An afternoon after Alchemy Department classes had ended, while I was spending day after busy day occupied with research.
I had been busy every day with extremely important matters, such as improving the arm structure of the close-combat unit named Knight and planning the second mock battle.
“What is this?”
When I arrived at the workshop, some white crow was sitting squarely in front of the workshop door.
The only reason I knew it was a crow was because its appearance made that obvious.
“How curious.”
It was my first time seeing a white crow, but thinking about it, there was nothing particularly unusual about crows themselves, so I grabbed it as it was, brought it inside, and naturally took hold of its neck to—
“You bastard! You’re trying to wring my neck right off the bat?! Don’t tell me you were going to eat me just like that?!”
“What the, why is a crow talking?”
Magic existed, so it wasn’t strange no matter what happened.
So I calmly nodded and put strength back into my hand—
“Why do you keep holding my neck! If you see a talking white crow, shouldn’t you at least keep it alive out of curiosity?!”
“In a world with magic, I feel like a talking crow would be common enough. Come to think of it, aren’t there crows that mimic human speech?”
Just looking at the Alchemy Department, it was a place where unimaginable technologies popped out.
It was only natural to wonder if talking crows might exist in the wild too.
Perhaps because I was far too calm, this crow seemed to grasp the situation.
“I-I am one of the errand-runners of the House of Abatus. Esteemed one, please forgive the rudeness of this lowly creature and resolve this through conversation.”
“Errand-runner? Does House Abatus not use servants?”
“They do, but everyone is rather busy, so they imbue winged creatures like us with wisdom and have us carry things like letters. And they change our feather color with magic; those dyed white are generally made messengers of House Abatus! We’re different from the black ones who get sent on other missions!”
“I see.”
They said they used life magic, but to think they could grant wisdom to animals…
“…Then I suppose there must be plenty of errand-runners who get eaten by wild monsters or other natural predators. Since they’re white.”
“There are many. Still, we are fed generously.”
“I see.”
Then, just as I was thinking it was about time—
“Um, if it’s a protein supply you need, I have some bugs I’ve stashed away! Please don’t eat me!”
“Why would you feed me that? When I was just thinking I might try some meat dishes lately, and something got caught all on its own?”
“I-I have a verbal message along with the letter! I’ll offer you something suitable later, so please spare me!”
Maybe I’d teased it too much.
In truth, if this one disappeared, it seemed like the next winged creature would fly in, so the thought of catching them until one that looked inedible showed up had briefly crossed my mind. But I wasn’t so destitute that I absolutely had to eat a crow.
I just grabbed it because it was there and I figured, how convenient.
In any case, when I loosened my grip, the crow deftly hopped down onto the desk and began preening its feathers with its beak.
“Phew, in my second year as an errand-runner, this is a first. Truly.”
“Does two years make you a veteran or a rookie?”
“Uh, a veteran, right? No, wait. I’m not an ordinary crow. Is that short?”
Just as it seemed I might begin debating that sudden question with this crow, the door opened.
And Erika rushed in with a sword in hand.
“Suspicious intruder! You dared enter even knowing that Erika of Phoenix is here!!”
“Kraaaak!!”
“W-wait! If it’s a white bird, it’s a messenger of House Abatus! Stop!”
Noel came in by a hair’s breadth and stopped Erika.
I wondered how Noel had moved at such speed, but it seemed she had even used magic and flown through the air to block her.
“I need to analyze that too.”
Noel got very tired after using it, so I had been holding back from asking her to let me analyze it. But if I got the chance, I absolutely had to figure out the principle behind that levitation and apply it to golems—
“Lord Aizen?”
“Ah, sorry. I was just a little startled.”
Perhaps having noticed my suspicious gaze, Noel spoke to me with a smile, so I quickly denied it.
In any case, thanks to Noel barely stopping her in time, Erika also halted, and the crow was stroking its own chest down with its wing.
