A Bigger Stage, The Traveling Salesman's Return
“Miss, are those priests really? They don't seem dangerous, do they? Heretics or something like that…”
The innkeeper approached me cautiously, her voice trembling just a little. She looked to be in her late forties, the woman who ran this place.
I had paid her the middle installment three times in a row, after all. She knew I was the one footing the bill.
Most innkeepers would have been beaming with pride at guests devouring their food, but hers was nothing but a weary scowl as she stole glances at the priests.
That look did not sit well with me at all, so I spoke in a stern voice.
“The priests of the Grand Hall of Demia… refrain from any blasphemy against the divine. I cannot allow such words.”
My father’s name had not been revealed, so the owner clearly had not listened to a word.
She probably thought I was just some rich young lordling playing at nobility, but even that was a stretch. A child pretending to be a noble? Pathetic.
That was only natural, of course. Many women who ran inns had husbands who were retired knights.
This inn was basically a sort of reward from my husband’s lord. Thinking about it, the odds were high that his lord was William Hamilcar himself.
So what reason did this woman have to be scared?
She might not be a true noble, but she had still lorded it over her serfs with aristocratic flair. And when dealing with traveling priests or merchants, she had strutted around with that same haughty nose in the air.
But the mere fact that she had stepped forward as the face of this inn told me everything about her rank.
She was no noble. She was either a commoner or a freed serf who had married well.
“What business do the priests of the Grand Hall have descending here in such numbers? If it’s for donations, we cannot help you. Especially not for Demia’s temple. Last year the rains were so fierce they ruined the harvests. The year before that they were so meager, barely enough to water the fields, and everyone was moaning about it. Demia does not take care of people—how can people worship her!”
Her tone alone told me everything. I had never heard such rough language before, and for a moment I froze.
Just as the owner opened her mouth to continue, Damien spoke in his slow, lazy drawl.
“The tongue must be cut to teach you to think.”
That was a sudden full throttle. Why was she so angry? Because the owner spoke too roughly?
Now that I thought about it, it was strange. Why couldn’t she recognize Damien? If her husband had been a knight who drank Hamilcar’s blood, she should at least have known the face of his successor.
Hmm… something felt off.
As I wondered, the owner shrank back in fright at Damien’s aura and bolted toward the kitchen.
Just seeing the child with the noble title written all over her face made her tremble at the mention of cutting tongues.
I couldn’t quite explain it, but a strange unease kept creeping over me.
At that moment Damien pushed the bread toward me. I took a bite and it was buttered, soft and moist, with dried plums and wild cheese tucked inside.
The usual bread was plain white, so Damien had added the butter and fruit and cheese separately.
In this desperate situation where even jam was unlikely, the plums alone made the taste bright and lively.
Throughout the long meal Pythia looked genuinely happy. She enjoyed the food, people-watched, and eventually started dozing off with her head nodding.
When I tried to wake her and carry her to the room, Damien casually offered to lift her. I let her sleep and laid her down gently, left a note, and went to straighten up the place.
The priests were in the same state. After hard labor and then a feast, they were headbanging like festival-goers.
Once I woke them and split them into groups of four, the tavern felt a little quieter.
Damien and I sat at the corner table in the new spot, hoods pulled low over our faces.
“The time is almost here… hmm.”
The night had grown dark. The Mount of Light, despite its name, was a place where monsters wandered in the shadows. Surely the landless serfs were planning their own little party.
“Who are we waiting for?”
“Soon you will see… ah, there they come.”
Damien glanced sideways at the approaching figures and asked, “Who is that?”
“I have no idea.”
Damien slammed her flat hands on the table and shouted, “I told you I was waiting!”
Ah, she had been waiting, but it was not a person. It was a leg.
“The leg of a small traveling salesman.”
I debated making a little noise to call Paul, but the matter resolved itself far too easily.
“Hey, miss?”
One of the two guides who had been on duty suddenly stood at attention the moment he saw me.
“Who is that? You know him?”
The old men sitting at the gambling table asked the young guide.
This was not the modern “who are you?” It meant, “Who exactly is he, and what business does he have here?”
More precisely, we had brought axes, hoes, and every other essential tool of daily life. Were we allowed to accept a small donation from his expensive robe and the rest of his gear?
