133. The Price of Loyalty (2)
133. The Price of Loyalty (2)
- 1 -
"My lord. News has come from Baroness Hailey of Shum Gremit."
That news arrived on the third day since Mure's lessons had begun.
"Ah... Should I come back later?"
"It's fine, come in. Sonia, I shall ask you to serve tea for a moment."
"Yes, Teacher."
I gestured at Mure, who had faltered while entering the room, and asked Sonia to prepare tea.
Then I turned my head to Ran and asked about Hailey's news.
"What is the matter?"
"She has arrived in Tribres with her family, and has requested permission to have an audience with you, my lord."
A smile spread across my lips.
Because this was one of the pieces of news I had been waiting for.
I had been waiting for Hailey.
As a talent who would compensate for another subordinate's negligence and redeem my failure.
"Is that so? It is sooner than I thought."
"Her family was said to have happily consented."
Hearing Ran's words, I did not show it outwardly, but inwardly I wore a bitter smile.
Because I questioned whether, by Fate (緣), those family members would have happily consented if they had properly known all the circumstances.
However, the guilt was not great.
Even if the 'sculpting' of Hailey had been completed, Baron Shum's household itself was still an 'enemy'.
"Very well. Let them in."
"Yes, my lord."
"I apologize, Mure. The lesson will have to be postponed a bit."
"It is fine. Work is important."
"Yes. Thank you for understanding. Sonia, attend to the teacher."
"Do not worry, Teacher."
Hailey had been a noblewoman I had only temporarily 'co-opted' for the operation activities in Copherin and Sonyataff, but her meaning had changed slightly now.
[What is your choice?]
[Please let me serve You! You are truly my master...!]
Because around the time the influence of the hypnosis I had cast on her had been released, she had been given a choice by me and had instead chosen loyalty to me.
She might not have believed the promise that I would erase only part of her memories and release her, but on top of that, the hooks I had woven into the two emotions ruling her essence—'pleasure' and 'desire'—seemed to have taken root far too well.
So, that was how it turned out.
[I found joy in serving You...! Please!]
Sometimes, this kind of case happens.
Thanks to that, half of the intelligence on noble circles and the political world was now coming from her clues.
To the point of chipping away at the fundamental 'desire for money' she had originally possessed.
This made me reflect on one thing.
『Trait - ... Rusted Senses, Long-Rested Body』
'Traits do not necessarily express everything about a person.'
Hailey's negative traits had led me to look down on her when we first met.
But in reality, once she gained 'passion' thanks to my existence, she moved more vigorously than I had ever imagined and worked for me.
To this degree, it was enough to consider redefining our existing relationship.
'I thought her an isolated pawn, but in truth, she was a passed pawn.'
In chess, a pawn's value changes depending on its position.
Especially in the special case where promotion to another piece is permitted, its value can surpass all imagination.
Either way, the current Hailey was not a figure to be used once and discarded.
Therefore, I intended to entrust her with one of the intermediate roles I had been thinking of within my current plans.
- 2 -
"Look... It's so big! We could even hold a banquet here, couldn't we?"
"Yes. Indeed..."
Her young daughter Rosemary spoke brightly, just as when she always used to make herself laugh, but the father could not return a comfortable smile to his daughter's antics.
Gerald, the head of the Baron Shum family, did not have the leisure for it right now.
Because the corridor they were walking through was truly, immensely, staggeringly vast and wide — impossibly so compared to the size of the mansion they had entered.
"My lady. What is going on here? The mansion we entered was clearly..."
"Shh. It is fine."
Hailey's smile and composure remained unchanged, but Gerald now found her smile not reassuring in the slightest, but endlessly unsettling.
"You must not judge that person by common sense. Because they are not comparable to the underground merchants we previously cooperated with, or even the powers of the Kingdom of Haisen."
'Why did I not notice...?'
Because those green eyes, always so realistic and astute, were now clouded over like a painting.
Like a dreaming maiden, her face was filled with a bright smile and hazy eyes.
"Are you saying they are a real dragon?"
"No. But they are greater than even that."
"What on earth..."
Gerald pulled his gaze from Hailey and cast his fear-stricken eyes around in all directions.
He took in the sight of the enormous, dark, and majestic mansion... no, palace.
'An incredible size... too incredible.'
The corridor was large, wide, and long.
They had already walked for about thirty minutes, yet its end was still nowhere in sight.
The walls were covered with countless carvings and artworks of unknown origin, and strange lanterns that showed no wear nor scattered a single speck of dust, as if they had hung there for ages, were placed at regular intervals.
'So wide and so dark, yet we can see everything without obstruction.'
'It is an Authority... an Authority!'
This vast mansion was quite dim, but strangely, everything was visible to their eyes.
As if that transcendent consideration had been extended to spare them from being paralyzed by fear.
However, that very thing was pushing them even further into terror.
They were all trembling with anxiety, imagining the existence that could create an illusion akin to temporarily granting an Authority to those with little power.
"Lord. Something is definitely wrong...!"
"What do you mean, wrong?"
The most anxious among them was the wizard brought from the territory.
Because apart from Hailey, he alone had any partial grasp of the situation.
"Magic, magic cannot be used."
"It is the same with our mana, my lord."
"What does that mean...?"
The face answering the lord's question was completely drained of blood, pale white.
