“Master!”
As I descended the bell tower, I ran into the escort knights coming up.
They checked me over with startled eyes.
“Are you hurt anywhere?”
“I’m fine.”
The two knights let out a deep breath, then immediately straightened their backs.
“We apologize! We failed to fulfill our escort duties!”
“We’ll accept whatever punishment awaits us once we return—!”
“Enough.”
I cut the knight off.
“It was a fight I lured out on purpose.”
“…Pardon?”
“Nothing you need to worry about.”
I turned on my heel and headed for the exit of the bell tower.
Before long, I heard footsteps following me.
Once outside, the plaza was in an uproar.
It was only natural—someone had fallen from the sky in broad daylight.
“There!”
“Someone came out of the bell tower!”
“That’s the murderer!”
The way the crowd pointed fingers at me was deeply unpleasant.
One of the guards, who had been inspecting the corpse, hurried over—only for his eyes to widen in shock.
“C-Count Mausoleum…?”
He hesitated, as if even approaching me was a burden.
In the end, the guard captain stepped forward instead.
“Count Mausoleum.”
He bowed politely before asking,
“What happened here?”
In Grenium, most guard captains came from the gentry—distant branches of minor noble families.
“I was attacked.”
“By underworld assassins?”
I gave a small nod. The captain sighed gravely.
The dead man’s appearance screamed “underworld,” and I was a high-ranking noble. He couldn’t pry any further.
Just as I was about to return to my carriage, the captain cautiously spoke again.
“May I… ask one more thing?”
Instead of answering, I raised an eyebrow.
It was a rebuke for his rudeness—but apparently he took it as permission and pressed on.
“With the strength of someone like you, my lord, you could have dealt with the matter quietly. Why then did you kill your enemy in such a public manner? Even children were in the square.”
There was even a faint reproach in his eyes.
It seemed the man took great pride in his role of maintaining public order.
“You’re asking something obvious.”
I adjusted my coat and replied,
“If he dies in front of me, doesn’t that mean his blood won’t splatter on me?”
“……”
The captain blinked, dumbfounded.
“Besides, this was a warning.”
“A… warning, my lord?”
“A warning not to carelessly provoke me.”
With that, I turned away.
For some reason, I suddenly longed to see Lucis.
When I returned to the Mausoleum townhouse, the first thing I did was search for Lucis.
“Oh?”
Lucis, toddling down the corridor, brightened the moment he saw me.
I gently scooped him into my arms.
“Where’d you go?”
“Just out to take care of some business.”
“Mm. Good job.”
Lucis reached out his chubby fingers and stroked my cheek as if to praise me.
That simple touch melted the stiffness out of my face.
I hugged him tightly.
Lucis giggled at the sudden embrace and nestled comfortably against me.
I pressed the warmth of his tiny breaths to my heart, and only then did I feel the shadow of “Seymour” within me dissipate.
“Haa…”
A long sigh slipped out without me meaning to.
It was like hugging a hot pack after shivering outside in midwinter.
“You worked hard.”
From within my arms, Lucis patted me gently with his small hand.
That was when I realized—
Only where Lucis was could I truly rest.
Wherever he was had become my home.
The next morning at breakfast.
“Ahh~.”
Lucis was happily munching on the steak I had cut into bite-sized cubes for him.
His already round cheeks puffed up even more as he stuffed a whole piece in his mouth with a spoon.
Meanwhile, Simon and Sia weren’t even touching their food; the two of them were sharing a newspaper instead.
Normally I would have scolded them for not focusing on the meal, but now wasn’t the time.
Because of the article they were reading.
Sia read the headline aloud.
“The Mad Dragon has returned.”
“…”
I quietly continued slicing steak.
“Yesterday, on the 16th, the Mausoleum family made their ceremonial return to the capital. After the sudden death of the former count, Liam Mausoleum, they had descended to their domain, only to reappear weeks later. Immediately after, Seymour Mausoleum caused the death of an unidentified man by throwing him from the bell tower in the plaza.”
Sia glanced up at me. I wiped the corner of Lucis’s mouth as if I hadn’t heard.
“…Though the deceased was revealed to be part of the underworld, passersby were horrified by the gruesome spectacle…”
“…A citizen visiting the square with his child protested: ‘Dropping someone to their death in broad daylight, with children around, is unconscionable.’ When the guard questioned the matter, Seymour Mausoleum replied, ‘It was meant as a warning’…”
Again, Sia’s eyes lingered on me.
Simon picked up the next part.
“…Rumors have long circulated that Seymour Mausoleum is more violent and cruel than his predecessor, Liam Mausoleum. This incident may very well serve as confirmation of those whispers.”
Another pair of eyes joined hers, both staring at me.
“…Haa.”
At last, I sighed in surrender.
“The underworld sent an assassin. I simply fought back. That’s all.”
“But the knights said you provoked the fight yourself?”
For the record, I hadn’t punished the escort knights.
On the contrary, they’d voluntarily shut themselves in for training, frustrated by their own weakness. That much I couldn’t stop.
