Counterattack
Darin had been lost in a nap for about two hours when a presence nearby stirred her awake.
Clink, clack.
Emma was setting out a fresh spread of refreshments on the table, having thought she heard the Viscountess cough. Darin watched her through still-hazy eyes, not quite free of sleep.
"Tangerine cake. You like this too, don't you, Emma? Sit down and eat with me."
"I'm fine, my lady. I'm only a commoner."
"And what of it? I'm a commoner myself, so think of it as two commoners sharing teatime."
"E-even so, my lady, you're the Viscountess…"
"Hurry up!"
The tiny woman cut off the maid's refusal with a sharp little cry. The whole scene looked rather like a younger sister scolding her elder.
"Do you dislike it that much…? I'm not trying to force you."
Seeing the maid hesitate, Darin felt a twinge of regret. All she had wanted was to talk with someone — to find a little peace of mind. Purely, without rank between them. Of course, Emma's position was different, so it might have been nothing more than her own selfishness.
"No, my lady."
Emma shook her head the moment she saw her mistress look hurt. She had pushed a little herself, after all — a mere servant insisting on an audience with the Viscountess. Doing this much was the least she could manage.
Darin's face brightened. Emma had clearly made up her mind to grant her request.
"Really~?"
"Of course. But you have to keep it a secret from the Young Master and the head butler, all right?"
"Obviously!"
Scrape.
"My lady?!"
"Heehee. Go on, sit."
She was a woman of almost painful consideration. That the mistress of the house — a woman who commanded the respect of hundreds of thousands of subjects — would pull out a chair for a single commoner…
"I-I'll sit myself."
"I said it's fine. Are you going to keep embarrassing me?"
"…No, that isn't what I—"
"Just sit down, Emma. My arm hurts."
"…Pardon the intrusion, then."
The flustered girl flushed scarlet. Her mistress's excessive kindness left a ticklish warmth in her chest. It was burdensome, yes — but the thought that this woman cherished her enough to do such a thing was not entirely unwelcome.
"Wow… it's incredibly soft."
"Isn't it?"
The seat Emma had taken was the chair that belonged to the Viscountess's daughter, Apiel Bayern. Ever since she had left, no one had sat in it.
"Ah! Emma, didn't you say earlier that Piel would be coming home soon?"
"Yes, that's right. This morning the head butler told me to pass the news along to you, my lady."
"When is she supposed to arrive?"
"He didn't give an exact date. Lady Piel has her own work to attend to, after all."
"Mmm. She's always been such a tomboy. I wonder if she's getting on all right."
"Young Master Kael matured so early that it skews the comparison, but Lady Piel is quite the devoted daughter in her own right, isn't she?"
"…That's true enough."
Darin gazed absently into her teacup, sinking into memory.
Her daughter Piel had been no ordinary handful from the start. Whether it was the Bayorn barbarian blood running true in her veins, she had been rough and hot-tempered — and if something got in her way, her fists flew first and questions came later.
She had taken after her older brother perfectly: white hair and blue eyes, a lovely, beautiful child. And those aquamarine irises, clear as a still lake — round and gentle, without a single hard edge.
The problem had always been her temperament. Her mouth was coarser than most men's, and at the drop of a hat she would show off that absurd strength of hers. Her competitive streak had been enormous, too; she had picked fights with the knights of the rival Surdland house more than once.
Fortunately, she had known how to respect her mother and father. If only something could have been done about that tomboy streak…
Piel is quite the devoted daughter, even if she doesn't quite match Kael…?
That had been true once. But now Piel would be the far more filial child of the two. Kael had lost his mind and violated her, after all.
"My lady!"
Emma's bright voice called for her mistress. The way her pupils suddenly wandered and her cheeks flushed, she looked like a girl gazing at someone she admired.
"The Young Master is here."
The beast that shattered peaceful days had arrived.
Recognizing him, Darin startled and whipped her head around.
Having finished his training, Kael was handing his twin axes off to his attendants. The weapons were so impossibly heavy that a full six of Bayorn's sturdy barbarians had to crowd around them.
Kael sniffed the air as if catching a familiar scent, then turned his head this way and that. Before long he spotted his mother taking tea in the garden, and his stride quickened with open eagerness.
"Mother!"
A pleasing low voice drifted across the earth. Those keenly honed blue eyes fixed on one woman alone, and his clean white hair swayed over a strikingly handsome face.
