In A World Full of Silence, My Heart Will Find Its Way To You - Chapter 105

As they kept walking endlessly down the dark stairs of the prison, they reached a damp basement.

The space was filled with a musty smell, and only barely lit by torches on the walls.

The commander of the guards, covered in blood from various tortures, sat weakly tied to a chair.

He barely managed to open his heavy eyes at the sound of footsteps echoing through the prison.

The commander didn’t care who stood in front of him. What did he have to fear when he trusted the powerful support of his master?

He crooked his lips into a smirk.

“You dare touch me…? Do you think Count Cecil will stay quiet about this?”

But then, he flinched at the sight of Eric staring coldly at him.

At Eric’s nod, the knights next to him quickly brought over some grotesque weapons.

The commander’s face twisted in fear as he hastily looked at them.

Eric clicked his tongue lightly and took off his bothersome uniform. A thin white shirt, slightly see-through, revealed his toned body.

As he rolled up his sleeves, his muscles, tight with veins, were exposed.

Eric grabbed the commander’s hair and yanked his head back.

“Ugh!”

“You were hiding quite well. Well, being under Count Cecil was the safest hiding place, after all.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying.”

“This is a place no one can enter without the emperor’s direct order.”

“You must already know why you’ve been captured. You wouldn’t have led the guards if you were truly that clueless.”

He thought the matter was completely buried. A case that the Empress Dowager and his master desperately tried to cover up. No suspicion, no trace—he had believed it was all gone…

But how did the Emperor find out and dig into it?

Sweating coldly, the commander let out a hollow laugh, trying to escape the situation.

“Guards? I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He avoided Eric’s sharp gaze and tried hard to think.

The guards that had destroyed the Reynolds family had acted under the secret orders of the Empress Dowager and Count Cecil.

He didn’t know why that incident was being brought up again, but the fact that the Emperor was investigating it meant the situation was serious.

He shut his mouth tightly. Whatever the reason, it was clear he had been brought here to dig into Count Cecil’s secrets.

One wrong move, and everyone could get dragged into this.

“Count Cecil has always supported the royal family without hesitation. You shouldn’t treat someone like him this way. This is disgraceful!”

“You talk too much.”

“Please… let me go!”

Even as the commander begged with desperate eyes, Eric stepped closer, his footsteps echoing through the cell.

“Count Cecil, the Empress Dowager, and those who opposed the Reynolds family’s trade routes… oddly tangled, though they claim to be unrelated. Quite the story.”

“I… I don’t know what you mean…”

“But unfortunately, it wasn’t perfect.”

Eric pulled out an old document and held it in front of him.

As the commander glanced at it, he instantly recognized what it was and his lips went dry.

“This is evidence with the Empress Dowager’s seal. You know exactly what this means. Will your powerful backers protect you this time, too?”

“T-The Empress Dowager…”

He bit his lower lip, but sweat ran down his back. He forced a calm expression, but Eric’s cold stare didn’t waver.

“Count Cecil will soon seek an audience with the Emperor. He doesn’t even know it will be his grave.”

“You were the one who managed Count Cecil’s ledgers all this time. So, I’m sure you know his signet ring is a fake.”

His mouth opened in shock. The Emperor knew more than expected.

The ring, crafted so cleverly that it fooled everyone, had been used openly. How had they figured it out?

The commander’s pupils shook like a candle in the wind.

Eric clicked his tongue again.

“I’ll ask only once. There’s just one thing I want to hear. That the Empress Dowager and Count Cecil supported the downfall of Count Reynolds.”

“I don’t kn—…”

The commander trailed off and shook his head.

His opponent was sharper than expected, able to read him like a book. A poorly made lie would only make things worse.

As he hesitated, Eric calmly picked up a whip lying nearby.

“Whether you know or not, we’ll find out now.”

Crack! The thick whip tore through the air and struck the commander’s back.

A sharp pain like burning tore into his skin. He shivered from the searing pain of his flesh being ripped.

“Ugh…! P-Please, spare me!”

He looked up with pleading eyes, but the whip came down again, tearing into his back.

Bright red blood sprayed along the whip.

“Urgh…!”

“Fool. Do you really think the Count will save you?”

“I never… said anything—Ugh!”

Eric swung the whip without mercy. Blood poured from the commander’s back nonstop.

His pale face twisted in agony, but Eric didn’t stop.

“Talk. That’s the only way this ends.”

“If you don’t, you’ll die here. You don’t care about that?”

The commander stared ahead with dim eyes.

Eric’s voice rang faintly in his ears as his vision blurred. All the strength in his bound hands faded away.

Whipping again and again—how much time had passed? His blank eyes slowly turned to the face in front of him.

Those blue eyes, filled with madness. Only then did the commander realize: this man was the rumored captain of the Imperial Guard.

The knight who roamed the battlefield every day. The hero who saved the Emperor. The killer instinct hidden behind a calm face.

His torn flesh left no place uninjured. He might really die here.

Finally, he opened his tightly closed mouth.

“P… Please spare me.”

His head drooped as he mumbled, half-conscious. Drops of blood from the whipping now dotted Eric’s face.

Eric wiped the blood from his face carelessly and looked down at the limp man.

He tilted his head slightly and signaled to a knight nearby. The knight quickly splashed cold water on the commander.

He groaned in pain and slowly opened his eyes.

“Speak. Or die right here.”

At Eric’s words, he gritted his teeth. At last, his trembling lips opened.

“I… I was wrong. I never meant for it to be this way. I was only following the Empress Dowager’s orders…”

As his voice trailed off again and his head dropped, Eric lifted it back up.

“Was it under her orders that you gathered the guards?”

“Yes… that’s right.”

He nodded weakly.

“Who lured Count Reynolds to the palace? Whose plan was it?”

“The Empress Dowager… and Count Cecil… She never planned to let the Count leave alive… The late Emperor supported it as well.”

The commander coughed up blood in the middle of speaking. It dripped onto the floor as he continued.

“Count Reynolds was loyal. He acted under the late Emperor’s command… He gathered the noble’s seals as a pledge of loyalty to the throne…”

“Count Cecil’s seal would have been among them too.”

“After Count Reynolds was executed, Count Cecil searched everywhere for his signet ring, but it was gone…”

“He couldn’t find it. Count Reynolds, realizing it was a trap, swallowed the Cecil family’s ring first.”

The commander’s eyes widened and trembled.

To think he swallowed the seal in that moment… it hadn’t even crossed his mind.

Eric pulled out a ring and turned it between his fingers.

“This came from Count Reynolds’s body. You know whose it is, right?”

“You beg for your life after destroying a noble house. It’s meaningless.”

“I know…”

Though he said so, the commander let out a short sigh. He couldn’t stop the cold fear in his chest.

He wasn’t afraid to die. But he feared that his family might suffer because of all this.

Eric stared silently at the man who had bowed his head. A heavy silence settled between them before Eric spoke again.

“But since you confessed, I’ll consider that. I’ll let you leave this place.”

“R-Really?”

“But speak as I tell you.”

“If that’s what you want…”

“Confess your crimes at the imperial court. In front of the nobles. If you do, I’ll spare your family.”

It was a hard request. Especially because Count Cecil and the Empress Dowager would be there, watching with glaring eyes.

But if it meant his family would be safe Just as his heavy eyelids lifted, someone rushed inside.

Loud footsteps echoed through the blood-scented prison.

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