Rats and Furballs (2)
"Then we'll leave it at that. I'll see you all tomorrow. Looks like everyone's in for a hard time, haha."
The long council had drawn to a close at last. Father remained behind with a handful of the house heads under his command and the order commanders, laying out additional plans for the monster subjugation. Only after I watched even the last of those commanders offer Father a silent bow and turn away was I able to speak to him.
"Father."
"Edwin."
He turned to look at me, then gave my shoulder a few light pats with his right hand.
"So, how did you find sitting in on your first council meeting? Not too boring, I hope?"
"Boring? Quite the opposite. I'm regretting I didn't start attending sooner. I resent every wasted year I spent acting like a complete degenerate."
"Haha! Degenerate, my foot!"
Father let out a hearty laugh, then proceeded to thoroughly ruffle my hair.
"Listen here. Even the great noble houses generally don't involve their children in family affairs until after they graduate from the Academy. And at your age, I was drowning in drink and chasing women myself."
Father? Considering the man I knew, that was a truly hard story to believe. He might well have invented it on the spot just to comfort me.
"So if anything, you're a little ahead of the curve. Don't take it so hard. What good does it do to regret the years already gone?"
"I'll keep that in mind. More importantly, Father—does the monster subjugation start tomorrow?"
"That's right. It feels a bit hasty, I'll admit, but given the damage reports, everyone agreed we can't afford to delay any further. Spring arriving ten days early means the monsters will have that much more time to breed. The various regions will handle preparing supplies—food, medicine, and the rest—so all we need to do is muster our direct forces. It won't take long. We've decided to pull thirty percent of the personnel from both the Mage Order and the Knight Order."
"The Ratmen and goblins I can understand, but what about that Troll?"
"Well. There were footprints, supposedly, but I don't put much stock in it, to be honest. Would some village farmer have ever actually seen a Troll? Even I only ran into them now and then on expeditions to other territories. The last confirmed Troll sighting in the south was twenty-six years ago, back when your grandfather was still head of House Reed."
"And people reporting giant monster traces based on scuff marks in the rock or a fallen tree—that happens more often than you'd think. Our territory's no exception. The old mountain ranger swears he saw it clearly, but can a man who's already decided in his head that it was a Troll really examine the scene with a cool head? Not with his thoughts in a tangle and his heart hammering in his chest."
Even to me, Father's words seemed reasonably persuasive. He shrugged, then went on.
"That said, there's always the one-in-a-million chance, so we're taking the minimum precautions. That's why we pulled the commanders for this one. Normally, deputy commanders would be more than enough to lead a hunt for lesser monsters, but they said they were bored anyway and wanted to tag along. They must have been itching for a fight."
"Father, I want to go on this subjugation as well."
"…Will you be all right, Edwin?"
"Is there any reason I wouldn't be? By your own account, the odds of running into a Troll are vanishingly small, and both the Knight Commander and the Mage Commander will be coming along. If anything, I figured it was a chance to get some real combat experience without much to worry about."
When I made my intention to go clear, Father put on a deliberately grave expression.
I needed experience. If I thought about the future waiting for me, I might have to kill countless monsters, demons—even people.
But the moral compass I lived by was not of this world, and the Edwin from before I recovered my memories had never killed a thing. At most, I had swatted mosquitoes, or watched a pig being slaughtered from a distance.
I would receive similar instruction once I returned to the Academy, but this was the sort of thing you wanted to grow accustomed to as quickly as possible. And in that sense, joining a hunt for humanoid monsters like goblins or Ratmen would be excellent experience. If the first life I ever had to take was a human being, that would be far too cruel a thing to ask of myself.
"…Hmm."
Father pondered for a moment, then spoke as if he had made up his mind.
"Well, your reasoning isn't without merit. All right. I'll permit you to accompany the subjugation. But promise me this. You will not do anything reckless. You need to remember that this is your first real battle."
"I swear it. I'll just trail along at the soldiers' heels and nothing more."
"What? Haha, you little—!"
He'd caught that I was joking, and Father burst into another hearty laugh. Setting that aside, I decided it was time to bring up what I had actually come to say.
"Father, there's something else I'd like to discuss."
