Luid's Incident Log (1)
Right after dropping off Ridie, Luid and Hershey took a walk through the streets.
I'm getting a little sleepy.
Luid rubbed his eyes. Drowsiness always arrived without warning.
On occasions like this, he normally sought out the softest spot nearby—a pile of straw would do, or a laundry basket. But today he had decided to hold out.
Sis would worry.
He still hadn't told Amelia.
And above all—
There's nothing more dreadful in this world than being hungry when you need to sleep.
He hadn't wanted to eat at the mansion. Ever since tasting that sweet-and-savory stew earlier, his body was no longer capable of being satisfied by noble cuisine.
"Ah, there's a crowd over there. Want to take a look?"
Hershey said just then. Luid, drowsy and thus unusually magnanimous, nodded without thinking.
Where the people had gathered, a street shell game was in full swing.
"Cup one, cup two, cup three! Pick right and you double your money! Follow the coin, win the pot!"
"Number two!"
"Ahh, so sorry, young master. You've lost. It was number one, you see."
"Hahaha!"
A nobleman who looked, to any observer, hopelessly gullible drew some shillings from his coat with a rueful air.
"Honestly... I thought I was fairly quick of eye."
His voice was drenched in regret. The shill barked out a hearty laugh.
Luid's gaze fixed on the man. The voice was one he'd heard somewhere before.
And sure enough—it was someone he knew.
"...Sir Gilbert?"
"Ah."
Gilbert, catching sight of Luid, started violently and hurried over.
"Young Master Luid! It has been some time."
Gilbert gave a brief bow and cleared his throat. A faint sheen of cold sweat had broken out on his forehead.
"Are you... on duty at the moment?"
Hershey asked carefully. There was only one reason a man would be wandering the streets at this hour in his formal uniform rather than plainclothes.
"...Gambling? While on duty?"
Luid tilted his head. Gilbert frantically waved both hands.
"G-Gambling? Certainly not! Hahaha. A most amusing joke, truly. This is... well, you see. It is a folk game of the common people. I, I merely—"
Gilbert flailed his hands about as he scrambled for excuses. Luid watched him with growing interest.
"...In order to see things from the commoners' perspective. As a demonstration."
Gilbert pressed both hands to his hips and bowed at a full ninety degrees.
"Please, I beg of you—just this once! Anything but telling the Commander...!"
Luid turned his gaze to the shill. With his two front teeth slightly protruding, the man looked exactly like a mouse.
Maybe I'll give it a try.
It was strange, really, that a knight like Gilbert hadn't caught on.
When Luid stepped forward, the shill looked him over with the expression of a man who'd just been handed a windfall.
"Haha, a new young master, is it? Care to try your luck?"
"Sure."
Luid pulled out a gold coin.
At the sight of gold, the shill's expression shifted to open avarice.
"Well, well—quite the generous young master, aren't we! Excellent! If I win, the gold is mine. But if you win, I'll pay out double!"
"Deal."
"Come one, come all—follow the coin, win the pot! Find the black orb and the money is yours! One chance, only one!"
It's a scam, of course.
Cheating at shell games was practically the unwritten law of the trade. If the shill hadn't cheated in the first place, Gilbert would never have lost his money.
In other words, this wasn't a game of finding the orb. It was a game of finding the trick.
The shill's hands moved busily—skill so extreme it was nearly a blur.
Luid's eyes spun round and round. He didn't use mana. That would be unsporting. Then again, he doubted any mage had ever bothered wasting mana on something like this.
The shill's flamboyant handiwork stopped. Without hesitation, Luid pointed a finger at the rightmost cup.
"Number three!"
"Number three, you say? Certain?"
The shill grinned broadly.
"I'll grant you one single chance to change your mind!"
"I'm good."
"Truly?"
"Yep."
Wearing a look of mock dismay, the shill slyly tipped the cup. Luid paid close attention.
No foul play. And no orb, either.
"Hahaha!"
The onlookers laughed just as they had before. He suspected they were shills the man had hired himself.
"A most unfortunate outcome!"
Just as the shill reached to pocket the gold coin, Luid swept the third cup away with a half-lidded stare.
"H-hold on just a moment."
The shill belatedly stretched out his arm, but it was too late. Luid had already seen the orb stuck to the inside of the cup.
Hershey, watching from the side, glared with sharpened eyes and demanded,
"How dare you cheat?!"
So that's why Gilbert fell for it.
