The Baron's Gift (5)
Benjamin sought to expand his power with an eye on the succession.
At just the right moment he received word that a feast was being held at the house into which his younger sister had married.
And not just any house—the family of a great lord known as the kingdom’s second-largest grain-producing region.
Though the title itself was only that of a baron, the sheer size of the territory and its value as a food-production base were immense.
Enough that he wanted it in his own hands at once.
Yet Benjamin knew it would not be so simple.
If the matter had been easy, his father—a man for whom even the word “great” felt inadequate—would have taken it long ago.
So Benjamin reasoned.
If he could not seize the head and body, he would at least claim the arms and legs.
Under the pretext of restoring Eric’s honor, Benjamin summoned the nobles one after another to his chambers and proposed that they join hands with him.
The words he used to persuade them were reported to the Baron by the very wolves he had called in.
“You’re saying he dug a trap for that purpose?”
“That’s right.”
“But why? If Sir Benjamin had wished it, any of the nobles who came to the mansion for my birthday would have sought him out of their own accord.”
Because his rank stood highest among them.
“That is something you say only because you do not understand. No matter how lofty his station, the mansion is still our family’s property, and the nobles gathered this time solely to celebrate your birthday. A simple exchange of greetings might pass, but had Sir Benjamin openly behaved that way, it would have been a grave insult to our house—enough that he could have been driven out on the spot with nothing to say for himself. Every other noble would have sided with me.”
That was the rule of etiquette; in practice he could never actually expel the man.
That would have been no different from declaring war.
Yet the Baron padded the explanation with a touch of exaggeration so that Roy might learn the lesson.
These noble bastards… living so damn complicatedly.
“Then…”
“Yes. Justification. Not for insult, but to offer an explanation. He needed the pretext that he was summoning the nobles to speak on my son’s behalf—not for himself.”
He put the maids up to it just for that?
Roy found it almost laughable.
Yet Benjamin’s move had been devastatingly effective.
In the end he had placed the Baron in his debt and, at the same time, built a perfectly defensible reason to hold serious conversations with many nobles without inviting censure.
As if the annex of the mansion where he stayed were his own castle, he summoned the guests, shared quiet talk, and drew them to his side.
Though he had failed to secure Geren, he had still achieved the purpose that had brought him all this way.
A proposal from a man who might become the next Margrave was not something lesser nobles could refuse lightly.
“Roy. For a noble to survive as a noble, there are many things that must be upheld. Especially if one intends bold action, one needs first and foremost not only the matching ability but also the proper justification—even if one is a king.”
“I will keep that in mind.”
The Baron suddenly rose from his seat.
“Follow me. There is something I wish to show you.”
“Yes?”
Out of nowhere?
The Baron strode toward one wall of the underground laboratory.
It was the very place where a secret chamber lay hidden—the place that had once held Dragon’s Breath.
Responding to the Baron’s mana, the stone wall moved of its own accord.
The hidden space, handed down through generations of family heads, revealed itself.
“Hm?”
The Baron started in surprise.
All manner of objects filled the chamber that should have stood utterly empty.
Most of them he had never seen before.
“Roy! What in the world are all these things!?”
“They are mine… Forgive me for using the place without leave.”
“Don’t tell me you already knew of this room’s existence?”
“I found it by chance. It offered so many advantages for security that I have been using it as my private storehouse.”
The Baron steadied his startled heart, set down the chair and candlestick he had carried, and seated himself with one leg crossed over the other.
“Sit as well.”
Roy fetched another chair and sat.
The door slowly closed.
Talking in the laboratory would have been secure enough—why come all the way here?
“I brought you here because the conversation we are about to have must never reach anyone else’s ears. In the laboratory, Geren or Marek might walk in by chance.”
At words that seemed to read his very thoughts, Roy’s eyes went round as a startled rabbit’s.
What on earth was the Baron about to say that required such precautions?
He could not begin to guess.
This was the same chamber where, only two years earlier, he had killed a man and secretly stolen and drunk the Dragon’s Breath.
Being alone with the Baron in that place made his heart race faster than usual.
Don’t tell me it’s been found out?
Seeing Roy tense, the Baron glanced over the objects nearby, then stopped and began to speak.
“How did it feel, spending an entire month confined to your room and the laboratory?”
“Extremely stifling.”
“Shall I tell you what you have been wanting to ask of me all this while?”
“……?”
“I know you press yourself to the fourth-floor windows every day to look outside the mansion, and that you go to the gate whenever you can to talk with the guards.”
“That is…”
“This house seems rather confining to you.”
Roy made no reply and simply waited.
