Southern Border Diorama (3)
I read the word written at the very bottom of the letter.
"Friend?"
Did I even have anyone I could call a friend?
I turned the thought over in my mind for a moment. Not much came to mind.
The only time I ever called anyone a friend was back at the merchant academy.
And that was well over five years ago now. The most I could claim these days were the sons of other merchant guilds, people I'd lost touch with entirely — the sort one might, generously, still label 'friends.'
We're hardly close enough for them to send me a letter like this out of nowhere.
I stared at that awkward word again. After 'friend,' not even a name was written. Just in case it was on the envelope, I flipped the letter over and over, examining it from every angle.
And then something struck me as odd.
"There's no postage stamp. And no seal from the postal authority, either."
To send a letter to someone far away, you were supposed to go through the Royal Post Office. It was the fastest and most reliable method. Stick a stamp on the letter, have your parcel certified as free of any prohibited content, and done.
Every last document I'd ever received from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had come through the Royal Post Office.
Which means you can deduce where a letter came from, and the sender's status, just by looking at the stamp affixed to it.
This one had none of it. Quite literally, a letter from an unknown source.
And yet here it was, tucked in among the official paperwork from the Foreign Ministry.
"Hmm..."
A situation like this came down to one of two possibilities. Either someone with access to the Southern Border Immigration Office itself had placed it directly on my desk — or the sender was someone capable of bypassing the Royal Post Office's procedures entirely.
Neither option was particularly pleasant.
Worse, no certification mark means someone might have done something to it.
Unidentified parcels were ominous things. I turned my head and called out to the Hearing Officer, who was still nearby.
"Hearing Officer. Would you mind checking whether this letter gives off any kind of feeling?"
"This one?"
As an elf, she would be able to detect mana even if the letter carried a curse. The Hearing Officer came over and pressed her fingertip to the paper.
A faint shimmer flickered with a hum of mana. She shook her head.
"No, there's nothing. No magic on it at all."
"Is... that so?"
"Completely clean."
Her words put my mind at ease.
At least it's not a terror attempt.
After what I'd been through these past few days, I felt like I needed to watch out for falling leaves. My right jaw, still where that shapeshifter had kicked me, throbbed dully.
But if the Hearing Officer had certified it, there should be no problem in reading it. So I read through it slowly.
[Hello. I am your friend. It is nice to meet you.]
[The words you spoke that day were a truly great strength to me. No one had ever said such things to me before.]
[I want to know you more. I am writing this in secret so my mother will not find out. I hope this letter reaches you.]
[Someday, please tell me your story. I will write mine soon.]
[From your friend.]
A first line as if written by a small child. Not a trace of formality anywhere. The letter was pressed down heavily, stroke by deliberate stroke, so earnestly that I could almost see the writer straining to form each letter clearly — that effort was striking.
I kept reading.
"That day...?"
I tilted my head. When was that day? And what exactly had I said?
There was no information whatsoever. I pressed on anyway.
And that was the end of it. No identifying details of any kind — just whatever happened to spill out of the writer, dumped onto the page. I frowned.
"What on earth is this?"
There had always been the type who slipped coins or small precious metals into a letter alongside a subtle request. A merchant guild asking me to turn a blind eye just once because one of their shipments happened to contain a restricted import item. A noble from some country or another, collecting rare treasures, asking me to let in an unlicensed artifact.
It happened once or twice a month. Requests like that came to me, and to the Five Senses Officers, all the time.
Thankfully this isn't the office from Gerard's days, so everyone's been cutting them off without mercy.
But a letter like this one — one that targeted me precisely and wrote only whatever the sender wanted to say — was a first.
An adolescent love letter would probably be less awkward than this.
It felt like something written by someone staggeringly clumsy with words. rambling content, an abrupt ending — everything. At least, among the people I knew, no one was this hapless.
Unless, maybe, the Taste Officer.
But if the Taste Officer had something to say, she'd come find me in person and say it. So who on earth...?
Then a phrase from the middle of the letter caught my eye again.
— I am writing this in secret so my mother will not find out.
A frank, unguarded description of the writer's own circumstances. For whatever reason, those words meant she was being watched by her mother.
"In secret from her mother, huh..."
Someone who knew me. Someone under her mother's surveillance. And someone to whom my words that 'day' had given real strength...
In that instant, one ominous name flashed through my mind.
"Ah."
No. It couldn't be.
Is it — is it Princess Elaine Castor?
I shook my head quickly.
"No. That's impossible."
We'd crossed paths exactly once, by chance, at Prince Lassen's tomb. Beyond that, we had no connection at all. Not a single one. And since there was no reason we ever would meet again, I'd simply given her consolation without holding anything back. There was no way she'd send a letter like this.
Besides, we'd never even been formally introduced — she wouldn't know my name.
"Right. It's definitely not her."
Having weighed every possibility, this was truly out of the question. Getting tangled up with the royal family a second time was the last thing I wanted. I needed a chance to breathe, after all.
I shoved the letter quickly into my desk drawer.
"Whew."
My heart was suddenly pounding. Setting the tone of my first day back at work with this kind of tension was really not ideal.
But — no, seriously, there was no way it was actually the princess. It couldn't be. It wouldn't be.
Trembling with an inexplicable unease, I slowly picked up my paperwork again.
Meanwhile, in Elaine's room, an unfamiliar sound echoed at steady, rhythmic intervals.
