High Society Debut (1)
Lately, Irelphi and I had been paying frequent visits to the Imperial Palace. The Emperor seemed to take genuine pleasure in his conversations with me — and thanks to that, Irelphi's workload had swelled beyond all imagining. I felt truly sorry for her, but none of it was my fault. The blame lay entirely with Netionpis and the Emperor and their hopeless bullheadedness. All I could do was marvel at how she bore it, carrying out her duties without a single word of complaint.
Today, as ever, the Emperor and I were taking tea inside the Glass Greenhouse. The only difference from before was that Irelphi was seated among us this time.
And today, the Emperor made a solemn proposal.
"A debut into high society — what say you to giving it a try?"
Through no intention of our own, we had become the object of the world's attention. But the true nature of my relationship with Irelphi was not something that could be confided to anyone.
Which meant we needed something to seal the public's lips, and the compromise the Emperor put forward was a society debut. Rumors have a way of swelling the more mystery feeds them; the secrecy shrouding Irelphi and me could just as easily breed trouble. Better, then, to face people openly on an official stage — that was the Emperor's thinking.
Of course, the story told about me was a matter to be worked out from here on.
"Honestly, it makes no difference to me whether I do or don't. But there is one thing — if we enter society, will the rumors about Irelphi actually die down?"
Ever since meeting Charles, a twinge of guilt had occasionally struck me whenever I looked at Irelphi. She was, in the end, a woman who would one day need a household to marry into. If the past I was tangled up in became a stain on her name, who would ever take responsibility for her — this colossal monster who could turn heaven and earth upside down?
"I don't mind it, you know. Even if people point fingers at me, it cannot wound me in the slightest. What I want is only—"
Irelphi stopped mid-sentence, smiled awkwardly, and steered the conversation elsewhere. I guessed that what she'd swallowed was about Miren Justiha, but I played dumb.
"Ahem. Did you know? There are ever so many people who envy me and curse me behind my back."
"No wonder they call you a pain in the— GAH!"
Irelphi had kicked my shin without mercy. The pain drove me down to my knees — for all of Netionpis's five senses were so refined that his sense of pain, too, was needlessly acute.
Ever since the day Charles came to visit, her violence seemed to have climbed yet another notch.
"And here is the funny part. Those very same people fall over themselves with delight if I so much as show my face. What they're thinking, I don't need to see to know."
"They curse you because you get on their nerves, don't they?"
"Quiet, please. Once you've been saddled with more than ten mortifying nicknames, you learn of them whether you wish to or not. In any case, my point is this—"
Irelphi added with perfect confidence:
"Scandals of that sort can leave no blemish on me whatsoever."
The Emperor chuckled heartily in agreement.
"The Marchioness Justiha's beauty is the finest under heaven, second only to our own Empress, no? Incidentally, the White-Bladed Beauty is a nickname I spread myself."
"Your Majesty!"
Shame flooded Irelphi's face in an instant. Her arms trembled, and her fingers fidgeted at her sword hilt. Truly, what stupendous patience and loyalty.
"Even if Irelphi doesn't care, the rumors still need putting to sleep. Your Majesty — do you truly believe a society debut can manage that?"
"Hmm."
The Emperor pondered, chin propped on his hand. I added in a reproachful tone:
"You're one to talk, Your Majesty. You knew perfectly well how improper it is for an unmarried man and woman to live under one roof."
It was an obvious fact — I knew it too. But the sheer scale of the mansion had swallowed the very concept of "cohabitation" whole. Two people living on a university campus — you'd hardly call that shacking up together. That was precisely how it had felt, moving into that enormous estate.
The Emperor countered, protesting that he'd been wronged as well.
"Then what was I to have done? Leave her be, and the Marchioness would obviously have objected. And had I forcibly torn the two of you apart, how do you imagine the Marchioness would have acted?"
"She would defy the imperial command and cut down the threat to the empire."
Shring—
Irelphi's beautiful silver blade flashed as it caught the light. I let out a shriek of genuine terror.
"I told you not to pull out that hideous thing! Put it away this instant, can't you?!"
Even as I scolded her, I clutched at my throbbing left arm and leg, my waist. This was pain learned by the mind — purely psychological.
"It was merely a hypothesis."
A trace of reluctance lingered on Irelphi's face as she withdrew the blade. She seemed to despise me quite thoroughly.
"...Now, see here. Even I minded my step — did I not hold our second meeting in the Glass Greenhouse as well? I ask for your understanding."
"Your Majesty, I concede. That was shortsighted of me."
"Nepi. I only take these orders because scandals mean nothing to me. So please don't let it trouble you."
"Hnngh!"
Even if Irelphi was fine with it, I was not. With all three of us hunting for a proper solution, silence hovered over the table for a while.
