The Vanished Protagonists (3)
The unpleasant rumor that Young Master Edan had a hidden daughter! flared up for a brief moment before quickly dying down. The mascot of the Saintess’s party. The guide who had followed the hero Maximilian like a second shadow. Lue Luinong.
The servants of the Hohenberg family swarmed like clouds around the charming sight of the girl with her striking light-green hair and eyes. They began offering tributes of snacks as though paying respects to a fairy—mountains of candy, chocolate, and every kind of treat imaginable. The popularity was nothing short of phenomenal. She truly lived up to her role as the story’s representative mascot.
As the family’s second son, I had never once received such treatment from the servants….
“Edan!”
“Yeah.”
A greedy little rascal clutching chocolate in both hands trotted over. I lowered my head in greeting.
“Lue heard a lot from Max! Max’s little brother!”
“That blunt block of ice actually talked about me? I bet most of it was insults.”
“Eh?! How did you know?!”
“…….”
Her pure, innocent answer—completely free of any lie—left me speechless. Damn brother. I shuddered to imagine what kind of trash-talk he had spewed behind my back. Picturing that stoic face firing off words like a machine gun made my head throb.
“But he also said lots of good things!”
“I’m not buying it.”
“It’s true. Actually, that was a lie.”
“…….”
Ahem. I felt pathetic for having believed her even a little.
“First, you need a bath. You must be exhausted after everything. I’d love to immediately ask about the whereabouts of the bastard who suddenly turned into a runaway at twenty-five, but—”
“B-bath?! Lue is fine! A quick rinse with water is enough…”
“You’re practically vibrating with the smell of dirt.”
“Hiek!”
I waved over the maids. They promptly escorted the fairy—who had become a filthy mess from the long journey—to the bathroom. Lue flailed her arms like a cat that hated water, but in the end she surrendered beneath the maids’ firm insistence.
Just how brutal was their forced march…? That damn bastard.
She looked twelve. Thirteen at most. Her frame was so small she appeared far younger than her real age. Just as he had abandoned his family, he must have left this child behind without a second thought. I felt nothing but disgust for the man who had ordered a frail little thing like her on such a grueling journey. More precisely, I despised the cold-blooded way he had treated even his traveling partner like disposable baggage.
And seeing the girl now left entirely alone, I couldn’t help but feel both pity and sympathy.
Luinong. Spirits, or fairies born from nature itself. A race renowned for personalities as pure and bold as a mountain breeze through a valley. They had lived in complete isolation, wary of humanity’s ruthless cycle of expansion and conquest. Yet one unusually curious Luinong had staged a daring escape.
The lone-wolf Luinong who ran away by herself happened to encounter the Saintess’s party and ended up recorded in numerous heroic legends.
“They all look like children. And they’re a single-gender race consisting only of females. What kind of species is that? They’re not clownfish, for crying out loud.”
Back in my office, I leafed through books documenting the Luinong race. There weren’t many records. That was to be expected from a tribe that lived in total seclusion. All the known information about them had come from that one eccentric member of the Saintess’s party. Without Lue Luinong, they would have remained an unknown species until the very end.
Should I call it entrustment, or just plain abandonment…?
I chewed my thumbnail while pondering why her partner had sent her away. Had he discarded her because she was useless? Or had he hidden her somewhere safe before a life-threatening mission? No clear answer emerged no matter how long I thought about it. The hero who had saved the continent was a solitary figure who never revealed his true feelings to anyone. Not even the Saintess, his own lover, could have read his heart.
“Ugh, my whole body stings! They scrubbed me raw with the towel!”
Creak— Creak— Creak—
The door opened with a series of small sounds, and the girl stepped inside. She hopped in place as though trying to shake off her displeasure.
“You finally look presentable.”
I ruffled her hair, now fluffy like dried straw. It slid softly through my fingers, carrying the faint scent of fragrant oil. The accumulated exhaustion from the forced march must have eased a little.
I gave up the guest sofa to the tiny fairy and handed her a cup of sweet cocoa. Her light-green eyes sparkled with delight.
“Hot…!”
“There’s plenty more, so take your time.”
The feeling was… strangely like looking after a mischievous niece. Hmm. Maybe I was overthinking it. Still, watching Lue sip her cocoa filled me with a sense of warmth.
“Where exactly did my brother disappear to? Don’t tell me he actually ran off with the Saintess in some romantic elopement.”
Maximilian was a rigid man who valued reason above all else. There was no way someone like him would abandon his family and his duties. Once I thought about it calmly, more questions about his behavior began piling up. There had to be some hidden circumstances.
Considering the various possibilities, I asked the fairy, “Which way did he go?”
“He said east.”
“…East? That would be the Gisterd Kingdom.”
I tapped my finger against the desk again. Tap. Tap. It was a habit that surfaced whenever I was deep in thought. After turning the problem over in my mind, I frowned and spoke.
