Extra: In An Other Future: Edgar Henry

Edgar Henry’s eyes narrowed into slits as he brooded over his next move.

After spending 5 years of persecution, smothered within this House of Dellarose and unfairly blamed for the failings of a senile old man, restricted until he had to check to make sure his hands and feet hadn’t been chopped off, the only thing that was left within his heart was a smoldering for vengeance.

Tonight, his very last hope had appeared.

If he couldn’t succeed tonight, he had a future of being thrown into obsolescence and replaced as the Steward Candidate for the House of Dellarose, but with the ‘classified information’ he had from working as a Steward Apprentice, he would never be released from their authority.

He would simply be buried, doing thankless, meaningless work until his soul rotted away.

What a joke. With Steward Bolther’s manipulations, what sort of sensitive information could Edgar have ever hoped to come across?

Edgar now knew.

This ending was written out ever since he had been pressed into becoming apprenticed to the House of Dellarose.

The depths of his mind screamed out in anguish and fury, but what could he do about it now?

Tonight, the Young Lady of the Dellarose Household was returning for the first time since she had been ill, lying in her sickbed.

This, THIS, was his last chance.

Earl Dellarose was indulgent towards his own family, and Edgar sought to use that to his advantage.

However, the Lord Earl and Lady Estella … with such a shaky relationship, Edgar was well aware what would happen if he appeared to approach the Lady Estella.

The relationship of the Lord and Lady Dellarose was too frail to be subjected to any sort of stress from the outside, and Lady Estella was too susceptive to any sort of flattery.

Edgar quickly relegated the seduction of Lady Estella to his last resort.

He may be good with political schemes, although he had been setup with a losing game this time, but intrigues of the heart were too tricky for him to desire to stick his hands into.

Unfortunately the next candidate, Young Lord Fedor, was far too stupid.

Foolish nobles may be gold pieces in the hands of a manipulator, but ones that were so foolish that they had rotted to sludge are completely unusable.

The last one, then, is the Young Lady Fluvia.

If she was at all usable, Edgar was willing to seduce a girl under half his age in order to get his revenge.

If she was not… then, although he understood that the Dellarose House was not directly responsible for his situation, Edgar would have to destroy them as an obstacle along his way.

In that case, he would have to act quickly in the short period of time between Steward Bolther’s dismissal and his own potential dismissal, while he had any sort of authority to speak of.

Ideally, though, he would sink his claws into the Young Lady and freely usurp the Lord Earl, acting the perfect Steward while he used the House of Dellarose to crush his opponents.

Edgar wasn’t really sure if he would be able to get a chance to speak with the Young Lady alone, but he rejoiced to see that she had somehow slipped out of her room without her maids noticing.

It was certainly bad for her health, though.

Even now she seemed to be blown around by the gentle night breeze, her frailty made perfectly clear.

Any conscience he might have had that would be concerned about taking advantage of a sick, lonely girl had long since been pulverized to slivers ever since he had spent his time in the Dellarose House.

Edgar could only see an opportunity that was perfect for the taking.

Putting a perfect, flattering smile on his face, Edgar approached her.

“Good evening, Young Lady. What are you doing here alone?”

The Young Lady looked up at him, her eyes slightly unfocused.

She had been gazing into the night, standing outside on the balcony.

What could she have been doing?

Edgar quelled his curiosity in favor of his goals.

“It’s a pleasure to be able to meet you alone, however, so perhaps I should thank the alignment of the stars for this opportunity.”

Becoming every inch a womanizer, Edgar attempted to sway her with pretty, romantic words that would make many women take notice of him, but the Young Lady didn’t react at all to anything he said.

Just when Edgar felt that it was going to be useless after all, the Young Lady spoke.

“… I can help you get revenge.”

Her voice was so quiet, Edgar almost couldn’t catch it.

His heart suddenly squeezed in terror at having his deepest thoughts read.

“Young Lady, what could you be talking about?”

The Young Lady reached upwards, taking a scroll of parchment from her hairpin – was that a magic tool?

Something like that, it should be an ancient treasure.

The Young Lady held the scroll out just a little; her frailty was unable to bear lifting the scroll with her arm outstretched towards Edgar.

Edgar, the smile still plastered on his face, approached her and took it, before retreating and opening the scroll.

His eyes skimmed the words on the parchment.

At the very top was the name of a man he hated to his core, Bolther, followed by quite a few things written there that would give the Dellarose Earldom the motive to murder Bolther outright.

It seems that Bolther has been acting quite a bit too freely with Edgar as his scapegoat.

There were even things written there that Edgar had not even thought Bolther could have dreamed of doing, and yet Bolther seemed to have done them and hidden them underneath the other things that Bolther had blamed Edgar for.

It seems that Bolther was both Edgar’s and the Dellarose’s enemy.

But the words continued onward.

Bolther, as Edgar had expected, wasn’t acting on his own initiative.

“… Is this information true?”

Edgar had dropped his fawning tone and honeyed, tender gaze as his eyes glinted sharply with agitation.

If this was true, then there were a good many things he could now do.

The Young Lady slightly nodded in response.

“… Do you have proof?”

Edgar couldn’t help asking.

A delicate frown crossed the girl’s face and her brows wrinkled slightly.

“I don’t have it. But it exists.”

Edgar’s mind raced as he kicked his thoughts into the highest gear.

It’s fine if the Young Lady didn’t have the proof herself.

If it was there, then he, Edgar Henry, would dig it out and twist it into the wounds of their enemies until they were reduced to a state worse than he was currently in.

Edgar’s thoughts were interrupted as the Young Lady suddenly spoke, saying,

“I want to make them regret bullying Father and Mother until their bones shatter. Will you do it?”

Her soft voice now sounded as if it had a tinge of malice within.

Edgar watched as a silver rat scuttled along the balcony railing, before going to perch itself on the Young Lady’s shoulder.

In the dim, silvery moonlight, the Young Lady, with her delicate health, looked especially ephemeral as she gently pet the creature without being startled or frightened at all.

Edgar dropped his eyes to the parchment in his hand.

A sinister smile crossed his face as his mind began to spin plots like a spider spun its webs.

“My Lady, do expect good results.”

—

[Yabukoi]’s Fluvia went into shock after hearing about her status as a magic cripple and her condition plummeted due to that, as well as a number of other factors.

She was only released back to the Dellarose Earldom at the age of 10, arriving coincidentally (although there were certainly some manmade coincidences in there) on the night of her 10th birthday.

During the extra 5 years [Yabukoi]’s Fluvia had spent in the House of Healing, thanks to Bolther being left completely unchecked, the Dellarose Earldom’s reputation had begun to take some severe hits.

And it was all blamed on Sir Edgar Henry’s incompetence.

In this future, Sir Edgar met Young Lady Fluvia for the first time on that night of her 10th birthday.

Now, at 21-years-old, Sir Edgar had long since lost his naivety and ideals on Stewardship after harsh oppression that caused his reputation to fall to the bottom – all at no fault of his own.

Although he was unable to turn [Yabukoi]’s Fluvia into his tool for vengeance, her desires just so happened to line up with his revenge, and the dangerous alliance between a ruthless-but-naive girl and a spiteful-and-cunning man was made that night.