A Pack of Jackals (2)
At Karsein's unexpected reaction, the smiles that had been playing across the ladies' faces froze over, and a heavy shadow settled in their place in an instant.
The explanation was enough.
Though Karsein was ignorant of the ways of high society, that ignorance only worked in their favor. A man's reputation for wandering affections was the most damning flaw a woman could carry into an engagement—perfect ammunition for slipping in a few well-placed lies and coaxing him along.
And yet, even with Harnie cornered, this fiancé of hers had not brought down the hammer of judgment. Instead, he was shielding her.
"Wh-what do you mean by that? We only stepped in because we wanted to keep innocent gentlemen from being taken advantage of, that's all?"
One of the young ladies stepped forward, straining to hide her flustered composure. The others quickly fell in behind her.
"That's right. We came because we suspected your fiancée might be deceiving you."
"It seems you're not well-versed in matters of society, Lord Karsein, but Lady Harnie is the sort who toys with men and leaves them behind. Does it make any sense to accept someone with that kind of reputation as your fiancée?"
"It's not just her wandering eye, either. There's evidence she may have stolen from them. Why else would she have suddenly thrown herself into business?"
Of course they had to step forward. If they didn't, the whole plan would collapse.
"Finished?"
Karsein gave a derisive snort.
"Not worth listening to. A pack of cowards dishing out petty ostracism—and you expect me to take you seriously?"
"L-Lord Karsein! That's going too far!"
"Too far? I'd say you're the ones who've gone too far."
"...Pardon?"
"Since when did I become some docile creature who swallows whatever people tell me? Especially from those who've spent every chance whispering behind my back?"
At that, the ladies fell silent.
Right. The man standing before them was none other than Karsein—the one they called the stain of Bagrand, forever trailed by an endless list of labels.
In other words, trying to win him over with honeyed words had been a mistake from the very start.
"Ahem! Be that as it may, there is such a thing as right and wrong."
"Precisely. And here, the young lord of Bagrand is clearly the victim."
Victim or not, it was transparent hypocrisy—nothing more than a fallback gambit, a scramble to latch onto whatever was within reach first.
Not that Karsein failed to notice.
"Ahaha. Is that so."
He let it slide, feigning ignorance. The young ladies allowed themselves a quiet breath of relief. Facing Karsein of all people, they'd judged that he could still be coaxed around somehow.
'But you couldn't have picked a worse person to pick a fight with, you idiots.'
Karsein turned to Harnie and spoke.
"One moment, if you please. May I ask for your hand, my lady?"
"What...?"
Thrown off balance by the situation, Harnie nevertheless extended her hand readily when he gave a small nod and a smile.
'That's more like it.'
Karsein chuckled softly as he looked at her hand. Then, lifting his gaze, he singled out one of the ladies.
"You there. The way the joint on your ring finger is slightly recessed tells me you recently parted ways with a man you were courting."
"H-how could you possibly...?"
"Because a ring used to sit there. A ring worn for a long time leaves traces once it's removed—so much so that while it's not quite a scar, the mark runs deep enough that strangers can spot it at a glance, even if you can't."
"Why are you bringing that up all of a sudden?"
"You're dodging off-topic, sir."
The ladies scoffed at the apparent non sequitur. But Karsein's analysis was meticulous—and the only one who caught on was Harnie.
"Going by your testimony, my fiancée must have been so popular with men that she'd have worn plenty of rings. And yet her ring finger bears no such traces at all. What do you make of that?"
Unlike the finger he had just pointed at, Harnie's ring finger was perfectly unmarked—as if nothing had ever been slipped onto it, not even once.
"If she had seduced men and extorted valuables from them, she'd have worn rings at some point. But Lady Harnie's hands are clean. In other words, this tale of her wandering affections is a blatant lie."
"A-are you saying we're lying right now?"
"If not, then what would you call it?"
The ladies shot back in outraged protest.
"How can you pass judgment on that alone? There are countless accounts of her being seen with men!"
"W-we wouldn't only accept rings, you know! A necklace leaves no marks!"
"Since when are rings the only thing a man can gift a woman? Necklaces, earrings, bracelets, ordinary gemstones, precious metals—the list is endless! And they could all be mixed together, couldn't they?"
"Not a single person here ever claimed Lady Harnie wore rings. Besides, 'stolen' could just as well mean she sold them off!"
