A Little Sprout (1)
The carriage was silent.
Apart from the clip-clop of hooves, nothing could be heard. No—maybe even the sound of the hooves had stopped registering.
"..."
My gaze drifted, all on its own, to my hand.
Inside the small cylinder clutched in this hand was supposed to be an ointment, the kind applied to wounded skin.
In a word, a salve jar.
Something's off, though.
Yes. It was clearly strange.
"D-don't hurt... please don't hurt..."
The moment Flora had spotted the shallow cut on my hand, she'd rushed over, sobbing into her handkerchief. The memory refused to leave me.
Her face had gone bone white.
She was so terrified that her eyes wouldn't leave the wound.
And when I tried to ask her what was wrong—
"Don't hurt... don't hurt..."
She only repeated those same words over and over, tears streaming down her cheeks.
No matter how I turned it over, that was strange.
I couldn't make sense of it.
And that's how I ended up with this ointment.
That was Flora. The same girl who hated Karsein's guts. The one who tormented him on sight, who made sure he couldn't eat a single proper meal and denied him everything he owned—Flora, who looked exactly like that youngest sibling, had wept as she pressed the jar into my hands.
"If it hurts, I can't... I don't like it. So... please, put it on."
Her eyes at that moment were, at a glance, swimming with pure fear.
There was no setting in the game where Flora suffered from any kind of phobia.
On top of that, she wasn't afraid of anything. At her worst, she was nothing more than a spoiled brat nursing delusions that Karsein was stealing her family away.
What is this? I've never seen anything like it before.
I'd been working through Flora's episodes by managing her affinity all through Chapter 2, but this time, even though I'd delivered a harsh scolding, a completely different reaction had come back.
Aside from one episode arriving early, Chapter 2 didn't seem to have been derailed all that badly.
"You seem deep in thought?"
As I recalled how Flora had left my room without another word, Harnie glanced over at me and asked, seemingly casual.
"Because of you, I've become the most ineligible fiancée in existence, and it's killing me—but here you are, lost in your own little worries. Really?"
Ah, so it was about that.
Harnie's eyes had narrowed to a sharp glare.
Well, fair enough. We had coordinated on the fly, but from her perspective it must have stung.
"Well, that was an unforeseen situation. You didn't want to linger in that room any longer than you had to either, did you?"
"You're smiling rather a lot for someone saying that. Quite unlike when you asked me to delay our departure time."
"A trick of the mood, I assure you."
"I can't stand being teased like this, and I have no intention of letting it slide either. So tell me."
"Tell you what, exactly?"
"Anything. Whatever it is you're mulling over."
I slipped the ointment into my pocket as I answered.
"Less a worry, more that Flora's never acted that way before."
"Pardon?"
"As I mentioned before, my relationship with the family is fractured—I'm not close to any of them. Flora least of all. You saw enough of that today to know it firsthand, I'd think?"
Harnie nodded readily.
"But she did something she's never done, which is why it caught me off guard. That's all."
"Honestly. Here I am with my head about to split from something important, and you're pulling my leg."
Realizing my grave tone had been over nothing, Harnie puffed up in a sulk.
Truth be told, while I'd said it half-jokingly, I had come down a bit hard on her in that moment.
It felt like I'd poured out on Flora everything I'd wanted to say to the youngest back home.
I hadn't realized words I'd been bottling up would come spilling out like that.
Flora was, after all, nothing more than a character in a game.
Right. Harnie's got a point.
Rather than staying chained to half-formed memories of another life, the important things should come first.
Flora had certainly acted strangely when she handed over the ointment, but nothing had appeared flagged in the status window.
Which meant the route I'd planned for the episode's progression hadn't shifted in any meaningful way.
Since I'm in Chapter 2 now, I should start pinning down the episode branches.
I knew the choices and the system were determined to drag me around, but the ultimate goal, in this game too, came down to escaping the dukedom above all else.
And so, everything was lacking. The strength to protect myself, the capital to feed and clothe and house myself, the power to resist the game's choices.
If I wanted to survive a noble society built on rigid class, I had no other option.
Until I'd built a foundation to escape the dukedom and live on my own, working through dead triggers episode by episode, methodically, had to come first.
"Harnie, would it be possible to ask you to look into a certain territory—"
Neigh!
The horse shrieked in a startle, its hooves stumbling mid-stride.
We'd been traveling at a fair clip, so the carriage lurched violently, and if I hadn't been holding onto something, I might well have been thrown over.
"Whoa there, steady, boy! Steady!"
And then it happened a second time.
The driver had sped up and then slammed to a halt, and the jolt inside the carriage grew even fiercer.
The Sudden Stop Event... damn it. Now that I think of it, this was the forced event that triggers the first time you ride a carriage after recovering your body in Chapter 2.
