Home Visit (2)

Ruby was playing innocent. The little guy definitely knew something—he had to.

Looking back on it, his behavior all along had been suspicious as could be. He came and went through my barrier like it was his own front door, yet he flatly refused to return to wherever he'd come from. As if something terrifying were waiting for him there.

"Ruby."

"Squeak?"

"The money that's gone into heating your yard comes to 600,000 barts a year... call it 3 million barts in total."

Ruby's red eyes wavered without mercy.

"And you ate the mana source I pulled out of the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠flame giant, too. I never even told you to eat that."

"Squeak!"

"Then there's the Scarlet Blaze I gave you the other day—a full 2nd-grade mana source. At 500,000 a root, three roots makes 1.5 million."

When I ran the numbers, a staggering 5 million barts had gone into Ruby. That came to two and a half times the knight order's annual budget... Was this for real?

He wouldn't so much as touch meat these days. Ever since he'd gotten a taste of the flame giant's inner core, he'd been turning his nose up at anything below high-grade mana sources. The yard didn't need reheating anymore, but at this rate I'd break my back just keeping the little glutton fed.

"You're as big as you're going to get now, so it seems like time you started pulling your weight around the house. What do you say?"

"Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!"

Ruby shook his head side to side, squeaking with everything he had.

"He's going through puberty."

Lucian, who had been watching, said something that made no sense at all.

"He's reached his adult form, so adolescence is due to set in any day now."

"That's a joke, right?"

Lucian simply smiled. Delivered like that, it was impossible to tell whether he was joking.

"Fine, I get it."

I said, as if bestowing a great favor.

"I'll throw in one more Scarlet Blaze root. How's that?"

"Squeeeak!"

His head tilted ever so slightly.

"We're not exactly rolling in money, you know. If you guide us to the Underworld, we can pick up all sorts of good things down there. That way our household breathes easier, your friends in the knight order are happy too, and everyone wins. So think long and hard about who it is that keeps putting food in front of you."

If food wouldn't win him over, friendship would.

"Squeak..."

Ruby didn't cave easily. He did seem to be wavering, though.

He'd never been this stubborn before. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠What on earth was down in the Underworld?

"He seems to understand what we're saying, so allow me to try persuading him."

"You?"

"I do make my living with words, after all."

"...Fine. Give it a shot."

Lucian would probably fare better than me. The man had started out penniless and climbed to the very top of a massive trading company—a rags-to-riches merchant if ever there was one.

"Listen closely to what I'm about to say, lizard."

Ruby flinched and pressed himself tight against me.

"Don't fool yourself into thinking Lord Iden will keep doting on you forever. Humans are fickle creatures who tire of things in a heartbeat. Fail to prove your usefulness, and next time you'll find yourself up on the auction block again."

"Hey, Lucian. That's going too far."

"Squeeeak..."

Ruby, apparently shattered, went completely limp.

"No, no, Ruby. Take everything this man says with a grain of salt. He's a miser who sees nothing in this world but money."

Ruby slid down my leg, body gone slack, then began crawling off somewhere.

"It seems the persuasion took."

Lucian declared with total confidence.

"He'll lead us right to the entrance of the Underworld."

"It had better be true. Otherwise I'll have you standing trial for animal cruelty."

"And so the tyranny of power begins."

I hurried after Ruby. He slipped out through the residence's back gate and cut a diagonal line across the rear garden. The place he finally stopped at was...

"...Ruby."

"Squeak."

"You're sure this is it?"

He had halted in front of an annex built into the corner of the rear garden. Its door stood several times my height and was hewn from solid stone—no ordinary person was prying that open.

This building was not a residence. As far as I knew, it was the Esterzy family mausoleum.

A mausoleum. In other words, the resting place of our ancestors.

"The entrance to the Underworld is in there?"

"Squeak."

That seemed unlikely. The gateway to ancestral desecration, maybe.

Well, I'd come this far; I might as well have a look. No one had ever told me I couldn't enter, and I was currently acting with the Duke's authority. Who was going to stop me?

I set my hands against ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the door and pushed with all my strength. The stone doors ground apart to either side, and stale air steeped in long years washed over me. Beyond lay a passage stretching straight down into the earth.

Long glowing fungi clinging to the ceiling lent the corridor a bluish cast. Anyone afraid of ghosts would have fled without a second's hesitation.

I stepped in carefully. My footsteps echoed off the narrow walls. Ruby climbed back up my leg.

The walls were covered in murals chronicling the Esterzy family's past. Esterzy history was a history of struggle against the demonkin, and the brutal face of that war was painted with astonishing vividness.

The stairs went down and down for a long while. The mausoleum at the bottom sat within a naturally formed underground cavern.

Icicle-like stalactites crowded the ceiling. Stone sarcophagi were spaced sparsely to either side, with statues and memorial stones standing before and behind them.

I read the inscription on the nearest memorial stone.

