The Villain’s Aide Has Run Away - Chapter 32.2
Count Robert Camilo hauled Leslun back to his feet and thrust his face close.
“A brat who’s betrayed once could easily do it twice. You changed masters without my permission, and yet you act so high and mighty?”
Robert’s voice ended in a low chuckle, laced with mockery and anger. As if releasing the long-held contempt he had stored away, he laughed at Leslun’s duplicity.
His eyes gleamed with menace, and the hand gripping Leslun’s hair tightened. The pain Leslun felt in that moment cut deeper than any insult.
“No, that’s not it. You’ve always been this way. A hypocrite, pretending to be noble, resolving everything I ordered in the most righteous way possible.”
Leslun had only ever wished that no one would be harmed. That was why, even if he chose a different method, he had still carried out every task the Count commanded.
“I’ll make this simple, in a way that suits your tastes. If you report everything about the Crown Prince to me, then it’s as though you never betrayed me at all. You’ll be my adjutant, just like before. Do you understand?”
When Leslun tried, even slightly, to avert his eyes, Robert seized his chin and forced him to look at him. The face before him was cold and cunning.
Knowing that Leslun could not utter a word in protest, Robert shook him off, tossing him aside. Leslun collapsed heavily to the ground, only for Robert to press his boot down firmly on his head.
“Remember, your family and your colleagues are all in my hands.”
And what might happen to them if you don’t obey me.
Leslun knew well what kind of threats Robert would bring forward. No—perhaps he had already anticipated them. That was why, even knowing it was Robert who had dragged him here, he had not raised his voice once.
He had begged the Crown Prince to protect his family, to bring them safely to him. Whether the Crown Prince would grant such a request, Leslun could not be certain.
The bitter truth was that the one person he clung to was none other than the Crown Prince, the story’s final villain.
His dazed gaze fell to the ground before slowly lifting to the empty air above. He wanted something to believe in, yet reality pressed heavily on his shoulders, reminding him he could not.
Emptiness spread across Leslun’s face.
“Finally, you seem to understand.”
Robert stood, his expression far more at ease.
“Soon, someone will come to fetch you.”
Having unilaterally set even the time of their next meeting, Robert stepped over Leslun and left.
Leslun stared blankly at the world turned upside down.
In the original story, he had been nothing more than a nameless extra—an errand boy for the villain, barely mentioned at all.
By the time the novel began, he was already a dead man.
‘Was it wrong for me to be alive at all?’
Perhaps the very act of living so presumptuously, altering the course of the story, had led to this.
He still did not know whether his family was alive or dead. Now, with his very existence a stumbling block in the Crown Prince’s path, perhaps struggling to avoid becoming the villain’s adjutant had been the true mistake.
Despair and regret pressed down on him like a swamp, weighing his body as though in mud.
Roughly, Leslun wiped his sleeve across his eyes before the tears could fall. As long as his family remained a bargaining chip, Robert could not kill them immediately.
Whether it was the Count, or the Crown Prince.
Before resignation could take root, he had to fight, to claw his way out of this mire, even if only a little.
“He’s definitely been taken by someone.”
Aide Robin’s sharp gaze swept toward the darkened side of a building where Leslun might have been dragged. Watching him, Kailos Delroi looked at Robin as if unable to comprehend.
“Couldn’t he just be lost, or delayed because he stopped to look around?”
“Impossible.”
“How can you be so sure?”
Kailos hadn’t dismissed the possibility entirely himself. But Robin spoke with such certainty that it left no room for rebuttal.
Robin’s face was set with determination.
“Aide Leslun has an excellent sense of direction. He never lost his way once he’d seen a path, no matter how unfamiliar the surroundings. He never faltered. And he’s not the type to forget Your Highness because of mere sightseeing.”
At that, Kailos’s face tightened ever so slightly—not stern, but unsettled.
“And most importantly, there is one piece of evidence that proves Leslun was taken.”
Kailos’s eyes sharpened.
“Evidence?”
A chill crept into his chest.
“His face.”
“……”
“That face is the proof.”
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