Reincarnated as the Villainess's attendant

Benevirau was looking so miserable as if his world had crumbled down right in front of him.

This was also the first time that Zoemi couldn't just say that it could have been acting – there was just something about the utterly heartbroken dark-blue-haired young-looking butler that made his sorrow seem genuine.

...even for the skeptical black-haired boy...

"Young master, you seem to know both about the Ghosts and Aspakeony, so that will make things a lot easier to explain. Would you... give me a chance to explain myself before you will condemn me...?"

Benevirau asked as his shoulders trembled – well, not just shoulders – the dark-blue-haired butler was trembling as if whatever was keeping him together for a thousand years had finally started to give out.

"...don't jump into the condemnation part – I have already exhausted my quota of acting rashly for the day, so I want to at least hear you out properly. What did you mean when you asked if the Ghosts of Bellcephora had done something to my mother because of you? Are you enemies?"

Zoemi sighed heavily and shook his head.

In a show of good will, he ended up sitting by the dining table and moving a chair for Benevirau to the seat next to him.

"Come, sit."

"Thank you, young master."

The black-haired boy beckoned the young-looking butler, who nodded gratefully and approached him.

"..."

Benevirau hesitated for a moment, before slowly sitting down, adjusting his position accordingly in order to take a seat.

"The Ghosts of Bellcephora became known as an elite group of darkness mages created by the royal family over three hundred and twenty years ago – give or take a decade or two."

The dark-blue-haired butler began explaining turning in Zoemi's general direction.

"From the start, their leader, a bastard son of king Kasorius Reterne Bellcephora, Carcassuss..."

"Carcassuss is a royal bastard?!"

Benevirau had only just begun, but he already revealed such a jaw-dropping revelation that Zoemi couldn't stay silent.

"Yes. The thing is, the original idea behind the Ghosts of Bellcephora was to give Kasorius's son the highest position available for a child born out of wedlock – especially one from an affair with a commoner servant."

Benevirau nodded his head, sounding so casual as if that was common knowledge available for everyone – which certainly wasn't the case!

"The first thing king Kasorius did after that, was to introduce Carcassuss to me and Aspakeony. Back then the commander of the Ghosts was already extremely ambitious to a dangerous degree but was also filled with ambition and the need to prove him worth to his father and all the other aristocrats that he is worthy of preferential treatment. Yes... I remember when he arrived at the Banemor mansion to introduce himself and his four subordinates."

The dark-blue-haired butler smiled bitterly to himself, clearly regretting not killing the group back then.

"Four? So originally they were only five of them?"

Zoemi asked.

After all, everyone who knew the story about the betrayal of the Ghosts of Bellcephora knew that there should be twenty-one members.

"I am talking about the very conception of a group that they became. Like I said, originally, they weren't even supposed to be actual combatants."

Benevirau raised his hand and waved it while clearing up the misunderstanding.

"Carcassuss, Kirissu, Raseriat, Evorietto, and the small Elsby – they were all transcended darkness magicians and bastard children of various influential individuals from across the kingdom. As I said, originally the Ghosts weren't supposed to be combatants – especially since Elsby was at most five years old at the time. The king encouraged them to act more like a family than an organization and that was indeed what they did. I still have no idea what was that supposed to help with, but at the time I was more interested in ensuring the crops were irrigated properly than anything else... I am also ashamed to admit that I very well might have to do a lot with turning them from just a bunch of bastard children playing house into the group of elite assassins..."

"...?"

"...?"

Benevirau sighed and shook his head with a shameful expression, causing Reo and Zoemi to exchange confused glances.

"When they were introduced to them... I wasn't the nicest. The kingdom was facing certain financial problems connected with rampant corruption, but the king was still eager to spend precious foundings on a bunch of brats. And I told them that straight. That initial meeting was very short – Carcassuss took his underlings and left right after, without even trying to respond to my words. The next time I heard about them, was a few years later when the news about them sneaking into the headquarters of the enemy kingdom that started a war with Bellcephora and killing all the generals and even their king, throwing the enemy side in complete chaos. Once again, I am ashamed to say that instead of focusing on it, I merely shrugged it off and admitted that now they at least started earning their keep."

The young-looking butler sighed with a bitter expression.

"I was always at the Banemor territory, far more preoccupied with assuring its prosperity than worrying about the entire kingdom as a whole – Aspakeony was always the one trying to keep an eye on them while watching over the royal family – although there were some extremely disturbing rumors going around about them, so, unfortunately, the next time I saw them was already after the tragedy. Apparently, Carcassuss had managed to create a spell that allowed him and all his underlings – whose number grew to twenty that everyone knows about today – to obtain the entire mana reservoir of the person that they have killed. The betrayal wasn't prompted by hatred or some inferiority complex as some scholars suggested years down the line – it was all because of the thirst for power that turned into an obsession. The Ghosts wanted to show off so much that they stopped caring about anything else. That was also the time they came to kill me and take my mana – encouraged by the success they had with picking off Aspakeony's corpse puppets one by one."

Benevirau gulped down his saliva, slowing down as he was getting to the point he originally wanted to talk about.