Chapter 38
Chapter 38
"Then for now, let us send envoys to each region and find out whether there is any information on black mages."
At that, Baron Forman, who had already been at Hilbury's side, volunteered with a grin.
"Send me as the envoy to the central region."
It was a message asking the other four houses to "share information about their regions."
Sending a brief letter or an envoy of inappropriate standing would have been discourteous. Usually, a house sent one of its principal retainers.
"And while I am there, I can look into the new Marquess Sears."
Little was known about Alpheus Sears.
A mercenary born to a maid and raised among commoners.
He was the eldest son the Marquess Sears had searched for all his life.
It was said that his fearsome skill had caught the eye of the Second Imperial Prince during the northern war.
According to the rumors that trickled out here and there, he was quite handsome.
'Beyond that, there really isn't much information.'
For now, he had become Brisa's guardian.
How he would treat a twelve-year-old child with nowhere to go was unknown.
Hilbury answered with a chuckle.
"I thought you said you were retiring?"
"The potatoes in that region are delicious, you see. I am going to eat them."
Baron Forman smiled elegantly and suppressed his worry.
The Warp had begun operating, so Alpheus must have returned from the capital as well.
He had said he was going to collect war reparations, but the Second Imperial Prince had not been at the imperial palace either. Naturally, he would not have been able to bring anything back.
And if, in the midst of that, he came face to face with the territory Brisa had been feeding and keeping alive.......
'He's bound to be on his guard.'
Baron Forman considered the matter with thoroughly aristocratic logic.
'Brisa Sears has been raised as the heir all this time. She has influence in the central region. Moreover, this incident has made her even more popular with the territory's people.'
For Alpheus, who was half commoner by blood, that would be an enormous burden.
But Alpheus had martial strength. The elite unit that had left with him was skilled enough to rival the imperial knights.
If he seized the territory by force, Brisa would have no choice but to do as that brother of hers commanded.
'Joachim County is the wealthiest in the central region. If they try to tie her to the son of House Joachim and get grain in return.......'
Just thinking about it made the potatoes he had been fed a month and a half ago sit heavy in his stomach.
That was why he had volunteered so quickly.
He planned to arrive around the same time as Alpheus and judge the man's character for himself.
If he truly seemed no good, he would bring her to the west and.......
'If there is no other way, I shall have to take her in as an adopted daughter, late though it may be.'
Of course, that was a secret from Leopold.
And so Baron Forman hurriedly boarded the Warp. The proper procedure was to send a servant ahead first, but there was no time for that.
'Young lady of Sears, if you are locked up and being mistreated, I shall rescue you!'
In his imagination, Brisa grew more and more pitiful. She had looked so very small and frail.
Brisa, locked in a room and eating only a single slice of potato a day.
Brisa, being pressured into a marriage with House Joachim.
The maids all driven out, and the marquess's residence seized by Alpheus's elite unit.
Only the knights who had followed her secretly passing her one egg each.......
As the imagining continued, the fish he had eaten a month ago sat heavy too.
That was when Baron Forman arrived at the marquess's residence in a flurry.
"Wahahaha, is this how you do it? I'm really good, right? Huh? Peekaboo, look here, our ice princess!"
In the garden of the marquess's residence, he saw a young man diligently swinging a pickaxe.
'......Platinum-blond hair?'
An exceedingly handsome young man was making a fuss.
"Peekaboo, look here! Our darling angel! Make me your honorary farmer!"
Unlike Leopold, a boy with a cool appearance, this young man was handsome with a fresh, innocent air.
That build, those muscles, that face, those beautiful sky-blue eyes.......
Baron Forman stopped with a look of disbelief.
He raised his gaze to see the person at whom the handsome man was performing his antics.
On the second-floor terrace, Brisa was elegantly drinking tea.
"With the strength of a blazing sun, I've already tilled all the way to here! My pickaxe shoots straight out, just like my feelings for my little sister!"
The handsome man winked one eye as he made a crude comparison.
Brisa, who had been watching from amid a mountain of stacked books, shuddered and pointed out,
"No winking."
And she glared at his twitching thumb and added,
"No giving a thumbs-up and going 'Heh!' either."
The young man was not discouraged. He merely raised an eyebrow and made an amused expression.
At that, Brisa shot to her feet and shrieked in horror.
"Forbidden! 'Heh heh, how cute.......' Absolutely forbidden!"
* * *
If events had followed the original novel, Alpheus should have been wandering with nowhere to go by then.