Having his true feelings laid bare was no great matter—he had never tried to hide them—but he was dying to know why the Baron was raising the subject, and why he had chosen this particular place to do so.
He wanted the conversation to reach its point at once.
“Were you never curious why a place like this exists beneath the mansion?”
“A vault for precious treasures must stay out of sight. Because of what happened two years ago it no longer meets that standard, so I assumed it was simply left empty and abandoned. That is why I thought I could use it freely without asking…”
“You seem to misunderstand. I did not bring you here to scold you for making free with the room.”
Their eyes met.
After a short silence the Baron spoke as though setting down a heavy burden.
He told of the reason the incident two years earlier had occurred here—what the chamber had once held, and who the intruder had been.
Roy already knew every detail from eavesdropping in the study, yet he reacted as though hearing it for the first time.
“Father’s elder brother? Then the reason Bella’s father died…”
“Yes. My brother drank the poison stored here, mistaking it for Dragon’s Breath, and lost his life on the spot.”
What possessed this man to tell a story like that to a young son?
“Then what of the Dragon’s Breath itself?”
“There was almost certainly another person hidden. That one either drank it or carried it away.”
I’m sorry. I drank it.
“Such a…”
“It is already past.”
“But the value of Dragon’s Breath—”
“It is fine. I know how to make it again.”
“What?”
Roy’s blood surged as wildly as it had the first time he learned of Dragon’s Breath’s existence; for a moment he could scarcely keep his wits.
He pressed a hand to his hammering heart.
Calm down… please calm down. What kind of chance is this—if I faint now I’ll be the greatest fool under heaven. Please, calm down!
“Roy? Why are you suddenly like that?”
“Ah—nothing. Why are you telling me something so important?”
“That is precisely why I called you here.”
Roy swallowed hard.
Could it be that the Baron meant to hand down the manufacturing method that had been passed through the family for generations?
An unnameable expectation kept his excitement from settling.
I knew it. For the lord of a great territory to give only a single sword on his son’s once-in-a-lifetime seventh birthday—how stingy.
Who would have imagined so grand a gift still waited?
Roy hung on the Baron’s every word, waiting for him to speak.
“The Dragon’s Breath our family has kept was, for generations, meant only for the one who would become family head. Do you understand what I am saying?”
“I am still only seven…”
“Do not get ahead of yourself. I am not choosing you as the next head. What did I tell you earlier to keep firmly in mind?”
“About justification?”
“Exactly.”
The Baron continued in a calm voice.
“As you know, nobles have long preferred the eldest son when naming a successor—so long as no serious problem arises.”
Roy nodded quietly.
The Baron then explained why the Greenhilt family had come to choose its heir through open competition rather than primogeniture.
In short, if a younger child of greater ability was born and coveted the seat of family head, war could erupt among brothers; therefore they selected the most capable child from the start and passed the position on early.
Not merely innate mana, but skill in managing the territory, judgment of people, talent for magic, swordsmanship—countless qualities were weighed so that even a slight superiority decided the heir.
Other noble houses did the same, and that was why the children of lordly families each formed their own parties after graduating from the Knight Academy.
“I myself once took the lord’s seat from my own blood brother. And just as we are doing now, I sat here with Father and spoke for a long while.”
“……”
What is he driving at? He said he has not chosen me as heir, so why all this?
“At the time I subjugated an ogre that had been inflicting heavy losses on the common folk. Of course my companions’ help was great, yet Father took even that into account. And…”
The Baron’s self-praise continued for some time.
Now and then he spoke of incidents caused by Billy, his elder brother who was now dead.
“Naturally, from a certain point Father wished to name me successor. Yet he also still hoped that the eldest, Billy, might come to his senses and grow into a proper heir if given more time. Your grandfather was more sentimental—and far less cold-blooded—than one might think.”
“I… I see.”
“Then one day he suddenly appointed me heir.”
Billy was a wastrel, so of course that was the natural course…
Unlike Roy’s private thoughts, the Baron’s eyes pleaded for him to ask the reason at once.
“What happened?”
“Yes. Your uncle caused a major incident. He had always been excessively greedy…”
“What sort of incident?”
“Young as you are, you would not fully understand even if I explained; simply put, he swung his sword recklessly in a tavern. Naturally there were deaths.”
“……”
“Roy. Do you understand why I have told you this long old story?”
The Baron’s voice grew much gentler—as though he were speaking to a child he could not help but dote upon.
“I do not.”
“My father needed a justification to remove Billy from the succession contest. By causing that incident himself, your uncle delivered that very justification into Father’s hands.”
“I see…”
“I realized a few days ago that I am a far colder man than my father ever was.”
“……!?”
“Roy. This father of yours has decided to exclude your brothers from the succession competition.”