Unresolved Matters
‘Siriel, Siriel, Siriel…’
Even while receiving the maids’ attendance, Shiron’s thoughts kept circling back to his younger cousin without pause.
Was it because he’d just finished bathing? Whether before the possession or after, idle thoughts always refused to stop whenever he washed up.
‘She’s the same age as Lucia, if I remember right.’
Siriel Prien, Hugo’s only daughter, was one of the key figures in Reincarnation Sword Master, strutting around with the stylish moniker of Orca. Once she completed her coming-of-age ceremony and finished growing, her expected combat power was high enough to casually slaughter even the uppermost ranks of demonkind—a realm far beyond anything Shiron Prien could reach.
Siriel was an NPC.
More precisely, a cooperative support character.
And yet she was stronger than the playable character Shiron. Just how trash was this game’s balance supposed to be?
For countless reasons, clearing the game as Shiron had been impossible. That made this moment—freed from the system’s constraints—his golden opportunity. Rolling plans through his head to recruit her from childhood, while her personal strength and mental state were still immature, had by now become second nature.
There was just one problem.
The massive, motherfucking problem that Siriel had the manners of someone who’d eaten common courtesy for breakfast and shit it straight out again.
Crunch—
Just thinking of the original Siriel made Shiron grind his teeth without realizing it.
‘Maybe I just shouldn’t recruit her.’
The more he thought about it, the more his rage climbed in a rising gradient.
But he couldn’t really be blamed for feeling that way. In the original, Siriel had ignored Shiron at every turn despite his title as Young Lord, screaming at him to step down from the successor’s seat. She’d challenged him to duels. She’d gone and slaughtered magic beasts outside her assigned quota. And the constant insubordination during large-scale operations? Not even worth mentioning.
‘With an ally that uncooperative, of course you can’t clear the game as Shiron.’
The fact that this was still ten years before the original storyline felt like a genuine blessing. Bad habits could be corrected if you caught them early enough.
Shiron sketched a rough blueprint in his mind. Whether she still had the pure personality of a little girl or was already sprouting the seeds of a spoiled brat remained unknown, so he was careful to leave a corner of that blueprint blank.
‘Please. Just be a normal kid.’
But that was nothing more than insurance for the worst case. Whether her personality was absolute garbage or not, he still needed a solid wedge that could guarantee she became an ally.
“Urgh…”
Feeling a throb start behind his eyes, Shiron twisted in his seat.
“Young Master, straighten your back a little. You keep hunching over, so I can’t dry your hair properly.”
“Ah. Right.”
At Encia’s scolding, Shiron snapped his spine upright.
“If you don’t dry it thoroughly, you might end up bald like that irritating bald man from earlier. No matter how cute and handsome you are, Young Master, it won’t matter if you don’t have hair to back it up.”
Encia had been thoroughly surly the entire time she dried his hair. Had Hugo’s remarks gotten under her skin that badly?
She was calling him “that irritating bald man” instead of using his name—barbed enough to draw blood. The language was a bit much.
Shiron fixed his gaze on Encia’s reflection in the mirror. Contrary to her words, Hugo wasn’t actually bald. His hairline had simply receded a little at both temples.
Having once suffered stress-induced hair loss thanks to a certain sharp-tongued childhood friend, Shiron couldn’t treat the insults aimed at Hugo as someone else’s problem.
“Encia. Uncle isn’t bald.”
So he ended up defending Hugo for no real reason, turning his chair to face her.
“……Is that so?”
“Uncle’s hairline has just retreated a little at the front, that’s all. Most men his age are like that. Getting mocked over a natural disaster you can’t fight feels… kind of sad.”
“Ah, well, I suppose so.”
Encia looked startled by Shiron’s sudden defense. Her eyes narrowed slightly at the oddly philosophical musing coming from a child.
Whether she was flustered or not, Shiron didn’t care. From the very first time he’d played Reincarnation Sword Master before the possession, he’d always liked Hugo. The inferiority complex toward his superior brother, and the past of overcoming it through sheer effort—both had been genuinely cool.
What a magnificent hymn to humanity was that?
“I have a question, if I may, Young Master?”
“What kind of question?”
Encia wasn’t the only maid attending him. Ophelia, who had been ironing a shirt nearby, spoke up the moment Shiron gave permission.
“The Patriarch I saw not long ago boasted such wonderfully thick hair. The Patriarch and Lord Hugo are full brothers, and the age difference isn’t that great either—so why is there such a difference?”
“That’s…”
Shiron’s thoughts stalled for a moment.
As expected, Ophelia was every bit the little demon spawn that Encia was. Of all the examples she could have chosen, she had to compare Hugo to Glenn—his sore spot.
Shiron wrung his brain for a decent answer.
“My father’s the exception. Father’s special, that’s all.”
“I see…!”
Had that been a satisfying enough reply? Ophelia bloomed into a bright smile. Shiron, on the other hand, furrowed his brow.
It felt ridiculous to still be thinking this way now that he’d fallen into the game, but knowing the inside story left a lingering unease. Glenn had simply been designed that way—a wandering swordsman type. A handsome middle-aged man counting stars by a campfire under the night sky: that was Glenn Prien.
‘All Shin Yura’s fault, that bitch. Poor Hugo getting dragged into it for nothing.’
