The Obsessive Male Lead Is Actually Scary-Chapter 38: The Calm Before

"My lady..."

Someone called out to me, balancing a silver tray with a chilled glass of ice water and a few pieces of dessert. The midday sun had risen high, casting sharp rays across the inn’s wide courtyard. I’d just finished another hour of crossbow training, sweat dampening the back of my shirt and my hair sticking to my neck.

It was Emir.

"Oh, Emir!" I said, lowering the crossbow. "How’s Amira doing?"

"She’s much better now, thanks to you. The doctor said she’ll probably recover completely after a few more treatments."

He offered me the tray.

"Thanks!" I said, taking it with both hands.

Emir grinned brightly, clearly happy to be of help.

"Where’s Sir Slovene?"

"Ah, he stepped out a moment ago with Sir Mateo. I was just about to head inside the inn too."

"Ah, is that so?" he replied, pausing thoughtfully.

"What’s wrong?" I tilted my head, eyeing his face with curiosity.

"Ah! It’s nothing. Hehe." He waved his hands dismissively, then added, "Then... shall we go inside together?"

"Sure," I said, returning his smile with one of my own.

* * *

The Gull’s Roost Tavern sat near the edge of the port district, tucked between a dried herb stall and a closed-down sailor’s guildhouse. The kind of place where sea salt lingered in the air, and the windows were always half-shuttered to keep out both sun and stares.

A cloaked man stepped through the tavern door, boots silent on the wooden floorboards. The air smelled of old liquor and dust. With a flick of his hand, he lowered his hood.

It was Alessio.

"Your Highness," Caleb greeted him quietly from a corner booth, already seated.

Alessio took a seat across from him.

"How did it go with the investigations?"

Caleb set a few sealed folders on the table. "Our team compiled all the records we could find on Count Belmont. It appears he’s been using a fake ledger—falsified accounts and dummy holdings to keep his real financial trail hidden. The reports he submitted to the imperial treasury were doctored. But our investigators compared them against third-party merchant records, and we found discrepancies too large to ignore."

"Which of his holdings are tied to House Wittelsbach?"

"A number of them," Caleb replied. "Most notably, a shipping company based in Rosien and a textile warehouse east of the capital. They’ve both been laundering money into a shadow account that leads back to the duchy."

"We’ve already stationed agents around his estate and his manor in the capital," Mateo added, stepping forward. "As you advised, we expanded surveillance to the orphanages he owns. At first, nothing seemed unusual. But then..."

He hesitated.

Alessio’s eyes narrowed. "Go on."

"...It turns out there’s a ballroom beneath the orphanage grounds. Hidden. Underground. Renovated with newer stonework and ventilation systems. At first glance, it could’ve passed for storage space. But we checked deeper."

Alessio’s hand stiffened.

"And?"

Mateo’s voice dropped. "Children from the orphanage... those the Count claimed had been adopted or sent to new homes, they weren’t. They were trafficked. Either sold off through the black market auctions or sent into forced labor across the border. We found transportation records, silent shipment routes, and coded correspondences with Verenzian merchants. There’s also evidence of slave brands. Faint, but enough to connect them."

Alessio’s expression didn’t change. Not visibly. But the silence that followed was different. Denser.

"How long?" he asked, voice low.

"From what we could gather... at least three years," Caleb answered. "Possibly longer. The earliest signed record we found was dated five years ago. Back when the Count’s orphanage first opened."

Alessio leaned back slowly, hands folding atop the table. His gaze dropped to the stack of papers.

"Have you confirmed any link between the children and House Wittelsbach?"

Mateo nodded. "Indirect, but it’s there. Some of the merchants receiving the children in the east were granted safe-conduct passes signed by minor vassals under Wittelsbach’s influence. It’s enough to raise suspicion, but not enough to bring them down yet."

"Then we keep digging," Alessio said quietly. "And until we can expose the network in full... we keep our presence discreet. No arrests until we have undeniable proof." freewebnσvel.cøm

"Understood."

The tavern lapsed into silence again. The low murmur of a drunkard’s snore came from the bar. Someone coughed near the fireplace.

Alessio’s jaw clenched.

"These people have operated like ghosts. Under our noses. Using children. If we hadn’t found Emir and Amira..." He stopped, the rest of the sentence hanging, unspoken.

Caleb glanced toward him, concern flickering in his eyes.

