The Prosperous Western Territory - 1
It goes without saying, but nothing matters more than experience. Securing carriages to carry hundreds of students and faculty, mapping a route that over a hundred carriages could travel—none of it was easy, yet for a Student Council that had already done the same work last year, it was merely a nuisance rather than an impossibility. The destination might have changed, but the southern tip of the empire and the western tip were, in the end, much the same.
And of course the road from the Academy to Cenes was utterly peaceful. A procession that included not only the children of imperial nobility but also members of the imperial family, foreign royalty, and the next Saint—plus the current Audit Department Chief and the Demon Duke both standing watch with eyes wide open. If an accident were to break out in your own territory under those conditions? Biting your tongue and dying on the spot would probably have been the gentler death.
The Wise Duke is waiting at the end of the road, too.
Ultimately, that procession was headed for the Cenes Duchy. From the Wise Duke’s perspective—already obliged to receive hundreds of guests—an accident on the way would have been grounds for genuine fury.
A duke’s anger is a terrifying thing, and when that duke is the Wise Duke it becomes even more so. There is simply no predicting what that person might say in a rage, or what price she might exact. Literally speaking, “I’m angry, so wear a ballet costume to the next New Year’s Audience!” would not have been out of character for her.
And so, thanks to the frantic efforts of every local lord who had no desire to witness true madness, the school-trip procession rolled along in perfect peace.
“Oppa, here.”
The procession may have been peaceful, but I myself was busy in every sense of the word.
“Ah—thanks.”
I barely managed to chew and swallow the apple already in my mouth before Irina handed me another and I stuffed that one in as well. I was grateful for the care, but if I kept eating at this pace even water was going to give me indigestion…
Anyway, with an apple between my teeth I rolled my eyes around and found four pairs of eyes staring straight at me. Including myself, five people were packed into a carriage built for four. True, these were noble carriages—twice the listed capacity would still have been fine—but people had still crowded into a single vehicle far past the recommended number.
What choice did I have, though? Riding separately from my fiancées, splitting some of them off, or leaving me alone in another carriage would all have looked strange. So unlike last year, when I had climbed into a carriage to keep an eye on the club members who were hopelessly smitten with Luise, this year the seating had been decided with me at the center.
“Hehe. It’s nice being all together like this.”
Luise, whose eyes met mine in the middle of all that, spoke with a shy little smile.
The journey from the Academy to Cenes took several days even by carriage. Spending those travel hours pressed together like this made us feel closer than we ever had at the Academy. Back there we each had our own schedules and separate dorms; we spent more time apart than together.
“Yeah. I wish we could stay like this longer.”
Watching Irina smile softly in agreement left me strangely moved. Last year she had trembled at the mere thought of stepping on my shadow; now she rode in the same carriage with me as if it were the most natural thing in the world…
You really never know what the future holds.
I felt it every time, and I felt it again now.
Santoria, the heart of the Cenes Duchy. As the duchy’s core it ranked among the empire’s ten great cities.
In a city that size, inns for tourists were everywhere, and measured against the floating population Santoria could absorb, the Academy’s students and faculty were no more than a single drop in a lake. The only real complication had been finding lodgings that matched the dignity of the nobility.
“How unusual. It almost feels like looking at a temple.”
The moment we arrived at the hotel chosen for our stay, Margeta murmured the observation under her breath. She was right—unlike the resorts of the Boyar Duchy, the hotels of Cenes favored grandeur and clean lines over gaudy splendor.
“Cenes is famous as a tourist destination, but in the previous duke’s day it was also renowned as a pilgrimage route for the faithful. So they focused more on neatness than on glitter, for the pilgrims’ sake.”
As if to answer Margeta’s curiosity, the Demon Duke gently stroked her hair while offering the explanation.
The previous Duke of Cenes—the Wise Duke’s father. Looking at a daughter who stayed drunk twenty-four hours a day made it hard to believe, but he had been a devout believer of the Dawn Church, so devout he was called the Pious Duke. Because of that piety, holy relics—his “collection,” so to speak—had been enshrined throughout the duchy, and places of genuine sanctity had been fairly common.
Sacred relics a duke had deliberately gathered, holy sites scattered across the territory—to a pilgrim they must have been irresistible bait. As a result Cenes became a tourist destination, but one with a completely different flavor from Boyar’s glittering excess. Looking back now, it almost seemed like a deliberate way to avoid a war of annihilation with Boyar.
It was only a pity that the current Duke of Cenes stood at an astronomical distance from piety and faith.
“…A little surprising. Since the Wise Duke rules here, I expected something livelier and more extravagant.”
A remarkably polite way of saying, “I figured any place run by that total drunk would be a complete mess.” Both the Demon Duke and I smiled at the kindness of the phrasing.
She was probably speaking carefully because she knew my maternal aunt was the Wise Duke. There was no need, but still.
“The ducal castle will be closer to what you imagined, Mar.”
“Ah…”
When I delivered the brutal truth that stood opposite her warm heart, Margeta let out a mournful little sigh.
