“What did he say the reason was?”
“He says he can bring you a story you may find enjoyable.”
“Hahaha!”
Baron laughed heartily.
“Let’s go at once. If it’s him, he’s sure to have prepared something interesting!”
&
The capital of Elstragad, Albarest.
Baron’s mansion was not as large as I had expected.
It was not a mansion built for holding parties.
Rather than ostentation, it was structured for training and rest,
and, if necessary, for drawing a sword at a moment’s notice.
Perhaps that was why it felt sharp-edged rather than splendid.
They said the number of guests who had ever been invited inside this place could not even fill both hands.
“Sit.”
“Thank you.”
And among those ten fingers,
I had now been included as well.
Unlike usual, Baron was dressed comfortably.
Because he was someone who always went around in gleaming full plate armor, that appearance felt even more unfamiliar.
“What? Does it feel awkward?”
“Yes. You look splendid in everyday clothes as well.”
“What?”
At the completely unexpected flattery, Baron burst into laughter.
“As expected, you really do know how to make people enjoy themselves.”
He looked at me with his legs crossed.
“Now then. You said you had an interesting story?”
“I believe you will find it interesting.”
At my confident words, Baron smiled despite himself.
“What if it isn’t interesting? Should I kill you?”
A hollow laugh escaped me in an instant.
“M-may I go back?”
“Haha! I’m joking. Go on, tell me.”
I lightly steadied my breath.
Baron Bell Elstragad.
He did not like people dragging out their words.
Even in my past life, there had been more than one anecdote about him smashing the mouth of a retainer who spoke at length.
So I immediately took a map from my chest.
And pointed to one spot with my finger.
“Here.”
“Mm.”
“It can be opened.”
Baron understood at once what I meant,
and his eyes widened as he looked at me.
“Ha!”
As if he found it absurd,
he looked back at the map, then at me again.
“Is that true?”
“Yes.”
“It isn’t a lie, is it?”
“Of course not.”
The next moment,
Baron grinned.
It was not a smile that came simply from being in a good mood.
It was the smile that rose, as if his blood were boiling,
when he encountered something truly fascinating.
“This is far more interesting than I expected.”
Of course it was.
This was not merely a matter of a single road.
A route leading to the northern continent.
Until now, if one wanted to interact with the northern kingdoms, one had no choice but to use the sea and avoid the long, harsh mountain range.
Even that required an enormous detour.
But if this route were opened?
The time required would change,
and the costs would change.
The very scale of exchange would change.
Most importantly,
those tremendous benefits.
The side that opened it first would be the one to set the rules.
“You.”
Baron looked at me, still smiling with unconcealed excitement.
“You do know the weight of what you’ve just handed me, don’t you?”
“I know a little.”
“A little?”
He chuckled.
“You hand me something that makes a gold mine seem laughable, and you say you know only a little.”
Yes.
What I had handed over was truly information on that level.
The northern continent would eventually have to pay a price to use this road.
That meant profits incomparable to something like a gold mine, as well as tremendous honor for the family that accomplished it.
At the same time,
it was information so enormous that it was almost impossible to believe.
“Are you going to believe this?”
Baron propped his chin on his hand and stared at me for a long while.
“Indeed, this information is not easy to believe.”
“...”
“I know you are not the sort of fellow who would lie in front of me. To begin with, there are no fellows who could do such a thing in front of me. Even so, this information is difficult to believe.”
Naturally.
There was no way the royal family had never researched the possibility of crossing the mountain range.
Nor the opposing kingdom.
“I will not ask how you came to know this. Perhaps you received a divine revelation, saw the future, or even reincarnated.”
Gah.
For a moment, Baron’s joke nearly made me choke,
but in any case, the fact that he believed me left me a little flustered.
Because if he did not believe me,
I had been prepared to pull out something else.
“It likely won’t be easy right away. I can tell you the general direction, but not the exact location. In the end, it will require a great deal of research. I do not think the technology will be a problem.”
“Mm. I suppose not.”
Baron looked down at the map again.
“This can be carried out after I ascend the throne.”
“...”
“If I succeed in this after my ascension, I will become a king whose name remains in history forever.”
He chuckled and tapped the map with his finger.
“I’ll write one line in the history books saying you recommended it to me.”
“Uh, um... I don’t hope for that much.”
“No.”
Baron smiled leisurely.
“To be honest, one line wouldn’t be enough. I ought to write more, but if I do, people probably won’t believe it, so I’m saying I’ll do only that much.”
