Homecoming (1)
A wet squelch echoed underfoot.
Ostilis Liberatio—Tillis, the Judge—walked across puddles of congealed blood toward the manor. She advanced in an unwavering straight line, cutting down everything that dared step into her path. Those who fled, she did not pursue; those who barred her way were granted no mercy.
By the time she reached the estate, having reduced the fief's armed forces to ruin, silence had already reclaimed the grounds.
"Hm."
The matter was already settled. The hostage had long since been secured, and Viscount Alec was already a cold corpse.
"What transpired here?"
Tillis recalled the lesser demons she had dispatched around the perimeter beforehand. She had drawn Yohan into this ordeal, yet not to test the boy himself. Rather, she had sought to use him to probe the intentions of whatever sinister presence lurked behind him.
"Was the time not yet ripe?"
She could see demons clearly; she could taste the flow of their malice. The demonic aura clinging to Yohan remained no different than before. If anything, it had swollen to the brink of bursting, poised to erupt at the slightest provocation. That was precisely why she had gone out of her way to set the stage for him, yet...
"I suppose we must wait for the next opportunity."
The Judge set the manor ablaze, ensuring not a single trace remained behind in the ash.
A grueling journey spanning three full days and two nights. By the time our carriage finally rattled back to our destination, morning had already broken.
Without Melana around to handle the reins this time, Yuna and I had been forced to take turns driving the horses. The result was pure, unadulterated sleep deprivation.
"What in the..."
After returning the rented carriage and dragging our leaden limbs toward the entrance of the Cradle, we walked straight into an unexpected spectator. She was staring right at us, her expression a portrait of utter flabbergastion.
"A-At this ungodly hour of the morning? Just what on earth have the two of you been doing together until now? N-No, wait! Do not answer that. I heard nothing. I saw nothing!"
It was Princess Lobelia. A young man and a young woman returning together at the crack of dawn, thoroughly disheveled and physically drained... Yeah, fine, I'll admit it. The optics were practically gift-wrapped for a scandal.
"Yuna, keep your mouth shut."
"Mmph-mbbff!"
Refusing to let this misunderstanding spiral into a geopolitical disaster, I immediately clamped my palm over Yuna's smirking mouth. I knew damn well that the moment she opened it, some catastrophic nonsense would spill out.
Unwilling to let such prime mischief slip away, however, Yuna instantly began vigorously licking the palm muffling her lips.
"Mlehhh-blehhh-blehhh."
Ugh, disgusting... Did she honestly think that would make me let go? Clearly, she didn't know me at all. That tactic only works before your hand gets gross. Once it's already drenched in spit, the psychological deterrent loses all its power.
"We simply stepped out to run an errand on Dietrich's behalf, Your Highness. I happen to owe that fellow quite a few favors."
"Dietrich...? Ah, that paladin? Hmmm..."
"If you find it suspicious, you are more than welcome to interrogate him yourself later. My conscience is crystal clear."
"...If you go so far as to say so, then I shall believe you for now."
See? All it takes is a calm, rational explanation. As long as the feral gremlin next to me doesn't chime in with absurdity, problems solve themselves.
"Well then, we will take our leave."
"Y-Yes. Go inside and get some rest."
And with that, I returned to the Cradle.
Dietrich, however, never did clear my name. The bastard never came back.
Look, I get that you're busy running around saving the world, but you could have at least cleared up the scandalous rumors before vanishing into thin air...
A great deal of time passed. Well, in truth, not that much time at all.
The Cradle had yet to shake off the lingering trauma of Under Chain's terror attack, and on the calendar, barely three weeks had elapsed. Yet perhaps because my recent existence had been such an unrelenting grinder, the mere fact that nothing catastrophic had occurred for twenty-one consecutive days felt like an absolute miracle.
"Boring... yeah, boring is the best. Mm."
Had I lost my mind? For a split second, I had almost caught myself thinking this peaceful routine was dull. My brain was clearly pickled in dopamine from too many brush-with-death adrenaline spikes.
"Let's see... this afternoon I'll drop by the alchemy workshop to do some research..."
I skimmed through the schedule jotted down in my pocket notebook. Everyday life had returned, but my to-do list remained mountainous. There was the lingering powder keg surrounding Cult and Eden, not to mention my own personal survival dilemmas.
Information gathering, at least, was proceeding steadily. Unsettling as it felt to deal with her, I had been receiving updates on the internal atmosphere of the Ereticus Marquisate from Cattleya, the guildmaster of Andvaranaut. For now, she seemed keen on maintaining a favorable relationship with me, so leveraging her intelligence network shouldn't pose any immediate danger.