“At the time you parted ways… who was with my brother?”
“Only Max and Bea. Felix and Reg and Mad said they would join up later.”
It matched the confidential information Princess Ludmilla had given me. The Mercenary King, Felix Pavan Savoia. The Sword Saint, Regnas Pavan Fugh. The Sage, Madvey. Everyone except the hero and the Saintess had split up and scattered at intervals. It was to shake off the public’s watchful eyes on the Saintess’s party.
“The Demon King has already fallen. The Saintess’s party should have completed its mission. So why vanish without a word? It can’t be some outdated nonsense about how they would only become a hindrance in an age of peace.”
The members of the Saintess’s party were hardly idealistic peace-lovers. The Saintess. The hero. The Mercenary King. The Sword Saint. The Sage. The heroes representing all of humanity were beings thoroughly entangled in worldly interests.
“Beyond that… Lue doesn’t know either. It’s true! Max didn’t say anything right up until the moment we parted.”
“Don’t worry. I believe you.”
Was it the sorrow of separation? Or the terror of possibly being abandoned forever? Lue clutched the mug with both hands, her voice trembling as she cried out. The cup shook so violently that the cocoa threatened to spill.
Had it been the Empire’s intelligence department tracking the Saintess’s party, they would have pressed her with suspicion. But I took her at her word. The glorious heroes who had slain the Demon King would never have been foolish enough to share sensitive details with a little girl and risk leaving a trail.
“You… you really believe Lue?”
“Well… I’ve been cast aside by those so-called great people before, too.”
There was a thing called sympathy between fellow sufferers, after all. That was why I understood the misery of being left alone better than anyone. It was also a matter of responsibility. Lue was a victim caught up in my brother’s heartlessness.
Damn bastard. So that’s why he sent her to me as a guardian. He knew I’d look after her.
The little girl shook her stiff hair—standing up like antennae—round and round in overwhelming emotion. Watching her, I finally saw through Maximilian’s true intention in sending the Saintess’s party mascot my way.
The moment Ludmilla returned to the imperial capital, she summoned her adjutants to her office. She needed to handle the enormous aftermath of the Saintess party’s disappearance.
True to the Valtaria Empire’s reputation for strict hierarchy, her adjutants assembled in the office without a single absence the instant the order was issued. They studied the red dragon’s complexion with tense expressions, noting her return from the east.
“It is certain that the hero has vanished together with the Saintess. The Hohenberg family is unrelated to the matter.”
Ludmilla had traveled east both to hold Maximilian accountable for unilaterally breaking their engagement and to track down the now-missing Saintess’s party. The Mercenary King, the Sword Saint, and the Sage had disappeared. So had the hero and Saintess who stood at the center of the subjugation force. The Hohenberg family had nothing to do with the disappearance—Maximilian’s broken engagement had already made them enemies of the imperial house. Had they known his plans, they would have stopped him by any means necessary.
“Keril, did you look into what I requested?”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
The female knight with flowing red hair bowed respectfully as she answered the princess’s question.
“The sixth member of the Saintess’s party… the War Maniac. Unfortunately, there is very little material concerning him.”
“I expected as much. You did well.”
As the knight’s words proved, documents related to the figure known as the War Maniac were extremely scarce. He had been regarded as an unidentified individual for many years, so the revealed information barely covered half a parchment sheet. Only the members of the Saintess’s party would know his true identity.
Ludmilla carefully read through the sparse details on the parchment, her elegant brows drawing together in a frown.
“Ah, and… Your Highness.”
“What is it? Speak.”
One adjutant hesitated before continuing. Ludmilla extended her hand, granting permission.
“A message has arrived from the imperial family. It appears to concern Her Highness Elizabetta’s marriage arrangements.”
“Have they already found her a new match?”
At Ludmilla’s question, the adjutant nearly blurted out the irreverent remark, “There is a precedent of her unfortunately missing her prime marriageable age.” Feeling cold sweat trickle down his back, he bit his lip hard. Oblivious to his inner turmoil, Ludmilla tilted her head in thought.
“Hmm… Liza’s new spouse, you say. As her older sister, I suppose I ought to look into it.”
At the mutterings of a spinster fast approaching thirty, the adjutants silently recited solemn prayers and emptied their minds. Who is worrying about whom? The youngest princess is only twenty, yet Your Highness is already twenty-seven this year. Irreverent thoughts rose in their throats, but they endured with superhuman patience.
“I met Edanant von Hohenberg, the younger brother of the hero Maximilian, while I was at the Hohenberg County. He was a man with striking sharp sanpaku eyes. Quite the smooth talker as well.”
She had finally met the second son of the Hohenberg family, whom she had only known through rumors. Ludmilla closed the parchment as she shared her impressions of Edanant.