Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 269
Lion set down his tea, laced his fingers together, and looked at the Archbishop.
‘What the Archbishop wants is obvious.’
To verify whether Lion’s achievements were “Hero”-like.
Then the Archbishop was surely—
‘Going to assume I’ll hide it.’
Lion replayed every moment of direct and indirect contact with the Archbishop in his head.
Stripping out subjective emotions and pulling out only objective facts, the conclusion was clear.
He might not know about the others, but Lion himself had never acted hostile toward the Archbishop,
and the current situation was one the Archbishop could comfortably view as advantageous,
because he’d launched a surprise visit.
“You must be rather tired after traveling all this way.”
“When duty calls, it can’t be helped.”
“Truly impressive. I get worn out just following my grandfather around.”
“Oh dear, I’d like to restore your health for you myself.”
“I’m fine. Once I’m home, a good soak in the hot spring and I’ll be right as rain.”
“A hot spring…?”
“Yes. The last time with Priest Licht… ah, I suppose he didn’t mention that either.”
Lion shrugged with an air of deliberate nonchalance.
Not that something so minor would darken the Archbishop’s expression, of course.
‘Still, it bothers you, doesn’t it?’
From everything he’d confirmed so far, the Archbishop’s affection for his family was staggering.
“Anyway, you don’t need to worry about my health. You came all this way on official business. Isn’t that right, Grandfather?”
Lion smiled genially and looked at Petrick.
“…”
At his grandson’s battle-ready smile, Petrick broke into a cold sweat inside.
The boy was thoroughly furious—that much was certain.
He understood why the normally gentle Lion was this angry.
‘It must have been my expression just now.’
Not having expected Lion to wake up, he must have let his expression slip without realizing it.
But he couldn’t have helped it.
Just as Lion had guessed, the Archbishop had been pressuring Petrick over the “Hero” matter.
He had acted as though he would force his way in to see Lion if necessary, so Petrick had been forced to consider the last resort: making an enemy of the Temple.
The taste in his mouth was bitter.
He felt awful, as though he were forcing an unpleasant experience onto his grandson.
‘Lion doesn’t even like fighting with people.’
In the past, bedridden, he hadn’t known. Now, his inclination ran strongly toward resolving things in the best possible direction.
Petrick had thought of him as a peace-seeking child by nature.
But…
“Grandfather?”
Huh. Or not?
Did he take after me and become the type who delivers when it counts?
Seeing those eyes gleaming ever so faintly, he didn’t seem entirely gentle after all.
‘Now that I think of it…’
A very long time ago—back when Lion first grew sick and Rickshel was toddling about.
‘He did throw his weight around once.’
There’d been an incident where a young child from a branch family who’d come to visit the mansion bullied Rickshel.
To adult eyes, it was a small incident born of a branch line’s jealousy of the main line.
Petrick had intended to wrap it up with an appropriate warning.
But he’d heard that Lion, ill as he was, had left the recovery room and properly gone a round with that branch child.
‘I’d forgotten for a moment.’
Of course, he’d overdone it that day and spent the next day groaning with a high fever.
It was a case where the aftermath had overshadowed the cause.
‘Could it be that Lion…’
Wasn’t naturally gentle, but had simply been at peace because no one had crossed him?
With that thought, Petrick answered Lion’s question first.
“…Yes. The Archbishop came to quell the rumors circulating in this old castle.”
“A ghost?”
Petrick calmly explained the matter of the “Grand Duke Dragnas’s ghost” to his grandson, who was acting as though he knew nothing.
“I am curious whether you know anything about this matter, Young Master Lion.”
The Archbishop seized the opening and asked.
“Have you by any chance encountered the ghost?”
“Aah.”
“It is a matter that might resolve their grudge, so if you know something, please do speak. Otherwise, we will have to search every room thoroughly.”
The Archbishop applied pressure to Lion.
In truth, there had been only two possible directions from the start.
To obediently speak the clues from his own mouth, or undergo a forced search of every room.
‘Of course, the most desirable direction…’
Would be for him to confess on his own.
But that wasn’t going to happen, was it?
Just look at Sir Petrick.
A tacit pact already existed between these people.
A pact never to lay a hand on anything related to the Hero.
A truly wise course of action.
“Ah, if that’s the reason, I don’t think you need to worry.”
“May I ask why?”
“Well… because there never was a ghost to begin with?”
“That sounds as if you’ve already resolved this incident.”
“Something like that.”
“…Do you have proof?”
“I do. But…”
Lion looked at Petrick and gave a small nod, silently asking for a moment alone.
Sending his grandfather out in this situation was, strictly speaking, a serious breach of etiquette.
“It seems the matter is resolved, so I shall return to the Great Barrier. The two of you talk it out between yourselves.”
Petrick delivered the words as dryly and swiftly as he could, then yielded the room.
It was also his way of showing how much he trusted his grandson.
Clack.
Petrick left the room, and only Lion and the Archbishop remained.
Which meant—
‘I can run wild without anyone watching.’
After all, you couldn’t very well act rough in front of your grandfather, could you?
“Archbishop.”
“Speak comfortably, Young Master Lion.”
“You didn’t really come here over a ghost or the like, did you?”
“That could be taken as saying I came with ulterior motives. Would it not be wise to mind your words?”
“Hmm…”
Lion leaned back into the sofa and lazily crossed his arms.
Normally, that wasn’t how you behaved before the head of the Temple, the Archbishop.
