Declaration of War
Jun had made up his mind, but he never actually ended up running away.
It was not because the situation had taken a turn for the better. Far from it.
Things only spiraled further into the worst possible direction.
“Hahaha. You all seem to get along so wonderfully. It’s a pleasure to see. Don’t you agree, Sir Matthew?”
The squint-eyed man, Ehiri, nudged the knight standing beside him, pressing for a response.
But the knight, Matthew, only stared at Leonard with burning eyes and offered no answer.
“Oh dear, oh dear. Sir Matthew always gets like this whenever he lays eyes on someone strong. It’s truly troublesome. I do worry he might cause some needless incident.”
“Then I’d recommend you leave the village at once.”
“Haha. I’m afraid I can’t do that. I’m here on official business, you see.”
They had tried to throw him out, but of course it was no use.
Jun let out a heavy sigh and looked at Leonard and Robin. With his eyes alone he asked why the two of them were even here.
Leonard, catching the meaning at once, scowled deeply and opened his mouth.
“You just heard him, didn’t you? He’s here on business.”
“Is that really true?”
“It is. He’s come to deliver the coming-of-age congratulatory address written by His Majesty the Emperor.”
“Doesn’t our side—the Labyrinth City and its subordinate villages—usually have an administrator sent by the council handle that?”
“We’ve done it that way for convenience until now, but originally it’s supposed to be an imperial official.”
Which is why we can’t kick them out, Leonard’s glance toward the squint-eyed man and the knight said clearly.
They were enemies, yet they had been officially dispatched by the Empire, so for the moment they had no choice but to tread carefully.
This is the worst.
They were about to have their home base legally reconnoitered by the enemy.
No—reconnaissance might already be finished, and who knew what schemes they had already set in motion.
With Jun, Leonard, and Robin—who knew their true purpose—glued to them, the pair would never have been free to scout or scheme as they pleased.
Only now did Jun understand why Leonard and Robin had been so furious.
They had been too busy playing with the girls and had neglected their watch; of course the men were angry.
Though the fact that the two had been stuck to their own daughters like glue probably weighed even heavier.
While berating himself, Jun pushed Activation and his radar to their absolute limits, sweeping the entire village again and again.
No matter how many times he searched, he found nothing suspicious—no odd details, no suspicious people.
That very emptiness only sharpened his unease.
It meant there might be something even he could not detect.
He was about to scan the village one more time just in case when Ehiri spoke to him.
“Young Jun, what are you thinking about so intently?”
“...Just a lot of things.”
“Does that ‘lot of things’ include the proposal I made earlier?”
“Who knows. What do you think?”
At Jun’s deliberately vague answer, the sharp eyes hidden behind Ehiri’s perpetual squint fixed on him.
It felt as though the man were peeling open his heart; Jun tensed without meaning to.
“Hmm. It seems your thoughts haven’t changed. Young Jun, reconsider carefully. This is a chance to catch the eye of the First Prince himself.”
“I’ve thought it over as many times as you like. I won’t stand by and watch my people get hurt just so I can climb higher.”
“Yet you said you wouldn’t interfere with killing the bastard prince. He’s one of your people too.”
“That’s cause and effect. What I’m trying to protect are the children who got dragged into this unfairly because of him. I already told you that last time.”
With that, Jun rose from his seat and stood face-to-face with Ehiri. He deliberately cooled every emotion before he spoke again.
“So what did he say?”
“Haha. About what, exactly?”
“You reported it, didn’t you? My resolve—to His Highness the First Prince. What did he say? Kill only Leon? Or kill them all?”
Ehiri only smiled brightly and gave no answer.
Jun found the expression utterly repulsive.
It was as if the man were saying, Whatever you think, you’re already in the palm of my hand.
He wanted to wipe that look off Ehiri’s face right then and there. So he leaned in and whispered directly into the man’s ear.
“My guess is he said something like, ‘Some lowly commoner gets a little power and starts acting arrogant—it pisses me off. Let’s just kill the whole lot of them and break their pride in advance so they’ll be easier to use.’ Am I wrong?”
“Hmm∼. Who knows? What do you think?”
Even under Jun’s aggressive tone, Ehiri kept smiling. If anything, the smile grew deeper and more satisfied than before.
He seemed to regard Jun’s hostility as nothing more than a child’s empty threat.
He never even noticed that his slightly quickened heartbeat was already betraying his true feelings.
“Step back, commoner. How dare you stand face-to-face with a noble. Do you wish to die?”
