"

I said this, but before he could reply, I turned to the Knights and gave them orders.

"You fools! What are you doing? You call yourselves the Korvekar Elite Forces, yet an imposter is wandering right under your noses, dressed in your young master’s skin. Come on, arrest the imposter at once and find my brother, you lazy fools!"

And I certainly didn’t forget to give them a telling-off. Despite their momentary hesitation, they obeyed my orders and led the impostor to a terrifying place no one knows, despite all his verbal objections and his astonishingly inventive insults—which I tried to memorise but couldn’t, such was his sheer insolence. But that’s all you’d expect from an impostor

Who dares to impersonate my brother Rolan? My brother Rolan knew nothing but the words ’scoundrel’, ’lout’ and ’fool’ as insults... Well, most of us siblings know nothing else, thanks to our strict upbringing, where we were held to account even for the tone of our voices, let alone the words! And we picked up these few words from the knights or the Grand Duke himself, who would sometimes lose his temper in front of us and swear.

Now I felt much more at peace with my conscience after I’d spoken calmly, logically and kindly about the ghost my poor brother had become. He can now rest in peace.

So I patted my chest, feeling proud of myself for how generous I’d been – I hadn’t even held a grudge against him, even though his twin brother used to bully me!