The Argent family manor is vast.
Not only is there the main hall, but the annexes are divided into an East Wing and a West Wing, with a massive storehouse for provisions and separate quarters for the servants. Add in everything from the greenhouse to the gardens, and touring it all in a single day would be a challenge.
Yet even within this sprawling Argent estate, there was one place shrouded in more secrecy than any other.
"Uncle, where are we headed?"
"The West Wing."
That was it. The West Wing.
The East Wing originally housed my workshop and rooms for guests, so it saw a fair amount of foot traffic.
But the West Wing was different—so obscure that even the original novel barely mentioned it. In the nearly twenty years I'd lived in this household, I could count on one hand the times I'd set foot there.
The few memories I did have of entering it dated back to when I was six or seven years old, at most.
And thinking back on those memories now, something felt off.
Wasn't that strange?
There was nothing inherently ominous about the West Wing.
And yet the household's own family members almost never went there.
As if some invisible fence had been erected, forcibly barring anyone from stepping inside.
"Abel, have you ever been to the West Wing?"
"Uh… no, I haven't. I mean, maybe I did once, but not that I can recall."
"I see."
So Abel hadn't been there either.
Not that I'd expected otherwise.
"Why are you going to the West Wing? What could possibly be there that—"
"There's something I need to confirm. You know it too, don't you? That there's exactly one person who regularly visits the West Wing."
Well, not exactly one.
A handful of servants managed its upkeep, after all.
But setting the servants aside, among the family itself, there was only a single soul who ever went there.
"Do you mean my father?"
"That's right."
Edmund Argent.
My elder brother, and the head of House Argent.
In itself, that shouldn't have been strange at all.
Edmund was the head of the household, after all.
It's the same in any romance-fantasy or fantasy story you'd care to name—people of high status usually need some private hideaway, some cozy little sanctuary only they can enter.
But there was one thing that nagged at me.
*The studio in the West Wing.*
In the original novel, the West Wing was mentioned exactly once—and even then, only in a throwaway author's note.
*"There's a lovely little studio in the West Wing, you know. The only one who ever visits is the head of the household, I suppose?"* That playful little remark was the entirety of it.
There was, in fact, mention elsewhere in the story of Edmund painting—portraits, oil paintings, the works. Some even said he might have had more talent for the brush than for the sword.
I remembered watching him paint often as a child.
But looking back now, something about it didn't add up. Because back then, the studio had been in the main hall.
I distinctly remembered Edmund chatting warmly with Viola in that very room—it couldn't have been a false memory.
So why build a new studio in the West Wing of all places?
The main hall would have been far more convenient for a hobby like that.
The timing of the move was odd too.
If my memory served, my brother had started frequenting the West Wing not long after his first wife's death.
*That's too neat a coincidence to dismiss as mere chance.*
The author bothering to mention such a trivial, unnecessary detail.
The timing of Edmund's visits to the West Wing lining up exactly with Viola's passing.
Were these two things really coincidence?
No. I didn't think so.
Just before leaving the main hall, I stopped and turned to Abel.
"Abel, we split up from here. And I need you to handle a task."
"A task?"
"I'm going into the West Wing alone. You keep your father and stepmother occupied in the main hall."
"You—surely you're not planning to just barge in without permission? If Father finds out, he'll have your hide."
I'd love to actually see him try, honestly.
It'd be a damn sight better than the rotten, half-dead look he's worn for years.
"Don't worry. Even if I'm caught, none of the fallout will land on you."
"That's not the issue here… Ugh. Fine."
He clearly had more to say, but sensing there was no time to waste, he swiftly took the earring and put it on.
More reasonable than I expected.
"By the way, what do you plan to do about the servants? I can distract Father, but the servants…"
"Forgotten already? I'm a member of House Argent too, believe it or not. Something that trivial, I can crush with a bit of authority."
"…Forgive my saying so, Uncle, but you're not quite as gentle a person as I thought."
You're only figuring that out now?
If I were the gentle sort, I wouldn't be resorting to hardline tactics like this.
