“Anyway, so the reason you ended up like that a month ago was because you received a penalty?”
“Ah, yeah. That day, the mission was to escape to the banquet hall and get everyone killed.”
“…….”
“But Riden, even you would think that’s not right. So I chose to take the penalty instead of following the mission. Of course, if I’d known my stomach would split open, I might have hesitated a bit.”
“…….”
“Ah, anyway, since my stomach splitting open wasn’t you lords’ fault, I should withdraw the lawsuit, right?”
There was no answer, but I was sure Riden would withdraw it.
But why had the penalty from a month ago been not a fever or a high fever, but seppuku…? It was a penalty on a completely different level.
Could it be because the mission I failed was a sudden mission? Was that why the penalty had been so unusual?
Whatever the case, I never wanted to go through it again.
Recalling the pain that was still vivid enough to drive me insane, I touched my stomach and sighed. What would I do if another mission like that came up in the future…?
“Does it still hurt?”
Perhaps finding it odd that I was touching my stomach, Riden asked with a furrowed brow. I jumped in surprise, waved my hands, and shook my head.
“No? No? I’m completely fine.”
“Come to think of it, you asked how I got better earlier. Duke Birdworth helped me.”
“Huh……? Who?”
“Duke Birdworth.”
Birdworth?
Birdworth……?
“Are you talking about Aiden right now?”
“Yes.”
“Aiden knows magic too? I’d guessed it might have been Anastasia or Riden……”
So was that why he’d been by my side when I woke up?
Honestly, I couldn’t believe it. Aiden, who hated me terribly, had helped me? It was as shocking as when Daiwen had jumped in for me and gotten beaten.
I was standing there with my mouth hanging open like an idiot when Riden tilted his head, raising one eyebrow as if wondering why I was asking such a strange thing.
“What are you talking about? He’s a holy knight.”
The moment I heard his words, many things flared up in my mind like fireworks.
Aiden Burwo—no, Aiden Birdworth.
A man whose divine power was extraordinary from birth, who had lived in the temple since a very young age even though he did not follow a god.
Only after living in the temple for ten years was he able to forge a vow pledging himself to the temple and the royal family, and thus become free.
The memories poured out so overwhelmingly that it was bewildering. And I was confused. Was this a memory I had seen in the story?
Or……
“Duke Birdworth poured divine power into you for three full days without sleep. If it weren’t for him, you would have died. Make sure to greet him when you meet him later.”
“……Why would Aiden help me? He hates me.”
“……Well, ask him yourself. I didn’t think he would agree either.”
Riden said indifferently, picking up the book he had closed and rising from his seat.
I stared blankly at him, then realizing Riden was about to leave, I got down from the bed to follow him. I was going to go home while I was at it.
But Riden shook his head and spoke.
“I’ll come pick you up again after I finish work, so rest here.”
“Huh?”
“We’ll go back together.”
At his unexpected words, I stared blankly at Riden. It took me quite a while to understand what he’d said, and then I laughed. Just a little while ago, he’d told me to stay for a week.
It seemed he had yielded.
* * *
Riden, who had intended only to check on his younger sister’s condition upon hearing she had awakened, realized more time had passed than he thought and walked with quicker steps than usual.
But before long, his steps noticeably slowed. He had fallen deep into thought.
‘Every morning at nine, some window pops up. There’s something called a mission written there……’
His younger sister, who had spoken cautiously in a hesitant tone. And the unfamiliar words, mission and penalty.
Yes. If that was true, her actions all this time finally made sense. Even the month-long fever of unknown cause she had suffered ten years ago.
At first, she must not have intended to follow the mission either. That was why she had received the penalty.
‘But……’
Riden finally stopped walking.
But why was she refusing to follow the mission now?
Riden couldn’t understand it. He had told her earlier that she didn’t have to tell him if she didn’t want to, but her eventual silence only confused him more.
If she could carry out the mission by becoming a handmaiden herself, why hadn’t she done so from the start?
Was the reason she hadn’t associated with me all this time also because of the mission?
Had not commemorating our parents’ death anniversary also been because of that?
Had doing such a thing to Duke Birdworth also been because of that?
The chain of questions showed no sign of stopping. He, who had unconsciously made a pained expression, raised his hand to cover his face.
She……
The thought occurred to him that she might not be the sister he knew. Even though it was an absurd notion, she just didn’t seem like herself.
Yes, Riden couldn’t shake the feeling that his younger sister had become a different person. It was absurd, but he felt that way. Unless she had suddenly become someone else, there was no way she would change like this.
She was calling my name again after ten years of not using it.
She, who had hated even talking to me, was approaching me without hesitation, and getting close to the two people who had been her childhood friends, as if they had never fallen out……
If, rather than being a different person, she had truly changed.
“Why now……”
He stood still for a long while covering his face before finally lowering his hand. His expression had returned to being unreadable.
Or perhaps not. Everything could be a lie. Her seemingly changed appearance, this so-called mission—it could all be lies told for some ulterior motive.
Thinking so made his chest feel chillingly painful. While he understood himself for having no choice but to doubt, at the same time, he felt himself to be nothing but cold-hearted.
Biting his lips tightly with an anxious face unlike his usual self, he finally moved his feet.
He arrived at his office shortly after and flung the door open. He needed to clear his head. He intended to keep his mouth shut and do nothing but work.
But the moment he opened the door, his brows furrowed deeply.
