Irene Windler Is the Neighbor Next Door (1)

Tap, tap.

"...Not bad at all."

The yard was not large, but it was a respectable size—lush grass, insects busy in it, and a wooden cabin so thick with moss and climbing vines that it looked ready to cough up a ghost. Even so, he was grateful. This was the Royal Academy, land famous for being the most expensive in the kingdom, and he had still managed to find a house this cheap.

Granted—

Rumors of ghosts. A few murders. Talk that criminals used it as a hideout. So what. Not my problem.

An ill-omened cabin, thick with bad rumors, and none of it mattered much to Lee Han. If a ghost came out, he would beat it down. If a murderer came calling, he would beat that bastard down too. Criminals, the same. That would be the end of it. Which made this house, to him, nothing short of precious.

Above all else—

"A cliff on the hill out back...? Is this heaven?"

He could climb cliffs. The thought lifted his chest, and Lee Han was as pleased as a man could be. A successful move, if ever there was one.

Sudden as it was, he had changed nests for the first time in three years. There had been no choice. Taking a post as an instructor meant he would no longer report to the knight order. From now on he would be commuting to the Royal Academy, and even if he wanted to keep living where he had been, a commute of twenty-five kilometers made moving mandatory.

...If he put his mind to it, he could always run the distance for exercise.

But why bother?

Better to just move.

Of course there were options besides moving. Trains. Carriages. As had been said before, this medieval fantasy had never had an industrial revolution, and yet certain means of getting around had developed in strangely lopsided ways. The trouble was that travel in this world was ruinously expensive. Let a commoner ride the train for a single month and he would probably go bankrupt. Moving was simply the better deal.

Wearing out his own shoes, and spending the one week of add-drop—as good as a holiday for an instructor—hunting for a house had been both a nuisance and a waste. Still, he had found a place that suited him this well. The trouble had been worth it.

Thud.

"Hoo. That the last of it?"

"Sir Knight, where should I put this?"

"Anywhere's fine. I'll sort it later."

"Okaaay!"

He had told her to move only the things that wouldn't break, and she shifted the luggage without a single mistake. She was so dull-witted he never knew when she might topple over, but fortunately Layla had health and strength to spare.

...Was a wardrobe ever supposed to be that light?

She was hauling alone what ought to have taken two. Come to think of it, God was fairly fair. A pretty face and a healthy body, and then an intelligence dropped that far to balance the books.

"...Take her to a construction site and she'd be popular."

Especially with the old foremen. Premium labor like that didn't come along often. Of course there was every chance they'd cheat her out of the wages, so he wasn't about to take her.

CRACK!

"Whoa, Sir Knight! You're incredibly strong! The tree's just coming right out!"

"I'm not pulling it out. I'm breaking it."

"But why are you smashing a perfectly good tree?"

"This one's already dead. Leave it standing and it'll draw bugs."

"Oh, I see! But can you really snap a tree with your bare hands?"

"Anyone can, if they train."

"Wow! Could I do it too?"

"Half a year—no. Follow me around for about a year, and maybe..."

Judging by the build she had been born with, a year of training might make her every bit the match of the chaff in the knight order.

Raise her as a fist-fighter and she'd be perfect.

Her head was lacking, but ambition was creeping up in him all the same, the way it creeps up in a boxing-gym owner who has just found the woman who could take the world title.

"—Have you lost your damn mind? Talk like a normal person."

Someone cut into their unhinged conversation.

"Oh. You're here."

"Yeah, I'm here, you lunatic."

"...Why are you picking a fight the second you see me?"

"You're the one making me pick it."

"??"

"...Forget it. What am I even saying to a half-troll."

"Who are you calling a half-troll!"

...The bastard had a decent nose for things, annoyingly enough.

Jake Farmer. Lee Han's only friend was shaking his head with a sigh.

