I Shall Become the Arbiter (3)
Knock, knock—.
“Gold.”
“Resurrection.”
After we exchanged the code words, the door to the dusty basement of the Sun Tower opened with a grinding sound like stone shattering. Cryan, still recovering inside, spent his days either buried in books until the light failed or pursuing whatever studies caught his fancy. On top of that, he had taken on the role of twenty-four-hour doorman, opening the entrance whenever we—not just Eclipse—requested it.
Playing doorman all of a sudden reminds me of that stubborn bastard who used to stand in front of Sigmund every day. I haven’t seen him since he issued the residence permit. I wonder what he’s doing these days.
But those were only my pointless thoughts. Soon enough my scattered mind snapped back to the present at the sight of Cryan’s bloodless face the moment he opened the door and saw us.
He had assumed only the young lady and I would be coming. Instead I had brought the one person he most desperately wished to avoid.
At the sight of her, he had precious few words.
“…Traitor. You filthy traitor. Yohan!”
He had somehow become a man confined to a wheelchair. Even as he hurled that curse at me, he spun the wheels backward, trying to put as much distance as possible between himself and Gremory. The terror he felt at facing her was so raw that he reversed at full speed without the slightest concern for the furniture shattering behind him. There was simply no other way to describe the scene.
Yet the person standing beside me was one of the twelve Archmages in the entire world.
“Blink.”
Whoosh—.
“Huk… huuuk… Lady Gremory?”
In the space of a heartbeat Gremory had appeared behind Cryan and seized the handles of his wheelchair. Her voice, a blend of fury and remorse in roughly six-to-four measure, whispered into his ear.
“Cryan. It seems we have rather a lot to talk about, don’t we—?”
“Ah… aah.”
Ugh. We’re screwed.
“Yohan! I won’t forget this. I will never forget…!”
“Come here—.”
Gremory chanted another spell. With a soft pop, both she and Cryan vanished, only to reappear moments later. The interval had been no more than an instant to us, yet Cryan’s face had grown visibly haggard in that brief absence. The young lady blinked at them with adorable puzzlement and asked,
“Where did you go, Gremory…?”
“Ufufu—. Nothing important. We simply paid a visit to the Room of Truth, a place permitted only to the Magic Tower’s executive council.”
“It was only a moment for us, but you had a proper conversation…?”
Cryan answered in a voice utterly drained of strength.
“From our perspective, it was six hours.”
From the details, it appeared Cryan had been thoroughly dressed down for launching this operation without a single word of consultation. He had ended up confessing every last thing that had happened. The story of going into hiding to assassinate the Crown Prince would have been shocking enough on its own, yet when Gremory finally heard the past he had tried so hard to keep buried, something in her eyes had changed.
“Damn it… still, saying it out loud does make my chest feel lighter.”
“See? I told you there was no reason not to tell Lady Gremory.”
“Shut up! You—if I ever get out of this damned chair, I’ll show you exactly how spicy I can be. Understood?!”
Aside from Cryan’s uncharacteristic rage, the matter seemed to have resolved itself well enough. Haha.
“…Did you just say you intend to become Crown Prince, Cryan—?”
“Yes. Because that seat was mine from the beginning.”
And so the conversation naturally reached this conclusion. Before anyone realized it, the after-school autonomous activities club had transformed into a coup-planning society.
I had no idea what he thought of Gremory to act this way, but one could certainly call it having thrown away all shame. Having shed that burden, Cryan boldly confessed to his mentor the very thoughts he had shared with me while escaping the Bruised City.
“…Hmm—. I see. Once you learned that Crown Prince Vancite was such a hideous beast, this reaction was inevitable. Is this not the very restoration of justice? Above all, if it is for Cryan’s sake… ufufu—.”
As expected, Gremory shrugged with clear interest. It would have been harder to imagine her reacting any other way.
Yet the first to speak was Karalin. Her Ladyship had already settled into the personal rocking chair she had brought and spoke with studied indifference.
“Let me be clear: right now I have heard nothing. We have no intention of taking interest in this affair or becoming involved.”
“Is that so? Well, since I was the last to learn of it, I suppose you already know everything there is to know—.”
“I truly know nothing. Spare me these complicated political matters. They remind me of my time in the North; merely thinking about them is exhausting.”
But those who claim such things usually harbor the darkest intentions. “However, it seems my Yohan has heard some recent news…”
“Ah. You mean the part where all of Vancite’s crimes are being pinned on Jurchen?”
The moment I answered, the two from the Magic Tower side stared at me with slack jaws.
“You mean the dragon-kin of Laghound—? The entire Sigmund Academy knows he did nothing wrong.”
“…It’s obviously that bastard chairman’s handiwork.”
“Cryan. Language!”
“…Sorry.”
Gremory gave him a light rebuke, but I secretly raised a thumb in approval at how quickly Cryan had deduced the mastermind was the chairman.
“In any case, that chairman—Montgomery—hasn’t done a single pleasant thing since last time.”
