Aile and Heinkel
The crown prince’s face twisted in displeasure.
“Then what about the dukedom in the Southern Colony?”
“I must respectfully decline, Your Highness.”
“······.”
The professor standing across from him simply stared back without a word, seemingly unconcerned. The crown prince’s expression crumpled further.
“May I ask why?”
“I suffer from a rather severe illness that flares up whenever animal fur gets on me.”
“Hah······. That’s quite the half-hearted excuse.”
“If you ask again, I’ll come up with something a bit more plausible next time.”
“······.”
The crown prince clicked his tongue and rested his chin on his hand. The position of Duke of Lorraine in the Southern Colony had become vacant after the current duke raised a rebellion. News had already arrived that one fortress had fallen on the very first day of battle, so it wouldn’t be long before the rebel forces were completely crushed. To prevent the Imperial Knights from stepping in to administer the territory and causing a full military occupation, a new duke needed to be appointed as quickly as possible.
The Imperial Knights belonged to the imperial army, after all. The crown prince could not allow a military government to take root.
“Are you truly not interested at all?”
“If you offered me the position of supreme commander of the imperial army, I might reconsider.”
“······.”
“That was a joke. Yes. No matter what conditions you propose, I have no intention of accepting.”
He delivered the joke with such deadpan seriousness. The crown prince let out a small sigh.
“Then we’re done here.”
“Yes. I truly appreciate the offer, Your Highness.”
“Enough with the empty pleasantries. Get out of my sight.”
“Understood.”
The crown prince deliberately waved his left hand so the ring would be clearly visible, then turned his head away. The count stared at the ring on the crown prince’s left ring finger for a moment before turning and leaving the room.
“Haa······.”
The moment the door slammed shut, a heavy sigh escaped the crown prince’s lips. He had been desperately searching for anyone suitable to fill the ducal seat, but no one fit the bill. No matter how one looked at it, the optimal candidate was Count Bermanstein, so he had summoned the man directly to make the offer—only to be rejected, as expected.
It was obvious the count feared that if he accepted the title in advance and the war dragged on, he might fail to reclaim the southern territories. In such a scenario, he would gain none of the benefits of the duchy while constantly becoming a target because of that enormous title. Of course, the suppression force would soon recapture the remaining three fortresses, making such worries groundless. To put it nicely, he was cautious. To put it bluntly, he was a coward.
“Tsk. To think the top professor of the Imperial Academy lacks that much backbone.”
Or perhaps it was precisely because he lacked backbone that he had remained top professor for so many years. The crown prince drummed his fingers on the desk, repeatedly clicking his tongue.
At that moment, the door opened and one of his aides entered with a worried expression.
“Haa······. Your Highness.”
“What is it?”
“Are you still wearing that ring?”
Here came the nagging again. The crown prince turned his chair sideways in annoyance.
“Haven’t I told you several times already? Ugly rumors are spreading among the nobility. They claim that through that ring, you and Schluss Heinkel have entered into a secret engagement······”
“That is not true.”
“The truth doesn’t matter. What matters is how others perceive it. The situation is causing quite a stir right now. His Majesty is concerned that the noble houses who should be competing for a marriage alliance with you ahead of your coming-of-age ceremony this year might instead unite against you.”
“That won’t happen. I will reveal the truth at the appropriate time.”
“But that truth is precisely······ Haa.”
The aide eventually trailed off. She had said the same thing several times before. Yet the crown prince continued to deliberately ignore her—not because she failed to understand the gravity of the situation. She was sharp; she undoubtedly knew everything. Never before had the aide found her liege’s stubbornness so frustrating.
“In the worst case, the coming-of-age ceremony itself may be postponed.”
“What? That cannot happen. Who dared spout such nonsense?”
“It was His Majesty’s own words.”
“······.”
The crown prince pouted and tapped the armrest of her chair. Seeing this, the aide let out another deep sigh and pulled an envelope from her robes, placing it on the desk.
“What is that?”
“It is a request for an audience from Schluss Heinkel.”
“Schluss?!”
As expected, the crown prince’s face instantly brightened. The aide sighed even more deeply at the sight.
“Wait, how did you know it was a request for an audience?”
“······.”
“You opened it, didn’t you?”
“Yes, I did, Your Highness.”
“Never open any letters exchanged between Schluss and me again. That is an order. Understood?”
“I will keep it in mind.”
Watching the crown prince grin as she tore open the letter, the aide thought to herself that next time she would need to obtain His Majesty’s approval before opening any more correspondence.
I shall await you at the palace.
Come whenever it is convenient—today, tomorrow, or the day after.
— Iris von Flechette
It had clearly been sent only this morning, yet the reply had already arrived. And it wasn’t a formal rejection from a palace official. The wildly looping handwriting made it obvious this was the crown prince’s personal letter. For someone soon to ascend the throne, her penmanship was still shockingly childish······. Of course, I wasn’t exactly in a position to criticize anyone else’s handwriting.
