The Patran Family Party (2)
When I nodded, Jeff explained the schedule for the rest of the evening.
More guests would arrive, and at the very end, the First Prince and the Third Prince would enter together. Then, with the formal declaration that the party had officially begun, I would be called forward.
At that point, I was supposed to step up, share my impressions of the festival, and deliver a few prepared remarks.
"Feel free to cause trouble, as long as it's something you can clean up afterward."
That matter-of-fact certainty that I would cause trouble rubbed me the wrong way.
If you know that's going to happen, then exempt me from this whole speech thing! Why are you going out of your way to put me on the spot?!
It's the Duke Patran's order, so there's nothing to be done?
...Yeah, I suppose there isn't. Fine.
Even after Jeff left, a steady stream of guests kept pouring into the party hall.
Among them, I recognized quite a few faces.
Villains. Heroes. NPCs who only passed briefly through the story. Characters who'd delivered tearjerker side quests. People I'd personally been dying to see.
None of this was strange, really.
Anyone invited to the House of Duke Patran had to possess something extraordinary.
Authority, honor, skill, bloodline—whatever it was, it meant they had something the Patran ducal house deemed worthy of recognition.
People like that inevitably shaped the whole continent, and influence meant importance, which meant there was no way I wouldn't recognize them.
As I studied each incoming face and dredged up my memories of the game, I could feel the anxiety coiled in my chest loosening, little by little.
Is that escapism?
Yes. Yes, it is.
But what else am I supposed to do?!
If I don't escape somewhere, my heart is going to snap in half! I'm about to stand at the center of a hall full of people who hate me, spouting things like 'a total weakling♡ who loses to little girls' and 'disqualified as an adult♡, disqualified as a human being♡'—of course I have to flee into my own head!
'What?!'
At Grandpa's words, I lifted my head and spotted a man glaring in my direction.
If he'd been a stranger, I would have dismissed him as some creep and moved on, but this time was different.
I knew exactly who he was.
His face had grown fiercer, more vicious than I remembered—but that was all. How could I possibly mistake one of the kingdom-side story bosses?
The man once hailed as the strongest knight in the kingdom.
So endlessly proud of his own strength that he met his end writhing in ugly, desperate struggle.
Tabol Demesil.
'The Royal Knight Commander... I think?'
Probably, anyway.
With Benedict around, he'd never have claimed the "kingdom's strongest" title, but he certainly wouldn't have lost the Commander's seat.
'Why do you ask?'
Tabol's eyes were certainly fierce. Like he was staring at something he utterly despised.
...Lucy. What did you do this time? Did you seriously provoke that terrifying man?!
I didn't even need to check. It had to be something like, 'A weak, scrawny loser who gets wrecked by my papa, and he calls himself Knight Commander? Hilarious.'
This was the girl who called the King himself a pig—of course she wouldn't have held her tongue around a Knight Commander either.
By now I was so used to situations like this that I just shrugged off his glare, half in resignation.
He's a man I'll have to deal with eventually anyway. What's a little hatred now?
Before long, the guests who would crown the evening finally made their entrance.
First through the doors was the Third Prince, Arthur Soladin.
As he entered, the room broke into applause, but most of the eyes on him were lukewarm at best.
Arthur was far more accustomed to this kind of thing than I was, so no doubt he noticed those glances—yet he crossed the hall with an impassive face, paid his respects to the Duke, and took his place without a flicker.
And then came the highlight of the entire party.
The First Prince. Rene Soladin.
The welcome that erupted at his entrance was on an entirely different tier from Arthur's.
Applause that shook the hall. Eyes blazing with fervor. Cheering voices.
Everyone was scrambling to make their mark on the man half-certain to inherit the throne one day.
Some among them clapped only because they had no choice—those with no interest in power, or those quietly hoping the Second Prince would take the crown instead.
"Thank you for the invitation, Duke Patran. It has been a long time since I enjoyed myself so thoroughly."
"If the Prince found pleasure in it, then I consider my efforts well rewarded."
Once the ceremonial exchange ended and the First Prince withdrew, Duke Patran stepped to the center of the dais and gave a light flourish of his hand.
The moment that brief gesture ended, a magic circle bloomed into being before him.
Voice Amplification Magic.
The same spell Joy had cast for us during the field trip.
Back then, Joy had groaned and struggled for a good half hour to produce a single one of those. And Duke Patran just whipped one up with a flick of his fingers.
Truly one of the kingdom's towering military assets.
"Ahem."
At the Duke's short cough, every gaze in the room converged on him.
Not a single person looked away.
"Good evening, everyone. I am Duke Patran, host of tonight's party."
Same here. Because the Duke starting his opening address also meant the Duke was about to drag me up to the gallows.
As the Duke thanked the assembled guests for attending, I was busy swallowing nervously—when his gaze swept over and landed on me.
"Before I declare this party officially open, there is someone I must first introduce. The one who claimed a most glorious title at our Patran Territory festival. So much has happened that you all surely know who I mean—so please, pretend you don't. Otherwise, I'll find myself at a loss for words."
The one moment I had never, not once, wished would arrive was now standing right in front of me.
I took a deep breath. Checked my outfit. And rose from my seat.
A murmur rippled outward from where I stood.
