Arsha Was Curious
Arsha was curious.
Ask a Korean what the measure of success is, and eight out of ten will tell you it is a car. The social meaning packed into an automobile as property is not that of a mere vehicle. Buying an expensive one is the strongest possible hint that you have made it financially; rolling several luxurious cars at once is an unapologetic signal that your household has said a complete and final goodbye to want.
Whether it was because Legend Route had been made by Koreans, or because flaunting economic power through one's means of travel was a trait shared the world over, the same logic held inside the game.
A carriage was a private car. Relative to its worth, it was far more expensive than any automobile. Unlike Korea, where car ownership sailed comfortably past one vehicle per household, a carriage in Legend Route was something only a high noble house—or a bourgeois family so rich the money was rotting in the vaults—could even hope to possess.
A carriage was the emblem of wealth and success, and the nobles' shadow war over who could field a more splendid one than the next house was truly something to behold. Someone had once called it the most ridiculous war in the world.
For a noble, displaying wealth was not simple luxury. A noble—especially a great noble—was, at every hour, sitting an examination on whether the family's prestige still stood intact. Fail, and you were culled. It was a cruel test. Forced competition for survival was not the exclusive property of commoners and slaves.
From the moment a noble house came into being, it never, not for a single instant, rested from the rank-fight with every other noble house. To protect the family's standing. To protect the family's blood. And to protect the family's interests.
The Leoris family's carriage scored full marks on that examination, and then some.
Four fine steeds drew it. Each was half again as long as an ordinary horse, packed dense with solid muscle. Fresh-laundered coats of purest white covered their bodies, and their manes were a blue that called the sea to mind all by themselves—compact, formidable animals that looked as though they would yield their backs to none but a true hero. A single one of them could have bought a commoner's mansion or two without breaking a sweat. Line up the mares that wanted their bloodline, and the queue would have run out past the Royal Capital.
The enormous carriage those four steeds pulled had a frame of Flame Tree, a hardwood famous even among precious woods for its price. The wheels had been imported from a kingdom across the western sea, the eaves and tiles that dressed the roof from an eastern kingdom, the coachmen from a southern one.
Simply building the thing had cost as much as raising a palatial mansion, and keeping it cost that much again every year. Parts had to be swapped so the glittering exterior never dulled; feed for horses with finicky appetites had to be brought in from abroad; and every last coachman was a high-salaried hire who ate money the way a hippo eats. A border noble could have gone bankrupt in a single year from owning it. Maintaining a carriage like this was, by itself, more than enough for the Leoris family to prove their wealth to overflowing.
"Woooow…!"
The instant Sierra climbed into that carriage, she could not stop marveling. She had never seen a carriage like this. She had never even heard of one. People said nobles lived in a completely different world from commoners—and only now did she feel she understood what that actually meant. Sell off every last organ of the back-alley vagrants she used to live among, and you might, perhaps, afford one of the wheels.
"Yohan. I had no idea a carriage this amazing even existed. Look at this. I think it's bigger than my room!"
"Sorry, Sierra…"
"Ah—no! I'm not blaming you! I like my room way better than a carriage like this anyway! This place smells like a new house. It's actually kind of weird!"
"Miss Sierra, is something making you uncomfortable?"
"N-no! It's super comfortable! I, um, I actually love that new-house smell!"
Caught by Yohan and Sara's one-two punch, Sierra's shoulders sagged and her mouth snapped shut. Yohan took one look at her woebegone face and snickered. Teasing Sierra was a delight. He could savor, without holding back, the gap moe of the original's imposing mid-boss.
The rag-clad girl from the back alleys had, in a mere handful of days, become a girl as yielding as a cat's paw pads and as soft as cotton candy. Perhaps that had been her true self all along.
Sierra looked around. The carriage could have held ten people without crowding; the passengers numbered four. Herself, Yohan, Sara Leoris, and—
"I'm thirsty."
Arsha Swordhorn.
Sara, called the future of magicians, and Arsha, called the future of swordsmen, riding in the same carriage. And Sierra sitting right beside them. Nobody had done a thing to her, and still she could feel her confidence draining away in real time. Keep two mountains that size in your field of view, and shrinking into yourself was only natural. Their talent was one thing—but what cowed Sierra even more was their faces.
Lady Leoris really is cute as a doll. They say that red hair is the Leoris family's trademark, don't they? It's a deep, rich red, like it's been dyed with roses.
If you had to put Sara Leoris in a single phrase, she was a noble doll. Highborn grace and cuteness fused into one, like a girl-doll crafted in the East—that was Sara Leoris.
