Laeli Caris
"You've arrived, young master."
When I reached the carriage, Caron was already waiting in front of it. So that was where she'd gone — she'd been getting everything ready here. As I approached, the knight assigned to escort me and the coachman who would drive offered their greetings. I watched Caron open the carriage door for a moment, then stepped inside. She followed right after me.
"…?"
She'd come in with me, so I figured we'd simply set off — but Caron just stood there, fidgeting, staring at me without a word.
"What are you doing? Sit down."
"Yes, sir."
The Caron I knew was, if nothing else, meticulous — a girl who never let her emotions show in front of her master. The typical picture of a maid who pursued perfection in everything she did. That girl was acting a little differently today. I didn't know why, and I didn't particularly care. I was quietly enjoying the peace. It had been a very long time since I last felt no urge to kill anyone. There were no enemies here trying to take my life, either. I closed my eyes and let the tension drain away. It didn't take long before I drifted off.
Young master has changed.
Caron quietly closed her mouth and sat down across from Argal. Ordinarily, a maid did not sit with her superior inside a carriage — not without a special reason, at least. And yet Caron sat, and even Argal, who should have questioned it, let it pass without a word. This was not how things usually went.
He's been strange since this morning.
As his personal maid — the one who greeted him every morning, who brought him wash water and clothes — she knew every last one of Argal's little habits and mannerisms. People weren't machines, so those habits did shift over time, but there were always limits to how much they changed. This time, though, it was as if an entirely different person had taken his place. The being inside him had changed completely. From the moment she'd opened the door and offered her greeting, a strange atmosphere had pressed down on her.
Young master… where have you gone?
Caron worried that she might be serving some other being entirely — something that was not her young master at all. But she had neither the power nor the courage to uncover the truth. Whether a monster had taken his body, or whether he had simply changed… she would watch and wait. Argal, eyes closed, sinking into sleep before her, looked truly at peace.
Refreshing. That single word suited the sensation better than anything else. Falling asleep without a single worry, without the madness that had been gnawing at my brain — this was the first proper rest I'd had since gaining my immortality.
I spent a little more time straightening my clothes. The Briten family's lands weren't all that far from Viscount Caris's territory. A week of steady travel by carriage would be more than enough to get there. That was why I only had four knights escorting me. And that was also why kidnapping me had been laughably easy. Snatching a single boy without anyone noticing was about as difficult as blowing your nose.
Clatter, clatter—
The carriage gradually slowed. The flat road gave way to a well-traveled stretch of roadside, worn by the passage of many people. Even if the Briten Barony was a rural holding, Viscount Caris's territory was fairly well developed. Something resembling a proper city had taken shape here, and great walls encircled his lands. The guards saw the crest engraved on the carriage and stepped aside. The carriage rolled smoothly onward and soon arrived within the castle walls.
The Caris family's steward came out to receive us.
"Young Master Briten. A pleasure to welcome you."
He had less of the softness and administrative air one expected of a steward, and more of a soldier's grit and weight. The viscount was a war hero, after all. Most of the retainers at his side were former soldiers as well.
"I'll leave the carriage to you."
"Please, come inside."
I entered the castle with my knight and maid in tow. A viscount's rank wasn't particularly high, but it wasn't low either. True to that standing, the viscount's castle was neither lavish nor sparse. The servants' gazes gathered on us. It was only natural — this was a marriage talk involving the young lady they served. Those stares cut off the moment we stepped into a lavishly decorated room.
"Please wait in the drawing room a moment. I shall fetch the viscount."
"Very well."
The wait wasn't long. The door opened, and a massive man walked in. The scar running from his forehead down to his cheek was striking. The red-haired viscount sat down with a hearty laugh.
"I only just sent the letter, and here you are already. You've gone and made me look bad."
"Not at all. We had an arrangement. Shouldn't I have come as soon as I could?"
"That's true enough! Good — I like that."
Whatever the case, sooner was always better. And so Viscount Caris grinned, thoroughly pleased by the simple fact that I'd arrived a little early.
"Ah, I nearly forgot the important part. Come here."
At those words, a girl roughly half the viscount's size followed him in. Not that she was short. Viscount Caris was simply so close to a giant that comparison was pointless. Pink hair fell to just below her neck — paler than her father's blazing red, close enough to pink. Her clear, unflinching gaze said everything about her personality. The slight stiffness in her face suggested something had soured her mood, or perhaps she simply didn't care for today's marriage talks.
Her clothes were closer to everyday wear suited for free movement than anything a noble young lady would put on. Light enough that she could pick up a sword and start training right then and there. In a way, it was quite rude, given that she was here for a marriage discussion. Viscount Caris, being a noble himself, didn't look entirely pleased as he glanced at his daughter — but he didn't call her out on it either. I didn't particularly care. The young lady had come here prepared to break off the engagement, by the look of it. I didn't mind. Not when the person in question was someone I'd once killed with my own hands.
"Lady Laeli Caris."
