Chapter 55

Chapter 55. Journey to the Capital

“I don’t like it, but through the spar I have learned that you possess sufficient skill, and that you are not a child who can simply be ignored.”

Without even touching the tea that had been poured for her again, she glared at me.

“Under other circumstances, I would have sent you off at once to become a knight in some remote mountain village....”

No, wait. In that icy voice, I could have sworn I had just heard something that sounded rather good.

“But now that you have accepted Her Highness’s invitation and are going to the capital together with my son, I can no longer send you away like that.”

I gave a bitter smile inwardly. If this had happened when I had first obtained my ability, I might well have interrupted her and asked her to send me off to some remote mountain village as a knight instead.

But now I had already gone through far too much to leave that way.

What she said next was entirely different from what I had expected.

“While you are in the capital, I will not concern myself in the least with whether you build connections, improve your skill, or become famous.”

I had expected her to tell me to keep my head down and stay quiet, but instead she was saying I could live as I pleased. What was she thinking?

But judging by her expression, she was not expecting anything from me at all. It did not seem that she looked down on my skill, so... was it simply because of the nature of the capital itself?

In any case, if she was saying something like this, then there had to be a condition attached.

“I care not what you do, so long as you help Manuel return home safely.”

Ha. She had wrapped it up in all sorts of fine words, but in the end she was asking me to protect her son.

“And if you ensure that Manuel returns to the territory without incident, then I shall also treat your mother Amanda far better than I do now.”

And on top of that, there was a veiled threat mixed in. Quite an effective one, too.

That was hardly different from saying that if I failed to protect him properly, she would not leave Mother in peace.

Well, given the Duchess’s personality, it was unlikely that she would kill Mother just because something went wrong, but the torments of a proper noblewoman, the kind I had only read about in books, were far from mild.

Being ostracized by all the servants, constant manipulation and sowing discord... It was not difficult at all to wear a person down completely.

“You can do that, can you not?”

To be honest, it was something I could easily have done as a brother, and after the spar, my feelings toward Manuel were not particularly bad, so I had already intended to help him if I could.

Still, hearing it put like this left a sour taste in my mouth.

I lowered my head again and asked her,

“So long as Brother Manuel returns to the territory in one piece?”

She looked slightly displeased at my use of the word brother, but she nodded.

“That will be sufficient.”

“Understood.”

So long as he came back alive, with only his body intact, that would do, right?

I would have to gather plenty of potions beforehand and find a healer as well.

If an arm or a leg got cut off, could it be reattached? Were there perhaps revival mages or necromancers somewhere?

With thoughts like these running through my mind, I left the Duchess’s drawing room that day.

Ah, I must have thought back on that at the wrong moment. After our eyes met, the Duchess’s gaze sharpened slightly. Careful. Very careful.

After that, I said farewell to Mother, whose eyes were full of sorrow, and received the tearful send-off of the maids before Manuel and I climbed into the carriage and left the estate.

It was my second journey beyond the territory.

And the first step toward standing on my own.

---

Unlike the route to the marquess’s house, the road from the ducal territory to the capital stretched onward through low rolling hills and vast open plains.

There were no mountains at all on the horizon, and fertile-looking but neglected fields spread endlessly in every direction.

Perhaps because of that, the journey toward the capital, the center of the kingdom, was an extraordinarily peaceful one.

A broad, well-packed road stretched endlessly ahead, and people could often be seen passing alongside the carriage.

Of course, at the sight of the knights and soldiers, and the luxurious carriage itself, they all hurriedly stepped aside, but there was no extreme fear in their eyes.

Moreover, until we left the ducal territory, and even while we passed through other lands, there were no monsters or bandits to be seen upon the road.

As the leisurely journey continued, the soldiers, the servants, and even Angel, the knight leading our party, gradually relaxed and began to enjoy the trip.

Sir Angel, unlike the other knights, was not one with whom I was particularly close. I had gotten to know quite a few knights by now, but whether the Duchess had chosen well or not, this was one knight I hardly knew at all.

Of course, it was not as though I knew every knight in the territory, but with Sir Angel, it felt more as though he had deliberately kept his distance from me.

In any case, as the idle hours continued, Manuel, who had kept pointedly ignoring me inside the carriage, finally spoke, apparently because he had grown bored.

“Just who is this patron who summoned you? I can’t understand it no matter how I think about it. Bringing an illegitimate son all the way to the capital just to educate him... I don’t understand why Father allowed it either....”

The Duke, and naturally the Duchess as well, knew exactly who the patron was, but they had not told anyone else.

On top of that, the Duke had warned me as well to keep the matter as quiet as possible.

It was a very Duke-like reason: to keep House Gresia from being dragged into pointless political strife, and for my part, I intended to stay as quiet as I could to avoid being drawn into trouble.

Well, if it had been Simon or Manuel receiving the Queen’s patronage, perhaps they would not have kept it secret, but since that was never going to happen, I intended to keep my mouth shut as much as possible.

“You must know, at least. Even when I asked Mother, she only said I didn’t need to know....”

No, if you were told that you did not need to know, why are you asking me? You should have just kept your mouth shut.

