Count Marsh
Ever since I crossed the border into the Eskart Empire, I’d felt it, but the difference from the Gidum Empire was unmistakable.
First of all, the atmosphere was different.
Unlike the Gidum Empire, where everything felt sharp enough to cut, the Eskart Empire had a freer air about it.
Of course, Gidum was probably on edge because war was looming, but even setting that aside, Eskart still seemed looser, somehow.
Gerik, the know-it-all, had explained it to me.
Unlike the Eskart Empire, where pure-blooded humans lived together, an empire founded by demons with different cultures and appearances had no choice but to maintain a much stricter order.
In the distant past, demons had been enemies of humanity, and at the same time, the different races had spent ages squabbling with one another and carving up territory like children fighting over land.
The current Emperor of Gidum had put an end to those petty conflicts, united the demon races, and founded the Gidum Empire to mark the end of the human-demon war.
In other words, the Gidum Empire itself wasn’t all that old.
That was why its order was even more rigid, and its atmosphere so hard-edged and severe.
By contrast, the Eskart Empire had a long history. Its citizens had learned through experience where the lines were, and that understanding had become part of their culture, leaving the place rather noisy and bustling.
The capital, Erendia, was different.
With its refined streets and grand air, nobles dressed differently from those in Gidum, and even people who were obviously slaves at a glance, it was a city full of things that made me think, yes, this really was a different country from Gidum.
But I couldn’t savor that feeling for long.
No, there was no need to. I’d be operating around here for a while anyway, so I could take it in little by little. Right now, I needed to collect the money for my life—and the extra gratitude fee for handing over the greatsword and saving Gerik’s hide.
Though before that, I had to receive the reward for the request itself.
“Thank you so, so much. If it hadn’t been for all of you, I would have... oh, I don’t even want to imagine it. Truly, truly, I’m grateful. If anything ever happens and you find yourselves needing a merchant guild, please come visit the Magnic Merchant Guild anytime. I’ll personally take care of you all. Hahaha!”
Guildmaster Palman had expressed gratitude with what amounted to the limits of human sincerity and handed us a generous reward.
It was twice the originally promised amount. In other words, Sera received 50 silver coins, and I received 80.
“Do you even know how much that is? With this kind of money, you could spend a whole year doing nothing but eating and lazing around! A commoner barely scrapes together 50 silver coins in a year! Which means I’ll have to live like a commoner, but hey, wasn’t I a commoner before too?”
He also said that if you wanted to earn that much from a single request, you’d normally have to reach at least Silver Rank and take on a large-scale merchant escort job.
It was a sum that clearly reflected Guildmaster Palman’s sincerity, but Gerik seemed more focused on the fact that he’d gained the goodwill and trust of the Magnic Merchant Guild, with a count of Gidum behind it.
Holding the Magnic Merchant Guild plaque in his hands, he smiled with visible satisfaction.
“This is the kind of precious connection you can’t buy with money or time. Thanks to you, Lulu, I think my adventurer life might finally start looking up. Thank you. Truly.”
Even I thought so. Sera, on the other hand, only seemed to care about the money.
Of course, there was one person who didn’t care about any of that at all.
“Great and splendid magician Lulu! I had a good experience thanks to you! Let’s meet again next time if we get the chance! Then I’ll be the one who saves the great and splendid magician Lulu!!”
“Wise and noble Sir Kairon, safe travels.”
“Yeah! May the blessing of the journey be with you!!”
“And may the blessing of the journey and tools be with Sir Kairon as well.”
While Gerik went to see Kairon off, I mulled over the reward I’d just received.
If 50 silver coins was a commoner’s yearly income, then monthly wages came to about 4 silver coins. That matched the value of Orphan Lulu perfectly.
I had learned the price of one Orphan Lulu.
As I was feeling oddly pleased with that thought, Sera came closer and whispered,
“Why are you smiling like that?”
“Was I smiling?”
“Yeah, pretty contentedly too. So why were you smiling?”
“I was pleased to learn the price of Orphan Lulu. It seems a little cheap for a person, but if you think of it as a toy nobles would play with, it actually feels pretty expensive. Though at this rate, wouldn’t even commoners be able to afford one? If the upkeep is too much, they could always resell it. Would something that’s been sold once count as used goods?”
Gerik, who had returned after seeing Kairon off, and Sera, who’d been standing beside me, both went dark in the face.
“...Well, uh, for starters, even in the Eskart Empire, keeping slaves is illegal.”
At Gerik’s words, I blinked.
“Then what are all those non-alchemists wandering around over there?”
“There are always beggars in a capital, too.”
“I see. I was making rude assumptions.”
After learning that orphanages were the sort of place they were, I’d naturally assumed the Eskart Empire must have a slave system.
