"Spit it out! Are you really sent by my brother William? What schemes are you plotting?"
Dim sat down directly on a nearby seat.
"Heh... I'm afraid your dear brother doesn't have the authority to command me! If you want proof of identity, how about this?"
Karen's hand flicked, and a piece of parchment stamped with the Crimson Tiger's skull-and-dagger seal flew directly in front of Dim.
"It really is you people..."
Dim ran his fingers over the unique embossed seal on the parchment in disbelief, his eyes slowly widening.
"What exactly do you want?" For some reason, Dim's heart had begun pounding wildly.
"Didn't I say it before? Help you become the Marquis! My noble lord..." Karen laughed.
"You must be joking! William is still alive! Not to mention there's also..." Dim muttered.
"Then let them all die!" Karen's words dripped with venom, like the juice of a serpent.
"Let them all die!" Having had his innermost thoughts laid bare, Dim seemed to lose all his bones, slumping limply in his chair — yet his eyes burned even brighter.
"You want me to be a spy, to betray my own family?" He asked, word by word.
"That depends on your choice — would you rather cling to a ruined family, or hand over all its glory and privilege to your own brother — William!"
Karen could see that, in truth, the other man had no choice at all.
The night wind blew past the windowsill, curtains billowing ceaselessly, but the seat where someone had been was now empty.
After a long while, Dim slumped dazedly in his chair, yet a single thought had already taken root deep within him like a seed.
"That's right! What I cannot have, none of you shall have either! I will destroy it! This entire Bodi Archipelago — it should have been mine all along!!!"
Under the moonlight, Dim's silhouette was like a twisted demon!
...
"Master, everything went smoothly. The other party also provided the route maps for the Black Skull and Tiger Shark pirate fleets..."
Karen knelt prostrate before Leilin, respectfully presenting a parchment covered in text.
The entirety of Marquis Louis's plans — including the troop deployments he intended to mobilize, even William's route map, and the news of Wizard Bolujie's accompaniment — had all been thoroughly sold out by the other party.
"My, my... this Dim is quite mad?" Isabel, standing beside Leilin, had seen the final portion of the parchment — a complete layout map of the entire Bodi Archipelago, particularly the defenses of the Marquis's estate, which had been entirely betrayed.
"People who are desperate and mad are simply beyond reason. He knows the family is his last refuge, yet he's perfectly willing to destroy it — how laughable..."
Karen prostrated even lower, not daring to look at Leilin again.
Though she had once been intimate with Leilin, she had come to realize that she understood nothing about this master of hers. For profit, he could join forces with former enemies without the slightest hesitation. And this precise grasp and manipulation of the human heart was like a demon wearing a man's skin.
Yes! A demon! In Karen's mind, perhaps only the demon dukes of the Nine Hells could possess such a cold-blooded and cruel temperament.
"What's wrong? Are you afraid of me?"
Even this faint stirring of emotion seemed to have been detected by Leilin. A seemingly casual question sent Karen's body trembling.
"No! It's not that... Your subordinate only worries that Viscount Dim might go back on his word. After all, nobles are all untrustworthy people! And even if the plan succeeds, we'd still need to worry about him testifying against us as a witness..."
Karen immediately spoke up.
"Before William is dead, the chances of him reneging are very slim!"
Though he had already noticed the fear in his subordinate, Leilin was not particularly angered or irritated — for this was entirely normal.
Only when among the Crimson Tiger pirates would Leilin occasionally shed the noble's skin he wore and reveal a part of his true self to others.
And what this brought was a soul-deep reverence from the other pirates.
In fact, had Isabel's mentality not gradually shifted alongside her body's demonic transformation, even she would likely have felt fear and distance toward him.
"And after the matter succeeds, the question of whether Dim might testify to or seek aid from the Danbres Kingdom..."
Leilin let out a soft chuckle. "Did I leave behind any images or records that could be traced back to me?"
"No!" Karen suddenly understood.
"So the entire affair, from beginning to end, is simply contact between the Crimson Tiger pirates and him. And would Dim really be willing to gamble his entire future — even risk the noose — just to testify against a bunch of pirates?"
"Master is brilliant!" Only then did Karen realize just how far ahead Leilin had been thinking.
"Moreover... Louis and William are, after all, a Marquis and a Marquis-in-Heir recognized by the Kingdom, with even royal blood. The Bodi Archipelago is their fief. Did you really think we could simply swagger in and take over after eliminating them?"
"In that case, the King would go mad and come attacking with everything!"
"Exactly! So at the very least, we should have a puppet agent in place on the surface. Dim is quite suited for the role, isn't he?"
Leilin folded his hands together. "With him there, the entire matter can be covered up as a struggle between noble heirs. In the Kingdom, is such a thing really so rare?"