The curse that came with immortality. The madness that followed it. That madness had swallowed every emotion, and all that remained afterward was a burning desire to slaughter the ones who'd made me this way. The Caris family had been among those targets. I'd massacred anyone even remotely connected to the people who'd given me immortality — that was how it had happened. I'd visited this place, been kidnapped, and the rest had followed as a matter of course. In truth, it later came out that the Caris family had nothing to do with that day's kidnapping…
"A pleasure to meet you."
Still, I didn't dwell on it. I simply spoke her name and offered a greeting. There was no need to pour my heart into something that hadn't happened. Now that I'd regressed… I was just the son of an innocent noble house.
"…Nice to meet you."
She answered as if she weren't particularly pleased about it. If I tried to recall what had happened between us, not much came to mind. My memories weren't that precise, and there hadn't been anything particularly connecting us to begin with. Did you even need a special reason to dislike someone? Laeli didn't care for me, and that was why she wanted to break off the engagement. Marriage talks crumbled easily enough when only one side was unwilling. If neither party wanted it, they simply couldn't stand — not unless the two families had no choice but to be bound together.
After our introduction, Viscount Caris naturally excused himself. He muttered something about having business elsewhere — the most obvious pretext imaginable — and left. Since I was the guest, Laeli stood up with a look that said she didn't particularly like me, but she'd show me around anyway.
"This way."
I followed behind her. The castle wasn't grand, but it had a dignity all its own. The small, quiet keep held nothing but a hushed atmosphere. The young lady seemed to dislike me, but she was thorough in her duties as a guide. She showed me a tranquil garden, and we walked together through a small flower bed in front of the castle, breathing in the cool air.
My gaze drifted to her hip. For reasons I couldn't guess, she was wearing a real sword. Her clothes, from the start, were light enough to handle intense movement. Looked at another way, it was as if she'd armed herself to fight someone. She wasn't wearing armor or anything heavy, but she was at least equipped to fight if she needed to.
At some point, I came to a stop. There was no particular reason. I just started remembering, one by one, what had happened here — what kind of catastrophe had unfolded. It was stranger that I'd forgotten something so enormous so completely. When I stood still, the young lady turned and looked at me with a puzzled expression. Her two red eyes trembled quietly, as if she were worried I'd somehow caught on to whatever she was planning. That anxiety was written all over her face.
After this day, one of those two eyes would be destroyed. A tragedy beyond measure had taken place. And it had been a punishment she'd more or less brought upon herself.
"Is something the matter?"
"…Nothing."
Even knowing the outcome that was already set, I didn't try to change it. I simply moved forward. The thing a regressor should fear most was the future changing. If a single small action made everything I knew unknowable, that would be far more terrifying. For now, I just let things flow as they would. If I needed to change something, I could always do it later.
Laeli Caris hated the weak. She utterly despised people who startled at the smallest thing and ran away. That was how her father had raised her. He was a born knight who'd earned his title through wartime merit. The young lady who'd grown up under a knight father had trained with the sword, striving to become an excellent lady knight herself. And so her nature, too, was to dislike the weak — those who didn't belong on a battlefield. Cowards who fled before they even drew their swords. Soft ones who couldn't even crush an ant underfoot.
Every last one of those traits described Young Master Argal without a single word out of place. A boy who looked endlessly pure, endlessly kind. Those were qualities that would drive any other young lady wild, but honestly, they didn't sit well with her. Someone strong enough to lift their head and overcome whatever hardship, whatever adversity came their way. That was the kind of person she wanted.
"Father, do I really have to meet him?"
"The Briten family is a house we need to form ties with, geographically speaking, Laeli. And Argal isn't such a bad match, is he?"
He wasn't wrong. He was handsome, he was kind, he was considerate of others. If you actually sat down and compared, there wasn't anyone better. Considering that most noble men were complete scoundrels who treated women like their personal property, he was even more exceptional. No matter how little Viscount Caris liked a personality like Argal's, it was only natural that he'd want his only daughter's husband to simply be a kind man.
In that case, Laeli had a plan of her own. The forest near the viscount's estate was a place where monsters occasionally appeared. The idea of monsters showing up at a viscount's estate — a place that should have been safer than anywhere — was almost a contradiction in terms, but the monsters that did appear were weak, and Laeli herself had hunted them before. The viscount's knights even visited the place regularly for training.
What would happen if she showed those monsters to this young master? If he ran for his life with his tail between his legs, she'd be able to let go of any lingering attachment to Argal. And if she told her father about it, Viscount Caris wouldn't want to marry his daughter to a man who'd abandoned her and fled in a dangerous situation. If, on the other hand, he tried to fight alongside her even a little, or stepped forward bravely — well, that would change her mind too. It would mean that even if he seemed weak on the surface, he had backbone when it counted. That was far better than people who just pretended to be strong all the time.
Grrrk…
After crossing the vast manor grounds and arriving in the forest, what appeared was a green-skinned monster. A goblin.