The Tyrant's Happy Ending - Chapter 13.3

When he bent down and compared the ground at a close range, he found it to be different. And with a sweep of his hand…

‘As expected.’

Unlike other areas where the stone floor was visible, there was a section where sand had accumulated. In the dim light, it was hard to distinguish, but brushing it away revealed a groove. The placement matched the location of the swords on that tapestry.

“Bring me a sword.”

Lyle inserted swords into each groove. Fortunately, it didn’t require specific types of swords; they slid in smoothly. He had finally found a clue leading to the hidden passage they had been searching for.

“…Oh…”

But that was all.

“What do we do next, Your Majesty?”

There were no sounds of machinery activating or magical mechanisms triggering. The silence was…

“We need to lift this.”

It required brute force.

“Excuse me? This… can be lifted?”

“I believe so.”

Lyle said, gripping one of the swords like a lever and applying force. The other knights followed suit, and with a scraping sound, a neatly cut section of stone began to rise, revealing a dark stairway that disappeared into the depths below.
“Just as I thought.”

Lyle looked down into the shadowy space, smirking. Steffin, who had also peered down, spoke incredulously, “Well, no wonder it was so hard to find!”

“It seems the true secret is hidden down there… We’ll need to investigate further.”

With that, Lyle turned to the knights lined up and gave orders.

“Two of you, return to the capital and report this. The other two, stand watch and alert us if there’s any danger. And you… follow me.”

With that, Lyle grabbed Steffin by the scruff and pulled him along.

“What?!”

Steffin’s voice rose into a near-scream.

“No, no. Why do I have to go with you? There are others here!”
With one ear covered in irritation, Lyle looked at Steffin as if wondering what the issue was.

“Why are you looking at me like that? You know very well, Your Majesty, that I hate anything scary!”

“We’re just taking a quick look around. What’s the problem?”
“But what if a ghost or something appears?!”

“Stop whining and come along.”

Without further response, Lyle grabbed Steffin’s collar without hesitation and dragged him into the darkness.

It was only after stepping off the final stair that Steffin realized all his earlier worries were unfounded.

“This is… well, there’s no denying it now. It must be the Petra Marquessate who built this secret passage.”

Steffin straightened up and spoke.

“Indeed.”

After a long descent, they arrived in a cavern that looked centuries old. At its center was a teleportation magic circle marked with coordinates pointing to the Holy See.

Unlike the passageway above, this space was vast, and a breeze hinted at an opening connecting to the surface. Likely, this path led to the Petra estate.

It wasn’t unusual for prestigious noble houses to have secret passageways. Even the Grand Duchy of Baltimore had one, which Lyle had used to escape in the past. But to have such an enormous passageway hidden within a mountain range was certainly exceptional.

Lyle began to inspect the passage slowly. As he expected, he discovered far more than what they had seen above.

Around the room, chests filled with gold bars, presumably stashed for illicit funds, were piled up. There were also rare paintings and treasures by renowned artists, the kind whose ownership had been long lost to legend.

Even for someone like Lyle, who had grown up as the heir to a wealthy family and risen to the throne, the sheer amount of wealth was incomprehensible.

Yet, what truly caught Lyle’s attention was a room with a solid lock but nothing inside.

“Suspicious, isn’t it?”

That comment came from Steffin, who, despite being told to search separately, had stubbornly stuck close. He seemed to sense that there was finally something for him to contribute and stepped forward with newfound determination.

Leaning against the doorframe, Lyle watched as Steffin began investigating the room, his movements purposeful. Lyle already sensed some sort of magical mechanism within the space—he could feel the mana. But it was indeed suspicious.

‘What are they trying so hard to hide?’

The gold, the rare artwork, the secret documents—everything seemed to be secured well enough but not hidden to such an extent.

Lyle’s curiosity about what the Petra Marquessate was so desperate to conceal grew stronger.

“It’s done, Your Majesty!”

With those words, bricks shifted with a clattering noise, and as they rearranged themselves, the wall disappeared.

Beyond the newly revealed space, Lyle’s gaze met a room filled almost obsessively with glass orbs, each the size of a fist.

“What is this…?”

The room, identical in size to the one he stood in, had display cases covering three walls, making the walls themselves almost invisible. These cases were packed with glass orbs.

Lyle frowned as he surveyed the scene, clearly perplexed by this unexpected sight.

Steffin, equally puzzled, slowly opened one of the display cases and picked up a glass orb to examine it. Finally, he realized what filled the room.

“These seem to be… recording orbs, Your Majesty.”

“Recording orbs? Are all of these…?”

Lyle’s voice was full of disbelief.

“Yes, I’m certain. This place… it looks like a room where one views recording orbs. If we place one of these orbs into that device in the center, it projects the images onto the walls of the room we were just in.”

“I see.”

Lyle’s eyes fell on the center of the room. There was an opulent chair one could recline on and a magical device for playing the orbs.

“What kind of secret would someone go to such lengths to hide?”
With a calm expression, Lyle approached the magical device.
He recalled that Eddon had once handed him documents concerning the financial dealings of noble families. Thinking back, it seemed highly probable that the orbs here captured incriminating evidence about those nobles.

