The Werewolf Count and the Trickster Tailor, Volume 2

by Yuruka Morisaki

  AFTER returning to Mateus Manor, the group gathered in the largest reception room without taking much time to rest up first.

  The boy bishop was still unconscious, and they had brought him into one of the many guest rooms to sleep it off. Phoebe had offered to keep watch over him.

  Krister was resting in another room. He was debilitated and his leg was in bad shape, so they’d called for a doctor to come at once.

  With everyone else out of the picture, only Lord and Lady Alexis were left to question.

  Rock, Ebel, Guido, and Michaela surrounded Danilo, Placido, and Lauretta, who were still in a stunned state.

  “…I now understand that we’ve done something that can never be undone,” Placido weakly admitted.

  He’d returned to human form and borrowed some clothes from Ebel. Lauretta had fixed his disheveled hair for him, but his withdrawn face looked like it’d aged years over the last few hours.

  “Clearly, neither of us was in our right mind. I especially couldn’t keep it together when it came to my wife.”

  Lauretta clung to Placido’s shoulder like it was her only lifeline in the world as he spoke about their experience.

  “My wife lost one parent after the other in rapid succession, and just knowing her younger sister was out there somewhere seemed to offer her a fleeting comfort. But then she also lost her sister, which sank her into even greater depression. She knew she had a niece but completely lost track of her whereabouts after Valencia’s death, further destabilizing her.”

  Rock had met Phoebe and opened up her tailor shop in the slums around that time. She wasn’t at fault for it, but knowing about her aunt’s suffering still pained her.

  “I think the Brotherhood took advantage of that weakness.”

  Guido arched an eyebrow at that. “You think? That’s an ambiguous way to put it.”

  Placido’s expression darkened.

  “You may think I’m making up excuses, but…neither I nor my wife can remember exactly how we were invited into the Brotherhood.”

  “…No way.”

  “I’m sorry to say it’s true. At least Danilo remembers enough to help us figure out a timeline.”

  Going from Danilo’s account, Lord and Lady Alexis seemed to have joined the Werewolf Brotherhood three months ago.

  The married couple often went to a church in the holy church district to see if that’d help alleviate Lauretta’s worsening depression. There, they were approached by a member of the cult who won them over with just the right words, and before they knew it, they started visiting the sanctuary in the ancient ruins.

  According to Danilo, they seemed to have been targeted in hopes of them becoming big donators to the cause. It hadn’t been long since the Brotherhood set up shop in those particular ruins, and their efforts in the capital remained modest due to a lack of funds and members. In fact, Danilo could prove a significant amount of the Alexis family assets had gone to the cult.

  However, the Brotherhood’s first sacrifice was decided when the noble couple’s anguish caught the bishop’s attention.

  “I tried to stop His Lordship.”

  Danilo seemed to remember that moment well. He trembled and paled at the memory.

  “The more I heard about it, the stranger it sounded. I wondered if a blessing granted by werewolves was actually capable of saving people—if a power that required changing your very shape and being could actually bring about true happiness… But not a word of advice or warning I uttered ever reached His Lordship. He kept repeating ‘I must accept this blessing’ just because the bishop recommended it. It almost seemed like he’d become a different person.”

  Even the breaths he took as he spoke quivered with the fear that memory brought back.

  “I wasn’t present for the ritual. I was far too scared to join him. I saw His Lordship’s eyes had turned the shade of gold when he returned home, I witnessed the moment he transformed into a werewolf, and then when I saw His Lordship and Her Ladyship embrace like they had found the answer, I felt the need to continue supporting them…”

  “I must apologize to you as well, Danilo. I’m sorry.”

  When Placido gave his heartrending apology, Danilo began to weep aloud, perhaps realizing he didn’t have to hold it in any longer.

  Watching them also pained Rock, Ebel, and Michaela too.

  “I might’ve been able to stop you if we’d met sooner…” Rock muttered exactly how she felt, but Placido only shook his head.