That was because the uncle who had swallowed up the entire Sears Marquisate coveted the marquess title and wanted to kill Alpheus.
'But right now, that uncle is locked up in the central court prison.'
As soon as the Warp began operating, we had sued all three members of the Hawin baronial family.
The court sentenced both the Baron and Baroness Hawin to imprisonment. Dalia had also actively participated in the crimes, so she could not escape punishment.
"The minor Dalia Hawin shall spend her time in penance at the Oppen Monastery until she reaches adulthood."
In other words, the current Alpheus had no one to hate or take revenge on.
The territory that was his share was safe, and his comrade-in-arms the Second Imperial Prince had returned to the imperial palace alive and well. Therefore, he had been at peace the whole time.
Of course, I was not at peace. I was still constantly anxious.
'The days when the whole empire lived in abundance are now a thing of the past.'
The Warp would not be without problems as it had been before, either.
'The Magic Tower gets it running for now, but it keeps causing trouble in the south.'
The south produced the most grain after the west. But now, that region's distribution network was likely to keep having problems.
Moreover, the west's bumper harvests were effectively over if things continued this way. So our territory also had to work toward a certain degree of self-sufficiency.
'We can't go hungry....... People turn harsh when they're starving.'
Sebon was targeting me.
In the original novel, my uncle would hand me over, but if people grew hungry enough, anyone could sell me for fifty sacks of wheat.
I had no faith that Alpheus, whom I had only just met, would protect me to the end. So my goal was clear.
'Everyone around me has to eat well, so that no matter who tells them to hand me over, they won't be able to.'
So I decided to put the elite unit to farming.
At first they were reluctant, but after eating the dinner I ordered prepared, their minds changed.
"Now, what do you think is lacking here?"
When I asked, they each gave an answer.
"Hmm, more variety of vegetables?"
"Meat....... Not chicken or fish, I mean."
"I wish the bread were a little softer."
At that, Wendy narrowed her eyes sharply and spoke up.
"People who've never dug up a single potato with their own hands sure have lively mouths."
One of the elite unit retorted.
"Have you dug one up?"
At that, Wendy raised an eyebrow.
"I didn't, and my mouth and stomach nearly died of hunger. If you want to keep those big mouths of yours alive, listen carefully to what the young lady says. Got it?"
Fortunately, none of them took Wendy's words lightly. In the first place, Wendy was not an easy opponent.
So it was easy for me to give them orders.
"Now, from here on, let's make up for what we're missing."
But there was one major complication.
Alpheus, who had been watching them farm, ended up picking up a pickaxe himself.
I was horrified and tried to stop him.
"Don't you do it. There's no need for the marquess to step in. The knights are enough."
"But the way they work is so frustrating, like a bunch of grubs! How long am I supposed to wait for all that?"
"What? They're all doing really well."
"That?"
Alpheus's eyes went wide.
"Watch closely, Brisa. This is how you use your body and a blade."
In the end, Alpheus, unable to hold back, stepped in and showed truly absurd speed and precision.
"Even on the battlefield, while each of us buried one man, the Marquess buried a hundred, y'see."
Rangsi whispered to me as I stood with my mouth hanging open.
"Seeds or corpses, burying things in the ground is essentially the same, ain't it?"
The knights were not surprised at all. Alpheus had always been respected for his attitude of leading by example.
"The captain always does the work of ten of us. It's only natural."
"Even in the mercenary company, he kept stepping in whenever things frustrated him, and that is how he ended up becoming the captain. It's not surprising at all."
Picking up a shovel or pickaxe himself did not lower Alpheus's dignity. Rather, it inspired awe in everyone, including me.
"R-right......."
The seed planting I had estimated would take ten days was finished in a single day because of Alpheus. I absolutely could not bring myself to say, "Nobles don't do this sort of thing."
'That ability...... that talent.......'
Even if, as Mom had said, Alpheus had been farming melons, he would never have become an ordinary farmer.
'By now, he'd probably be a melon tycoon, scattering money into the air.'
A workforce this extraordinary was practically a miracle for farming.
In the end, I surrendered to the temptation.
"Then let's move. We have to plant the next seeds."
It couldn't be helped. Letting that body go unused merely because he was a marquess was too inefficient. It was a waste of resources, no different from refusing to use my own head.
So when Baron Forman arrived, Alpheus was in the middle of farming.
'I didn't expect an outsider to visit again as soon as the Warp was running.'
I was quite surprised.
Baron Forman's visit was that unexpected. And the news he brought was also beyond expectation.