Prison Freedom - 5
I had finished my meal with the First Section Chief, and the Duke of Victory's surprise call was over. It was finally time to return to the Academy—my place of confinement.
Just thinking about it again made my blood boil. What kind of lunatic designates a man's own workplace as the site of his confinement? I hadn't said it out loud, but the thought of holing up at home for the whole period had set my heart fluttering just a little.
That bastard must have died as a NEET in his past life.
There was no other explanation. The way he treated even other people resting as if it were a personal affront, he had to have spent at least three lifetimes as an unemployed shut-in before kicking the bucket. That kind of personality only finished baking after accumulating that much karmic debt.
The real problem was that I lacked any good grounds to shout at the Crown Prince, "Civil servants these days have tempers, you know!" Unfortunately, the higher an imperial official climbed, the more spectacularly he got ground into dust—and that merciless meat grinder even included the imperial family itself.
Even the Emperor, who had grown old enough to hand the actual work over to the Crown Prince, had been famous as a workaholic from way back. The Crown Prince had been getting cheerfully pulverized ever since his investiture.
I can't even say a damn word.
If I pushed back against the Crown Prince and got hit with the preemptive "I'm working too, so you're complaining? Are you a traitor?" I would have nothing left to answer with. Running away into retirement was the only real solution—except they refused to accept my retirement.
Honestly, I suspected I would only have a shot at retiring once I was on the brink of dying of old age. And even that was only a possibility, not a certainty. Depressing as hell.
Fuck.
Better stop thinking about it. The more I dwelt on the problem, the bleaker it got. Hoping for anything in a black-company country that chewed through civil servants without mercy was pure stupidity.
I needed to get back quickly and deliver the news of my confinement. No matter how insane the terms were, confinement was still confinement. I would not be hanging around the clubroom like usual; I was not even allowed outside the dormitory.
I would have to tell the headmaster and Villar that if they needed me, they should come to the dorms. I also needed to tell Margeta I probably would not be able to visit for a while, and…
And I still have that new call to take.
While I was sorting my thoughts, the communication orb flared with brilliant light once more.
You've got to be kidding me. Who is it this time? If it was nothing important, I would tell them to call later and hang up immediately.
"This is the Audit Department Chief."
"—My dear."
I hastily composed my expression. Unfortunately, this was a call from someone who could never be dismissed as "nothing important."
"—I heard you came to the Imperial Capital."
"Yes. I was just about to head back."
"—Is that so?"
The Demon Duke's eyes narrowed, as if she had just heard something disagreeable.
What? What was the problem? Had I just said something wrong?
"—You're not running low on potions, are you?"
"…As it happens, I needed to pick up more, so I was planning to stop by before I left."
I spun the words after a quick mental calculation, and the Demon Duke smiled faintly. That was the correct answer, then.
I still had plenty of potions from the last generous supply; they were nowhere near running out. The Demon Duke, who had given them to me herself, knew that better than anyone. A potion I only took once a day was never going to suddenly run dry.
Her bringing up potions out of nowhere meant: Come here right now while I'm still being nice about it.
When they say jump, you jump.
And when they say come, you come. I had no idea why she was summoning me so abruptly, but when a duke wanted to see you, who in their right mind refused?
"—Perfect timing. I'm free at the moment, so come straight up to the Tower Lord's office."
"Yes, Your Grace. Thank you for the consideration."
I kept my head bowed until the connection cut, then finally looked up. Of all the times to get snagged—right before I left.
Truthfully, I would have needed to stop by the Magic Tower anyway to secure a mage for the trip back to the Academy. In the end I had only been caught a little earlier than inevitable.
I was hoping to slip back without any contact at all.
What was there to boast about, coming up here to receive discipline? If I paid my respects to the Demon Duke and she asked why I had come to the capital, I would have nothing to say. Tell her the truth and I would probably get something like, "Our dear is still young, so full of energy."
That would be its own kind of sad.
Hearing those words would leave me with the self-loathing of a foolish child.
Anyway, better pay my respects quickly and go. Drag this out any longer and I might miss club time.
But the more I thought about it, the stranger it felt. My confinement started tomorrow, yet here I was making the rounds saying goodbye to every last person. It felt exactly like a man about to be locked up tomorrow making his final rounds of the secular world.
Damn it. I don't need this kind of farewell.
Once again, my dear had not come to see me first. If I had not heard the news of his arrival even belatedly, he would have gone back without a single word. How infuriating. I treasured him every time we met, yet this was still how he behaved.
Of course, I had kept my romantic feelings for him tightly sealed until now, so I could understand if he had not noticed those. Even so, I had shown him every possible sign of special regard. Even if he missed the love, he should at least have sensed the affection.
Is he deliberately avoiding me?
I had reached the point of thinking even that. Given that he traveled back and forth between the Imperial Capital and the Academy, I could accept that he could not always visit in person. If he was busy, that was fair enough.
The problem was his stinginess with even a single message—whether he was at the Academy or had come to the capital. If that was not an accident or unavoidable circumstance but deliberate, I would never forgive it. I could not simply let it slide.
It's different from before.
Yes. Things were different now. My dear was already maintaining a good relationship with another woman.
Lady Margeta.
The youngest daughter of the Iron Blood Duke. A girl so earnest about marrying my dear that she had quietly spread rumors through high society for that very purpose.
