Something That Pretends to Be a Tour #1
After Kane's execution, Helena's attachment to me became extreme.
She threw herself at me with a fervor that made it feel as though she had become a different person entirely, and I could not even go to the bathroom without an argument.
I still remembered the look on her face when, during outdoor training, I said I would go to the latrine alone. It was not that the expression itself was shocking — it was that I had grown so used to seeing it that it no longer surprised me.
She also put a stop to my commuting from the Altram estate. After petitioning both the Altrams and Duke Krauser and working through the necessary persuasion, she arranged for me to live at the Krauser manor instead. As a result, one of the guest rooms became mine in full. That was only because everyone around us — myself included — had chewed her out and shut down her original plan of sharing a single room.
Then, on the day Helena turned eighteen, she crossed the line of Sword Expert as if she had been waiting for the moment and stepped into the rank of Master — a height few on the entire continent ever reached. Across all of history, she became the first human to attain Mastery at so young an age, and a woman at that.
Krauser and Altram were ecstatic. They threw a lavish celebration that stretched across several days. It was a genuine festival atmosphere. The king, too, wanted to praise her grandly, saying her achievement had raised the crown's prestige. Helena refused the invitation flat. She made it clear that neither the weight of a royal request nor the glory that came with it was worth a second glance.
Of course she did not say that to his face. Officially she declined with perfect courtesy, citing the need to settle into her new realm before presenting herself. The real reason was far simpler: she could not stand the thought of being apart from me even for a short while. Most of the schedule would have been fine with me in tow, but there would inevitably have been moments when that was impossible.
In any case, through one process after another, Helena became what one might call an obsessive woman, and the fire of that obsession showed no sign of cooling until I turned fifteen. It is still going strong now.
"I want to go too! Let me go with you!"
Helena was twenty-three, and I was about to turn fifteen, in the early spring of that year. The season people liked to call the time of the zombie cherry blossoms had arrived right on schedule — except those blossoms were nowhere to be found here. The gardens were thick with other flowers in full bloom, and they were beautiful enough, but something about them still felt incomplete. Not that I had the leisure to compose idle nature notes. The obsessive woman was throwing another fit.
"Helena. How many years has it been since we agreed you would go to the bathroom alone? Things were fine after that. You can't start this again."
"But still…!"
One of my duties was soothing the mistress of the room whenever she threw a tantrum in it. She had grown into a tall, beautifully proportioned woman with a presence that would rank among the finest anywhere — and she still pouted like a child. It was better than the razor-edged aura she used to radiate without restraint, but the truth was that her current manner was only a prior stage. Patient coaxing over a long stretch of time had split her obsession into two tiers. Without that work, those eyes of hers would already have been on me — the eyes that made you think of the abyss.
"So you'd be fine with me watching you use the toilet?"
"…Ugh!"
Helena watched every step of my trips to the bathroom without fail. From my point of view it was a situation where I could cheerfully shout that it was possible — but the people around us would never have accepted it. When she went, I stood guard outside, and even that drew more than a few strange looks. No — they must have thought it was strange. I thought it was strange myself.
"That's… embarrassing."
She no longer blushed at standing before me in underthings that left almost nothing to the imagination, but following me into the bathroom was another matter. Her cheeks flushed as red as a ripe apple. The problem of my having to leave the room while she bathed was much the same.
"Exactly. I'm embarrassed too. And what are you going to do if I do my business and it starts to smell? Are you planning to sit there and breathe it in?"
"That—absolutely not!"
Obsessive and a little unwell in the head she might have been, but Helena was still a noble by nature. Long years of education had left her with a cultivated instinct she carried as a matter of course. So even the crude word for it got a strong reaction out of her, and the idea of subjecting me to the smell drew an even fiercer refusal. Fair enough. Unless one had a very particular taste, no one wanted that smell up close. That was only human.
"Glad we understand each other. I'll be right back."
"Okay. Come back quick. Got it?"
"Yes. Don't worry."
I left the woman fretting like a child separated from her mother, and headed straight for the bathroom at the far end of the first-floor corridor. It had been years since I stopped attaching any honorific to her name when we were alone, and the intimacy between us seemed to have risen another notch because of it. Wanting to stay on friendly terms with an obsessive woman might have looked odd from the outside, but I did not mind this life. More than anything, I had to keep my foot on the brake of the butterfly effect that led toward the world's collapse. Keeping Helena in check alone covered half the job.
"Ah, Master Zion. Good day."
"Hello. Quiet day so far?"
"Of course. Peace itself."
On my way to the bathroom I ran into Bart and traded a few words. In the years since, he had become the man in charge of the Krauser ducal kitchen, and the old connection between us had held, settling into a comfortable friendship. What bound that thread was neither rank nor status, but cooking. Because I always prepared Helena's meals separately, I inevitably leaned on the kitchen, and friendship had grown out of that. It had created the awkward situation of Helena dropping by the kitchen every day, but by now the whole staff had adapted. They had had no choice but to get used to it.
"Good to hear. I'll see you in the kitchen a little later, then."
"Yes, sir."
After parting with Bart, I stepped into the bathroom and took care of a simple errand. Whether it was the magic that had advanced daily conveniences to a certain degree, or simply that this was a noble house, the place was remarkably comfortable. The toilet was even a proper seated one.
"Haaah—."
