Silent Witch

Book 15: Chapter 3: The Reason He Didn't Use Honorifics

Monica, who was left in the student council room, glanced sideways at Bridget.

She looked like she might collapse at any moment, but she still straightened her back bravely and glared at the grain of the table. Being the intelligent person she was, she was probably trying to sort out the information and grasp the current situation.

On the other hand, Elliot was sitting with his arms crossed, but he suddenly scratched his head and lifted himself from his chair.

"I feel a bit restless. Shall we have some tea?"

"No thanks."

Despite saying he was restless, Elliot seemed much calmer to Monica.

Elliot shrugged his shoulders and returned to his seat. Bridget turned her amber eyes to him.

"You're quite composed. As His Highness's childhood friend, shouldn't you be more shaken?"

"There's no point in getting worked up. There's nothing we can do."

Monica, who had been listening to their exchange, couldn't help but look at Elliot.

"Lord Howard, you're His Highness's childhood friend?"

"Well, yeah, we've known each other since we were about six years old."

Bridget must have met Felix at around the same age. However, it seemed that Elliot and Bridget only had the common point of being "Felix's friends," and there was no interaction between the two.

Monica felt that various questions were finally falling into place.

So that's how it was.

Monica closed her eyes and recalled the words Elliot had said to her in the past.

Several small questions and doubts that Monica had were finally starting to connect.

"I always wondered. Lord Howard, you're very particular about social status, so why don't you use honorifics with His Highness?"

When Monica said that awkwardly, Elliot narrowed his droopy eyes and smiled thinly.

"I told you, we're childhood friends."

"Is that all?"

Monica couldn't accept the reason that Elliot didn't use honorifics with Felix just because they were "childhood friends." After all, Elliot was a thorough classist.

He was a man who insisted that commoners should act like commoners and nobles should act like nobles, so it was only natural that he would show more respect to royalty.

But why didn't he do that?

"Lord Howard, could it be that you knew? That His Highness was an impostor."

Bridget's eyes widened in surprise as she stared at Elliot.

Elliot still had a thin smile on his face, looking at Monica as if he found it amusing.

"Hey, hey, Miss Norton. What's your proof?"

"Earlier, when Glenn reported that His Highness had been taken away you didn't seem surprised, Lord Howard."

At that time, Monica had instinctively looked at Bridget and then she noticed. Elliot, who was sitting next to Bridget, had an unusually calm expression.

That was the face of someone who had realized something, as if to say, "Ah, I knew it."

"You once told me, Lord Howard, that commoners born with talent are used by cunning people. You said you knew someone whose life was ruined that way"

That was when the chess elective class had just started.

Those were the words Elliot had spoken when he was talking about his own standing.

"Commoners born with rare talent are often either envied by the incompetent or used by cunning people. I know one person whose life was ruined that way."

Monica clenched her fists on her lap and looked straight at Elliot, asking,

"The person whose life was ruined, as you said, Lord Howard, could it be"

The sound of dry applause interrupted Monica's words.

"I'm surprised you remember such an old story."

As Elliot said with a wry smile, Bridget stared at him as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing.

"What do you mean?"

Elliot didn't answer.

Bridget shouted, losing her patience.

"What do you mean?!"

"Don't yell at me like that."

Elliot tried to calm Bridget down with a wry smile. Still, seeing Bridget's attitude as if she might grab him at any moment, he scratched his head with a resigned look.

"You remember, don't you, Miss Bridget? The old His Highness was a real coward, a crybaby, and a weak child who was bad at both studying and sports."

Monica had also heard that story from Bridget.

That the real Felix in his childhood was a very unreliable prince.

"The first time I met His Highness, I was furious. To think that such an unreliable person would be royalty standing above others. It's a joke to think that we have to bow down to someone like him!"

Elliot was basically a pushover, but he was relentlessly harsh and mean to those he didn't like. It seemed that hadn't changed since his childhood.