"Then I'm counting on you. If you fail to hold them off, I'm blaming it all on you—keep that in mind."
"What?! Just now you said none of the fallout would land on me—"
"That's only if you do your part properly. I'm off."
"Uncle!"
This little brat, trying to slip away.
I haven't forgiven you yet for what you did to Lyriette. Not by a long shot.
Leaving behind a still-grumbling Abel, I stepped outside alone and made my way toward the West Wing.
As expected, the West Wing was unnervingly quiet.
Quiet wasn't quite the right word—still, or perhaps hollow, described it better.
There's a particular feeling you get walking into a space where people actually live, isn't there?
But standing before the West Wing, I felt none of that at all.
It was cold enough to make me feel like I was stepping into a graveyard.
*Creeeak...*
The door hadn't been oiled properly, apparently—a grating, unpleasant screech echoed out as I forced it open.
The chill I'd felt outside was even worse within.
If I hadn't known people actually passed through here, I'd have mistaken it for some abandoned ruin.
"Young Master?! What brings you—"
Crossing the corridor, I startled a maid I didn't quite recognize.
Tch. Caught already.
The servants came and went so rarely that I'd assumed no one would be around today.
"I just have some business to attend to. Don't mind me, go about your work."
"N-no, you can't! We're in the middle of cleaning right now, it's a mess, so if you could come back later—wait, ah?"
*Thud.*
I cast a light sleep spell on the maid before she could resist further, then propped her gently against the wall.
Making me actually use my skills over something like this.
"Tch, I really should've learned a memory-alteration spell too."
This is why relying purely on one's specialty is never a good idea.
I'll have to ask my teacher and pick up a spell or two next time.
Still, was she really stopping me because of the cleaning?
Or was there another reason?
Knowing how things usually go, it was probably the latter.
Servants generally did try to handle chores when their employers weren't around, sure, but never once had I heard of anyone being barred from entering simply because cleaning was underway.
Naturally.
This house didn't belong to them, after all.
If anything, the more common response would be to stop cleaning and step aside, inviting me in without any fuss.
So for the maid to react with such alarm meant either Edmund had given explicit orders, or there was some other reason entirely.
"What could it be, I wonder."
Unable to contain my curiosity, my footsteps grew quicker.
Thankfully, I didn't run into any more servants after that.
"Hm, not this one…"
Since I had no idea where the studio actually was, I had to open every single door, real or imagined.
Out of some minimal sense of decency, I closed each door again after checking it.
"…Here, maybe?"
At last, I arrived at the top floor of the West Wing—the third floor—before a room at the far end of the east corridor.
It was the only door I hadn't opened yet, so this had to be it.
My nerves prickled needlessly.
*Click.*
What—had he locked it on his way out?
Every other room had opened without issue.
This one practically screamed *suspicious* at this point.
"Can't be helped, then."
*BOOM!*
With a light burst of mana, the lock shattered clean off the handle, and the door swung wide open.
I didn't smash the door itself—no need to make more work for whoever had to clean up later.
"……!"
My pupils slowly widened at the sight that unfolded before me.
My breath caught.
No—it felt as though time itself had stopped.
The studio was barely a few pyeong in size.
Despite the sunlight clearly streaming through the window, every object around me seemed drained of color, giving the eerie illusion that time simply hadn't moved in this room at all.
And yet, even amid that lifeless haze, a handful of things stood out—vivid, unmistakable—that caught my eye at once.
The first thing that seized my attention was the face of a woman captured within a portrait on the canvas.
"…Is this—my sister-in-law?"
The pale lavender hair, the frail, sickly air about her, the blue eyes that were the very image of Lyriette's.
Even the black dress she'd stubbornly worn, refusing to let anyone look down on her.
It was exactly how I remembered Viola Argent.
Shifting my gaze, a red chair sitting in the center of the room caught my eye.
It looked as if someone had been sitting there only moments ago.
No—more like a reserved seat, kept empty, waiting for someone to return.
I recognized that chair.
Of course I did—it had occupied that same spot since the days when Edmund's studio was still in the main hall.