Apparently it didn’t have one openly, but simply turned a blind eye and hushed things up. Well, what else would you expect from nobles? If corruption is involved, it’s always nobles.
“Let’s leave the heavy talk there and get going.”
“Reward!”
Sera, who’d been looking at me with tears welling in her eyes, sprang back to life.
“Right, the reward. First, let’s go to my house. It’s not far from here.”
“Huh? Gerik, your house is in the capital?! What? You’re not actually a noble, are you? Huh? If you’re a noble, tell me now so I can run away! Lulu! You get ready to run too!”
“Yes.”
“We’ll see about that once we get there. First, eat this.”
“Oh! It’s honey rice cake! When did you buy this?”
“On the way back after seeing Kairon off.”
“Wow! I’ll enjoy it!”
“Thank you for the meal.”
*****
“—And so, if they hadn’t been there, I would have died. They’re the ones who saved my life. They’re also the benefactors who recovered my teacher’s keepsake.”
“You don’t need to say it quite like that. I was going to take care of them anyway. Why do you keep adding all these extra words, Gerik? Could it be you don’t trust me?”
“It’s because Your Lordship is so narrow-minded.”
“Good grief. Do you have to smear my face in front of your benefactors? No matter how much you’re my own flesh and blood, remember that I’m still a count.”
How in the world had things turned out like this?
By the time I came to my senses, Sera and I were already inside Count Marsh’s manor, drinking black tea.
Sera and I had only been eating the food Gerik gave us as we came. We’d simply been walking along, carefully picking out the bones from the last thing he gave us.
And then, somehow, we’d made eye contact with Count Geor Marsh, somehow exchanged greetings, somehow learned that Gerik’s older brother was Count Marsh, somehow been led into his manor, and somehow ended up eating tea and cookies.
When I stole a glance sideways, Sera was already dead on her feet. I blinked for a long time, then finally looked across the table at Count Marsh.
Geor Marsh.
As if he’d been waiting for it, he said,
“You are Miss Lulu, I believe.”
His polite speech was gentle.
Given how much of a rogue he looked, the courtesy made him seem a little awkward.
Besides, the man in front of me was Count Geor Marsh. It was strange, in a way, for someone of his rank to speak so formally to a mere adventurer.
Is he just that kind, or is he drawing a line?
Probably the latter.
Those narrow eyes were proof enough.
As a wise alchemist, I didn’t put much stock in physiognomy, but I did firmly believe that squinty-eyed people were suspicious beyond belief.
Every squinty-eyed character in every medium was suspicious, sometimes evil, and always hiding something.
Thinking that way, Count Marsh’s polite manner fit his impression perfectly.
He was nothing if not a suspicious non-alchemist.
“Yes, I’m Lulu.”
“I was told that the benefactor who saved my younger brother was a magician, but now that I see you, you don’t seem to be one. If anyone here looks like a magician, it would be the lady seated beside you, Sera. Am I correct?”
Sera, who had been standing dead, jolted back to life with a twitch. Then, still clutching my sleeve under the table, she began trembling all over.
I shot Gerik a suspicious look.
Gerik gave a small nod. Then Geor, seated beside him, opened his mouth.
“Please put your mind at ease. There is no need to suspect the person who saved my younger brother.”
“Yes, I’m not the magician. Sera is the magician.”
After saying that, I glanced at Gerik again.
He tilted his chin slightly, as if to say I could go on if I wanted.
Could I trust this or not?
After a brief moment of hesitation, I said,
This was less about trusting Geor and more a decision made because I trusted Gerik.
“I’m actually an alchemist.”
Geor’s hand trembled faintly.
I watched his reaction, then added,
“I don’t plan to stay in the manor for long. Once I receive what Sir Gerik is giving me, I’ll leave immediately.”
Beside me, Sera nodded furiously.
“Thank you for telling me something so important, but is your intention to leave because you’re worried we might get dragged into trouble?”
“Yes.”
“Ha... You needn’t worry. Who would dare attack the manor of a count’s house?”
Geor sipped his tea with a relaxed air.
“Even if someone did, I promise that our House Marsh would make sure none of you came to harm.”
“Was helping Sir Gerik really such a serious matter that House Marsh would have to risk itself over it?”
“Gerik’s life is certainly important. But there is something even more important than that.”
Geor took a sheet of parchment from within his robes.
It was a parchment inscribed with a complex formula about the size of a palm, and when Geor poured mana into it, it immediately began to glow.
And then, about ten seconds later.
The chocolate chip cookie on the table split apart into chocolate chips and cookie.
It was unmistakable disassembly.
“Disassembly!”
Before I knew it, I shouted, then clapped a hand over my mouth in shock.
