Festival 1
Since that conversation in the garden that day, I could say that Irene and I had grown quite comfortable with each other.
For one thing, she no longer treated me so harshly; for another, I no longer had to throw myself into training I had no desire for just because I was supposedly avoiding her.
Sir Chris would still bark at me now and then for getting lazy, but I had to wonder if stabbing a blade into a person’s neck really counted as training.
Time passed, and before long the greenery had turned a brilliant yellow and the sky had risen high and clear overhead.
That was when the maids of the ducal estate grew busy in earnest, because the Empire’s Foundation Day was approaching.
This year was especially hectic, since it was one of those rare years when the festival was held together with the capital every five years.
Thanks to that, even the administrative work that would normally have fallen to the duke had been taken over by Irene, the young lady of the house.
And naturally, her mood had begun to sink as well. According to Ropena, one should absolutely never provoke Irene when she was like this.
Honestly, that seemed about right.
Irene’s gaze, fixed on the documents before her, was so cold it looked as though frost might gather on the papers themselves.
Ropena, standing beside her, gave a small shiver and looked my way.
It’s cold.
She opened her mouth a little and sent me a silent plea for rescue, and I looked back at her with pity before smiling wryly and shaking my head.
She was probably truly cold.
Even if she wasn’t an Expert, Irene had awakened to mana in her own way, so when her emotions shifted, her mana was likely moving without her even realizing it.
After a moment, Irene lifted her teacup, glanced at the now-cold tea, and spoke.
“Ropena, the tea’s gone cold again. Bring me another cup.”
“Yes, ma’am!”
“...I don’t know why it keeps going cold. It was poured not long ago.”
Did she still not realize it was because of her mana? Her swordsmanship was clearly at a fairly high level, but surprisingly, her ability to perceive and control mana was below expectations.
Even in the original story, she had only reached the early stage of Expert. Mana, more than anything else, really was the realm of talent.
In that sense, the talent this body of Evan Fried possessed was beyond anything I could properly describe.
A talent that could sense mana simply by breathing in.
Before, I had been completely ignorant about mana, but even the lines from the novel had been enough to tell me this wasn’t ordinary.
It was probably something the crown prince had said to the heroine.
When she had begun to faintly sense mana a week after starting to study magic, he had praised her as a once-in-a-century genius.
Of course, since he was blinded by love, it wasn’t exactly the most reliable assessment in the world.
But even taking that into account, this body’s ability to feel mana merely by breathing was astonishing.
And yet, whenever I recognized that talent, one question always rose in my mind.
Why, exactly, had I never seen the boy named Evan Fried, the one who was supposed to be Irene’s bodyguard knight?
They had called him a famous genius. I could feel that much myself, and if I truly put my mind to it, he seemed like the kind of talent who could reach the realm of Master with relative ease.
So why had the name Evan Fried never appeared in that part of the story, back when the heroine’s original timeline unfolded?
It was a question that refused to go away.
But there was nothing I could know yet, so all I could do was keep my mouth shut and live as best I could.
I hadn’t even found the faintest clue about how to return to my old world.
If only there were some kind of status window, like in other novels. Unfortunately, nothing like that appeared before me.
All I could do was train and slowly, by feel alone, sense those subtle changes.
“Evan, what are you thinking about?”
But my thoughts were soon broken, because Irene was looking at me as she spoke.
Perhaps she was bored too; with her chin resting in her hand, she stared at me with hazy eyes. How long had she been watching me?
“I was just thinking about this festival.”
“...This loathsome festival, you mean.”
She looked back down at the documents, let out a sigh, and leaned her head back.
Irene looked even more exhausted beneath the dark shadows under her eyes, and after sipping the tea Ropena brought back for her, she spoke to me.
“Count Glasskan is coming shortly, so after he leaves, you should rest a little. I’m sure you’re bored out of your mind as well.”
“Thank you for your concern.”
“...It’s not concern. I’m just uncomfortable, that’s all. You’ve been standing there for hours.”
“Don’t people usually find ways to sneak a little rest for themselves?”
At her question, I simply tilted my head.
“Sneak a little rest? I’ve only been a knight for a month. What kind of skill would I have for that?”
In any case, ever since we cleared up the misunderstanding at the tea party, Irene had been treating me very well.
I wasn’t sure whether she had been thinking hard about how harshly she’d treated me before, but the other shield knights under her had clearly never experienced this kind of behavior, because Sir Chris had looked at me with a strange expression more than once.
—Evan, what in the world did you do to the young lady? I could understand it if you were a maid, but to think she’d act like that even toward a bodyguard knight. Don’t tell me you’ve got something on her—surely you didn’t do anything so disgraceful...!
—If I had, my limbs would be hanging from the walls, one by one.
—...Fair enough.
The corner of my mouth twitched at the memory of that conversation, and just then Ropena, who had been eating cookies, seemed to remember something and looked over at Irene.
Following Ropena’s gaze, Irene let out a faint sigh and spoke toward the door.
“Prepare to receive our guest.”
It seemed Count Glasskan was due to arrive soon.
#
Count Glasskan was a stout man.
At a glance, he looked plump and good-natured, and as befitted his title, he carried a certain dignity about him.
The problem was that, in front of the name Yuris, that dignity amounted to no more than an ant beneath a boot.
“You have no manners.”
That was the first thing Irene said when she met Count Glasskan.
At those icy words, the count’s face drained white, and I covered my own face with a hand, letting out a sigh.
I could already picture exactly how this would go from here.
