17. Claire's Coming-of-Age Ceremony (7)

Let me say it again: this never happened in the game.

As you could tell from the title of Episode III, the story only unfolded around the time of Claire's coming-of-age ceremony. There was no scene where she sent maids ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to my room, or summoned me to breakfast. There wasn't even a scene like this one, where Flora came looking for me the way she just did.

The Status Window merely displayed the ongoing notification without offering any further information. Since this, too, counted as an episode, all I could do was respond the way I always had, following what I already knew.

Information was endlessly scarce. I might know the character named Flora Bagland, but when it came to this situation, I had no idea whatsoever how to handle it.

Even so, the reason she'd come to find me wasn't hard to guess.

"So you came because you have something to say? To me?"

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

"...You were glaring at me in the dining hall."

Right — because of how I'd acted there. I had singled out Flora as the most likely person to have slipped the Kelvia fruit into the food, then stared her down to see whether she was truly the culprit. If she'd come here because that stare got under her skin, then out of the three people I'd been pressuring at once, the one who had once devoted herself purely to tormenting Karsein had felt the squeeze land properly.

"So what if I was glaring at you?"

When I stonewalled and played dumb, Flora shot back her answer at once, clearly annoyed by my evasion.

"You suspect I'm the culprit, don't you! It's not true!"

"Is that why you came here?"

"Of course it is! Because I'm not the culprit!"

I had only twisted my words a little, and her true feelings came spilling out. Little kids really are best handled exactly this way. Now that she'd brought up the main issue herself, shall I counterattack?

"Hmm. Do you have any proof you aren't the culprit?"

"Wh-what?"

"From where I'm standing, you'd be the first name on the suspect list. Of course I'm suspicious. It's not like you've only ever spiked my food once or twice."

"That's not fair! I never did any such—"

"Just a few days ago, I had a Rigomos reaction to the food I was served, remember? What, is that not evidence either?"

Instantly, the denial burst out of her.

"That wasn't me! I'm telling you it wasn't!"

Children are all like this. They throw their pride around, they lie, they throw tantrums — just like my youngest sister back home used to. And the more they did it, the harder I bit my tongue, so I could bear down on them all at once like this, with everything I'd saved up.

"The Kelvia allergy. You were the only person who knew about it."

"That's—!"

"Mother didn't know. Neither did Arina or Claire. But you already knew it well enough to slip it into my food out in the open and turn me into the guilty party when I got angry. Are you going to tell me that wasn't you either?"

"N-no, it wasn't! Not this time! I really—"

"The Kelvia fruit. The method of hiding things in food. And the prime suspect standing right in front of me. And none of it has anything to do with you?"

The moment I spoke the obvious truth out loud, Flora jumped as if stung.

"It wasn't me, I said! I just — I really didn't know... that the Kelvia fruit hurt you that much..."

I lowered myself to meet Flora's eyes. In them — in the eyes of a girl insisting it wasn't her doing — tears were brimming over.

"So you were wronged?"

—Nod, nod.

She nodded so vigorously that she must genuinely have felt it was unfair. And why shouldn't she? It truly wasn't something she had done. I knew that much, at least.

But so what? Why should I be the one to make allowances for that?

"Me, I felt that feeling every single day."

"Wh-what...?"

"Exactly what you're feeling right now — I felt it every day without exception. Every time you came to torment me in every way you could think of, trying to drive me out."

When it was Karsein being tormented, that little brat never listened — not to his protests of innocence, not to his explanations to stop. Funny how different it feels once it's her own turn.

There's no room for mercy here.

"You just didn't like me, so you tried to drive me out. But do you know what being thrown out of this duchy actually means for someone like me?"

For a child cast out empty-handed, with nothing at all, the world is mercilessly cruel.

"Fine clothes catch people's eyes. But what if there are no guards around you? You get grabbed by the ones who noticed, and everything you had on you is stripped away first. Big men you've never seen before show up and take it by force."

The moment people see you carrying anything, they come swarming like a pack of wolves, just to tear it from you.

"Once you've been robbed of everything, truly left with nothing, you end up crawling through back alleys. Beaten half to death, left entirely alone. And then, in some place that's cold and dark and terrifying, a hand suddenly reaches out to you."

When you have nowhere left to return to, you naturally start wanting something to lean on. And you mistake that hand — you mistake it for a helping hand.

"The one offering that hand will say something like this: I'll ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠feed you, I'll give you a place to sleep. All you have to do is the work I tell you to do. That's how they put it. That's how everyone ends up in the slums."

Once you fall for that illusion, it's over. Because it's the road down into a pit there's no climbing out of.

"Because the ones who rob you of what you have and the ones who offer you their hand are all the same gang. A kid with nothing left but a body gets worked over and squeezed for labor that way — and if she won't do what she's told, they won't spare her so much as a cup of water. And when she's finally worn down to useless, they sell her off somewhere and wash their hands of her."

In the end, you lose everything you have, you're used down to the marrow, and then you're discarded.

Whether you realize it a little sooner, or whether you realize it only after you've been thrown away, watching your whole life flash before your eyes — that's the only difference.

To a child, the world really is that harsh a place.

"Th-that's a lie! There's no such thing! It's not even in books, and I've never heard it from any of my teachers either! You're — you're just making up stories...!"

Yes. Of course it would all sound like lies.

How would a pampered noble young lady ever understand the cruelty of the rough world outside? To be fair, I was no different — the knowledge I carried from my old life might not match this world exactly.

But still.

Would she really be allowed to think that way?

"Have you forgotten where I came from?"

"...!"

