In the dead of night the cold wind swept softly over the vast agricultural fields stretching out behind the Astria estate and the tall lush crops reaching well over a grown man’s head.
A lone figure moved through the stalks.
Corvus walked with careful deliberate steps until he reached the center of the outer farmlands then stopped and scanned his surroundings with sharp eyes, looking left then right.
’All empty. Good.’
Satisfied, he reached into the inner lining of his heavy jacket and pulled out a slender glass vial filled with glowing murky green liquid.
With practiced ease he uncorked the tip, dropped to one knee and slowly poured the poison directly into the rich soil at the base of the crops.
"That should do it for this month as well..." A cold smirk crept across his face.
Instead of tossing the empty vial on the ground he carefully re-capped it and slipped it back into his coat pocket.
He couldn’t afford to be careless about something like that. One residual mana trace from a court alchemist and it was over.
He dusted off his knee and stood up looking over the vast dying fields with open satisfaction.
"You and your ruined legacy are done for, Valessia," he chuckled softly, voice dripping with every bit of malice he’d been sitting on for months.
"Yields will plummet and the people will starve and you won’t have a single copper left to pay the imperial taxes. In the end you’ll have no choice but to beg Madame to buy this useless dirt off your hands for a handful of gold. You’ll run away like a beaten dog and this entire estate will finally belong to us! Hahahaha—"
Rustle.
His laughter cut off instantly. His eyes snapped toward a dense cluster of tall crops just a few paces ahead.
"Who’s there?" His spine stiffened. "Is that an animal...?"
The rustling went dead silent.
Before Corvus could even reach for the dagger at his hip a shadow burst through the stalks and a single leather boot came flying out of the dark with absolutely lethal speed.
CRACK.
The sole caught him directly across the jaw with the force of a battering ram and the impact lifted him completely off his feet and sent him flying backward through the dirt before he crashed hard onto his back.
"You corrupt old bastard," a casual mocking voice floated out from the rustling crops. "Did you really think nobody would notice the soil dying right under our noses?"
Corvus scrambled backward through the mud coughing up blood and clutching his nose with both hands. A vivid dirty bootprint was on his cheek.
"Wh-Who are you?!" he spat with terror cracking through every syllable. "Show yourself!"
Sylus stepped out from the shadow of the tall crops and casually tossed a thick wooden fence post from hand to hand.
Corvus’s eyes went wide. "Y-You?! You absolute rat! What the hell are you doing here out this late?"
Sylus completely ignored him and cupped a hand over his mouth and shouted out toward the dark field on the other side. "Hey! Did you guys catch all of that?!"
Corvus froze.
His heart dropped somewhere around his knees.
He whipped his head around frantically and there, parting the crops behind him were two middle-aged estate farmers.
They stood frozen in absolute horror, one clutching his head with both hands, the other covering his mouth like he was trying to hold himself together.
"Unbelievable..." one of them choked out, "To think... to think Lord Corvus was the one poisoning our lands this whole time..."
’He brought witnesses?!’
Panic detonated through Corvus’s chest and he scrambled to his feet and instantly switched into full damage-control mode, puffing his chest out and jabbing a trembling finger at Sylus and bellowing at the top of his lungs so every single word bounced off the fields and reached the farmers loud and clear.
"Don’t listen to him! This is a complete setup!" Corvus roared heroically, practically putting on a one-man stage performance in the middle of a field at midnight. "You crafted this filthy illusion to shift blame onto a loyal servant of the Astria estate! You are the real traitor Sylus! You absolute rat you—"
BAM.
Before the theatrical speech could really find its footing, Sylus swung the wooden post like a golf club and cracked Corvus directly over the skull mid-sentence.
"AAAAAAARRRRGGGHHHH!"
The scream tore through the quiet night and echoed all the way to the main estate mansion as Corvus crumpled to his knees with tears spraying from his eyes, clutching his forehead with both hands.
"To think you’d blabber out excuses this pathetic after getting caught red-handed," Sylus said, resting the post over his shoulder. "You shameless old bastard."
"I-It’s an accusation! I’m being framed!" Corvus wailed desperately, turning his bloody face toward the two horrified farmers. "He’s making it look like I— AAAAGGGHH!"
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Sylus didn’t even let him finish the sentence. Three back-to-back heavy strikes rained down onto the back of Corvus’s skull one after another and each one pulled a high-pitched shriek out of the old man.
Meanwhile inside the main estate mansion an urgent frantic knocking rattled the door to the Baroness’s private quarters.
Valessia, having barely slept anyway, sat up in bed and pulled a silk robe over her nightgown. "Come in."
The door burst open and a breathless guard captain stumbled inside with his face completely pale.
"Why are you barging in at this hour?" she demanded.
"M-My Lady!" He sucked in air, struggling for words. "Please come to the rear courtyards immediately! There is... an incident!"
"What?!"
By the time Valessia arrived at the edge of the estate grounds half the household staff and every off-duty knight had already gathered in a massive chaotic circle around something in the dirt path and loud brutal thudding sounds mixed with frantic wailing were coming from the center of it all.
"My Lady is here! Make way!"
The servants parted instantly and cleared a wide path for the Baroness.
The moment the view opened up Valessia’s jaw dropped. ’Is that... Corvus?’
There in the center of the dirt path was Corvus, the Head Administrator and Advisor of the Astria estate, lying face down in the mud crying like an absolute toddler while Sylus stood over him with a splintered fence post and the crazed ecstatic expression of a man having the time of his life.
"Stop! Stop right there!" Two armored knights finally snapped out of their collective shock and dove forward grabbing Sylus by both arms and hauling him back.
"Okay okay fine! I’m done I’m done! Let go!" Sylus yelled, throwing his hands up in full mock surrender.
The knights exchanged a relieved look and released his arms.
BAM! BAM! BAM!
The absolute millisecond his hands were free Sylus lunged forward and delivered three swift merciless whacks directly to Corvus’s exposed rear end and the old man shrieked like a boiling teapot left alone on the stove.
"HEY!" Both knights screamed in unison and tackled his arms back again.
"Alright alright for real this time! My hand slipped!" Sylus raised both palms with the completely innocent face of a man who had never done anything wrong in his entire life. "I barely even touched him."
Corvus was sobbing into the dirt.
"Sylus."
A low dangerously calm voice cut through the entire chaos like a blade through paper.
Sylus stopped wriggling immediately and slowly turned his head up.
Valessia stood a few feet away with her arms crossed tight under her chest and her deep violet eyes moving between the bloody sobbing mess on the floor and Sylus’s smug dirty face with an expression that hadn’t fully decided yet whether to be furious or baffled.
"Care to explain what on earth is going on here?"