Lady Swordhorn is sturdy and precise. And that figure is perfect. Even among the Royal Capital's famous idols, a body like that is a rare sight.
Arsha Swordhorn had the kind of cool allure that drew a gasp even from another woman. Unlike Sara, who seemed a noble lady rendered in clean lines, there was a rough cast to her impression—but it never once felt cheap. Arsha Swordhorn's specialty was her figure. You could have set it down as the kingdom's standard of beauty and lacked for nothing. Where it should go in, it went in; where it should come out, it came out.
Having women that attractive nearby woke a strange unease in her—a feeling she had never once known before she met Yohan. Sierra understood perfectly well where it came from: the fear that they might take him from her.
"Sierra. Look over there. That's another famous bakery in the Royal Capital. Our shop's rival. I'll torch the place on festival night next month, so you keep watch…"
Yohan, however, showed no particular interest in the two highborn young ladies. His eyes were on Sierra. His conversation was with her.
Those two had countless things Sierra did not have and could never have. Against all of that, she had exactly one thing.
Yohan's kiss.
Someone in her heart spoke up, all of a sudden, and asked: if the price of trading lives with those two was that she had to forget Yohan—could she do it?
Sierra answered inwardly. They could go fuck themselves.
"Sierra? Are you listening?"
"Hehe…"
A smile kept leaking out. She fought desperately to keep the corners of her mouth in check, not wanting to look like a giggling idiot.
"Miss Arsha. We have sparkling water and apple juice—which would you prefer?"
The Leoris family's carriage had a refrigerator. Not only a refrigerator: all manner of furnishings had been installed inside, so the journey could be a comfortable one.
"Apple juice with sparkling water."
"You heard her, Chef?"
"Yes, milady!"
There was, of course, a chef as well.
Arsha folded her arms and regarded Sara.
Healthily tanned brown skin, and compact muscle trained hard and full. The glossy black hair falling to her waist was unmistakably that of a highborn young lady—but her hands, rough and mapped with scars, belonged at a distance from any hothouse flower. The impression given off by her silence was of a willful cat, or a sharp-tempered leopard. Those sharp-tipped eyes carried a quiet pressure that made her look like the type you could not easily speak to, and in fact she was.
Arsha's gaze went to Sara and Sara alone. As for the other two, Yohan and Sierra, she had not so much as introduced herself, let alone shown interest.
"Ah—I don't believe I've introduced you. She's a bit taciturn, so I'll do the honors. This is Miss Arsha Swordhorn, young lady of the Swordhorn family. Unlike me, she's a swordswoman."
Arsha was a little startled by Sara introducing her so freely. This did not seem like the Sara she knew. Something about her felt… lighter than usual, perhaps.
"And this is Yohan Baker. He says his parents run a bakery in the Royal Capital."
"The Baker family? Never heard of them."
"Ahaha. I'm a commoner."
Yohan answered Arsha's doubt with a flippant laugh, and the suspicion on her face only deepened.
A noble inviting a noble to a banquet was the most natural thing in the world. Arsha herself had been invited to other houses' banquets more times than she could count, and had invited other nobles to her own just as often. She was a typical training maniac, but she was absolutely not the sort to neglect a noble's duties or functions.
But a noble inviting a commoner?
That was a situation you almost never saw. If the commoner were a bourgeois of staggering wealth, or a specialist with dazzling accomplishments to their name, perhaps—but a baker's son, one of the countless commoners you could kick with your foot, was someone a noble had no reason whatsoever to invite.
And yet that man, the commoner named Yohan Baker, had been invited to Sara Leoris's banquet. That was the moment Arsha's interest slid from Sara over to Yohan.
"I'm Arsha Swordhorn."
Arsha's self-introduction was so plain it was bland. Had the other party been a noble, that much alone would have earned her a scolding for breaking etiquette. Of course, as introductions to a commoner went, it counted as exceedingly courteous.
"Yohan Baker. And this is my friend, Sierra Grimkeeper."
"S-Sierra Grimkeeper. I'm a commoner, but it's a pleasure to meet you."
Sierra fussed and watched faces as if someone were chasing her—the classic reaction of a commoner facing a noble.
The man called Yohan, however, was different. Even dealing with her, the young lady of the Swordhorn family, he showed not a trace of discomfort or awkwardness.
This one has something to him.
A swordswoman's instinct told her so. If he were not someone with something to him, Sara would never have invited him to her banquet. In which case—what was that something?