How long had I waited with my head tilted in curiosity?
Finally, beyond the rocky mountain, a black dot revealed itself. With its black wings fully spread, it looked quite majestic.
The black hawk seemed to be hovering in the lofty sky, observing this place. However, it flapped its wings as if it would descend at any moment.
Yet for some reason, it only looked down without coming this way.
"Why is it just staying like that?"
Pallides muttered in a puzzled voice. At that moment, the hawk made a large circle in the air and then flew away behind the rocky mountain.
...Huh?
"...I guess it was just a real hawk."
At Pallides's flat remark, Zigor said it seemed strange.
[I don't think so...]
The Dullahans who had been whispering among themselves gathered their opinions to try calling out loudly once more. The animals huddled together were just about to make a loud noise in unison.
"Huh? It appeared aga...!"
Pallides opened her lips with a delighted tone, then looked at the sky with a bewildered face.
Behind the black hawk, small-bodied birds were following in a line. Though they were too far to see clearly, they seemed to be baby hawks.
The Dullahans murmured in definitive tones.
[Ah, it's Soana.]
[Right, it's Soana.]
[Wow, it's Soana.]
I grew a bit anxious.
...First there was Mori who was a life-pacifist, and now Dullahan nannies weren't going to appear, were they?
* * *
The temporary residence was a place that was terribly small and old compared to the original Roam mansion.
Perhaps because of that, the air in the office was exceedingly cold. How much more so if one were receiving Duke Roam's cold gaze directly within it?
Seiri's already poor complexion turned pale like a sick person. His pale cheeks trembled.
Seiri, who had been looking at his parents with eyes that seemed ready to burst into tears at any moment, opened his mouth with difficulty.
"It's true. It was a Dullahan."
Duke Roam gazed expressionlessly at such a Seiri. The Duchess of Roam, who had been watching her weak son with worried eyes, couldn't hold back a sigh this time.
"Seiri."
"Mother, please believe me. It was the cat, that cat. Little Sister planned it all!"
On the day the Roam mansion burned, Seiri claimed he had met Anelli.
At first, everyone listened to those words. If Seiri hadn't gone on to talk about a cat that transformed into a Dullahan right after, they would have maintained their serious attitude.
A Dullahan? A Dullahan appeared at the Roam mansion, threatened only Seiri, and then vanished without a trace?
"Seiri, have you forgotten that Anelli was guaranteed to be God's resurrected one?"
Duke Roam, who couldn't bear to listen anymore, asked in a stern voice. However, Seiri only stomped his foot as if frustrated and emphasized.
"I saw it with my own two eyes!"
"Seiri, I know you had a lot of interest in Anelli's animals. But a Dullahan? Do you know how much damage would occur if such a monster appeared in the middle of the capital?"
Where monsters rampage, traces remain. And there were no traces of monsters at the Roam mansion.
Unless it was traces of merciless flames.
But even at the Duchess's words, Seiri still did not bend his will.
"Little Sister was controlling them!"
"Perhaps you saw an illusion in your fright from the fire?"
Finally, a disgraceful suspicion escaped Duke Roam's lips.
The Duchess intervened with a face turned white.
"Honey, what do you mean by illusion!"
Duke Roam gave a glance to his wife, then turned his eyes to Seiri.
"Seiri. Judge rationally. You need to know what kind of weakness your single word becomes."
That gaze was so cold and heavy that Seiri stood with his shoulders shrunk as if crushed by a giant boulder.
"I suppose I haven't been regulating your life strictly enough until now. Use this opportunity to put an end to your childish behavior. And stop running around in the garden."
When even his few hobbies were prohibited, Seiri's complexion turned pale. However, Seiri couldn't properly rebel.
"You may leave now."
Seiri, who had been hesitating, eventually turned around without managing to say a single proper word.
The Duchess, who glanced at Seiri's drooped shoulders, swallowed a sigh and spoke.
"He's not a child who would make up lies."
"Then you want me to believe that Anelli controlled Dullahans that transform into animals, threatened Seiri, and then left?"
Even as he spoke, Duke Roam burst into a hollow laugh, perhaps overwhelmed by absurd emotion at the moment.
The Duchess, who looked at Duke Roam with exhausted eyes, spoke in a tired voice.
"It's true that animals entered and exited Anelli's room unusually often."
"Even if that's true, the rumor that Roam's second daughter knows how to command Dullahans must be prevented from spreading."
The Roam family was already constantly plagued by scandals these days. The existence of the eldest who left the family through a terribly rushed marriage was already a big enough headache.