And that seat had always, always belonged to Viola.
Edmund would coax her into sitting for a portrait, and he'd always bring her to the studio for it.
Amid all the mess of paint and ink staining everything else in the room, that chair alone remained spotless, untouched by a single smudge.
The shock that eerie sight delivered was immense.
It felt as though Viola had been sitting there just moments before.
As though I could almost glimpse Edmund's face, grinning foolishly as he painted her.
"His skill's really fallen off."
I stepped closer, studying the canvas depicting Viola.
I'm no expert on art, but even I could tell at a glance.
It was far below the level he'd once had.
It wasn't simply a matter of the painting being unfinished.
There were flaws—in the body's proportions, in the fine details.
Back in the day, even I—someone who cared for nothing but magic—had been struck speechless by his skill.
Feeling a bitter pang, I turned to survey the rest of the room, when—
"……?"
A strange sense of wrongness made me frown.
What is this?
Aren't all these paintings... recent?
The paint was dry, but there was still a faint dampness to it—unmistakable.
So why did they all…
"…look like paintings from long ago?"
The frame to the right held a landscape—a rendering of the Argent estate grounds.
But strangely, the stable's position was off.
In the painting, it appeared to sit right beside the path leading to the West Wing.
But our family's stables were near the East Wing.
To be precise, Edmund had ordered the stables relocated not long after his first wife's death, for some reason.
So why paint a landscape from over a decade ago, now of all times?
No—more importantly, how *could* he have painted it?
It looked as though he'd just come from viewing that exact scene.
"This one too. And this…"
The other paintings were the same.
There was exactly one painting that appeared to be of Abel—except even that one showed him as an infant, cradled in Viola's arms.
This one, in fact, seemed to have been painted and hung just before the current portrait on the canvas—so recently that the paint hadn't fully dried, and it had smeared slightly where it leaned against the other piece.
"Of course, not here either."
Notably, there wasn't a single painting of Cassdia or Lyriette anywhere in the room.
No matter how much of a forced, one-night mistake his marriage had been.
No matter how coldly he'd treated his daughter, even within the original story.
Wasn't this too strange, even so?
This wasn't a matter of favoritism or neglect.
It was as if the very existence of both women had been erased from the world.
As if, precisely from the moment Viola passed away ten years ago, his memory had simply... stopped.
"…Memory?"
A sudden thought sent a chill sweeping up my spine and into my brain, spreading through my whole body.
That sensation crackled like static, converting into a clear thought, and for some reason a brief conversation I'd had with Edmund not long ago, upon our reunion after years apart, flashed through my mind.
*"So what brings you here today?"*
*"Thought I'd see my brother's face after so long, and meet my niece while I'm at it."*
*"Niece? You mean Abel?"*
*"No. Not Abel. Isn't there another child?"*
How had Edmund reacted, back then?
He'd frowned, as if struggling to recall something.
Right.
That was exactly why I'd assumed Edmund simply held some grudge against Lyriette, displeased that I'd come to see her.
And afterward, he'd certainly reacted as though he recognized Lyriette's existence.
So it wasn't unreasonable of me to think that way.
But if my suspicion was correct after all…
"Hm?"
As my thoughts continued unspooling, something odd among the painting supplies scattered across the floor caught my eye.
A small glass vial, roughly the size of one of my fingers.
Inside, only a tiny trace of liquid remained.
Paint?
No, no one would store paint in something like this.
It looked more like a medicine vial, if anything.
A faintly purple, slightly viscous liquid.
I brought the vial's opening to my nose and caught a strange, sweetish scent.
I'd seen something like this somewhere before…
"…That crazy bastard."
The curse slipped out of my mouth before I could stop it, welling up from memory.
So that was it.
The pieces were slowly clicking into place in my head.
Father, obsessed with swordsmanship and the empire.
Elder brother, obsessed with love.
Younger brother, obsessed with magic.
That joke we used to make—turns out it wasn't a joke at all, was it.
I have to admit it, Edmund Argent.
Out of the three of us brothers, you're the maddest one of all.