When I first heard about Lady Margeta, I had not paid it much mind. It would take my dear another forty years to obtain a lifespan matching mine. For those forty years, I had told myself I had no right to interfere no matter whom he spent time with.
After all, once enough time passed he would share centuries with me; I could overlook that much. As for the seat beside Karl that Lady Margeta was eyeing? I had been confident I could claim it the moment I truly stepped forward, and so I had stayed at ease.
"It seems a great celebration will soon come to the Empire. The Audit Department Chief appears to have found a partner."
But not long ago, when I heard those words from the Duke of Victory, my heart had plummeted.
I could no longer look the other way. My composure vanished. I had truly believed forty years or so would be fine—yet the mere thought of someone else standing at my dear's side made my teeth grind.
No. Someone else being there was not the issue. Precisely speaking, it was that I would not be there with them.
I can't wait.
So my thinking changed. There would be no forty-year grace period. If my dear wished to be with another woman, he would have to choose me first.
That was why I also could not tolerate him deliberately avoiding me. If I ever saw another woman standing beside the dear who was pushing me away—I could not guarantee how I myself would react.
*Knock knock.*
"Your Grace, the Audit Department Chief has arrived."
"Come in, dear."
The moment I heard my dear's voice, strength flooded my body. I had to fasten this button correctly if the centuries ahead were to be happy ones.
And then I saw his dejected face, and the fighting spirit that had been blazing inside me simply died.
…Should I let it go?
I would spend hundreds of years with my dear from now on. Getting upset over something so trivial this early would only make things difficult. Compared to the long future we would paint together, this incident was nothing but a speck of dust.
Yes. He must have been busy. There must have been some reason he could not even send word. Looking at how worn down he was, I ought to understand at least that much.
Let it go.
In the end, after wrestling with myself, I decided to abandon the interrogation.
Mother always said that the one who falls first is the one who loses. So that was what she had meant.
The Demon Duke welcomed me with a smile already on her face.
"Come in, dear. Would you like some tea?"
"Ah—I'll prepare it myself."
"No need. A guest only has to sit."
The words were gentle but firm, so I carefully took a seat. I was a guest, true enough—albeit a guest who had been unilaterally summoned.
I had turned the question over in my mind several times on the way to the Magic Tower, yet I still could not think of any real reason for the summons. I had not been caught doing anything strange the way I used to, and there was nothing I needed to give her or receive from her.
What on earth is this about?
Judging by the atmosphere, it did not seem to be anything bad. Surely she had not called me simply to see my face, the way the Duke of Victory had?
It was a plausible hypothesis. The Duke of Victory already did exactly that; there was no law saying the Demon Duke could not. Come to think of it, she already treated me with a mother's heart—enough to keep me supplied with potions.
"I should have asked sooner. What brings you to the Imperial Capital?"
The Demon Duke asked the question as if it were nothing, and my breath caught in my throat. This was exactly the question I had been trying to avoid by slipping away unnoticed.
"Well… I came up because there was a matter that required disciplinary action."
The Demon Duke, who had been preparing the tea, snapped her gaze toward me. It was even more humiliating than I had imagined.
"Disciplinary action?"
"Yes. That is how it turned out."
Her eyes demanded a full explanation, so I laid out the whole embarrassing story in detail.
The instructor originally scheduled for the four-man match had been summoned by the Magic Tower and left his post empty. Somehow I had ended up filling that vacancy. I had controlled my strength as carefully as I could, yet Prince Ryutis had been knocked out in a single blow. And so I had received discipline.
Even retelling it myself felt absurd and shameful. The Demon Duke's expression grew complicated and hard to read. In a way, the starting point had been the Magic Tower's own summons. Without that snowball, none of this would have happened.
"You must have had a hard time of it."
After a brief silence, the Demon Duke reached out and stroked my hair.
"How much you must have agonized, facing a member of the royal family."
I almost nodded without thinking. The faint resentment I had been holding toward the Magic Tower drained away just as quickly.
This warmth was different from the Duke of Victory's concern. Was this… a mother's capacity to embrace?
"Even so, I am a little hurt. Something like that happened, and you only told me after I asked."
The ears of the Demon Duke, still stroking my hair, drooped a fraction.
"I did not wish to trouble Your Grace with needless worries."
At those words they rose again.
"If anything happens, tell me at once. I will help with whatever I can."
"Thank you, Your Grace."
My quick reply seemed to satisfy her; she nodded. If I ever accepted the Demon Duke's help, it would be faster to count the things that were impossible than the things that were possible.
"If it ended with a disciplinary report, then His Highness the Crown Prince must not consider it truly your fault. Do not take it too much to heart."
"Pardon?"
"You said you were returning to the Academy, did you not? If it had been confinement or detention, you would not have been able to go back… is that not so?"
The perfectly commonsensical remark left me speechless. Yes. That was how it should work. Anyone under confinement would remain in the Imperial Capital rather than return to the Academy. A man who came up for discipline and then went straight back to his workplace would look, to any observer, as if the matter had been settled with nothing more than a disciplinary report.
And yet—ta-da—it was confinement. The Crown Prince truly was an innovatively creative bastard.
"It is confinement."
The Demon Duke's head tilted.
"I received an Academy confinement order."
"Confinement… at the Academy?"
This time it was the Demon Duke who was left without words.