I Miss You
One month earlier.
Knock, knock—
"……Director, I'm coming in."
"Come in."
The door opened, and a man stepped inside. Abiran, the Central Postal Bureau's officer in charge of returned mail.
"What is it?"
Wilhelm looked at him with a puzzled expression. On any ordinary day, Abiran coming to the director's office in person was almost unheard of. Yet today, for some strange reason, he was clutching an enormous bundle of papers in one hand.
No. Looking closer, they were all letters.
"And what exactly is that?"
"……Letters to be returned."
"Returned?"
Wilhelm frowned.
"You could have handled returns yourself. Why haul them all the way here?"
"Well, it's……"
Abiran regarded the pile of letters with a troubled face.
"It's more than my department can handle."
"How many are we talking?"
"Six hundred and twenty."
"…Just returns?"
Wilhelm's eyebrows twitched.
"Did someone decide to cripple the Bureau's operations on purpose?"
"I thought so too, at first. But… they're all from different people, sent to the same place."
"Where?"
Abiran pulled out a single envelope and handed it over. Wilhelm looked down at it.
[To Mr. Raven Reinhardt.]
"……Raven Reinhardt?"
It was a name he'd heard somewhere before.
"Then why is it being returned?"
"There is no such recipient."
"Why not?"
"Because this person does not exist in the kingdom."
"……."
Wilhelm picked up another letter.
[To His Excellency the Grand Duke of the North.]
"The Grand Duke of the North?"
Another one.
[To the Black Grand Duke of the North.]
"……"
Wilhelm's face was stiffening by the second.
"Where in the kingdom's north is there any ducal house?"
"……."
"Fine, let that pass. But why did you wait to collect all of these until now, before bringing them to me?"
"…They all arrived in a single day."
Wilhelm stared at the pile for a moment, then let out a sigh and opened the letter on top. Under Bureau regulations, when both sender and recipient were unidentifiable, the contents could be inspected for the purpose of return.
Dearest Grand Duke,
Wilhelm read a few lines, and a distinctly odd expression crept over his face.
"……What in the world is this?"
It was a love letter.
He opened another. A love letter as well. And another. Also a love letter.
"……"
"Director."
Abiran spoke up carefully.
"Are you by any chance familiar with a book called The Black Grand Duke of the North?"
"……Huh?"
Wilhelm looked up.
"Of course I know it."
It was a famous book. A wildly popular novel that had begun among the nobility and spread all the way down to the common folk. And as Wilhelm trailed off, a certain scene suddenly surfaced in his mind.
Ten days ago.
"Ahhh, Lord Reinhardt… my Grand Duke……"
"…Madam, has our daughter perhaps fallen for one of the kingdom's actual dukes?"
One of those old fossils?
He remembered his daughter carrying a book tucked at her hip from morning to night. At the time, he'd simply assumed she was absorbed in whatever novel was in fashion.
"……Surely not."
Wilhelm's expression hardened.
"Don't tell me these people wrote all this believing the novel's protagonist is real?"
"More or less."
"……"
Wilhelm fell silent.
"How many blockheads out there can't tell fiction from reality?"
"Ahem."
Abiran cleared his throat.
"It's not simply because of the novel, sir."
"Then what?"
"The author herself revealed it. She said the story was based on a real person."
"……"
Abiran went on, sorting through the letters as he spoke.
"Director, do you happen to remember the stories about the West?"
"The West, you say?"
"There was that tale about the black-haired mercenary, wasn't there?"
"…I do seem to recall something."
It was more than a decade in the past. A black-haired mercenary who had displayed Expert-class swordsmanship and single-handedly exterminated countless monsters. Black hair was rare enough on the continent to begin with, which made the man all the more memorable.
"I heard that a few years back he was even granted a title and a quiet territory in the West."
Viscount Rian, if he remembered correctly.
"Yes. Though he's almost never appeared at banquets or noble gatherings—any public occasion, really."
Which meant that for the kingdom's citizens, among whom rumor traveled slowly, such a figure might as well not exist at all.
"It seems people have begun to believe he's one and the same as the Grand Duke of the North from the novel. And honestly, it's not that far-fetched a notion, but……"
"…Are their brains missing?"
His head was throbbing. Wilhelm pressed hard against his temple.
"But here's a question."
A thought occurred to him.
"Why does nobody know the name of a man who holds an actual viscountcy?"
"You mean Viscount Rian?"
"That's the one."
"Apparently he's changed his name constantly ever since his mercenary days."
"…Now that you mention it."
When I first heard the rumors, the name was Kaisen, wasn't it.
"There were plenty of false rumors about him as well, sir."
"…So all these people don't know his real name, and that's why the recipients are written like this?"
"No, sir. We've set aside the ones properly addressed to Viscount Rian and brought the rest."
Abiran gestured at the mountain of several hundred letters.
"Absurd."
