A Modest Coming-of-Age Ceremony
As expected, I reached Basago Fief after about four hours.
Its overwhelming grandeur reduced Decarabia Fief to little more than a backwater village. The walls soared so high they seemed to pierce the sky, and no matter how many times I saw them, they still drew a quiet breath of admiration.
Basago Fief. The Empire's treasury and a heavily fortified strategic stronghold.
From this moment on, I had to breach the security of the national treasury and steal the Release Artifact.
Time is short. I'll need to enter as naturally as possible.
If I'd had enough time, I could have taken a detour that bypassed Basago Fief's inspections entirely. But with so little left, I decided to take the direct approach instead. I casually took hold of the reins and joined the line heading toward the checkpoint.
The queue mixed well-dressed nobles with knights in full plate armor.
With war on the doorstep, they must be gathering here.
Even at dawn the crowd was thick; they were clearly assembling at Basago Fief in preparation for the coming war.
"You didn't even attach a contract…!"
"I'm sorry, but we're currently refusing entry to outside merchants."
"If I can't get into Basago Fief, I'll be out on the street, sir…! Can't you look the other way just this once?"
"No. By imperial decree, Basago Fief currently allows entry only to nobles and their escorts."
Far ahead at the checkpoint, a guard and a merchant were locked in an argument.
"If you don't clear the way, I'll have you arrested."
The guard rested a hand on the sword at his hip. The merchant had no choice but to turn his wagon around.
An imperial decree allowing only nobles and their escorts into Basago Fief.
"I was only gone on a short trip, and now I can't even get back in…! I attached my citizenship papers—why isn't that enough?"
"The decree permits entry to nobles only. I'm sorry for the inconvenience, but please proceed to another city."
Even citizens who lived in Basago Fief itself were being turned away. At this rate, I might not get in either.
One by one the inspection line dwindled, until it was my turn. Perhaps because the robe completely hid my face—
"I'm sorry, but we're not admitting outsiders."
The guard set a hand on his sword hilt and delivered the formal refusal. In my current state, concealed and anonymous, I must have looked like a suspicious foreigner. If I were turned away here, the plan would lose precious time.
I hadn't intended to reveal myself. But given the situation, I had no choice. I pushed back the hood of my robe and let them see my face.
Hair the color of deep starlight. Eyes that shone gold.
"I am Argent Caelum of the Caelum family."
"!!!"
The moment my identity was clear, shock flooded the guard's face.
"…Might I ask to see your family seal?"
His tone had grown considerably more respectful, but he still wanted proof. My appearance alone was practically evidence of Caelum blood—yet with war between the Empire and the Magic Kingdom so close, he clearly wanted to be thorough.
…If I'd known it would come to this, I should have brought the family seal.
I hadn't taken it when I left home. I had nothing to show him.
"I've left the family. I no longer carry the seal."
"…Then I'm afraid I cannot permit entry."
Once he understood I had no seal, the guard glanced about and delivered the refusal. No matter how much I looked like a son of House Caelum, without verified identity he couldn't let me through.
I'll have to use the detour after all…
I turned my horse to leave.
"Hold a moment."
Someone stepped into the path of my already-moving mount. I yanked hard on the reins and brought it to a stop. If I hadn't reacted in time, the man would have been struck and injured.
"It's dangerous. Please step aside."
I made the request politely—and then I saw who was blocking my way.
"You said you were leaving the family, and yet here you are, drifting into a place like this."
"!!!"
A familiar face stood before me. Blue hair. Eyes that shone like gold.
"Fa…ther?"
My father. Vice-Commander of the Starlight Knights. Hector Caelum.
"I'll vouch for my son's identity. Let him through."
"Y-yes, sir!! Forgive me!"
"No need. It's good to see a man doing his job properly."
Father laughed heartily and walked straight through the checkpoint as if it were nothing.
I never expected Father to be here…
That the Vice-Commander of the Starlight Knights would be at Basago Fief had never crossed my mind. He must have been posted here because of the war between the Empire and the Magic Kingdom.
I followed the father I had met by chance into Basago Fief and stabled my horse nearby.
"So. May I ask what happened while you were gone?"
Father asked after my recent affairs. Roughly two weeks earlier I had left home without a word of explanation; of course he would want to know how I'd been.
In that time I rescued the Empire's war weapons, turned Decarabia Fief into a wasteland, and provided the spark that would set the Empire and the Magic Kingdom at war.
—I could hardly say any of that, so I covered it with a lie.
"I met someone I love."