  “You mustn’t blame yourself. It was all our own doing.” Then he pressed his fingers against his temples as if in pain. “Besides…I doubt I could’ve resisted the call even if you were there to stop me. That voice endlessly echoed in my head, guiding me…”

  “What voice?” Ebel leaned forward, keen to hear the rest. “Are you saying that statue called out to you as well, Lord Alexis?”

  “Indeed. That was undeniably its voice,” Placido confirmed. “‘Offer up thy blood, receive my power,’ it incessantly whispered to me in an encouraging, melodious tone.”

  Guido jumped off the sofa as if he’d been pinched. “Me too! I definitely heard that same voice!”

  “Brother…”

  Michaela’s beautiful face tensed and Guido’s expression filled with regret.

  “I was also tempted into accepting that curse by that voice…” he lamented with clenched fists. “I should have never listened to its trickery!”

  He tried to crouch on the floor, but was hindered by the clothes he’d also borrowed from Ebel. The suit was a little tight on the taller Guido, and he immediately stood back up with a scowl.

  “Ebel! Don’t you have any looser clothing?! I can’t even let myself go through the motions of being stricken with grief and anger wearing these!”

  “I’ll make sure to have clothing in your size on hand from now on,” Ebel said with a light chuckle. Then he gloomily pushed up his burnt sienna hair. “It appears we were all given the werewolf curse by the same being. But for what purpose? And how many more lives will it destroy before it’s satisfied…?”

  That mystery still remained unsolved.

  Who was turning humans into werewolves, for what purpose, and how many?

  Rock initially believed the Brotherhood was the main culprit.

  However, according to Michaela, who’d been waiting for them outside the ancient ruins, every cultist who’d fled after Ebel and Guido went rampaging said the same exact thing:

  “I don’t know why I was there. I was this close to getting cursed.”

  Not a single one among them had golden eyes.

  “I asked for all their names and addresses just in case,” Michaela explained with a long face. “But…to be perfectly honest, I don’t think they can provide us with any useful information because as soon as they exited the ruins, they all had the look of someone who was just conned without realizing it.”

  “Do you think they also didn’t join the Brotherhood of their own volition?” Rock asked.

  “It seems that way,” she replied. “Most of them are commoners who live in the capital, and those who couldn’t donate money seemed to be doing physical labor for the Brotherhood inside the ruins.”

  The living quarters Rock saw in the ruins were probably for those particular members. They were likely recruited and drawn into the Brotherhood the same way Lord and Lady Alexis were.

  If all the cultists were brainwashed into joining, then that didn’t leave many leads to probe into the truth of the matter.

  “What about that male tailor?” Guido asked Rock in a frustrated voice. “He may have been a captive, but he still lived there with them. He must know something.”

  “I plan to ask him about it,” Rock replied, but she didn’t expect it to amount to much.

  Krister looked terrified and exhausted when she saw him in that cramped workshop. She highly doubted he was in the right state of mind to remember everything he saw and heard in those ruins.

  “That bishop’s our only other
lead, eh?” Ebel looked up at the ceiling.

  The boy was lying on a bed in the guest room on the floor directly above them.

  He still hadn’t woken up after being brought inside Mateus Manor.

  Rock was afraid her punch had given him a fatal head injury, but her father and the rest laughed at her. She hadn’t hit him hard enough for that.

  “I know I’m starting to sound like a broken record, but he doesn’t look like anything other than a small child to me.” Guido even doubted the fact the boy was the cult’s bishop. “Did he really lead the Brotherhood?”

  “Yes, no doubt about it,” Lauretta assured him. She dug through her memories under the watchful and caring eyes of her husband. “He was definitely a young boy. He was short and skinny, with an innocent voice… But he always sounded confident when he spoke of the Brotherhood’s precepts, almost like he knew everything.”

  That matched up with Rock’s impression of him as well.