“Are there no civilized beings in this place… First I nearly get eaten, then I nearly get cut down without warning…”
“If you utter one more insolent word, you will experience forty minutes of Aizen-brand boiling water and become today’s daily sustenance.”
At some point, Mina was behind me.
When did she get here?
As everyone ended up gathered together, the crow let out a slight sigh and said,
“Ahem. At last, I can begin my work. Then first, allow me to introduce myself properly. My name is—”
“Business only. Brief and to the point. Three sentences.”
“Lord Cardio Abatus of the Abatus County has invited Lord Aizen Arclight as an honored guest to a ball! He said he wished to prepare a place for you to receive Prince Gilford’s apology! He humbly asks that you attend, so that he may also apologize for the rudeness from before!”
This fellow had skill.
Whether the magic of the Abatus County itself was excellent or not, this crow was capable of rather advanced conversation.
Rather than making things like biological weapons, they’d make hundreds of times more profit creating creatures like this and selling them as pets.
“…Why in the world are they bothering to make biological weapons?”
Their standing among the nobility was tremendous, and judging by their magic, it seemed quite useful too.
High nobles probably understood this area well, but as long as they didn’t interfere with me, I intended to stop paying attention to it.
“But a ball, huh. I can’t dance. I don’t have clothes either.”
“Your uniform will suffice. Lord Cardio said clothing does not constitute courtesy, and that you may dress freely.”
“I see.”
I nodded at the crow’s words.
And let out a deep sigh.
“I really hate politics.”
“Would you like to send a reply to Lord Cardio? If necessary, you can tell me!”
I felt like heaving a deep sigh.
I looked at Noel’s face and Mina’s face, then quietly said,
“I’ll go.”
“The details are in the invitation! If you have anything you wish to ask, place an imperial-style fruit tart I like by the window! Those are delicious!”
The crow deftly opened the window with its beak and flew away.
After staring at its back for a long while, I quietly said,
“There’s a chance they left surveillance or something here, isn’t there?”
“There is. I did a simple sweep, but there’s a limit to driving them off with electricity just once.”
I had felt an extremely faint current of electricity, so it seemed Noel had used detection magic.
And Noel’s expression grew serious.
“They’re being blatant. The Abatus County, I mean.”
“Yeah. Since I’ve kept getting tangled up in politics recently, even I can tell. I miss the innocent old days.”
“I don’t think there was ever a time when you were innocent.”
Mina jabbed at me, but it was only a joke to ease the tension.
Erika asked quietly,
“Will you be all right? Going there, I mean.”
“You all know it. That this ‘place for reconciliation with the prince’ is just an excuse.”
And it was a truly troublesome excuse at that.
Noel quietly nodded.
“Because of the history of poor relations between the Kingdom of Vespia and the Empire, there’s a sort of understanding that even when making peace, the other party must subtly state what they want.”
“But I can’t refuse a situation where someone else says they’ll mediate and asks us to reconcile.”
Because then I would be rude to the mediator.
In a word, they were giving themselves a pretext.
From the start, reconciliation or whatever else aside, it had been a duel, so the matter should have ended once the terms were fulfilled. Yet they had deliberately brought up the excuse of reconciliation with a member of the royal family.
They had even slipped in the matter of their own house, namely Hephaes, while they were at it.
“And yet they still had the nerve to set a trap.”
“You’ve gotten sharp.”
Noel nodded with a bitter smile.
At a glance, it looked like an invitation telling me to come because it was a place of reconciliation, and to dress comfortably, but…
“It’s a place where I reconcile with the prince. If I show up there in my school uniform, someone will say I’m looking down on the royal family.”
I wanted to say they were the ones at fault, but this was a kingdom.
It was a place where a supreme authority known as the king unquestionably existed, and for a member of the royal family who inherited that blood to apologize was by no means a light matter.
It was a situation where I also had to observe formality so that the prince’s side could save face. And if I dressed carelessly there?
In a word, it would give them another pretext.
And there was another problem.