He closed the door again shortly after. And he thought. Was the place I just opened really my office?
The answer came immediately. Without a second thought, this was indeed his office.
He opened the door again. And spoke irritably to a certain person inside his office.
“Lord Fergus. Why are you here?”
“Ah, I heard someone had pressed charges against me.”
“The misunderstanding has just been cleared up, and I will withdraw the complaint, so please leave now.”
“Wow, this is the first time in my life something has been resolved so quickly.”
However, as the charge had apparently not been his real purpose, Daiwen didn’t move.
Swallowing a sigh, Riden saw the mountain of paperwork piled on his desk, resigned himself, and sat down across from him on the sofa.
“I heard Rene woke up?”
“News travels fast.”
“My ears are quite sharp. How is she? Was she alright?”
“I don’t think that’s something you need to concern yourself with.”
Even at Riden’s cold reply, Daiwen simply smiled leisurely. Then he pulled out and fiddled with the handkerchief tucked in his front pocket.
“Being affiliated with the royal family is no minor nuisance. If it’s this suffocating, how does a Marquis manage?”
Riden had wondered what he was getting at. At his pointless remark, Riden bluntly changed the subject.
“Have you finished interrogating Count Sirius? Has the culprit who stole it been found?”
“Well, the same as ever. He’s playing dumb. He says an anonymous package arrived and he merely accepted it, so we pretended to believe him and tried tracing it, but nothing turned up.”
“Has the investigation of Count Sirius’s estate revealed nothing?”
“It’s clean. We investigated every estate under his name, but there were no other bones.”
At Daiwen’s impassive reply, Reuden let out a sigh. Then he found himself going back over everything that had happened over the past month. A great many things had happened.
First of all, the Hugo Knight Order had become the royal Seventh Knight Order. Because of what had happened a month ago, they could no longer refuse the king’s order to enter royal service. Thanks to that, they could no longer go subjugating dragons unless it was by the king’s command.
And the king had not stopped there. He had stripped the Hugo Knight Order of its authority to distribute dragon carcasses. It was good only for the king. After all, the king had wanted the Hugo Knight Order’s abilities and authority.
‘And yet they seemed more dissatisfied about not being able to go on subjugations than about having their authority taken away…….’
It was true. The knights of the Hugo Knight Order had, strangely enough, complained more about being unable to go on expeditions. Daiwen, the commander, and Sion, the vice commander, did not show their feelings, but they too must have been dissatisfied.
‘Just why are they so desperate to kill dragons……?’
Reuden sighed once more.
The first thing they had done after becoming a royal knight order was interrogate Count Sirius, who had survived and been placed in custody. Where he had gotten the dragon bone, and if he had received it from someone, who that person was, and so on.
Pathetically, Count Sirius had repeated the same words like a parrot.
‘It came as an anonymous gift, so I don’t know who sent it……. I had no idea it was a dragon bone! I don’t even know what that thing is!’
‘I only did what the staff told me to do! I’m a victim too! Ah, that’s right. There was a letter with it as well! It said that if I carried that staff around, no one would dare look down on me!’
Reuden, who had been present for the first interrogation, recalled Count Sirius’s desperate cries. His expression crumpled of its own accord.
Because the letter Count Sirius had mentioned had not been found. They were well and truly in the dark. Count Sirius knew nothing, and what little they thought might serve as a clue had not been found.
The greatest problem was the whereabouts of the bones. Royal mages had also been mobilized to search for the fragments. Since the bones gave off the unique aura of a dragon, they were dispatched to each city and searched every corner.
But over the course of a month, not a single bone fragment had been found. As if someone had hidden them with deliberate care.
Thanks to that, Reuden had spent the past month drowning in work, work, and more damned work. More than anything, because of his younger sister, who had not awakened, he had been unable to sleep or even return to his estate. If he returned to the estate with his sister today, it would be his first time back in a month.
And yet why had this man come looking for him……?
Reuden ended his recollection with a weary expression. Unlike usual, he failed to manage his face and stared at the other man, and Daiwen smiled.
“Aren’t you looking at me a bit too reproachfully? Please understand that we also want to find the bones as soon as possible.”
“That is not it……. You surely did not come here simply to inform me there has been no progress. Why have you come?”
Implied in those words was, If you’re going to say something pointless, I have work to do, so leave. But Daiwen only hummed and continued fiddling with his handkerchief.
Just as Reuden’s patience was about to reach its limit at that carefree attitude, Daiwen finally spoke.
“Before I get straight to the point……. Marquis, do you know why our Hugo Knight Order was founded?”
“I am not particularly curious.”
“Then do you know why my family fell?”
“…….”
“Rather unusually, both were because of dragons. The former, to exterminate dragons. The latter, because of a dragon’s curse.”
The Fergus family.
It had been a knightly family with a long history on par with the Solen family, but as he had said, rumors spread that they had been cursed, and they had fallen. Reuden knew that much as well.
He simply had not known it was a dragon’s curse.
As he wondered whether he should believe such absurd nonsense, Reuden, for some reason, thought of his younger sister.
“When my family fell, rumors spread that we were a cursed house. As I just said, that was not an exaggerated rumor. We received a curse from a damned dragon, and it has been passed down to this day.”
“Why are you suddenly telling me this?”
“Now then, a question. In that case, who among the members of the Fergus family is currently cursed?”
Daiwen did not wait for Reuden’s answer. He immediately smiled and answered himself.
“That would be me, Marquis.”