Question (5)
Serpina looked at me and laughed — a soft, throaty little sound.
Her eyes glittered with a strange, captivating light.
It was a face that could bewitch anyone. That face. That laugh. People would line up to throw everything away for it.
"So. An alliance with the Brans Army. You mean to form a pact with a nation we were at war with only a short while ago."
Her breathing…
It was far too close.
I felt heat rising to my head.
The scent of yuzu ransacked my thoughts.
It wasn't a bad sensation… No — if anything, it was a warmth blooming in my chest.
It wasn't even the instinctive, carnal tension of having a beauty this close, her body pressed near mine.
What I felt was… longing.
Why…?
I didn't understand why the word longing had come to me at all —
But she had asked me a question, so answering was the only option I had.
"Yes, my lord."
"Very well."
Serpina slowly drew back from me.
Then, gazing into my eyes, she spoke as if quietly reciting something to herself.
"We shall do as you wish. We will form an alliance with the Brans Army."
"Yes."
"However. There is one last thing We wish to ask."
Instead of answering, I bowed at the waist.
She understood the gesture without difficulty — an invitation to say whatever she pleased.
"Your grounds… Can you tell Us why you are so certain this alliance will benefit our army?"
"……"
So after all that talk of the Mind's Eye and the rest, what she really wanted was a rationale?
Unfortunately, under the condition that it had to sound like a plausible argument I could actually pin the label of "grounds" onto, I had nothing I could give her.
Of course, if I kept thinking long enough, something would probably surface. But right now, wringing anything useful out of myself was simply not going to happen.
My Intelligence was locked at 100 as a number — that didn't mean I had actually become as brilliant as a person with Intelligence 100.
But.
"An alliance with the Brans Army… Do you not already believe that forming it will be an opportunity for our forces?"
I can at least throw that back at her.
Sorry, Serpina — but here, I was going to seize on her own words and slip past the question.
"My lord. I believe you will be able to find the grounds yourself."
"We will be able to find them? This body…?"
For the first time that day, the pupils of the woman who had treated me with nothing but easy composure contracted.
"Yes. Did you not say so yourself, my lord? That this would be an opportunity for our army. Surely you already knew as much?"
"We told you. We merely read the change in your expression."
"No. I believe Lady Serpina is more than capable of arriving at it on her own. When one stands in a position like yours, is there not something one inevitably comes to feel?"
I had no concrete guess in the moment… but if it truly meant a benefit to our army, then a sovereign steeped in her own nation's affairs would be able to judge the situation with a far broader view than I could.
That was the meaning I put into the words — and she stared at me, blank and startled, as if struck.
"……!!!"
"Lady Serpina. I expect you will find a reason that makes perfect sense before long. I place my trust in you."
Judging by everything that had happened so far, she had already intended to listen to me.
She hadn't granted her approval after hearing my grounds — she had granted it first, and only then asked for them.
And looking back over her earlier conduct, for some reason she seemed to place deep trust in my words.
So there was no need for me to say anything strange here.
Trust always carried a weight the trusting side had to bear.
Then —
As if something had clicked into place, she looked at me and lifted the corner of her mouth.
"…I see, Swen. I believe I understand what you are saying."
And then, wearing that expression of hers again — full of her own private certainty — she gazed at me and whispered, low and soft.
"You mean to put Us to the test, do you not?"
…Huh?
"You told Us once before. That truly winning your heart would be no easy task. Even so, We did not expect you would go so far as to set a trial for your own lord… Swen. You truly do know how to delight Us."
??????
No — what I said back then was just me scrambling not to end up in a prison cell…
…No.
Should I just stay completely quiet?
Something told me that if I simply held still, this would resolve itself without much trouble. So I held her gaze without flinching, wearing an expression that looked as if it were declaring, Figure it out yourself — the most impressive face I could manage.
"In all Our life, many have said they would submit to Our trials. But never once has there been a man who declared he would put Us to the test."
She said it, and with one hand she slowly traced her own cheek.
…It was sensual.
If she had done it on purpose, it was astonishing. If she hadn't…
Then this woman was a being with enough destructive force to bind any man into slavery with ease.
"Truly… truly, Swen. We find Ourselves growing fonder of you by the moment… Fufu…"
And for several minutes after that, we simply exchanged looks in silence —
until she spoke, and the matter was closed.
"…Very well."
"Swen."
"Yes."
"We wish to have you. And so We shall show you sincerity of Our own. This matter, too, will be part of that. Watch carefully. Surely, someday… a place for Us will be left open inside your heart."
Having said so, she gave a faint, smiling crinkle of her eyes.
After the audience ended, I walked the corridor and found myself recalling the dream I had once had.
That moment — walking and talking with a golden-haired woman… with Serpina… both of us wearing happy smiles.
