The Crossroads (6)
The man’s face twisted. “…You’re no ordinary merchant, that’s for sure. What’s your connection to the lord?”
“Now, now, no need for such a scary expression. Hmm, if you’re asking what kind of relationship it is… I wonder how I should put it.”
Chrome struck a nonchalant pose, resting a hand on his chin as if deep in thought. Then he shrugged, as if to say “whatever happens, happens”—or at least make it look that way.
“He said some wicked, lawless bandits had occupied his territory without permission and were causing trouble, so could I do something about it?”
“Bandits? That’s what he called us? How ridiculous! He’s the real bandit here!”
At the man’s heated outburst, Chrome pressed again. “You’re saying the baron is a bandit?”
“That’s right! He’s—” The man started to shout something, then caught himself and shook his head violently. “I’m the one asking questions here! State your identity right now! Otherwise, you won’t be leaving here in one piece!”
“That would only make the baron happy.”
“What?”
Chrome pointed at the carriage. “The young lady inside is from the Magnus family. If something goes wrong and she doesn’t make it back, the baron will be delighted to write a letter. ‘Dear Marquis Magnus, it is with the deepest regret that I must convey this most unfortunate and lawless news. Bandits who have taken root in my territory attacked your daughter, and her whereabouts are currently unknown. I am doing my utmost to apprehend the culprits, but my abilities have proven insufficient…’ Something along those lines. If Marquis Magnus comes storming in with fire in his eyes, won’t that put all of you in a very difficult position?”
The man drew his sword and leveled it at Chrome’s throat. The mana clinging to the blade was a murky gray, tinged with a faint red hue—an indication of either innate talent for martial pursuits or dedicated training in that direction.
“Don’t make me laugh! You people approached us first!”
“Do you have any way to prove that?” Chrome asked calmly, staring not at the blade but at the man holding it. “Whether we approached first or not, whether your actions count as self-defense or not—none of that really matters. If the baron says otherwise, then at least among them, that becomes the truth. Do you really think the high and mighty will bother listening to the excuses of some unidentified armed group?”
“……”
The man fell silent. The others surrounding them began to murmur uneasily. Most of what Chrome had said was bluster, speculation, and distortion, but they had no way of knowing that. If he had come out swinging from the start, they might have fought back with desperate resolve. Instead, by steering everything into a battle of words, he had completely sapped their momentum.
The man asked, “What do you want?”
Chrome answered, “Like I said earlier, I’d like you to tell me about yourselves.”
In the past, there had been a place called the Blue Cotton Village. Whether it was due to the mana-rich soil or some spell cast by a witch from an old tale, the cotton grown around the village produced beautiful blue fibers. The village prospered greatly by selling it as a specialty product.
But while their wealth grew, the land where the cotton was planted gradually became barren. Decades ago, the villagers had reached the point of trembling with anxiety, fearing that if things continued this way, they wouldn’t even be able to grow enough food to feed themselves.
The then-lord of the village, Baron Easton, had been prepared to accept economic losses and drastically reduce—or temporarily halt—the production of “blue cotton.” However, the lords of neighboring territories opposed the idea. This was the farthest frontier of the kingdom, a land with nothing else of note. The only reason people still passed through was because of the blue cotton, and the surrounding territories that served as waypoints benefited enormously from it.
At first they tried to persuade Baron Easton with kind words. Then they offered to supply food at low prices. When that failed, they resorted to outright threats. He appealed to the kingdom for help, but at the time the Spero royal family was locked in conflict with the powerful former royal faction and had no capacity to spare for a remote rural territory. In the end, the baron yielded to the pressure from his neighbors.
Cotton production continued. The surrounding lands turned into wasteland, swept by drifting sand. As the soil’s fertility was exhausted, the once-beautiful blue of the cotton faded, and with it, their income. Yet they still needed money to buy food. The wealth that had once filled their storehouses steadily dwindled. More and more people left the village under various pretexts. The village shrank year by year. Appeals for salvation sent to the kingdom were ignored again and again. Eventually, the neighboring territories even began blocking messengers from passing through.
And the misfortunes did not end there. Whether it was the worsening environment or the starving villagers resorting to eating insects and tree roots they would normally never touch, a plague began to spread through the village.
Baron Easton begged the neighboring lords for help with the desperation of a drowning man clutching at straws. What he received in return were travel bans, sharp blades, and volleys of arrows. Thus the baron’s family and the villagers perished in isolation. Decades passed, and the name of the Blue Cotton Village faded from people’s memories.
