Chapter 58

Chapter 58. Secret (1)

At the late breakfast hour, before the meal even began, Manuel rebuked me with a stern expression.

“I heard you snuck out in the middle of the night? Do you not understand that doing such a thing while visiting another noble house is a breach of etiquette?”

His voice was low, but he laced it with mana so that it carried loudly enough for everyone to hear.

To the others, it must have looked like a perfect example of a noble scolding his younger brother.

Perhaps because of that, the baron’s wives looked at Manuel in surprise, while the baron’s son stared at him with admiration.

Of course, I knew Manuel was simply doing his best to imitate the Duke.

Unlike usual, I bowed to Manuel with proper courtesy.

“I apologize for causing you concern. I will be more careful.”

“Y-yes. Good. So long as you understand.”

His voice wavered slightly at my answer, but Manuel quickly recovered himself and apologized to the baron.

“Please allow me to apologize on my brother’s behalf for the disturbance during the night.”

“Haha, it is all right. It was not as though anything actually happened. We were merely worried that there might have been an accident.”

I lifted my head slightly and looked at the baron and his daughter.

Despite his answer, the baron’s expression was quite stiff, while his daughter was looking at me as though she found all of this entertaining.

Damn. We nearly met eyes.

I immediately lowered my gaze and began eating the food that had just been brought out.

Then I heard the baron’s voice again.

“It is a long journey. Would it not be better for you to rest here one more day? The children may need more time to prepare as well.”

Just as I had expected, he was trying to make us stay longer.

“Ah, I am sorry. I would like that as well, but there is not much time left before the day of enrollment.”

Oh, when he was in proper noble mode, Manuel really did know how to say the right things. His upbringing truly had been thorough.

“I see... then it cannot be helped.”

Contrary to my expectations, the baron gave up easily.

Curious, I glanced at his reflection in my knife. As he spoke, the baron was looking at his daughter.

It felt as though he still had something else in mind.

But having already died once, I had no intention of sitting around to see that hidden scheme through.

The rest of the meal ended without incident.

Not long afterward, our party gathered again in front of the estate.

The soldiers and knights who had stayed in the detached building were already waiting there with the carriage.

The baron’s son and daughter each said their farewells to their respective mothers.

The son’s farewell was no different from that of any other mother and son.

“Be careful even after you get to the capital, and write if anything difficult happens.”

“I will manage just fine, so please do not worry. And you take care of your health too, Mother.”

A worried mother and a son full of confidence.

But the mood on the daughter’s side was strange.

“I am going.”

“Y-yes. Go safely.”

At her farewell, the baroness answered in a stammer.

She looked almost afraid of her own daughter. On top of that, there was relief in her voice.

“Hmph!”

At that, the daughter let out a contemptuous snort and turned away.

The son also finished his goodbyes and headed for the carriage.

Throughout all of this, the baron said nothing.

It seemed that he was not especially close not only with his daughter, but with the rest of his family as well.

“Thank you for your hospitality. While your children are in the capital, I will do my utmost to look after them.”

At Manuel’s words, the baron nodded with a satisfied expression.

At least outwardly, it was a perfectly satisfactory farewell for him as well.

Manuel and I both boarded the carriage.

Unlike before, four of us were riding in it now, but as expected of the ducal household’s carriage, there was more than enough room.

“Wow, a great noble house truly is different. From the outside, it did not seem all that different, but is this what it means to have real substance inside?”

The baron’s daughter looked all around the interior, constantly exclaiming in admiration.

The baron’s son also looked around in fascination, and Manuel began explaining various things to them.

In the meantime, the carriage left the village behind, and by the time the sun began to set, we had completely departed the baron’s territory.

“We will need to camp tonight.”

At dusk, one of the mounted knights rode up to the carriage and informed Manuel.

Manuel gave permission, and the carriage train came to a halt.

The servants and soldiers traveling with us began preparing camp, and we climbed down from the carriage as well.

Watching them prepare supper, I took my greatsword down from the carriage.

“Why are you taking out your sword?”

At Manuel’s question, I grinned.

“I was thinking of doing a little hunting. My body feels stiff.”

“We already have enough food prepared for supper. And it does not look as though there would be any game around here....”

One of the soldiers preparing the meal spoke up.

He was right. There were trees here and there, but this was the middle of a vast plain.

Still, I shook my head.

“I am only doing it for practice, as always. If I am late, just eat first and go to sleep.”

At my answer, the soldiers and knights accepted it easily enough.

During the journey to and from the Marquess of Hierro’s House, I had often done things like sparring with the marquess’s bastard son, or wandering off at night to train like this.

Manuel looked displeased, but perhaps because I had bowed my head at breakfast, he let it pass without comment.

“It is our first day together. Please stay and eat with us, won’t you?”

The baron’s daughter clasped her hands together at her chest and pleaded from the side, but all it did was send a chill down my spine.

“I am sorry. This is a habit of mine.”

I lowered my head and strode away from the campsite.

As the camp receded behind me, I gradually increased my speed.

After running for quite some time and putting plenty of distance between myself and the camp, I turned around.

My destination was the baron’s territory we had left that morning.

I drove mana into my legs and kicked off the ground.

