The Patran Family Party (5)

Duke Patran did not find Benedict's presence particularly amusing, especially with the man radiating such commanding confidence right in front of him.

After all, he had just put this man's beloved daughter in an awkward position — and Benedict, famously, loved his daughter even more than he loved himself. How could anyone find that situation pleasant?

"Well then, go ahead. Explain yourself."

Explain myself? Even so, I am the Duke of House Patran. He needn't be quite so crude.

So thought Duke Patran, though he kept those words well behind his teeth. The man standing before him was not someone he could simply crush beneath the weight of authority.

And even if crushing him had been possible, the Duke would have grumbled about it only in the privacy of his own skull.

"First, understand one thing. Things spiraling to this scale was never my intention."

"And yet you went so far as to summon Tabol himself to this gathering."

"She saved our daughter's life. Twice. Do I truly strike you as the sort of shameless man who would repay that by throwing her into a pit?"

Ever since Lucy Aln had saved Joy's life during the Academy entrance exam, Duke Patran had regarded the girl with considerable favor.

Her manner of speech was abrasive, to be sure, but her actions alone more than qualified her to be called a good person. She possessed talent enough to claim first place in the arena of genius that was Soul Academy.

And above all — wasn't she the very person his own daughter had taken such a shine to?

"Then why did you plan all ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of this?"

"Because Joy had grown so very fond of your daughter."

Had it merely been a matter of building friendship, he would have thought nothing of it. Lucy was the kind of person one lost nothing by being close to.

But it had gone past that. Joy had come to regard Lucy Aln — the young lady of a mere count's house — as her savior, perhaps even as a friend for life.

To the degree that if any harm ever came to Lucy, she would abandon her duties as a noblewoman outright to come to her aid.

"How could I ever tell her to turn her back on someone she owes her life to? That is something I must not command — and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠indeed could not command."

And so, at this party, Duke Patran had deliberately engineered a crisis, intending to observe how Lucy handled it and thereby pass judgment on the sort of person she truly was.

Except—

"Far too many things happened that I never anticipated."

The sudden appearance of the First Prince, who almost never left the capital. The clash of nerves between Lucy and the First Prince. Lucy emerging victorious over the First Prince in what had somehow turned into an official contest at the festival. The hostility directed toward Lucy growing sharper by a full degree as a result.

Up to that point, things were fine. The margin of error remained within controllable levels.

Amid all those variables, Duke Patran had still managed to scrape his stage together.

Joy would obviously intervene in any crisis, so he quietly removed her and sealed her away with magic. He secured understanding from the First and Third Princes, begging them not to interfere. Benedict he would tie down himself.

All so that Lucy Aln alone might stand on a stage built solely for her to resolve a crisis by her own hand.

"Do you see? My original plan was to present nothing more than a modest crisis."

In the days when Benedict charged across the front lines, Tabol had lost every single contest he ever waged against the man, and in the soil of those defeats he had cultivated a deep inferiority complex and festering resentment toward Benedict.

The one consolation he clung to was that his son was better than Benedict's daughter.

Needless to say, Tabol had not looked kindly upon Lucy's rising reputation of late.

Duke Patran had therefore predicted that, should Tabol meet Lucy, he would try to cut her down in some fashion — and he intended to exploit exactly that, to corner Lucy and watch how she coped.

He wanted to see how a girl who once knew nothing but tearing others down had grown since then.

His prediction was accurate. His conclusion, however, was wrong.

The malice Tabol harbored toward House Aln had simply exceeded all imagination.

"The man has served as Knight-Commander of the Kingdom and grown versed in politics — how was I supposed to foresee him pulling something so utterly deranged?!"

Casting doubt on Lucy's miracle was, without question, the most certain way to drag her reputation through the mud.

But it could hardly be called a good method.

It amounted to attacking House Patran itself, the very family that had declared the miracle genuine.

It picked a fight with House Aln.

And it tore open, once again, the wound of the First Prince who had been defeated by Lucy Aln.

A man in his right mind would never have chosen it. But Tabol was not in his right mind.

"That was the turning point. After that, one variable after another sprang up — variables I never once considered."

The Saintess's intervention. The First Prince's movements. Joy breaking free of the Duke's magic. By the time he came to his senses, the stage had already slipped entirely beyond his grasp.

"The sole mercy in all of it is that my original purpose was accomplished."

The light of divinity that Lucy Aln carried was real.

An unshakable poise, undisturbed even beneath a storm of public condemnation. A grandeur that laughed as though things had finally grown interesting even in the teeth of an enormous crisis. Overwhelming talent, proven through the testimony of the Third Prince and countless others.

"What impressed me most of all was the exchange between the mercenary commander and the Aln girl at the end."

The dialogue had begun as Lucy's attempt to prove her knowledge of countless dungeons.

As the man leading a ducal house, Duke Patran carried a considerable catalogue of dungeons in his head — yet not a single dungeon that spilled from that exchange rang the slightest bell.

There were even names he had never heard in his life.

And Lucy knew every one of them.