  Although he spoke like a child, he didn’t falter or trip over his words spoken as the cult’s bishop. Not only did he not hesitate, but he didn’t even pause to think about what he was saying. He acted as if there was some adult whispering exactly what to say to him.

  “If that’s true, then he’s our biggest lead—”

  There was a knock at the door just as Ebel took an interest in what Lauretta had said about the boy. Johanna poked her head into the room.

  “Your Excellency, I have a message for you from Master Phoebe. The boy is awake.”

  Everyone in the room immediately stood up.

  Just Ebel and Rock headed to check on the bishop.

  The Alexises still hadn’t recovered mentally yet, and no one knew what would happen when they saw the bishop again. Guido stayed behind, saying, “I’m not confident I won’t tear the brat’s face off.” And Michaela naturally stayed to keep her brother company.

  Phoebe was waiting for them outside the room when they arrived.

  “…You came?” He greeted them with a nebulous expression that was part wry smile and part frustrated scowl.

  “Something happen?” Rock asked in a hushed voice. Her father jabbed his finger toward the door with a heavy sigh.

  “See for yourself.”

  The three of them entered the room together.

  A lantern was lit inside, filling the space with a warm, orange light. The boy bishop was sitting up in bed, but he cowered when he saw them come in.

  “Eek!”

  He let out a scream of sheer terror.

  How can he be so scared after all the suffering he’s put other people through? Rock was fuming on the inside, but Ebel addressed him kindly like the perfect gentleman he was.

  “You’ve come to, Bishop? How do you feel?”

  Instead of answering, the boy yanked the blanket up and over his head. They could see him shaking like a leaf in the wind underneath.

  “Hey! Don’t hide,” Rock snapped, but Phoebe held out his hand to stop her from saying more.

  Then he reached out and rubbed the boy’s blanket-covered back.

  “Please explain to them what you just told me.”

  Prompted by Phoebe, the boy fearfully poked his head out from under the covers.

  Tears glistened in his red-brown eyes as he glanced around at the faces of the three people surrounding him.

  It was hard to imagine he was the same Bishop. Rock was finally starting to have doubts as she compared this child to the young yet confident cult leader.

  “U-Umm…” the boy uttered in a familiar voice. “I honestly…don’t, er, remember much about my time…in the r-ruins…”

  “You don’t?!” Rock cried out, causing the boy to shrink back.

  “U-Umm, I remember a l-little. I heard a voice the whole t-time and thought I would be safe if I did what it said… I a-also sorta remember being called ‘Bishop.’”

  Did that mean even the bishop was being controlled by something too?

  If that was true, then no one knew the truth about the mastermind behind everything.

  “Can you tell us what you remember? Any small detail is fine,” Ebel requested, worry clearly showing on his face now that they may’ve lost any leads they had left.

  The boy avoided meeting his eyes and said nothing, seeming just as confused.

  “What’s your name? How long were you in the ruins for? Do you have a family?”

  He seemed incapable of even answering the simplest of questions.

  “You really don’t remember anything?” Disappointment took the wind right out of Rock’s sails. “What about when I punched your damn mask…?”

  “‘Damn’…?” The boy blinked. Then he suddenly gasped. “Damn…” He repeated that word like using it used to be a familiar habit before he looked up at her with a start. “That’s right! I’m Kurt!”

  “Kurt is your name?” Ebel asked, and Kurt nodded several times.

  “Uh-huh. I wonder why I forgot even my own name…”

  He placed his small hand on his freckled cheek and stared off into space for a long moment. Then he finally began talking a bit at a time.

  “I just remembered. I picked up that damn mask while I was working in the fields.”

  Kurt started to talk about himself like the dam holding back his memories had begun to overflow. According to him, he was from one of the farming villages scattered outside the imperial capital. He’d lost his parents at an early age and was taken in by the mayor. He earned his keep by working in the fields, but then one day, something strange was unearthed from the fields—the white bishop mask.

  Assuming it was an antique from a bygone era, the mayor proudly displayed it in his home like it was a family treasure.