The inside of the cup was smeared with something sticky. Under cover of all that dazzling movement, the orb had ridden the cup's inner wall to the top.
"So I did get played."
Uuugh, Gilbert groaned.
He had never once imagined he would be deceived. More than anger, he felt shame that a knight-in-training had failed to see through so simple a trick.
Luid held out his hand.
"Two gold."
"I, I..."
The shill's eyes darted around. Then, apparently giving up, he sagged his shoulders with a craven look.
"Two gold is... beyond me."
"Then cough up what your conscience allows."
Luid held out his hand again. The shill flinched, fished some shillings from his pouch, and handed them over. Four shillings.
"...This is my entire fortune."
Luid naturally didn't believe a word of it, but he decided to let it go. The goal had been to recover the money Gilbert had lost.
Taking the coin purse, Luid offered a bit of advice.
"Stop fleecing nobles who don't know any better."
Then, without a shred of attachment, he turned around and handed one shilling back to Gilbert.
Gilbert, dyed crimson with humiliation, bowed his head deeply.
"Thank you, Young Master Luid. Thanks to you, I can still afford lunch."
Then he said, with visible unease,
"I... I know it's utterly pathetic to ask this, but might I request that you keep this a secret...?"
Luid smiled brightly.
"If you want my mouth kept shut, there is a way."
There was a saying, after all.
If you want to find the most delicious donut shop in America, ask the local police!
Gilbert believed, without a shadow of doubt, that he would make a fine knight.
Luid perched himself on a low fence.
"Mmph."
He bit into the grilled skewer Gilbert had just bought him.
It was a simple skewer—meat seasoned with nothing but salt—but it was quite tasty.
"What kind of meat do you suppose this is?"
"Probably goblin—"
"Chicken."
"I beg your pardon? No, this is clearly—"
"Chicken."
Hershey shook her head rapidly at Gilbert, staring him down. Gilbert shut his mouth.
Luid's appetite dipped for a moment as he glared at the skewer. He hypnotized himself.
Chicken... this is chicken.
Then he took another bite, chewing away.
Not bad.
On the whole, believing it was chicken worked out better for everyone.
"Mmm. The texture leaves something to be desired, though."
Hershey, meanwhile, wore a dissatisfied expression. Naturally—she was eating with a detoxification spell cast over her food.
Luid offered his wisdom.
"It tastes better without the detox spell."
"...I have no wish to disparage your tastes, Luid, but skipping the detoxification spell on commoner food—surely that's a problem?"
"What problem?"
"Well... the hygiene is questionable, for one. Frankly, who knows what might be in it. I've heard they sometimes even put narcotics in the food."
Luid raised one arm. He patted his belly with a hand glowing faintly blue.
"My stomach can handle it."
"Hmm, how to put this—it still feels off somehow."
"You eat my cooking without the spell, don't you?"
"Th-that's different! Because you made it, Luid. You're clean, and you'd never do anything to the food."
Casting detoxification magic over one's food. It was so taken for granted here that failing to do it was considered unclean.
I suppose I'd feel the same if I'd lived here since birth.
Meat that chewed like rubber, vegetables that tasted like biting into liquid monster.
Luid figured that even if it was a little dirty, commoner food was the better choice. And not all commoners were dirty anyway. Skewers like these, especially, were grilled right in front of you—hardly anything suspicious about that.
"By the way, Sir Gilbert, what brings you out this way?"
Hershey asked.
"Ah, yes. I am in the middle of an investigation. Crime has been on the rise in the Imperial Capital lately."
He wiped his mouth with a handkerchief, then continued in a somewhat more serious tone.
"Abductions targeting young children are increasing. You should take care as well, Young Master Luid. Strength aside, merely crossing paths with criminals is a deeply unpleasant affair. And, well—"
Gilbert spoke politely.
"Please, speak down to me. This is not the Academy, and I am a commoner."
Luid tilted his head.
Nothing about Gilbert showed the traits commoners typically displayed. His court etiquette was flawless, too.
"I beg your pardon? You're a commoner, Sir Gilbert?"
Hershey was equally taken aback.
"My father is a baron, but he holds no territory."
"Ah."
Luid understood immediately.
In the Empire, hereditary succession hinged on whether or not one held territory. A title could pass to one's children only if there was land attached to it; without land, succession was impossible.
And so the practical day-to-day life of a landless baron was hardly distinguishable from that of an upper-class commoner.