"Go on."
"The grain surplus that came up as the last item on the agenda. I think I might be able to find a solution."
"What?"
"I'm not certain. There are things I heard while living at the Academy, and on the way down here. Either way, wouldn't it be better if we had a way to dispose of the wheat without dumping it or selling it for next to nothing? Once this subjugation is over, I was thinking of taking a trip for about a week. It might take a little longer. While I'm out, I'll tour the territory as well, and look into that method I mentioned. Would you give me your permission?"
Hearing this, Father's composure seemed to slip for a moment; bewilderment and suspicion mixed on his face.
The part about picking up stories here and there was only to be expected, but I had simply made it up. I couldn't possibly explain the plan in my head to Father, and even if I tried to fabricate a fake one in detail, he was not the kind of man who would fail to poke holes in it. The best I could do right now was to be vague and pray that his boundless trust in his newly reformed son would kick in.
"…Edwin."
He was looking at me with a serious expression now.
"This method of yours… it doesn't involve dealing with the darker side of things, does it? I don't want you putting yourself in danger over something like that. Yes, we're taking a loss at the moment, but it's not a crisis that would make our territory teeter. There's no need for you to go through hardship over a bit of wheat."
Father seemed to think I might be mixed up in something like smuggling. And that was, in fact, a reasonable inference. By ordinary thinking, there wasn't any other sharp solution to be found.
That the method I had come up with might actually be even more dangerous was a secret I could never tell him.
"Don't worry. I haven't given that sort of thing so much as a passing thought. I only meant to go confirm whether the possibility exists. And besides, this is a matter that could cost the family. Isn't it only natural for the heir to roll up his sleeves and step in?"
"…If that's all it is, then fine. I'll give you my permission. Go do whatever you want and come back."
Once I made my bold declaration, Father finally seemed to relax a little.
With his permission granted, I could now proceed with my plan without reservation. By the time the subjugation starting tomorrow wrapped up, the Holy Water I had requested from the Church in advance would have arrived as well.
So far, everything still felt like it was falling into place. It would be wonderful if it kept feeling this way.
"Young Master, doesn't the horse seem to be having a rather hard time? That's the biggest brute in the whole Knight Order, and I've never seen it dragging its feet like that."
"Shut it, Lorel. We're on a subjugation. Is the commander supposed to be making small talk?"
"Haha, you really think there are monsters wandering a highway like this, at sunrise no less? If they were that stupid, they'd have gone extinct long ago. And then they wouldn't be bothering us like this, would they?"
"That's not what I meant… Sigh. Forget it."
Early the next morning, on the road from the main castle to the assembly point, Knight Commander Lorel Hart had been talking nonstop at my side for two hours.
Lorel was of fallen nobility. She had wandered as a knight-errant until she caught Father's eye years ago and joined our house, and recognized for her ability, she had risen to Knight Commander in no time—something of a self-made legend. On top of that, she boasted striking, flowing golden-blond hair and a mature, striking beauty, making her a celebrity that no one in our territory didn't know.
If a woman of such talent and looks had a single flaw worth mentioning, it was her habit of needling people and picking fights with that mouth of hers.
"But Young Master, I distinctly heard you were suspended. Just what did you do all the way at the Academy to earn a punishment like that? Flip some demure young lady's skirt from the capital? And why do you look like death warmed over? What kind of shock does it take to change a person so much they'd tag along on a subjugation they never gave a damn about in their life? I can't stand not knowing. Won't you just give me a straight answer?"
"Please, Lorel. I told you to shut up. Why in the world did Father make someone like you Knight Commander?"
Lorel's gift of gab was living proof of the rough, hard life she had led before joining our house. She didn't discriminate by rank, and it wasn't once or twice that a single remark of hers had frozen the atmosphere even at important gatherings between allied houses. And even Edwin, the heir of the house she served, was no exception.
She had unleashed that gravelly mouth of hers on the wastrel-era Edwin whenever they crossed paths. Unlike everyone else, she never flinched, and she wasn't someone he could overpower with skill either. To him, she had been nothing short of a natural enemy.
Even now, with my memories restored, it didn't seem like much had changed.