The contingency project regarding an Artificial Heart for Helena, however, was somewhat sluggish. Even a generational prodigy like Emily struggled when forced outside her primary domain of magitech engineering. Still, she was an executive cadre of Ex Machina; I had faith that she wouldn't take too long to engineer a breakthrough.
"Nothing particularly pressing on the docket for today. Maybe I should pay a visit to the library..."
Cattleya's encrypted letter had arrived yesterday, and Emily's progress report had been delivered two days prior. Right now, the only problem requiring my immediate attention was my own magical training.
"Forget that! Come hang out with me instead!"
"Yuna, exams are right around the corner. Aren't you going to study?"
"Unlike you, Yohan, I pay diligent attention during class. Besides, I have zero intention of acing the exams. If I score too high, they might split us into different homerooms next year."
"Doesn't that just mean you're assuming I'll be stuck in Class F again next year?"
"Well, yeah. Aren't you?"
"Fair point..."
I didn't have much confidence in my academic standing either.
"Anyway, if you're just going on a date with Lady Ariel, you should play with me instead."
"I keep telling you, it's not a date. We're studying."
"How is that any different from a date? You two are just gonna be glued to each other the entire time anyway!"
"Still no."
And honestly, what right did she have to complain about clinging when she was the one constantly latched onto me like a barnacle? Ariel was naturally timid and went out of her way to maintain a polite, respectful distance.
Navigating interpersonal relationships was truly exhausting. Especially when making an enemy of either woman was essentially signing my own death warrant. If either of them ever decided to exert their will on me by force, I had zero means of resisting. I don't mean that in an emotional or psychological sense—I mean literally, physically, I lacked the combat power to stop them.
And it wasn't as though I could just tell them to duel it out, either. I had to carefully manage this emotional minefield myself. The ideal outcome would be for one of them to give up on me. No, scratch that. The absolute best-case scenario would be for both of them to wash their hands of me entirely.
Though with Lady Ariel, our families' political entanglements made that impossible. And with Yuna, the problem was that she didn't listen to a single word that came out of my mouth.
"At any rate, I'll hang out with you later, so give it up for today."
"Tch..."
How had my life turned into a perpetual high-wire act over a pit of spikes? Where did it all go wrong? It wasn't even like I was deliberately trying to two-time them. They were just each grabbing onto one of my legs and refusing to let go. Sigh. I suppose being handsome is a mortal sin in itself...
If my dynamic with Yuna felt like wrestling through thick mud, my time with Ariel carried a comparatively fresh, innocent charm.
"You can think of it like this, Lord Yohan."
"Mhm. I think I grasp the concept, at least."
In all honesty, when Ariel and I met up, we did nothing but study. Ariel would whisper soft, gentle explanations beside me, and I would rack my brain trying to decipher actionable comprehension from her abstract musings. Being an innate genius, her teaching style was somewhat disjointed—she routinely skipped half the intermediary steps because they were self-evident to her intuition. Still, even disjointed genius tutoring was miles better than stumbling through advanced theory alone, and my magical training was making steady, tangible headway.
"Come to think of it, Lord Yohan, why do you insist only on Illusion Magic? Do you have a special fondness for it?"
"It's not that I'm fond of it. I suppose I just happened to have some aptitude in that area."
I gave a vague, noncommittal shrug. After all, how on earth was I supposed to explain the truth? Bringing up my ex-fiancée to my current fiancée? Was that some subtle, convoluted euphemism for wanting to commit suicide? I fully intended to take that secret to my grave. And if she ever found out, I'd likely be entering that grave in a very literal, physical sense, so the phrasing wasn't far off the mark.
"Manipulation Magic might be quite nice for you as well, you know?"
"I'll give that a try next time."
For the record, if Ariel's innate ability, Psychokinesis, were categorized within formal spellcraft, it fell under Manipulation Magic. Her underlying motive was transparent as glass. Still, this was cute in its own way. At least she wasn't violently forcing me to learn lethal assassination techniques like a certain someone else.
"Lord Yohan, the first semester is almost over... Do you have any plans for the break?"
"Nothing in particular."
I'd probably just rot in bed in the dormitory, sleeping until noon. Or perhaps haunt the alchemy workshop and poke at my research. I didn't expect it to differ much from my everyday routine. Or wait, maybe it would? Yuna would be around this vacation, so peace and quiet were out of the question. I was already dreading how relentlessly she'd hound me.
"Um... If you don't have anything special planned..."