They weren't wrong. Harnie could have accepted gifts and quietly spirited them away before discarding the men—if she had truly been a honeypot, seducing men with her breathtaking beauty and bleeding them dry.
But Karsein knew better. He knew, without a shadow of a doubt, that Harnie was nothing of the sort.
"You there. A moment ago, you said my fiancée had thrown herself into business."
"Th-that's right."
"And that she'd amassed a staggering fortune all at once, in a suspiciously short time?"
"...Yes."
Karsein, as if he had been waiting for this very moment, held up Harnie's fingers once more and pressed the point.
"Do any of you know what causes calluses like these on the fingers?"
Not one of the noble ladies could answer. And once again, only Harnie understood—and she let out a private sigh of relief.
"Remarkably enough, marks like these form when the same spot is cut over and over again. If something this thin and sharp had sliced only one finger, time after time—what could it possibly be?"
There was only one answer.
"Turning pages. Flipping through books, shuffling through documents. She handled so much paper that the sheets cut into this finger again and again, until the calluses covered her hand. She favors this particular finger, you see—that's why the marks settled here."
The young ladies swallowed in unison.
Karsein, having waited for exactly this reaction, drove the warning home.
"So the business venture was true as well. Just how far do you intend to deny my fiancée's efforts? Unless... every one of you is itching to declare a feud against Bagrand?"
"...!"
A crushing weight settled over them. Normally, Karsein was the man who did nothing at society gatherings but brood in a corner—he had never seemed so frightening before.
True, their target this time had been Harnie, and she had seemed like easy prey. Never once had they imagined things would spiral like this. But with that single remark—
—with that warning carved firmly into place, the young ladies of high society all froze in terror.
Under the name of Bagrand, no one in this room had any right to lift their heads. That house stood at the very summit of the nobility. Even the imperial family struggled against them—and it was a ducal house of such standing that these ladies trembled at the mere thought of provoking its displeasure.
That fear was now seeping, inch by inch, out of Karsein himself.
"Feel free to speak the name as often as you like. Come now—if there's a family out there that wants a feud with Bagrand, recite it. Every last one of you. I'll be sure to report the full list to my mother."
Half bluff, half ironclad truth. Insults aimed at him alone might have slid—but this was an unmistakable challenge to Bagrand itself, and Karsein had already laid the groundwork to ensure that whatever happened here would tie back to the family one way or another.
Unsurprisingly, not a single lady dared put her own house on her lips. Stifled by an air pressure that threatened to choke the breath from them, they had no choice but to change their tune.
"...We apologize."
Afraid of earning Bagrand's ire. Afraid the incident would reach their own families. Every last woman who had tried to corner Harnie bowed her head without exception.
"Tch. Ruined my mood at the festival, of all days. Get lost—all of you, now."
When they'd been droning on and on, wrinkling their noses, they'd burned through half an hour of his time. Slinking off with their tails between their legs took less than ten seconds.
Having loosed the jackals on his tormentors, Karsein flashed a sly grin and turned to Harnie.
"Well then. You owe me one, don't you?"
Harnie knew.
She knew that a pack of starving jackals was always lying in wait for her.
But those jackals never merely waited for prey to wander close. They stripped away everything around the prey first—breaking it down, snapping its legs, so it would collapse from sheer exhaustion rather than requiring any great expenditure of their own strength.
Noble society was a feeding ground swarming with jackals precisely that cunning, that patient.
Which was why she had tried to scatter the pack—by letting word of her engagement to Karsein seep, little by little, into the world.
Yet even the brilliant Harnie had overlooked something.
The pack was not made of males alone.
"We hear you've taken a fiancé?"
"And however did you lure this one in, I wonder?"
This engagement had existed for quite some time—and it was the she-jackals who had seized upon that weakness and clamped down, jaws first.
A crisis had arrived without warning. Handled carelessly, it could have shaken the very foundations of the tower she had been building in secret.
She had deflected as best she could, but the situation had tipped decidedly against her. She'd anticipated that someday they might employ methods similar to that time—what she had never foreseen was that those society women would close in on Karsein at this festival.
And so she had rushed to see the Snowflower Festival, and met Karsein first. And yet—
"Lady Harnie is said to be terribly popular with men. But of all of them, not a single one has ever received her true heart."