Boom!

Since we had spent half a day traveling at a relaxed pace, it should take around two hours to return if I ran at full speed.

---

I stood atop the hill from which I had watched the estate the previous night.

Two hours in total. That was how long it had taken me to get from the campsite to this hill.

Fortunately, I had not encountered anyone on the way, and once I neared the village, I had gone in a wide circle to avoid people before arriving here.

It was not exact, but nearly forty kilometers. It felt as though I had just run a marathon.

“If this were my previous life, it might have been an Olympic record....”

Without mana, such speed would have been utterly impossible regardless of age.

Sweat was pouring from my whole body like rain, and I wanted nothing more than to lie down and rest, but instead I quietly circulated mana.

As I spread the mana that had heated my legs throughout the rest of my body, it soaked into my violently pounding heart and lungs, and my condition gradually improved.

“Phew....”

A little later, I drew in a deep breath. My body had already returned to normal.

“Good.”

Mana truly was unfair.

Once I had confirmed my condition, I headed down the hill.

A few rooms in the estate were still lit because it was not yet terribly late, but the night was cloudy enough that it was easy to conceal myself.

Avoiding the soldiers standing at the front gate,

I climbed over the wall again, crossed the maze-garden, and headed not for the main entrance, but for the place below the room where I had slept.

There was no chance the main entrance would be open at this hour, and if I forced it open, it would certainly cause a commotion.

“Hup.”

When I reached the place beneath the room, I gathered mana into my hands and climbed the wall.

Perhaps thanks to all the experience I had accumulated doing such things in one place or another, I reached the window of the room I had slept in yesterday with ease.

After that, I placed a hand on the window, then pulled with a hand charged with mana. The window came with it.

Creeeak.

The window opened with only a small sound.

Fortunately, the latch holding it shut was still broken from what I had done that morning.

I had broken it before leaving because I thought I might return, and just as expected, no one had fixed it yet.

The window was the same, but the room itself had been cleaned.

It was enough just to confirm that no one was there.

I crossed the room and stepped into the dark corridor, heading for the baron’s room.

I had already learned which room was his before leaving. The innermost room near his daughter’s chamber. Like other nobles, he used it alone.

The corridor was quiet.

Yesterday—or rather, before I died, so perhaps earlier than that.

In any case, back then, even if people had been asleep, my sharpened ears had still picked up the little rustles of life, the faint sounds of people living within the house.

But now, the entire estate was steeped in a heavy silence, as though no one lived there at all.

For all the care I had taken, there was not a single trace of a person in the corridor by the time I reached the baron’s room.

And yet it was definitely not late enough that everyone should already have been asleep....

A short while later, I arrived before the baron’s bedchamber.

After preparing a route of escape, I cautiously sent mana into the room.

‘Damn. Was this a wasted trip?’

I could sense no sign of anyone inside.

And yet I had heard that at this hour the baron was always in his room.

Clicking my tongue softly, I carefully opened the door.

Fortunately, it was not locked.

When I opened it, I found the baron’s study, which also served as his office. Beyond it, I could see the half-open door of the bedchamber. The baron was nowhere to be seen there either.

Just as I had felt from outside, there was no one in either the study or the bedroom.

Had he moved elsewhere this time because his children had set out on their journey? Still, I had heard that he was almost always in his room at this hour unless something quite unusual had happened.

It seemed that all the information I had gathered here and there had been for nothing.

Even so, I could not go searching the whole estate for the baron.

Officially, I was more than forty kilometers away right now, wandering through the woods and hunting.

If someone caught me while I was looking for the baron, it would be troublesome. In any case, I was still too small for a disguise to help much.

Just as I was wondering whether I should turn back,

the empty study struck me as strange.

At first glance, it looked like a perfectly ordinary study, yet it somehow felt different from the Duke’s office or from the rooms in the ducal estate.

‘Wait...’

It was the exact same feeling I had sensed in the marquess’s residence, where there had been a secret passage.

“Of course. A proper noble’s study ought to have at least one secret door.”

I began searching the study at once.

Surely there were nobles who possessed abilities like psychometry, or some power that let them find traces of people or hidden doors.

Unfortunately, I did not possess such an ability.

But mana gave me something else in its place.

Hoo.

I drew in a deep breath.

Then I sent mana into my ears and eyes, and even into my nose and skin—into all five senses.

Wooooong.

The dim room brightened, and all sorts of scents came into focus.

Ssssh, crackle.

And then I began hearing sounds that I had not been able to hear before. The faint rustle of documents shifting in the breeze, the flicker of candle flames, and the sensation of air brushing lightly past my ears.

Huh? The air was moving?

But I had closed the door behind me, and the windows of both the study and the bedroom were shut.

I stood still and focused on the flow of the air.

I roused every sensory nerve in my skin and concentrated until I could almost catch the movement of individual air molecules.

Faintly, but unmistakably, I could feel the air moving.

It was not flowing toward the door by which I had entered, nor toward the closed windows.

The bookshelf?

The direction of the air’s flow led straight toward the bookshelf packed with books.

Very slowly, and with great care, I began moving toward it.

The faint current of air was indeed slipping out from between the bookshelves set against the wall.