Landscapes of holding hands beneath buildings with blue roofs, whispering sweet nothings to each other… scenes like that.
Longing.
The yuzu scent I had breathed in today was, without question, a fragrance that made me yearn.
……
Quietly, I entered again the question my roommate had once given me.
Can Serpina von Aingart become the unifying sovereign?
That is not so.
The result did not change.
In truth, I had never expected it to. No matter how many times I asked, the prediction always returned the same answer.
I…
Right.
I would not let myself be shaken by useless thoughts.
I only needed to walk my own path.
Holding that resolve, I quietly left the royal castle.
"No. I believe Lady Serpina is more than capable of arriving at it on her own. When one stands in a position like yours, is there not something one inevitably comes to feel?"
After sending Swen away —
Serpina sank into deep thought.
Something one inevitably knows, standing in my position…
It was a deliberately difficult way of putting things — but as Serpina saw it, Swen seemed to enjoy speaking in these hard-to-parse metaphors.
When he had helped her round up the rebels before, he had said she needed to "see what could not be seen."
She was utterly convinced this was an attempt to test her ability.
If so, the answer surely lay within that sentence.
Last survivor of the Aingart family. Sovereign of the Serpina Army. And… the Tyrant.
Serpina sorted through the words that defined her, one by one.
Her position. Something a sovereign could not help but feel…
She thought for several more minutes, but no clear outline emerged.
Fine. Don't cling to a single minor phrase. Look at it more broadly.
The two parties forming the alliance — the Serpina Army and the Brans Army.
The Brans Army had swallowed its pride and applied for an alliance with her forces.
Why, exactly?
Surely… there would be those within their own ranks who would not look kindly on it.
Her own position, her relationship with the Brans Army, the events of the recent war…
And yet they had still come seeking an alliance. That could only mean it was the will of their sovereign, Lin…
Little by little.
Very little by little, her mind began to turn.
Serpina wanted — no, she needed — to pass this trial.
For a mere subordinate officer to put his sovereign to the test was an outrage against heaven and earth — but she did not care.
She wanted, by any means, to show him her sincerity.
If the rumors surrounding him were true — even so, she wanted to turn his heart toward her.
And if it became established fact that his deductions approached the level of the Mind's Eye, that desire would only grow stronger.
The one thing she alone had lacked.
The thing even Jena, her State Strategist, had never quite been able to fill — she was certain Swen could fill it.
No matter what it takes… Swen, I will make you mine.
Whoever might already occupy his heart, it did not matter.
So that body and heart alike would look up to her — to Serpina von Aingart — in true devotion —
Serpina sank into thought so deep that, for the first time in a long while, her head ached with the strain.
The sensation of using her mind. She did not dislike it. In the days when she had carried nothing on her shoulders, she had often labored over problems just like this.
— How nostalgic.
The longing that had risen in her heart from the moment she faced Swen was surely born of childhood memories.
Thinking that… she gradually unraveled the puzzle-like sentence Swen had left her.
After meeting Swen —
Serpina no longer dreamed in her sleep.
And at the same time — she held one vivid dream close.
Not a dream that scattered into nothing the moment she woke, but a dream that braced her back and drove her forward.
"Aaaagh!"
The moment I returned to the room, Jennis startled so hard I had to ask.
"What's wrong, senior?"
"Huh? No, it's just… well…"
Hm?
Something… felt off.
"……? Why are you speaking so formally?"
"Huh? Ah, uh… right! That's, ah, it's nothing. I was just a little out of it…"
Jennis waved his hands and offered an awkward smile.
"Were you reading some dirty novel by yourself or something?"
"Wha…! No, no, no! No. Um. I was just… a little tired today…"
His face was bright red as he floundered through the explanation.
What…? Why was he acting like this all of a sudden? We were both guys.
"?"
He really did seem strangely off…
Well, there was no need to dig into it.
Senior Jennis was entitled to a private life of his own.
"Ah, more importantly… uh, hey, so…"
"You usually just call me by name just fine."
"Huh? Yeah… right, yeah. Swen."
…He really does seem like a different person somehow.
"A messenger bird came for you. I took it in for you."
"Oh, really? Thanks."
I took the letter from him.
The sender was…
…Lady Irene?
Checking the contents, I found it packed with elaborate turns of phrase.
Asking whether I was keeping well, noting that quite some time had passed since the Feast of Saint Valentino…
Even the way the prose resembled something out of chivalric romance felt very much like Lady Irene.
In any case, boiled down to its essence —
She has something to say, and she wants to meet.
Perfect timing.
I had just finished an audience with my lord and felt completely drained — and whenever I was with Lady Irene, I could simply settle into a soft, easy calm.
"I'm going to step out for a bit?"
"Huh? Ah… uh, yeah. Take care."
Jennis's manner still nagged at me a little… but meeting Irene mattered more.
I set out at once toward the place we had arranged.