“…What a cruel story.”
“They forced sacrifices on others when it suited them, then turned their backs the moment things got difficult. What kind of honorless wretches are they!”
The two agents from the Grand Duchy, who had been brimming with enthusiasm for Plan B—charging out of the carriage and cutting down the bandits if negotiations failed—now gripped their swords in reverse, seething with the desire to execute the lord on the spot.
Frelia Magnus’s face had gone deathly pale. Chase remained silent. Fiore had wiped the usual smile from her face and sat with her eyes closed, as if in prayer.
The man who had introduced himself as Mule Easton, descendant of the former lord’s line, spoke.
“We left the village we loved and wandered the surrounding wastelands, scraping together whatever means we could to survive. It was our parents and us who eventually reclaimed the long-abandoned village and laid the dead to rest. What right does the baron have to claim this land as his own? The sheer shamelessness of it!”
Chrome asked, “Have you ever told Baron Brin this story? Considering the decades that have passed, the baron at the time would have been his predecessor or the one before that. It’s possible the current baron doesn’t even know the truth.”
“We’ve shouted it at the soldiers a few times, but they just called us lunatics. They wouldn’t even listen properly.”
When they refused to stop their “unauthorized occupation” and leave the village immediately, armed soldiers had come charging in, forcing the entire population to relocate to an old hideout their parents had used during the plague. After that, they began a campaign of guerrilla warfare in retaliation—though the term would be unfamiliar to everyone present except Chrome. Shocked by the bandits’ unexpected strength, the baron requested aid from the royal family. Upon learning that the Imperial Academy was collecting incidents for student training, the royal family simply passed the case to the Academy. That was how Chrome’s group had ended up here.
After handing over the supplies spread across the bundle in exchange for the story, the group gathered inside the carriage and resumed their meeting.
Toreo and Ruben spoke first.
“Shouldn’t we report the facts to the Academy and have the request canceled?”
“We can’t cut down innocent civilians.”
Chase countered, “I doubt the Academy will bother considering such circumstances in detail. Besides, I don’t know much about politics, but even if what they’re saying is true, will it actually be recognized?”
Frelia answered with a gloomy expression. “The evidence proving their bloodline as the lord’s descendants is far too weak. More importantly, the royal family of that time bears responsibility for ignoring the pleas for help during the Easton family and village’s downfall. It was also the royal family that later granted the Easton territory to the Brin baron family. So…”
Chrome finished her faltering conclusion. “Even if the story reaches the higher-ups, it’ll most likely be buried. Making this public would only be a nuisance to the royal family. On the other hand, the only ones who would protest if the story were suppressed are a handful of people too insignificant to even be a proper nuisance to a small rural baron family. The Academy isn’t some justice enforcement organization, so there’s no reason for them to get involved.”
A long silence followed. Chrome scratched his head irritably as well.
But how am I supposed to resolve this now?
In truth, Chrome wasn’t at a complete loss. The cloth he had generously given along with the food had been marked with tracking sigils using artifacts extracted from the Cube. If they returned to the village or one of their backup hideouts, locating and eliminating them would be trivial. If he informed Baron Brin, the man would happily gather soldiers. He would never suspect that the people who had listened so sincerely would suddenly stab him in the back. It would be devastatingly effective.
Since the request itself was essentially already cleared, Chrome’s current dilemma was nothing more than a luxury. Some might call it “sentiment” or “humanity.”
Crushing the ones who picked a fight first wouldn’t be a problem, but trampling these people who haven’t actually harmed me and are in the victim position… it just feels unpleasant.
At that moment, Fiore raised her hand.
“Um, how about this?”
“You have a good idea?”
“Well, the problem is that neither the royal family nor the Empire has any incentive to stir up this incident, right? So why not tell it to someone who would want to stir it up?”
“Huh……”
Chrome paused to think. What was this bloodless little sister suggesting? Surely not—
“Hand it over to the former royal faction? Tell them to use it to beat down the new royal faction?”
The former royal faction would be overjoyed. It was a story about how the royal family had ignored a lord who had pledged loyalty and begged for help, then handed his territory over to someone else. The problem was that the Midas family was practically at odds with the former royal faction. On top of that, the young lady of the Magnus family—the core of the new royal faction—stared at Fiore as if she had seen a ghost, trembling violently.
“We don’t actually need to hand over the information.”
And as if savoring everyone’s bewilderment, Fiore smiled.
“The point is, we just need to politely ‘persuade’ them that such a method exists.”