It's Burdensome
The people around Duke Reinhardt had begun, little by little, to drift away from him. The air rising off him was anything but ordinary.
"Reinhardt... are you quite alright?"
"...."
Things had gotten so bad that even Rniel—who never missed a chance to tear into him whenever their paths crossed—was studying the color of his face. That alone was proof enough of how grave his condition had become.
It was a far cry from his usual self, the man who met everything with a statue's blank face and a block of wood's silence. His face stayed contorted, showing no sign of smoothing over, and from his trembling fists, drops of blood fell one after another.
"Ah... ahem, the wind in here is rather—"
"...Haha, it's true, something does seem to be weighing on him—"
One noble after another around him cleared their throats and made themselves scarce. None of them wished to provoke a temper that already looked bad enough as it was.
"Haha, what a remarkable child, isn't he? Who would dare call that boy a stain on his house now?"
"Th... that is so, Your Majesty..."
"In... indeed..."
But the Emperor had no reason to care about any of that. However weakened the throne might be, he was still the master of this realm, and no one existed who would raise his voice at the Emperor's words or dare refute them. There were only those who nodded along—nothing more.
"That the Empire should have produced such a child—don't you find it tremendously commendable? Almost too delightful for words?"
"Y... yes, Your Majesty."
"Hahaha. I find myself quite at a loss as to how I should reward him..."
Did the man even realize what he was doing? Watching the Emperor prattle on without a care in the world, Duke Reinhardt felt as though his insides were twisting themselves apart.
...How? Just how?
It was one of the first thoughts that had surfaced in his mind when he heard the Emperor's words. His own eyes could not have been wrong. That boy—Jenison—had been weak. Unmistakably so.
Part of it was that his talent was of no use whatsoever in combat. But more than that, the boy simply never made the effort. He was the sort who treated his sword training as something beneath his notice. He had no inborn gift for the blade, either—one-handed sword, two-handed sword, none of it. Look at him however you liked, there was not a single corner of that deficient boy in which growth could take root.
He was nothing like his son Allen, who wielded a sword as though born to it, raw talent carrying him every step of the way. Nor like his daughter Aria, so exceptional in the field of magic that her name rang out far and wide. Set beside those two, the boy was no genius—he was a dullard, plain and simple.
And so he had chosen him. A scapegoat, for the family's sake. A pity, he had told himself, but there was nothing to be done. The future of the house mattered more than his own feelings. To bear the name of head of a ducal family meant precisely that.
...Then why? Why has it come to this?
The child he had cast out was now the story rising and falling from the Emperor's own lips—and not just any story, but a tale of heroism no one could afford to dismiss.
Had he misjudged? Should he not have thrown the boy away? He had cast him out for the family's sake—so how could casting him out for the family's sake have been wrong?
...Dad.
Amid the flood of thoughts filling the Duke's head, a woman's voice rang out. His daughter, whom he had raised like a treasure—unlike Jenison, overflowing with talent. Aria's voice.
"...Dad."
"Hmm? Aria. Come in."
A voice reached the Duke as he wrestled with a mountain of documents in his study. It was his daughter, Aria. For reasons he couldn't quite name, her voice was steeped in grim resolve.
"...Aria. Have you been crying?"
"...Dad. No—Duke Reinhardt... I need you to answer one thing for me."
"...Very well. Ask, and I shall answer anything."
A voice on the verge of tears, and eyes already red as though she had been weeping. And the fact that she had called him Duke Reinhardt instead of Dad. One look at her was enough to tell him she had come carrying something grave, and his voice lowered of its own accord.
"Dad... what did you do to my brother?"
And the subject she had brought was one he had never anticipated.
"What are you talking about, Aria?"
"...You're going to pretend you don't know?"
"If something has happened to Allen, your brother—"
"Father."
The tremble from moments before was gone; Aria's voice rang out, noticeably lower. Was it just his imagination that her red eyes looked redder than ever today?
"You know... that isn't what I'm talking about."
"...I haven't the faintest idea."
"I... I heard everything."
"...."
"Now I finally understand—why you reacted the way you did, back when I went to my brother's room."
"...."
"And why Ella, who was always trailing after my brother, was so sharp with you."
Unable to bear the sight of the tears finally spilling from her eyes, he buried his face in his documents. Eyes screwed shut, lips pressed into a thin line.
"...I suppose it's true, then. Seeing as you have nothing to say."
"...Aria."
"How... how could you do that to him?"
At last, tears streamed down from Aria's wide eyes—hot and clear, at once suited to and at odds with those scarlet irises.
"...It was necessary. For the family."
"Is the family that important?! Important enough to throw away your own child?!"
"...."
"I... I respected you. You were the one person I never stopped respecting...!"
"...."
"As of today, I don't think I can anymore. I'm sorry, Fath... Duke Reinhardt."