Knew them — was that all? She had memorized their layouts, the monsters that spawned within them, the traps they held, even their optimal clear routes.

Content that even the mercenary commander standing at the very front line of dungeon raiding had to rack his brains just to recall!

"There was even a point where the mercenary commander turned to her for advice instead, was there not?"

"Yes. There was."

The image of the commander gaping in disbelief — is clearing dungeons like that even possible? — had been seared into the eyes of everyone at the party.

"In the heart of that crisis, she proved everything she carried. Her ability, and her worth."

Until now, that star had hidden behind the velvet curtain of the night sky, concealing its own light.

But no longer.

The curtain drawn back and its form revealed, the star blazed with a radiance bright enough to wash out every other star around it.

Many of those who witnessed that light would surely covet the star — would want to claim it as their own.

"Your love for your daughter has borne fruit. Congratulations, Benedict."

"I thank you for the kind words about my daughter, Duke Patran. However — that is that, and this is this."

"Hm? Did I not already explain the circumstances?"

"You did deliberately place my daughter in danger, did you not? Regardless of the reasons."

At an expression on Benedict's face that looked quite capable of stopping a man's heart with a smile, Duke Patran hastily doused that fury by listing the numerous gifts he had prepared for Lucy.

His suggestion that he be allowed to introduce ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Joy to Jeff, however, was cut off with surgical precision.

Having somehow succeeded in dodging the speech, I intended to stick to my original plan and plant myself in a corner.

Just as originally intended — to quietly let this stretch of time pass by in a spot where no eye could find me.

Unfortunately, my plan had been blown to pieces from the very start.

One person after another had gone out of their way to track me down to my corner, all of them eager to express their interest in me.

"I owe Baron Benedict a debt I can never repay. I had hoped to repay it in some small way like this, and instead I find myself on the receiving end of your generous knowledge."

The one who had opened this whole parade was the commander of the Claw Mercenary Group.

Years ago, when his mercenary band had been driven to the brink, Benedict had come to their aid — and the man, emboldened by that history, had shared story after story, then departed after telling me that should I ever need mercenaries, I need only speak his name.

I had no idea what Benedict had done for him, but it must have been a truly enormous debt. This was a man who was visibly straining not to raise his voice even when I called him a runt, after all.

Perhaps it was the fact that the Claw commander had concluded his conversation without incident that opened the floodgates.

One person after another came up to speak with me.

At first it was manageable. The people showing interest in me — someone who had possibly earned the First Prince's enmity — were either eccentrics or people indifferent to politics entirely.

The latter fled as if running for their lives, unable to endure the mesugaki lilt of my voice. The former, meanwhile, simply emptied their lungs of whatever they'd come to say, no matter what venom I spewed back.

The flagship example of that breed was the Apostle of the God of Beauty and Art.

"Ooh! O Lady Aln, bearer of the goddess's own beauty! Might I be granted the permission to ask whether I may be permitted to beg your leave to address you?!"

Any man who spat out a sentence like that the instant our eyes met belonged to the same species as the face-con fox.

"Um, could you shut up?♡ Just breathing the same air as you makes me want to vomit♡"

"Ooh! Even her voice — how exquisite it is!"

No. This man was worse than the face-con fox.

When I cursed him to his face, he actually praised my voice — and I'll be honest, that nearly made me scream.

He'd been a reasonably prominent character in the game too, so I'd known he was standing several zip codes removed from sanity, but there was a vast gulf between seeing that through a monitor and seeing it in the flesh.

The one mercy was that his goal wasn't to paw at me.

Unlike the face-con fox, the Apostle of Beauty and Art wanted nothing perverse from me. All he wanted was to wander about and ask, again and again, whether it would be permissible to sing praises of my beauty here, there, and everywhere.

Having no desire for a lengthy conversation with a deranged pervert, I gave a vague permission and shooed him off.

Once that harmless-if-unhinged crowd had passed, the next visitor to seek me out was a man carrying political intent.

The man introduced himself as a member of Duke Serran's house, and his words were all pleasantries — how magnificent my bearing had been at the festival, how dignified I'd stood before Tabol just moments ago, how he'd heard I was rewriting the Academy's history books. But his intention was a single thing.

To reel me into his faction.

Unlike the earlier crowd, this man was remarkably tenacious.

He kept whispering honeyed words into my ear, gritting through every volley of the mesugaki skill's abuse.

Why are you going this far?!'

I couldn't understand it — wooing me with a face flushed red from barely contained fury.

But to Grandpa, apparently, it made perfect sense.

Grandpa told me to look at how the people around us regarded this man.

Pity. Contempt. Sneering derision — and they were of the same species as the looks that had been aimed at me.

'What do I do?'

'There's no way to make him go away?!'

You could have led with THAT! I've been wasting my time for nothing!

Just as I was preparing the full tirade worthy of a pedophile creep who'd shown interest in a little girl, a voice sounded from behind me.

"Fourth Son of House Serran. Do you have business with my friend?"

From behind her fan, Joy was radiating a direct, unfiltered sense of displeasure.