Hide, Audit Department Chief - 4
I had come to the banquet with a light heart, only to find myself crushed beneath a crushing weight of pressure.
Anyone—I didn't care who—just get me out of here. Right now I'd even smile through the Crown Prince teabagging me.
"My dear. Would you care for a drink?"
"Ah—well."
While I sat trembling with dread, the Demon Duke beside me lifted a glass of white wine.
I had no idea why a duchess of her rank was standing near me instead of the Crown Prince or the other dukes. Thanks to her, every eye in the room was fixed on us.
"I'm sorry, but Karl doesn't much care for wine."
Before I could even open my mouth, Margeta cut in ahead of me—politely, but with a firmness that left no room for argument. Turning down a duke's offer took a kind of nerve that only a member of a ducal house could even attempt. Standing next to her was almost frightening.
"Isn't that right, Karl?"
Her soft smile looked as gentle as ever, but her eyes were sharp as they locked onto my mouth, as if silently commanding me to answer correctly.
"That is—"
"Is that so? How strange. You drank just fine at the New Year's Audience."
Once again I only managed to open and close my mouth before shutting it for good.
Something was wrong. The question was clearly directed at me. And yet the conversation kept rolling on without anyone waiting for my answer.
Did this discussion even need me? Couldn't they just let me go somewhere else?
"Karl. Are you thinking of leaving your partner behind?"
"My dear. I'm still speaking."
But the moment I so much as considered throwing off every chain and shackle to claim my freedom, they caught me with uncanny precision. The quiet rivalry from moments before had transformed into a unity so seamless it was hard to believe they had ever been at odds.
Of course, after that they snapped right back to normal—two ducal houses locked in confrontation, and one miserable heir to a mere count's house stuck crying in the middle.
Help me.
I stared desperately at the dukes keeping a careful, safe distance far across the room. I have no power. Only you people can end this war.
But despite my heartfelt plea, the Duke of Victory quietly looked away. Being abandoned by the one adult I trusted most left a little ache in my chest.
…No. It's fine. It happens. Even the Duke of Victory would find the Demon Duke hard to handle.
So I turned my gaze instead to the Iron Blood Duke standing beside him.
You, at least.
He was the real one who mattered. The Duke of Victory had no stake in this and could wash his hands of it—but the Iron Blood Duke was Margeta's father. Would he really stand by while his precious daughter locked horns with the Demon Duke?
Whether my prayer actually reached heaven or not, the Iron Blood Duke—who had been glaring at me as if he wanted to devour me whole where I stood wedged between Margeta and the Demon Duke—set his face with a look of grim resolve.
And then he left with the Duke of Victory.
…?
What?
Where do you think you're going? You can't just walk away like that.
Was he seriously leaving me stranded because I was the son-in-law he disliked? Even with his precious daughter still standing right here?
I believed in you.
I had believed the Iron Blood Duke, of all people, would never bow to the Demon Duke…!
"It simply wouldn't do to look out of place and isolated at the New Year's Audience. He must have been trying to match the mood."
"Yes. My dear is always so thoughtful. Then the same must be true now as well."
I barely had time to feel betrayed before the argument flaring up on either side of me grew fiercer by the second.
What had begun as carefully wrapped remarks stripped their packaging with every passing moment. By now, anyone listening would have recognized it for the power struggle it was.
Why, though…
My head was pounding. If I knew the reason, I could at least try to fix it—but without knowing the cause, how was I supposed to step in?
Margeta was not the sort of person who suddenly picked fights with strangers. And the Demon Duke was hardly soft enough to overlook such unexpected rudeness.
And yet they had clashed out of nowhere, and that clash was continuing as if it were the most natural thing in the world…
Damn it.
I was losing my mind.
In the end, after much deliberation, I turned away. This was not a matter for me to involve myself in. There was nothing else to be done.
"Iron Blood Duke."
At that, the Duke of Victory murmured softly, as if to ask whether this was truly all right.
"It is fine. The thing you fear will not come to pass, so do not trouble yourself."
"If that is so, then I am glad—but still."
Even my words failed to put him at ease; the Duke of Victory cast a sidelong glance back.
Without thinking, I followed his gaze toward where Mar stood. That damned boy next to her—and the Demon Duke beside him.
What on earth is going on.
My brow threatened to furrow, but I did not let it show. Today was a banquet for the Crown Princess. Displaying private emotion in a place like this would be the height of poor manners.
And the Demon Duke herself seemed to have no intention of causing a scene. Conversation from this short a distance should have been perfectly audible, yet I could hear nothing—she must have used magic.
Small mercies, I suppose.
Magic was convenient for things like this. You could see them speaking with passionate intensity, but the words themselves never reached you.
So even if high society ran wild with speculation, none of it would land on the truth. Or rather—no one would dare gossip freely about anything involving a duke in the first place, so no rumors would circulate at all.
A birthday banquet for the Crown Princess. A Demon Duke who wanted no major disturbance. These were conditions under which stepping in would only get me bloodied for nothing.
…Nothing will happen.
Unable to intervene, I forced myself to think as much and looked away.
Yes. Nothing would happen. The Demon Duke did not look as though she meant to escalate the matter.
If something were going to happen, it would have happened already.
I could not hear the conversation, but I could see them. That alone was enough to sense that Mar and the Demon Duke were giving off a distinctly unsettling atmosphere.
And yet, so far, nothing had come of it.
That is enough.
