Don't Take What's Mine! (4)
“That aside. What the hell happened here?”
The entire site of the administrative department had been blown to pieces by a demon. Reconstruction had begun in a hurry, but the damage was so severe it would take months to restore.
In truth, it was Cain’s handiwork, but the official story had been rewritten to blame a demon instead. Wilhelm had ordered the information manipulated, and Yuris’s Special Task Force had taken the lead in spreading the lie.
“*Ahem!* I came because I had something to say.”
More importantly, could she wipe that smile off her face? Why did he keep looking like a completely different person? Was this really Cain? If he’d always worn an expression like that, people’s opinions of him might have been entirely different.
“My birthday is coming up soon.”
“I see. Congratulations.”
“An invitation card happened to be left over. So I was thinking of giving it to you.”
Left over? As if. She had prepared it specifically for Cain. Even she wasn’t sure why. His face had simply popped into her head.
Ever since the moment he had dragged her out of the nightmare she had suffered for over ten years. Ever since that time he hadn’t looked back once no matter how much she called out, while slaughtering demons.
For some strange reason, Kiara had felt something from Cain.
“Don’t worry about your status. It’s going to be a very small birthday party.”
“It’s the imperial duke’s daughter’s birthday, yet the party will be small?”
“What? You didn’t know?”
Know what? Ah. So this was where the hidden backstory began. Cain answered that he didn’t know and pricked up his ears, ready to commit every word to memory.
“My mother wasn’t the official duchess.”
It was a familiar pattern. The kind of setup that appeared at least once in every romance fantasy. Even though he had never been in charge of one, he had heard it enough times to know it by heart.
“She was a low-ranking noblewoman who caught my father’s eye one day and entered the ducal house. Then she gave birth to me. That’s right. I’m the daughter of a concubine.”
The position given to a protagonist who overcomes trials and grows. Or the position given to a villainess who falls into darkness because of those trials. This time, the fate had fallen on Kiara instead of Estelle.
“Up to that point, there wasn’t much of a problem. But shortly after my mother entered the ducal house, the official duchess died.
All sorts of rumors began to circulate. That our mother who came in as a concubine had poisoned her. That the duchess had died from a broken heart after a concubine suddenly appeared. Things like that.”
This, too, was a common repertoire in romance fantasies. Of course. Without such baseless rumors, it wouldn’t be a proper romance fantasy.
“The ridiculous rumors about the duchess’s death. The suspicion that she had seduced my father with her body. The life in the ducal house that felt like a prison.
On top of that, my father was always busy and neglected us. In reality, my mother gave birth to me and raised me all by herself. How could any woman endure that?”
Kiara hadn’t always been as sharp-edged as she was now. There had been a time when she was a bright, radiant, and beautiful girl. She had simply been thrown into the middle of the world with nothing to protect her.
“Ah. I suddenly miss my mother. Memories of flower-viewing with her keep coming back.”
She spoke with a deliberate giggle, but Cain could see it. Her eyes weren’t smiling at all. They were trembling nonstop. He could tell immediately that she was struggling not to cry.
“Anyway. That’s my past. A girl who lost her mother at a young age. A father who failed completely as a parent. People who saw me as an unwelcome guest rather than a duke’s daughter.
It was the perfect environment for a twisted personality, wasn’t it? So I lived badly on purpose. I threw tantrums, tormented the servants, and ignored my father. I figured I was allowed to do at least that much.”
So that was it. That kind of past. That kind of hidden backstory had been concealed, little sister. From what had been shown before, she had simply seemed like a realist who clashed with Estelle. But when you added in these childhood circumstances, the character development finally made sense.
“At this point, you understand why my birthday party is being held so modestly, right?”
Kiara had been extremely sharp from the beginning, a kind of survival instinct. And then she had gotten entangled with Estelle, the excessively good female protagonist.
