The Abundant Western Territory - 3
The old quarter of the Elf Sanctuary. Just as expected, it was a thoroughly deserted stretch of space. I stood there blankly waiting for the Wise Duke when a carriage under the escort of knights finally arrived. The crest of the Salon Ducal House was stamped on its side—definitely the Wise Duke.
Erich closed his eyes in gloomy resignation the moment he spotted the crest. Leaving him behind, I approached the carriage, and before any of the knights could so much as lay a hand on it, the door swung open of its own accord.
"Hiiyaaaaah! Little nephew!"
The Wise Duke flung the door open with enough force to nearly tear it off its hinges and came bursting out in a thunderous roar. The knights did not so much as twitch an eyebrow; they had clearly grown used to her antics long ago.
A pitiful sight. Knights close enough to guard a ducal household were men whose skill, character, and lineage had all been thoroughly vetted—yet the duke they served happened to be the Wise Duke. Pride in their work was probably a distant second to the daily prayer that they simply make it through the day in one piece.
"It has been some time, Aunt."
"Heehee! Long time no see, little nephew! Whooooa! Better seein' ya in person than through those little message stones!"
"Yes, I feel the same."
I nodded along appropriately while the Wise Duke cheerfully pounded my forearm. Her gaze had already locked onto the figure behind me; so long as I avoided any reply that might sour her mood, she would peel away soon enough.
"Tiny little nephew!"
True to form, she immediately charged toward her next quarry. Of course she would be happier to see the younger nephew she had not met in years than the older one she had seen only a few months prior.
Thank goodness. Never had I been so grateful that imperial law required my attendance at the New Year's Audience. Truly, thank you, Imperial Code.
"Erich's grown so much in the meantime. He's a proper adult now."
While I watched Erich endure a rapid-fire barrage of sincere kisses from the Wise Duke, my uncle's voice drifted over, laced with amusement.
On the surface it was nothing more than a fond remark after a long absence—but saying it while the boy's cheeks were being mercilessly plundered made it sound like pure teasing. If Erich heard that, he would wail that no adult on earth received such treatment.
"In Aunt's eyes he still looks like a child."
"Can't be helped. To a parent, a child is always a child—and a nephew is no different."
In other words, that excessive affection would not change until either the Wise Duke or Erich was dead. A terrifying thought.
Hang in there.
Erich was now past mere kisses and well into having his cheeks sucked on; Sera stood frozen, utterly unable to shove away the aunt-and-duke of the man she secretly loved; and the Demon Duke pressed a hand to her forehead at the same ducal eccentricity. If I kept staring that way my own mental fortitude would take damage, so I looked away.
Hold the line, Erich. As long as you keep the Wise Duke occupied, I get to live.
"Goodness, you too? Coming all this way only to hide?"
"Pardon?"
At the sudden remark I turned back toward my uncle.
"I-I'm not hiding."
A childish voice rose from somewhere lower down. I quickly lowered my gaze.
Only then did I notice the little girl pressed tightly against my uncle's back, peeking out. Brown hair like her father's, golden eyes like the Wise Duke's. Yet where the Wise Duke's eyes always carried a hazy alcoholic fog, these pupils shone bright and clear.
…Ah.
So this is the Young Duchess?
I had never met her in person and still felt a flicker of uncertainty, but it had to be her. She had inherited her parents' features perfectly, and the only child who would be clinging to my uncle like that was the Young Duchess.
She really is still a kid.
I felt a little embarrassed. Busy with work, I had assumed she was some gloomy shut-in forced into reclusion; instead she was just a child in the middle of growing up. I did not even know my own cousin's age—I truly paid zero attention to my relatives.
As I stared blankly down at her, the Young Duchess, who had been trembling under a stranger's gaze, bravely stepped out in front of my uncle and offered a greeting.
"I am Liliana Salon of the Salon Ducal House. It is an honor to meet the renowned Chief of the Audit Department."
That ordinary greeting alone made me feel that the future of the Salon Ducal House was bright. The boldness of lifting her chin and meeting my eyes without flinching, the crisp enunciation beyond her years, the properly polite and normal speech—and, needless to say, the fact that she was not drunk, unlike a certain someone.
Most of all, even while her body trembled intermittently from fear of the unfamiliar place and unfamiliar person, she was doing her utmost to project calm. The sight warmed my chest.
A miracle.
I could not help marveling that such a normal daughter had come from the Wise Duke. Of course the Wise Duke herself was a once-in-a-generation mutant even within the Salon house, and my uncle's blood was mixed in as well, but there had still been people who worried that the mutant genes would prove too strong and pass straight to the child.
"A pleasure to meet you, Young Duchess. I am Karl Crassius of the Crassius Count House."
In any case, the little girl's earnest effort was so endearing that I formally offered my hand. When I bent my knees slightly to match her height she flinched, but I pretended not to notice.
Her speech made it clear she was trying hard to sound mature. Treat her like a child and coddle her here, and she would sulk—that future was written in the stars.
"How fortunate that your cousin is so kind. I worried so much about Lili being alone, but now she will have someone reliable."
Yet my consideration was rendered pointless the moment my uncle gently stroked the Young Duchess's head and spoke in that soft tone. The blatant child-treatment made her start trembling for an entirely different reason.
