Standing not far away was Benjamin, perhaps the only familiar existence to them.
"... Yo-Young master?"
Benjamin had removed his disguise and revealed his face. The few servants sat up on the ground and stared at him. In the end, it was Jeremy who recognized him and was completely scared.
Benjamin smiled as he nodded.
The other servants were also surprised, they looked at each other with reluctant expressions.
"Wh-Which young master?"
Benjamin walked towards them and bent down to comfort them, "It’s me, Benjamin. That young master that was nearly burnt to death in the square. The one that became the pope is Grant. The one who fucked around with men was also him, not me. I’m not sure if you have already known about this, but... you are now safe."
All of them widened his eyes and went blank on the spot. It was a long time before they found their voices again.
Even more so for Jeremy as he stared dumbfoundedly at Benjamin’s face. Once he returned to his senses, he looked to the left and right before his face changed to astonishment.
"No-No wonder….." He started to tremble from head to toe, "Af-After I spoke of that incident, young master only had a sour look at me and never did talk to me again. So it-it’s..."
As he spoke, he was wiping his tears and he couldn’t continue. This placed Benjamin in an awkward position.
These people never did realize the exchange of identity between him and Grant? Did they lack attentiveness or was Grant’s disguise that good?
"Stop crying now. I’m okay and you are all alive." Benjamin shook his head and nudged Jeremy on the shoulder as he comforted him with difficulty.
Perhaps it was the wake of their survival, the rest of the servants did not help him clear the ground but rather embraced one another together with Jeremy to wail. Benjamin could only stand at the sight and shook his head helplessly.
"... Young master, master is dead... Everyone is dead..."
Benjamin sighed.
Right, not just in the wake of survival, the tragic death of the Lithur family came all too sudden, they had yet to grief when they were taken to a prison and subsequently poisoned. Now, they finally arrived at a safe place. They definitely needed to release some of that emotion.
As a matter a fact, thinking back on Claude’s encounter, Benjamin once again bore a heavy heart.
— Even the servants said so, then his death couldn’t be wrong.
Even if he mentally prepared himself all the way, Benjamin still took a deep breath in. Claude may have not been a good father. He was a tyrant, stubborn and never willing to listen to others. But no matter what, he still wished his offspring well.
He had already felt that Claude deserved a better ending.
Benjamin waited aside for the servants to recover from their pain and sorrow. He, too composed himself. He needed to find the reason for the massacre of the Lithur family. This was also the reason he came here from miles away.
"Do you know who is behind this?"
He looked towards the servants and asked.
The servants looked back with much hesitation.
"Master Benjamin... Did you really become a mage?"
Benjamin nodded, "I will explain these things to you later. Now you need to tell me how did Duke Claude die?"
Upon hearing this, the servants exchanged glances. It seemed they knew what was going on but out of unknown reasons, they were reluctant to answer.
Similar to Jeremy, who recalled something that scared his pants off and gave him chills. It didn’t seem like he was capable of answering the question.
"It is safe here. You can say anything you want." Benjamin could only continue to assure them, "I rescued you from the prison. You almost died in there, what’s there to doubt?"
In the end, the kitchen help who was almost in her fifties closed her eyes as she cracked, "It’s... It’s His Highness the Pope."
"The pope? You mean Grant?"
"... Yes." The kitchen help nodded and answered with a pained voice, "That night, out of the blue, His Highness returned home and was talking to master in the den. He has not returned for a long time. We were all surprised but we didn’t think that as they were talking... They had a disagreement."
Benjamin’s face darkened.
"Grant and Claude had a disagreement?"
"Yes, we could hear master shouting from the den and it shocked the rest of us. There was then some weird noise coming from there. We were contemplating whether to enter and intervene, when suddenly the entire room went quiet."
"... Then what happened?"
"Then, His Highness walked out from the den. He... He looked overwhelmed, with flushed red cheeks. He called all of us to the hall and locked the door from outside. We were all chained to the ground. Once we realized things were wrong, troops and troops of Holy Knights came running..."
And so, after listening to the story, Benjamin was silent as time would allow before suddenly rising up and shaking his head.
"Young master?"
Jeremy were overcame with fear and hesitatingly called out, seeing Benjamin in this state.
"... I’m fine." Benjamin turned and shook his head, "I just didn't think that Grant was capable of doing this. He... really killed his own father."
What in the world happened?
Letting out a long sigh, Benjamin brought the six of them by flying to the borders. Regardless, he had to first settle the six of them down. The Kingdom of Helius was no longer their safe haven.
Flying in the air, Benjamin put in his effort in having the servants understand that mages were not devils and the servants, too slowly detailed the happenings of the Lithur family to him.
It seemed that as Grant carried on his identity, he became a man of few words with almost virtually no contact with anyone. Hence, even if it was Jeremy, who only met him during meal times, could not recognize he was no longer the real "Benjamin".
The atmosphere in the household has also took a turn for the worst. Claude sent his wife away to the village, with no chance of meeting again. The old madam had also vanished into thin air, and left these two. Every meal at the household was just another silent treatment torture session. Slowly, Grant didn’t even bother living there.
Soon after, the Church made up an excuse, saying "Grant" had turned his back on the god’s blessing. This blessing had transferred onto "Benjamin". The originally useless "Benjamin" suddenly displayed great divine arts talent. Therefore, Grant who resumed the identity of "Benjamin" once again returned to the Church in a good name.
Although the servants felt odd about this, how would they dare question the proclamation of the Church?
And so as time passed, the relationship between Grant and the Lithur household grew worse. The servants even said that Grant still returned once in a blue moon to have a meal but each time it was either noncommunicative or arguments over nothing. Overall, the Lithur household was down the drain with no livelihood whatsoever.
But... Even so, why did Grant commit murder?
Benjamin still could not wrap his head around it.
And therefore, the thoughts about the possibility of working together before had now officially and completely quashed.
He did not want to describe this with fate and all that but he knew that regardless of his personal emotions or the thousands and millions of mages that stood behind him, he and Grant would one day have a showdown. This perhaps was not their destiny but it would be the final choice of the century.