What was Hugo supposed to do about it? The creator had made him that way.
Still, now that the game had become reality, he found himself quietly relieved. Hair loss had a high chance of being hereditary, so the odds of Shiron going bald were… probably nonexistent. And if things got truly desperate, he just had to clear the game before his hair started falling out.
‘Kill the Evil God and something’s bound to work out.’
For the first time in a while, his willpower flared hot.
“……Looks dry enough. I’ll be going.”
Shiron ran a hand through his hair, pulled on his clothes, and stepped out into the corridor.
While walking the hallway to prepare for Siriel’s arrival, Shiron ran into an unexpected face.
“Berta?”
“……Teacher?”
On the balcony of the second-floor central corridor stood Berta, a coat thrown loosely over her shoulders, sipping coffee.
“What are you doing out here? Weren’t you going in to talk with Uncle?”
“We did speak, of course. It’s just that… it ended far too quickly.”
“That so.”
I figured it would take at least two or three hours. Even if there wasn’t much to discuss, still…
Shiron assumed she’d been given the cold shoulder, but contrary to his worries, Berta looked surprisingly unburdened as she continued.
“I’m just grateful I wasn’t turned down. Lord Hugo was far less reluctant than I expected about revealing the family’s rites to an outsider. I’ve received permission to accompany you to the succession ceremony, so I was simply out here enjoying the breeze.”
Finished speaking, Berta took another sip of her long-cold coffee. There was something oddly model-like about the pose, and Shiron found himself quietly admiring the sight.
‘When she keeps her mouth shut, this one cleans up pretty well too.’
Berta was quite tall for a woman, and with her cold, haughty features, even this lonely, solitary look suited her just fine. Shame about the slightly pathetic personality.
Then, abruptly, a forgotten detail surfaced in Shiron’s mind.
“Come to think of it. I said I had a proposal for you a while back, didn’t I?”
“……Ah!”
The words he’d tossed out in the brothers’ coffin to recruit her. She must have completely forgotten as well; when Shiron opened the topic, her eyes went wide.
“I’ll tell you what it is. Come to my room tonight.”
Third floor of Dawn Castle. The bathroom at the center of the main corridor.
Lucia sat in a bath heated to the perfect temperature, legs stretched out before her.
Water enveloping the body after so much movement was something special. Warmth seeped into muscles that carried a faint edge of fatigue, coaxing the tension to melt away.
“Haa…”
Lucia touched her lightly flushed cheeks and leaned back. Was there any faster way to drop one’s guard than a bath? A smile crept onto her lips amid the illusion that her entire body was dissolving.
And that wasn’t the only reason she felt good.
Today was the day she had begun teaching Shiron the sword. In both this life and the last, he was the first disciple the Sword God Kylie had ever taken.
A disciple.
How beautiful that word sounded!
‘To think I’d end up teaching someone. Seira was right after all. You really never know what life will throw at you.’
In her past life she had either taught herself or received instruction from others; having her first student hit her all the harder for it. The more she turned the fact over in her mind, the more a warm flutter stirred in her chest.
Rattle—
But the joy was short-lived.
An uninvited guest appeared.
‘The cop?’
“……Ah.”
The door opened to reveal Berta, a towel flung boldly around her neck.
“…….”
Lucia found herself looking, quite unintentionally, at Berta’s completely bare body.
She made no effort to avert her eyes. Instead she leveled a fierce stare at the woman who had disturbed her peaceful time. The question of why Berta was even here rose unbidden.
‘The maids said she was staying on the second floor. Why come all the way up to the third?’
Standing there under that gaze felt awkward, so Berta covered herself with the towel draped over her shoulders and quietly stepped into the bath where Lucia sat.
“……Excuse me.”
Berta settled a fair distance away. The tub was large enough that there was plenty of room.
For a while, silence settled between them.
“…….”
“…….”
They shared the same space and the same water, yet no conversation passed between them.
The reason was simple. Berta found Lucia uncomfortable, and Lucia was not the sociable type to begin with.
Not long ago they had held blades to each other’s throats. The strange one was Shiron, who treated people without hesitation even after a full-blown conflict.
Unlike Berta, who had turned her gaze away, Lucia kept studying her.
A short black bob that fell neatly to the shoulders, tinged with a faint blue sheen. Slightly upturned, sharp eyes that gave a fierce impression, yet they balanced perfectly on her small face.
And that wasn’t all. Whether from harsh training or not, there wasn’t a scrap of excess flesh on her body, and for someone who worked outdoors her skin was almost unnaturally pale and flawless.
Then, suddenly, Shiron’s words from inside the cave came back to her.
‘She really is… pretty sexy.’
Simply staring forever felt odd, so Lucia splashed the water lightly and spoke.
“Why’d you come here? It’s not like this huge mansion only has one or two bathrooms.”
Apparently she hadn’t expected the young lady of the Prien family to speak first. Berta scratched at the wet hair at the nape of her neck.
“Ah… well, you see.”
Berta sank deeper into the water as she answered.
“Every bath in the mansion was packed with knights. I had no choice—Teacher Shiron shoved me up here.”
“Shiron did? Why bother?”
“I don’t really know myself, but… perhaps he wants me to finish washing quickly?”
Ahaha.
Berta said it with an awkward little laugh.
“He ordered me to come find him in his room later tonight.”