Swish, swish. Scratch, scratch.
The quill danced across the letter paper once more. Who knew how many hours had already passed?
Elaine had kept writing without pause even as her right arm went numb from the effort. For the first time in a very long while, she was feeling something other than sorrow and anguish.
What will he think when he reads it?
The corners of her mouth turned up without her even noticing. The girl reflected in the mirror set on her desk looked for all the world like an innocent child experiencing something thrilling for the very first time.
Only after a long, long while did she finally finish the letter.
"Hn..."
Her pale green eyes, half-lidded, swept over the paper with sudden sharpness. Having read every densely packed line — barely a blank space to be found — she nodded with grave solemnity.
"Mmm!"
And then she crossed her arms, thoroughly satisfied.
Yes. THIS is a perfect masterpiece!
Even by her own judgment, this was truly the finest piece of writing ever set to paper — a letter for the ages. If any celebrated novelist or essayist were to appear before her, even they could not have written something so heartfelt, so meticulous.
A letter rivaling her last one — clean, complete, containing everything she wanted to say. Finally, at the very bottom, Elaine poured her whole heart into the closing line.
[From your friend]
"Hee..."
Every time she looked at those words, her face melted into a smile without her meaning to. Why was that? Why did her heart flutter like this?
Just then, Hannah, Elaine's personal maid, came groaning into the room with a fresh stack of letter paper hugged in both arms.
"P-Princess... I brought them..."
"Ah."
The moment Elaine's hand stirred through the air, the pile of paper floated up and stacked itself in a mountain beside her. She then hurriedly handed Hannah the letter she'd just finished.
I'm counting on you again.
She might as well have been a spy passing over classified intelligence. At that look, Hannah went pale as death and shook her head frantically.
"P-Princess... if the Queen Mother finds out about this, it'll be a disaster! I'm telling you, that first time was a miracle!"
Just yesterday, Hannah had done something she never could have imagined in her entire life. She had gone to the Royal Post Office and, showing the royal seal to the postmaster, entrusted him with a top-secret delivery.
That was absolutely not something Hannah wanted. No — she hadn't even had the courage for it. She was nothing more than a maid, after all.
"Uuu!"
But Elaine had been so deathly serious about the whole affair that she'd practically forced the royal ring into her hands, and so Hannah had had no choice but to obey.
And right now the princess's green eyes were blazing with zeal and expectation.
The first letter would already be on its way to him. Which meant this was only the second — the third would follow, and then one every single day after that.
The first friend she had ever made. The first person who ever understood her. She had so, so much she wanted to say.
And perhaps — just perhaps — the day might come when Nathan Kell wrote back.
"Haa..."
Hannah let out a small sigh. If the Queen Mother caught wind of this, Elaine would surely lose even this small joy. Hope, you see, was blindingly bright — and precisely because of that, it carried despair on its other face. The moment the Queen Mother noticed how high Elaine's expectations had climbed, she would crush them without hesitation.
So Hannah knew she had to stop this reckless undertaking, right now — but then she saw it. Elaine's upturned lips, the first she'd worn in fifteen years.
In the end, Hannah nodded, already resigned to her fate.
"Just this once!"
Having served at Elaine's side since childhood, she simply could not bring herself to be strict with this pitiful princess. Because hope, in the end, was far too dazzling — and there was no refusing a smile Elaine hadn't worn in fifteen years.
"Next!"
Even by the afternoon, I still hadn't managed to settle my nerves. They say a little stress does wonders for work efficiency, and as it turned out, that was true. While the thought Could it really be the princess? swirled around my head, I cleared out that mountain of paperwork in its entirety.
My stomach hurts...
Of course, the toll on body and mind had been considerable.
Creeeak.
Just then, the door to the immigration office opened and someone entered.
"Central Officer! Is the Central Officer present?"
A vigorous voice. One I felt like I'd heard somewhere before. I turned — and saw a soldier in armor stamped with the seal of the margrave's house, glancing around the room. Only when I saw his face did I recognize him as one of the cavalrymen who'd joined us in the 'Operation Pig Hunt' the other day.
"Over here."
"Greetings, Central Officer. I came by yesterday, but you were away, so I've returned today."
He stepped before me and saluted. I returned the salute and asked,
"I was summoned to the Royal Castle and had to make a short trip. What can I do for you?"
Then I read his purpose off his expression.
"Has the Margrave sent word?"
"He has."
The soldier nodded.
"The shapeshifter's interrogation is finished."
"..."
The shapeshifter. In that instant, a pair of violet eyes flickered through my mind. The one who had struck my jaw and abducted Erzena. And the one whose existence made up the single greatest justification for Erzena's temporary asylum.
The soldier spoke with a tense face.
"As promised, the Margrave is transferring the right of interrogation to you, Central Officer. Please visit the Count's castle whenever you are able."
Good news. I'd been wanting to know just what faction could have driven someone to do such a thing to Erzena.
If I can extract that information, I can push beyond temporary asylum and request formal asylum for her.
Not only that — it might prove a useful card in future dealings with the Holy Church as well.
I asked, keeping my voice level.
"...I see. What's the deadline?"
If there was any margin at all, I'd request cooperation from the Intelligence Department and wring everything that man knew out of him.
Someone of that caliber is bound to have connections. Climb the ladder far enough and some fairly famous names will crawl out.
But the soldier's expression had frozen solid.
"She is to be executed in two days."
Time was tighter than I'd expected.