Karma
Karma
Rather than piling up exhaustion chasing nothing but vague speculation, I figured it'd be better to rest even a little, so I gave up thinking and shut my eyes for a while.
Of course, that didn't mean I could fall asleep peacefully, but there was nothing else I could do right then. In the room where only the ticking of the clock echoed, Asilie and I kept silent together and simply waited for Renisa to bring new information.
About an hour later, as Ekaf had predicted, Sheryl appeared.
"Eldmiaaa!"
And she didn't come by carriage—she charged in riding a horse herself.
-CLANG!
The problem was she hadn't just shown up; she kicked the manor's front gate with a force that looked like she'd smash it, not even waiting for the guards to salute and pay their respects. I got up and looked out the window to see Sheryl striding in with several maids trailing behind her.
Judging by her appearance alone, she was no different from a sturdy man, but the gap was enormous because a pretty little thing was acting like that.
"Eldmia! Where is Eldmia!"
"Ah, young lady, please calm down..."
"That is not an answer to my question! Eldmia!"
Even as old memories came flooding back, the sight of Sheryl visibly flustered, so unlike before, honestly felt fresh. Normally I'd have savored that and teased her, but given the circumstances, I just didn't have the heart for it, which was a shame.
Sheryl spotted my face through the window and came running up with her school uniform skirt fluttering in no time at all, but since it was a guest room, unlike the force with which she'd kicked the front gate, she knocked on the door with very respectful manners.
"It's fine, Sheryl. Come in."
Hearing me answer in her stead, Sheryl entered the room politely, yet acted with absolute confidence, as if she felt not a shred of embarrassment about the way she'd just behaved. Asilie watched her with great interest, her eyes moving over her, and asked for an introduction, so under both their gazes I briefly introduced them to each other.
"Sheryl, this is Asilie. Asilie, this is Sheryl. We're all comrades worrying together with one heart and one mind about the situation Ragnis is currently in."
"So you're the benefactor who raised him. I am Sheryl Tusin Ogatorf. I would like to have a proper setting to talk, but unfortunately that seems difficult today."
"I understand, Sheryl."
"Thank you. Eldmia? Any other news? Sir Renisa?"
It was so like Sheryl to jump straight into the main topic without hesitation right after asking for understanding, but since the story I could tell was more or less the same as the letter delivered to her, I had no choice but to shrug instead of answering.
"A treason charge, all of a sudden. What the hell happened in the Empire?"
"It's not that nothing happened, but I can assure you that those events had nothing whatsoever to do with treason."
"Fuuh... for now, just give me a brief summary. Since Sir Renisa hasn't come, there's nothing we can do right now anyway."
It hadn't even taken five minutes to summarize my story from the Empire for her as she made her usual quick judgment and tried hard to calm down, but when I finished, she seemed considerably bewildered.
"I don't have the time to press you for details now, but it seems I'll definitely need to hear the full story later."
"Once this situation is safely resolved, I'll tell you as much as you want."
After Sheryl, with a deep sigh, decided to go back to her room for now, we waited maybe another hour.
Renisa visited the manor, trudging with exhausted steps.
◈
"The temporary detention place... was called temporary detention, but it was just a prison. Already, the Noble Council's influence had acted strongly, and my protests were useless."
Renisa, looking as haggard as if she hadn't rested in a week after that short time, opened her mouth with difficulty and began explaining the situation in front of me, Asilie, Sheryl, and the head butler. From my personal perspective, the outline of the situation was quite bewildering.
According to what a third party conveyed of the Noble Council's claims, they had gathered circumstantial evidence that over roughly five years, Ragnis had been acting as a Demonfolk pawn and plotting treason. But Renisa and the other Royal Faction members had no way of knowing on what grounds they were picking a fight. It wasn't because the Royal Faction was incompetent, but because no one knew about her movements during the roughly four years before she entered the capital.
Of course, that was only natural. Those roughly four years were exactly when I'd rescued her, put her up at Madam Alisha's inn, and she'd spent the time doing odd jobs in Ogwen. I'd heard she only sent a letter to Radnelbandes when she was nearing adulthood, so knowing about it would be strange.
