The Cost of Running Away
“Well… ahem, there are rumors that the Klein lady does not get along well with the young duke. It would not do to spread such talk, so I shall take my leave.”
“Oh my, do tell me more, Sir Banit! Do not go yet—please, tell me?”
Even as they applauded the late count, many noticed the young lady’s face twisting in displeasure. She had fled without so much as greeting her brother. They hid their mouths behind fans and opaque wine glasses, whispering every scrap of rumor they knew or invented, as though nothing had happened.
Before long, a few choice rumors would be refined into the reputation of Tiana Marietta Klein.
Meanwhile, Dot, who had fled in a panic, immediately decided on her destination.
“Haa, haa, haa…”
She trembled inside the carriage. Frustration. Injustice. She wanted to go mad and kill anyone who crossed her path.
Her long-suppressed aggression surged back all at once. Dot stopped by the Honest Worker’s Guild. Unable to endure any longer, she intended to carry out the final task she had been saving for the right moment.
Burn down Grace Monastery and have the still-amnesiac fool Morgana killed.
The first request would be accepted for the right price, but the second might prove difficult. Even so, she would see it done. After all, fortune had been smiling on her lately, had it not?
She was the kind of person who achieved her goals no matter what—Tiana Marietta…!
“Welcome.”
“Aaaah!”
Following the guild guide into a quiet request room, Dot screamed. That voice should never have been here.
The woman who had thrown back her black hood did not flinch at Dot’s piercing shriek. She merely chuckled.
It was Saintess Capia.
Why was she here? She should not have been!
“Y-you… you!”
Click.
The door through which Dot had been ushered shut behind her. She stumbled toward it in near-faint terror.
She was trapped!
“Open it! Open the door at once! Do you not know who I am—?!”
She pounded on the door and screamed, but received no answer.
Are they all in league? How dare they treat me this way? Gilton! You knew I was coming, did you not? Open this door immediately. You cannot treat me like this!
The corridor remained silent.
“……”
Was the only way forward a direct confrontation?
Dot’s reddened eyes glared at her enemy across the spotless desk, empty save for a vase and a single book.
The Saintess met that gaze with composure. In Capia’s eyes, this child was nothing more than a young snake whose fangs had not yet fully grown. Why should she fear her?
“What is it? Do you think you can do this to me and walk away unscathed?”
“You show no courtesy even to the Saintess. Tsk, tsk. Cornered, and already revealing your true colors.”
“Answer me!”
“You would do well to lower your voice, fake lady. If someone beyond this door overhears our conversation, the one in trouble will be you, not me.”
“W-what…!”
Even as her mind raced for an escape, it went blank.
‘F-fake? Me…? So she knew all along. She deliberately sent me to the ducal house as the lady, fully aware of everything!’
While Dot stood dazed from the lethal blow, Capia, now holding the upper hand, spoke at leisure.
“There is much I could lecture you on for your rudeness and arrogance, but first, there is something I must show you. Even at the cattle market, one shows the cow before naming the price, does one not? To determine whether it is prime stock, diseased, or a mongrel. I intend to make you painfully aware of your true position.”
Dot’s manner of speech was already a problem, but addressing the empire’s lady—fake though she was—in such terms was utterly insolent.
Their mutual resemblance only fueled the renewed clash.
“Open it.”
Capia commanded with authority.
Was someone else in this room?
With a sharp rustle, the curtain was flung open, revealing a single figure. Dot’s eyes, now unfocused, recognized the man and she recoiled in horror once more.
Beyond the glass partition that divided their space stood a man with vacant eyes, slumped and limp.
“That’s… that’s…!”
Lumint!
The second brother she had pushed off the cliff! He had survived?
Capia chuckled at the fake lady’s terrified expression.
“Heh heh heh… Do you understand now, fake lady? Or should I call you Dotricia Caris? You were clever enough to change your name to Dorothea when you entered the ducal house, yet you were far too careless.”
“Ugh…”
“You should have burned the entire Sionel territory instead. How many people named Dotricia do you imagine exist within the empire?”
Dot’s hands dropped limply onto her thighs.
Me… being cornered like this…
Capia smiled in triumph at the fake lady who had lost even the strength to argue.
“You were simply born wrong. Do you understand?”
“……”
Have I pushed her too far? She can barely respond anymore.
Capia intended to extract everything she could from this girl who was like a venomous creature, having suffered long enough already. Only after the light had completely vanished from those eyes would she cast her into the abyss.
Her refined, low voice struck Dot’s ears like a blow.
“You are in the palm of my hand. Every undeserved honor, title, and coin you have enjoyed until now—not to mention the requests I sent to monitor your family’s movements—would be more than enough to strangle you.”
You will always be a fake.
Even without further explanation, Dot’s eyes grew so dizzy she seemed on the verge of death.