Then, all of a sudden, the Emperor snapped his fingers with a gasp of admiration — the gesture of a man who had just remembered something.
"A suitable excuse has just come to mind."
"Truly, Your Majesty?"
I asked, brightening. The Emperor smiled at me.
"The Marchioness Justiha's martial prowess is unknown to the world. So, from this moment on, the Marchioness was gravely wounded while carrying out a mission of the utmost secrecy."
Coming from the one man who'd been on the receiving end, the story was absurd. Fortunately, however, the only person who had ever lost limbs to her blade was me.
"And the one who treated those wounds is none other than the imperial family's hidden divine physician — Marquess Alteon, you see. In actual fact, the Founding Noble's knowledge of medicine is beyond all imagination."
The Emperor's words were likely true. Fantasy world or not, this was the very mastermind who had rebuilt his own body into the one and only immortal. He may well have repeated his experiments on human flesh any number of times.
Except that had been the story of Netionpis, the body's original owner. All I knew of the human body was that its upper and lower halves could, surprisingly, come apart quite neatly.
"Thus the hidden divine physician was granted his title and grand estate in reward for his family's generations of devotion and for saving the Marchioness Justiha. A rather tidy tale, no? It's not as though he was granted any territory."
It was an excuse made possible only because my title was, for all intents and purposes, an honorary one.
"If we say he remains to treat the aftereffects, it should hold up. Any small contradictions can be glossed over well enough."
Irelphi agreed as well. She knew perfectly well that a Knight Commander suffering grave injury was nothing to be proud of. For her, this compromise must have meant crushing her pride as a warrior.
I chose to accept Irelphi's goodwill and resolve.
"If Irelphi agrees, then I have no objection."
"Excellent!"
The Emperor clapped his hands, looking thoroughly delighted.
"Three months from now, a banquet will be held at the estate of Duke Peita, one of the Four Great Ducal Houses. Marquess Alteon's debut into society shall take place then."
"We shall remember it so, Your Majesty."
"I will send official word once we return."
"A couple this showered with attention — the crowds will be the likes of which no banquet has seen. Haha!"
With the Emperor's booming laughter as the final note, today's meeting drew to its close.
We left the Imperial Palace in a carriage bound for the mansion. Beyond the window, a blood-red sunset was dyeing the sky in fantastic hues.
The streets wore a face quite different from the daytime. Pretty lights had been strung up, poised and ready to shine. More than children at play, it was the bustle of adults that caught the eye. All of it looked exquisite — like the movements of a world preparing to welcome the stars.
Still riding that light, buoyant feeling, I watched the scenery drift past and spoke to Irelphi without thinking.
"Irelphi."
"Yes?"
"You've had your own society debut, haven't you?"
At my question, a wistful look drifted across Irelphi's face. Whether she was reminiscing or not, her voice carried a distant softness.
"It was when I was sixteen. It feels like a lifetime ago."
"Come to think of it, how old are you now, exactly?"
"Twenty-six. Ten years have passed already."
"I see..."
Despite the better part of a month or two spent in her company, I was learning her age only just now. As I nodded quietly, this time it was she who asked:
"And how old are you, Nepi?"
"No idea. Probably a touch older than the Eld Empire itself."
"Whoa..."
At that outsized scale, Irelphi's jaw dropped open. It was a sight I rarely got to see, and my eyes locked onto it before I could help myself.
Perhaps embarrassed, she covered her mouth with her hand in an instant.
'Somehow, I don't like that.'
The truth was, I had wanted to tell her, proud and plain, that I was twenty-six too — my age in the world before I possessed this body. The time sealed away in the Great Cavern had been long, but with no way to measure it, I had left it out of the count. Not that I could say any of this. No one would believe it, and there was no way to prove it.
Thinking that way left me a little deflated. To shake off the stray thoughts, I changed the subject.
"You're coming to the banquet too, right?"
"Of course."
"Then... will you be wearing a dress?"
Irelphi always went about in the pure-white uniform that symbolized her knightly order, a silver-white rapier at her hip — the very image of a Knight Commander in full dignity. Perhaps because I was always at her side, even the memory of Charles in a dress had felt oddly out of place by comparison.
Irelphi flatly denied my question.
"A Knight Commander wears the uniform regardless of gender, at all times. Public occasion or private, it makes no difference."
"Oh, I see..."
A little disappointing—
"Were you perhaps looking forward to it?"
"What?"
Irelphi's eyes had narrowed, the corners of her mouth curling upward. And that voice — teasing me, without a doubt...
I recoiled in horror and denied it.
"Absolutely not!"
"Hmhm."
Had my face given me away? Or had she read my panicked reaction some other way? It was unlike her usual self — the gaze of a beast, watching for an opening.