“True. But even if we know it’s his doing, what can we do? With Queen Mother Sabrina’s word and the chairman’s reach, there is nothing that cannot be accomplished within these walls. A troublemaking lizard makes the perfect scapegoat.”
At that, Cryan’s veins bulged on his forehead.
“Yohan! We must run to the tower where he is imprisoned and rescue Jurchen at once—before anything worse happens!”
In moments like these he truly resembled his uncle.
“With what authority? He did commit a crime and was duly imprisoned. We have no legitimate means. Are you suggesting we overthrow the rule of law?”
“…Then is there another way?”
“The only option I see is replacing the chairman. Though whether that’s even feasible is another question…”
Both Cryan and Gremory opened their eyes wide, as though they had just heard a brilliant idea.
…Perfect.
At this level, I could pretend to have no connection whatsoever while still feeding them every necessary hint. As the Northern faction, there was one ideal condition the central powers desired in the relationship between our two regions: that we remain, on the surface, coolly indifferent to each other. The reason was both obvious and self-evident. The North had no wish to suffer interference from the central political circles. Conversely, it was better not to interfere in return—so as to avoid being mired in endless nonsense.
This was one of the great principles we had sworn to uphold without fail during the regime change we would soon carry out, decided on the night the young lady and I fell asleep in each other’s arms. Of course, once Cryan became Crown Prince he could quietly offer us both tangible and intangible aid, yet if rumors spread that we had installed him as a puppet ruler, the backlash would be impossible to contain.
Therefore, what we could do from beside them was nothing other than adjustment. We would present magnificent ideas the central powers could never conceive. The arbiter of all things.
Having finished his calculations, Gremory let out a sly laugh.
“Oh? There’s nothing that says we cannot replace him. The chairman’s vote of no confidence is not all that complicated. In principle, it requires only the consent of two-thirds of the faculty, permission from the central Magic Tower delegation, and approval from the student delegation.”
She glanced around the room.
“There is no overt imperial command in this process, so our Queen Mother need not step forward. Rather, the will of one important figure connected to the Magic Tower will be decisive. If that happens, at least one of the conditions may already be guaranteed, no—?”
“…Even taking all that into account, the problem is finding a suitable replacement. Who would look after our convenience?”
The instant Cryan spoke those words, I muttered as though I had been waiting for this exact moment.
“Nonedon Naigerse….”
“………!!”
“He’s been wanting to come up to the surface lately.”
“……Damn it, why didn’t I think of that? Yohan, are you a genius?”
“Why? Does something come to mind?”
When I played innocent, he began running the calculations through his head again.
“If that man becomes chairman… everything will be resolved.”
After multiple layers of verification, the result was a clear green light. Of course, above all else, Nonedon’s own willingness to take the seat would be the deciding factor.
Cryan suddenly looked at me.
“…You once told me I had a good head, but sometimes I think yours might be even better.”
“Where would you find someone as stupid as me? I didn’t understand a single word you just said.”
“Lies. Talking like that after finishing as top student.”
I had no idea why he was praising me so lavishly, but at that exact moment—
BOOM—.
The firmly closed door of the clubroom burst open.
“Eh—what!? Everyone…?”
In the middle of plotting a coup, the girl least suited to the scene had appeared. She carried a picnic basket overflowing with bread, apparently intending to share. Dressed in simple country-girl clothes, she stepped inside.
“Y-you were all already here! Good afternoon. I overslept, so…”
But the moment she saw Gremory she jumped in fright. She was someone who absolutely should not be here.
“E-eek?! Lady Gremory?!”
“Hello—?”
“Why is this person…”
Cryan, trying desperately to deflect, spoke without thinking.
“She had an urgent need for the bathroom.”
“Cryan, you idiot!”
“Kidding. She kept looking for me, so I invited her. In short, it’s a clubroom tour.”
Eclipse had been trembling with her hands near her mouth, but at those words she broke into a bright smile.
「A new club member!」 That was surely what she was thinking.
“O-oh… then welcome! Would you like to try the bread I brought, miss…? No, even Lady Karalin is here—so it’s double the ladies…!”
…Is it really at that level?
At any rate, with a girl completely unrelated to politics now standing before us, it no longer seemed appropriate to voice any more of the plans we had been discussing. We each put on our usual faces.
“Hmm, shall we have some black tea? Yohan!”
“Yes. I’ll brew enough for everyone.”
So we all, without exception, tried to return to our everyday state as though nothing had happened.
“Eclipse, where did you put the samovar I left here last time?”
“Ah! I moved it while cleaning up. I washed it and put it in the upper cabinet.”
Still, it would only be a brief lull.
“B-by the way, Yohan…!”
“Yes?”
“Professor Babalk said he had something urgent to tell you. He told me to give you this the moment I saw your face.”
To Yohan,
Come to my personal room immediately.
— Babalk
The single letter she held out made my face harden. The moment I tore it open, the contents did not inspire pleasant feelings.
“…Shit. It looks like what was bound to come has finally come.”