Wilhelm pressed harder against his temple.
"What should we do with these?"
"Assign more staff and return them, surely?"
"That's the thing……"
Abiran hesitated a moment, then produced another bundle of letters.
"These have no sender listed."
"…Why?"
"When we opened them, they said they were too embarrassed to identify themselves."
Wilhelm's face contorted.
"Can't we just throw them out?"
"If they were ordinary letters, we would have done exactly that, but……"
"Out with it, quickly. My skull is about to split."
"Some were sent by the daughters of ducal houses. And by princesses of the royal family."
"……"
Wilhelm slowly raised his head.
"Is this country truly doomed? What on earth are they teaching their daughters?"
"This one, sir, was sent by your own daughter."
"……"
"What would you like us to do?"
Wilhelm said nothing for a long while.
"Would it be best simply to return them all?"
"If we try to return each and every one of these, the Bureau's entire operation will grind to a halt."
Wilhelm looked at the pile of letters again. Hundreds of them. And there was no guarantee today would be the end of it…!
After a brief moment of deliberation, Wilhelm spoke.
"Just send them all."
"I beg your pardon?"
"Send them to Viscount Rian."
"……"
"What?"
Abiran's face went pale.
"You're truly sending all of them?"
"What, would you rather return every single one by hand yourself?!"
"…I'll dispatch them immediately."
"Good."
Abiran moved to leave, then stopped in his tracks.
"Actually—no. They'll keep coming anyway, so I'll gather a few days' worth and send them together."
"Suit yourself."
"Yes, sir."
Abiran left the director's office with the pile of letters in his arms.
What in the world is this book, that everyone's lost their minds over it?
And then, one month later.
"There! Is! No! Grand Duke! In the North, you blockheads!!"
Wilhelm howled yet again. SLAM! His palm came down on the desk.
Send them, and more letters came. Return them, and more came. Throw them out entirely, and more came anyway. And now, on top of everything, the royals and high nobles had begun arriving in person to demand answers.
Why has the Grand Duke not written back?
I clearly sent a letter—why was it returned?
Are you certain it was properly delivered?
A mere Bureau director dares—!
Ordinary people could be brushed off without a second thought, but when it came to royalty, they could hardly be treated so carelessly. And to make matters worse, the couriers had confirmed that Viscount Rian was away from his territory on an extermination mission.
"Hoo……"
Wilhelm ran a hand through his hair.
Knock, knock—
"Director."
A staff member's voice came from beyond the door.
"A royal special commissioner is here to see you."
"…The royal family?"
Wilhelm shot up from his seat.
"Send him in."
Creeeak—
The door opened, and in walked a middle-aged man with white flecking his neatly combed hair.
"It's been a while, Director."
"Hasn't it, Sir Edwin."
The visitor was a royal official he had known for years. Having crossed paths any number of times, the two exchanged a light greeting.
"Haha."
Edwin glanced across the desk and laughed.
"The Grand Duke of the North certainly has you run ragged, I see."
The corner of Wilhelm's mouth trembled.
"Indeed. It was always like this, but lately I find myself dreaming of retirement more and more……"
"Haha, could you really? Do hang in there."
"…Heh heh heh."
Wilhelm's fist clenched tight.
"Now then, Sir Edwin—what brings you all the way here?"
"I, too, have business with that Grand Duke of the North."
"Not—not the Grand Duke of the North again?!"
A vein rose on Wilhelm's forehead.
That damned Grand Duke of the North!
The mere name made his skin crawl.
"To be precise, there is a letter I must deliver to Viscount Rian."
"……"
That harebrained princess again, is it?!
But this was a royal official. Wilhelm smothered the fury rising in his chest and forced a smile.
"And what letter might that be?"
"Haha, it's nothing like what you're imagining, so do relax your face."
"…Hoo. A relief, that."
Edwin continued.
"This time, it concerns an extermination mission."
He drew a sealed dispatch from inside his coat.
"You'll be aware, Director, that our kingdom has no ducal house in the north."
"I'm aware."
Edwin's expression grew somewhat grave.
"Well, of late, strange signs have begun to appear along the northern border front, which had been quiet for some time."
"Strange signs, you say?"
"We don't know the details yet. But the monsters' movements have turned odd."
"……"
Wilhelm found himself thinking, unexpectedly, of a man named Rian.
"So you intend to summon Viscount Rian?"
"Correct."
The royal official nodded.
"Well, with a man of that caliber, I suppose."
He didn't know how much of the rumors were true, but one thing was certain: since the man's activities, the monsters in the kingdom's west had all but died out.
"Of course, the kingdom has no shortage of Expert-class powerhouses."
Edwin paused for a beat before finishing.
"But after verifying the rumors, we judged that he is a man on the verge of reaching the realm of Sword Master in the near future."
Wilhelm stopped mid-breath.
"…Sword Master."