The warm custom of a housewarming, of celebrating a friend's move, did not, sadly, exist in the Pendragon Kingdom. On the contrary: move house, and you went to a church under the temple, asked them to bless the place, and paid a donation. And the fact that the capital was littered with people who went bankrupt doing it was a horror past describing. Which was why Lee Han was an atheist in this life, just as he had been in the last. He did not want to go bankrupt.

"That's an extreme example. What you give the temple is just a token of sincerity. You're praying that when you leave this world someday, you'll get to go to Avalon."

"Drop it. Don't come all this way just to preach at me."

"...Unbeliever."

The kingdom's one and only faith, the Light of Radiance. Holding up the cross that symbolized it, Jake recited a passage of scripture.

"The impious sinner. That wouldn't be me, would it?"

"Who else."

"...Right. Thanks a lot."

Half sarcasm, half sincere. How many people would recite scripture for a friend who had just moved? A friend worth being grateful for.

"If you're really grateful, buy this cross."

"You cult-peddling bastard...?"

"I'd like to just give it to you, but they say handing things out for nothing brings misfortune."

"......"

Cancel that. Grateful, his ass. The man was like a hustler waiting at a subway station to mark a sucker and hard-sell him a charm.

Lee Han grumbled, but in the end he flicked over two silver coins. Not because he was a sucker. Take a cross plated in silver to the church, and later you could receive Holy Power treatment at a discount. He was being strong-armed into it. Ranked like an item, it was a cross that might just qualify as rare grade.

"A mid-rank priest gave it, so you should be able to get up to a thirty percent discount."

"Whatever. Hand over what you brought."

"Impatient."

Jake complained that he wasn't even being offered a cup of black tea, then quietly passed over the letter he had brought. Information commissioned from the information guild. Lee Han could have bought it himself, but he had arranged a proxy purchase, just in case.

"They keep anything on the grand duke locked up tight, so there isn't much. Same for the duke. What's written here is nothing but what everyone already knows."

"That's enough."

He hadn't wanted the details. He only meant to read as much as other people knew, on the off chance something useful was in it.

"...About what I expected."

Fortunately, it didn't seem like a waste of money. No more and no less—information worth exactly its price. After reading it, Lee Han did not hesitate.

Whoosh.

"...There goes a gold coin, up in smoke as kindling."

"Quiet."

He burned the letter for tinder, then folded his arms with a flat look.

"A whole pack of lunatics."

"Impious."

"Impious, my ass."

Psychopaths, every last one of them.

The Duke of Galahad. After losing his wife, a madness had taken him, and ever since he had been devoted to torturing and killing criminals. An extremely dangerous man. He had inherited the Magic Sword passed down through House Galahad, and among every duke of the line his compatibility with the blade was said to be the highest, and ferociously so.

Conclusion: a sinister, mortally dangerous killer, and a lunatic.

Next, the Grand Duke of Lionel. The nature of the bloodline meant many wives. He formed a pride, the way a lion does. And like Galahad's Magic Sword, he had inherited a Mystery handed down through the house. Because of that Mystery's side effects he laid hands on women without regard for station, and had laid hands even on a maid. For all that, he took responsibility neither for the women he touched nor for the children born of them.

Conclusion: a rapist who couldn't keep his pants buttoned, and a deadbeat who neglected his own children.

"But they're peerless ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠beauties, every one of them, so they're still popular with noblewomen... Ha! Get a pretty enough face and murder and rape are both forgiven, is that it?"

"Ahem."

"Well, the power's absurd, so I suppose even that flies."

Romance privilege. Be handsome and rich, and every crime you commit comes back not guilty.

...Then again, hadn't his past life been a little like that?

"Damn this filthy lookism."

"I think you're wonderful too, Sir Knight!"

"...Thank you, Miss Maid. You're pretty too."

"Hehe. I hear that a lot."

"Th-then what about me, Miss Maid?"

"...Huh? Who are you?"

"......"

Jake wore a genuinely wounded expression, and Layla blinked in genuine blankness, as if she truly hadn't known he was there. She didn't even realize that was the deeper wound. Lee Han spared the pair of them no thought at all and sank into his own.

