Royal Capital Gallia (20): Shattered Expectations
“You said, ‘I’ll protect you’? Eww. That gave me the chills.”
Azazel, walking ahead, twisted her fingers in a mocking gesture. She looked annoyed, but it was clear she was worried about Aria too. The frequent glances she kept stealing backward made that obvious.
“To think Sir Ashtain would express affection like that.” Leon’s words carried genuine surprise. That was probably why they felt all the more irritating. Was it that some people couldn’t even express their feelings freely?
Ashtain frowned. “Could you keep your burning interest in other people’s love lives to yourself?”
“It’s not an ordinary person’s romance we’re talking about—it’s the Hero’s. And when it involves such a lovely woman in a tender relationship, it would be strange not to be interested, wouldn’t it?”
At the mischievous remark, Aria lowered her already bowed head even further. It tilted so far one wondered if it might snap like a rice stalk.
“Ah, compared to Ain, I’m still far from adequate.” Aria’s voice crawled out, as if her spirit had been crushed. The way she fidgeted with her fingers and avoided eye contact made her look utterly lacking in confidence.
“No.”
“No way, sis.”
Ashtain and Azazel spoke with barely a second’s difference. At their chorus, Leon grinned slyly.
“As you can see, Miss Aria, it seems they don’t think that at all. And if I may add my personal opinion, Sir Ashtain is already blessed enough simply by having earned your favor.”
“T-that can’t be.”
The immediate denial made Ashtain bend down to meet Aria’s eyes.
“Aria.”
“Y-yes?”
“I’ve never once thought of you as a lacking woman. To me, you’re someone far too good, someone precious.”
“……Even if you praise me like that, you won’t get anything out of it.”
“Have I ever lied to you?”
Aria’s face flushed bright red. Everyone offered faint, warm smiles at the sight.
The hero’s party descended the dark, mold-scented spiral staircase in a noticeably lighter atmosphere. They were heading into the royal palace’s underground levels.
To explain how things had reached this point, it was best to start from the moment the original Leon regained consciousness.
The royal guards who arrived late were caught between bewilderment and trouble. After all, there were now two second princes who had supposedly been attacked. Determining which was real and which was fake would require at least a palace magician. It was too difficult to render an immediate judgment on the spot.
Therefore, they leaned toward following the long-established formalities. The kind that meant taking them in first and asking questions later.
The man in the silver helmet, Bertus, spoke. “Your Highnesses, would you please come with us peacefully?”
His tone was far too calm for someone commenting on the chaos that had erupted in the corridor. In a way, it was almost mild. There would have been no grounds for protest even if they had restrained the group without warning.
The hero party’s mood darkened and grew heavy. Their gazes shifted between the doppelganger Leon and the original Leon, clearly asking, What should we do?
The original Leon let out a hollow laugh. What a ridiculous situation.
The prince rose after confirming his own double.
“I would like to, but……”
His perfectly modulated voice rang through the corridor. By deliberately trailing off, he drew every eye to himself.
Leon felt a strange sense of dissonance. And why wouldn’t he? He had arrived at the corridor after being summoned by First Prince Ledinor, only to find an assassin waiting. The cause-and-effect was obvious enough for a child to understand.
It must be my brother’s doing.
He had survived by sheer luck. But that wasn’t what mattered right now. Look at them. Even though the prince had been attacked, the only emotions the royal guards displayed were bewilderment and inconvenience. Not a trace of shock or horror at the assassination attempt could be found.
Even if they were jaded by the endless incidents within the palace, that reaction was abnormal. It was the attitude of people facing an event they had already anticipated.
Have you brought even the royal guards under your control, brother?
Was this the moment he had sharpened his blade to bury him for good?
The original Leon looked at Edelis, then at Ashtain, and finally at the other version of himself. He had believed his own double had betrayed him. He had thought even the woman he trusted had abandoned him.
But.
It was his own eyes that had been clouded.
It was ironic. He had suspected, yes. But to think the man would act so blatantly… Had he naïvely assumed they were still brothers? Was the throne so desirable that he would harm even his own flesh and blood?
It was a meaningless question, one that would receive no answer. Hadn’t he already killed his naïve former self long ago? There was no reason to be shocked.
Leon closed his eyes and swept a hand down his face. When his blue eyes opened again, they were piercingly clear.
“I need to be able to trust you first.”
His tone was laced with wariness. Captain Bertus replied in a businesslike voice.
“What do you mean, Your Highness?”
“As you can all see, I was attacked. I nearly became a dead man. Fortunately, this person with the same face as mine and the hero’s party saved me. But what were you doing while I was being attacked? For people who carry the name of royal guard, you certainly took your time, didn’t you?”
The words flowed smoothly and fluently without a single stutter. To summarize Leon’s speech simply, he was holding the royal guards responsible.
Aria thought that people who waded in political waters really did speak differently from the start.
“Isn’t that a stretch? We are not omniscient. How could we know where an attack might occur?”
“A fair point. A reasonable one. However, isn’t the royal guard supposed to detect such anomalies quickly? How much time do you think has passed since the incident? It has been well over an hour. Do you truly believe that makes sense? That the royal family’s elite would stand idly by for this long? It makes me wonder if we have scarecrows or straw bundles standing here instead of royal guards.”
“You go too far.”
“I’m curious what part of my words is excessive when I’m speaking to men who take the royal salary yet cannot even fulfill their basic duties, Captain Bertus?”
It was a scathing, blunt remark. A red flush crept up the captain’s face.
“I see no reason to listen to such baseless slander.”
“I am pointing out your dereliction of duty. And yet you still claim the right to take us in? Doesn’t even a captain feel that is ridiculous and absurd?”
