Chapter 60

Chapter 60. The Capital

According to the rambling story he spilled out in no particular order, the Duchess was not here.

Nor had the Duchess ordered him to do this.

What was more, it had been a very long time since he had last seen her.

He claimed that after seeing her at a ducal banquet and falling in love at first sight, he had spoken with her privately and sworn her his blind loyalty.

And even without her asking, he had sent her information about the first duchess, sent her gifts, abandoned his family and wives, and clung to her in blind devotion.

It seemed she had even sent him letters of thanks in return.

But apparently not one of those letters had spoken of adultery or whispered love.

“Our love is not something so base! It is not something a child like you could ever understand!”

When I pointed that out, that was the sort of nonsense he shouted.

So in the end, this had all been the work of a married man who had fallen into an affair, or perhaps simply into love, all by himself.

The conclusion naturally drew a sigh out of me.

Of course, there was no way he had fallen in love all on his own. The Duchess had clearly guided him into it.

Looked at another way, it was a truly terrifying ability.

To make people grow fond of her, and then keep that affection alive long enough to make them do something like this.

If she had become a politician or lived in the capital, she might well have thrown the entire kingdom into chaos.

But now, she would likely spend the rest of her life growing old in lonely isolation in some corner of her family’s estate.

Thankfully, it seemed I would not need to alter my plans or my schedule for going to the capital.

Surely another lunatic like this would not appear again.

“Beloved Maria, I prepared all of this for you. I even found a child for you. And....”

By now, he was half out of his mind, babbling incoherently.

There were no other parties involved, so it was time to finish this as planned and return.

I picked up the sword the baron had dropped.

It was an ornate blade.

I drove it deep into the babbling baron’s chest.

His body shuddered once, then his breathing stopped.

I released the sword and stepped back.

Against the background of the room in disarray, the baron sat with his own sword buried in his chest.

Even in death, his vacant gaze remained fixed on the portrait.

I clenched my hand tightly.

In my previous life, I would never have dared to do something like this, but to survive in this world, I had already been forced to do worse things, and would likely have to do them again.

And yet, my hand kept feeling as though something had been smeared on it. Even when I rubbed it against my clothes, it did not feel as though it came clean.

After rubbing it for a long while, I let out a sigh.

The hand I was wiping against my clothes was trembling.

As expected, no matter how much I tried to ignore it, killing someone like this was not easy.

Even with a mind that had endured countless deaths, this young body could not remain untouched by the shock.

Once I admitted that to myself, the trembling stopped.

That was a relief.

After steadying myself, I set about wrecking the room even more.

Then I slashed the portrait and splashed wine over it as well.

When I stepped back to look after finishing, the room now resembled the chamber of a man who had gone on a drunken rampage before taking his own life.

Anyone who examined it closely would notice things that did not add up, but I was certain his wives would deliberately look away from such details.

Even if someone found it suspicious and dug deeper, it did not matter.

No one would connect it to a young boy who was, officially, camped dozens of kilometers away.

There were a number of valuables lying scattered across the floor, but I ignored them all and left the room.

Instead of retracing my steps, I continued onward through the underground passage.

If this was really the secret passage of a noble estate, then surely the other end would lead to some hidden exit beyond the mansion.

Sure enough, after running through it for a while, I found a staircase leading upward and an iron door fitted with a mechanism at the end of the passage.

I climbed the stairs and inspected the closed door.

It was a mechanical door built with wheels and leaf springs.

Apparently it had been used more often than one might expect, because the seams of the door were polished smooth. When I turned one of the wheels with force, the door opened easily.

Rrrr.

When I opened it and climbed up, I found myself inside a half-collapsed house.

It seemed to be an abandoned house. Or perhaps one disguised to look abandoned.

The house stood in an isolated place a little way from the village.

Rrrrk.

When I stepped outside, the door shut itself again, apparently thanks to the spring mechanism.

The door leading underground had been very well made.

Though it was made of iron, it was difficult to distinguish from the rest of the floor.

Moreover, it looked difficult to open from the outside even with my strength.

Still, there was no reason to open it again, and no need to.

I stepped outside the house. It stood some distance from the village.

All around me were ruined houses. It was as though only this part of the village had been abandoned after some incident.

It was still dark outside. Dawn was still far off, but given the distance, I had to hurry.

“Let’s go.”

I slung the sword over my back and took a deep breath.

Then I began running again.

By the time dawn broke, I had made it back to where our party was staying.

Everyone was still asleep except for the guard on watch.

Avoiding a half-asleep soldier whose eyes were fixed dully in one direction was easy, and I was able to approach the carriage without a sound.

