A Fine Carriage
Roella Amelia stood a short distance from the pit entrance, arms folded, her back turned.
"Hmm."
A skeptical breath slipped out of her unbidden.
Ian had said he would haul the mana stones up himself, but honestly, she found it hard to believe. Mana stones were no ordinary rocks.
Mining, transport, processing… every step of working with mana stones requires mana.
And who ran the mana stone business in Loreal City?
Roella herself.
Her knowledge of mana stones ran deep enough that she could fairly call herself an expert. From that vantage, Ian's claim that he would single-handedly haul out dozens of kilograms of the stuff was simply not credible.
A mana stone was a mineral saturated with potent magical energy. Ordinary tools could not handle it properly. Whether mining, transporting, or refining it, you either needed delicate mana control or specially treated magic-engineering equipment.
And Ian can't even use mana.
In all the years she had watched him as a rival, Roella had never once seen him cast a spell. He had never taken a single magic course at the Academy, never shown the slightest interest in the subject. Magic, after all, was a domain open only to the gifted few who possessed mana sensitivity—a talent of the chosen. All Ian had ever managed was swinging a sword with clumsy form.
There's no way Ian has any talent for magic.
Even as she turned her back on the pit as he had asked, Roella still doubted every word. That was when Mikhail stepped up beside her and spoke with absolute certainty.
"It's a bluff, my lady."
"A bluff?"
Roella turned her head to look at him.
"Yes. Ian Darkest… frankly, I do not consider him a man worth trusting."
Mikhail's voice was thick with conviction.
Roella almost snapped at him for insulting Ian, then stopped herself. Her brow knit of its own accord. Mikhail was a loyal knight who had served her for a long time. He could be emotional at times, but his judgment of people was usually sharp. The trust they had built over the years made it hard to dismiss his words as empty noise.
"I assume you have a reason for saying that?"
"His attitude and his patterns of speech," Mikhail answered, deadly serious. "That man is trying to seduce you right now."
"Seduce me? …Pfft—hahaha!"
Roella shot back the question and then burst out laughing before she could stop herself.
"Ian Darkest… seducing me?"
"Yes. A man's instinct."
Mikhail was unyielding. The corner of Roella's mouth curled high. For reasons she couldn't quite name, it felt as though a whole garden of flowers had bloomed inside her chest. Beaming, she said,
"Well, I am extremely charming."
But her expression sobered a moment later.
"Still, Mikhail—Ian isn't trying to seduce me. I know that much."
Her voice turned a little bitter as she went on.
"He doesn't care about anything except his fief. So I just have to try harder…"
"…Try harder at what, my lady?"
Mikhail asked carefully.
"Huh…?"
Roella realized what she had just let slip and fell into an awkward silence. As she turned her head away, the tips of her ears flushed faintly red.
Mikhail felt as though his chest might tear open. But it was a feeling he could never show his mistress, so he simply bit down hard on his lip.
"Just watch, Lady Roella," he said, forcing calm into his voice. "He won't even be able to move the mana stones. I can't sense so much as a trace of mana from him."
He was still making his declaration when a familiar voice drifted up from behind them.
"Did somebody call me?"
Both of them spun around. Ian stood there with a leisurely grin, a heap of mana stones dumped at his feet. Piled around his boots was a mountain of blue-glowing stones—far more than Aurora had mined through the entire night.
"Th-this is…?"
"How on earth did you do that, Ian?"
Mikhail's eyes went round with shock.
Roella was startled too—but a smile was already tugging at her lips.
Ian dusted off his hands with a sly grin.
"Told you. I've got heavy equipment."
Mikhail could only stand there open-mouthed, staring at the pile. Those stones had been at the bottom of the pit mere minutes ago. How had they reached the surface in the blink of an eye?
"Don't tell me… you actually used magic?"
Roella asked, looking as though she couldn't believe it.
"Not magic. Just… a special method."
Ian's answer was deliberately vague, as if he were hiding something. Roella thought she might go mad with curiosity. If she could just figure out how he had done it, she could apply the same technique to Loreal City's own mines!
"Hey! Tell me! Come on, tell me!"