It was a name I'd heard in history class. Apparently her political genius was such that she'd brought an imperial prince home as her son-in-law.

The other sarcophagi told the same story. Every one of them belonged to someone who had played a part in the Esterzy family's history.

So this really was our ancestors' burial ground. If I dug this place up, acting lord or no lord, my head would roll.

"Squeak!"

Ruby dropped back to the floor. He slithered past the sarcophagi toward the innermost reaches of the mausoleum, stopping before an ancient coffin set in what could only be called its very heart.

I checked the words on the memorial stone.

Ivan Esterzy?

The name was familiar. He was almost never mentioned in history class, but the armor he had worn in life was displayed in my room.

I'd even cast puppet arts on that armor and turned it into a marionette. I'd named the puppet "Ivan," too.

"Your home is beneath this?"

"Squeak!"

Ruby nodded, staring hard at the sarcophagus.

Beneath the coffin, I could sense dense metal qi and earth qi.

Earth energy this thick meant a dragon vein lay somewhere below.

A dragon vein was a channel through which the earth's vital energy flowed. My master had defined dragon veins as the arteries of the land itself.

Looks like we came to exactly the right place.

Given how saturated this world was with mana, the odds were high that rare resources—Doomsteel or Oradium veins—would cluster around a dragon vein.

"Well done, Ruby."

I gave him the praise he'd earned. It was only ecologically natural for an earth dragon to make a dragon vein its home.

Still, why of all places did our ancestors' graves sit on top of a dragon vein? This world didn't even have a concept of feng shui.

After confirming the dragon vein's location, I returned to the ducal residence. In truth, you could say the real problem started now.

A highly valuable ore vein may be buried beneath our ancestors' mausoleum. I should dig first and see what turns up.

When I conveyed this position to Opils, he put on the face of a man one breath from fainting.

"Young Lord Iden, you must weigh this decision very carefully. To speak frankly, I don't believe I could clean up the aftermath."

"Opils, you know full well how our territory runs."

"That may be, but..."

Opils let the words trail off.

In fact, it wasn't even running. It was the knights' blood and sweat that kept it running.

Rumors that the acting lord meant to dig up the mausoleum spread on wings. By afternoon, dozens of carriages had descended on the ducal residence.

"What in the world is the meaning of this? You mean to desecrate the mausoleum?"

"Chief Clerk Opils, what exactly were you doing all this while? If the young lord is too young to tell right from wrong, shouldn't you at least be steadying him?"

"I am the Treasurer."

The ones carving into the blameless Opils were members of the Noble Council—a powerful advisory body whose influence reached even into my father's decisions.

"The mausoleum of House Esterzy is a symbol of our history and tradition. Not one percent of it may be defaced."

These stiff-necked old men were scholars who had studied at the academy in the imperial capital.

"First we must review customary law... If the procedure is to be beyond reproach, the legalities must be examined for no less than a year."

These men were supposedly legal experts, though I couldn't have named a single one of them.

Beyond them came advisory boards, committees, and every manner of organization under the sun, all swarming in and raising a din.

The last to arrive was a bishop of the Solitas Church.

Colin.

He strode over with his priestly robes billowing and greeted me warmly.

"Young Lord Iden, I trust all has been well?"

"It was, right up until just now."

He stroked his beard and laughed heartily.

"I've heard the gist of it. They say you mean to dig up the mausoleum?"

"Not just dig it up. I'm thinking of relocating it somewhere better. I'm quite confident there's a rare ore vein buried beneath it."

"However did you find an ore vein there?"

"This little guy did all the work."

I stroked Ruby where he sat on my shoulder.

"I see. No wonder there's an uproar."

Colin nodded. The crowd kept hurling protests the whole while, the Noble Council's voices loudest of all.

Whenever they pointed at me, the words the young lord were always attached. What could the young lord possibly know? The young lord has gone and caused trouble again.

As I saw it, half of them had been burned by Mabel and Chris too many times to trust me. The other half were simply wary of our family growing rich.

Colin cleared his throat, then bellowed loud enough to shake the office off its foundations.

"What's all this racket about? What's so precious about a pile of old graves!"

"Bishop, what on earth are you saying?"

"They've all gone on to a better place regardless. Solitas took them under His gaze long ago. So let the dead rest and tend to the living instead. Why can't you all recognize the young lord's generous spirit?"

"How can the voice of Solitas speak ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠such words..."

"If I'm the voice of Solitas, what does that make the rest of you? The voice of a heap of dead bones?"

The crowd nearly fainted on the spot. Colin was a step beyond even me.

"That's going too far! Dead bones, indeed—the honored spirits of House Esterzy will take offense!"

"Then go tattle to them. My guess is they'd be delighted to see Esterzy's descendants rolling in wealth."

Colin, you...

I know blood runs thick and arms bend inward for one's own, but aren't yours bending a little too far?