Snowflower Festival (6)
"It started back at the banquet hall. Whatever I did, they assumed from the start I'd cause trouble. But during the festival, they never took their eyes off me for a second. If that isn't surveillance, what is?"
How could he possibly know that.
Arina's mouth fell open of its own accord.
The ruling on his confinement order was to be decided by this festival. It had been the conclusion of a family meeting, meant only to confirm whether he had the character to be trusted. Yet the single word surveillance had flashed through her mind like a spark catching tinder.
Arina hurriedly backpedaled.
"Karsein, you know as well as I do that this wasn't a one-time thing. That suspicion exists because of your record."
"Fair enough, I suppose. From your perspective, whether I cause some disaster or not is the only thing that matters. Not whether I get to enjoy the festival."
"Don't leap to conclusions like that! I genuinely want you to enjoy the festival—!"
He had no interest in explanations.
Karsein cut her off coldly.
"Must have been a real blast, spying on someone like me. I'll relieve you of the duty now, if you like."
"Karsein!"
Thud!
Arina reached for his wrist, but her hand was roughly shaken off.
"The humans you need to spy on will be shut up in my room, so go enjoy yourselves and come back whenever."
Unable to bring herself to reach out again, Arina clenched her fists and trembled.
She didn't know how he'd found out, but now that he'd caught on to being watched, she could hardly call his attitude insolent.
Desperate, Arina played her last card.
"Do you have any idea how much Mother looked forward to this day?"
A festival with the entire family, not one member missing. That was what Isabella had yearned for.
"She's postponed this festival over and over because of you. She stayed behind at the estate hoping you wouldn't be lonely."
So if he felt even a sliver of guilt. If he didn't want to wound their mother's heart.
He wouldn't ruin a family festival like this.
"Just bear it a little longer. Even if your feelings were hurt, I'll reward you far more than what you're owed. Just for today, please indulge Mother."
Family bonds. That was the final means of holding Karsein back.
"Bullshit."
But Karsein scoffed and turned his head away sharply. Without so much as a backward glance, he simply walked off down his own path.
She wanted to seize him as he strode away muttering profanities far too coarse for the occasion—but this once, she couldn't. It had been Arina herself, after all, who had sought to judge Karsein by an act indistinguishable from surveillance.
While Arina's thoughts churned in turmoil, Isabella returned from her errand with the two other daughters.
"What's the matter?"
"Arina? What's wrong?"
The mood was far from cheerful, and Isabella looked around with eyes full of worry. Karsein was gone.
"He said he needed to relieve himself and would be back shortly. Don't worry."
It couldn't be helped. She couldn't burden her mother with this.
Right now, the priority was deceiving her mother long enough to bring Karsein back. Fortunately, Karsein's dark blue hair had only just slipped out of Arina's sight, so she could guess which direction he'd gone. If she ran after him now, she could easily catch up.
But at that very moment—
From one side of the street, the crowd surged in sudden panic.
"Fire!!"
Whoosh!
Beneath the name of the Snowflower Festival, fierce flames roared skyward.
***
The festival grounds had erupted into chaos.
Arina ran straight into the street and shouted at the panicking citizens.
"Pull yourselves together! Keep flailing about like that and you'll all burn to death!"
At that single shout, the terrified crowd recognized her.
"That crest—it's Bagrand!"
"Bagrand... then that must be Lady Arina Bagrand!"
"We're saved! We're saved!!"
"My lady! Your orders!"
It wasn't only the citizens. The garrison soldiers, who had been running about in confusion, had found the one person who could command them. And when they realized it wasn't just Arina present but the entirety of the Ducal House of Bagrand, they cheered and eagerly begged for instructions.
"Everyone, don't clog the streets—form ranks and move! Soldiers, take the left side nearest the flames; everyone else, shift right and evacuate that way!"
"Yes, my lady!"
With a single command, soldiers and citizens alike stopped trampling over one another and moved with clear purpose. It was a scene that made one truly feel the power of House Bagrand.
With the crowd brought to order, it was time to deal with the blaze itself.
"First, we need to consider the fire's direction and cut off its spread. Does anyone know where the fire started?"
"W-we do, my lady."
Three garrison soldiers raised their hands from the back. Even at a glance, their uniforms were scorched—they were the most likely to have been among the first to discover the blaze.
"The flames didn't originate from a single source. They erupted in several places, all at once."
"All at once?"
"I was stationed on the western side. This man was working the opposite direction—toward the banquet hall, the east."
"My post, off to the south by itself, also saw flames shoot up all at once. That's the only reason this side—the north—wasn't swallowed by the fire as well."
Arina narrowed her eyes at that. Claire, too, apparently sensed something deeply wrong, and turned to her immediately.
"Arina. Don't tell me..."
"Yes. It's the same method as the Snowflower Festival we saw two years ago."
Something like this had happened two years ago as well.