At that moment Matthew remembered his role and issued the warning.
Jun took several steps away from Ehiri and bowed at the waist.
“My apologies, Viscount.”
“Hahaha. It’s quite all right, young Jun. I understand your feelings, so lift your head.”
Jun straightened.
The instant he did, Ehiri thrust his face right up to Jun’s nose.
“Doesn’t it gall you? Aren’t you envious? This thing called a title.”
“With this alone, you would never have to suffer such humiliation again.”
“Do you want it? Then you need only pay a very small price.”
“Stop clinging to useless compassion and seize the opportunity. That is all it takes.”
Ehiri’s whisper slid into his ear like the serpent that once tempted Adam and Eve to eat the forbidden fruit—sweet, insidious, and thoroughly wicked.
Had Jun been alone, he might have been tempted, just a little.
But right now, at his side—
Our Junie, you don’t need to listen to the whispers of a snake like that.
Yes.
—stood his wise angel mama.
With her beside him, Jun was confident he could overcome any temptation.
After all, he was already thoroughly entangled with the walking temptation known as Fortuna.
“So this doesn’t work either.”
Ehiri gave a bitter smile.
Was it only Jun’s imagination that the smile seemed to hold not just difficulty and regret, but also relief and satisfaction?
Somehow he felt it was not imagination at all.
“Dear me, the conversation was so enjoyable I lost track of time. Sir Matthew, let us return to the church. Young Jun, I’ll be looking forward to the coming-of-age performance.”
With those words Ehiri set off toward the church with Matthew.
Then, halfway there, he glanced back and left one last meaningful remark.
“There are quite a lot of torches. Cold, dry weather and this many open flames... it’s the perfect environment for a fire to break out, don’t you think?”
“W-wait, what do you mean by—!”
Before Jun could even ask what that was supposed to mean, Ehiri was already walking again, as if he had no intention of answering any questions.
“What do you suppose he meant by that?”
Leonard approached. His face said he had no idea.
He was not alone; everyone present wore the same expression. Jun was no exception.
“I don’t know. But...”
“But?”
“I can’t just ignore it. We should prepare.”
“It could be a feint meant to make us waste our effort.”
“Still better than doing nothing. Preparation is always better when there’s more of it.”
Jun started walking toward the village entrance—the opposite direction from Ehiri.
“Where are you going?”
“The mountain. Ah, Boss, come with me.”
“Why? What for?”
“I need you to break some ice. If they’re going to play with fire, we’ll answer with water.”
Not long after, Jun shattered the frozen lake deep in the mountains and packed his subspace full to bursting with the ice-cold water beneath.
Unlike every previous coming-of-age ceremony that had proceeded without a hitch, this year’s ran into trouble from the very first moment.
“No way, no way! Someone like me singing a duet with Prince Leon? That’s impossible!”
Five minutes before the ceremony began, the girl chosen as the female lead for the duet with Leon tried to flee (and was caught within a minute thanks to Jun’s efforts).
“Hey! Move further in! There’s space over there!”
“Are you crazy?! How is under the chairs ‘space’?!”
“E-everyone, please calm down!”
The church was bursting at the seams with people who had come to watch (normally only the families of the children undergoing the ceremony attended, but this year nearly the entire village had shown up to see a certain someone).
And once the ceremony actually started—
“Hhk! M-my heart!”
“An angel! An angel has descended!”
“Take me! Please!”
People collapsed at the sight of a certain lightly made-up someone, others cried out for angels, and still others tried to climb onto the stage.
Only after Kate, unable to watch any longer, threw a veil over that someone’s face did the chaos finally subside.
Had she not covered the face in time, the ceremony might well have produced a pile of corpses, fanatics, and stalkers.
Later, when the children’s song began, the beautiful voice that rang out nearly sent the crowd into another frenzy—but mercifully the owner of that voice noticed and switched to lip-syncing halfway through, so no further disaster occurred.
Even so, the people who had been enchanted twice—once by the face, once by the voice—could no longer concentrate on the rest of the proceedings, and the coming-of-age ceremony fizzled out in a half-hearted mess.
“Maybe I should have dialed the plastic surgery back a little...”
“...You’re only realizing that now?!”
“There, there. Our Junie, don’t get so worked up. Calm down.”
“Fortuna, just you wait.”
Jun ground his teeth and gripped his weapon.
Under the moonlight, through the quiet forest, a pack of rat bastards with murder glittering in their eyes raced forward.
His coming-of-age ceremony was not over yet.