"One day, I played a prank on His Highness when no one was looking. I hid a book that His Highness cherished on top of a tree. I told him to retrieve it himself without asking his attendants for help. His Highness climbed the tree on the verge of tears and fell, seriously injuring himself. He had to get several stitches on his side."

Monica remembered that when she had spent a night strolling in the red-light district before, there was a scar on Ike's side.

At that time, he had said, "This is a necessary scar."

Monica now understood that it was necessary for him to impersonate the real prince.

"His Highness was seriously injured because of me. Moreover, the scar would remain for life. Of course, I thought I would be executed, and I was trembling in fear. But His Highness protected me He said he got hurt because he was fooling around. He said I didn't do anything."

Elliot paused and exhaled. Then he put a bitter smile on his lips.

"When I asked His Highness why he protected me, guess what he said? He said it was his own fault for not being good at climbing trees."

Bridget muttered, "That's just like him."

Elliot also lowered his gaze a little and had a nostalgic look in his eyes.

"Yeah, it's really frustrating"

Just that one sentence seemed to convey how Elliot felt about the real Felix.

Elliot also looked up to him, just like Bridget did.

The prince was a coward, a crybaby, bad at both studying and sports but kinder than anyone else.

"When I was about eight years old, His Highness fell seriously ill. He couldn't receive visitors, he couldn't write replies to letters, it was that serious. Of course, I was worried. And after more than a year had passed, when I finally thought I could see him again"

Ah, yes. Monica knew what happened next. So did Bridget.

Elliot's face twisted ironically.

"He had become the perfect prince."

When Elliot met Felix again after a long time, he had grown much taller compared to a year ago. His skin, which had always been pale and lacked color, had become completely healthy-looking.

The old Felix had a beautiful face, but he was always timidly looking down and couldn't make use of his good looks at all.

But now he carried himself with confidence. Even though he wasn't even ten years old yet, it was as if he knew how to use his appearance.

Elliot, who had been invited to a party at the ducal family's villa, was simply astonished at the sight of Felix.

Felix, who had always been unconfident and tried to stay still, being mindful of the gazes around him so as not to make a blunder and be scolded by his grandfather, was now mingling with adults in a dignified manner and responding to the dances of the young ladies.

Everyone was praising Felix as a "wonderful prince."

After the party was over, Elliot snuck away from his father's watchful eye and visited Felix's private room alone.

He felt that he had to talk to him one-on-one no matter what.

"Hey, long time no see, Elliot."

The smile with which Felix greeted Elliot was soft and gentle, no different from the Felix that Elliot knew. Yet, why did it feel so strange?

"You seem like a different person."

"It's been a while since we last met."

"You really are His Highness, right?"

When Elliot asked in a stiff voice, Felix chuckled and lifted the hem of his shirt.

The scar on his smooth, white skin was from when he had fallen from the tree.

"Look, I still have the scar from that time, don't I?"

Indeed, the scar was the same as the one from that time. Yet the sense of unease only grew.

As Elliot stared at Felix's face, he suddenly noticed something.

For a moment just for a moment, he saw disgust in Felix's eyes.

The traces of disgust disappeared in the blink of an eye. But Elliot didn't miss that disgust.

After all, Elliot knew those eyes.

"He" had always looked at Elliot with eyes of disgust.

When Elliot was bullying Felix, and even after they became close following the incident where Felix got hurt. "He" had always hated Elliot.

Every time Elliot came, "he" would greet him with a composed face. And yet, "he" would let strong disgust seep into those blue eyes!

"Y-You the one-eyed attendant!"

Elliot didn't bother to remember the faces and names of servants from other households. Even so, he remembered that particular attendant well.

It was not only because he had a somewhat handsome face but hid the right side of it with long bangs, but also because that attendant was always by Felix's side.

When Elliot mocked Felix, the attendant would glare back at him despite his position.

When Felix fell from the tree and was seriously injured, the attendant looked like he might attack Elliot, he was so enraged.

