Alden’s mind was in a fugue state as he exited the main hall and walked toward the gates of the manor, where a small crowd had already gathered. He saw servants, maids, and guards hurrying toward the gates as well—some crying, some looking frightened—but his mind wasn’t there. He barely noticed that Vusato was already near the gates beside Roderic, while Hilda was glancing around, probably searching for him and his siblings, but his mind refused to accept that any of this was real.

  All he could think was why was this happening? He was supposed to have at least a decade before he had to take on more responsibility. He had selflessly given his life to save a child on Earth, and he had assumed that being reincarnated as a noble here was his unasked-for reward, as dangerous as this world was. He thought he would have time to slowly use his knowledge to educate his siblings and other people, so they could start helping him by the time he became baron, after at least a decade from now. He thought he would get to adjust to life in this world over the coming years before he had to start worrying about how to run a whole barony!

  Why was this happening to him? This wasn’t supposed to happen for years and years...

  He realized he had reached the crowd, which parted when they saw him. Hilda noticed him immediately and hurried over, hugging him tightly, like a mother he had never had.

  “Oh, Alden…” she wailed.

  Vusato had been rubbing his eyes, while Roderic stood with his fists clenched, staring at Kirol and the other guards who had gone with the baron.

  Alden’s eyes ran over the new arrivals. All the guards who had ridden to Garitus were present—everyone but his father. Was he really…?

  No! It couldn’t be! It couldn’t...

  But unless the baron was playing a cruel joke on everyone, there was no reason for him not to be here. That could only mean one thing.

  Baron Edaroc was dead.

  Even then, Alden didn’t understand why it was hitting him this hard. He slowly eased himself out of Hilda’s arms and wiped his face. His hands came away wet. Was he crying? But why?

  After arriving in this world, he had barely known the man for a day before he left for Garitus. So why was he crying for someone he barely knew? Was it because the man whose body he now inhabited had loved his father that much?

  He took a deep breath. There would be time for dealing with his own emotions later. Right now he had more important things to worry about. He walked toward the guards who had just arrived, his gaze fixing on Kirol—the tall, lanky man who was responsible for the baron’s safety. He was called the best fighter in the manor after the captain. How could he have let this happen...?

  “Report!” Alden growled. “Where the hell is my father?"

  Kirol glanced down for a moment. “He’s… he’s already departed... We burned his body in a small funeral on the road."

  Alden recalled that burning the dead was custom in this world. If you buried a body, monsters might dig it up and eat it. No one wanted that for their loved ones.

  Kirol explained, “We couldn’t risk carrying his body on horseback for days, or monsters would have gotten all of us at night from the smell, and we wouldn’t have even been able to bring this news to you. So we… we burned him near the road, somewhere between Tevrim and Garitus, and spread his ashes in the Lokir, as is your family’s custom. Then we rode here as fast as we could."

  Alden nodded slowly, remembering Vusato mentioning it at some point. His grandfather’s ashes—and his mother’s—had been spread in the Lokir as well. Their custom said that it let them become one with nature, and eventually reach the ocean, where they would meet their ancestors and other family members who had died in the past.

  Kirol gestured to one of the guards who handed over a burlap sack to him, before the lanky guard held it in front of Alden. "I'm sorry, milord... but this is all that's left of him."

  Alden took the sack in his hands, the clinking of metal telling him it was his father's plate armor from the time he used to be a knight, which he still liked to wear whenever he went outside the village. But his father was gone now, and just this metal was left...

  He braced himself mentally. “How did it happen?"

  Kirol looked hesitatingly at the small crowd gathered around.

  “Explain everything,” Roderic barked at the tall guard. “Immediately."

  Kirol exhaled. “Everything was fine by the time the baron decided to return from Garitus. It’s a four-day journey on horseback, so we usually stop by the road the first night, before staying in Tevrim the second night, then by the road again the third night, and we reach here the next evening. But the news from Garitus wasn’t good, so the baron was in a foul mood that morning. The duke completely denied giving even a single person shelter in his city unless they paid for it. I also attended the meeting as Lord Edaroc's personal guard, so I heard their full conversation. The baron tried his best to change the duke's mind—he reminded him of our historically good relations, and the fact that Sarnok supplies most of the iron for his forges—but the duke didn't change his mind."

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  The lanky guard continued, “Since the meeting went poorly, the baron was in a really bad mood that day, and was lashing out at us for small things, which was very unlike him. He even went inside a shop alone for an hour and prevented any of us guards from following him."

  "How could you have left him alone!" Roderic barked.

  Kirol immediately shook his head. "We were well inside the city, just outside the duke's castle. It was as safe as it could be. The baron returned just fine from there within half an hour."

  "What kind of shop was it?" Alden asked.

  "It was a moneylender's store," Kirol replied.

  "He must have taken out a loan to help pay for the whole village..." Vusato breathed.

