Chapter 56

Chapter 56. The Baron’s House (1)

She was young too, but what she was saying to someone even younger than herself was so inappropriate that I looked around at the others, only to find that every one of them was deliberately looking away.

What in the world was this now? It really was one incomprehensible thing after another.

Even so, outwardly, the meal came to a peaceful end.

“It seems I kept these tired travelers with me for too long. Since we leave again tomorrow, I should end things here.”

With that remark, spoken in maddeningly perfect noble courtesy, everyone rose from their seats.

When we went out into the lobby after the meal, there were people there I had not seen before.

A young man and woman who looked like travelers.

The man bowed his head toward the baron as he came out of the dining hall.

“Thank you for your hospitality. We shall take our leave now.”

“Very well. You’ve done well.”

The baron smiled with satisfaction as he saw them off.

Everyone else had gathered to one side, while I happened to be standing slightly apart from them, so the pair passed close by me as they headed for the entrance.

They were both rather handsome.

Though they wore ordinary clothes, neither their gait nor their faces looked anything like those of common people.

Still, they had nothing to do with me, so I lowered my head slightly and let my interest fade.

But things did not end the way I expected.

The moment he brushed past me, I heard something utterly unexpected.

“You would do well to leave this place as quickly as possible.”

It was said in a voice so quiet that only I could barely hear it.

But the meaning was not something I could simply ignore.

Startled, I looked up, but the man who had spoken had already gone right out the door without so much as a change in expression.

Judging from the calm backs of the two as they walked away, it almost felt as though what I had just heard must have been my imagination.

---

Once they were some distance from the estate, the woman, who had been walking in silence, shot the man a sharp look.

“What in the world were you thinking? We’d wrapped everything up neatly, so why would you say something like that? What would you have done if things had gone wrong?”

“Hmm? Did it scare you that much? This is contract work... no, work done for money. Once we’ve been paid and done everything required, that should be the end of it. Whether the job succeeds or fails has nothing to do with us, does it?”

At his teasing answer, the corners of the woman’s eyes rose higher and higher.

“Is that really what you have to say? It may not be organizational business, but if this fails, our credibility will obviously suffer!”

“Well, it’s not as if one little sentence would make it fail that easily.”

At last, the woman shook her head and sighed.

“Haah, but why did you say it?”

“The boy is a bastard of the ducal house, isn’t he? We failed with the Marquess of Hierro’s House, but even there they wrapped one of the bastards around their finger and used him well enough. If he somehow comes through this alive, he’ll remember what I said, won’t he? If I leave even a thread of connection like that, it might be useful later.”

Apparently pleased with his own words, he nodded enthusiastically.

“Mhm, mhm. As expected, I am a magnificent strategist who thinks far into the future.”

At that, the woman pressed a hand to her forehead.

“As if that’s the reason. You simply took a liking to him again, didn’t you?”

“Well, there is that too.”

He grinned at the woman.

“Do you remember when we first met you? That child had quite an interesting look in his eyes too. He didn’t look like some worn-down noble’s child, nor like some bastard filled with resentment. He looked like the sort who’d become very interesting if you watched him long enough.”

He glanced back over his shoulder.

“Well, that is, if he manages to get out alive.”

---

After the two of them left, I was so distracted that I could hardly remember how I had even been shown back to my room.

Because, after hearing the man’s voice, a message appeared before my eyes for the first time in quite a while.

[An event has occurred. A new ‘save point’ has been set.]

I certainly had not died, nor had I awakened any ability.

I had merely met someone I did not know.

---

Though I was still young, the baron’s house gave me a room large enough for me alone.

Late at night.

Shown back there, I sat on the bed and sank into thought.

The strange behavior of the baron and his family, the words left behind by a stranger, and now the unexpected appearance of a new save point.

Not one of those things was ordinary.

“Things really have been too comfortable lately.”

Since the tomb exploration, life had been one long stretch of ease.

I had not died, either.

“Haah, something is definitely wrong if ‘not dying’ has become my standard for comfort.”

After sighing over my situation once more, I rose from my seat.

Something was wrong, and I could not simply wait around with my hands folded.

“I can’t just sit still and end up dead.”

Perhaps the experience of dying back when I had been too young to do anything had become its own kind of trauma.

Well, now I had skill that did not suit my age, so it did not seem likely I would die easily, but even so, I had no intention of simply waiting to be struck down.

“I’ll just call it a moonlit walk.”

Or perhaps I could say I woke up in the night needing to relieve myself.

‘Yes, I’m still just barely young enough for an excuse like that.’

I rose, drew up the mana hidden deep within me, and spread it out into my surroundings.

Wooooong.

Nothing caught.

At the very least, it did not seem that anyone was hiding nearby and watching me.

I checked the dagger hanging at my side.

I had brought the greatsword with me too, but I could not very well carry it inside someone else’s house, so I had left it in the carriage.

Still, this dagger was an extraordinary weapon despite appearances.

I wrapped awakened mana around my body to make myself lighter, then stepped out into the corridor with my footfalls muted.

Because it was so late, the corridor was dark and quiet.

But thanks to the lamps set here and there along it, it was not difficult to look around.

‘Still, what exactly should I be looking for?’