What is this?
This consideration?
I wondered if he was truly that terrifying Prince Baron.
“Then... thank you. I really did not come hoping for something like that.”
“Hahaha! Yes. That is why I like you.”
Leaning back, he said,
“There is no greed in your purpose.”
I scratched my head.
“I’m grateful that you think well of me, but... there is another reason I requested an audience.”
“Oh.”
Baron’s eyes sparkled again.
“Was this bait? You threw out bait worthy of going down in history? Now I’m dying to know what you want.”
I drew in a short breath.
“Your Highness. It concerns the Old Dynasty.”
The Old Dynasty.
When those words came out, the look in Baron’s smiling eyes changed once more.
This time, it was blatant interest.
“Oho. You’ve gotten that far?”
I told him, in order, about the things that had happened to me so far.
The leather pattern,
the men who attacked Marsha,
the attack that targeted Aileen,
and even the movements suspected to be connected to the Old Dynasty.
After hearing the story, Baron nodded lightly.
“Not bad.”
“Thank you.”
“Was the Signal family originally capable of this much? Or are you the one who is capable of this much?”
“Ahaha... I merely received help from remarkable people like Lady Aileen, Lady Serafinrie, and Lady Angelina. I didn’t do anything.”
Baron chuckled.
“How modest.”
Then he spoke at ease.
“The Old Dynasty. Naturally, I have been keeping an eye on them as well.”
He continued slowly.
“The problem is that I cannot move easily. They are exceedingly secretive. Even if I catch them, it is difficult to prove they are the Old Dynasty. So I cannot move troops on a large scale under that pretext.”
Baron stroked his chin and narrowed his brow.
“If I did, the political games would begin. They would say I was incompetent.”
The Old Dynasty.
They were not merely remnants of the past.
“So.”
He added,
“I’m simply going around beating them up.”
“... Pardon?”
For a moment, I wondered if I had heard wrong.
“Instead of trying to prove they are the Old Dynasty.”
Baron spoke calmly.
“I beat them because they are doing things I dislike.”
For a moment, I was bewildered.
“Wouldn’t that make the political maneuvering even worse? Or perhaps they might rebel...”
Baron’s expression changed completely in an instant.
“To interfere with removing the things eating away at our kingdom? I sincerely hope they do.”
He meant that there was a world of difference between moving troops on a large scale,
and personally moving to remove problems.
“So? Did you come here because you wanted to tell me that?”
“Yes. I thought it might be of help to you, just in case.”
“Is that all?”
I rolled my eyes,
then nodded with an expression that said, Surely I wouldn’t be hoping for anything else.
“Th-that’s right. The faster you catch the Old Dynasty, the safer we’ll be too.”
“As expected, you truly have no greed.”
Baron rose from his seat, went over to his desk, and began rummaging through something.
“Well, as I said, I have also continued to keep an eye on the Old Dynasty.”
He even bent down as he began searching.
“If I am to become the next king, it would be good to have a clear achievement. It doesn’t matter if I don’t, but if I don’t want things to become troublesome, I should show something.”
At last, he found something inside a drawer and took it out.
“So, on that note.”
“Yes?”
“How would you like to investigate the Old Dynasty as well?”
“Me?”
I was genuinely surprised.
Baron laughed as if he found that reaction amusing.
“I cannot move often, you see. I have been moving the knights and subordinates under my command, but there is a limit to that.”
“Mm...”
“At times, a noble of some standing must move personally. So I was in the middle of searching for a person I liked.”
He looked toward me.
“And as it happens, there is a fellow here I like very much.”
“Ah... I’m grateful you think well of me, but I don’t think I will do well. I’m also worried I might freeze up like an idiot and be unable to speak properly.”
Baron chuckled.
“You really do lower yourself.”
“Yes?”
“How many people in the world can stand before me without trembling and even throw out jokes?”
For a moment, I could say nothing.
“Most importantly, there are also not many who can be confident that the information they bring will please me.”
“Ahem...”
“Especially in front of me, where their life might even fly away.”
Baron stared at me quietly.
“And such a fellow would what? Tremble over investigating something like that?”
The moment I said no here,
it would be tantamount to looking down on Baron.
In other words, I had been placed in a situation where I could not refuse.
So I smiled faintly and nodded.
Baron grinned and tossed something to me,
and I reflexively caught it.
It was heavy.
What lay on my palm was far more splendid than Belmardian’s or Deharmont’s.
“This is...”