“I do not know the details myself. And the Duke told me not to speak of it to anyone....”

“Ah....”

As expected, Manuel was afraid of the Duke too. At the mere mention of him, Manuel stopped questioning me at once.

But my brother did not stop at merely ending his questions. He added a completely unnecessary excuse on top of it.

“No, that’s not why I was asking. Whoever your patron is, they’re surely not paying for all your living expenses as well, are they? I mean, you could stay in our house in the capital, or in a dormitory, but what about all your other expenses? Surely Father didn’t give you separate support?”

Actually, before departure Mother had given me money, but I could not take it. It was obvious at a glance that it was all the emergency savings she had put together over time, and I could not simply swallow that money whole the way I had in my previous life.

On top of that, I had accumulated quite a bit of my own money over the years.

The gold coins and gems I had stuffed away during the tomb exploration had not yet been exchanged, but they were certain to amount to a considerable sum.

I would be able to live perfectly well in the capital on my own money alone.

Ah, right. Before departure, the Duke had also sent me some money through the Head Steward, calling it an allowance to maintain appearances.

It was not much, and he had not even handed it to me himself, but I accepted it with a grateful expression.

It was free money. There was no reason not to take it.

That money was hidden deep in my clothes and baggage.

After several days of either camping out or borrowing vacant houses in villages to rest and take meals, we passed through a small territory and stayed one night at the estate of its lord, a baron.

The lord of this territory was a distant relative of the Duchess, and the baron’s children were also going up to the capital at the same time.

“Welcome. It has truly been a long time since I last saw you, back when you were little.”

A richly dressed middle-aged man greeted us in the lobby on the first floor.

Since he was from the Duchess’s side of the family, I had expected him to treat me with some contempt, but unexpectedly, he was even courteous to me.

After greeting Manuel, he came toward me and laid a hand upon my shoulder.

“I have heard that you are an excellent swordsman. Simon, Manuel, and now you as well. It seems a blessing has come upon the ducal house.”

He seemed to know quite a lot about me.

Which only made it harder to understand.

In the lobby stood two women with utterly opposite temperaments. They were likely his wives.

And beside them stood a boy and a girl who looked to be in their early teens.

They were probably the baron’s children who would be traveling to the capital along with us.

As I looked around, our eyes met, and the reactions of the boy and the girl were completely different.

The girl, the moment our eyes met, gave me a wink, while the stiff-faced boy glared at me.

‘Good grief. They say girls grow up faster than boys, and I suppose it’s true.’

But perhaps because of her age, although she was trying very hard to imitate the behavior of a sly temptress, it still looked painfully awkward.

Then again, if I had been an ordinary child, perhaps I might have fallen for it. Her face was certainly quite pretty.

But since I was not at all an ordinary child, her performance only struck me as pitiable.

The boy’s reaction, on the other hand, was rather adorable.

‘Yes, that’s what a boy of that age ought to be like.’

The baron’s friendliness had felt suspicious, but the boy’s face made it obvious that it was nothing more than an act.

The baron himself, his wives, and even his daughter could conceal their true expressions and put on a performance, but it seemed that had been too much to expect of his son.

‘I don’t know why he’s putting on this act, but I’ll need to stay on my guard.’

It did not feel like the sort of behavior the Duchess, who always valued noble propriety above all, would have ordered of him, but in any case, I needed to steady my carelessly softened mind.

After renewing that resolve inwardly, I smiled warmly at the boy glaring at me, filling the smile with all the gratitude I could muster.

Flinch!

At my smile, the boy reacted as though he had been startled out of his wits. His face turned bright red, and he no longer knew what to do with himself.

‘Oh? Yes, this is how children ought to be. He’s so innocent. It’s refreshing.’

After spending so much time seeing that little fox of a girl, as well as old-before-his-time Simon and childish noble Manuel, the sight of a boy actually acting his age naturally brought a pleased smile to my face.

Thanks to the boy’s flustered reaction, the dull greetings passed by quickly enough.

After the greetings were over, the baron led us brothers to the dining hall.

There were nobles who would invite even the knights accompanying their guests into the hall, but apparently the baron was not that sort of noble.

I was quite tired from the journey, but perhaps because this was still a noble house, the meal dragged on for a very long time.

There was the baron and his wives with their empty, substance-less chatter. Then there was the son’s grumbling, and the daughter’s strangely flirtatious behavior.

“As you know, my children will be heading up together with you, so I entrust them to your care.”

“Please do not worry. I shall do my utmost.”

At the baron’s words, Manuel thumped his own chest in reply.

So the factions were already beginning to form before we had even arrived? Well, the boy might not be an heir, but it would not be a bad thing to move in the company of the son of a duke.
Manuel had surely heard many things from Simon as well, so he would not do anything reckless.

Though would he really not? Hm. That part worried me a little.

“I’ve heard that you’re an extraordinary swordsman. They say you can even spar with grown knights. How can you possibly do that? You’re truly amazing.”

The baron’s son aside, and even the baron himself and his wives, who were clearly trying hard to be polite, seemed to find it difficult to speak comfortably with me. But his daughter was entirely different.

She continued speaking and behaving exactly like a grown woman trying to seduce a man.