Face-to-Face (1)
The New Year's banquet wrapped up in short order.
Viscount Bjorn and the countless other nobles who had taken part in the capture, sale, and illegal trafficking of magical beasts were hauled straight off to prison. Their sentences would be decided once the investigation ran its course.
…And given that the charge was high treason, the only real question left was whether their own heads would roll — or their entire houses' along with them.
No matter how far the nobles of the empire had dragged their heavy selves to gather at the Imperial Palace, not a single one of them felt like dancing a jazz waltz after watching the soon-to-be-purged get dragged out one by one right in front of their eyes. The rest of the nobility cleared out of the ballroom just as quickly.
The Evergarden family, however, remained.
Uttering the name of a magical beast before the Emperor had been a calculated move to flush out a host of traitors — but a matter this grave demanded a thorough investigation. For the time being, they would stay at the palace while the imperial investigators checked for discrepancies in their findings, and whether the Evergardens themselves might have been collaborators turned informants, among any number of other points still to be examined.
Even so, the Evergarden family was nothing like criminals of Bjorn's stripe. They remained as something closer to guests of the Imperial Household.
"Should you require anything at all, please do not hesitate to ask."
"Ah — yes, of course…"
"Then, if you'll excuse me."
And before long, the hour had grown late.
"Holy shit. This is insane."
Rosaria stepped into the guest chamber assigned to her and looked around.
This was where the most exalted personages of the empire lodged, and even the sleeping quarters overflowed with elegance. Plush rugs covered the floors; ornate decorations lined the walls.
"Holy shit…! Is this gold? Did they actually inlay this with gold?"
The bedding itself was embroidered, stitch by painstaking stitch, with gold and silver thread in the pattern of a dragon. It was hard to tell whether she was standing in a guest room or an art gallery.
Sproing—
"Whoa, the cushioning. Whoa… damn…"
Sproing—sproing—
"Whoa-haaat?! Whoa! Whoa, this is sick! Whoa!"
Boing—boing—
The most spectacular feature of all was the bed's absurd cushioning. Merely sitting down was enough for it to cradle her hips in softness; put any real force into it and the rebound launched her clean into the air. Caught up in the sensation, Rosaria found herself bouncing across the mattress the way she used to bounce on a trampoline as a kid.
"Man…! The Imperial Palace is seriously badass, huh? Still — it's my room. Who's gonna see?"
A daughter of a count's house behaving like this was thoroughly undignified, but this was a private room and no one was watching, so she felt perfectly at ea—
"I've been watching for a while now."
"………"
"You're surprisingly pure-hearted."
"Ehk?! Ugh?! Wha? Wha? Wh-who? How? Huh?"
—se, Rosaria had thought, until the gaze of the man staring straight at her from the front nearly made her jump out of her skin.
"Wait — you're that guy from earlier…!"
"Hey. Fancy meeting you again."
"Jin Boricha!"
"……"
"Ah, no? Jin… Jin Bless? Jin Briss?"
"Bores."
"Ahh."
The man was none other than Jin Bores, the one she had crossed paths with at the ball.
"Anyway — mind if I sit?"
"Uh, sure… I mean… no! Before that! How are you even here?"
Jin Bores pushed off the wall he'd been leaning against and started toward her. Rosaria, nearly swept along by that brazen, unapologetic air of his, blurted the question out in a rush.
"I'm being treated as a guest of sorts myself. I was walking around when I heard a familiar sound from outside the door."
"That is a completely inadequate reason for barging in unannounced. And why have you been talking down to me this whole time?"
"Become a Bordergrave head yourself. Then we're even."
"Ugh, annoying. Ah! More importantly — you! You too!"
"That's right. I'm a reincarnator as well."
"Huh…"
And just like that, she had met the eighth reincarnator.
"Is reincarnation really this common?"
"More common than you'd think. There are more of us in this empire than you'd guess."
"So why'd you come looking for me?"
"Figured fellow reincarnators ought to at least say hello. Good to put a face to the name, right?"
"…"
Is he for real…? He's so completely unbothered that it's weirdly convincing…
But more than that… even if I let my guard down, he slipped into this room with his presence so thoroughly suppressed that I never sensed him. What does that mean?
Running into another reincarnator was one thing.
But Jin Bores had entered Rosaria's range of awareness — and she had keen senses — while expertly concealing his presence the entire time. That alone marked him as someone of considerable skill.
"We'll be running into each other plenty from here on. 'That side' stood out a little too much."
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"…You don't need to know right now. By 'about this time,' you should already be meeting them."
"…What are you even talking about?"
"Anyway. See you around."
"Huh? Hey! Wait—!"
Bang—
"…What the hell is that guy's problem?"