“What does it say?”
“She says I may come.”
“She wouldn’t have written only that. It looked pretty long.”
“Just some idle chatter, really.”
“Liar. You expect me to believe Her Highness the Crown Prince would fill a formal reply to an audience request with trivial nonsense?”
Emilia looked thoroughly unconvinced. It was indeed unlike the crown prince. She had circled around the permission for the meeting in such a roundabout way that one only realized it after reading all the way to the end. It almost seemed as if she had been half-drunk and scribbling in a daze. Then again, if it was the crown prince, that was entirely possible.
“When is the date?”
“Today······”
“What?! Really? Then we need to get ready right away—”
“Today is fine. Tomorrow is fine. The day after tomorrow is also acceptable, she says.”
“You scared me for a second there······.”
“Let’s go tomorrow.”
“Got it. Should I come with you?”
“Only if you promise to watch your behavior.”
“I wouldn’t cause trouble all the way to the imperial palace······.”
I knew that. No matter how much she joked around, she always performed properly when it mattered. So was she simply relaxing her tension right now? I didn’t think she would go through the exhausting charade of suddenly changing her attitude overnight just to pretend to be at ease. It seemed the recent kidnapping incident had earned me a fair amount of her trust.
Since Emilia had to act all day long, it made sense that she would want to conserve energy and emotion by being comfortable around me. That was how I chose to interpret it.
“What do you want for dinner?”
“Do I actually have a choice?”
“No. It’s pasta tonight.”
“······.”
Then why ask? Emilia let out a cute little laugh and disappeared into the kitchen.
There was still some time left before dinner. I headed up to my room on the second floor.
“Hoo······.”
I closed the door firmly and opened the safe beneath my desk. Inside lay the broken pocket watch that no longer functioned. I had been thinking of moving it into the black steel safe.
It felt incredibly stupid to let the black steel safe I had obtained from the palace go to waste. The thing itself was quite valuable, so I had hesitated to put anything inside it. But Marie’s pocket watch was something that could cause serious trouble if discovered by the intelligence bureau. Hiding it in the safest possible place—the black steel safe—was the right decision.
I immediately picked up the pocket watch.
“What the······?!”
In that instant, the scenery around me changed. Sensations indistinguishable from reality flooded my brain in an instant. The image was blurry, but I could tell there was snow piled up everywhere and that an intact pocket watch rested in Schluss’s hand.
A woman was walking toward him from afar. Her face was hard to make out······.
“Ah.”
At that moment, the watch slipped from my—no, Schluss’s—hand and fell. At the same time, I returned to reality. That was the end of it.
“Why is this in Schluss’s memories······?”
My head began to throb. What I had just experienced was undoubtedly Memory of the True Body. Just in case I had missed something, I pulled up the skill’s description once more.
Ability: Memory of the True Body
Grade: Rare
Description: Performing certain actions has a low chance of triggering memories of the true body. Time limit: 1 hour.
⟨ Reader’s Note: Still, there should be at least a tiny bit of consideration for the original owner of the possessed body, right? ⟩
The irritating reader’s note at the end remained as annoying as ever. No matter how I examined it, there were no other conditions. It simply said that performing certain actions would show memories of the true body—that is, Schluss’s memories. There was no doubt that what I had just witnessed was from Schluss’s past.
“Is this connected to Schluss somehow?”
With trembling hands, I examined the pocket watch. Because the vision had been blurry, an exact comparison was difficult, but the size and color seemed roughly similar. Still, it was too much of a stretch to conclude they were identical.
The condition had been “performing certain actions,” so simply holding a pocket watch was likely the trigger—not specifically holding Marie’s pocket watch.
“It can’t be.”
There was no way it could be the same as Marie’s. How many people in this world carried memories related to pocket watches? It couldn’t be. The suspicion forming in my mind had to be wrong. To begin with, their surnames were completely different. Marie Aile. Schluss Heinkel. Even their cultural backgrounds didn’t match. Aile was an English-style surname, while Heinkel was Germanic. It was wrong from the start.
The hypothesis that I—or rather, Schluss Heinkel—was Marie’s son.
Yes. It was definitely wrong.
“Dinner’s ready, big brother Schluss!”
“Yeah! I’ll be right down!”
I carefully placed the pocket watch inside the black steel safe and closed the door. The twelve spell formulas interlocked and sealed it shut. Even if a Ma-in came, they would not be able to open it now.
“I will definitely deliver it.”
I had made a promise. I had promised to give this watch to her son. Once a person spoke such words, it was only right to keep them. I stared at the safe for a moment, soothing the complicated feelings in my chest, then turned away.