This event came in two varieties.
One where the family was present, and one where they weren't.
I was in the latter.
▶ If you fall from the jolting carriage, HP will decrease according to the severity of the fall! ◀
▶ Caution! If you suffer a status ailment, additional HP loss may occur! ◀
Whether HP drained here or not was one thing, but any unnecessary loss meant longer sleep hours needed for recovery—hardly ideal.
So I braced myself to ride it out and preserve my HP.
But there was one crucial fact I'd overlooked.
I wasn't the only one riding this carriage.
"Kyaah?!"
"...Harnie!"
Harnie was losing her balance, toppling over.
She was falling toward the dangerous side, and I could see exactly how she'd be hurt.
Before the thought I have to catch her could even finish forming, my body was already launching itself across the carriage.
Thud.
Only one dull impact rang through the carriage.
Because I'd caught her body and pulled it tight into my arms, any real disaster was averted.
Still, depending on the damage taken—in the game, when you were badly hurt in this event, you'd sometimes be sent all the way back to the ducal estate for treatment.
Maybe that was why I needed to stay careful even with a small accident like this.
This body was frail enough as it was, and judging by how much HP I'd lost—more than I'd expected—I couldn't rule out the possibility that Harnie had been hurt too.
"Harnie. Are you all right?"
"Yes... thanks to you."
Thank goodness, it seemed. Nothing appeared badly hurt.
My arm was wrapped snugly around her head, after all.
"Um... Karsein?"
"Yes?"
"It's... it's just that you're very close. I think you can let go now..."
"Ah. My apologies."
I'd held her tight in case she was hurt, but I'd forgotten we were in complete full-body contact.
As I released my grip from her waist, my vision was suddenly blotted out.
It wasn't my hand—so it had to be Harnie's.
...Had I done something wrong again?
"Um..."
"Ah—don't say a word!"
"Pardon? No, did I do something—"
"I said don't say a word!"
"...Then shall I simply close my eyes?"
"Y-yes! Do that! Just stay like that!"
Apparently, that was the correct answer.
It wasn't just that my vision was covered—unless Harnie moved first, I couldn't get up either.
She was on top of me. What exactly was I supposed to do about that?
I decided to keep quiet rather than earn myself a back spike for my trouble.
"Ahem. Y-you can open your eyes now."
"..."
The moment I heard that I could look, I cracked my eyes open to check—Harnie was already turned away from me, putting distance between us.
"D-did you... do that on purpose?"
"...You mean throwing my body out so you wouldn't get hurt?"
"No. No, of course not. Obviously you wouldn't... Haa... why do I keep having these pointless thoughts..."
What on earth was all this.
Once I'd straightened my rumpled clothes, it wasn't long before voices sounded from outside the carriage.
"I-I'm terribly sorry, young Lord Karsein, Lady Harnie...! The horse suddenly panicked and I couldn't rein him in...!"
The duchy's coachman had come around to offer his apologies.
At the same time, a choice window popped up asking whether I would reprimand him, but Harnie was already waving her head side to side as if to say she was fine.
I felt the same.
The man himself had been thrown into chaos by a panicking horse—he wasn't someone I had any desire to scold. What fault could a newly hired coachman possibly bear?
Especially since this event was scripted from the start.
Whenever the player first rode a carriage, the exact same problem occurred. The system had built it in that way, so the coachman was truly blameless.
And the event would repeat on the return trip as well.
To avoid bleeding HP over it, handling things this way was the better play.
"We're fine. More importantly—are you?"
"Me? I-I'm perfectly fine. I can depart again at once!"
"Then rest a while first. There's no rush, so stop by the village nearby, rest your arm, and collect yourself before we go on."
"Oh, young Lord..."
"Go on. Better to be at ease than anxious, don't you think?"
The coachman bowed his head and turned toward the village.
He'd tried to hide it, but I suspected he'd tend to that injured arm once he got there.
The carriage having been forced to a halt was all the work of a single trigger for this event.
In it, some noble would cause an accident striking a commoner, then brazenly shift the blame onto the victims. After this happened again and again, the commoners finally boiled over and hatched a plan.
Namely: every time a noble's carriage passed, they would use a device they'd prepared to torment the occupants.
So if you thought this was merely about managing Karsein's HP, you'd be dead wrong.
Sub-episode or not, this was my chance to bend the main episode's branching and minimize friction with the villagers.
"Karsein?"
"Shh. Keep your voice down."
I carefully stepped down from the carriage.
While the coachman wasn't looking, I approached the horse as it snorted and shuddered from the fright—and dug into the earth beside it.
Found it.
[ Detects anything approaching rapidly from the surroundings and emits an ultrasonic pulse audible only to animals. ]
[ Even if the Tellumos itself dies and only the lung remains, this effect does not fade. Once it releases its pulse, the organ shrivels and requires time before it can sound again. ]
...