The Demon Duke was not one to flaunt her authority, but neither was she merciful. Toward those who crossed the line, she was utterly ruthless. The fact that she remained quiet meant Mar must still be keeping within bounds.
I forced myself to believe it. Only then could I bring myself to leave.
Mar.
What in the world is going on that you would act like this?
With a heavy heart I looked at her again. That gentle, good-natured girl—the child who always tried so hard to preserve her dignity—why was she behaving this way?
And that heaviness twisted into anger and turned on the boy standing beside her.
It has to be because of him.
I did not know the exact reason, but I was certain he was involved. The way he was wedged between the two of them, the way he was seized the moment he tried to slip away—all of it pointed to him.
It was infuriating. A man about to become Valenti's son-in-law, and instead of protecting Mar he was causing her problems.
That damned boy.
This time I could not hold back a click of my tongue. The gulf between his public face and his private one was almost a talent in its own right.
As a noble, as a bureaucrat, he was more than satisfactory. In private settings, however, he was thoroughly disagreeable.
The audacity of rejecting Mar in the first place. The gall of meeting her again after that. The way he had ignored my demand that he come to the ducal estate and kneel if he wanted her hand. All of it grated on me.
If there had been any other candidate, I would have ignored him entirely.
It was enough to make me despair. The Empire was vast and nobles plentiful—so why was he the only match that suited Mar?
A house of high standing. Young. Capable. Decent character. Distinguished achievements. And a young man Mar herself was fond of. Were those conditions truly so impossible to meet?
Of course they were. The strange one was the boy who had managed to clear every single one of them and still become a candidate.
If only there had been no one at all.
If no one had met the conditions, I could have lowered them one by one. But when someone who met them all was hovering right in front of me, how was I supposed to look away?
A damned boy, through and through.
Oh.
Am I dreaming?
I blinked several times, checking whether I was truly seeing what I thought I was seeing. It was no dream. It was real.
The Iron Blood Duke's daughter baring her fangs at the Demon Duke. The Demon Duke taking it as if it were nothing. All of it was real.
Remarkable.
I was looking at a spectacle I had never imagined—one that would take a good while simply to understand.
At first I had been delighted that the Demon Duke had come to a banquet for the Princess. The higher the rank of the guests, the rarer the faces in attendance, the more prestige a banquet gained.
And the prestige of a banquet was also the prestige of its guest of honor. So I had been puzzled by the Demon Duke's presence, yet glad of it—
There was a reason.
It was not for the Princess's sake that she had come, but that only put me more at ease. If the reclusive Demon Duke had appeared without any reason at all, that would have been the stranger thing.
Good. I had nearly lost sleep trying to figure out why she was here.
And I barely managed to hold back the laughter that threatened to burst free.
Audit Department Chief. You again.
If no one had been watching, I would have laughed already. The man truly lived a life like a stage play—enough to leave any spectator in high spirits.
Even a play written like this would be considered a flop.
The amusement was beyond anything I had imagined. By any standard of narrative logic, it made no sense at all.
To think that the Demon Duke—that Demon Duke, of all people—
Has taken a fancy to the Audit Department Chief—
I gently bit my lip. If I finished that thought, I really would laugh.
Of course I had not figured it out from the start. I had only guessed that the Audit Department Chief's presence meant he was somehow involved. Who would look at that scene alone and immediately connect it to a matter of the heart?
But I watched carefully—opening myself to every possibility—and observed. With two ducal houses entangled, this was not something to dismiss lightly.
A duke's daughter bares her fangs at a duke.
Incomprehensible.
And that rudeness goes unreproached.
Equally incomprehensible.
And stuck between them is the Audit Department Chief.
Was there anywhere that man did not end up?
Scattered puzzle pieces. Situations that defied understanding. Just when I was wondering what on earth any of it meant, a memory from several years ago surfaced.
Back when I was still the First Prince, hounded and driven by the Second Prince. I had asked the Princess—who had proposed to me—why me. I could not understand why she was doing this.
And her answer had been a masterpiece.
"Your Highness. Even the most incomprehensible events, even the deepest doubts, become understandable once love is given as the reason."
Her eyes had said the rest: so shut up and accept my proposal. The moment those words came back to me, the scene before me looked entirely different.
The reason a duke's daughter would bare her fangs at a duke. The reason that duke would remain composed even after suffering such rudeness. I substituted love for those reasons.
It makes sense.
It made sense with startling clarity. At this point, if they were doing all this for any reason other than love, that would have been the strange part.
This bizarre incident was no ordinary affair. The Demon Duke's love was not merely a personal matter—it concerned the succession of a ducal house.
His Majesty had fretted often enough watching the Demon Duke live alone for over a hundred years, wondering whether her line might finally die out.
Honestly, hearing him say so had made me wonder which would come first—the Demon Duke dying of old age, or the Empire itself falling.
No need to worry now.
A Demon Duke who had found a partner would never stop. And so the problem of succession would vanish.
In its place, a new headache had been born.
Crassius. Valenti. Katoban.
The Audit Department Chief's house. The duke's daughter's house. The Demon Duke's house.
If those three houses were bound together under the name of marriage, what kind of faction would take shape? Even by the most conservative estimate, it would overturn imperial politics—and be enough to get His Majesty out of bed.
No ordinary matter. No ordinary matter at all…
Not my concern.
Today, I would enjoy myself for the Princess's banquet—and for the Audit Department Chief's romance.
Work could wait for tomorrow's me.