Still, it could not be helped. For me it was simply matching the child's little performance for a moment; for my uncle she was the daughter so precious he would not even let her get a speck of dust in her eye. Even when she turned twenty or thirty, she would still be nothing but a cute baby in his eyes.
Erich, girl version.
The thought made me feel a pang of sympathy. And she lived with the Wise Duke on top of that. Those cheeks would not last.
Ah.
She was crying.
A little girl's hitching sobs spread plaintively through the air.
"I-I… for the first time, hic—wanted to look good… for my big brothers… and then, hic—…"
At the Young Duchess's tearful complaint my uncle wore a sheepish smile and patted her back. The hiccups made her hard to understand, but roughly speaking the grand debut as a dignified and elegant Young Duchess had instantly collapsed into "little sister saying hello to her big brothers," and she was heartbroken.
No wonder she had gone out of her way to call me Chief of the Audit Department. At first I wondered where she had picked up my title, but by blood she was the younger one; she had simply wanted to put on a cool front.
Definitely a kid.
I swallowed the words that had climbed all the way to my throat.
"Hiiing… Lili… when you cry like that… this mommy's heart hurts too…"
The Wise Duke approached the Young Duchess who was sniffling in my uncle's arms, but the girl desperately twisted away from her touch.
Strange. My uncle was the one who made her cry, yet she was dodging the Wise Duke. Did she already know her mother was not normal…? Her cheeks really must get worked over at home.
"Age is of no importance to a lady. Treating such a lady as a child is rude—even for a parent."
The Demon Duke, who had been watching the little girl's uproar with warm eyes, finally spoke. If a child was trying to play the lady, the parents ought to match that energy; treating her as nothing but adorable was a problem.
"Haha, how shortsighted of me. Thanks to Your Excellency I have learned an important lesson."
My uncle nodded at the advice. Had he known the Young Duchess would cry so bitterly, he would have played along.
Yet hearing the Demon Duke of all people talk about age left me with a peculiar feeling. Age does not matter to a lady—even a little girl is a lady. Flip it around, though, and someone over a hundred is still a lady—
"Uuing? Honey! Why're you speakin' so formal to the Demon Duke?"
The Wise Duke's words cut my train of thought short.
What?
Bewilderment flooded me. Of course my uncle spoke formally to the Demon Duke. The Demon Duke could easily speak casually to him and it would not feel strange, yet out of respect for him being a duke's spouse they kept mutual formality…?
"Demon Duke~ you're our nephew's daughter-in-law now! Who talks all formal to their nephew's daughter-in-law!"
For a second I doubted my ears. My uncle's eyes had gone wide; he was clearly thinking the same thing.
Well, if the Demon Duke was my lover then yes, from the Wise Duke and my uncle's perspective she was their nephew's daughter-in-law—but dropping honorifics still felt like a step too far.
…Or is it?
Come to think of it, the Demon Duke had been quietly hoping the family head and mother-in-law would speak more comfortably with her. In that situation, having someone call her their nephew's daughter-in-law might actually please her.
No, never mind.
The thought died the instant I saw the Demon Duke's face. Suddenly ambushed, she wore an extremely complicated expression.
Of course, from the Demon Duke's standpoint it was encouraging that the older brother of her future mother-in-law would treat her casually. But considering that brother's wife was the Wise Duke, she could not exactly smile about it.
If she allowed my uncle to speak casually, she would have to allow the Wise Duke the same. Yet if she forbade it entirely, she would be forever forcing formality on my uncle. A perfect, agonizing balance where every gain required a loss.
"Heheh. Nephew's daughter-in-law~ so I can talk easy from now on?"
"……."
At those words the Demon Duke's face became that of a mathematician who had just been handed the hardest unsolved problem in history.
Thanks to my uncle's mediation we avoided the disaster of the Wise Duke sucking on the Demon Duke's cheeks. Without him the odds of reaching that point would have been high; perhaps my uncle was the true guardian of the Empire's peace.
"You two aren't even formally married yet. Being too familiar already would be improper."
"Hiiing, fine…"
That mediation was only buying time, but at least it stopped an immediate catastrophe, so good enough.
"Ah, wait! Nephew!"
Just as I was about to take my leave, the Wise Duke opened her mouth one last time.
"Where're you goin' now?"
"Since we're already here, I thought we would look around the sanctuary."
Fortunately it was a normal question, so I answered without trouble—
"Then take our Lili with you and play!"
With that the Wise Duke scooped the Young Duchess, who had been glued to my uncle's back, into the air and held her out toward me.
…
"Pardon?"
"Cute little Lili~ every single daaay she just stays in her room reading books… this auntie is so worried!"
No, that is a perfectly wholesome and excellent hobby—why would that be a problem? And who are you to be worrying about someone else in the first place?
"But luckily we have our sturdy nephew and our nephew's daughter-in-laws right here! I can hand her over without a care!"
At those words the Young Duchess's pupils began to tremble violently.
"It is about time Lili gained some experience of the outside world."
Betrayed by the one person she had trusted—my uncle—her trembling rapidly escalated into pure despair.
Stop it. She is going to cry again.
Even if we are cousins, tossing a ten-year-old child in among a bunch of strangers is going too far.