From Kiara’s perspective, she had simply spoken realistically, but the world around her was filled with people who unconditionally fell for the protagonist and were moved by her. To them, Kiara had been painted not as a realist but as a villainess.
Kiara had been written as a villainess, not a supporting character who sees the light and reforms. She had willingly become the villainess under the negative gazes of others.
“Cain? Hey? Are you even listening?”
“People who call themselves bad are rarely actually bad.”
“…What?”
He had wondered if being called a villainess meant she had joined hands with demons. But while she wasn’t on the side of good like Estelle, she wasn’t evil incarnate either. Then how on earth had she managed to summon the Seven Deadly Sins to this land?
“What are you suddenly talking about?”
“I’m saying you’re not a bad person. You’re better than I thought.”
It wasn’t that she was like a wicked witch and had summoned the Seven Deadly Sins. There was something else. Another hidden setting that even Kiara herself didn’t know about. Little sister. I really want to smack you once. You said this was a romance fantasy. Why did you twist it up like this?
“Wh-what are you saying? Did I treat you too comfortably and now you’ve gotten too comfortable? Should I start adding ‘you mere commoner’ every time I speak?”
In truth, he was a commoner, so the words didn’t deal any damage. Most of the nobles he had killed hadn’t been executed merely for spouting ‘you mere commoner’ either.
Only when they were connected to demons. Or when they interfered with his demon-slaying work. Only in those moments did the executioner step forward to clean things up.
And Kiara herself, the one saying ‘you mere commoner,’ had already failed the test. No. Real nobles would have poured contempt and mockery into their eyes. The kind of look you’d give a dog shitting in the middle of the street. That was the gaze of nobles who looked at Cain and said ‘you mere commoner.’
In contrast, the Cain reflected in Kiara’s eyes was simply Cain.
“Answer me already. Are you coming or not? Will you accept or not!”
Originally, Cain’s answer should have been ‘I won’t go.’ It was bothersome, and if a demon appeared somewhere while he was there, what then?
He would have to rush over immediately and wring its neck. If he arrived too late and some other bastard killed the demon first, there would be nothing he would regret or hate himself for more.
But thinking again, going might not be so bad. First, he needed to uncover Kiara’s hidden backstory. Only then could the conditions for summoning the Seven Deadly Sins be met.
“My lady.”
Second, there was a way to worry less even if a demon appeared.
“Are you able to use magic circles?”
If a demon appeared somewhere? He could just ride one over. The faster he could reach the place where the demon had appeared, the more demons he could kill. That would be fine.
“So if I allow you to use the magic circle, you’ll accept the invitation?”
When Cain answered yes, Kiara let out a small laugh. She understood. He planned to ride the magic circle the moment a demon appeared. It was absurd, but if that was the condition, then fine.
“All right. I’ll let you use the magic circle.”
“Using it first and asking for permission later again?”
“Using it first and asking for forgiveness later. Don’t worry. If my father says anything, it won’t be to you but to me. For someone sitting in the position of duke, he reads the room quite a lot.”
Because of the people in the ducal house, he had pretended not to see his wife and daughter. Why couldn’t he have abandoned them cleanly instead of suddenly paying attention to his daughter’s mood now?
The same went for Cain. Behind his back, the duke only spoke of ‘that commoner,’ but the moment Cain appeared before him, he would choose conversation, saying he had heard a lot about him.
…
After thinking for a moment, Cain took the invitation from Kiara’s hand. It seemed difficult to learn the hidden backstory from the person herself.
Since the duke apparently read the room a lot, he would aim for that side instead. The duke must have roughly noticed that Wilhelm stood behind Cain. He might willingly spit out quite useful information.
“Ah. And don’t worry about choosing a gift. Come empty-handed.”
“Is that really all right?”
“Because you coming, Cain, is more interesting and fun to me than any gift.”
If that was what she wanted, he would do as she wished. Cain nodded.
…Or was it?