  "That's just like him..." Hilda agreed, her eyes still wet. "Oh, Lord Edaroc..." she wailed again.

  "But did he actually take out a loan?" Alden asked the tall guard. "Did you see any money pouch on him?"

  Kirol shook his head. "I don't even know if he even went to get a new loan there or to pay back a previous one. If he borrowed some gold from the lender, I never saw it. But I still asked him if we should take a boat back to be safer, but he insisted that if the wind wasn’t good it might take up to 12 days to return, and he couldn’t afford to wait that long to bring news to Sarnok about Garitus City charging people for shelter. So we decided to ride."

  “Carry on,” Alden said.

  Kirol nodded. “That first day out of Garitus, there were some arguments between the baron and his brother Lidoroc—something regarding arranging payments for the whole village. They stepped away from us to talk, so I don’t know exactly what was said. Still, there wasn’t any trouble with monsters that day, so we made camp near the road as usual. It’s heavily forested there, so we decided two of us guards would stay awake at a time to cover both directions in case a monster came there, while the baron and his brother would sleep the whole night."

  Alden was getting a nagging feeling about what had happened, but he remained quiet and kept listening.

  “Then?” Vusato asked. “What went wrong?"

  Kirol dropped his eyes. “It’s my mistake… I could have done better… I'd been feeling really drowsy that day…"

  “Explain everything first!” Roderic snapped, his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  Kirol exhaled. “I had taken the late-night shift along with another guard, while the other two guards took the first shift. When they woke me up around midnight, I saw that the baron and his brother were sleeping peacefully. Everything was fine by then. After a few hours, when it was approaching morning but still a little dark, the other guard on duty said he needed to take a leak. I was well awake at the time, so I told him to go. The moment he had gone far enough into the forest, I felt a blow to the back of my head and blacked out."

  “What?” Roderic growled, pulling his sword out. “Who was it?” He glared at the other guards and pointed at them with his sword. “Was it really one of them?"

  Kirol shook his head. “No. If it was, I would have executed them the moment I found out, or at least crippled the man so we could interrogate him later. But no, it wasn’t any of our guards. I’d stake my life on it.” He looked at Alden with hesitation.

  Alden immediately connected the dots and looked around. “Wait—where is my uncle?” In the shock of hearing his father was dead, he hadn’t noticed that his uncle wasn’t present either. “Is he dead too?"

  “I don’t think so,” Kirol said. “When I came to, I looked around and saw a long dagger jutting out of the baron’s chest, and your uncle Lidoroc was nowhere to be found. I checked Lord Edaroc's pulse, but he was already dead by then. The two guards who'd been sleeping were still fast asleep, but the man who had gone to take a leak also wasn’t there. I became suspicious, so I went to look for him and found him lying facedown in his own piss, sleeping. It couldn't have been him either. After I woke everyone up, we searched for your uncle for hours, but we never found him or his horse."

  “That fucking bastard!” Alden growled. “I knew he would do something like this. I just knew it!" He had been getting a bad feeling about that man since the moment he arrived in this world. Lidoroc had to be the murderer—especially if his father had taken a loan and had that gold on him. Lidoroc must have taken that too. He clenched his fists. That treacherous snake! He would gut the man himself if he ever saw him again.

  “How can you be so sure one of the other guards didn’t do it?” Vusato asked, suspicion still in his voice.

  Kirol shook his head. “I can’t say how long I was out, but it couldn’t have been too long. The sun still wasn’t up when I woke up. I also checked the other guards' pulses, and they were all sleeping deeply. It’s not easy to fake that. That means only your uncle could have done it."

  Alden tilted his head, thinking of another possibility they had left aside. "Or you... And maybe you killed Lidoroc too to hide any evidence."

  "What? No!" Kirol seemed to have stopped breathing. "I'd never—"

  Alden took a step towards the man in anger, pulling out the dagger from his side to find out the truth here and now, but Roderic put a bulky hand on his shoulder, stopping him. "Lord Alden. It's not Kirol. It can't be."

  Alden turned back to the captain. "And how would you know that?"

  "If Kirol could have done it," Vusato said this time, "then all of us are possible culprits. A few years ago, Lord Edaroc had risked his own life to save Kirol's mother from a monster when we were returning from Garitus City. Kirol took a blood oath that day to spend all his life serving the baron. That's why he refused to join the Rangers—which had been his lifelong dream—so he could stay here and keep serving Lord Edaroc. There's no way he would harm a hair of the baron."

  Roderic nodded. "I agree. We won't find a man more loyal to your bloodline than Kirol."

  Alden sighed. "Fine..." He put his hand on Kirol's shoulder, and gave him a small smile. "Sorry 'bout that."

  Kirol looked like he had finally found his breath again, and bent down, putting his hands on his knees and taking huge gulps of air.

  Roderic glared at the two guards who had been found asleep. “How could you damned idiots be sleeping like that when your liege was being murdered right next to you!"