Her face drained of color, Dot bit her lip and suddenly lifted her head.
‘Wait. The Saintess is certain I am the fake. Then… does she know that Morgana is the real lady and is doing this anyway?’
She swallowed the saliva pooled in her mouth and voiced her long-cherished wish.
“Kill her.”
“What? Heh heh… Are you serious? You would give up just like that? You are weaker than I expected.”
The fine hairs on Dot’s face stood on end. She was staking everything on this one gamble.
“You know that is not what I mean. You… you know who the real lady is, do you not?”
“Even now, you are trying to probe me?”
The eyes that had been clear before reaching the count’s house were now filled with venom.
“Kill Morgana… the mage Pay of the Magic Tower. If you do that, I will cooperate with whatever you want to the fullest.”
“Ha! You still do not grasp the situation, foolish child. Do you truly believe you can negotiate with a stolen position?”
Dot lowered her voice.
“Think carefully. Morgana may be a fool who does not know she is the lady, but she is a mage of the Tower and the crown prince’s right hand. If she ever realizes the truth, what do you think will happen? Neither you nor I will survive…”
Thud.
Capia slammed both hands on the dust-free desk and rose to her feet.
With a glance, she had the curtain drawn shut again, then spoke coldly.
“You ought to be groveling at my feet, yet even in this state you remain insufferably arrogant. Truly stubborn and vicious.”
“I was merely telling you to face reality.”
Dot, growing frustrated, raised her voice.
“You should face your own reality!”
“……!!”
Capia’s upper body leaned sharply forward.
The wrinkles that might have seemed kindly to someone in the temple now looked to Dot like proof of long-harbored malice.
Her gaze was more wicked than that of any mage in the Tower.
Hot breath, reeking, washed over the bridge of Dot’s nose.
“Very well. I shall make you fully aware of the situation you are in. Look forward to it, fake lady. Since you have been cured by my holy water, it is only proper I give you a gift. This will be our last chance to converse as ladies. From now on, you will beg and repent before me.”
As the Saintess moved, her subordinates followed. Soon, from beyond the curtain came the sound of Lumint being dragged away like baggage, accompanied by pained groans.
Dot covered her ears and squeezed her eyes shut against the horrifying sobs that seemed to rise from hell itself.
I am afraid. I am terrified. I hate all of this!
After a long while, Dot finally regained her senses and opened her eyes. Everything had been neatly tidied, as if it had all been a lie.
An empty request room. No trace of the Saintess or Lumint. Only she remained.
If only she had misheard those words “look forward to it,” if only all of this were a dream. She should never have left the ducal house in a fit of pique.
Though terrified to death inside, Dot could not accept the horrific reality and fled the Honest Worker’s Guild as if escaping.
She had no desire to seek out Gilton and demand answers, nor to confront the head maid. She simply wanted to forget.
The next dawn, in front of the Klein ducal residence.
“…cannot!”
“Ugh…”
“What is all this commotion?”
The Klein Duke, who slept little, had been awake and taking a morning stroll when an odd noise reached his sensitive ears.
The knight following him narrowed his eyes.
“I shall go and see.”
“No need. It is not far. Let us go together.”
The duke strode toward the source of the noise.
The sight of young green leaves turning deep blue-green and tender branches hardening escaped his notice entirely.
Among the servants arguing near the ducal wall, one lowered his head.
“My apologies, Your Grace. A vagrant was leaning against the outer wall, so we tried to remove him. He did not seem to understand and kept muttering to himself, so we sent for a cart.”
“What?”
The duke looked at the beggar surrounded by servants.
The man showed no fear of the strangers. Though the servants were large enough to enforce their will, he appeared completely unaware of his situation.
His eyes were unfocused, his lips cracked and pale, with almost no sign of care. His clothes were in tatters, the fabric so filthy it had lost nearly all protective function.
‘Tsk, tsk.’
Though the poor lived in the capital, they rarely approached the Klein residence. The estate lay somewhat removed from the bustling districts, and soldiers patrolled nearby.
How had someone unable to even support himself reached this place alone? His family must have abandoned him here to avoid the soldiers’ eyes.
‘How cruel. To cast aside one’s own family simply because times are hard?’
As the duke fell silent in thought, the servants who had failed to remove the intruder quickly grew nervous.
“We shall remove him outside at once. Please do not be angry.”
“…No. It is not yet morning. There is no need to be harsh with the poor.”
“Pardon?”
The duke was not a devout follower of the temple, yet he still held to the principle of showing mercy. The Saintess had come in his absence, and his wife had driven her away in fury, even erasing the traces of holy water from the stele.
He had no intention of wasting this opportunity to do good.
“There is the men’s quarters far from the main house, is there not? Rigret House should suffice. Take him there, feed him porridge, change his clothes, and let him rest. Once he is stable, send him to the infirmary with this money as well.”