With someone so much younger than himself saying this to him, Count Glasskan, who looked to be well past middle age, flushed dark red.
As he roared in protest that his honor had been gravely insulted, Irene continued.
“You’d do well to bow your head a little more.”
“How can you be so brazen! Even if you are the young lady of the house, I cannot simply endure such an attitude and let it pass—”
“If you don’t endure it, then what will you do? Surely you’re not thinking of picking a fight with Yuris?”
“T-that is not what I meant!”
“If you don’t like it, then lower that proud head of yours. We can discuss the business after that.”
The count’s fists trembled as he clenched them so tightly his skin seemed to go pale, and after grinding his teeth for a moment, he finally bowed his head.
The scene was painful to watch, and a sigh slipped between my teeth, but at the same time it was necessary, so I had no intention of saying anything against Irene.
At this moment, she was acting under direct instruction to carry out the duke’s authority in his stead; for now, she was not simply the next shield of Yuris, but the shield itself.
This was merely a way to brand that truth into everyone’s mind.
Granted, Count Glasskan was the one who had to suffer for it, which made the whole thing rather dreadful from his perspective.
“At last, I feel like talking a little.”
Without even looking at the count, Irene spoke while keeping her eyes on the documents.
“Remember this well: this is Yuris, and for now I am the head of Yuris. Count Glasskan.”
“...Understood.”
Once the situation had finally settled, the real purpose of the audience Count Glasskan had requested—the business deal—began at last.
The sapphire owned by Count Glasskan, and the mana stone mine. Those, along with the vast wealth Yuris possessed, were the subject of the negotiation.
The sapphire was one thing, but mana stone was the foundation of magical goods, so it would no doubt cost quite a bit.
I watched with a faint sense of anticipation, wondering how Irene would handle this, but the conversation that followed only let me out a tired breath.
So this was how it would end after all. This was less a negotiation than outright extortion.
“If the mining rights for that entire region were to belong to Yuris in perpetuity, then I suppose there would be no reason I couldn’t pay you.”
“...But if we do that, I won’t be able to maintain the territory. What about renewing the contract every five years?”
“How long do you think it would take me to lead the knights and trample the Glasskan lands? Three days? I’d wager it would all be over around then.”
As Irene said that, she twisted the corner of her mouth into a cold smile.
As if it were nothing more than a passing remark, she raised one hand slightly and spoke again.
“So, what is your answer?”
The hand she had lifted, and the ring on her index finger, were a token only the head of the house could possess.
And Count Glasskan’s answer, now that he had gone deathly pale, was all too easy to predict.
“I will...grant it to you in perpetuity.”
Only then did Irene smile in satisfaction, and at that bewitching expression I found myself staring at her, dazed.
As her red lips curved, she looked like a painting brought to life. Yes, she was far better when she smiled.
“Now that is more like it.”
Unlike Count Glasskan’s tearful expression, Irene looked more pleased than she had at any point so far.
#
“...Count Glasskan must be heartbroken.”
When I spoke to her as she reviewed the papers with bright, glittering eyes, Irene answered without taking her gaze off the documents.
“Do you think I’m pitiable?”
“......”
“Once you start doing things for the sake of your territory, there’s a lot you have to keep in mind. Money, the people of the territory, and beyond that there are dozens of people here in the ducal estate alone. Just taking care of all of them is exhausting enough—should I really have to worry about someone else’s territory too?”
“No, of course not.”
She lifted her gaze from the documents and looked at me as she went on.
“I don’t mind if someone calls me a villain. The mana stone mine was important to begin with, and this time I needed to secure complete ownership of it.”
Because it would be consumed in greater quantities for this festival.
At her added explanation, I could only nod.
I had no intention of criticizing a deal done for the sake of her own territory in the first place.
On the Empire’s Foundation Day, the festival ran for a week, and it wasn’t held only in the capital; it was also celebrated in this Yuris ducal territory, one of the five great noble houses.
To brighten the long dark nights as if they were day, they would probably need an enormous quantity of mana stone.
“But do you have no interest in the festival itself?”
And yet, for all the attention she paid to the festival, she seemed to have little interest in taking part herself, so when I asked, she frowned slightly and answered.
“It’s not that I have no interest. It’s that I can’t participate. During that week, do you really think I’ll be able to leave this room?”
Irene glanced at the token hanging from her finger and gave a bitter smile before turning her eyes away.
Was she really just accepting it? I had heard that the Foundation Day festival in Yuris lands only came once every five years.
Could she truly have no interest at all?
I looked at her for a moment, then carefully spoke.
“I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to go once.”
“It wouldn’t be bad, no. But the situation is...”
“On the final day of the festival, won’t the duke return? If that happens, wouldn’t you be able to go?”
The duke was away in the capital now because of the Foundation Day ceremony being held there, but once he returned, Irene’s duties as acting head would likely end as well.
When I stared at her intently, she narrowed her eyes and spoke.
“...That is fair, I suppose.”
The light in those narrowed eyes was so vivid that a laugh slipped out of me without warning.
Had she wanted to go that badly? Then again, when she had gone out into the streets before, saying she was headed to the bookstore, she had seemed quite interested in everything around her.
Perhaps because I had stared too openly at the gleam in those blue eyes, Irene seemed to catch my gaze and flinched before turning her head sharply away.
“Anyway, there’s no time to worry about that now. We’ll think about it again later.”
“...Understood.”
Apparently, it was rather embarrassing that I had seen through her real feelings.
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