I Don't Know Such a Person - 3
Before I got isekai'd, I once heard a saying. The mouth is the gate of calamity, and the tongue is… what was it again, a sword that cuts throats? Something like that. Not that it matters—it's not as if I can look it up now.
Anyway, looking at the present situation, it isn't a throat-cutting sword so much as an awl boring straight through my eardrums. The tragic part is that it isn't my tongue that turned into an awl. It's someone else's.
"His Highness Ryutis is said to have been born to be a knight. From his earliest childhood he trained alongside the royal knights—"
Is calling a royal a knight even supposed to be a compliment? It sounds suspiciously like a backhanded insult.
More importantly, my ears hurt. I cannot begin to understand why I am being forced to sit through Ryutis's life story. Did I commit some crime and this is the punishment? I'm not exactly innocent of everything, but whatever I've done doesn't rise to the level of capital torture.
I'm sorry. I apologize. I don't know what I did wrong, but I was wrong all the same. Please forgive me. If summoning knights here when I'm nothing but a lowly civil servant counts as a sin, then fine, I'm guilty.
Swallowing the urge to slam my forehead into the floor and beg for it to stop, I glanced at Villar. He was calmly sipping his tea.
He's achieved enlightenment.
For a moment I felt a surge of resentment at the sight of him sitting there in perfect serenity while his own daughter went on a rampage without lifting a finger to stop her—but looking closer, there was a strange emptiness in his expression.
Noticing my gaze, Villar turned his head toward me and gave a faint little shake of it. As if to say that surrender brings peace. As if to say I had brought this on myself and should accept it with humility.
Damn it.
Fine. I had been the one to bring up Ryutis first. But who could have predicted that one casual remark would snowball into this?
"When I was in Ladus—" Perosa's monologue showed no sign of ever ending. What even was Ladus? What kind of place turns a perfectly normal female knight into a raving fanatic?
"At the mere age of twelve, he was already said to be more than a match for most ordinary knights. A man of truly innate talent, and of effort worthy of that talent."
"I see…"
And the man sitting next to you rose to a high post in the royal order within five years of joining—that doesn't impress you at all?
Of course I didn't say it out loud. If I did, a twelve-year-old Villar would probably be summoned for comparison against Ryutis, and the perfectly ordinary squire Villar of those days might take lasting psychological damage.
So I confined myself to appropriate little murmurs of agreement, and Perosa only grew more animated as she continued.
Please stop.
I don't care about Ryutis. The only news I want about that guy is the news that he's gone home.
No wonder Villar had turned his gaze away so cleanly. Experience must have taught him that ignoring the storm is wiser than engaging with it.
But as the sole remaining audience member, simply looking away left me with a nasty little knot of guilt. If we were close—or even if we'd spoken a few times—I could have cut her off without ceremony. Being a complete stranger made it hard to be cold.
And of all things, she's the same age as Erich.
Thinking of her as a little sister made ruthlessness even harder. Soft-hearted people like me are not built for this brutal world. If I had even half the Crown Prince's personality…
"With such an outstanding person to look up to, it seems Dame Perosa has come into her own at an early age as well."
In the end, after some internal wrangling, I decided to keep playing along.
Right. She's Villar's daughter, and we'll have to work together until graduation. Villar also seems oddly weak where his daughter is concerned, so planting a favorable impression with Perosa couldn't hurt.
"Yes. I am who I am today thanks to my father and His Highness Ryutis."
She nodded with vigor. At least she was willing to credit her father with a share. So she did have some filial piety in her.
I looked back at Villar and found him wearing the expression of a man overwhelmed with emotion. Was it a father's destiny to rise and fall with every single word from his daughter's mouth?
"Watching my father, I nurtured my dream of becoming a knight. Watching His Highness Ryutis, I strive to learn his fairness, his valor, his wisdom, and his patience."
What.
Who the hell is she talking about? What Ryutis lives where?
I don't know any bastard like that.
The subject was clearly Ryutis, but the modifiers stuck after his name were things that simply could not attach to the Ryutis I knew.
Had we somehow been talking about two different people this whole time? Was there another prince named Ryutis?
Maybe the Ryutis currently at the Academy was a fake. Yes—any proper prince would never crawl into the Academy in the first place. And he certainly wouldn't pull every kind of nonsense just because love had blinded him.
He's a fake.
He had to be. No way that thing was a real prince.
Fairness?
"I already finished two, so the rest of you eat two each."
"Nobody told you to eat any—why did you go and—"
Come to think of it, he was fair, in his own way. Back when the club members had to force down Luise's cookies even though they weren't to anyone's taste, Ryutis had displayed a bizarre brand of fairness.
Valor?
"With us, we could clear any ordinary dungeon with ease."
Come to think of it, he was valiant too. He had shown a valor that transcended his station, declaring he'd personally raid any dungeon that appeared.
