The Strongest Brother Lost His Memory
Chapter 98

A moment later, Monica widened her eyes and pointed an accusing finger.

“What do you mean it’s not Julian’s seal! All the Noart family seals look the same!”

“The seal shapes are identical... But Julian’s has a tiny crack right in the center. He said it happened because Uncle Murlock threw it when he first got it.”

At my words, Grandfather exploded.

“What? Then this was forged? Huh? Seals are enchanted—they’re supposed to be impossible to forge! What the hell is going on here!”

I murmured slowly, face calm.

“Of course you can’t forge a seal, Grandfather...”

Then added with a shrug,

“But the part about Julian sending that letter was a lie, so this document is forged. Probably... within the last thirty minutes?”

Grandfather’s expression instantly hardened. He immediately understood what I meant.

With a sharp tone, he ordered his most trusted retainer:

“Investigate all Noart seals in the household, right now. If it was done within the last thirty minutes, there’ll still be ink residue. Stamp each one and check—if even faint traces match the ink on this paper, that’s the one.”

Exactly. They took the bait.

I smiled silently to myself.

Earlier, I had said, “He sent the letter through a servant.”

It was the perfect setup for forgery.

If it only had the Noart seal, no one would scrutinize the handwriting or be able to trace it with magic.

‘Besides, my brother has no memory of that time, so it’s the ideal setup to frame him.’

The only problem was that people usually carry their seals with them, so Julian’s wouldn’t be at the estate. But as Monica said, all the family seals were shaped identically.

In a situation like this, in front of so many people, they would’ve wanted to act fast—especially before Zahid arrived.

Once the seal was stamped, everything would be over quickly.

‘Uncle and Aunt have both been here the whole time. So they must’ve used a servant to stamp it. And since the servant likely had little experience with this, they probably didn’t realize there’d still be ink residue after one stamp.’

While I confidently waited, one of Grandfather’s retainers soon returned.

“Here, this seal still has wet ink.”

The ink from the duplicate stamp was a bit fainter, but identical to the one on the fake letter.

Grandfather asked sharply,

“Whose is it?”

The retainer—loyal only to Grandfather—answered without hesitation.

“It belongs to Lady Monica.”

“N-no! It’s not true!”

Monica’s face turned pale as she screamed.

“No! I-I only used it earlier to send a letter somewhere else!”

“Oh, really?”

Grandfather’s gaze turned ice cold.

This was a matter directly connected to the Temple. It was a thousand times more infuriating than just a few failed business ventures.

“We’ll know for sure once we investigate. I’ll interrogate you myself—come with me. You too, you Temple apprentice.”

“M-m-m-me? I-I-I-I only did what I was told... I-I’m with the Temple...”

Ben dropped to his knees, trembling under the pressure of Grandfather’s killing intent.

“Right. Since you’re with the Temple, I can’t punish you. But you could accidentally die here, couldn’t you?”

Grandfather spoke in a low voice.

“But if you tell me the whole truth, I’ll send you safely back to the Temple. And I won’t lodge any complaints about the Temple’s seal either. How about it?”

Monica’s face turned ghostly white.

There was no way there was any loyalty between her and a Temple apprentice she had just roped in.

“I-I-I’ll tell you everything! I’ll tell you everything! Please, just send me back to the Temple...!”

And just like that, Grandfather and his men dragged Monica and Ben away.

I watched Grandfather’s back and sighed silently to myself.

Truthfully, I didn’t feel good about causing this scene in front of so many people. After all, it meant publicly revealing that his own child had sided with the Temple.

Grandfather probably felt utterly betrayed. He might’ve known she was incompetent, but collaborating with his enemy was something else entirely.

‘I didn’t want to go this far either... but they came at me in such a dirty way.’

And after something like this, in front of so many witnesses, Grandfather would never show her mercy—not even as his own daughter.

But I had no choice. Monica had also tried to use the audience to frame the engagement between me and Zahid as already broken.

‘She used the crowd to push her scheme, so I used the crowd to destroy it.’

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

And to be honest, the crack in Julian’s seal? That was a lie too.

But no one here had any way of checking Julian’s seal. So the Temple apprentice had quickly caved under pressure and confessed.

I sighed and shrugged.

“Well... if the letter was forged, then everything he said earlier was a lie. So there’s no need to break off my engagement with Zahid.”

No one dared to contradict me.

With that, everything Ben said was proven false, and I was cleared of the accusation of dual engagement.

Felide stood silently, face pale.

‘So it was Monica who got caught, not Felide.’

Not that it mattered. Felide would go down today as well.

‘Hmph.’

I slowly turned to look at Chloe, who was standing stiffly.

‘You’re next.’

Chloe had also dressed herself to the nines, from head to toe. And right in the center of her dress was that infamous butterfly brooch.

The one she’d claimed Yuta gave her.

‘Zahid will bring Yuta.’

Neither Zahid nor Yuta had arrived yet.

But Zahid had promised—he would bring Yuta no matter what, before noon today. That this plan had to succeed.

‘I trust Zahid.’

I locked eyes with Chloe, who stood frozen, and smiled faintly. Then I gripped the hem of my dress tightly.

My hand trembled slightly as old memories surfaced.

‘Today, no matter what, he’ll bring Yuta right on time.’

Enough time had passed. It had to be soon.

“Now, now.”

The one who broke the frozen atmosphere was my great-uncle Murlock.

“What a strange incident for such a lovely day. But we can’t let our guests at the Noart estate feel neglected! Let’s not worry and enjoy ourselves, shall we? Such things happen all the time here at the Count’s estate, ho ho.”

A ★ 𝐍𝐨𝐯𝐞𝐥𝐢𝐠𝐡𝐭 ★ greedy kind of glee was written all over his face.

He disliked Julian and me, but that didn’t mean he supported his siblings. He was wary of them all.

And he looked pleased to be acting as the temporary head of the household while Grandfather was gone.

‘Well, it’s not a bad thing to have Uncle Murlock distracting everyone right now.’

While Murlock went around smoothing things over, I skipped lightly over to Chloe.

“Chloe, sis.”

Then I tossed her a bait she couldn’t resist.

“Assistant Yuta sent me a letter... He said to pass something along to you.”

Just as expected.

The moment she heard Yuta’s name, Chloe’s expression completely changed.

“What?”

I leaned in close and whispered by her ear.

“By the way, you and Assistant Yuta... do you know each other? He seemed strangely familiar when talking about you.”

“Huh? Um? Uh, well...”

Suddenly, Chloe’s face flushed red.

She instinctively adjusted her dress and then quickly composed her expression.

“N-no? We don’t know each other at all. Yuta? Who’s that? An assistant? He’s from the Academy?”

Honestly, it was a ridiculous answer.

Someone claiming to have received noble-level education from the Idra Duchy didn’t know the name Yuta Orgon? Absurd.

But it meant she was flustered—and rattled.

“Hmm.”

I tilted my head and murmured.

“Assistant Yuta told me to say this where no one could hear... But if you don’t know him, then... is it okay to pass it on?”

“O-of course you should! Obviously! He sent it to me, so why wouldn’t you pass it on?”

Chloe’s eyes gleamed.

“Thirty minutes from now.”

I whispered quietly.

“Meet me at ‘Garnet’. No one’s there right now.”

‘Garnet’ was Ethan’s room.

Since Ethan had been away from the estate for a long time, no one was using it.

Chloe nodded without hesitation.