...
Just like I'd done in the game.
I decided to take this with me, first and foremost.
***
With a single escorting knight in tow, the coachman returned with his arm treated, and the carriage set off once more toward the banquet hall.
We hadn't been in any particular hurry when we departed, so we arrived at a reasonable hour, and Harnie and I entered the entrance together, playing the part of lovers.
Unlike at Claire's coming-of-age ceremony, the guards waved us straight through. With Harnie's beauty being what it was, even those who didn't know my face had put two and two together well enough.
The hall was filled with a lively din.
But how should I put it...
It hardly seemed like a party at all.
Over here. Over there. Even the people far off in the distance.
Look closely, and everyone was clustered neatly in pairs.
Yes. This place was more like...
A gathering spot for couples, not people enjoying a party.
Nobles had assembled, sure—but with every man and woman clearly attached at the hip, it was impossible to think anything else.
"Oh my. Lady Harnie has arrived."
"But who is that beside her? Not a maid this time, but a man?"
"A man... no. Surely not. Her fiancé?"
From every direction, clustered eyes came swiveling toward me.
It was pure instinct, but those were the eyes of hyenas eyeing their prey.
A few couples stepped forward as if to set an example and began questioning me.
"My, what a pleasure, Lord Karsein. I hear it's true, then—that you are Lady Harnie's fiancé? Coming all this way to attend alongside her, no less."
"We've all been quietly curious, you see. Word has it the two of you were lovers carrying on secret trysts that never reached the public ear."
"And having come all this way in person to keep your promise, surely you'll indulge us in a few mischievous questions?"
So this was what they meant about hyenas closing in.
My hunch had been right.
They'd called it a banquet hall, so I'd assumed it was a gathering of nobles. Who knew I'd been led straight into a hyena's den?
My gaze shifted, inevitably, to the woman on my arm.
This isn't a matter of helping each other out—this feels like she's set up a stage play with herself as director.
Proving to the nobles at a party that we were a couple only required making an appearance together—eyes would do the rest.
But hadn't she said it herself, with her own mouth?
That she'd taken a bit of an extreme measure to escape suspicion.
And that, as a result, she was obligated to attend this party.
If the people here were worked up to that degree, the odds were high that she really had gone to absurd lengths.
As if guessing what was going through my head as I turned toward her, Harnie blinked rapidly, again and again, then sharply looked away. A single bead of cold sweat sliding down her cheek.
Fine. Let's just hear, first, what exactly this so-called extreme measure was.
If it were something I could smooth over, a few well-chosen words would—
"I hear you begged and begged Lady Harnie before her family finally consented to this engagement. Is that true?"
Son of a—
That's the caliber of the very first question?
"We've heard from Lady Harnie herself that you whisper the sweetest words of love into her ear, every single day."
"One day you treasure her like a porcelain vase so delicate it might shatter, and on another, you fell for how she melts into you like butter, aching for your affection—or so we've heard."
"And since you couldn't see each other during the trysting period, it only grew worse, didn't it? The story goes that you missed her so terribly you crept to her front gate in secret—practically Romeo and Juliet."
The questions that followed were every bit as outrageous.
I was dumbfounded.
They've turned a man with zero romantic experience into the greatest lover of the century?
And this wasn't exaggeration done halfway. They had inflated things to their absolute limit.
There was no refusing these questions in the first place. I had to accept them, and I had to do so from the position of a man humbling himself to win her.
Hoo. So this is the mess she's made.
And now she planned to slip away and leave me holding the bag, averting her eyes like that?
Oh no. Now that it's come to this, you're going to play your part properly too.
"...!"
"Oh my."
Just like before, I pulled Harnie's shoulder firmly into my embrace.
"Any man would do the same. With the most beautiful woman in the empire in his arms—what man alive could bear to wait?"
Did the suspicion in their eyes die down even a little?
No.
Their gazes brimmed with a dozen more things they were dying to ask.
This wasn't going to end with a single line.
...Just you wait, Harnie.
Once this business is settled, I'm collecting full payment for it.
Things having snowballed this far... can't be helped, I suppose. I'd meant to keep this kind of thing to a minimum, since it costs me damage too.
Let's see how much gooseflesh I can raise out of all of you.
This was, after all, the most cringe-inducing line in existence, harvested from the morning dramas the youngest used to watch back in the real world.
"Oh, Harnie. How could you tell everyone something like that?"
"T-tell them what...?"
"That the world itself is far too vast an enemy—the prison bars trying to keep us apart. That if only you could, you'd lock me away inside your heart and see me every single day. You were supposed to have said that."
In that instant, I could see goosebumps rising across Harnie's skin.