The dozen or so knights were barely managing to maintain their dignity and calm, but their inward hearts were likewise steeped in tension and fear.
Having only ever been active inland, the symptoms occurring now were something they had only ever heard of in rumors.
"These kinds of symptoms are said to occur within dungeons of the advanced grade or higher!"
"Then are you saying this place is a dungeon?"
"That I cannot confirm... but it is clear that it is a place just as dangerous...!"
The wizard's assertion was full of conviction, and the knights too were displaying their unease just the same.
In the end, thoroughly infected by their fear, Gerald's face likewise gradually paled.
'At this rate, the house will be ruined.'
Every knight and wizard present here was among the most valuable of his assets.
Naturally, as they were the lord's escort.
So even if the entire family managed to escape, if anything went wrong with these men, it would be a great loss to the family and the territory.
Then they would be unable to withstand direct attacks from other lords eyeing the castle, or claims over their rights.
Understandably, a feeling of denying reality arose first.
"B-but... why would Hailey bring us to such a place...!"
"We do not know...! But look! The lady is now..."
The lord, the wizard, the knights who had secretly overheard their small conversation, and finally even the gaze of her son Stephan shifted to Hailey.
"What kind of person is the lord of this place, Mother?"
"A person more noble, beautiful, and kind than anyone, Rosie. And not a lord. She is the one who will be the master of all things."
"A master...? Higher than a king?"
"Perhaps?"
"Wow...!"
She was smiling as broadly as her nine-year-old daughter.
Unlike her usual manner of emphasizing and maintaining a modest, ladylike appearance, however clumsily.
She was behaving like a child who had returned home.
"To say this is disrespectful, but... she is clearly not normal...!"
"Yes. She is not normal."
"... The Father. We..."
"Yes. Stevie. We must get out of here."
It was too unnerving and frightening to bear anyway.
With that thought, the lord and his retainers had come to a consensus.
"Um... Attendant."
But it was a thought too late, far too late.
In truth, it had been too late not from the moment they arrived here, but from the moment they had entered the mansion.
Everything had already been over.
"Please, do come in. All of you from the Baron Shum family."
"Come on in!"
Two women appeared before them.
A beautiful 'Black Fox' with long black hair, wearing exotic red and white garments.
And a cute 'Red Bear' in a black guard uniform, attending that Fox.
"The Master awaits you all."
The full-faced smile the Fox wore soon engulfed the family and their attendants.
The smile imbued with seductive power made them all lose consciousness in an instant, except for Hailey and her daughter Rosemary.
"... Hup!"
"This place is..."
When they came to their senses, the space had already changed.
"An illusion...?"
One of the knights muttered as he looked around.
The others did not voice it, but they agreed with the sentiment.
This place was an illusion.
Not an audience chamber in an ordinary noble's palace, but a space befitting a royal palace.
"A violent invitation, Ran."
"They were all trying to flee, so I brought them here first."
At the Dungeon Lord's words as she looked down on them, the subordinate who had smiled faintly replied in a brazen tone.
"Yes. Well done. Aside from the attitude."
Libertas's rebuke was also gentle.
Though it contained sincerity, that sincerity was not expressed aggressively.
Because her subordinate Yuran was, literally, a 'narrow-minded' woman who would redirect the grudge of a scolding from her master not toward the master, but toward whoever had caused it.
'To be precise, it was an expression of affection unwilling to tolerate even the tiniest fraction of the time given to her being allowed to anyone else...'
The difference was only in the breadth of its scope.
Since the result of both hearts was not so different, it was an irrelevant matter.
In other words, Yuran would only accept a scolding if she processed it centering around herself, without sympathizing with the victim.
"I apologize."
"Yes."
Once Yuran put on a face that seemed to reflect sincerely, she was satisfied with that and looked away.
Thinking that at least now she would not treat her 'juniors' carelessly.
- Flinch...!
Stroking the head of Mary, who was reading the mood and enduring without prematurely echoing others' words, Libertas looked down upon the nobles.
"This humble one, Hailey of Shum Gremit, greets the great Master."
The woman sitting on the enormous throne, and the Black Fox standing stiffly with her back straight beside her.
While everyone who had heard their conversation stood frozen, Baroness Hailey led the way, strode forward onto the red carpet, and prostrated herself in a deep bow.
"Madam...!"
"Mother?!"
"The Baroness has..."
All the nobles were appalled.
What the Baroness was doing now was an act of placing her arms, legs, and head flat on the floor.
It was a greeting that would normally only be performed by slaves.
And by noble standards, it was a greeting even a king or emperor would find hard to receive, short of a surrender in war.
"Lift your head. I wish to see your eyes."
"It is an honor...!"
As Hailey raised her head, Libertas beheld her face; Hailey smiled broadly without a sound, and Libertas returned a soft smile.
"Welcome, Hailey. It seems I have kept you waiting for a long time."
"Not at all. Because I believed you would call for me like this, I felt no regret. I would have felt the same even if told to wait ten years, or a hundred."
Both Libertas, receiving the homage, and Hailey herself were entirely natural, as if there were no problem at all.
There was no one here who did not know what that signified.
And soon, one person rashly spat out that thought.
"Mother is a traitor - mmph...!"
"Stevie...!"
The Baron hastily covered his son Stephan's mouth, but all the words that would spill out had already spilled out.
"A traitor..."
At that, the purple gaze that had been directed at Hailey turned toward them.