"The marshal's butler died in a mysterious manner?"
In the light screen video, the man wearing gold-rimmed glasses let out a light laugh. His icy smile did not reach his eyes as he looked at the sullen council members opposite him:
"Councilmember Coren has probably misremembered. The cause of death was well documented in the butler's autopsy report, so how could it have been a mysterious death?"
The atmosphere in the conference room was eerily quiet.
The nine council members sitting there were trembling with fear and cold sweat on their backs. Meanwhile, Coren himself reacted a bit more. He was really careless and unconsciously slipped out that most inappropriate remark.
"Of...of course, Adjutant Mist."
Coren was inwardly terrified as he apprehensively stammered with a smile, "I have a bad memory in my old age. The marshal's butler was killed by an attack of those hateful insects... how can it be considered mysterious?"
In the light screen, Mist restrained his smile, and his eyes under his glasses stared deep into Coren. Only when the other party's stiff smile was just about to become unmaintainable did he reveal a smile and say in a rather friendly manner:
"Councilmember Coren, it's better to treat your memory loss earlier if you have it, or picking a qualified heir is also a good solution, isn't it?"
Pick an heir.
Coren's hands and feet went cold, knowing that his future had been buried because of those words.
The faces of the other council members in the room were pale. They were obviously all shocked by this incident. However, the adjutant on the video screen had already smiled and turned his head to the chairman of the council, "Since the contract is signed, I will have someone go to the central city tomorrow to greet the new butler."
"I remember his name is Butoh?"
"Right."
The gray-haired council chairman nodded calmly as he forced a smile and said, "Butoh is a good boy. He is young but reliable. You can rest assured."
"That's good."
The man in the video wearing gold-rimmed glasses nodded with a smile and took the initiative to close the light screen.
After the light screen disappeared, the members of the Butler Council relaxed visibly, and the surrounding council members spoke out to comfort their old friend Coren.
Although they sympathized with Coren, in the end, it was also his own fault. They, the old guys, really couldn't help.
"What's going on over there with Butoh?"
Looking at the scene not far away, the chairman of the council didn't make a move and deliberately lowered his voice.
As a matter of fact, Butoh should have come over for the meeting as well.
The secretary standing next to him paled, "The other party heard somewhere that the marshal's first three butlers had all died for various reasons. Now, he's been trying to break the contract."
This was not surprising.
Any normal person wouldn't want to become the marshal's butler after knowing this.
We're sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we're going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
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The secretary nodded equally cautiously.
They all knew the seriousness of this matter.
At least now, Butoh must not break the contract.
"Why me, why?"
Inside the dark room, Butoh shrunk into a ball and trembled constantly, tears and snot smeared all over his face, "Obviously, there are better candidates ah, there must be, right?"
"Aibo, Willis, Gejip, Corenway...." The names of his former fellow applicants who had applied for the job together were recited out of his mouth one by one, "So many people, so many people, why did they pick me? "
"I don't want to go to a border base. I don't want to serve the demon. Why me! Why do I have to be some bullshit butler!"
How excited he was in the beginning, how scared he was now. He really didn't want to die. Butoh looked towards the pile of white paper on the table, and his tear-soaked eyes gradually became a bit maniacal.
That's right. It's all the contract's fault, it's all the contract!
Butoh crawled to the pile of clutter in a sorry state. Tremblingly fumbling for the dagger beside him, he ruthlessly plunged it one after another. Soon, the thick contract was scraped into shreds of paper.
ââSnap
The dagger fell unintentionally to the floor.
Butoh lost his mind and looked at the waste paper scraps piled together. The short-lived quick relief was once again replaced by despair. He couldn't help but cover his face and whimper and cry in pain again:
"Bullshit butler! Bullshit hero!"
Those butlers are dead.
The autopsy report said that they were killed by demonic insects, but in fact, those butlers were killed by the marshal.
Because they had violated the marshal's taboo.
Butoh knew that he wouldn't be spared. He wasn't good and would definitely die at the hands of the marshal. He definitely couldn't go to the Sixth Base.