He hadn't gone looking for information on the duke and the grand duke for nothing. From old times it was said that if you meant to kill a general, you started by cutting off the horse's head. Lee Han was, in his own way, a diligent adult who heeded the words of ancient sages, and before making contact with Roen and Irene he was roughly looking into the people around them. The results were more serious than he had expected.

Of course, if this world really was a romance fantasy, it wasn't impossible to understand. The leads of a romance-fantasy world were, as a rule, broken somewhere.

Their children probably aren't normal either.

A parent is a child's mirror. The saying would hold here too, and Lee Han was beginning to understand, in his own way, why Isis had gone so far as to make a request of him.

If I were her, I'd be annoyed too, having the children of people like that sitting in my front yard.

Against his will, Lee Han was coming to understand how Isis felt.

"If you need help later, say so. And... keep your distance from the powerful, if you can. I'm not saying this as a knight, or as a noble. I'm saying it as a friend, because I'm worried."

Well, well. Whether he had just come from watching a play, or whether it was Layla's doing, Jake left the posed line hanging in the air and calmly turned to go.

Unfortunately—

"Sir Knight, that person seems a little strange. He isn't unwell somewhere, is he?"

"...No. Nothing like that."

To Layla, he had only registered as a sick man.

Even so.

"He is strange, but he still seems like a good person. I could see he was worried about you!"

"He's a decent guy."

Jake might look like that, but though the house had fallen, he was the son of a family with a fairly long history. Some unjust affair had brought the house down, or so the story went. Even then he had not forgotten his loyalty to the royal house, and he had entered the knight order to carry on the family line. A model student, nothing like a delinquent such as Lee Han. And a guy like that was advising him to keep his distance from the powerful—from the royal house.

In a sense, he was even pressing down his own loyalty for Lee Han's sake. The man valued personal loyalty over fealty.

...A strange thing. In his past life he had been ostracized for being an orphan, and the ones he thought were friends had been busy stabbing him in the back. In this life, he had met someone who was truly on his side.

"Looks like I've lived this life decently enough, at that."

"Hmm?"

"It's nothing. More to the point, Miss Maid, shouldn't you be heading back to the Royal Castle? It's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠already late for dinner."

Anyone else would have seen that he was forcing the subject aside, but Layla had no eye for that. She was a good kid who took people's words exactly as they came.

...The thought that she would stay sunny even if someone ran a surety scam on her did make him uneasy.

And then, with that childlike bright smile of hers—

"I'm not going."

"...?"

"I'm going to live with you from now on, Sir Knight. Her Highness told me to look after you well, hehe."

"...Hss. I'm not sure that's a good idea."

Did she not know what it meant for a man and a woman to live under one roof? But she was not quite that naive.

"Her Highness said you're safe! What was it she said? Ah! She said, 'He can't do a man's work, so there's nothing to worry about!'"

"......"

"But what's a man's work?"

"...You don't need to know."

Cruel. Scraping at a man's pride like that?!

Damn woman. Just you wait till next time.

Lee Han was grinding his teeth and saving it for later when—

Knock, knock.

"Oh my, we have ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a guest."

"Step back for a moment."

An unfamiliar smell. The faint scent of cornelian cherry, drifting in. Lee Han's senses, which remembered the particular smell of a person with ghostly precision, registered the strangeness, and he eased the door open. Empty-handed—but with the confidence that these empty hands could pull out a spine if they had to....

"Ah, hello. I, uh, I just moved in next door, and I'm making the rounds with some set polenta... Oh my? Aren't you Instructor Lee Han?"

"......"

"What a co-in-ci-dence, seeing you liiike this!"

"Mm..."

He couldn't speak to the rest of it. This one, though.

Her acting is ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠complete shit.

Lee Han looked at her.

Irene Windler.

Surveillance target number two was lingering in his yard, suspicious to anyone with eyes.