She Never Bets on Losing Odds (2)
"Ah, let me correct that. To be precise, I'm saying I don't need some power that grows stronger by taking things."
"……"
Is this what it means to be a hero's child? Little show-off.
The Golden Woman curled the corners of her mouth in obvious satisfaction.
Quick to read a situation, and sharp as a blade. Daring, yet never swayed by desire. Self-controlled, and patient to a fault.
And yet.
Why.
Why does this one get cast out so thoroughly here, of all places?
'Still, he's clumsy. Unfinished. Young and naive.'
There was more to it than that. From childhood, he had been brainwashed under an endless barrage of pressure and coercion. Demands that fit neither his nature nor his talents, wasted effort upon wasted effort. Drilled without pause into meaningless endurance, used up as nothing more than a tool for someone else's emotional venting.
If that had repeated for years on end, grinding his self-worth and dignity into the dirt—
…Then it would be no surprise at all for a person to break and rot from the inside.
She had encountered that kind many times in the past. And without exception, they had turned crooked.
Among them, there had even been one who contributed to the collapse of his own country — a grievously twisted creature.
'Well now. This is quite entertaining.'
The child of a hero — the one who should have been blessed above all others — had fallen alone into a chasm of misfortune, with no one to understand him.
'Someone dug a trap. Dug it very deep, indeed.'
She couldn't be certain, but the scent was there. And when, deep in her heart, she judged something to be true in a story like this one, she was almost never wrong.
It never strayed from the mark.
The next day.
Contrary to every expectation, the talk of the academy was not the break-in to the treasury but the news of the engagement between Elhermina and Cariel himself. As for the treasury incident, it went unsourced and unheard the moment tempers cooled, which felt entirely natural to him. It would reflect poorly on the imperial family's dignity, after all. And it would hardly do the reputation of House Brendiar any favors either.
Whatever he did, ugly rumors spread, and slander rained down on him as if it were only right — he had lived so long under that weight that he simply accepted this too as inevitable.
"That, my friend, is learned helplessness. Speaking from my own observation, your condition looks like late-stage depression. It all comes from your brain refusing to do its job. Inefficient glucose absorption might be part of it too."
The Demon King rattled off his incomprehensible knowledge of the human body with an air of expertise. And at the moment, Cariel was on his way back to the academy library — for the first time in a long while — trying to pin down the true nature of that very Demon King: the Golden Demon King himself.
'Found it.'
He pulled a thick volume from the shelf and opened it where he stood. He made no move to spread related books across a desk and browse through them.
…Reading books about the Demon King, right after yesterday's incident? If anyone was watching him, it would only invite fresh suspicion. So instead, he flipped through unrelated volumes while folding this one in among them, casually, as a matter of course.
"You're worried about being watched, too?"
Even though he hadn't said a word, the Demon King had grasped his intent at once.
"Your intention is obvious, yet what you actually do looks completely different. Work that backward, and the reason explains itself."
"……"
Not merely the King of Demons — a being once called the King of Wisdom as well. One said to have even contributed to the advancement of human civilization and technology: that was the Golden Demon King. And yet they called her — or perhaps not a her at all — the reason everyone had named her the Golden Beast was…
"……"
The book held an illustration presumed to depict the Golden Beast, imperfect but detailed. It looked like an enormous fox. No — a wolf, perhaps. A wolf or a fox standing on two legs, a long tail and a lean, agile frame. The drawing was rendered only in black and white, yet it was unmistakable: the creature must have radiated a golden brilliance intense enough to pierce even the world's darkness. The descriptions in the text said as much.
And then there was this: in the fragment of memory the Demon King had passed to him through their contract—
She had stood over the utterly broken Nine Heroes, gazing down at them with naked arrogance.
"Cariel. So this is where you were."
A girl approached without any attempt to hide herself, her footsteps plainly audible. He turned his head, the book still closed in his hand.
"…What is it?"
Seras Esdina. His face twisted at the sight — though to be precise, it wasn't the girl herself he despised. It was her twin younger sister. The hatred belonged to her.
Bluish-black hair and clear blue eyes to match. Her forehead was left bare, which lent her features a striking definition. One couldn't simply attribute her straight-backed poise and refined looks to being born into a great house. It felt studied — as if she had deliberately researched which image of herself would leave the most fitting, most advantageous impression on others. And the white-toned academy uniform suited her beautifully as well.
"I had a question."
"…For me?"
"Who else would it be for, if not you?"
The girl standing before him was, for now, one of only two direct descendants — a granddaughter — of a great noble house that might well have been counted among the Ten Heroes had it survived the great war, instead of merely the Nine. House Esdina stood shoulder to shoulder with the heroes' renown, and in the present day its house formed the practical backbone of the powerful faction of nobles.
Considered coolly, she and he occupied positions that made political rivalry all but inevitable.
…His memory of it was faint, but it seemed Cariel himself had once run about with her as a child, the two of them bundled together under the label of the heroes' heirs.
"The engagement — with the princess, or possibly the future crown princess. What do you think of it?"
"…What exactly do you expect to do by asking me that?"
"Are you planning to accept it obediently? Really? You know exactly what will become of you."
"……"
Was she worried for him? Or…
"You and I both know this isn't simply a matter of uniting heroic bloodlines."
"Do I have a choice?"
"A choice? Has any of this ever been your life to choose?"
Her tone had turned razor-sharp. Whenever her words failed to land as intended, that was always how she spoke. She was the same as him — a castaway, shoved aside and kicked to the periphery by her own talent as much as Cariel ever was.