She had to run for quite a while after that, chasing Ian as he fled with the mana stones left behind.
At the main gate of the Darkest estate, Yerna Darkest stood with her arms crossed, waiting for someone with restless impatience. The sun was sinking, and the chill evening wind scattered her black hair.
"When is he going to get here, honestly."
She muttered to herself.
The person she was waiting for was Ian.
Tonight was the deadline the family head had set for him to produce one hundred fifty million rene. If he failed to bring the money, he would be dragged off to the army starting tomorrow.
"It's not like… it's not like I'm worried or anything."
Yerna said it as if making excuses to herself. Still, there was one thing about Ian that kept nagging at her. Even if he had only been a lowly foot soldier, the sight of him defeating a swordsman trained in the family's orthodox swordsmanship was not something easily forgotten.
What on earth had happened? How had that frail bastard son acquired that kind of skill?
The moment Ian gets back, I'm going to pester him with questions until he answers.
Then, from far off, came the sound of a carriage. It was a fine one—the wheels rolled with a smooth, elegant hush.
Yerna kicked the ground once for no good reason. There was no way Ian would be riding in a luxury carriage like that.
But the carriage stopped, and the person who stepped down from it was, in fact, Ian.
Yerna's eyes went wide as she stared at him. Ian looked at her and smirked, all lazy charm.
"Missed me that much, Yerna?"
"As if!"
she snapped. And without even a moment to sulk properly, she fired questions at him in rapid succession.
"What about the money? Did you get it? You didn't, did you? Are you going to the army?"
Ian just grinned. Yerna thought she might explode from frustration.
"Hey, you idiot, answer me already! Did you raise the money or not? Are you really going to get dragged off to the army like this? If you go to the army, you'll die, you know that!"
Still grinning, Ian pulled a heavy purse from his inner pocket. When he opened it, gold coins glittered inside in dense piles.
Yerna's eyes went huge.
"W-what is all this? Don't tell me you actually…?"
"One hundred fifty million rene. To be precise, closer to one hundred sixty million. I prepared a little extra."
Ian said it with pride.
Yerna was speechless for a moment, staring at the gold. Then her gaze slid back to him, sharp with suspicion.
"Don't tell me… you sold your body?"
"Hey! What do you take me for!"
Ian shouted, looking thoroughly wronged.
"Then how did you get this kind of money? Theft?"
"A legitimate transaction. I sold mana stones."
"Mana stones?"
Yerna echoed the words and then stood frozen for a beat.
Mana stones.
Right. If you had mana stones, you could sell them.
But why would Ian have mana stones?
Were mana stones the kind of rock that grew if you planted a seed?
No, they weren't.
You had to mine them.
…Which meant.
"S-Seorigol had mana stones?"
"Yeah. A large deposit of pretty high-quality ones turned up. So I partnered with Roella."
"With Roella Amelia?"
Yerna's eyes went razor-sharp.
"Have you lost your mind? You know they're a rival house, right? Don't tell me that woman played you. She's got a reputation for being a demon when it comes to business."
"Played me? Hardly."
"Then why team up with her? The whole family could turn upside down over this!"
At that, Ian let out a short laugh.
"That's exactly why I did it."
"…What?"
As Yerna stared in confusion, Ian explained it calmly, step by step.
"If I held a mana stone mine by myself, the family head or Lionel would come to take it. You understand that much, right?"
"…They would, yes."
"But what if I'd already signed an agreement with someone? And not just anyone—the rival house our family finds the most troublesome to deal with."
Yerna's brow furrowed as she turned it over. Then her eyes slowly widened.
"…You're right."
It made perfect sense.
If Seorigol truly had a mine, the family head and Lionel would absolutely have tried to seize it. But with a pact already in place with the Amelia family, they wouldn't dare make a reckless move. One wrong touch and it could spark a war between houses—and the Amelia family would hold the moral high ground of a "legitimate contract" the entire time.
When she finished following the logic, Yerna looked at Ian with an almost absurd expression on her face.
Had he always been this tall?
Tilting her head back to meet his eyes, she asked,
"Since when do you know how to play politics?"