Sera, too, flinched beside me.
Geor gave a low laugh and nodded.
“I believe that proves it sufficiently.”
“You’ve studied alchemy?”
“Indeed.”
So that was why Gerik had accepted my identity without much resistance, even after learning who I was.
It probably made sense. If his own older brother was a great and accomplished alchemist, then yes, that would explain it.
“Wow...”
Look at the conviction radiating from those eyes beneath his narrow lids. Any fool could tell he had the wise, sagely gaze of an alchemist.
From the way he sat to the way he lifted his tea, he had that certain something unique to an accomplished alchemist.
So that was why I’d felt an instinctive desire to trust him. As expected, I had not been wrong.
“But how did you study alchemy? It’s forbidden by imperial law, isn’t it?”
“As I said, who would dare attack a count’s house? Not even the imperial family would find such a thing easy to undertake.”
“Wow... That’s incredible.”
“Of course, I can’t display it openly outside, so I’ve been careful in many ways. Balancing the sword and alchemy is rather difficult.”
There was a kind of coolness to it, like some secret society.
If I ever earned a noble title myself, would I get to possess that sort of coolness too?
Delicious potions, aerial bombardment golems, a giant transforming combined Tyrannosaurus, and so on. Among my many bucket-list items, becoming a noble had just been added to the list.
“Sword and alchemy... That’s so cool. But how did you come to study alchemy, Count Marsh?”
“There is someone I must avenge. In order to take revenge on that person, I had no choice but to step into alchemy myself. I needed to understand alchemy, and I needed to seize that opportunity. Our grandfather... when he was still alive, he happened to have been a high alchemist, so access to it was easier than it would have been otherwise.”
His grandfather had been a high alchemist.
That meant the current House Marsh was a great lineage with the blood of a high alchemist flowing through it.
No wonder Gerik had been able to live so easily with them; there was a reason for everything. It was, in other words, the kind of attraction you feel at the cellular level.
“Revenge, then. I’ll help you.”
When Geor heard that, he blinked, then burst into laughter.
“You don’t even ask who it is and say that? I see. So you, too, Miss Lulu, share my purpose.”
Same purpose? What was he talking about?
Now it was my turn to blink.
Geor waved a hand as if to tell me not to worry and continued,
“There are no listening ears here, so you may speak freely. You didn’t come to the empire twisting the flow of mana just to take revenge, did you, Miss Lulu? I, too, have the same person as my enemy.”
Sera and I exchanged a look.
Sera wore that uniquely blank expression of hers, the one that said she had absolutely no idea what was going on.
I had no intention of relying on a non-alchemist for help.
It seemed like the moment to use the skill I’d honed back in Valag City: answering with perfect tact.
With a calm face, I nodded and said,
“That’s right. I’ve gotten into the habit of being careful with my words, since you never know who might be listening or where, so I just end up being cautious automatically.”
Geor’s expression softened considerably, and he began sending me both trust and pity.
I understood the trust, but pity?
With that question in mind, I opened my mouth.
“What happened to you, Count Marsh?”
“My grandfather was murdered in the most horrific way.”
Geor ground his teeth and continued,
“By that third calamity bastard who deserves to be torn apart and put to death.”
Well, there it was.
Squinty-eyed, polite nobleman that he was, he too was hiding suspicious, evil, razor-sharp intent behind that courteous face of his.
And he practiced both swordsmanship and alchemy.
What an arrogant idea. Alchemy should exist alone, whole and holy. It was not something to be learned in tandem with a sword.
I knew it.
As an alchemist sharpened under Aaron’s tutelage, my judgment never failed.
While I offered my thanks to my master once more, Gerik spoke.
“That’s also why I went all the way to the Gidum Empire this time.”
“Was there a rumor that the Third Calamity was in the Gidum Empire?”
“Rather than that, I heard a rumor that the Third Calamity’s disciple was in the Gidum Empire.”
“Hic.”
Sera let out a hiccup.
“As you can see, I returned without any results, regrettably. It would have been nice if I’d at least found his destination... What a shame. Well, of course, if I’d merely stopped by and obtained solid information, I wouldn’t be a Copper Rank adventurer, now would I? Hah.”
“Rather than finding information, you nearly died. Didn’t I always tell you? You’re not even fit for Copper Rank.”
“Still, we did find a valuable connection, did we not? So it wasn’t a total loss, Brother. Hahaha!”
“Yes, that’s true. Indeed it is. A very precious connection, hahahaha!”
Hah-ha-ha.
The brothers laughed together, like they were getting along beautifully.
Hic-hah-ho-hah.
Sera laughed along just as hard.
Since she kept poking my side while laughing, I went ahead and laughed too.