An ordinary person might already have cracked under a noble's obsession. Or they might have grown so frightened that they watched every single move. The other party was strong, and her standing was far too high — the blood of a duke. But I was not afraid, and even in situations that should have backed me into a corner I had always managed to soothe and redirect Helena. There had been times when words failed, and I had seized on whatever scrap of her reasoning I could find and stretched it until she convinced herself. All of it thanks to Steel Mental and Zombie Body.
So now, having calmly finished my business, I returned to the room that was both my workplace and the waiting place of a child who had simply grown tall.
"Zion! Welcome back!"
"I'm back. Oh, right — what do you want for lunch today?"
The moment I entered, I asked about lunch. Never mind that Helena was reacting as if we were lovers reunited after years rather than minutes — meals could not be treated the same way.
"Uh… what would be good? Everything you make is delicious."
She looked faintly put out by my halfhearted response to her passionate welcome, then plunged into serious thought the instant lunch came up. Eating was important to everyone. Plenty of people were content to throw something together and be done — I often wanted to do the same — but the wish for something tasty was enough to make me shoulder the bother and work.
Helena tilted her head, made a few fretting noises, and finally spoke.
"It's spring, so I want something fresh and light… is there anything good?"
A rather — no, an extremely — vague order. Even "fresh and light" covered a wide range of dishes, and choosing among them was a problem. There was also the question of whether she would actually like whatever I picked. Fortunately I did not have to worry about that. Helena ate whatever I made for her.
"Something good… how about a salad pasta?"
I settled on something reasonably safe that I could put together quickly. Deciding without checking the stores might have seemed hasty, but the ducal house's pantry was always well stocked. There would be no trouble.
"Mm. That sounds fine."
"Shall we go down to the kitchen, then? By the time it's ready it should be just about lunch."
Helena nodded at my suggestion and rose. There was a reason I had said "let's go down" instead of "I'll be right back." As I had already said, she hated being apart from me. In one light it was enough to raise the hairs on your neck; in another, it was so absurd you wanted to laugh. She looked exactly like a child trailing after her mother.
"Ah, Lady Helena. Welcome."
"Hello, Bart. And hello, everyone. You're all well, I hope?"
The moment we set foot in the kitchen, Bart and the other cooks bowed in greeting. Helena returned a light nod and a gentle smile, then asked after their health for good measure. Perfect — the very model of a proper noble young lady.
"Haha. Thanks to your consideration, we're doing very well."
Becoming an obsessive woman had twisted her in various ways, but once she found her balance, Helena was as considerate as she had ever been. That was why the kitchen staff could treat her with a certain ease.
"Excuse me for a moment, then."
I left Helena exchanging warm greetings and shrugged out of my tailcoat jacket, folding it neatly in a corner of the kitchen. Cooking in a jacket was far too annoying. I rolled my shirtsleeves to the elbows as well, again for comfort. After I had grown taller I had left the servant's clothes behind for a tailcoat, but that had never been my idea. It was the result of Helena's request that was not quite a request, and Chess's advice that I had grown enough to need a certain formality. It suited me reasonably well, so I had no major complaint — but I still could not deny that the loose servant's clothes had been more comfortable.
At any rate. I cleared my head of idle thoughts and focused on the cooking. The cooks already had dough prepared, so I took a share and rolled out the noodles, cutting short the most time-consuming step. I sautéed garlic and mushrooms, made the sauce, and finished by laying thoroughly washed vegetables over the pasta. When it was done, though, the lack of meat felt like a pity. On short notice I seared some pork in a pan, sliced it thin, and set it on a separate plate. The pasta was already seasoned, so I went light on the salt for the meat.
After that I loaded everything onto a silver tray and returned to the room. Aside from breakfast, the people of Krauser took their meals separately according to their own schedules. There were even times when work kept them from sharing breakfast — outdoor training camps for the knights, for example.
"Mm. That was good."
When the meal was finished, Helena delivered a rather dry verdict. Not because she was unsatisfied, but because she had grown far too used to it. If anyone asked whether it had tasted bad, I could answer with confidence that it had not. The soft curve of her lips was proof enough.
"I would like you to pay a visit to Count Barkan's territory."
Immediately after returning the dishes to the kitchen, Helena and I answered Duke Krauser's summons and presented ourselves in his drawing room — only to tilt our heads at a completely unexpected request. We had been told to look over Count Barkan's lands.
Count Albers Barkan. One of the vassal nobles under Duke Krauser, and part of the so-called loyalist faction that rode alongside the duke. I had always thought politicians inevitably formed factions, and it seemed the House of Krauser was no exception.
"Count Barkan's territory, my lord? Why there…?"
"Because I judged that you have reached an age where you ought to see a little of the world."
Seeing the world. The people of Krauser were traditionally sent to travel the kingdom's territories and take in their conditions with their own eyes. He clearly meant to put Helena through that process.
"I see. In other words…"
"Yes. When you return, I will make the formal announcement. Of course, there will be several other places to visit besides Count Barkan's lands."
"…Understood. We will depart as early as tomorrow, if you wish."
Helena accepted Is's command as a matter of course, but the conversation felt as if some of the information had been cut away. The vagueness was only natural — and yet I had the strange sense that I could grasp the thread of it. At the end of this circuit through the territories of the Krauser faction, beginning with Count Barkan, there would likely be…