As though sealing some great resolve, she corrected the title she used for him—and no more words passed between them. Aria had stormed out, slamming the door behind her.
He did not regret it—it had been for the family's sake. And he would feel no regret in the future, either. That much, he had been certain of.
Haha. Now that's a face I've never seen before, Duke.
The Emperor, Siegfried Frabel, was watching Duke Reinhardt stand there trembling, unable to force out a single word—and he was thoroughly delighted.
In the Empire as it stood, where imperial authority lived under the constant threat of the Four Great Families, the dreaded thing had failed to occur: Reinhardt's power had not grown one bit larger.
An unexpected windfall, this.
A face that had never once cracked. A body that had never offered so much as a proper reaction. Watching it all come undone like this was, he decided, quite a pleasing sight.
Jenison... was it Jenison?
And with that thought, his curiosity was stirred. How had a boy not yet grown to manhood—one who, until recently, had worn the title of delinquent, the sole stain on his house—managed a feat of this magnitude?
"Your Majesty? Is something the matter?"
"Ah, Leindel. There you are."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"...Hmm."
Before him stood the Golden Knight, Leindel—Knight Commander of the Imperial Household, and a powerhouse whose reputation was no idle boast.
"Leindel."
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"Could you do it?"
"I'm afraid I don't take Your Majesty's meaning."
"I mean this: could you—yes, you—have killed the monster that single-handedly turned the Great Forest into a wasteland, at the age when you'd have been in the thick of your Academy years?"
"...."
His deliberation did not last long. The eyes he had shut, as if to give the question a moment's thought, opened again almost at once.
"Yes."
"...."
"I believe I could."
"Hahaha!! That's the spirit! That's what a knight of the imperial house ought to be!"
Hearing his answer, the Emperor let out a hearty laugh and turned his steps elsewhere—toward Azakh, the minister in charge of the Empire's foreign affairs.
"Azakh."
"...Yes, Your Majesty. You called?"
"You hold the authority, do you not? The authority to go to the Great Forest."
"...But Your Majesty, to travel to the Great Forest at a time like this could invite misunderstanding—"
"Worry yourself with none of that. You need only go unarmed."
"...."
"Your business in that place consists of exactly two things."
"Command me, Your Majesty."
The Foreign Minister bowed his head directly before the Emperor. It was more than enough to draw every eye and ear in the hall. Everyone strained to catch the words about to leave the Emperor's mouth—in a silence that had gone dreadfully still.
"First, feel out the Great Forest's intentions. Whether they mean to keep up friendly relations with us from here on."
"...Though, from their standpoint, if only to guard against any future incursion—"
"Of course. That is merely the reason on the surface."
The Emperor cut in midway through Azakh's reply, just as the man moved to say he could already guess the outcome—red cape billowing.
"What matters is that you ask the Great Forest whether they would share their intelligence with us—and whether they would form an alliance."
"...I beg your pardon?!"
"Y-Your Majesty... how...!"
"An alliance—with those arrogant wretches?!"
Several nobles nearby, who had been eavesdropping on the exchange with great diligence, shot to their feet. An alliance with those arrogant creatures was unthinkable, they cried. The Empire's strength alone was more than sufficient, they insisted, and the losses an alliance brought would outweigh whatever it gained. They strained with all their might to push back against the Sun.
"They will agree to the alliance, I assure you. To them as much as to us, these things are nothing short of mortal enemies."
"...."
"And with the Holy Church and the Great Forest both struck, who is to swear the Empire will be spared?"
"...."
"If only to shield the common folk and prevent innocent bloodshed, we must tear these things out by the root—and as quickly as possible."
But no mere human voice could ever reach the Sun. There was nothing for it but to obey, quietly and completely.
"I... I shall carry out your command."
"Good. And the second matter..."
"Yes."
"You know the child I mean, don't you?"
"...Whom do you refer to, Your Majesty?"
"The child who no longer carries the name of Reinhardt—the one who has become the hero of the Great Forest."
Far across the hall, Duke Reinhardt's head turned—by the barest fraction—but the smile at the Emperor's lips never faded.
"I find myself wanting to see that child, just once. You can pass the message along, yes?"
"...!"
If that smile had angled, ever so slightly, toward the Duke—well, that must have been everyone's imagination.
"...And that is how it came to pass."
"...Haha."
"I honestly can't remember the last time the Emperor took a personal interest in anyone. Can you?"
"...."
"So? How does it feel, having the entire Empire's attention on you?"
The Pope asked with the air of a man who genuinely couldn't guess, and the corners of his mouth showed no sign of coming down. That smile of his—so detestable I honestly wanted to put a fist through it—was aimed straight at me.
How do I feel? Wasn't that obvious?
"...Rather burdensome, actually."
"Hahaha!!"