On top of that, if rumors circulated that Roam's second daughter had resurrected as a monster, wouldn't that also be a sight of disgrace upon the name Roam!
For Duke Roam, it was a very simple and obvious calculation. This was also the reason he was particularly angry at Seiri's narrow vision that couldn't consider this.
"When we should be working hard to keep mouths shut, how could he thoughtlessly let such words out!"
The Duchess understood her husband's anger. So she kept her lips tightly closed.
"If you truly think Seiri is worthy of being established as successor, you shouldn't coddle him anymore either."
"Yes, my thinking was short."
Duke Roam, who looked at his wife who nodded obediently with complicated eyes, turned his gaze away irritably.
Duke Roam's eyes swept across the office. This temporary office that was terribly small and shabby compared to the office in the Roam mansion's main building.
Seeing this utterly unfamiliar space, a different kind of seething anger rose within Duke Roam.
"But the fact that Anelli is suspicious, well. I do think that could be the case."
"What?"
"The safe in the study was robbed."
Duke Roam's face had grown cold as he said so.
Though the main building and annexes had all burned down, the secret safe was intact. Originally, it had been specially treated and protected by magic, so naturally.
After the huge flames were extinguished, Duke Roam checked the safe first in the mansion that had burned hideously. The safe was empty.
"I'm assuming it was the day of the fire. We're looking for traces, but it's difficult to find anything because of the fire."
"What would Anelli do with the items from the safe...?"
The Duchess muttered blankly. Duke Roam also wondered about that.
The items in the safe were Roam's secret slush funds and matters regarding private soldiers. Those could threaten Roam's political life, but it was hard to guess what Anelli, who wasn't active in politics, would do with those items.
He wondered if perhaps she intended to give them to Heinrich. Meaning to hold Roam's weaknesses and shake them.
But if Roam wanted to support Heinrich, wouldn't she have shown her intention long ago?
Thinking such thoughts, Duke Roam recalled another person who would have many complaints about Roam.
"If not Anelli, then it might be Frijian."
"Frijian?"
"Baron Kendal's movements aren't ordinary. He was moving as if he knew something. Since there's no way that man would know anything, isn't Frijian moving behind him in the end?"
Duke Roam remembered how resentful Frijian had been after losing the position of young duke.
Frijian would do his best to regain that position. Duke Roam didn't not know that Frijian's sudden marriage was a choice he made as one method.
However, he had simply thought that with Anelli there, Frijian who had married out wouldn't be able to do anything.
"Now that Anelli has disappeared, I don't think that child will stay still."
At Duke Roam's muttering, the Duchess furrowed her brow.
"Are you saying he would dare attack Roam?"
"Do you think he wouldn't?"
The Duchess recalled Frijian's letters she had put in the drawer without even examining them.
Now she couldn't confirm even if she wanted to. They would have all burned.
But she could at least guess their contents.
"...I'll talk with that child."
The Duchess answered in a sunk voice. Duke Roam didn't specifically answer those words.
It was implicit consent.
* * *
Soana didn't come down.
It was an incomprehensible matter, but I didn't have the skill to forcibly bring down a hawk that only circled in the sky.
And I couldn't shoot an arrow at the hawk either.
"Let's camp nearby and wait for now."
It was Zenon's suggestion. It didn't sit well with me to camp when there was a small city nearby, but I decided to accept his proposal, thinking it would be troublesome to leave and then have to come back.
Around that time, Samuel, who had sent Cheche back, joined us, and we set up tents and prepared to camp for the first time in a while.
"I put some extra care into it since it's been a while."
Naturally, Zenon was in charge of dinner.
"The menu is different."
"Just eat what you're given."
"Is it because you're a mage that you're so petty?"
"What is a bug-eating knight saying?"
......After a somewhat noisy dinner passed since it had been too long, night quickly arrived. The rocky mountain was hidden in darkness so not even its shadow was visible, and only the campfire that crackled as it burned illuminated a narrow radius.
Zenon, perhaps a bit tired, went to bed early, and Samuel, saying he had to offer night prayers, went into his tent. Thanks to that, only I and the Dullahans were sitting outside now.
The Dullahans' topic of conversation around the campfire was Soana. Thanks to having regained quite a few memories now, the reminiscences that came out were various.
[Soana was a strict teacher.]
Tristan, who was clinging to Bark's fur, said.
The sixth knight Soana was said to have been a clergyman who served the morning god in the old days. Because of that, he was learned and would often teach those around him.