Their Dubious Actions

35

Needless to say, Alexander could have easily dodged it.

The reason he didn’t was simple.

‘Damn it all. If I dodge this here, my cover will be blown.’

Even without them discovering he was Owl, directly under the Secretary of Intelligence’s assassination wing, the circumstances were certainly enough to cast suspicion that he was no ordinary man.

So, he didn’t dodge completely.

He managed to narrowly avoid a vital spot, though.

“Ugh…!”

Even as he crumpled from the knife wound, Alexander poured all his energy into appearing convincingly normal.

Or rather, he didn’t really have to act.

No matter how often he experienced it, he could never quite get used to the agony of being stabbed.

“Ja-James!?”

The woman who’d stabbed him, calling him by the false name he used for missions, sank to the ground in shock.

Her name was Kalina Rochefield.

One of the women Alexander had been ordered by the Secretary to approach, and with whom he’d cultivated a romantic relationship.

“I…I…what have I done…!”

He watched through his blurring vision as she, the one who had stabbed him, descended into confusion, exhibiting signs of delirium.

*Call a doctor, you idiot.*

‘Ah, this is bad…’

Was it from losing more blood than he’d anticipated?

His life was flashing before his eyes.

Various things came to mind, but the most vivid memory was that day not long ago when the Secretary had given him this solo mission.

As always, the personal details of the targets were listed among the reviewed reports.

Information about the daughters of two key anti-aristocratic faction figures, and the daughters of two key aristocratic faction figures.

When he received it, Alexander had instantly understood the Secretary’s intentions.

And he’d boasted to his colleagues.

Unlike you lot, I’m trusted, I’ve been given a solo mission by the Secretary.

‘Felt good…’

Recalling it made him feel good again, or so he thought, before snapping back to reality.

‘Wait, wait, wait, wait! Someone, anyone, call the Knights or something! I’m actually going to die if this keeps up!’

His consciousness faded, and his eyes slowly closed.

Lamenting what a pathetic death this was, and fretting over whether he’d even get proper recognition in death, Alexander’s eyes were about to close completely.

Then he saw it.

The Secretary approaching his fallen form.

“…Even this, did you foresee?”

With that impossible wish – that he could have been warned beforehand – Alexander finally succumbed to unconsciousness.

—

Kalina Rochefield.

Emilia Barkley.

Violetta Renoir.

Linda Abellier.

These were the names of the women Alexander had been seeing.

To put it bluntly, he was playing around with four at once.

And got caught, stabbed by one of them, apparently.

My subordinate must be completely out of his mind.

Hold on… These women’s names, they sound familiar…

Racking my brain, I recalled the stack of marriage prospect files my mother had practically forced upon me to look at.

They’d vanished at some point. Had Alexander taken them?

Wait, is the guy lying unconscious in that bed right now someone who deliberately sought out and seduced my marriage prospects one by one?

This is bad. He’s even crazier than I thought.

“Minister. Alexander left this behind. This, here.”

John said, handing me a thick wad of documents.

And don’t say “left behind.”

Makes it sound like he’s actually dead. The doctor said his life wasn’t in danger.

Pulling a chair over, I sat beside the bed and began to read through the material Alexander had prepared.

It was chilling. Alexander had meticulously recorded every detail about the women he’d been dating.

Names, physical characteristics, hobbies, preferences were just the beginning. He’d documented their family history, sibling relationships, social circles, even who the people they were connected to were and what they did.

Is this something we need to get the Knights involved with?

“What are your orders?”

After finishing reading, I returned the documents to John. I hesitated for a moment, but ultimately decided that even so, turning him in felt too extreme.

After all, he’s my subordinate. Even if he’s gone astray for a while, it’s a superior’s duty to watch over him with understanding.

I’m not exactly sure what a superior’s duty entails, but it’s probably something like that.

Therefore, I replied to John’s question of what to do, with this:

“Consider James dead.”

“Understood.”

—

Celine tilted her head, upon hearing the news that Alexander, stabbed by a blade, had been carried into the infirmary.

To be precise, it wasn’t the fact he’d been stabbed that surprised her.

‘Why did Alexander romance them instead of killing them?’

Kalina Rochefield. Emilia Barclay. Violetta Renoir. Linda Abellier.

These were the names of the women the Minister was paying particularly close attention to.

Rochefield and Barclay, daughters of noble factions; Renoir and Abellier, daughters of anti-noble factions.

It wasn’t likely the Minister created separate files for them simply out of interest.

They were undoubtedly targets for elimination.

Including the names of noble faction heiresses was likely a warning that anyone crossing him, regardless of faction, would not be spared.

Which was why she’d mixed their personnel files into the reviewed report, but it seemed there had been some sort of miscommunication.

‘Could the Minister’s objective have been to have Alexander infiltrate their lives, posing as their lover, to extract information?’