The contempt-laced voices couldn't exactly be called friendly, even as a joke, but I'd never expected goodwill in the first place, so it didn't bother me much.
Instead of wasting energy on them, I tuned my ears to Grandpa's voice.
Aaaaagh.
I'm so nervous.
The tension is choking the air right out of my lungs.
It wasn't even this bad when I went to meet Karia.
Hey, you worthless Chief God! If you're going to screw me over, couldn't you at least screw me over with something hard and dangerous instead?!
I am really, really not built for this kind of thing!
If you must torment me, torment me with something a grizzled veteran's knowledge can overcome! Please!
"Duke Patran. A moment of your time, if you would."
Amid my idle fantasy of hunting down some calming elixir, a voice drifted out from the crowd.
Deep, low, and booming—a voice that naturally drew every eye.
Following the others' gazes, I had no trouble finding its owner.
After all, a frame that jutted out among the crowd like that was impossible to miss.
"Before that, there is something I would like to ask."
Tabol.
The very man who'd been glaring at me with pure hatred mere moments ago.
"What is it, Royal Knight Commander?"
"The purpose of the Patran Festival is to prove oneself by achieving victory in various contests through one's own strength. Is that not so?"
"Indeed, it is. You know it well—befitting the man who once held the title of Slayer."
"Then surely, if someone entered the festival through dishonest means, their record could not be recognized."
For all that I'm hopeless at politics, even I could understand where this was going by now. The hostility pointed at me made that much impossible to miss.
"What exactly are you trying to say?"
The Duke's voice dropped low.
Low enough that it alone could press a man's shoulders into the ground.
Yet even faced with that voice, Tabol merely gave a shrug.
"The title of Slayer of the Patran Festival is a most honorable one—which is precisely why I believe it must be decided upon with fairness and integrity."
"Knight Commander."
If even I—clueless as I am about politics—could read the situation, there was no way the veterans of high society who'd weathered this atmosphere a thousand times could fail to understand.
Despite the Duke's warning growl, silence did not fall over the hall.
What filled the space instead was a rising murmur.
A murmur thick with hostility and scorn, as if everyone had been waiting for exactly this.
"In other words, should someone have stained that fairness and integrity, they could never rightfully claim the title—and would deserve punishment to match. Is that not right, Knight Commander?"
"Tabol."
Bad rumors spread like plagues.
In an instant, they fanned outward, seeping into every heart in the room.
The plague that began with Tabol swept across the entire party hall in the blink of an eye, and soon, riding the wave of that murmur, it drowned out everything but the voice of the crowd.
"I raise my doubts here and now. That Lucy Aln, chosen as this festival's Slayer, did not seize her title by any legitimate means."
Tabol made a show of speaking up for integrity and purity, but anyone could see that wasn't his true purpose.
Because his gaze, even as he spoke, was fixed on one place and one place only.
Not Duke Patran.
Not me.
Not anyone else.
Benedict Aln.
Lucy's father.
The man who held the title of Kingdom's Strongest that should rightfully have been Tabol's.
Tabol looked at him and smiled.
Only then did I fully understand what this man was after.
At first, I'd tilted my head.
I couldn't fathom why he'd attack me.
Whatever grudge he held against me, this was far too blatant.
Attempting humiliation in front of the entire hall? That was openly picking a fight with my House—with Benedict himself.
Even the First Prince treads carefully around Benedict, so I'd wondered if Tabol simply wasn't afraid of him.
But now it made sense.
He didn't hate me.
He hated Benedict.
He despised the warrior born with talent greater than his own.
That was why he didn't care who stood behind me.
From the very beginning, he'd been looking past me, at what lurked behind.
"Are these doubts legitimate ones?"
"Certainly."
"And are you prepared to bear responsibility should those doubts prove baseless?"
"My answer is the same as a moment ago."
"Can you prove it?"
"That would be the Young Lady's task, wouldn't it?"
As Tabol closed his mouth and turned his gaze away, the Duke's head turned, and the crowd's eyes followed.
Every one of those gazes.
Needle-sharp gazes.
Gazes that condemned, that rebuked.
They bore down on me, pressing, trying to crush me flat.
Grandpa said.
The very fact that doubts had been raised was the problem.
Whether I actually denied it or not no longer mattered—the crowd had already marked me as a fraud.
Why? Because Lucy's reputation is already scraping rock bottom.
Because everyone here believes she's exactly the kind of person who would do such a thing.
'Yes? What is it, Grandfather?'
Grandpa. You're honestly so quick on the uptake.
He could have assumed it was the mesugaki skill forcing the smile, yet he realized it was genuinely mine.
Well. It's not like I'm hiding anything. If he's curious, I should answer.
'This way, I don't have to go up on stage!'
<...Pardon?>
Whether the Slayer of the Festival title gets granted or stripped away—what business is that of mine?!
The worthless Chief God's quest is already over.
Which means whether I keep the title or lose it, there's no penalty attached either way.
Of course I'm innocent! I didn't use a single dishonest trick!
But look at all these people glaring daggers at me—what am I supposed to do about that?!
Deeply conscious of my karmic debt from the past, I have no choice but to refuse the honor, don't I?
Nice one, Tabol!
You handed out nothing but god-tier loot in the game, and now you're helping me out in real life too!
You really are the best boss ever!