A landless baron was one of two things: either he'd sold off his territory out of poverty, or he was a commoner who had purchased his rank.
Judging by the perfection of Gilbert's etiquette, the former seemed far more likely.
"Besides, if the Young Master writes me a letter of recommendation, I may yet enter the Imperial Knights. I don't let it trouble me overmuch. Haha."
Gilbert smiled as if to say there was nothing to worry about.
But his eyes betrayed his anxiety—they seemed to be asking, ...You will write it, won't you?
Luid turned uncertainty into certainty.
"Yeah. I'll ask my mother."
"...Y-you mean Her Grace the Duchess?"
Gilbert's eyes went wide.
"Promises exist to be kept."
"...Thank you, truly. I never dreamed you would concern yourself with me to such an extent. Then I must work all the harder."
Gilbert rose from the fence.
With the moonlight at his back, he said,
"I must be off. The case is not yet solved, you see. It has been a pleasant evening."
"Come to think of it, you did say you were investigating. Is Sis involved too?"
"She is. She's been running herself ragged lately, hardly sleeping at all."
...Have I really been that uninterested in Amelia's life?
Luid spoke with a twinge of guilt.
"So she's out right now, too?"
"That is so. In cases like these, witnessing the crime scene firsthand comes first. Shall I escort you to her?"
"No need."
Luid offered the rest of his skewer to Miho, perched on his shoulder.
She had been quietly well-behaved the whole time. Miho took the skewer in one big bite, then hopped down from his shoulder.
"She'd hate it if I got in the way of her work."
"Would she, now...?"
Gilbert found this baffling. The Commander he knew was a completely devoted slave to her brother's whims. So much so that a saying circulated in the Swordsmanship Club: If you want to put the Commander in a good mood, praise her little brother instead of her.
"Instead, pass a message to Amelia for me. I'll be sleeping at the mansion, so wake me up when she gets back."
"Understood. I shall."
But Gilbert never got the chance to deliver that message.
"...Sis?"
Because from far down the street, a haggard, disheveled Amelia came staggering toward them.
"C-Commander?!"
Gilbert rushed over and caught her by the arm. As he drew near, an unmistakable reek of alcohol stung his nose.
"Oh my... I'm seeing hallucinations. Heek."
Luid regarded Amelia with cool, narrowed eyes.
She's drunk.
And thoroughly, completely drunk at that.
"Ehehe, it's Luid's friend!"
Amelia draped an arm around Hershey's neck.
"A-Amelia...?"
Hershey looked utterly at a loss.
"Sis."
"Oh...? The hallucination talks."
Amelia beamed foolishly, then tottered over to Luid and crouched down in front of him.
Hiccupping, she stroked his hair.
"Wow... wowww... the hallucination is touching me."
"I'm not a hallucination."
"So cruel... how cruel, Luid. You could have at least said goodbye... why did you leave without me, sniff."
Now she had begun to outright sob.
She was nothing short of a weeping drunkard.
A crease formed between Luid's brows. He drew his wand from his pocket and lightly bonked Amelia on the crown of her head.
Thwack—! With the sound, Amelia's eyes went enormous.
"?!"
In that instant, the alcohol ruling her body vanished entirely.
Clutching the top of her head, Amelia crumpled to the ground, utterly flustered.
"L-Luid? How did you— d-didn't you go home?"
"I haven't gone yet. Why would you think that?"
"...Because you left the Academy. There'd be no reason for you to be in the Imperial Capital."
Luid let out a long sigh.
"I'm not leaving until you graduate. We came here together, so we leave together."
"Luid...!"
Amelia flung her arms around him.
"I knew it all along! I never doubted you for a second!"
"...You're lying."
Amelia turned her face away with a happy smile.
But that happiness didn't last long.
Because something occurred to her.
"Wait just a moment..."
Amelia went pale to the roots of her hair.
"Mother and Irene... they're still waiting."
Windsor Castle.
Opulent halls and glittering chandeliers.
A lavish banquet, and at the end of it, the Duchess of Windsor.
Beside her sat Irene.
Irene gazed straight ahead with a smile on her face, perfectly still. The Duchess of Windsor sat with her fingers laced together, calmly waiting.
Neither of them so much as twitched.
"...They're late."
"They are."
"I suppose today isn't the day."
"The night has not yet fully fallen. Let us wait one more hour, my lady."
"Very well."
It had already been two days.
They had waited without moving an inch.
And their waiting...
was likely to continue for quite some time yet.