Even if that were the case, she would have had to deliver the files anyway, so Celine decided she was blameless and dismissed the matter, returning to her original tasks.

—

Kristina tilted her head, upon hearing the news that Alexander, stabbed by a blade, had been carried into the infirmary.

It was the very fact he’d been stabbed that surprised her.

‘Why did he let himself get hit? Wasn’t he supposed to kill them?’

If the daughters of key figures in both noble and anti-noble factions were to be murdered by a single man, it would certainly create considerable chaos.

Kristina had presumed that the Minister’s aim was to engulf them in mutual suspicion and paranoia.

Because targeting an enemy’s offspring was usually done to drive them to the brink of madness.

She didn’t know what the Minister intended to do after fostering such paranoia, but she had assumed, as usual, that he had some grand plan and entrusted it to Alexander.

‘But for Alexander to be attacked… is this part of the plan too?’

Considering various possibilities, Kristina soon gave up on the thought.

She remembered that she simply couldn’t keep up with the Minister’s thinking.

‘The Minister will handle it.’

There was no reason to worry, as he wouldn’t die from a novice’s stab, so Kristina dismissed the matter and went outside for her mission.

—

John was overcome with emotion upon hearing the news that Alexander, stabbed by a blade, had been carried into the infirmary.

It was a recent, almost accidental hobby, but John read romance novels – volumes of them.

Living as he did, in a world forever brimming with blood and death, the bittersweet tales of love served, not insignificantly, to restore his humanity.

Thus, when he heard the tale of Alexander, how he’d accepted the blade of his lover without flinching, John couldn’t help but be moved.

‘Even if it was a mission, you came to love her truly.’

Falling in love with a foe, only to meet a tragic end – in the romance business, it was classic, a beginning, an end, and simultaneously, perfection.

But a mission was a mission. Those drained of information, rendered useless, it was only right to eliminate them to avoid future headaches.

Yet, the Director’s response to the question of what to do was nothing short of astonishing.

“Declare James as dead.”

At that moment, John felt a second, even greater wave of emotion than the first.

The Director couldn’t be oblivious to Alexander’s feelings, having taken a knife from the woman he loved.

Therefore, he was showing respect.

Respect for Alexander’s desire, his will, his conviction, and, above all, his love – to remain in the heart of the woman he loved, even in this way.

‘Now, with this, she will never be able to forget Alexander, not until her dying day. Tragic to the point of heartbreak, yet all the more beautiful for it, this love.’

Hoping sincerely that Alexander, upon waking, would come to know this and soon heal his wounded heart, John returned to the Intelligence Bureau to task his staff with falsifying the information needed to declare the man, James, as deceased.

—

Upon hearing that Alexander, having been stabbed, was being rushed to the infirmary, Waldemar and Sergei unleashed a torrent of praise for the Director who had saved him.

“To predict the timing of the stabbing with such accuracy! Truly, he is the Director!”

“Doesn’t that just prove that everything is within the Director’s grasp?”

To the Owls, a knife wound was a fairly commonplace occurrence, an occupational hazard if you will, and the two gave no thought to Alexander. Instead, they spent the entire day engaged in a heated debate regarding the Director’s prescience.

—

A scandal erupted, threatening to tear the very fabric of the capital.

A man, discovered to be seeing four women simultaneously, was murdered by one of them.

The woman who did it went unpunished, for reasons unknown, but regardless, the people were thrilled by the juicy scandal, the first of its kind in a while.

The incident was all the more peculiar, the deeper one dug. All four women hailed from prominent families, and two were even of noble birth.

The other two were born into families well above average, and the fact that their fathers were all high-ranking officials within the Imperial government certainly raised some eyebrows.

Thus, it was merely a source of amusement for the general populace, but for those directly involved, it was a different story entirely.

“This is not a matter to be overlooked!”

“This is clearly the Director’s doing! We must confront him!”

The fathers of the women at the heart of the capital’s current gossip, the officials, raged and screamed, but Chief Ericsson shook his head.

He was approaching this matter with a different understanding.

“Firstly, we possess no concrete proof that this was the Minister’s doing, only suspicion, and even that is just our collective conjecture. But consider this: if it truly *was* the Minister, what reason could he have for involving noble daughters?”

The gazes of the anti-noble faction shifted, sharpened.

They understood what Premier Erikson was implying.

A heavy silence reigned until one person tentatively raised a hand, voicing the opinion they all harbored.

“Perhaps… perhaps we have been mistaken all along? Perhaps the Minister…was never truly aligned with the noble faction in the first place.”

The Premier and his subordinates nodded in unison.

“But neither is he one of our anti-noble faction.”

“Then…where does his allegiance lie?”

“Nowhere, it seems. Hence this… warning he has issued. And hence why His Imperial Majesty bestowed upon him the title of Archduke.”

The Premier felt a nascent premonition solidify into certainty.

He was the empire’s arbiter.