Late as it was, one thing she might want as a gift occurred to him. It would be nice if she smiled at him like before. That had been quite cool. Much more so than the stupid noblemen who wagged their tails at the title of duke’s daughter, or the knights full of ambition to rise in the world.
“Ah! There she is!”
Kiara was about to grab Cain because she wanted to talk a little more when a bright female voice came from behind.
“Cain!”
Who was that? Kiara instinctively felt wary. At a glance, the woman gave off a feeling completely opposite to her own. Above all, that sparkling silver hair that made it impossible to believe she was human. Unless her prediction was wrong, that was an elf.
‘But her ears… they’re the same as human ears?’
Contrary to the silver hair that only elves possessed, the ears were human. She quickly realized the other party was a half-elf. The only half-elf currently in the empire was the Holy Kingdom’s Holy Knight Commander. And Kiara had seen Luciel once before.
While they looked quite similar, the aura they gave off was different. She could feel it. This was an entirely different half-elf from Luciel.
“Elsir.”
Elsir. That’s right. There had been that elf too. Only now did he realize. She was the person who would protect the non-human exchange students who would soon enter the academy.
At the same time, she was the woman who had come as the representative of the non-human alliance conference, wasn’t she? But why was that Elsir treating Cain so familiarly?
“Oh? Were you in the middle of a conversation? Did I interrupt without noticing?”
“Not at all, Elsir.”
“Aww. I told you to call me ‘El.’ Even though I brought the information you wanted so badly, if you act like this I’ll get a little sad, you know?”
The information he wanted. At Elsir’s words, Cain’s eyes flashed open. Beside him, Kiara’s ears perked up as well.
“The place where the demons I mentioned last time are hiding. Exactly where it is, how to get there. I’ve confirmed everything and brought it. I’ve also received permission for us to enter their territory.”
“Is there really, truly a high demon there?”
“I can’t say for certain that there definitely is one. But the probability is quite high, no? It’s true that there are many middle demons.”
Even now, demons appeared here and there from time to time, causing disturbances. But most were low-ranking demons. Among them, the lowest of the low, the soldiers. Even the middle demons who commanded them numbered in the single digits.
At the moment when Cain’s hopes, as the demons grew increasingly scarce, had been left with only the academy, Elsir had essentially pushed an oasis right in front of him.
“Good. Very… good.”
A ferocious gleam burst from Cain’s eyes. If an ordinary person had been standing in front of him, they would have fainted from the shock. But Elsir was one of the powerhouses who far surpassed ordinary.
She even asked if he wasn’t looking forward to it.
“Hm? Ah! Sorry. There was someone else here?”
She made a troubled smile as if she had only just noticed, but Kiara instinctively realized. That was a lie. Definitely. She had known from the beginning. She had been waiting for the perfect timing to butt in.
“I’m Elsir. You can just say I’m the non-human representative for the alliance.”
“…Kiara Marcello.”
“Aha! The empire’s duke’s daughter! Nice to meet you!”
After saying just that much, Elsir turned back to Cain. It was as if she were saying she had every right to do this. Honestly, she was right. Cain had no relationship with her. But… for some reason, she didn’t like it. Not one bit.
‘That smile Cain showed me earlier.’
The thought that he might show that smile to another woman made… tears suddenly threaten to pour out without warning.
‘Why does he look so happy…’
Watching Cain grin from ear to ear, Kiara felt her insides boil for no reason.
***
A secret underground space somewhere in the empire.
“…Then I’ll take it that we will proceed like this.”
The nobles gathered in the room nodded heavily.
“He must be eliminated without fail. Otherwise, we will all die in the end. Fortunately, this item has fallen into our hands, so the timing is perfect.”
One of the nobles pointed at the small glass bottle placed before them. What sloshed inside was none other than a colorless, odorless extreme poison. Looking at the item they had obtained with great difficulty, the nobles thought simultaneously.
The mad dog will definitely die within this week!