Chapter 10
Chapter 10
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 10
Chapter Title: Suspicious Silence
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The carriage departed without any incident.
Since the soldiers had let me go peacefully, I figured the road ahead would be smooth sailing from here.
Thanks to Nikolai stepping in at the crucial moment, I'd shown everything I needed to show. And Erika, the woman sitting across from me, was marked green on my minimap.
Now, they would start asking all sorts of questions, and all I had to do was answer in line with the persona I'd been playing up until now.
I still had some lingering attachment to the kingdom, but I'd been racking my brain for responses that would make it seem like persuasion wasn't impossible.
"..."
"Ahem! Hm."
It was too soon to judge.
The crisis wasn't over yet.
It didn't matter that I was still bound.
They'd tied me loosely to begin with, so while I couldn't move my arms, there was no other discomfort.
What really bothered me was how the two sitting across from me had been far too quiet for a while now.
I could understand Paul Richter, fidgeting openly with an uncomfortable look on his face, sitting to my front left.
He was the kind of man who would find it upsetting just to be part of the negotiation team.
In the game, during the Northern War, Paul was the commander overseeing the noble faction's forces and a duke of the noble faction. Since the game ended in a complete victory, he was granted some Ruth Kingdom territory and rose to a position close to that of a king.
He had probably commanded the imperial forces in this world's Northern War as well.
From facing him myself, he wasn't some great general who could overcome the inevitable command chaos from multiple vassal armies or the cheating power of my tactical map.
He didn't seem hot-blooded by nature, but perhaps because he needed to show results to the nobles who'd entrusted him with their troops, he sometimes rushed movements and made mistakes.
Anyway, the important thing now was that he was a key figure in the noble faction.
It was unusual for him to join the negotiation team at all.
My guess was that if he'd been selected by the emperor, his role was close to that of a sacrificial lamb.
They'd minimized the negotiation team's size, but still needed to fulfill its role, so they added weight by including the current commander of the empire's northern army.
As a defeated general and noble faction member, even if negotiations failed and he was taken prisoner, it wouldn't hurt the emperor much.
Should I call that fortunate?
He seemed aware of his precarious position too—marked red on my minimap—but instead of openly showing irritation, he was just meekly staring out the window.
People like that weren't a problem.
I feared people with volatile tempers and weak self-control more than the competent ones.
A competent person's actions were hard to surpass even with cheats like the minimap and tactical map.
In a world where magic just meant hurling fireballs at best, this overwhelming information gap meant most strategies could be read from the start.
But people like the latter?
If Paul had anger management issues, he would've drawn the sword at his side right then and lopped off my head.
Bound as I was, I couldn't resist and would just die.
Fortunately, Paul was the former type.
If he'd been irrational, violent, and impulsive like Andrei, I'd have been far more afraid, but since he wasn't, I didn't pay him much mind.
What worried me now was...
"Hm, hm..."
The woman named Erika Bauman, sitting next to Paul and clearing her throat repeatedly.
I'd never heard the name before, but since she'd arrived in a carriage plastered with imperial symbols, she had to be from the emperor's faction.
Paul could never be emperor faction, so she was the only one the emperor might have briefed.
Which meant her behavior was practically a clue to the emperor's orders, but...
"...Gasp!"
Her reactions had been lukewarm from the start.
She kept clearing her throat while glancing my way, so I thought she wanted to speak and lifted my head—only for her to make a weird noise and shrink back.
What the hell?
I couldn't initiate conversation first.
Right now, playing the heartbroken betrayed loyalist, I shouldn't say anything beyond sighs and groans.
I'd expected her to take the role of gauging who I was before the emperor, gradually drawing me out with questions.
Yet even she hadn't said a word for dozens of minutes.
She just kept her mouth shut tight and sneaking glances at me, making it hard to tell if she even planned to ask anything.
...If the emperor hadn't told her anything special and that's why she was acting like this, this was no simple issue.
Up until now, I'd operated on the assumption that the emperor wanted to hire me.