The color of the attendant's eyes was very similar to Felix's, but unlike Felix's vivid light blue, they had a hint of green mixed in yes, the same color as the "Felix" in front of him.

"Why where is the real His Highness?"

The expression disappeared from the face of the "Felix" in front of him.

The next moment, Elliot's feet were swept out from under him, and he was lying on his back on the carpet.

Then "Felix"no, the attendant with Felix's facestraddled Elliot and lightly dug his thumb into Elliot's throat.

"You're an eyesore after all now and then."

The flat way of speaking undoubtedly belonged to the young attendant Elliot knew.

"What the hell is this? What's going on with that face it's exactly the same as Felix's!"

At this point, Elliot didn't even care about the pain in the back of his head that he had hit.

When Elliot shouted in a strained voice, the attendant with Felix's face looked down at Elliot with a displeased expression.

"Of course. I was raised to become his body double. This face was also remade for that purpose."

"Body double? Then where is the real Felix now?"

There was a creaking sound. It was the sound of the "Felix" in front of him grinding his teeth.

The boy in front of him was no longer trying to maintain Felix's expression.

He had the same face as Felix, but with an expression of hatred that Felix would never make.

Elliot couldn't tell who that hatred was directed at, though.

"When His Highness Felix found out that I was his body double, he took his own life to help me escape."

In a voice filled with hatred, like a curse, the attendant with Felix's face said as if savoring it, as if telling himself,

"It's as if I killed him."

Felix was dead.

That boy who was kinder than anyone else had taken his own life.

"He climbed onto the roof himself and fell to his death How many times have I wished that you, Elliot Howard, had never taught His Highness Felix how to climb trees."

The attendant laughed darkly at the speechless Elliot.

"Lord Felix was afraid of being forgotten by people after his death. Then I should become Felix Ark Ridill. I'll engrave this name in history as an excellent king so that no one will ever forget him."

What the hell am I facing right now?Elliot was confused.

The former attendant, whose face had been remade to look exactly like Felix's, seemed like something inhuman to Elliot.

At the very least, this wasn't sane.

"You're out of your mind for a mere commoner to impersonate royalty, it's not just presumptuous it's abominable."

"So what?"

The attendant applied a little more pressure to the finger on Elliot's throat. Just by putting a little strength into that finger, the attendant could stop Elliot's breathing.

The attendant peered into Elliot's face, which was beading with sweat on his forehead. Elliot, reflected in those darkly stagnant eyes, had a face contorted with fear.

"If you wish for the prosperity of the Howard family, you'd better forget about this. The moment you speak of it, the Duke of Crockford will use every means possible to destroy your family So please, don't get in my way."

Ah, that's right. There's no way a mere attendant could carry out such an outrageous plan alone. The Duke of Crockford was pulling the strings.

If that was the case, even if Elliot were to spread the word that "the Second Prince is an impostor," no one would believe him. On the contrary, the Howard family would undoubtedly be crushed.

So the attendant made sure to drive the point home not to do anything unnecessary, and then he got off of Elliot.

Elliot slowly sat up and glared at the attendant.

"I know that those who recklessly cross the boundaries of status always end up destroying themselves. You too will surely ruin yourself someday."

The attendant with Felix's face mocked Elliot, who was putting on his best show of bravado.

"If it's after I've engraved my name in history as a hero, I'll accept any kind of ruin. That's what a foolish attendant who let his master die deserves."

This attendant probably no longer feared his own destruction.

What this attendant feared was that the name of Felix Ark Ridill would be forgotten.

As long as he could protect Felix's honor, this attendant would do anything.

"Then I'll watch as a bystander. I'll witness the end of the clown who impersonates royalty When you meet your downfall, I'll laugh at you with great fanfare. I told you so, serves you right!'"

At Elliot's words, the blue eyes that had been stagnant until now regained a little transparency.

"Yes, please do witness it the end of the clown."

Elliot finally realized.

The one this attendant hated, the one he mocked, the one he cursed was none other than himself.