Mateo finally broke the silence. "Then it’s a good thing we did, Your Highness."

"..."

Alessio didn’t reply.

He reached for the folders instead and began flipping through them again, each page turned with quiet focus. There was no fury in his face. No outburst of emotion. Just that dangerous quiet that Caleb and Mateo had learned to recognize years ago.

It was the same look he wore when he planned the raid on that old Verenzian outpost, now crawling with loyalist remnants.

The look he wore before he executed a known traitor in silence.

A storm behind steady eyes.

Mateo let out a slow breath, lowering his voice to a murmur. "Do you think Count Belmont knows we’re on to him?"

"No," Alessio said. "Not yet. But it won’t be long before he does."

"And when he does?"

Alessio looked up, his voice flat.

"Then he’ll run. Or try to. And when that happens... we’ll be waiting."

Caleb gave a quiet nod.

Outside, the wind picked up faintly, brushing past the tavern window shutters like a whisper.

* * *

A raven cut through the darkening sky, a sleek silhouette against the bleeding hues of twilight. With a sharp cry, it swooped down and darted into the high window of a lavishly furnished study.

Its wings beat softly against the still air as it glided inside, landing soundlessly on the polished surface of a large mahogany desk. The wood gleamed beneath its talons, untouched by dust or disorder. A clear sign of the man who ruled this space.

The raven tilted its head once, eyes gleaming like obsidian, then hopped toward the center of the desk, where a man sat hunched over parchment, scribbling feverishly beneath the flickering glow of an oil lamp.

This was Marius’s study.

The room breathed silence. Heavy drapes choked the last remnants of sunlight. Books lined the shelves like silent sentinels, and a half-empty glass of dark wine sat untouched beside an open dossier.

The only sound was the scratch of quill on paper, as Marius wrote with the intensity of a man carving his will into the world. His brow was deeply furrowed, expression blank. Not the emptiness of peace, but of pressure held barely in check. A blankness born of obsession.

At last, he stopped. His fingers, ink-stained and taut, placed the quill down in a smooth, familiar motion. He leaned forward slowly, elbows on the desk, hands clasped under his chin.

"What did you find?" he asked, his voice a low murmur, controlled but simmering, like coals hidden beneath a bed of ashes.

The raven ruffled its feathers and let out a rasping sound before answering in a distorted echo of a man’s voice.

— "I’ve completed the search. Every corner of the empire, even the backroads. She’s not here."

Marius’s fingers tapped against the wood. Once, twice, three times. Sharp, even, deliberate. He did not blink.

"Then that only means one thing..." he murmured. "She fled to another kingdom."

He drew in a long, steady breath through his nose, eyes narrowing as he ran the logic through his mind like clockwork.

"Mellerfen is the closest from the Wittelsbach estate. If she escaped from there, the route could’ve taken her east... toward Caldra, Thurnen, Argos..."

A pause.

"...or the Yelvanti Kingdom."

The raven let out a guttural sound that might have been a sigh, wings shifting with a restless twitch.

— "You know I can’t scour that far without a proper medium," it said. "Not without a tether."

"I know." Marius’s voice chilled further. "That’s why I’ll come."

The raven froze, its eyes reflecting the flame from the lamp.

— "You will leave the estate?"

"Yes." His tone dropped into something colder than resolve, something hungrier. "I can’t wait any longer. I’ll find her myself, and I’ll drag her back."

His voice trembled, not from fear but from the weight of something darker. Obsession. Rage. Desire coiled too tightly for too long.

He slid a hand slowly up his face, pressing his palm into his cheekbone until the skin turned white. Fingers curled into his brow, clenching, clawing. When they dropped away, his eyes had changed. No longer calculating, but bloodshot and burning. There was madness there now. The red-ringed fury of a wolf cornered, denied its prey.

"She was just confused..." he whispered. "I’ll fix her, then."

Knock, knock.

A sharp, sudden knock cut through the room. The madness froze like a beast caught mid-snarl.

"Your Grace," came the muffled voice beyond the door.

Marius didn’t answer right away. The silence stretched long enough to build tension.

"...What is it?" he said at last, his tone flat, but dangerous.

"We’ve found him. He’s been captured and brought to the estate."

Marius lowered his hand from his face. The red still blazed in his eyes, but now it was tucked beneath a chilling calm.

"Bring him in."

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