Warning
"The Second Prince?"
"Yes. He's already passed the main gate and is approaching the mansion itself."
Albireo had come without a word of warning. An uninvited guest, and a heavy tension settled over the room the moment the news arrived.
"B-Brother has come to see the Grand Duke? What should we do?"
Beyond the translucent magic crystal, Eustia's voice thinned to a tremor, her eyes restless with unease. From where she stood—locked in a shadow war with the Second Prince over the imperial throne—her rival had just walked straight up to her greatest ally. Her mind had to be spinning itself ragged, trying to guess what Albireo wanted from me.
I reassured her in a calm, even tone.
"There's no need to worry so much. Nothing will come of it."
"But... he might have come to pull you into his faction!"
"I doubt it. If it's His Highness the Second Prince, he already knows we've joined hands. Rather than force a recruitment, I suspect he wants to take my measure in person."
"Ah..."
A short sound of acknowledgment. Eustia nodded slightly, conceding the point. She had an eye for people's true natures. She would know what kind of man Albireo was.
He disposed of anyone he judged beyond his control without a shred of mercy. Would a psychopath who, in the original novel, had tried to murder even his own younger sister for getting in the way of his plans really try to recruit someone who wouldn't swear him loyalty? Even if he attempted persuasion, he would only stab me in the back afterward and try to have me removed. Today was clearly about meeting me face-to-face and gauging what kind of person I was.
"Head Maid. Are you there?"
"Yes."
"I'm going out. Prepare to receive His Highness the Second Prince."
"Understood."
Vanessa's footsteps receded in a hurried retreat beyond the door. Leaving Eustia lost in thought, I rose from the office chair. The legs scraped softly against the floor.
"I'll go greet His Highness, then. I'll contact you again afterward."
"Wait, Grand Duke."
"Hm?"
"Be careful of my brother."
A great deal of meaning packed into those few words. Genuine worry gathered in Eustia's golden eyes, and she had every reason for it. Living in the imperial palace, how much of that bastard's vile, fucked-up nature had she seen and heard? He was a man who toyed with people like playthings and then killed them. Of course she would be afraid he might try something against me.
But she didn't know. She didn't know that Albireo couldn't do a damn thing to me.
"Understood."
I didn't add anything extra. A simple answer, and I stepped out the door, walking the corridor toward the mansion's entrance.
Come to think of it, this will be the first time I've actually met him.
One of the original novel's major boss-tier villains. The Second Prince, Albireo Delalucia of Achmenes. He had kidnapped Liliana's younger sister. He had nearly put Lucy in danger. When I came face-to-face with someone I wanted to butcher, would I be able to keep my killing intent in check? Even crushing the urge to swat a damn mosquito buzzing in front of your face wasn't easy.
In that sense, it was a relief Liliana and Lucy weren't here. If he looked at them the way a man licks something with his eyes, I genuinely didn't think I could hold back.
I kept walking down the corridor where the servants held their breath in silence. Just as I was thinking the staff must be exhausted with so many guests today, the mansion doors swept open as if a theater curtain were being drawn.
He's here.
I settled into an appropriate stance and watched the figure enter. Head Maid Vanessa bowed deeply at the waist. The mansion's servants stood in neat ranks. Through the long path formed by people, a young man with golden hair more intense than the sun walked toward me.
I offered the customary greeting.
"Welcome to the Divelion Mansion, Your Highness Albireo."
"My thanks for the hospitality, Grand Duke."
An arrogant attitude hidden inside a respectable shell. A voice that felt like it was licking your nerves. Sapphire-blue eyes inherited from the Second Empress gleamed as they tried to take my measure.
"I heard you were in the capital, so I took the liberty of calling. It's a genuine pleasure to see you like this."
"I'm grateful you came all this way from the imperial palace."
"Think nothing of it. Meeting the Grand Duke of the Empire is worth at least this much."
Albireo spread both arms and made a show of it. He wore clothes dripping with fabric and ornamentation, looking for all the world like King Midas of Phrygia from the old myths.
In a way, they're similar—both rushing toward their own deaths out of greed.
I turned my gaze aside. A middle-aged knight in blue-white plate armor stood planted beside Albireo.
"Sir Gawain came as well."
"It's been some time since I last had the honor of greeting you after we met on the battlefield. Today I attend as His Highness's escort, so I ask your understanding regarding my carrying a sword."
Gawain Calinant, Commander of the Imperial 2nd Knight Order. Albireo's core military asset bowed his head lightly to me. He was ranked among the top ten strongest in the entire empire, and he radiated an aura to match—decisively above Luke as he was now. Even five Gladrocks attacking at once wouldn't be able to take him.
Bringing Gawain along... Albireo was paying me quite a bit of attention.
Well. It didn't matter. Perhaps because I had already awakened the Absolute Monarch trait. Even though they possessed abilities that would have given the original protagonist no end of trouble, their existence felt like nothing more than insects to me. If they became a threat to me or mine, I just had to crush them.
"This way. I'll show you inside."
"Very well."
Wearing a silent sneer for my uninvited guests, I guided Albireo toward the mansion's drawing room.
The drawing room of the Divelion Mansion.
Albireo narrowed his eyes at the man seated before him.
It's been a truly long time.
The Iron-Blooded Grand Duke. The man they called a Sword Master. Behirit Divelion sat on the long sofa, watching him with hair like polished jet and eyes the color of blood. It had been years since Albireo had last seen that face at an imperial function, and though the features were similar at a glance, the difference from back then was stark.
