Kidnapped Lout

18 (2)/Hypothesis

Alberu Crossman was fascinated with the enigma that was Cale Henituse.

The first time he saw Cale in person, was at the funeral for the late Countess. Back then, Alberu just thought he was an unfortunate child who had some similarities to himself.

The first time Cale talked directly to him was several hours after that, although Cale probably didn't know it was him. At that time, the young Henituse had been bleeding and out of breath, seemingly about to pass out from either blood loss, exhaustion, or both.

Alberu had had his human disguise on, but with how dazed Cale had been, and how dark the moonless night was, it wasn't surprising that Cale seemed to have no recollection of the first prince of the Roan Kingdom saving his life.

After giving him a high grade healing potion and having the dark elves bandage what the potion couldn't cover, he had sent one of his most trusted dark elves disguised as a human, and delivered Cale to his father with an anonymous note.

It essentially detailed that the writer of the note had found the child unconscious, and had treated his wounds before returning him here.

Minor rumors had spread from maids seeing their young master in such a condition, but with the Count not responding to them, everything died down within a few days.

To the public, the cause of the injuries was unknown.

Some speculated that it could be an attempted assassination, or that the young master had simply gotten chased by wild animals while wandering the forest alone to grieve.

Others had guessed that the young master had gotten into a fight of his own accord. This particular rumor was revived a few years later, once Cale Henituse the heir became Cale Henituse the trash.

Around that time was when Alberu became interested in that person.

His only reasoning was that Cale was interesting.

For example, after Cale turned 10-ish was when he suddenly started acting out. At 12 he started drinking, around 15 was when he was officially kicked out of the heir position, and he had acted the same ever since then.

But now at 18, he was attending the grand noble meeting instead of Basen Henituse, the official successor.

There were other strange instances as well.

Cale was around 10 when Countess Violan had married into the family, bringing her son, and soon after that, a new daughter.

The timing of when Cale started acting like a trash, and when the new Countess arrived, was too perfect.

And yes, the only reason Alberu knew all of this was because he had leisurely investigated Cale in his free time since he was 15, or a little under a decade ago.

What he noticed was rather intriguing. No matter how you looked at it, everything Cale did seemed to be planned out ahead of time.

Basen Henituse got publicly reprimanded by the extended family and neighboring nobles? Cale would start bar fights over the course of the next few days, sometimes multiple in one day.

There were whispers that the Countess was a terrible person, and was using the Count to gain political advantage and easy wealth? Cale would visit a bar and drink for the rest of the night, openly cursing and throwing bottles around.

There was a rumor Lily was unfit to be a Henituse simply because she shared the same blood as Violan? Cale would go to public places and break things.

Every event that required the heir to attend, Cale would magically disappear or become unfit to go, leaving Basen to be the one to attend in his place.