All playfulness drained from Wilhelm's face. It was a realm never spoken of lightly.
"That close, is he?"
"So it is."
Wilhelm nodded.
"Then it makes sense."
"What does?"
"Why the royal family has been hunting for him so desperately."
"Although… there is one problem."
Edwin let out a sigh.
"Some time ago, he refused the appointment as Northern Margrave and fled outright, claiming he was off to hunt a Giant Drake, so……"
"Oho."
Wilhelm snorted a laugh.
"A fine trick. I'll have to remember that one……"
"Haha, do try it with that body of yours, if you can manage."
Wilhelm glared at Edwin.
"In any case—rather than a royal messenger with an ocean of dignity to maintain, I'd like to request the Bureau's Express Delivery."
Express Delivery. A method reserved for special circumstances, in which a single item was carried to its destination by the shortest possible route.
"I see. Then where is he now?"
"That, I don't know."
"…What?"
Edwin coughed and shifted his mouth awkwardly.
"We've only confirmed that he's been moving all over the West."
"I see. Still…"
Wilhelm spoke up.
"If Viscount Rian ran away because he refuses to go north, won't this letter just end up the same way?"
"True—but circumstances have changed."
"What circumstances?"
"Monsters are being pushed down toward the kingdom's west in ever-growing numbers."
Wilhelm's face hardened.
"This may be more than a simple extermination matter. It could be urgent—every hour counts."
Wilhelm thought for a moment. Then he nodded.
"Very well."
Wilhelm accepted the sealed dispatch.
"Thank you for your cooperation."
"Cooperation—this is our job, after all."
"Viscount Rian, is it……"
Baron Keveg, lord of the Ikesia Territory, gazed down at the letter in his hand. A request to cooperate with the Viscount's preparations for an extermination campaign.
"It's been a long time."
Back then, of course, the name hadn't been Rian.
Butcher Kaisen.
The name he had gone by in the days when he was a mere mercenary.
Though I couldn't say for certain that 'Rian' is his real name either.
Keveg snorted a soft laugh.
"Steward."
"Yes, my lord."
"Grant the approval."
"Is that wise?"
The steward asked back.
"Why wouldn't it be?"
"They say the entire knightly order will be staying for several days."
Keveg read the letter again. Provisions, a brief request for lodging, and a promise of compensation in due course.
"It's no trouble. I owe the man a debt. And…"
The letter in his hand folded neatly in two.
"…he's not someone I care to remain indebted to."
"Understood. I'll grant permission at once."
The steward bowed his head.
"…My lord."
Yet instead of turning to leave, he lingered, then asked quietly:
"How is the young lady faring, if I may?"
Keveg's face darkened.
"…I don't know."
"She still hasn't come out of her room?"
"She hasn't."
Keveg sighed.
"I can't remember the last time I saw her face, even at mealtimes."
"I see……"
"I thought time would mend it."
Keveg looked out the window.
"It seems it hasn't."
"……"
Just as a silence settled between them—
SLAM!
The door burst open.
"My lord!"
The steward shot to his feet.
"What insolence, barging in before the baron—!"
"There's no time for that!"
The gasping soldier shouted.
"Outside the territory walls—!"
The eyes of both baron and steward flew wide open.
A dark room, nearly starved of light.
Upon the bed sat a girl with long, snow-white hair. Pale skin, and a thin, billowing white underdress. In her hands, a worn old book.
"……"
Thap.
She closed the book and hugged it tight to her chest.
"Haa……"
A face gone red. Breath quickening little by little.
"Lord Raven……"
The girl traced the cover with her fingertips, then dragged a large pillow into her arms and buried herself in it.
"Your Grace……"
All those long years when she could meet no one and do nothing. And at the end of it all, a single book had come to her as if by fate.
"…I miss you."
The girl murmured softly.
At that moment—
Kuuuuuuuugh…!
"……?"
At the strange sound rumbling faintly from afar, the girl lifted her head.
"…Alfred."
"Yes, my lord."
From atop his horse, I gazed at the low fortress visible along the horizon.
"What in the hell is this supposed to be?"
The Ikesia Territory was under attack. Monsters swarming up and over the walls.
GRRAAAAAAAAAA—!
A colossal roar—something no human throat could make—rolled across the plain.
"Luzan."
The knight trailing behind me answered in a flustered voice.
"When I delivered the letter yesterday, it was nothing like this, my lord."
"……"
In a single day?
I dismounted.
Thap.
"My lord?"
"I'm going ahead. Have someone see to the horses."
"Yes, my lord!"
Without answering, I drove power into my legs.
PA-WHANG!
With a crack of bursting wind, the scenery around me smeared backward as if blurring out of focus.
About time I topped up my lifespan a little.
With that one line, a black silhouette tore away from the knights at blistering speed.
And behind it—
PA-WHANG—
Another crack of displaced air, as a crimson silhouette followed close in its wake.