“A royal token.”
A royal token.
Its weight suddenly felt entirely different.
“If you show that, most people will stammer and cooperate. And I will give you the information you need to investigate as well, so there is no need to feel lost.”
I could not open my mouth.
Baron did not stop there.
“You may refuse.”
“Yes?”
“But if you refuse.”
He slowly propped his chin on his hand, looked at me, and grinned.
“I will have no choice but to be suspicious.”
“Suspicious...?”
“Even if it is not you, I will begin thinking that Aileen or Serafinrie may be connected to the Old Dynasty.”
I made an expression as if asking what he meant by that.
“That is why you didn’t tell me about the Old Dynasty back then either.”
A chill ran down my spine in an instant.
He had already known everything.
“Of course not. I’ll do it. Hahaha...”
“Haha! Good.”
Baron smiled in satisfaction.
“You’ve thought well.”
And so, somehow, I ended up taking the royal token,
and returned to the inn where I was staying.
“Phew...”
I took out the royal token again.
This was an utterly unexpected turn of events.
I had tried to distance myself from the Old Dynasty,
but instead, I had been dragged even deeper in.
I sat on the edge of the bed and sighed.
“I’ve really been caught.”
The idea of living quietly,
and comfortably in my territory, now had to be abandoned.
I began to feel very strongly that things were going to become exhausting from now on.
***
The next day.
I was sitting in a café.
And after a short while,
Aileen came in.
In truth, when I came to the capital from the Kerenia territory, she had come with me as well.
After I met Prince Baron,
I had called her to the café to tell her about the situation.
“How did it go?”
Without a word, I took out the royal token and showed it to her.
When Aileen saw it, her eyes widened.
“No way.”
She covered her mouth, and her brow furrowed.
“He told me to investigate.”
Aileen bit her lip hard.
“That’s dangerous.”
“Still, it’s an opportunity to make a good impression on Prince Baron...”
“What does that matter?”
Her reaction was completely unexpected.
“When you are in danger.”
I was surprised, and also bewildered.
Honestly, I had thought she would be pleased instead.
From her perspective, I had become a more useful human being.
I thought she would see me
as a chess piece easier to use from now on.
But.
Her reaction and the way she looked at me were not like that.
Thump.
For a moment, I stared blankly at her.
“That’s nice.”
“What is nice about it? You’re in danger...”
“I mean it’s nice that you’re worried about me.”
The moment those words fell,
Aileen’s furrowed brow relaxed.
Her eyes trembled greatly,
and astonishingly, her face flushed as if it would turn red, and she turned her head sharply away.
She suddenly fanned her face with her hand.
Just then, with perfect timing, the coffee came out,
and Aileen hurriedly grabbed the cup as if trying to escape her own mind.
Then she tried to drink it as it was.
“Ah! Hot.”
But because of her hurried movement, she spilled a little and it got on her clothes.
“Be careful. That’s dangerous.”
I reflexively bent forward and hurriedly wiped the coffee away with a handkerchief.
“You’re not even a careless person, so why would you make such a mist...”
At that moment, while speaking as if I could not understand and wiping at it,
I froze.
“...”
“...”
Silence.
In an instant, silence settled between the two of us.
Because.
In noble society,
the only ones who could wipe someone’s clothes like this were family.
For an unmarried man and woman to do this was a taboo close to an unwritten law.
Truly,
it was an action I had taken without thinking.
If done to someone who had no interest, it was also an act that would be deeply humiliating.
Because Aileen said nothing in that state, for a moment I felt as if my heart dropped.
She was simply looking at me.
Her face was red as if she were angry,
and her fiercely trembling eyes made me wonder if she could not hold back her emotions at all.
It was a reaction I had never once seen from her, someone skilled at controlling her feelings.
If everything had ultimately been an act,
then naturally, she had no choice but to be enraged by this humiliation.
“Ah, um... I mean. I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to...”
“Kiss.”
For a moment, I could not understand those words.
“I would have.”
Her breath trembled faintly.
The voice that followed was clearly trembling as well.
A tremor she tried desperately to hide, but could not.
“If no one had been here.”
Thump.
Thump, thump, thump.
“So.”
For a moment, I swallowed hard.
“Don’t be alone with me for a while.”
“Uh...”
“Otherwise.”
Aileen looked straight at me with eyes still shaking fiercely.
She looked into my eyes,
then lowered her gaze to my lips,
then raised it back to my eyes again.
“I’ll take it as permission.”