‘So what?’
I’m not even a priest. The hell do I care.
Lion’s mood was still profoundly foul.
“My grandfather even stepped out. If we keep dancing around the subject, won’t we both just end up tired?”
“What do you mean?”
“Wasn’t this ghost matter just an excuse from the start?”
Lion let out a light sigh and murmured as if a little weary.
“Or shall I take a guess?”
“…”
The Archbishop found Lion Asteri’s demeanor unfamiliar.
That oddly world-weary and irritated look in his eyes.
And a very faint trace of anger could be felt.
‘Is this his true face?’
No, that wasn’t it.
The Lion Asteri he’d seen until now could not have been an act.
That was his genuine nature.
Then was this expression an act? If asked that…
That wasn’t it either.
‘In a different sense, he’s two-faced.’
Still, it was close to good news.
Didn’t it mean, one way or another, that his and Lion Asteri’s relationship had drawn a little closer?
Which meant—
‘It also means I’ve drawn closer to the truth.’
At last.
After decades!
Feeling the hairs rise on his arms inside his priestly robes, the Archbishop composed himself and waited for what Lion would say next.
And that next statement was:
“You want to know the hidden story of the Hero and the Former Archbishop, don’t you?”
Exactly the answer the Archbishop had been hoping for from Lion.
It felt as if the heart of the matter had been struck, and the Archbishop could not hide his hopeful expression.
‘Yes. Perhaps Lion Asteri, too, wants to know it.’
The phenomena manifesting in Lion himself were not normal.
Yet his family had only tried to hide that fact.
If he had asked for the reason, would they have properly answered?
No.
They wouldn’t have been able to give a proper answer!
‘Because it would amount to a worthless death!’
For that answer would have insulted both the Hero and Petrick himself.
“Do you know it?”
“I do happen to know things that no one else knows.”
“I see. It must have been difficult all this time. You could not even tell your family, I imagine. So…”
Unable to hide his excitement and anticipation, the Archbishop asked.
“If you tell me, I will share all the information I possess. As you know, Young Master Lion, I have been investigating the Hero’s traces all this time. I may well know more than anyone else in this world. What do you say?”
“Oh, you mean everything you know?”
“Yes. Everything.”
If Lion had wanted to become the Hero—
No, if he hadn’t known the Hero’s final location, he might have accepted.
But—
‘He doesn’t have the slightest clue where the Hero is.’
He had no intention of doing so.
If he gathered all the information the Archbishop possessed, perhaps various clues would emerge.
For instance, things about the southern region or Mermaid Island.
However—
‘I can find that out without cooperating.’
Before making his offer, the Archbishop had made one fatal mistake.
He had managed to offend the other party.
Wasn’t catering to the client’s mood the most important thing when chasing a sale?
No matter how good the terms, in the end, everything in the world runs on people’s emotions.
“Archbishop.”
“Speak comfortably, Young Master Lion.”
“You and I resemble each other a great deal.”
Lion straightened up from where he’d been leaning and looked the Archbishop squarely in the eyes.
On ordinary days, even though they shared no blood, he’d felt the Archbishop resembled Licht quite a lot.
It must have been because of that gentle expression unique to priests.
But today—
‘They don’t resemble each other.’
Obsession with the past, lingering attachment. With those things clinging thickly to the wrinkles time had carved, his impression had shifted considerably.
“If my own family had disappeared like that, I would have wanted to search just as you did.”
A small crack appeared in the Archbishop’s expression.
A strange distance could be felt in Lion’s words.
“But I wouldn’t have done so.”
I would have tried, of course.
But I wouldn’t have clung to it for decades like this.
The reason was—
“Because there are people left behind.”
In particular, he would never, ever have thought of using others, of sacrificing someone far younger than himself as a scapegoat.
That was the difference between the Archbishop and himself.
Where family was concerned, which side was more admirable?
Lion couldn’t reach an answer.
“Haah. Are you refusing my offer because of personal feelings?”
“Yes. That’s part of it, but… the information you possess, Archbishop, is far too little compared to what I hold. So the idea of me cooperating simply doesn’t add up.”
Lion grinned and slowly rose to his feet.
“You don’t even know the Hero’s location, do you, Archbishop?”
“That means…!”
The Archbishop shot to his feet.
His expression, which had been turning to disappointment, flooded with shock.
It had been absent.
He’d searched the whole world and found nothing!
Then how had he discovered it!
Was it because this man was, after all—
The one who would become the Hero?
“Young Master Lion. Shall we not talk again? Yes. You are right. If you possess more than I do, then it is only proper that I should be the one to cooperate.”
“I wonder. To do that, I’m still a little angry, you see.”
You may not know this, but I’m surprisingly petty on the inside.
Unlike the Hero.
Lion added the words and turned away resolutely.
He was in a defenseless state, one where the Archbishop could have attacked him at any moment.
But the Archbishop could not bring himself to touch even a hair on Lion’s head.
It was like a sturdy rope descending from the heavens through a mass of severed, rotten lines.
“So I hope you’ll wait quietly. Archbishop. Ah, and please do be careful—if you try anything foolish, I might end up ruining every single plan of yours.”
After delivering that finishing blow, Lion exited the room.
Given his mood, he’d have liked to rampage a little more, but—
-Whoa, human. Lion! Nosebleed! It’s about to bleed!
Sniffle.
His physical limits were painfully clear…
Lion sniffed sharply.