Boom!
A thunderclap seemed to erupt inside Young Lissop's head.
He sat there in a daze, utterly lost.
The old steward, the dagger still embedded in his chest, looked pleadingly at Lissop-
"Please, please..."
"You have the nerve to beg me?
Do you know why I chose to join the army?
Do you know what kept me alive through one battle after another where I should have died?
A family!
I wanted to build a family whose descendants would be proud of me!"
Lissop cut the old steward off, his voice rising involuntarily. By the end, he raised a hand, pointed at the old steward, and roared.
"But because of you!
You lowborn filth!
You ruined everything!
While I was working to take the Lissop Family to greater heights, you were sneaking around with that bitch Jenny!
Heh, do you know what?
Before I strangled her, she begged me to spare you and this bastard too!"
As he spoke, Lissop turned toward Young Lissop, seated opposite him, and punched him in the face.
Thud!
It was a brutal punch.
And it landed squarely on his jaw.
Young Lissop was knocked clear off his seat, the back of his head slamming into the carriage wall.
"Just looking at that face disgusts me!
But for the sake of revenge, I endured it for twenty years!
Do you know what those twenty years were like for me?
Every day, I told myself to endure! To restrain myself! Not to let anything show!"
Lissop spat a thick gob of phlegm into Young Lissop's face.
Then the lord turned back to his steward.
"I endured! I restrained myself!
I even abandoned my original plans for my life and settled for maintaining what I had-everyone thought I'd grown content after gaining my territory and discovering iron