...An inscrutable man.
Those blood-red eyes pressed down on him with a weight that arrived from nothing more than being looked at. Even to Albireo, who had been taught personally by the Magic Tower Master, the man's mana was a depth he could not plumb. This was not something that could be called the same human species. He almost wondered whether he was looking at a dragon under Polymorph.
Why, sitting face-to-face, did it feel as though he were being looked down on? To hide the tremor starting in his legs, he slipped one hand beneath the table and clamped it hard over his knee.
...Wait. Am I actually shrinking back? I, who will become the sun of the Empire?
Unacceptable. Even in the same room as his elder brother, he had never been this overwhelmed. That he, a man acknowledged even by the Magic Tower Master, should feel such humiliation—
Impossible. It's a trick of the mind.
He was the man who would stand at the Empire's summit. All he had to do was take the lead in the conversation, as he always did. Fingering the cup set on the table with his other hand, Albireo spoke first.
"We're both busy men, so I'll come to the point. You know about the succession struggle unfolding in the imperial family, of course."
"I do."
"How about coming over to my side? I give you my word—when I become emperor, I shall make the Grand Duke king of a nation. A nation second only to the Empire on this continent."
An offer to make him master of a country. It was not, however, Albireo's true intent.
This is a man I will have to kill someday. If he will not offer me his loyalty, he is far too dangerous.
He had never expected the proposal to be accepted cleanly. If it so much as rattled the Grand Duke's relationship with his sister, that would be enough.
And then Behirit quietly lifted both hands—and clapped.
A sharp crack split the air.
Albireo froze.
"Pardon me. There was a bug in the room. I killed it."
Behirit said it without the faintest change of expression. Silence swallowed the drawing room. He raked a hand through his hair and went on, as if nothing at all had happened.
"So. What were you saying?"
That utterly untroubled manner—whether he genuinely hadn't heard, or whether this was a refusal—left even Gawain, standing escort, and Albireo, seated across from him, staring blankly. He ought to have repeated the offer, or flown into a rage at the insult. He ought to have said something. The words would not come.
While Albireo quietly swallowed a dry throat, Behirit flicked his fingers and broke the silence.
"Your Highness. Would you play a game of chess with me?"
"Chess?"
"Yes. A person's true nature tends to show itself over a game. Sometimes an honest word slips out as well. And it seems to me Your Highness came here because you wanted a candid conversation."
There was something like a sneer in the way he sat. His fingers drummed slowly on the table as he asked,
"Well?"
"Very well."
If he could read the man's true intentions, that was what he had wanted in the first place. Talk long enough, and he might even uncover whether this was the culprit who had interfered with his plans. While Albireo turned that over, Behirit snapped his fingers toward the maid waiting beyond the door.
"Bring a chessboard and pieces."
"Yes."
A brief interval passed after the reply. A neatly dressed maid entered the drawing room and set out the board and pieces with a soft scrape of wood.
Behirit tilted his body slightly.
"I'll take black."
"...Then I shall take white."
Watching Behirit maintain that unshakable ease from start to finish, Albireo bit down on his lip where no one could see.
Insolent bastard.
By the rules of chess, white moved first, and so held the initiative. That was why a superior player yielded white to an inferior one. Which meant Behirit had just placed him in the lower seat.
To ignore me at every turn... I will not let him die cleanly.
He flicked a glance at Gawain beside him. The knight nodded, barely. They would prepare thoroughly, then deal with him at the Sword-Magic Festival. He would kill everyone around the man and take the women for himself.
Hiding a heart packed with rage, Albireo moved first. A tap of wood. The pawn in front of the king advanced two squares. A standard attack. When his turn came, Behirit moved the pawn in front of his own king the same way. Another tap. The two pawns faced each other. Then white pushed the pawn in front of the queen as bait, and black's pawn took it, and the engagement began.
The drawing room was quiet. Only the inorganic click of chess pieces carried through the air. The pieces moved in turn, a contest of lines and answers unfolding across the board. Then a white knight advanced into black's camp, and with every nerve in the room drawn down onto the squares, Behirit opened his mouth.
"Do you play chess often?"
"Now and then. And you?"
"I enjoy it from time to time. I have other diversions, but now and then it's amusing to use one's head."
A tap. Behirit's black bishop came down on the white knight and crushed it.
...What is this man talking about?
A man who looked as if a needle wouldn't draw a single drop of blood from him, calling something amusing. Ah. So that was it. He understood now why Behirit had so abruptly suggested chess. To him, even the struggle for the imperial throne was no different from a game on a board. He would take control of it and claim a sweet victory—just as he had just taken the knight.
He said he wanted a candid conversation, didn't he.
Albireo stared for a moment at the white knight lying discarded beside the board, then slowly spoke.
"You've killed my knight."
"Yes."
Albireo said nothing.
"Your Highness is going after my queen."
Still nothing. A question cut that cleanly to the bone. Eyes red as blood poured down as if they were looking over everything that existed, and Albireo's sapphire-blue irises flared in resistance.
"Do you mean to stand in my way?"
"The board is in my hands."
"Arrogant."
"Do you truly think so?"
A calm tone, as if the answer had already been decided. In the face of the certainty inside it, Albireo could raise no argument at all.
Inside a drawing room that felt as if time itself had stopped, before a gaze cold enough to pierce the lungs, Albireo gripped his trembling legs.