And yet.
Even she ranked in the top five of their entire class. Grades weren't everything, but if someone in the top five counted as a failure in her own eyes and everyone else's…
Then just how extraordinary were the ones standing above her?
"This is a ploy to shore up Elhermina's power base. And you'll be worked like a tool for it. Someone at your level should have figured that out long ago."
"……"
Had I, though? He had been preoccupied with something else and hadn't run the calculation. No — that wasn't it. He had simply given up on thinking.
When a matter ran this deep, it stopped being a question of his own will. Besides—
…I intend to disappear the moment my sibling is born. What meaning is there in fretting over a future further off than that?
Even simply keeping his eyes open and enduring this reality was a heavy lift. Breathing alone was exhausting.
…If anything, researching the Demon King was so absorbing a distraction that I'd let myself sink into it. And now something unnecessary had dragged his memory back to the surface.
"Or what? Shall I sketch out your future for you? The generation of your great hero parents steps off the stage, and Elhermina becomes the center of power. And you, the empress's consort, get shoved firmly into the background. Your influence — nothing but your influence — milked to the very last drop."
"……"
"You don't want to become a bird in a cage, do you? Tell me I'm wrong."
"So your answer is: refuse the engagement? Did you really come find me just to say the same thing the prince did?"
"……"
There, Seras fell silent for a moment.
"It's not the only way."
"What?"
Cariel flinched despite himself.
Could she have guessed my intention? No, surely not. Accept the situation. Or refuse it, reject it outright. In the end, only two paths. No — that wasn't everything. Don't panic. There's no reason to waver. The person in front of him was quick to read the currents. If he let so much as a fragment of feeling slip, clumsily, she might see through any of it. Because—
Because the options were, in the end, limited.
"You and I get engaged. That's all."
And yet.
This answer, he had never once predicted.
So completely blindsided was he—
"Whoa…"
Even the Demon King, sprawled bored above his head with her chin propped in one hand, had her mouth hanging wide open, as though she had taken a blow herself.
Truly.
…What kind of expression had he been wearing just now?
"You're a wicked man, aren't you? I did suspect it, seeing that unremarkable face of yours~ Well, well!"
"Please… don't say such absurd things."
This was, unambiguously, a political decision.
His father was the Hero, the foremost among heroes. Yet as the head of a newly risen house, their standing — overwhelming for the moment — was plainly destined to erode by the time Cariel's own generation took charge. No, unless his sibling proved even more exceptional than their father, that was.
But if a house like this were bound to the imperial family, its blood merged — then they would pass at once beyond the blue bloodline into the golden one. His parents and the Emperor had surely run the same arithmetic: guaranteeing his future while also accounting for their own present, and even their legacy after death.
And as for the imperial princess — Elhermina, who might use this very engagement as the foundation to be named official heir and one day ascend the imperial throne…
"Haah."
He despised complications. And political matters were always, without exception, revolting.
Presumably, if he simply vanished without leave, the aftershocks would be considerable as well.
'But that's no concern of mine, is it?'
It made his skin crawl. He wanted to die without thinking a single thought, simply breathing until he stopped. No pain, no anguish, no worry. No anxiety, no sorrow, no irritation, no injustice.
"……"
But such a thing was a luxury beyond permission. Life, in the end, was nothing but suffering.
…Someone told me that once, I think. I can't remember who.
"The proposal itself sounds reasonable, though? It won't be easy for your parents to welcome, mind you."
They were, nominally, the faction seated beside the great repository. His father belonged to the Emperor's party, while Esdina led what most called the Noble Faction.
…If I leaned toward that side, wouldn't the whole landscape turn rather interesting? At the same time—
"She offered to hand over the position of head of House Esdina as well, didn't she? That's a considerable gambit."
"……"
He didn't want to think. Whether the proposal was sound, whether it looked proper on its face — all of it was nothing but tedium. Prince or noble. Hero, champion. Their children and all the rest of it.
"And that girl — I'd say she has feelings for you, most likely."
"…For me?"
"Politically the two camps are opposed, yet she joined the prince's circle under the banner of the heroes' heirs. That wasn't something she did because she wanted to."
"……"
As it happened, the Demon King was right. She had simply, all along, secured in advance the position that suited her station, so that nothing disadvantageous or unreasonable might come to her. And that was precisely why — even while the other heirs of heroes clung to the prince's side, even while they tormented and shunned Cariel himself — when things truly threatened to cross the line, it had always been she who stepped in to arbitrate and hold them back.
"Why? You think she joined that group in order to shield you?"
"No. It isn't that. She'd have no reason to go that far."
Whether fondness or goodwill — for the briefest instant, a pointless thought had slipped through him. Impossible. Would she truly take such labor upon herself for his sake, of all people?
…Wait.
"In that case — the engagement she proposed… could it be she meant it in earnest?"
"Yes. That's exactly what I wanted to tell you. Unremarkable looks, but a sharp mind… if she truly likes you, if she cares for you? Then she might well become your most loyal ally. What do you think of that?"
"……"
He cooled the feeling that had begun to simmer, calmly, deliberately.
Do not expect. Do not trust. Do not dream.
He repeated the three words to himself, over and over.
"Don't make me laugh."
Such a tidy, well-composed story—
It would never be offered to him. And so, without fail—
I have decided.
I will trust nothing, and no one, ever again.
Absolutely. Never again will I repeat that same mistake.