Ariel hesitated, fidgeting shyly. Seeing her hide her flushed face behind her open textbook, I figured she was working up the courage to make some monumental suggestion. Of course, this was Ariel. At most, she'd ask to go on a proper date or visit some scenic garden in the capital. A cute request like that was easy enough to indulge. I prepared myself to graciously accept.
"Would you... perhaps like to visit the Damus territory together?"
"Of cour—... Pardon?"
The words that tumbled from her lips caught me entirely off guard.
Wait. Why was she phrasing it like she was inviting me to my own home? More importantly: that was terrifying. What business did she have at my house?!
I mean, granted, considering we were officially engaged, visiting the family estate wasn't an absurd suggestion... if it came from my side, that is! How on earth was a guy supposed to react when his girlfriend picked his parents' house as their romantic vacation destination?
"I-I suppose... That sounds fine. It has been a while since I visited home, anyway."
"Then I'll look forward to it!"
Ariel beamed, nodding happily at my assent. Well, who knew? Maybe our families had arranged something behind my back without telling me. Or, just like how our engagement had materialized out of thin air, this whole scheme had originated entirely inside Ariel's own imagination. Given her track record, my suspicions leaned overwhelmingly toward the latter.
"Ahem. Shall we continue studying? As for this magic formula, you see..."
And that was the end of that conversation.
Just in case, I contacted home.
— "That's the first I've heard of this?!"
"Ah. So that's how it is, then?"
Evidently, zero official correspondence had passed between our households. Which meant this had indeed been conceived, drafted, and finalized exclusively inside Ariel's head. She had quite the nerve, casually inviting herself to my family manor. I couldn't tell if she was utterly fearless or just shockingly sociable in the weirdest ways.
Personally, I could never bring myself to ask if I could hang out at the Ether Ducal Mansion. My stomach churned just imagining stepping foot onto that terrifying turf.
"We're going to have so much to prepare..." Count Damus grumbled over the line.
"Ariel doesn't strike me as someone who cares about grandiose formality. Wouldn't it be better to just present things as they normally are?"
"You know as well as I do how ridiculous that sounds even as you say it, don't you?"
"Yes, sir."
Like it or not, our guest was the daughter of a duke. Even if Ariel couldn't care less, we couldn't muzzle the retainers and servants accompanying her. While we didn't need to throw an extravagant gala, we at least had to show that we'd made an effort. Of course, that wasn't my problem. The family could handle the logistics. After all, they were the ones who accepted the engagement in the first place, weren't they?
"Yohan."
"Yes?"
"What are you going to do about that flowerbed?"
"Hmm..."
There was a flowerbed in our backyard. Before coming to the Cradle, I had tended it personally. Nowadays, the servants looked after it.
"It's not like it's something shameful we have to hide. Just leave it be."
"Then you take full responsibility for resolving any issues that come with it."
"Understood."
To be blunt, the security in our estate's backyard was borderline formidable. Back then, I had been somewhat paranoid and unhinged, pooling my meager allowance to install surprisingly lethal security traps. Remember when I once said my backyard would be safer than an imperial outpost? That hadn't been an empty boast.
Then again, Ariel wielded magic rivaling an Archmage. There was virtually no chance petty traps could scratch her. Traps aside, the garden was one of the few scenic sights our modest estate had to offer. Still, I'd better disarm the whole perimeter beforehand just to be safe.
"So, when are you arriving?"
"Barring any unforeseen complications, we'll probably set off next week."
"That soon?! Wait, the semester hasn't even concluded yet!"
"Ah, you haven't heard. We don't have final exams this term, so our break is longer. Under Chain wrecked so much of the campus infrastructure that everything got postponed to next semester."
That was also why our practical field training had been conducted off-campus. For what it's worth, aside from the incident involving Cult and Helena, the rest of the field training had apparently wrapped up without further trouble.
"How am I supposed to know when my own good-for-nothing son never tells me anything?!"
"I didn't think it mattered much."
To be fair, I hadn't originally planned on heading home this vacation. The distance was daunting, and the round-trip travel sounded utterly exhausting. This whole development was strictly the result of Ariel's spontaneous ambush. I was innocent. Besides, was I really in any position to tell her no?
If I had rejected her, there was a terrifyingly real chance Ariel would have marched down to Damus County entirely on her own. I swore on my life that I had taken proactive crisis-prevention measures, not negligent complacency.
"Haaaah... Fine. What's done is done. We'll make it work."
"I appreciate your quick acceptance, Father."
Through the Silver Mirror, the distinct sound of my father violently grinding his molars resonated loud and clear. Tsk, tsk. A man of his age really ought to be more mindful of his dental hygiene.