She was the one who knew more about the slums than anyone. The one who had weathered the world's storms head-on and crossed paths with its worst sort again and again. Which was why I could say it with confidence: compared to what I had endured, her days of suffering must have been beyond comparison.

"Then out there... it's really like that...?"

"Something like the Kelvia fruit? That's laughable, by comparison. Considering I've been made to go through that kind of experience twice. An allergy stings less than a kick to the ribs, and a cold-water dousing is bearable when it's not falling on an open wound. Maids? I can manage without them — which is exactly why I ended up doing laundry in water that cold in the dead of winter, isn't it?"

"That's... impossible. That can't be real..."

As I peeled back the hidden, dark underside of the world for her, Flora wept — fat, clumsy chicken-scratch tears — and hiccuped without a word.

"I won't — I won't believe it! There's no way things like that exist in the world!"

Clatter.

Something flew from Flora's hand and rolled across the floor of my room.

"Ah..."

"What's this?"

"My sister gave it to me to give to you! She said she'd be angry if you missed her coming-of-age ceremony. I've said everything I came to say, so I'm leaving!"

SLAM!

Flora, who had been staring at the object she'd thrown in dismay, shouted that and slammed the door shut behind her. The sound of her running footsteps grew fainter and fainter.

At the same moment, the Status Window unfolded before my eyes.

Judging by the effect, the idea was clearly: apply this and show up to the coming-of-age ceremony. That was the gist of it.

Shayden had apparently smoothed things over when he explained the Kelvia allergy, and with Arina not coming to see me directly, it seemed the episode had passed exactly as the Status Window said.

But my mood was far from good. Beyond irritation, I felt downright filthy. The thoughtless behavior of my youngest sister back home was overlapping, one on top of the other, with Flora's — how could I not be irritated?

"Attend the coming-of-age ceremony? What a joke."

Ring.

"You called, Young Master?"

The moment I rang the bell used to summon the maids, Camilla appeared at once.

"At this hour, bring Heron to my room."

Time slipped past noon and on toward dusk. Only a few hours remained until Claire's coming-of-age ceremony began.

The ceremony itself would be held in the evening, with the banquet carrying on past midnight — which made this, right now, exactly the moment to make my decision.

"It is Heron, Young Master Karsein."

Through the knock came the old butler's courteous voice. I told him to enter without delay.

"I heard you summoned me. What business might you have?"

Heron, as ever, was Heron. Unlike so many of the figures I'd crossed paths with in this duchy, there wasn't a trace of a slanted, sidelong gaze in him. He arrived neither early nor late — a man who stood on the strictest neutrality, one who had ranked among the most difficult characters to deal with even within the game.

And precisely because of that — because he was an upright, bamboo-straight man who always held the middle ground — I had called for him. Now, before Claire's coming-of-age episode kicked into full swing.

"Asking me what business I have? Shouldn't you be asking about something else first?"

Heron fell briefly silent.

"If this is about the Kelvia allergy, everyone will know by now. Your lady mother, and the young ladies as well—"

"No. That's not what I want to talk about."

"Pardon? Then what might you mean?"

"You're the one who brought Shayden here, aren't you, Heron?"

"..."

That's right. The debris of this not-yet-finished episode had been left lying at Heron's feet.

The maids would listen to Arina's orders, but they would never deign to listen to Karsein's command. In the original story, this fact only came to light much later, once I'd built up my Recognition within the duchy and pulled information through side quests — but there was no problem at all in laying it bare now.

"The maids won't listen to a word I say. Everyone in this duchy knows exactly where I stand. So tell me — who, then, could have called for Shayden?"

"Even if the eldest young lady's word takes precedence, you are still a child of House Bagrand, Young Master. At least one person among them would have ample grounds to move on your behalf."

"For instance, my exclusive maid — Camilla, say?"

At my one-step-ahead answer, Heron flinched. So I'd hit the mark dead center.

"Camilla was cleaning my room at the time. Even if she moved the moment she heard the news, there's no way things would have been arranged as neatly as they were. Not like this."

"..."

Two acts, impossible both in time and in space, had overlapped. Thanks to the imbalance of information, there was no clean way for Heron to knock my reasoning down.

In the end, the old butler ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠folded.

"An unassailable point of logic. I will not deny it. Yes — it is the truth. It was I who brought the duchy's chief physician here."

With Heron confessing so readily, I could press him once more. With the simple question: Why did you do it?

A plain question, but one with teeth. How many people in this duchy ever showed Karsein a shred of goodwill? So few had even bothered with surface-level kindness that Heron's action was genuinely strange — strange in itself. A character obligated to neutrality, leaning toward one side.

But I deliberately didn't ask. I had my reasons.

"I see. So that's how it was."

"...Is this why you summoned me, to say this?"

"As if. I called for the butler because I wanted to ask one favor."

Though I had turned his unasked question back on him, I paid it no mind and smoothly steered us elsewhere. Perhaps my answer wasn't what he'd expected; for an instant, Heron faltered.

"This favor being...?"

"Heron, you remember, don't you? The scene I caused at Arina's coming-of-age ceremony."

"...Yes."

"And in a few hours, it will be Claire's turn. I have no intention of making the same mistake twice."

That was the truth of it. I had no intention of causing a scene at the ceremony out in the open — and I'd summoned Heron precisely to nail that position down.

"So. I want every piece of information — the pamphlet with the ceremony's full timeline, the layout of the banquet hall, and the positioning of every guard on duty."

The choices had been floating there for a long while already.

Whether I went now, or went later, was something I had to choose with my own hand. Which meant I needed to prepare — everything I could prepare — in advance.