Unfortunately it was true. A territory’s atmosphere tended to follow the temperament of its current lord, and given the Wise Duke’s temperament it would not have been strange if the whole of Cenes had turned into one enormous tavern. Fortunately, however, the Wise Duke had a restraining mechanism right beside her.
Thanks to my uncle’s tearful efforts, Cenes still managed to keep its reputation as a place where faith and morality lived and breathed. The price was that the ducal castle itself had transformed into a gigantic tavern—but that was simply sacrificing the small for the sake of the great.
“She must be a very cheerful person.”
“Too cheerful, that’s the problem. The Pious Duke was so serious it was a fault of its own…”
Luise, who had been looking around the hotel with sparkling eyes, seemed to catch the thread of our conversation and opened her mouth, only to offer an awkward smile at the Demon Duke’s clearly exhausted reply.
A person who could make even the Demon Duke look uncomfortable. In the hundred years the Demon Duke had held her seat, she was probably the only one. No—she had to be. If people like the Wise Duke had appeared more than once in a century, the imperial family would have died out from high blood pressure.
Thank goodness the Young Duke is normal.
The thought of the Wise Duke’s only child brought a sigh of relief.
She was living proof that the Wise Duke was a mutant of the Salon ducal house, and the living hope that once the Wise Duke’s reign ended a proper duke would finally ascend. In every sense she drew the empire’s attention—yet like her mother she was a shut-in who showed no interest in leaving the territory.
Still, the fact that my uncle never fretted or complained about the Young Duke suggested she was not particularly defective.
Probably the same type as me.
Honestly I was in no position to call anyone a shut-in. Before becoming a civil servant I had been stuck in the territory; after that I had been stuck in the Imperial Capital.
The Young Duke was probably just too busy with her duties to come out. As the heir to a duchy, how much work must there be?
That was what I told myself.
From the moment I received the report that the Academy procession had entered the duchy, I tracked every movement without missing a beat. If my precious nephews—and my precious nieces-in-law—were to suffer even the slightest inconvenience on Salon family soil, what greater disgrace could there be?
That was why I had specially instructed every vassal lord under the ducal house to give the procession their utmost care. They would have done so even without the reminder, of course, but neither as a maternal uncle nor as a member of the Salon ducal house could I simply sit still.
"Young Master Karl and Young Master Erich have both arrived."
“Well done. You may return now.”
“Yes, my lord.”
Fortunately Enen Himself seemed moved by such concern; a retainer waiting at the hotel the Academy had designated as lodgings sent word that my nephews had reached their rooms safely.
I’ll see them soon.
I slipped the communication orb into my coat and allowed myself a small smile. After so long I would finally be able to spend quiet private time with both nephews.
Of course I had seen Karl only a few months earlier at the New Year’s Audience, but the Karl of that day had been Audit Department Chief Karl. As the husband of a duchess I could not approach him too familiarly. Now, however, I could insist we were simply a traveling nephew and the uncle welcoming him.
…Will they like them?
At the same time a little worry crept in. It had been so long since I last met them privately that I had no idea what gifts would please them.
For Karl I could at least give jewelry to celebrate the fact that he had found his partners. Erich was another matter. In the end I had prepared couple jewelry for him as well—something to give whenever he found someone he liked.
If all else fails, I’ll just hand over gold coins.
I had heard young people these days preferred currency to objects. Erich would surely like that.
Just as I was about to rise from my seat, the sound of someone running came from far down the corridor. In the ducal castle there was only one person who sprinted about without caring who was watching.
“Baaaaaby! Babybabybabybaby!”
Del came charging toward me, left hand flapping with a wine bottle in it.
…Wait. Only one bottle?
Good heavens.
I was genuinely moved. It was noon. Noon, along with morning, night, midnight, evening, and dawn, ranked among the hours when Del drank especially heavily. And yet in such an hour she held only a single bottle instead of one in each hand.
She’s restraining herself.
Without a doubt Del was cutting back on the alcohol because she was thinking of the nephews she had not seen in so long. When it came to family, Del’s love was always sincere.
“I heeeard everything! Our nephewwws and the nieces-in-laaaw are heeere!?”
“I just heard myself. They arrived at the Margaret Hotel.”
“Waaah! Let’s go right nooow!”
I barely managed to catch Del by the scruff as she spun on her heel and prepared to bolt straight out the way she had come.
The nephews were one thing, but the hotel also held other Academy students and faculty. If a thoroughly drunk duchess simply appeared without warning, how startled would they be?
“Del. We should send word first.”
“Nnnnooo~ but I wanna see them right nooow!”
“Alodel.”
The moment I used her real name instead of the nickname, Del finally stopped wriggling and stuck out her lip in a pout.
The sight drew a laugh from me without permission. The one and only time that shameless Del ever looked cowed was when someone called her by her actual name.
…It is a bit much of a name, though.
Alodel. A devout name taken from a saint of the Kpelleofen Empire.
To my father-in-law, who had been called the Pious Duke, it had been an utterly ordinary choice. The minor problem was that the saint in question had been a heavily muscled man.
He meant for her to grow up strong…
She had grown strong, just not quite in the direction my father-in-law had intended.
Still, strong was strong. My father-in-law was surely smiling down from heaven.