A beat later, Irelphi continued.
"I did wear a dress for my debutante. Back then, the sword was still in the realm of a hobby."
There went Irelphi, casually letting slip something monstrous.
"I received a great deal of attention. You could say I had it all to myself. I never learned where they came from, but so many people gave me flowers the moment we were introduced."
"Popular, huh."
I replied flatly.
"Hehe. Of all the girls who made their debutante that season, I am the only one who remains unmarried to this day."
She confided it like a self-mocking joke, yet there didn't seem to be a shred of regret in it. That was Irelphi's brand of confidence.
"Oh, that reminds me. It was a snow-white dress adorned with pearls. A rather modest design, without flashy flourishes like frills."
Following her words, I pictured it: Irelphi, ten years younger than now, descending the stairs slowly in a gown of pure white.
Below the balustrade, I imagined the crowd, every gaze stolen away by Irelphi. Unintimidated by all those eyes, she mingled among them, proud and at ease.
I was not there.
"It was a dress my little sister picked out for me. It suited my taste perfectly, so I bought it without a moment's hesitation."
At the mention of her younger sister, I couldn't help but startle. Whether she had said it unconsciously or not, she herself didn't seem to notice...
"So you don't actually hate dresses, huh. They just seemed like nothing but a hassle."
"Of course they're inconvenient. I cannot put one on alone, they get in the way, and there is a corset to endure on top of it all."
"Then why?"
To my innocent question, Irelphi answered as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.
"I am a woman too, you know? When I see a sparkling ring, I want to try it on. When I see a pretty dress, I want to wear it."
"..."
Her words landed on me with surprising force.
Not simply because the answer defied her image. For an instant, her future had overlapped with the present.
The figure of a demon sheathed from head to toe in black plate and helm. The beautiful silver-white blade gone, a warrior wielding a blood-red sword in the shape of a nodachi. Hair turned ash-gray as if draped in soot, whipping about like a broom.
The woman who, only when her time to die had come, rasped out her final words in a voice like chalk screeching across a blackboard.
She had been Irelphi Justiha — the Irelphi Justiha who had lost everything.
"Well, I hardly have occasion to wear one anymore. A wedding might be another matter, I suppose."
"...You will get to wear one."
I answered, my voice gone low and heavy. Sensing something strange, Irelphi searched my face.
"Nepi? What's the matter?"
However extraordinary she appeared, Irelphi was in truth a woman no different from anyone else. The sort who simply liked pretty trinkets and wanted to wear elegant clothes.
Only an outsized talent had hidden that essence from the world.
How immense a sense of loss must that Irelphi have suffered, to cast away her very self and become the Ruiner of the ending? For me, it was beyond imagining.
Perhaps because I had let myself picture it once, the Irelphi before my eyes and the Irelphi of the future kept overlapping. The pure-white uniform became jet-black armor. Her lustrous white hair, once spilling to her waist, turned gray and dragged along the ground. The silver-white rapier became a blood-red nodachi, and that voice, bright as birdsong, became a shriek of grinding metal that raked at the nerves.
I cooled my head by watching the scenery outside. I decided to let the tangled thoughts drift away with a sigh.
'Look at me, getting this lost in thought. Unbelievable.'
Waking from my reverie, I gave a suitably vague answer.
"Yeah, the view outside was so nice I caught myself spacing out."
"You truly have no manners at all, do you."
Irelphi chided me with a shrug. I smirked and fired back.
"Try living on your own sometime."
"Enough. Since that will not do at the banquet either, we shall hold special training once we return to the mansion."
"Yeah, I'll pass on that."
"Do you believe you have the right of refusal?"
"...I don't, do I."
"That's right! You know it well by now!"
This was Irelphi at her most earnest and energetic. I believed this was the true essence of the woman called Irelphi Justiha. She would go on being the same upright soul she was today.
'I can change it. There's no need to worry.'
The carriage had just drawn up at the mansion. Irelphi tilted her head at me, standing there blank as a post.
I stepped down and said,
"Hey, Irelphi — you really ought to be grateful to me."
At that, Irelphi's face went flat with disbelief.
"Did you strike your head? It seems you are in need of shock therapy."
Shring—
A cold prickle ran down my spine.
"I told you to stop doing that!"
That damn trauma of hers was seriously going to drive me insane.
I bolted up into the mansion as if fleeing for my life. Irelphi followed at an unhurried pace, feeding the servants some yarn about how it was nothing at all.
What stung was that every last one of them believed her.
That night, one of us lay awake in piercing anguish, while the other drifted off without a care. Feeling keenly the sorrow of the weak, I made a vow.
The day I finally put Irelphi in my debt, I would demand a smack on the head. Without fail.