His solid, towering frame was the very image of a hero — so broad that even the brilliant sunlight vanished behind the expanse of his back.
What mother would turn away a handsome, strapping son walking toward her with a smile?
"Eeek…!"
That mother was right here. Darin's face flushed as if it might burst, her gums trembling. It was not the rosy blush of a girl in love, the way Emma's had been. She was simply shuddering with revulsion at her own son's loathsomeness.
He had forced his own mother down for the sake of claiming the woman he wanted — and now he wore that pure, clear smile? It was beyond belief.
She understood that he was glad to see the object of his one-sided love. She understood that he was excited by the thought of having made this woman his. But why, of all people, did that object have to be his own mother?
Is that boy toying with me right now?
She was in such agony — and Kael, the one who had wounded her, seemed nothing but happy. The unfairness of it rose like bile. Son or not, if he kept up that serene composure, her patience would reach its limit.
Darin's amber eyes flared open, gleaming with savage light. She would pass judgment on this detestable child of hers!
"Tangerines, grant me your power."
As the woman murmured the chant, a brilliant vermilion magic circle bloomed around her. The auras it spawned were sucked violently into her cupped hands — a clear sign that the spell about to manifest was no ordinary working.
"M-my lady!"
Emma startled and tried to stop her, but there was nothing she could actually do. A commoner could not lay hands on a noble at will, and the Viscountess had already been blind with rage for some time.
Let's see how you like it for a change.
"Tangerines, grant me your power."
⟨ Mandarinire Ball ⟩
With the girl's steel-edged resolve, the magic circle blazed. Body and mind both reduced to wreckage, Darin no longer had the strength to call forth Tangerine Meteor — but that was no problem. There existed an ultimate spell whose destructive power surpassed even that.
"Mandarinire Ball!"
The ringing chant shook the garden, and at the same instant—
Pop!
—a vermilion mass erupted from both her hands.
Whoooosh—!
A hypervelocity projectile exceeding two hundred kilometers an hour. That festival of light tore through the air, locked precisely on the man's heart.
Splat!
The sphere struck Kael's chest with a thunderous report. Then a single lump dropped straight toward the ground.
Plop.
It was a tangerine.
Hissss…
Fired at such speed, the heated fruit steamed gently. It looked rather like a roasted sweet potato cooked just right.
"……"
Kael picked up the crushed tangerine as if nothing were amiss and popped it into his mouth. A son, after all, ought to accept sweetly whatever his mother gave him.
And besides — tangerines tasted fine roasted.
He handed his juice-stained coat to a servant and walked toward his seething mother once more.
"Why don't you wait a little, then come out with me? But why did you throw a tangerine?"
"…Because I hate you."
"Hahaha. I see. Still…"
The son who had approached his mother reached for an orange on the table. As his arm brushed past her, a fierce heat radiated from it — the sweat of a man just finished with training, and the faint scent rising from it.
"And what are you doing sitting there?"
Kael fixed Emma with a stare. The meaning was plain: You're not my little sister, so why are you in that chair? Emma gasped, poured out apologies, and shot to her feet.
Darin did not defend her this far. If she had, the one left in an awkward position would not have been herself but Emma. She would have to apologize later — with gold coins, if need be.
Crunch.
The man's rough mouth bit savagely into the large orange, peel and all. Bayorn men always ate fruit this way, so there was nothing strange about it. And yet Darin felt an odd sensation, as if that orange being devoured were somehow herself.
"…Ah."
Only after venting that brief burst of fury did she look around. And she realized: Emma and several other servants were watching the mother and son with worried faces.
Because I hate you — that remark meant the mistress had still not released her anger toward the Young Master. They assumed she was displeased because he was planning to take a provincial noblewoman as his bride. The substance was trivial, but the two of them had always been so close that the servants could not help fretting.
Darin's face burned — for failing to uphold her dignity as Viscountess, and for the fact that, reincarnator or not, the only power she could muster had amounted to this pathetic display.
…Hic.
Grief nearly forced tears free, but she held them back somehow. If she burst into sobs even here, they would truly treat her like a child.
Her ambitious counterattack had ended in hollow failure. All that remained was to feign composure and put the servants at ease.
Darin ground down the rising surge of resentment as best she could, faced her son, and slowly opened her mouth.