…Wisdom.
"Chess isn't something you play to win. You play it to make the other person angry—that's why you can't beat me."
"Please just shut up and play."
He knew how to win, so maybe that counted as wisdom after all. Even Later had lost his composure that day.
"Checkmate is possible—why aren't you taking it?!"
"Hold on. Just one more knight."
And he had patience. On the verge of becoming the champion of the Baking Club chess tournament, Ryutis had deliberately stalled the match just so he could produce five knights.
Damn it.
What was this? Why did all of it suddenly fit?
Goosebumps rose on my skin. Astonishingly, Ryutis really did possess fairness, valor, wisdom, and patience. The direction was all wrong, but the words themselves weren't lies.
Was it possible that Ryutis was actually a prince worthy of genuine respect? That he'd only gone to pieces after the power of the original romance fantasy dragged him into the Academy?
Of course it was a meaningless hypothesis. Whether he'd originally been fine and only broken after arriving at the Academy, or whether he'd always been like this, it made no difference. The fact that I was suffering because of him remained unchanged.
I'm not right in the head either.
I'd almost deceived myself into whitewashing that idiot. Thankfully I survived the crisis intact.
I kept feeding her the right little reactions and played the model listener, and Perosa's flame blazed all the higher. When the audience reacts well, the speaker gets more excited—isn't that how it works?
"I apologize. It seems I've been talking only about myself."
Burning as fast as it had, the fire died down just as quickly, and Perosa belatedly lowered her head. Even she must have realized she'd gotten a little too heated.
I understood. Or rather—honestly I didn't understand very well, but I was trying. For a hardcore fan, explaining the object of their devotion is pure joy.
And since I had been the one to raise the subject of Ryutis in the first place, that only made it worse. Damn it. One careless sentence.
"It's quite all right. I found it interesting to hear about new sides of His Highness Ryutis myself."
= But if you say the same things again, those won't be new sides—they'll be old ones, so please restrain yourself.
Whether she read that unspoken meaning or not, Perosa bowed her head even lower. She didn't seem like a bad-natured girl, at least.
I shifted my gaze sideways and found Villar's eyes fixed on Perosa with a somewhat sharp edge. Casual setting or not, dumping that much personal chatter on someone she'd just met was more than enough reason for a father to give her a look.
Then again, if he was going to scold her, he could have done it earlier. What was the point of waiting until it was over?
"I felt sorry for Sir Villar, left alone in a foreign land—but it seems a blessing that Dame Perosa is here with him."
At the victim's words defending the perpetrator, Perosa carefully raised her head and stole a glance at Villar.
How many fathers can truly scold a daughter who looks at them like that? Villar, at least, was not among them. He let out a small sigh and withdrew the sharpness from his eyes.
"I never imagined we would meet at the Academy, of all places."
He did not, however, forget to deliver a line with some bite in it.
That much was true. Who could have imagined a father-daughter reunion at the Academy?
"Still, thanks to you, Inspector, I have been given the chance to sit with my daughter. That makes me glad."
"Haha. I'm honored to hear you say so."
After that, we were able to enjoy a perfectly ordinary tea.
Villar had never been much of a talker to begin with, and Perosa had already burned through her grand performance. The gathering proceeded quietly and then drew to a close.
Thank goodness they seem fine.
After the father and daughter left, I sipped what remained of my tea and let out a long breath of relief.
I hadn't exactly asked for it, but thanks to seeing his daughter, Villar's complexion had brightened rapidly, and the possibility that his mental state would explode and he'd make a run for it had, mercifully, vanished.
As for Perosa's sudden appearance at the Academy… it didn't seem to be some underhanded scheme of Armein's, at least. And if even that fanatic devotion of hers were being used as a political tool, all I could do was take the hit with humility.
I don't think there's anything left to worry about.
For a moment I'd even suspected that Perosa's arrival at this precise timing was the original plot flexing its muscles again. A young female knight, a count's house, and a personality devoted to following a prince.
She looked every bit the villainess archetype. I'd been fretting that she might suddenly march up to Luise and slap her across the face while screaming, "You thieving cat who stole His Highness the Prince!"
"His Highness Ryutis is someone who always shines exactly where he stands. For a knight to revere him and strive to emulate him is only natural."
And the more we talked, the more certain I became. She was not going to be a villainess.
I haven't read that many romance fantasies, but I've never once seen a villainess this completely deranged with loyalty and respect. Romantic feelings for Ryutis? On the surface, at least, there wasn't even a trace.
I got worked up for nothing.
I'd avoided the nightmare of a love triangle.
Truly, thank heaven. I nearly collapsed from high blood pressure right before the new term.
…She wouldn't be the type to realize her own feelings late, would she? Late realizations are fine, but if she's going to be late anyway, I'd prefer it happen after graduation.