I Became the Master of a Suspicious Count

“I think…… he’s dead.”

The man was lying face down with his lower half partially submerged in the pond.

It was a shallow pond at the edge of the sloping path inside the wall surrounding the castle.

His n*ked body gleamed palely under drooping tree branches.

“Aaaaahhh! What do we do!”

Marina wailed, but I couldn’t even scream.

This was the first time I had seen a dead person up close.

And I almost ended up like that myself……”

“M-Miss!”

Hubert’s voice trembled.

“You shouldn’t see this. Come, please go inside. We’ll somehow take care of this……”

“B-b-but Mr. Butler. I-I absolutely cannot go near……”

Marina was so shocked that she couldn’t finish her sentence, even hiccupping.

“I’m fine. I should find out what happened to someone who died on my property. We need to quickly call 119……”

No, that’s not right.

Did I just say “my property”?

“Or the police……”

“No! It might be a trap!”

Marina grabbed my arm, trembling.

“A trap?”

“Don’t you remember? Last time that fox……”

“Fox? What do you mean……”

Just then, a passage from the diary flashed through my mind.

One day when Clarence woke up and went outside, she found someone had hung a dead fox at the front gate.

[It’s probably a silent threat for me to vacate and leave the castle.]

That’s what Clarence had thought.

That it was the doing of the estate residents who resented her, blaming her for what the deceased baron and baroness had done.

“Since we didn’t listen, they might have done something worse this time. What if they killed someone and are trying to frame us? We could lose the castle and all end up in prison!”

Marina shouted, shaking my arm.

I looked back and forth between Hubert and Marina’s pale faces.

I suppose we should be careful about reporting this, since I don’t know how crime investigations work in this era.

But this is my castle.

The truth that “I must protect my home” is universal across all eras.

So I pushed aside the protesting Hubert and stood at the edge of the slope overlooking the pond, craning my neck to look down.

The man’s face wasn’t clearly visible as he was lying face down with his head turned.

Plus, looking down from this distance made him look almost like a doll, making it hard to grasp the reality of the situation.

“Is he really dead? We should pull him out first and check who he is……”

“Aaaaaaahhhh! I hate this! I can’t do it! I hate it even if I die, Mr. Butler! Aaaaaaaaahhhhh!”

Marina twisted her entire body and shuddered.

“Then Marina, you stay here. Mr. Hubert!”

“Yes?”

“Let’s go down together.”

“What?”

The butler’s face turned ashen.

“I mean…… why are you suddenly calling me ‘Mr. Hubert,’ Miss?”

What? That’s what surprised him?

People in this era must lead strange lives if they’re more sensitive about forms of address than about moving a corpse together.

“You’ve been speaking differently and seem very changed somehow. Are you really alright? Why are you being so formal with me……”

“Ah, sorry. I’m a bit out of sorts right now.”

When I waved my hand dismissively with an arrogant expression at the butler’s crestfallen face, his expression brightened remarkably and his voice grew louder.

“I’ll go down and check first, so please wait here!”

In the end, we stood at the edge of the path and watched as Hubert cautiously descended the slope with a grave expression.

“Could he be a thief? Maybe he was trying to enter the castle, slipped, fell in there, and died……”

“That pond only comes up to my waist, Miss. And what thief would unnecessarily strip n*ked like that? He might wear black clothes, but this doesn’t make sense.”

“That’s true.”

So what could his identity be?

Anyway, as Marina said, this situation is definitely disadvantageous for us.

Combining various stories and the diary’s accounts, it seems we have no allies in this village, so they could frame us in some way.

What would happen then? In this era…… would it be merciless hanging?

Ahhh! No! How could I lose this life I just gained so helplessly!

Just as I squeezed my eyes shut, Hubert’s voice came from below.

“It’s alright! It’s fine! He’s not dead! This person is still alive!”

***

Since the half-n*ked man turned out to be alive, Marina’s dramatics didn’t work.

When Hubert scolded her, she went down the slope to the pond, sniffling and hesitant.

I ran back to the castle and returned with a large blanket.

This was because Hubert kept grumbling about how it was “absolutely impossible” to bring a “half-n*ked strange man” into the castle.

“Here! We can just cover him with this, right? So stop whining. If this man freezes to death here, we’ll really be in trouble!”

Fortunately, when we pulled him out of the pond, we found he was at least properly wearing pants.

The man seemed about twice Hubert’s size, both in height and build.

Moreover, since he was unconscious and limp, moving him was no easy task.

Hubert had to grab the man under both armpits while Marina held his feet as they pulled him out of the pond and staggered up the slope.

After wrapping his bare upper body with the blanket, I stood next to Marina and helped by holding the other foot.

The man’s leather boots were soaked through and in terrible condition.

“He must have been lying there all night. If we had discovered him any later, it would have been a real disaster.”

Hubert grunted as he spoke.

It took us a good twenty minutes for the three of us to carry the limp man to the front of the castle.

The combination of his water-soaked pants, large frame, and solid muscles made him dizzyingly heavy.

Several times along the way, we had to set the man down and stop to massage Clarence’s delicate arms.

“So, where should we lay this fellow?”

Marina finally grunted after we laboriously climbed the stone steps of the castle and passed through the entrance.

“He’s so heavy that the second floor is impossible. I absolutely can’t go any further. Let’s just put him on the sofa in the reception room……”

Marina panted.

“No!”

Hubert’s thunderous voice made even me flinch.

“There are still valuable items left in the reception room. Huff, huff! We can’t leave a stranger alone in such a place! He might wander around the castle freely when he wakes up.”

Hubert insisted between heavy breaths.

“We don’t know who this person is yet. He could really be a thief!”

So the three of us had to carry the man and struggle up to the upper floor again.

It was excruciating to hold each of the limp man’s limbs and climb all those stairs one step at a time.

It was truly excessive hard labor for Clarence’s frail body, which seemed quite malnourished.

“I won’t even be able to stretch properly when I wake up tomorrow!”

Marina also wailed that her arms felt like they would fall off.

Despite all this commotion, the man didn’t move at all.

His face, tilted to the side, was obscured by thick hair, and his arms hung limply.

While climbing the stairs, I accidentally dropped his left foot, which fell with a thud on the marble floor, but he didn’t even flinch.

“Here! Here! This way!”

When we reached the second floor, Hubert pointed to the left.

“It must be as far away from Miss’s bedroom as possible!”

Ah, come to think of it…… I remember going straight to the right when I first arrived at this castle last night. That bedroom that felt just right.

That must have been Clarence’s real room.

After climbing the stairs, we walked to the left along the long corridor that stretched out before us and placed the man in the room Hubert indicated.

It was a small, modest room with just a small bed, a fireplace, a small table, and a chair.

“Whew!”

We practically threw the limp man onto the bed and all stretched our sore backs.

“The bedding will be ruined.”

Marina grumbled as she roughly pulled at the man’s mud-covered boots.

“I need to find some clothes to cover this fellow’s body. It’s so indecent. He seems about the same height as Franz, so I should check if there are any clothes he left behind in the servants’ quarters.”

Hubert took off his worn butler’s jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and left the room.

“I’ll bring some water and towels.”

Marina also ran out of the room while massaging her arms.

Suddenly, only the half-n*ked stranger and I were left in the empty room.

Oh, this is a bit……”

I felt my mouth going dry and licked my lips.

What a bizarre situation to find myself in, having become Clarence Philoraine just a few hours ago.

Could this be…… a bad omen?

I hesitated as I was about to turn around and follow the two of them out.

Anyway, Hubert is right.

I can’t just leave someone alone when I don’t even know who they are.

I stood there looking at the unconscious, limp man.