“I did provoke it. They were enemies I’d have to face eventually.”
“Was there a reason you had to fight alone?”
“That’s how one earns recognition in the underworld. Before proving your faction’s strength, you must prove your own.”
“Do you really have to prove yourself to the underworld?”
“It wasn’t proof—it was a warning.”
As head of this family, I bore the duty to protect not only Lucis but every member under my name.
“As you both know, our house has always been tied to the underworld. Warnings and demonstrations like this are a rite of passage whenever leadership changes hands.”
At least, until my generation.
Before retiring, I intended to etch the name Seymour Mausoleum so firmly into the underworld that even after I stepped down, no one would dare demand proof from us again.
“You threw him down in public so the underworld would clearly get the message?”
“Exactly. If I’d killed him quietly, fewer people would have known.”
After a pause, I added,
“For the record, he deserved to die.”
One of the underworld’s pillars, the Clown, ran a drug syndicate under the guise of a “circus troupe.”
Every member was a criminal dealing narcotics, and Nadiv was a murderer besides. He’d truly tried to kill me, and I’d killed him in earnest.
“I’m not worried about that. I trust you.”
“What worries me is people believing this article and fearing you.”
They hadn’t even considered the possibility that I’d killed an innocent man.
Their trust touched me more than I cared to admit.
“Let them be afraid.”
There’s a saying on Earth:
Better to be feared than loved, if one cannot be both.
“The more people fear us, the safer we’ll be.”
Not just against the underworld.
Even in noble society, becoming an object of fear meant fewer would dare touch you. That was a shield in itself.
I was even considering sponsoring the journalist who wrote the article—to make Seymour Mausoleum into a figure so terrifying that not just people’s hands, but even their thoughts, couldn’t reach me.
I didn’t mind being called the greatest villain in Grenium. That was what Seymour was meant to be.
So long as my family and the protagonist knew I wasn’t truly harmful, that was enough.
“More, please.”
By then, Lucis had cleaned his plate and tugged at me.
“Haha. You finished already?”
I moved to his side and began cutting up another serving the attendant had brought.
Lucis swallowed hungrily, waiting for the cubes of steak as if he hadn’t just eaten.
“Fufu…”
Sia and Simon chuckled quietly as they watched us.
A few days later.
I was playing magic games with Lucis.
“Uunngh…!”
Creeeak—!
Our “orbit play” had scaled up until we were now pushing and pulling an empty carriage.
Even without horses, the wheels made it manageable, though it still weighed as much as a compact car back on Earth.
Creeeak—!
Lucis, true to his dragon nature, unleashed his mana without hesitation.
It wasn’t so much moving the carriage as crushing it with sheer magical force.
In contrast, I used the mana I could muster, plus what I siphoned from the mana field Lucis unconsciously generated.
“Hmph!”
As always, the victor was Lucis.
He moved the carriage back and forth like a toy car, wearing a triumphant grin.
“No beating you, huh, Lucis?”
He narrowed his golden eyes at me as if daring me to try harder.
“Dragons are strong and mighty beings. That’s why they’re called the supreme lifeform.”
My praise and flattery made his little nose tilt higher and higher. His wings and tail twitched with pride.
“And you, Lucis—out of all dragons, you’re in the top one percent, aren’t you? If you’re this powerful already, when you become a full-grown dragon, you’ll be unstoppable!”
I kept fawning until he was satisfied. For the sake of the little dragon who fueled my magical growth, I’d happily play along.
“Kikiki!”
At last, his pride so inflated it looked like his neck might snap, Lucis collapsed into giggles and flopped onto my lap.
He stretched out his wings to bask in the sunlight and began humming happily.
I stroked his head and opened my skill window.
In just a few days, there had been a major change—
My Basic Gravity Magic had advanced to Low-rank Gravity Magic.
“That’s thanks to killing Nadiv.”
Just as in games where slaying enemies earned experience points, here battles advanced skill progress.
In the original game, this “growth through skill progression” was how characters became stronger.
“With more real battles, I’ll grow even faster.”
But the pace still wasn’t satisfactory.
Even allowing for the days I’d been too occupied to train magic, it had been over a month since I transmigrated—yet I had only one low-rank skill.
“Though at this rate, I’ll surpass Seymour’s original growth…”
In the source, Seymour reached three-star rank within a year, mastering three skills.
At my speed, especially with constant underworld clashes, I could reach three stars even faster.
“But it’s still not enough. I need to grow stronger, faster.”
There was no guarantee this world would follow the original story.
The butterfly effect of my existence could ripple anywhere, in ways I couldn’t predict.
Nadiv, after all, was supposed to be alive a year later when the story began.
Now that I had something to protect, the words “I’m strong enough already” no longer applied.
“Hmhmhm~.”
I stroked the back of Lucis’s head as he hummed and kicked his legs in delight.
His legs swung faster under my touch.
“Luckily, this is Grenium.”
The imperial capital.
The main stage of the game.
A place overflowing with ways to grow stronger.
“This time… I’ll choose the path of power without effort.”
It was time to make full use of the transmigrator’s privilege.