I had come out into the corridor, but it was awkward now that I had to decide where to go from here.

Just because I sensed something wrong and suspicious did not mean I was guaranteed to find something in a single night, nor could I be certain that something would happen tonight in particular.

‘Well, if nothing else, I can really make it a moonlit walk.’

Ever since my awakening, going one night without sleep was not much of a burden on my body, and if nothing happened while my room was left empty, that would not be such a bad thing in itself.

With that in mind, I relaxed and began walking down the empty corridor.

A silent hallway in which even my own footsteps could not be heard because I had wrapped them in mana.

Only the swaying lamps cast their dim light over the lavish corridor.

And it was while I was walking leisurely like that—

“...Do we really have to do it?”

A faint sound entered my ears.

It was a sound I never would have heard if my hearing had not been enhanced by mana.

A young woman’s voice, full of dissatisfaction.

A sigh escaped me on its own.

As expected, there was no way it would end like this.

I moved toward the source of the voice.

Past the guest rooms, all the way to the inner quarters where the baron’s family resided.

As I had expected, it was the baron’s daughter’s voice, coming from her room.

Pressing myself against a corner of the corridor a short distance from the door, I listened carefully.

“You said all I had to do was act friendly and bind his feet in place. Wouldn’t breaking his arms or legs, or just badly injuring him, be enough? Even if he’s a bastard, if someone dies, there’s no way this will pass quietly!”

As I listened to the daughter’s protest, I sent mana into the room.

My mana slipped past a strange resistance and seeped inside.

There were two people in the room.

One was surely the baron’s daughter.

“You needn’t worry about that. I will take care of it myself. All you have to do is exactly what I tell you.”

Judging by the voice, the other was the baron.

Was that about me? Was the father ordering his daughter to kill me?

“Haah, honestly, I don’t know why I had to be born into a family like this.”

At the daughter’s grumbling, full of disdain, her father answered flatly.

“If you remembered all the trouble I went through cleaning up after the things you’ve done, you would never dare say such a thing. If not for me, you’d have been executed long ago.”

“Hmph. That was when I was young and didn’t know anything. I don’t do things like that anymore.”

Click.

The instant her words ended, the closed door opened.

Huh? There had been no one standing near the door just a moment ago.

“You see? Even while we’re having this conversation, I’m watching the area properly. I found the little rat listening in right away.”

‘Damn it, have I been found out?’

I had no idea how I had been discovered, but it seemed I needed to retreat at once.

I circulated mana and kicked off the ground.

Thunk!

Huh? The foot that should have pushed me off sank deeply into the floor.

It had definitely been stone a second ago. As I struggled to pull my leg free, the corridor and the ceiling began to ripple as well.

From where I stood all the way to the far end of the corridor, the walls and floor began moving as if alive.

An illusion? No, I could still feel real substance there.

This was undoubtedly the other person’s ability.

There were no windows in this corridor, and whether it was illusion or not, trying to run straight through it now was far too dangerous.

‘Damn it, I really hate this, but I don’t have a choice.’

In the end, the only option left was to break through head-on.

Stepping over the heaving floor and walls, I leaped through the open doorway.

Inside was a drawing room connected to a bedchamber.

For a baron’s daughter, it was an unusually large and splendid drawing room. Unlike the corridor outside, it looked entirely normal.

Inside were exactly the two people I had sensed with my mana.

The baron and his daughter. At this late hour, both were dressed in outdoor clothes and sitting across from one another.

When she saw me burst into the room, her eyes widened into circles.

“My, my~ and who might this be? You really startled me, little brother.”

Her tone was entirely different now.

Yet even under the lamplight of night, with those wide eyes, she looked quite lovely. In just a few years, she would surely become a young lady who turned heads at noble gatherings.

The baron, too, once he turned and saw me, wore a peculiar expression. Was it mild disbelief, perhaps?

What now? Should I fight? But it did not quite feel like the right atmosphere to strike first.

No—the moment I thought about attacking, alarm rang out from somewhere deep inside my body.

I changed my expression at once.

“The corridor outside started moving. I couldn’t sleep, so I got up. I was walking down the hall and got lost, and then just now it was like the floor and walls suddenly started moving like they were alive. Is there a ghost here?”

I poured out the words in a rush, my face full of alarm.

“Ah! My goodness, did it frighten you that badly? It seems the young master saw something strange while half-asleep.”

She rose from her seat with a sympathetic expression.

The baron frowned slightly as he watched her.

“Come with me. I’ll take you back to your room.”

“Would you? Thank you.”

Even while I smiled back and spoke to her politely, the sense of danger only intensified as she approached.

“Come now, take my hand.”

The instant she lifted a hand toward me—

I hurled myself toward the window, swinging the sword at my waist with all my strength.

Crash!

The blade never reached her.

Her body slid backward in a long sweep, and the stone floor itself surged upward to block my sword.

The stone was cut apart, but that was all.

As I had expected, that behavior of hers had all been an act.

“Hm, as expected, you weren’t fooled. And your acting was quite good too. I almost wanted to hug you.”

I could hear her laughter from behind the wall of stone that had risen up, but I was already running for the window.

And, wrapping my entire body in mana, I hurled myself toward it with all my strength.