The Snowflower Festival was an annual event hosted by the imperial family. The possibility was more than plausible.
"Do any of you happen to remember what color the flames were?"
"Blue, my lady."
"Yours as well?"
"Ours were blue too."
"Just as I thought. These are no ordinary flames."
Certain now, Arina turned straight to Isabella.
"Mother. Claire and I will put out the flames. Could you calm the citizens in the meantime?"
"You're certain it's the same as back then?"
"Yes. The witnesses' accounts all match."
"Very well. Do as you see fit."
"Thank you, Mother."
Arina directed the soldiers and made her way through streets thick with black smoke. Once her two daughters sprang into action, Isabella drew the attention of those around her.
"Attention, everyone! This fire exists merely to sow confusion—it is flame that cannot directly harm the human body."
The citizens looked at her in puzzlement.
"Duchess?"
"What nonsense is this? A fire that can't hurt people?"
"The same thing happened two years ago. No one knew it at the time, but the investigation revealed that those flames were fakes—kindled through mana stones."
At the words fake fire, the citizens murmured uneasily. Isabella pointed to a nearby house as evidence, and before long, as the truth sank in—that these were false flames from mana stones, which burned only things imbued with mana—the people were finally freed from their terror.
So it's this kind of thing again.
On the surface, the festival was justified by the lack of any winter celebration— ostensibly to take the pulse of the populace, and to give thanks for the previous year's harvest and pray for the year to come. But dig deeper, and there were no small number of people who protested that political elements had been threaded into the festival, and time and again they would raise the banner of rebellion in just this manner. Not that the culprits would be easy to catch, given that such things rested on nothing more than suspicion.
"Mama. So the festival... we can keep watching, right? It won't end early like last time, will it?"
"Of course not. The moment your sisters put out the fire, you can have even more fun."
Worried the festival would be cut short, Flora was soothed as Isabella gently stroked her back.
Before long, the flames in all three locations were extinguished.
The moment Arina and Claire returned from dealing with the fake fire, the crowd showered the House of Bagrand with praise.
But.
One single person.
While the blaze had raged, they had forgotten something.
"Wait—where is Karsein?"
At Isabella's question, the two ladies' heads finally snapped into clarity.
Excusing himself to relieve himself had been fine as far as it went, but it bought only a few minutes. The fire had been suppressed by now—it was well past time for him to have returned. The fact that he still hadn't come back was, even to Isabella, subtly enough to betray the lie in Arina's words.
"Release the house knights. Now!"
The fire had been put out—but a far greater blaze had just ignited elsewhere.
▶ You let the family's Snowflower Festival pass without a single problem. ◀
▶ You succeeded in producing a result that exceeded the given choices. ◀
...
...
Pleasant news arrived one after another through the status window.
Episode cleared. A festival passed without incident. Even results beyond the provided choices.
Once again, the foundations for clearing the game lay before my eyes, as satisfying as they could possibly be.
And yet, no matter how much of that appeared on the screen—
the past kept surging up in my head, burying the joy in an instant.
"Why does this stuff keep coming back to me?"
I was angry. Not at Karsein—at myself.
It had been years since I escaped that house, a place I never wanted to return to even in my nightmares. So why did that day keep surfacing? My body had gotten out, sure—but was I really so pathetic that I couldn't shake off a single worthless thing like this?
"...Damn it."
Clang.
A irritated kick landed squarely on an innocent oak barrel. The neatly stacked barrel tumbled over and over, spilling out its leftover dregs of wine as if retching them up.
Even just that left me breathing hard and ragged.
"There's no way. There's just no way."
I snarled and moved to kick the next barrel over, but quickly realized how pointless it was and stopped.
Right. Emotions like these are unnecessary.
That strange flicker of kinship—the thought that if Karsein had been in my position, he might have dared to hope for even a moment—that was nothing more than a stray feeling.
Even if I remembered how mercilessly my own expectations had been crushed, eyes shining bright at an amusement park long ago, that memory means nothing now. No matter how similar the situation, this isn't me. It's just a backdrop—a piece of scenery built for some character's story inside a game.
...It should be, anyway.
"Poor kid."
Before I knew it, the words had slipped out of my mouth.
After that, I just walked. Walked with no destination in mind.
I had no idea which direction the carriage had gone. I walked on, not even knowing where I was, until this memory grew at least a little fainter in my mind.
Then, suddenly, a bright light caught my eye.
In a street sliding into night, light this bright could only be artificial.
But brighter than any lamplight, something I was slowly growing all too familiar with stood before me.
A Memorial.
An object born of Karsein's past.
"The stone tower... is it?"
Stones stacked one atop another, somehow still standing without toppling. One careless touch, and it felt like the whole thing would come collapsing down.
But what was there to hesitate over?
I reached out, and faced the boy's true past.
The memory that flickered into being showed, once again, the Snowflower Festival.
And from the sky, something cold and pure white was falling.
It was snow.