A lie that I had left home to see the world and found a lover along the way.
"You found love? You, Argent?"
Father stopped in his tracks and looked back at me as if he couldn't quite believe it.
"…There's no reason I shouldn't fall in love, is there?"
From the past onward I had never so much as approached a woman. In my Academy days people called me a sword-mad demon, and even after graduation I had lived for nothing but the blade. His reaction made perfect sense.
"Then why did you come to Basago Fief alone? Don't tell me it fell apart that quickly."
"…It didn't."
I forced an image of a lover into my mind as I answered. The closest woman I had right now was…
…Erbel?
It would have to be Erbel. The grown forms of the children flickered through my thoughts, but a strange guilt rose with them, and I pushed the idea away.
"She isn't from this country. I had no choice but to return to Basago Fief alone."
A lie that avoided suspicion while giving my recent movements a coherent shape.
"So you've taken a lover from the Magic Kingdom."
"…Yes."
"The timing is unfortunate, my son. With war so close."
He seemed to think my first love had already broken and left me despondent. Father stepped closer and clapped me on the shoulder.
"Don't worry. Love has a way of finding you when you least expect it."
"……."
I wondered if Father knew. That his son might soon be claimed not only by the girls he had rescued, but by a certain woman on the verge of full-blown spinster hysteria.
"So. Why did you come to Basago Fief? Did you find a letter I left at the main house and come looking for your old man?"
He had left a letter at the main house, apparently.
"Yes."
I hadn't gone home at all, but I said yes anyway.
"Hahaha…. So even you have a boyish side. I'll have to reassess you."
"…What exactly do you take me for, Father?"
"A eunuch?"
"……."
"I thought the Caelum line would end with your generation."
I had no answer for that. In truth I had lived past thirty without ever drawing near to romance—and then I had died.
There had been a few chances to change that…
The time wartime comrades from the Starlight Knights had dragged me to a brothel. Or the night Erbel, after more than forty mugs of beer, had thrown herself at me…
…I'd rather not think about that.
Tracing the memories from before my regression left a dull ache in my chest.
"I never thought I'd see that look on your face, Argent. Live long enough and you see everything."
I was still tasting the bitterness when Father, misreading it entirely, gave my shoulder another firm pat.
"The order is still settling in today. Come have a drink with me."
"…."
"A widower can't very well fail to mark his son's coming of age."
He still seemed to regret that my coming-of-age ceremony had never been properly finished, and he pressed the invitation.
"My son. You remember that the day before yesterday was your mother's memorial day?"
"…Yes."
Father brought up my late mother.
"I should at least have sent a letter. I'm sorry, Father."
"You were busy falling in love. Elisa would understand."
Click—. We arrived at the vice-commander's office inside the garrison. Father poured liquor into a small cup.
"Congratulations on becoming an adult, Argent."
I took the cup, turned my face aside, and drank. A fierce, searing burn of strong spirits slid down my throat.
…This is no drink for a coming-of-age ceremony.
The liquor served at such rites was deliberately light—beer, or fruit-laced cocktails. Now and then someone played a joke with something stronger, but Father was not the sort for that kind of prank. Something about the situation felt off.
Once he saw that I had drunk, Father drained a cup of the same harsh liquor himself.
"…So. What is the real reason you came to Basago Fief, my son?"
I didn't know from when, but Father had already seen through every lie I had told.
"…You knew I was lying."
"I've raised you alone for more than ten years. Of course I knew."
"…."
I set a trembling hand on the hilt of my sword.
My father, Hector Caelum, was Vice-Commander of the Starlight Knights under the Empire. He would certainly have received the imperial order concerning the Empire's missing war weapons. In short… the man before me was now my enemy.
If Father ever learned what I had done, I would have no choice but to commit the unforgivable.
"Is it truly something you cannot explain to your father at all?"
Father knocked back another cup of the strong liquor. Then those golden eyes settled quietly on mine.
Bitterness and tension rose together in the silence.
"If you're this unyielding… there must be a reason."
He buried the storm of feeling behind his face and laid a hand on my shoulder.
"Go, Argent."
"…."
"The next time we meet… I will have to draw my sword as Vice-Commander of the Starlight Knights."
"…."
"So don't get caught. Not ever."
"…Yes."
Having dismissed me, Father remained alone in the vice-commander's office and drank the harsh liquor down.
…I'm sorry, Father.
With the regret of a son who had failed in his duty, I pulled my robe tight and at last set out for the treasury I had come to reach.