No One Takes the Bait

And so, inevitably, eyes turned back to the former Hero. Tati.

In any ordinary telling he would have been a coward who flung aside a Hero's duty and ran. But there was his skill to reckon with, and the old records besides—Heroes who gave up the Holy Sword were said to meet with terrible calamity afterward. Taken together, it meant Tati had been driven that far into a corner.

None of them had the faintest idea that the man in question had simply forgotten the record, and done it in a fit of temper.

"His whereabouts are a mystery, they say. Well. Look through the records of Heroes past, and he's dead."

"Hah. And I thought he would drive back the Abyss the way the Seven Gods did. The Hero himself, of all men."

Leo had never met him, and still he had expected a great deal. History had never produced a Hero so relentlessly active—and this one, they said, was not even of the Kingdom's royal blood. Common stock, from somewhere or other. Common blood, and yet he had become the Hero and clawed experience together with his teeth.

"Even that takes a matching caliber, I should think. They say Tati threw down the Hero's mantle over a falling-out with his old companions."

"So Tati has been the one handling all of it? Wretched."

Leo shook his head. Was there truly no answer to be had?

And now they wanted support for a party the Hero had already walked out of. The very idea was absurd.

"From what I hear, the current Hero is desperately hoping the Empire will support him."

"A man who is no help to anyone, hoping for the Empire's help."

The Empire's part was to hold back the Night pressing down from the north and stop the monsters running wild on every front. The Kingdom's part was to field the Hero and strike down the Demon King. If the Kingdom itself asked, then aid was the proper answer. For the Hero to come begging in his own name was another matter.

"But if the Hero requests it, isn't helping him only natural?"

"The meaning, I expect, is that no one intends to aid a man with nothing to show."

He would not be fool enough to send an army into a nation already going under. Only the Hero could bring down the Demon ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠King—that much was true—but judging by the present mess, propping up the Hero alone might do nothing but bleed the Empire's strength for nothing. Had it at least been the Hero Tati, perhaps. As it stood, how could the remaining four fail to do the work of one? Tati's departure had not even left the party short of bodies. Historically a Hero's party averaged four, and this time there had been five.

"Then what are we to do?"

"That is work for the imperial capital. It is not mine."

"There is a fight for the throne. How can you set a thing like that aside?"

His noble followers were crying that now, of all times, was the moment to make his mark in politics. The moment was not now. Above all else, Tatiana was wide-eyed and hunting for a sacrificial lamb to devour. Small wonder.

"We deal with what is in front of us first. All of you—keep your heads down. As low as you can manage. Do not show Tatiana a single opening."

"Yes, Your Highness."

A problem, Tatiana. Even with the engagement broken.

The Emperor had four children. Three princes, and one princess. By rights the eldest ought to inherit, but he was sickly, and the other imperial children had their eyes on the throne, so a struggle over the succession was inevitable. And into the middle of that, of all people, came Tatiana. He had never liked her. Not when she was his fiancée, and not now, with her memory gone.

"Sure enough. No one's taking the bait."

The fools who had looked down on me so thoroughly, only to watch me draw a blade, would no longer meet my eyes if they could help it. The Second Prince might have moved as well. With that same prince refusing to touch me and hushing the rest into silence, everyone else was keeping their distance—which meant I would have to set my sights on nobles from other regions.

"Were you truly going to drag in whoever showed their face and name them the one behind it?"

"Drag them in? I was going to settle it on the spot."

"You mean kill them?"

"They had the young lady of Clyde kidnapped by bandits. An arm would have to come off, at the very least."

The look on Laura's face said she had run ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠out of things to say. Fair enough. For anyone else, that was the sane response. I simply didn't know any better. What I did know was that nobles stayed quiet only when force held them down.

"Even so, I must say I find that a little barbaric."

"It has to be that much. Then they tell themselves, ah, that bitch is mad—best not to touch her. I hate trouble."

Nobles were that sort of creature anyway. People who looked at a human life the way one looks at an ant. And once you stood as high as a grand duke, these petty nobles were ants themselves.

"Hmm. Even so, there is the Grand Duke's face to consider. What if you simply beat them?"

"One swing of a sword is less of a bother than a beating."

The point was to keep one of them as an example. People needed to learn that if they were fool enough to lay a hand on the young lady who had been cast off, they were fucked.

"Even so, there are eyes watching. And since the chance has come along, beating one of them and then showing mercy would also serve."

"That won't make the way they look down on the North disappear."

The answer was obvious at a glance. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠The nobles of Felione treated the North the way one treats savages and nomads. Trace their own roots and they were the same trash who used to live in huts—yet they sneered at the North for climbing late into the ranks of nobility. In the end, wasn't the answer simply to crush them with strength?

A sword, answered with a greater sword.

"Sometimes that sort of thing does work. At a time like this, you have to wield both the carrot and the stick. Even if Clyde is a house the other three grand dukes cannot ignore, its footing in Felione is wretched."

So in the end, she was telling me to tear the whole of it down and rebuild it myself.

"In other words, to restore the honor of a jilted young lady, I catch a sacrificial lamb and show mercy at the same time. That is what you are saying."

"Yes."