It was the kind of underhanded scheme that man and his family were known for.

“Well then, let’s see just how significant this secret is.”
With those words, Lyle inserted one of the orbs into the center of the magical device.

A low hum resonated as the device began to unravel the memories stored within the orb, projecting them onto the wall in front of them. The scene that unfolded, however, was something neither of them had anticipated.

Rustle, rustle.

A hand pushed through the underbrush, moving forward. Moments later, the image shifted to reveal noblemen and knights dressed in fine clothing, combing the forest as if searching for someone.

“Is he not over there?”

The voice of the Marquis of LeCruje called out. A moment later, the voice of the Marquis of Petra, the owner of the hand, responded.

“No, he’s not here.”

“Damn it, where did that rat go?”

Despite the frustration in the Marquis of LeCruje’s voice, a malicious grin played on his lips, as though he was on the brink of an unsavory act.

Pointing at the ground with a smirk, the Marquis of Petra’s eyes followed to see faint footprints in the dirt among the foliage. With a low voice, he said, “It seems he’s not here. Let’s move on.”

“Shall we?”

Despite the words, the Marquis of LeCruje stepped further into the thicket.

“Or did you think I’d say that?”

“…?!”

At that moment, he reached out and grabbed a handful of hair, pulling hard as if to tear it from the scalp.

“Ahhh…!”

Dragged from the underbrush was a figure in tattered clothing with long, disheveled hair.

“Let me go!”

Despite the struggle, the Marquis of LeCruje didn’t loosen his grip. If anything, he lifted the hand holding the hair higher, seemingly to inflict more pain. The face caught in the grip was revealed—a strikingly beautiful woman with a tear-shaped mole under her right eye. Her pale face was filled with terror, dreading what would come next.

But even as her cheeks flushed crimson with suppressed emotion, her sharp, defiant gaze remained.

The Marquis of LeCruje, with a twisted smirk, brushed his fingers near her right ear, and the red markings on her skin glimmered before fading into his grasp.

“Thought you’d run away again, did you? It’s always the same with these pretty, wayward courtesans.”

With that, he began dragging her, hair still tightly in his fist.

“Ahh…! Let go of me, you…!”

Her cries of defiance rang out, but the Marquis silenced her resistance by smacking her head repeatedly with his palm.
Thud, thud.

The dull thuds echoed several times, but not a single groan escaped the woman’s lips, only tightly clenched teeth and tearful eyes brimming with defiant fury as she glared up at the Marquis.

Finally, she was hauled out of the thicket and thrown into an open space by a rippling lake.

“Ugh!”

As she clutched her sore left shoulder, someone grabbed her chin and forced her face up.

“Running away every day—how tiresome it is, Your Highness.”
It was the Marquis of Petra.

“I’ve been thinking… what sort of punishment would finally end this tiresome game of hide-and-seek.”

With a sneer, he easily restrained the weakened woman’s wrists, binding them securely.

“Even when tied up and whipped, you don’t behave. Perhaps harsher punishment is needed.”

Laughter bubbled up from the men surrounding them, their gazes filled with a shared anticipation for what was to come.
Those stares stirred a deep-seated fear in the woman’s heart, and she began to tremble visibly.

“What are you going to do?”

“Who knows?”

The Marquis of Petra smiled darkly, pulled out a dagger, and grabbed her hair. Her expression turned to one of shock.
“Since what comes next might be hard to see with this hair in the way, I’ll have to cut it.”

“No…!”

The Marquis’s detached hands moved swiftly, cutting her hair in one go, leaving the woman’s face contorted in disbelief and on the verge of tears.

But without a thought to her dignity, he grabbed her pale arm and dragged her away, as those around him began to follow.

“Hngh…! What… what are you doing…?!”

Despite her desperate attempts to dig her heels in, she was powerless as he led her toward the edge of the lake.

“Don’t do it…!”

But despite that, Marquis Petra mercilessly threw Yernen into the lake, and Yernen fell into the lake with a huge ripple before he could even scream.

And those standing next to Marquis Petra snickered and let out a low-level laugh as they watched Yernen in such a state.

“I think this might be a bit too much. I am worried that Your Majesty might not volunteer after what happened today.”

“Hey, how could that be? You have lived well so far, without feeling any shame, even though you have suffered all the hardships of being an old prostitute.”

“You! Think back to all the hardships we have endured so far. Don’t you think that His Majesty will understand what I am saying?”

“That is true. And besides, didn’t Your Majesty give permission?”

Voices were heard muttering here and there.

But even though they were talking for so long, the surface of the lake was still. If a person had fallen in, it was time for them to float up, whether alive or dead. It was as if something was preventing them from rising.

That was when.

Choaack!

Something black and slippery with a huge body was rising above the surface of the lake, creating a spray.

“Cough!”

Yernen, who was dragged upside down with his right ankle wrapped around a pitch-black tentacle, coughed repeatedly to spit out the water he had swallowed without coming to his senses.

Coughing violently to survive, Yernen seemed completely oblivious to the danger that lay ahead of him. And the eyes of those watching him began to fill with deep sorrow.