Looking around, I saw no faces from Boshel’s gambling group. Either the same people did not gamble every day, or some other circumstance had kept them away.
That made sense. The moment I walked in they would have bolted.
The young guide grinned brightly and answered, “She is a noble lady from the Danier family. She… she…”
The young man, struggling to remember the short name, finally pieced it together.
“A descendant of the Danier house. The one who received the necklace from Count Hamilcar, and who has deep ties to the successor. So who exactly are you?”
No serf would reveal her true name to a noble.
The wide-eyed man burst into an awkward laugh and stood up.
“My… my stomach… ow… I… I… ahahahah—”
He faked a dramatic exit.
I watched his retreating back and swept my eyes across the remaining gamblers at the table.
And then the miracle happened—the one that could not be created even by the gods. Every single man clutching his stomach at the same time let out loud cries of pain and rushed out in a panic.
Meanwhile, the guide managed to snatch the stakes with ghost-like speed.
“Uh… hmm.”
I smiled as the guide looked back and forth between me and the fleeing men.
“I am looking for Paul.”
The name Paul was common, but there was only one Paul I meant.
The guide nodded awkwardly and led him over.
Paul seemed to have been told about me by the young guide.
He entered the tavern with a bright face and froze the moment he saw Damien. He ran straight over, took off his hat, and bowed deeply.
“My lord has come.”
The twelve-year-old successor had only just been granted a seat in the council of vassals. A child, really.
But no one could see him as such. In eight years Damien would become the next ruler of the region and build her own power base.
Moreover, Damien was already moving into the Magic Tower and expanding her influence.
Paul knew Damien’s face, of course, but Damien had no idea who Paul was.
Still, he nodded naturally as if he had been told the greeting beforehand.
“You… you have a close relationship with the lord?”
I should have told you sooner, right? the tone seemed to say.
I could not have told him sooner. We had not even been acquainted back then.
I answered with an ambiguous smile and beckoned to Paul.
Then I tapped the wooden pieces the gamblers had left on the table with my fingers.
“You are a clever man, Paul.”
Paul did not answer. Silence was the only option when you could not tell whether praise or warning was meant. He clearly had a sharp sense.
I leaned forward slightly and whispered in his ear.
“Are you not interested in earning more than pocket change?”
Paul’s eyes twitched.
He knew a boy was standing before him—the successor to Hamilcar—so he had to walk carefully on the edge of a cliff. Yet his greedy eyes burned with hunger he could not contain.
“What do you mean…?”
“There are many flowers blooming on the Mount of Light. I intend to use them.”
“Flowers?”
What flowers?
Paul looked confused and blinked, but I simply smiled.
In my mind I pictured the Serpine Count, more precisely his successor.
When I left home, the Serpine successor had already been betrothed to a wedding.
The Danier territory, home to my family, lay near the royal direct lands. It was almost as if it were a royal domain, given the king’s power.
But Serpine was different.
The Serpine territory was a buffer zone bordering the Amein Empire. The Count of Serpine held power equal to the king’s.
The current Serpine Count was content to be a vassal of the Morihan king, but his father had been a political monster who had balanced two sides—Morihan and Amein—for over twenty years.
Even the present Count would happily slap the king’s cheek if the mood struck.
There were many ways to slap the king’s cheek, but the safest, most recorded method in history was the Serpine successor’s wedding rather than the royal prince’s. The Count of Serpine was pouring every ounce of his strength into this.
Of course, he was not actually planning to strike the king’s cheek. He was quietly building political superiority. And political superiority led directly to real power.
And I had flowers.
If carried even a short distance, the flowers would wither. No matter what magical preservation was used, as long as time itself did not stop and life did not cease to flow, the flowers would inevitably fade.
But I could deliver them to the Serpine family in perfect, fresh condition.
Didn’t the Serpine territory have flowers? No, it was flat land. Mountain flowers would not grow there.
Especially the Chador flower, which bloomed only on the Mount of Light, had never been used fresh, even during the king’s coronation ceremony.
The Serpine Count who spread the path of blooming Chador for the gods, the successor who walked that path with pride, and the bride who walked that path lightly to become Serpine.
On that day the Count would eat without hunger and, the moment he heard the news of the king, he would go mad trying to sever the king’s neck.
And if that was the climax he wanted, the Count of Serpine would pay any price.
He had the means to do so.