To Whom, Then?
“I’m really looking forward to it.”
After Limutan left, Regina moved her lips soundlessly. She clenched and unclenched her fists, then traced a small sign with her fingers. As mana flowed through the gesture, her earring shimmered.
As though he had been waiting for her call, Shiren answered at once.
[You called for me, Commander.]
“Shiren, you’ve been working hard. What happened to the magical item I asked you to find before?”
[I did find something suitable, but... it’s a little awkward to carry on one’s person. It needs repairs.]
“Awkward how? What is it?”
She had made so many magical items over the years that Regina no longer remembered them all clearly. There had once been a ledger in the Ferman Empire that recorded them, but even that was gone now.
[It’s not for a woman, but for a man.]
Shiren explained that it was a magical item fashioned into a cravat.
“Ah, that cravat.”
She had made it once, intending to give it to her father as a gift.
The emperor of the Ferman Empire was weak in mana and was always being looked down on by his retainers.
In the end, I never gave it to him.
Because of Heraise’s interference, she had never even made it to the emperor’s presence. Later, when she was older, she had handed it off to one of her subordinates instead.
It was better that way, she had thought, than letting it sleep in the Ferman imperial treasure vault forever. Better that it be used by the people she had sent to Fredericks.
“Hmm.”
[What shall I do with it?]
“I’ll think of a way to use it naturally. If it comes to it, I can always give it to the emperor as a gift and take it back later.”
[Would that be possible?]
“What’s the emperor going to do with a magical item that boosts mana? It doesn’t even enhance aura.”
It was a perfectly reasonable argument, but Shiren hesitated for a long moment before answering. Regina was about to ask a few more things when the sudden sound of her bedroom door opening cut off her mana and ended the call.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
At the border of the Ferman Empire, Daniel failed to find any trace of Regina in the magic array embedded within the barrier. With Heraise’s help, he crossed over it.
Even so, no matter how thoroughly he searched the monster-infested land beyond the barrier, he could not find a single trace of Regina anywhere.
“If she’s not in this sector too, then that’s a problem...”
As he muttered to himself, he suddenly felt a presence and whipped his head around with a sharp snap. But there was nothing in sight.
“I must’ve imagined it.”
There was a magical barrier here, and monsters everywhere. No ordinary person could come and go from a place like this.
Even if someone had set foot here, a normal human would have been torn apart by monsters long ago. If it were a knight, the stench of blood from the endless fighting would have been impossible to miss.
And yet Daniel still scanned the area carefully, just in case. No other presence reached him.
“Is something the matter?”
One of the knights, who had noticed Daniel looking around repeatedly, asked him in confusion.
“No. Nothing.”
Daniel shook his head in the end.
They were knights secretly dispatched from the Ferman Empire.
They had already survived for days relying on all manner of magical items. Except when they occasionally went down to the villages to replenish their food, they remained in the Monster Zone and carried out their mission there.
“Still no trace?”
“Here!”
One of the knights searching through the brush shouted.
The knight who had found the bloodstained robe reported that it belonged to the deposed princess Regina. The emblem on the robe, marking it as the commander of the mage corps, proved as much.
“It is undoubtedly the princess’s.”
“What princess? She’s a traitor who committed parricide. Don’t give her a title she doesn’t deserve.”
“……”
Daniel, who had taken an immediate dislike to Regina even before her death sentence, lashed out at his subordinates harshly.
“Call her what she is: a traitor.”
“Y-yes, sir.”
The knights, who revered overwhelming strength, had unconsciously come to acknowledge Regina.
Though mages and knights were like oil and water, unable to mix no matter how hard one tried, mages were special to the people of Ferman.
Those who secretly admired Regina even thought she might have been falsely accused of treason.
After all, they had seen with their own eyes, standing at her side, how the imperial family had treated her all this time.
Quite a few even believed that the decisive and wise Regina would have been better suited to the throne than the cowardly Heraise.
“We are here to confirm whether the traitor is truly dead. Whether the criminal who assassinated Her Majesty the gentle empress met the miserable end she deserved!”
Daniel, who understood the knights’ doubts better than anyone, emphasized it again and again. Regina had died as nothing more than a condemned criminal, not a princess, not anyone worthy of respect.
Traitors were not entitled to any treatment or rights whatsoever.
That should do it.
He had found proof to soothe Heraise’s anxieties, and now they could return to the Ferman Empire. The deposed princess’s robe was torn to shreds and soaked through with blood. Judging by its condition, the former princess had clearly been eaten alive by monsters.
With this, Her Highness would surely understand why Regina’s body had never been found.
“We’re returning to the empire.”
The Ferman men, who had spent day after day sleeping in the woods while they searched, cheered at those words.
So relieved were they that they failed to notice the people following behind them.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Feeling the flow of power beyond the bedroom door, Conrad realized that Regina was using a communication magical item.
He waved off the knight who had come to announce his arrival and listened in.
The heavy door muffled most of the sound, but with his aura focused, a few words still reached him.
Magical item, cravat, gift.
Apparently, she was talking about giving someone a magical item cravat as a present.
To whom, then?
Conrad’s brow furrowed. Was there some man around her to whom she’d be preparing a gift? He couldn’t think of a single candidate.
For some reason, irritation surged in his chest. The mere thought that an unknown man might have appeared at Regina’s side, someone he did not know, made his forehead grow hot.
Conrad gave up on listening any longer and shoved the door open.
Regina, seated alone on the sofa, turned to look at him.
Conrad clicked his tongue inwardly.
As I thought, I should have kept someone by her side.
A royal should always have a secret guard attached to them, but given Regina’s true identity, Conrad could not easily assign someone to her.
At least Mir, the head of his personal guard, had been looking for a suitable person after learning Regina’s secret, but no one had fit the role yet.
And yet there isn’t a single set of eyes watching over the empress.
Thinking it impossible, Conrad lifted his head. Regina’s expression was calm, not the least bit startled, and that only made him more ill at ease.
“Hmm. What scheme is my empress plotting now?”
“A scheme? I was only thinking about how to take back control of the finances from the Grand Empress Dowager.”
At Regina’s gentle reply, Conrad’s lips curved crookedly.
Today, more than usual, her theatrical formality felt like a line being drawn between them, and it annoyed him.
“Why don’t you try speaking casually for once? There’s no need to keep up the pretense between us anymore.”
“...All of a sudden?”
Regina tilted her head slightly in confusion, then lifted her brows and gave a small nod.
“Fine, I don’t mind.”
There was no reason to refuse if he wanted it that way. As Regina answered so obediently, Conrad stepped closer.
Even though he had just arrived, she showed no tension at all and kept riffling through her papers; he reached out and touched her face.
“Ngh!”
Conrad took hold of Regina’s chin and turned her head toward him. At her faint sound, he froze for a beat and loosened his grip.
“Did I hurt you?”
“No, I was just a little surprised.”
Regina shook her head without concern, and Conrad felt relief wash through him.
“You said you were going to hold a test?”
“Yeah. That’ll be much faster. We have to take back control of the finances now, no matter what. If we wait until after all the empress lessons are finished, it’ll be too late.”
Regina’s cold certainty was exactly the sort of empress he wanted.
“That’s true.”
“The Grand Empress Dowager will probably try to use her own people as examiners. So at the very least, make sure the supervisors are ours.”
Regina said she had no objection to the test itself; what worried her was the process. Conrad lifted a shoulder.