While I was vacillating, unsure whether I could say that or not, the head butler and Sheryl's expressions grew even more serious, unlike Asilie who was similarly wavering.
Even so, Renisa's words, tinged with sighs, continued.
"Because they believed it would influence the verdict and had been thorough in silencing people, there was too little information to be had. The only stories I managed to dig up were that after the Levien Margraviate had been devastated, people from many directions had come looking for those with physical traits similar to the Margrave... and that a small search party belonging to the Noble Council, dispatched in secret to find her, had been wiped out."
In that instant, as if we'd made a promise, Asilie and I locked eyes. In the illusion that a long conversation was passing between us in that fleeting eyeblink, Sheryl's question reached my ears.
"A secretly dispatched knight?"
I thought, 'Nah, no way,' but with a nagging suspicion, I focused again, and Renisa added a little more detail.
"That's right. Precisely, it was said to be one knight and a few apprentice knights. They even mobilized a wyvern and wyvern pilot, but all died."
Goosebumps ran down my spine and a chill went through me.
This was about Delt.
They could link their deaths to Demonfolk? And I knew for a fact that the wyvern pilot Gies was still quietly lying low in a small village near Ogwen with Ragnis's help, wasn't he?
Maybe because it was such an unexpected situation, Renisa took my involuntary stiffening as a response to the gravity of the matter and spoke on with an even gloomier face. In fact, the head butler and Sheryl wore expressions like they'd bitten into shit, facing a total mess, so it was hard to fault that assumption.
"That was about the extent of concrete information. There was also talk that they'd found a connection among several recent incidents near the capital, but given the state of the world, it wasn't at a level where one could narrow down what those incidents were."
With that last remark, a heavy silence began to fill the room, but Asilie and I couldn't share even a shred of that grim concern and merely exchanged glances.
The reason was simple. Since we knew the full story of the incident, we couldn't easily decide whether it was right to speak up and lighten the mood, or whether we should keep our mouths shut for now, considering the information might reach the Noble Council.
Isn't there a saying that to deceive the enemy, you must first deceive your allies? We couldn't prove anything right now, so keeping quiet seemed right for the moment.
It wasn't that I didn't trust the people in this room, but just in case, I decided to act on that judgment and first ask how much Ragnis knew.
"Did... Margrave of Levien hear this as well?"
"No. First, I planned to ask for the Ogatorf family's help, then tell her. It's more useful to notify those who can act first."
Renisa was in a situation where she might lose her liege lord twice over, which would be enough to break anyone's spirit, and yet even in such hardship she seemed to be making coldly rational judgments.
Sheryl, who had been quietly watching, suddenly sprang to her feet.
"Eldmia. Let's go to the guild."
"The guild? The Adventurers' Guild?"
"Yeah. If the Noble Council is trying to tie Ragnis to Demonfolk, and as Sir Renisa said they claim to have found connections among recent incidents, there's definitely related information to be had at the guild."
"That... is a valid point."
Indeed, lately the security outside the capital had been more often handled by adventurers than by the army. Sheryl's point was more reasonable than I'd thought.
Just take her and me: she'd gotten tangled up with that Pabaera or whatever his name was, and I'd gotten tangled with Demonfolk in the abandoned dungeon. If there were a few more incidents like that, we could at least get a clue.
"Head butler. What did my father say to you?"
"He ordered me to treat Sir Renisa with courtesy and to do whatever I deemed necessary."
"I'm counting on you. I'll go outside with Eldmia and look for something helpful. I'll go change clothes first."
Sheryl immediately dashed out of the room, and I, still wearing Ragnis's household attire, also got up to change into adventurer's clothing.
Leaving the head butler to talk with Renisa, Asilie, who had gotten up with me, spoke with an uncertain expression.
"Sheryl is kind of... like Eldi."
"In what way, exactly?"
"The way she acts like a firestorm but her situational judgment isn't swayed by emotion? More than that, she has no hesitation in her actions and is full of confidence."
"Trying to put me on the same level as that violent brat, unbelievable."
I responded with genuine incredulity, but Asilie just looked at me with half-lidded eyes.