“We understand Prince Leon’s anger, but shouldn’t we also consider the possibility that the one speaking now is the fake?”
“Even if I were the fake, that wouldn’t suddenly create credibility where there was none, would it?”
“We are His Majesty’s hands and feet. We have a duty to investigate any suspicious incidents within the royal family.”
“I know. I know it well. But you see, aren’t you all my brother’s limbs rather than His Majesty’s?”
The confrontation had been drawn. It was a fierce verbal battle, sharp enough that one more step would pierce the heart.
“If Your Highness continues to be this uncooperative, we will have no choice but to take you in by force.”
Ashtain reacted to those words. The killing intent radiating from his body crushed the space around them. Everyone’s eyes turned toward the hero who emanated such presence.
“Force happens to be my specialty.”
Expressions of mixed emotion crossed their faces. Leon offered a faint smile. The royal guards wore distorted, tearful looks.
“Go fetch an arrest warrant or something. We’ll be on our way.”
As the original Leon began to walk, the rest of the party followed. The royal guards could not bring themselves to stop them. They were outmatched in both justification and power.
“I’ll leave the cleanup to you.”
Leaving those words behind, Leon exited the corridor. The prince returned to his room. The moment he stepped inside, he let out a long sigh and turned around.
Five people. Not too many, not too few.
“……Hoo. So you’ll explain now, right?”
Ashtain nodded. “Of course. But was it really all right to lash out at the royal guards like that?”
“It’s obviously not all right.”
“Obviously, huh.”
Leon chuckled. “That’s why my brother sent them, isn’t it? Even I find it hard to clean up after acting in the heat of the moment. Those men would actually bring an arrest warrant. Besides, unlike the responses I’ve laughed off until now, I’ve shown clear hostile intent. My brother will probably begin applying real pressure from now on.”
As she listened, Aria felt a throbbing pain in her head. Sending an assassin wasn’t considered real pressure?
“Real pressure?”
“That’s right, Sister Nun.”
Just how muddy were the political struggles in the royal palace? In terms of filth, it seemed worse than any grease stain imaginable.
As Aria shook her head in disgust, Azazel whispered in her ear, “This is about average for the royal palace, sis.”
They say the royal palace is a battlefield. That saying fits perfectly.
While Aria was lost in such thoughts, Edelis examined Leon with worried eyes.
“Prince Leon.”
“Sir Edelis, don’t worry too much. What greater problem could there be than death?”
He looked like someone who had let go of everything, yet he had not attained enlightenment. He had simply accepted it all.
Ashtain sensed a burning ambition blazing in his eyes.
“Do you have any plans for the future?”
“Even if I don’t, you do, don’t you?”
A gaze filled with expectation turned toward Ashtain. At the cryptic look, the hero pointed at his own face with one finger and asked back.
“……Me?”
“Yes. I gave it some thought myself. Why someone as renowned for monster hunting as you would come to a detestable royal court instead of heading to the front lines.”
You thought about the reason? To what end?
The reason Ashtain had come to the royal court was the words spoken by the previous hero’s replica back in the Asendio Mountain Range. The vague statement that the truth lay within the Gallia Royal Palace. He had simply followed that single clue.
“Wasn’t it to reform the rotten core from within?”
The words from the original Leon’s mouth were quite revolutionary. Reform from the inside?
“The kingdom’s front lines against the monsters are gradually being pushed back. It’s a problem both you, who have experienced the battlefield, and I know well. A front line that will eventually collapse. Yet there are foolish nobles who believe this negligent state will remain fixed forever. Inadequate supplies—the problems are too numerous to count. Judging that things could not continue this way, you came to the royal palace to rally the court around me as a focal point and unite them as one, right?”
The doppelganger Leon nodded repeatedly, as if the original’s words resonated deeply. Edelis and Azazel sent glances that asked whether that had truly been the intention, while Aria’s eyes sparkled with impressed admiration as she looked at Ashtain.
“Huh?”
It was a ridiculous leap of logic. Ashtain felt embarrassed. This level of overinterpretation was unparalleled.
“So what brilliant plan do you have, oh political hero?”
The expectant gazes around him gradually grew piercing. Ashtain stroked his chin in thought.
This guy. His delusions have completely run away with him.
Well, the Leon duo and Edelis were one thing, but even Aria and Azazel. You two shouldn’t be making those faces. You already know the real reason.
“Coincidentally, the reason I came to the royal court isn’t anything that grand.”
Crack.
The expectant expression on Leon’s face collapsed.
“What?”
“To put it bluntly, I only came because I heard the truth was in the royal palace.”
“………Haha?”
It was a dry, hollow laugh. The original Leon tapped his forehead repeatedly with his index finger before asking again.
“Really?”
“It’s the truth.”
“………I see.”
The prince swallowed. The room fell utterly silent.
“The reason you secretly met me and arranged an audience with His Majesty was?”
“Because to wander around the royal palace, you need the owner’s permission?”
“And what you said before about leaving the front lines briefly to find a breakthrough?”
Ah, yes. He had said something like that while they were traveling the front lines together.
“I was speaking indirectly about returning after becoming strong enough to defeat the master of the Asendio Mountain Range.”
Silence. An unpleasant silence filled the air.
“Then why did you come to the royal palace like this?”
Ashtain glanced briefly at Aria before continuing.
“It just happened to involve the doppelganger. This guy said he wanted to clear up the misunderstanding with you, which was a big factor. And since I was coming to see you anyway, I figured I might as well search for the palace’s hidden basement while I was at it.”
He looked somewhat dazed.
“……It’s really not?”
“It really isn’t.”
It seemed it would take Leon quite a while to recover from the shock.