Before they could even have a proper conversation, Jin Bores muttered something incomprehensible, said only what he wanted to say, and walked right out.
"But… what did he mean, 'meeting them about this time'?"
"Well then… shall we take a short break before continuing?"
"Yes, that sounds good."
An interrogation chamber in the Imperial Palace.
Freyja was currently being questioned as a key witness in the case. Between the meticulous cross-checking of the incident's precise circumstances, the testimony of those involved, and the prepared documents for any inconsistencies, the session had stretched on into the next day without a moment's sleep.
I hope the children and my husband are all right…
Granted a brief rest from the endless interrogation, Freyja was left alone in the chamber. She stretched lightly, working the stiffness out of a body that had been locked in place for far too long.
We've cleared the biggest peak… but the ones still ahead might be the real problem.
Thanks to this incident, they had finally managed to avert the original story's ending — the destruction of the Evergarden family.
But from here on was the hard part.
They had veered so completely off the original path that, barring the major plot points still to come, the source material would be of little further use. On top of that, House Evergarden had all but publicly declared its support for the Fifth Princess before every noble and member of the imperial family in attendance — which meant the scrutiny and obstruction of rival houses would now demand careful attention as well.
Even as she rolled the tension from her shoulders, Freyja was already mapping out the road ahead.
Then—
Clank—
"…Is the break over already?"
The door to the interrogation chamber opened again far sooner than she had expected after the investigators had left to rest.
But it was not an interrogator who stepped through.
"A pleasure to meet you, Countess Evergarden."
"…I present myself before the sun of the empire."
The man who entered was the empire's Third Prince — Ganix Obina.
"I wished to speak with Countess Evergarden for a moment, so I borrowed a little of your time… I hope that's all right."
"I am most honored, Your Highness."
"Good. Shall we sit, then?"
"Yes, Your Highness."
Ganix Obina…
Even with the Third Prince appearing so abruptly, Freyja offered a flawless greeting and took her seat across from him as directed.
Ganix Obina was a figure of no small importance to her. According to Rachel, he was a reincarnator — a man whose personality had shifted without warning in ways the original story never accounted for, and the prime suspect in the murder of the Ninth Prince. For someone like that to seek her out so suddenly was enough to put even Freyja slightly on edge.
"…No point dressing it up, is there? I'm a reincarnator too."
"…Ha."
She hadn't expected him to drive the point home quite so squarely. A dry laugh slipped out of her before she could stop it.
"Haa… being a prince is nice and all… but it's so damn stifling. Even with power, the second I do whatever the hell I want, people start running their mouths. The original owner of this body should've just lived like a proper bastard — would that have been so hard?"
The gentle, courteous manner that Ganix Obina had worn only moments before — the one the world at large knew him for — was gone without a trace. In its place was a lounging, swaggering air more suited to some street thug. What struck Freyja more than the sudden change in personality was how smoothly he could put the mask on and take it off.
"So. What did you want to say?"
"Whoa… so you've got quite the temper yourself, ma'am? Your whole face just changed."
"Ma'a—!? Ah…! Ha…?"
Ma'am… so that's what I am. A ma'am. Good heavens. Not even a mister — a ma'am…
Ganix's offhand mutter seemed to hit her harder than expected; Freyja gave a small, involuntary flinch.
In his original life he had been in his forties — long past the age of being called "big brother," a middle-aged man well on his way to getting used to "mister." Even after becoming Freyja Evergarden, she had been addressed as madam, mother, wife — titles of that sort. Never once had she been called "ma'am."
I used to wonder why women got so worked up over being called ma'am. Hearing it myself feels like taking a solid hit from something heavy. Not… great. Yeah. I mean, technically I am a ma'am. But it hits harder than being called mister ever did… hmm…
No, wait — people in this world have children young. This body's physical age is early-to-mid thirties, isn't it? Then I'm not a ma'am yet, am I? No… why am I even hung up on this word in the first place? He doesn't seem to care about that sort of thing at all…
Hold on — the thought of him calling me ma'am is absolutely horrifying. Wait… no. Snap out of it. Yes, I'm a woman right now, but I love him — I never wanted to become a woman. So why am I fixating on some worthless little word like this…
But I am a woman right now, aren't I? Wanting to look young for him is only natural for a woman, isn't it? Looked at that way, of course that word would sting. A-and the nights have gotten… heated, too… no, that is not the point right now…
"Ma'am? What's with you?"
"…No. It's nothing. So — what did you want to talk about?"
Ganix's follow-up snapped Freyja back to herself. She composed her expression and looked at him once more.
But beneath the table, the fist she had clenched and hidden was trembling ever so slightly.