Evan. That man had gone and shoved a difficult job onto me. And here I had thought that, cut loose from the Holy Sword, I could do as I pleased. Was he truly leaving politics to me—the one whose only work had been cutting down monsters and magical beasts, a human shield and nothing else?

"Even so, isn't a reign of fear better at a time like this?"

With the Holy Sword gone from my hand, the reins had loosened a little further. If anything, my hands itched. I had no intention of minding noble faces in a place like Felione. Failing that, I would have settled for a class where the fighting was real.

Now there was a thought. Threatening that Second Prince bastard with it.

Back when I was the Hero, I had run joint operations with the Empire, so I knew how things stood. The First Prince was frail, and he had no hunger for the throne. That left the other three children. That worm would be itching to stoke the succession fight right about now, and his ties to the nobility were good besides. Better, then, to let the greed take him.

"What are you thinking so hard about?"

"Can you find out more about the Second Prince? Not the sort of thing anyone could see from the surface. Properly."

He was the one who mattered. In a matter like this, you caught the big fish. If I couldn't put a sword to his throat anyway, better to thrash the Second Prince's side instead. Then at least the other imperial factions might be pleased enough to come latch on. Who could say?

"His character, you mean? That sort of thing?"

"Yes. Don't you know anything at all?"

"Not in any real detail. It would be better if you recovered your memories, my lady."

Was that even possible? No—if I found them, wouldn't I be the strange one?

"I have no intention of looking. And if I heard something, wouldn't I be the one trying to crawl into a mousehole?"

Possessing a body this shameful. Ridiculous. Better not to know.

"Then shall I look into it separately?"

"Would you?"

Being a young lady was surprisingly convenient. A maid to order about, for one. I was beginning to understand how Carn must have felt. How pleasant it must have been, having a Hero on hand to slay the Demon King in his place.

Come to ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠think of it, if there was ever a son of a bitch, it was him. Pathetic wretches, the lot of them, grabbing at people's ankles from behind.

That was roughly what quiet inquiry had turned up. Hardly useful—nothing I couldn't have inferred at my own level.

"In short, there's nothing to grab hold of."

A man with ambition that large would never carelessly lay a hand on a grand duke's daughter sitting above him. Even if the broken engagement meant she had been cast out of von Clyde, he would not, at least not right away, send bandits to do something suspicious. So the Second Prince could not be caught. Was that the conclusion?

"Yes. Touch him the wrong way, and you may be the one who takes the counterblow."

It would only look like a tantrum. Nothing but a pretext, handed over for free. This was no good.

"If he's away as often as that, he has no particular reason to be looking down on me."

Even pinning it on the prince when he hadn't done it grew difficult. His alibi was perfect. And if the engagement had ended peacefully, there was even less to say. No—why had the breakup been peaceful in the first place? Had the two of them simply failed to suit each other, and parted like that?

"Then what do you intend to do?"

"The nobles are still talking plenty about the broken engagement, aren't they?"

"Yes. Women's tongues are quick."

I let out a long breath at that. To think I had to stoop to this sort of thing. A man who had once been the Hero, now served up on noble mouths as a jilted young lady. It was beyond belief.

"The main of it?"

"That the jilted young lady is being difficult, they say. That for someone who was cast off, she holds her head entirely too high."

Well, of course. A few of them had probably sniffed out what I really was. People whose station tied them to politics—they couldn't all be fools. Couldn't brawl out in the real world, so they played at politics here in Felione. Which left me with something of a problem.

It wasn't as if there were no other way. No need to go all the way to a reign of fear. Set off something larger, and the talk of the broken engagement would die on its own.

"Anything worth setting off?"

"If there is, then at best the matter of the former Hero."

"The former Hero, Tati?"

"Yes."

"Is there a problem? Are they cursing him after the fact?"

Why had talk of the Hero suddenly blown open?

"The Kingdom, I couldn't say. The nobles of Felione are different. Because of the current Hero, the Empire is about to be made to support the Kingdom."

"So they miss the former Hero. Something like that."

Carn was probably around the point of trying to grow used to life as the Hero. Unlike the days when he had been merely one of the party, demands came at a Hero from every side—Kingdom and Empire both—and he had to judge them himself. I had done all of that alone until now. Now the bastard had to do every bit of it on his own. The other party members had been the sort to tumble into bed with him, so they would manage themselves.

"A very few do curse him. They ask why he handed the Holy Sword to someone like Prince Carn."

So that was the reason, even when they cursed. In the end, it meant Carn was being treated like a worthless piece of shit right now.

"Rumors are going around that he's dead. How hard the party must have squeezed him, for him to think of dying. That sort of talk."

"Yes."

Rather pitiful, this. To think my own story would spread that way.

"Thinking is a bother. I just want to smash the whole of it."

"No—Lady Tatiana, as you were before, you thought things through as well—"

"What? Are you calling me brainless?"

It was nothing more than a hatred of nobles. Against this lot, the rod was the only answer.

"No. That isn't what I meant."

"Then there was the Fourth Princess, wasn't there."

The Fourth Princess had been another one who wasn't right. A woman who hungered for the throne.

That was how the princess had been, so far as memory served. A woman who had tried, by whatever means she could find, to build a foundation of her own. Born carrying noble blood and base blood both—the will to survive, and the ambition to climb to the highest seat there was.

It seemed the time had come to meet that woman.