“Aizen. You can’t dance, can you?”
“No.”
A country noble without a title, and on top of that, someone treated as an outsider who merely inherited the bloodline—what kind of etiquette and dance education would I have received?
It would be fortunate if I didn’t spin my partner around like a giant swing and send them flying.
Since they said they were inviting me as an honored guest to a place like that, it was the same as saying they would even shine a spotlight on me.
“A pretext I can’t refuse, a reason to be criticized, and even a stage for ridicule. They’re thorough.”
In addition, despite calling me an honored guest, the one who came was a crow errand-runner.
It was an amusing fellow, so it seemed like it would make a decent conversation partner, but it was a crow.
Even if I grabbed it and protested, nothing would change.
Even if I said I refused, it was a crow, so if it made the excuse that it had forgotten, I would have no recourse.
“So this is the political fighting of Vespia’s high nobility.”
They were absolute experts at tormenting a person.
“At this rate, I honestly feel like I want to seek asylum in another country.”
Honestly, how many times had I already suffered because of House Abatus?
I was so sick of them that the thought of leaving naturally came to mind.
Then Noel spoke cautiously.
“I understand how you feel… but if possible, I’d rather you didn’t say things like that.”
Noel was the young lady of a ducal house in this country, so she wouldn’t want to hear me say I would leave for another nation.
Seeing Erika’s face, which looked somewhat at a loss, I belatedly realized that I had blurted it out too carelessly without considering the positions of the others.
“Sorry. I got a little worked up.”
“It’s all right.”
“Even I think that sometimes!”
Noel and Erika said with smiles.
Then Mina narrowed her eyes and said,
“If you said you were going to another country, I could help, but the situation would not change just because you went elsewhere.”
“I know.”
The reason I was being kept in check now was, in a sense, because House Abatus, which had been trying to establish its position in the weapons field, had taken a direct hit.
Honestly, there was no guarantee that people who would compete with me wouldn’t exist elsewhere.
“From the start, if I go somewhere else, I’d have to begin again from the bottom…”
Considering that the current situation—where I could even look toward continuous mass production of the Cyclops—had only become possible this quickly thanks to a tremendous amount of luck, there was no guarantee I could achieve the same results again elsewhere.
Considering that I had mountains of reasons making it difficult to leave, they were truly a troublesome enemy to deal with.
“The one at fault is Abatus.”
Erika said it with a coldness unlike her usual self.
There had been an incident where knights of her family had died because of Abatus’s biological weapons, so from Erika’s perspective, nothing good could possibly be said about Abatus.
And Noel carefully opened her mouth.
“…His Majesty often grumbled that he regretted marrying for looks, too…”
“That sort of information doesn’t matter. It would be better to stop dreaming for a moment and look at reality.”
I nodded at Mina’s words.
For now, at the very least, I was in a situation where I had to wear proper clothes and go.
And fortunately, this time, it was a situation I could somehow get through.
“I’m being prepared for this kind of situation thanks to Count Phoenix.”
Since I had experienced not having clothes in the Phoenix County, I had prepared formal clothes afterward.
As Erika smiled faintly, Mina looked at me with a displeased expression.
“To be precise, thanks to me.”
“Right.”
The trigger had been the Phoenix side, but Mina had prepared the clothes themselves.
They were being paid for in installments, but in any case, I had clothes.
So as long as I wore them and attended, I could avoid most of the problems.
“Since it’s come to this, I should go thinking I’ll meet the heir of Abatus.”
“What are you going to do about the dancing?”
“There’s nothing I can do about that.”
If I couldn’t dance, I couldn’t dance.
If they mocked me for it there, then let them.
Just as I was about to give up appropriately,
“Lord Aizen. Um, there is one way…”
“One way?”
Noel hesitated for a moment.
The hand holding her staff fidgeted slightly.
And then.
“…Actually, I was also invited to that banquet…”
Noel looked at me with an expression that seemed somehow expectant.