The marshal was a madman.
So what if he was a hero? No butler would want to serve him.
Why did he want to be a butler?
If he had known that, he would have gone and chosen his hobby to open a flower store in the first place. It would have been better than having to go to the Sixth Base and get himself killed now.
Butoh was tossing his thoughts upside down. The fear of death made his brain buzz. He couldn't stop the tears from spilling out of his eyes, and snot was smeared all over his face in a messy way.
The man next to him handed over a wad of tissues. Butoh, drowning in pain and remorse, hiccupped through his sobs and reached out to take them.
"Thanks."
"You're welcome."
The person handing the tissue was quite considerate.
The tissue slowly fell to the floor.
Butoh's back instantly flared as if he were in a freezing cellar.
There was a second person in the closed room.
When did the other person appear? And how long had they been watching? The dark silence of the small room and the fear of the unknown left his limbs cold and his mind buzzing.
Faint moonlight leaked in from behind the curtains. Butoh mustered the courage to look up stiffly as a clown mask, painted with an eerie smile, was barely a fist's length from his face.
A scream of fear pressed into his throat and Butoh gasped a little.
"Do you still want to cry?"
The exaggerated grin on the clown's mask grinned up to his ears, twisted and devious, as if the clown could grant him every wish if he said he wanted to.
Butoh's breath nearly stopped.
Even if he wanted to cry, he would only subconsciously shake his head at this point.
"Well, that's just great!"
The other person seemed amused and came a little closer, "I've been looking around here for a long time before I found a tissue. You've used it all up, so if you're still going to cry, there might not be any tissue to hand you."
The person under the mask seemed to be a young man.
In any other scenario, the other person could be called enthusiastic, but in the moment, Butoh only felt that it was even creepier.
As a matter of fact, any other person would probably feel a chill down their back if they were locked in their room, crying alone in pain, and a stranger wearing a clown mask suddenly appeared enthusiastically handing out tissues.
He looked at the unknown being, who seemed to be lowering his guard by playing dumb. His eyes were on the verge of welling up with tears again.
"What exactly are you trying to... trying to do?"
Butoh stammered stiffly.
"I want to make a deal with you."
As if the question had struck a chord with the clown, his voice lightened slightly and he moved closer to Butoh, nearly face to face.
The grinning black clown mask seemed to magnify several times in Butoh's line of sight, growing more and more ominous in the darkness. It was not clear how he had appeared here unnoticed.
"Wh...what deal?"
Butoh thought for a moment that he was a demon from hell.
"A deal where neither side loses anything."
Something seemed to swing by behind the other party.
Butoh was in a trance for a moment at his words, before he recognized that it should be a black tail.
A tail that definitely didn't belong to a human being and that reeked of danger.
****
A man in military uniform stepped down from the craft, wearing a black gas mask that covered the lower half of his face.
The light brain vibrated audibly.
Soren looked down and connected to the video.
Adjutant Mist, who wore gold-rimmed glasses, asked in a slightly tired voice, "At this time, you should have arrived at the designated location."
"Arrived."
A dull response came from under the gas mask.
"That's good." Mist paused for a moment, "Come back as soon as you receive the person. The new butler must familiarize himself with all matters on this side as early as possible before the marshal returns."
"Hmm."
"As I recall, the new butler is called..."
"Ya Xiao."
"Right." Without the slightest hesitation, Mist nodded and said directly, "Remember not to talk much with that group of people from the council, you won't be able to handle it."
Footsteps sounded faintly.
Soren glanced at the source of the sound and directly hung up his optical brain, not paying any more attention to his brother's chatter.
"Ya Xiao?"
A slightly cold, hard voice confirmed.
The black-haired young man in a tuxedo looked up. He was slim and carried a suitcase in his hand. His blue eyes were so bright that it was hard to ignore them.
Seemingly realizing that the other party had come specifically to pick him up, the young man gave a heartfelt smile and responded with a sincere and polite nod:
"Sorry to keep you waiting."