  “But I couldn’t stop myself from constantly going to it…” All the color drained from Kurt’s young face. His little hands were whiter than the sheets they clasped. “I think I tried it on out of curiosity. It was like I just had to one day…”

  He hung his head, then gave it a hard shake, as if to shake off his fear.

  “I don’t remember much after that. The next thing I knew, I was surrounded by lots of people, and there was always this invisible voice giving me instructions. It told me everyone will live in peace and tranquility if we do as it says.”

  The mask had likely taken over his mind by that point. Or rather, the curse within the mask had.

  “It appears you were being controlled by that mask,” Ebel stated.

  Kurt scrunched up his face, not understanding.

  “Controlled? How? I don’t really get it…”

  “To be honest, we don’t really understand how it works either. But given your actions up until the mask broke and your vague memories, that’s the only explanation,” Ebel flatly presented him with the truth.

  And yet, Kurt still struggled to wrap his head around it. Bewildered, he looked at each face of the three adults in the room.

  “Did I…do something bad?” he asked.

  Rock looked away, unable to answer.

  Even Ebel seemed momentarily at a loss for words.

  Phoebe, the only one who seemed unfazed by the question, glanced at Rock, sighed, and answered the boy.

  “Nah. We just took you out of a bad situation.”

  Rock was extremely relieved by his answer.

  “Your safety is guaranteed with us. It’s already late, so you can spend the night at ease here. I would like to speak with you a little more tomorrow and then I will send you home,” Ebel assured him in a soft voice, but what he said caused the boy’s face to fall.

  “You…will…? All right.”

  His dark expression seemed like it was due to something more than exhaustion. But the three adults exited the room without touching on it.

  ♚♚♚

  “…DO you believe him?” Phoebe asked Ebel in a hushed voice when they stepped into the hallway.

  Ebel looked thoughtful as he answered, “I don’t think there’s any room for doubt right now.”

  “It could
all be an act. There’s a chance he’s a quick thinker.”

  “Of course, I plan to keep an eye on him for a while.” Ebel met Phoebe’s counsel with a small smile. “But I’ve a greater hope that he will become a valuable source of information.”

  “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

  Rock watched Phoebe flash a similar cunning smile with an odd sense that things had changed between them. Her father seemed more relaxed around Ebel, and Ebel also seemed to respect his opinion.

  Looking at them interact like this reminded her that Phoebe had stayed at Mateus Manor the entire time she was gone. As imprudent as it was, she was mighty curious to know how things had gone with them living together.

  Shortly after sunset, they insisted Lord and Lady Alexis return to their own home. Part of that decision came from Ebel’s determination that they were unlikely to obtain any more useful information from them.

  However, the Alexises seemed like they still weren’t done apologizing for everything. Placido, who looked particularly worn down, kneeled at Phoebe’s feet and bowed his head.

  “I know I’ve committed an unpardonable crime by snatching away your precious daughter…!”

  “Yeah, you definitely did.”

  Phoebe seemed to struggle with how to react. Placido had taken his hand and held onto it with an iron grip, so Phoebe couldn’t shake him off even if he wanted to.

  At his wits’ end, he looked to Rock for help.

  “Uncle, please hear me out.” Rock stepped between them. “I believe it was due to the werewolf curse that you kidnapped me. We understand you weren’t fully in control when it happened.”

  Rock would also struggle to answer if she was asked whether she could forgive them or not.

  She was scared to death when they kidnapped her. Her father and Iniel were both involved in a horrible accident because of it. Every day wore away at her psyche as she longed to go home but couldn’t until it nearly pushed her to the brink of stupidly accepting the werewolf curse.

  But she also understood that the kidnapping wasn’t entirely Placido and Lauretta’s fault.

  It was a hard line to draw. Human desires are bottomless, and the werewolf curse amplifies them tenfold with reckless abandon. While their crimes could never be erased, both what drove them to it and their memories of it had vanished.