"Because she's the sort who seduces a man, then casts him aside without mercy! She's done it every single time, all this while!"
"There are countless eyewitness accounts and testimonies. Some say she fleeced them of their money outright, and others claim they were flat-out extorted. Surely you know the rumors go far beyond even these?"
"That's why we've made it our practice to warn gentlemen in advance whenever such incidents come to light—lest more victims pile up."
"And so we came, wondering whether your fiancé might be deceived. Whether he might be entirely unaware of these facts."
There had been nothing she could do. She was being driven deeper and deeper into a corner. She had cried out that it was slander; she had protested that she had never deceived anyone. But—
'Will he actually... believe me?'
One against many. Whose side would anyone take? The answer was obvious.
Her arms had finally fallen open in defeat. Harnie squeezed her eyes shut and braced herself to absorb whatever losses were coming.
But—
"What a pathetic little performance. How dare you stand before me and drag my fiancée's name through the mud?"
Karsein clenched his shoulders and planted himself squarely against those ladies, opposite to everyone else. And then—
"Well then. You owe me one, don't you?"
—with that sly grin, he had swept the whole mess clean.
He had carved out a breakthrough worthy of admiration—systematically, logically—and lifted her out of that bottomless pit.
In the middle of all this, Harnie couldn't help but ask.
"Why did you help me?"
"Pardon?"
"You could have taken their side."
It would have been far easier, obviously. By feuding with a single person, he'd have gained countless allies. Whichever way she looked at it, choosing them over her would have been far more useful to Karsein.
"Because of the Oath Jewel, you couldn't break the contract right away—but if you'd spread this story around, you could have reported me to Marquis Theresia just as easily, couldn't you?"
A contract meant nothing the moment this situation collapsed. Even if the Jewel's power had stirred, a ducal house like Bagrand could handle the consequences and then some.
Karsein, reading her intent, gave a soft laugh.
"You think I'd profit a great deal by making you the sacrifice, so that's what this is about?"
"It's the right choice. Honestly."
Hearing his purpose had startled her a little—but anyone with a mind that sharp could surely run the arithmetic faster than she could. Which was exactly why she couldn't shake the feeling that something was off.
But Karsein drove the point home without hesitation.
"I'm sorry to disappoint, but what I need isn't the approval of a crowd that wants a tidy answer. It's the trust of one person—a trust that doesn't snap."
"..."
"Suppose I sold you out and won their favor. Do you honestly believe those people would treat me warmly afterward?"
Karsein spoke plainly. He was a nobody by birth—a commoner's child whose name had been entered into the Ducal House of Bagrand as an adoptee. And that name, he said, could never be washed clean.
"What's the point of making deals with people who only want you to nod along when it serves their interests? That's simply foolish. It wouldn't even accomplish my goals—it's plain as day."
He had begun with crisp logic and ended on what sounded like conjecture. But was it really conjecture?
No, she thought. It didn't feel like conjecture at all. If anything, it sounded like certainty.
Having finished tidying up the scene, Karsein asked:
"By the way—the Marquisate hasn't been pressuring you, has it? They don't seem like the sort to be bound by an engagement, despite what you told me."
Harnie had wanted the one-year engagement in order to dodge the political marriage her family demanded of her. So from Karsein's standpoint, the question was fair enough—after all, it wasn't men but women who had been closing in on her.
But what he was asking about was her affairs in high society. Something that had nothing to do with him. Even if this contract still held, all knowing could earn him was a request for help.
She had to refuse this question. But he was far too perceptive for that.
"I wouldn't try to gloss over it if I were you. Worst case, I'll simply gather the information myself from the ducal side."
"Wh-what?! Why would you—!"
"As I said before, I want a firm trust between us. That means sharing things like this, doesn't it? We're in the same boat, after all."
He even added pointedly that he'd asked her to play at being lovers, and that was beginning to look suspicious too—so he'd need to know the circumstances. He had no intention of meekly letting the matter slide.
Any way of stopping him had vanished the moment this scene had been witnessed in the first place.
Drawing a long sigh, Harnie fidgeted for a while before finally opening her mouth.
"It's not as though things with them were always broken."
After deliberation, she had decided to tell him the whole story behind this affair—judging that if anyone could be trusted with it, it was Karsein, of all people.