She'd demanded my person first, and they'd sent a negotiation team all the way to the Ruth Kingdom capital—an enemy state—to take me back.
For my plan to succeed, her interest was essential, and since she'd been quite proactive, I'd assumed she had it.
But if that premise collapsed?
What if the emperor had no real interest in a guy with nothing but rumors, had just poked casually, and the kingdom bit?
The difficulty of changing jobs would skyrocket.
I was talented, socially adept, deeply loyal, young... but heartbroken by the king's betrayal.
I'd carefully shaped an image like, 'A rare talent! If you want to persuade him, now's your chance!'
I'd clearly shown the merits of gaining my loyalty, while giving the sense that persuasion wouldn't be easy—but possible right now.
This image was useful when being persuaded, but a disadvantage when I had to beg for a job.
Fruit plucked straight from above always tastes less sweet than climbing the tree yourself.
Starting position, emperor's interest, buzz—all of it.
The moment I became the one persuading, it would all drop.
Even if it didn't go that badly, if they didn't properly convey the image I'd built in the palace to the emperor, all my hard work would vanish.
You can't create this kind of image with your own mouth, so recreating it would require borrowing someone else's.
I had no connections in the empire—could I even do that?
...No.
I had a last resort for when all else failed, but using it would put my life on the line, so I wanted to save it.
In the end, I had no choice but to wait for them to ask first.
I was willing to answer diligently without breaking character—why weren't they asking anything?
It was frustrating.
"Haa..."
"Eek."
Would she stop panicking and just say something—anything?
Even a cliché question, or if nothing else, at least introductions.
Please, just...
"Haa..."
"Eek."
Victor suddenly let out a sigh, startling me so badly I nearly bit my tongue.
Wondering if it was my fault, I kept my head bowed but rolled my eyes sneakily.
"...Phew."
Fortunately, Victor's eyes were peacefully closed.
It didn't seem like he'd sighed because of me.
I reflexively sighed in relief, then checked his eyes once more.
And felt a wave of self-loathing at my own actions.
Up until I'd seen him in the main hall, I'd been confident I could carry out His Majesty's orders perfectly.
I'd noted everything Victor had shown in the palace, prepared answers to expected questions.
Plus, I'd witnessed his betrayal by the king and disappointment in the nobles.
Right up to boarding the carriage, I'd even imagined personally persuading him to come to the empire.
The orders were just to gather information, but wouldn't it make things easier for His Majesty if I changed his mind first?
—Rattle.
"Eek!"
No.
It felt like nearly an hour had passed, yet I hadn't managed a single word to him.
As the eldest daughter of the Bauman count family, known for diplomacy, I'd followed my father and met many people.
I'd dealt with nobles of various ranks to take on diplomatic duties like my father, broadening my experience over years—I thought I was used to most anyone by now.
I'd met soldiers too.
Gerhard the general—older than my grandfather, arguably tougher than Victor in his position— and I'd conversed with him smoothly.
I even had experience joining knight order training and expeditions a few times.
Yet I couldn't utter a word to this mere bound man.
His face alone looked like just a handsome young noble, but that expression... Even with eyes closed, it felt like he was saying, 'Say something weird and I'll kill you.'
General Paul beside me was no help at all.
He hadn't bothered hiding his discomfort before we came, and now he was just staring out the window pointlessly.
He was calm enough not to cause a scene with Victor, but he was making the heavy atmosphere even heavier.
"Hup."
Still, I couldn't return empty-handed like this.
Even if we didn't chat personally, failing to say even one word—what would His Majesty say?
I took a deep breath, steeling myself.
"Um, Victor."
"..."
At my call, his eyes snapped open.
Our gazes met directly, overlapping with that chilling look from the palace, making cold sweat trickle for no reason.
I clenched my fist tight.
"May I... ask a few things?"
I asked as politely as possible.
"..."
Maybe because I'd mustered my courage.
Victor seemed to ponder for a moment, then...
"...Yes."
Replied in a tone heavy with pent-up emotion.