And just as I was about to climb in—

“So you’re only coming back now?”

A voice stopped me in my tracks.

It was a sleepy girl’s voice.

The baron’s daughter. She was sitting with her back against the carriage, still dressed in her travel clothes.

“You still haven’t gone to sleep?”

“It would be impolite to fall asleep first when someone has not yet returned.”

She answered with a soft smile.

Her smile shone brightly in the first rays of the rising sun, but unfortunately it meant nothing to me.

It was not the kind of smile that bewitched people like the Duchess’s.

“But surely you didn’t come back empty-handed? You said you were good at hunting.”

She looked me up and down, tilting her head.

Her face showed only puzzlement, but her eyes had become very sharp.

“There was less worth catching than I expected.”

I shrugged, then dragged back the thing I had thrown down at the edge of the campsite.

Scrape, scrape, scrape.

When I dragged over something several times bigger than myself, the soldier on watch jumped in shock.

“Ah! Isn’t that a boar?”

At the sight of a boar far larger than an ordinary one, the soldier made a great fuss, and everyone sleeping under blankets woke up and came out to stare at the beast I had brought back.

After dragging it all the way before the carriage, I looked at her and shrugged again.

“I only managed to catch one. Everyone was asleep, so I just threw it out there.”

At my words, the sharpness in her eyes vanished, returning to normal. Then she let out a sigh and stood up.

“I’m glad you came back safely.”

The tone said relief, but the words carried the faint complaint of someone whose efforts had gone to waste.

The soldiers and servants all crowded around the boar, chattering excitedly, and only then was I able to let out a sigh of relief myself.

I could have arrived at least an hour earlier, but I had brought that thing just in case. It seemed to be proving far more useful than I had expected.

Still—

Why had the baron’s daughter stayed awake all night waiting for me?

A foolish young master who knew nothing would perhaps imagine that she had waited because she had fallen for him, or because she had some angelic heart.

I could not entertain such thoughts in the slightest.

I stared hard at her retreating back as she climbed into the carriage.

---

Breakfast afterward was remarkably lively, all thanks to the boar I had brought back.

“So you stayed up all night just to catch that? How ridiculous.”

Though he had been startled by the unexpectedly huge boar, Manuel sneered at me just as he always did.

Naturally, neither I nor the others paid him any mind.

The noble siblings from the baron’s house watched all of this with fascinated expressions.

Manuel grumbled, but everyone else was pleased.

That was only natural. Food on the road was never especially good.

The boar was butchered immediately by the soldiers, whose work depended on their strength, and its meat went into the morning soup.

After eating our fill of the decidedly not-breakfast-like meat soup, we set out again.

Out of the territory and on toward the capital.

As we continued our journey, I found myself wondering whether I ought to leave Valea alone.

In the baron’s case, even if I returned to the past again, he would still be someone who meant me harm, so I could not leave him alive. But in Valea’s case, that was not so simple.

Her personality seemed dangerous, and the ability she possessed was extraordinary, but now that the baron was dead, I could not tell whether she would really become a threat to me.

Even she herself had not seemed eager to obey the baron.

And yet, leaving her alone sat poorly with me, so the question only grew heavier the longer I thought about it.

Thankfully, she did not let her mask slip even once before we reached the capital.

And so, one week later, we finally arrived there.

---

The capital of the Kingdom of Carlos. The city where Sir Carlos the Hero, after defeating the Demon King alongside the Hero, returned to his ruined homeland and founded the kingdom.

Before he established the kingdom, the city had gone by another name, but afterward it came to be called Palma, after the name of his sword.

Before our eyes spread a vast city enclosed by enormous walls.

It was a city many times larger than Meseta City, the capital of the Duke’s territory.

“Wow....”

As we passed through the main gate, even the soldiers who had never before seen the capital let out one admiring sound after another.

The baron’s son and daughter were too busy looking everywhere to keep track of themselves, and even Manuel was unable to stop his eyes from roving in every direction.

I too was honestly impressed.

The city was far larger than I had imagined.

Buildings rose five stories or higher, and there were people everywhere, along with wagons and horses. Yet the streets were not especially filthy, nor did they smell bad.

The capital of the kingdom was far more bustling and complicated than Meseta, the capital of the ducal territory, but it was still a city pleasing to behold.

We passed through the gate without even undergoing an inspection and headed straight for the residential district.

The ducal residence in the capital, where the Duke and members of the House stayed whenever they came to the city.

Naturally, it was smaller than the residence back in the territory, but as befitted the Duke’s dignity, it was a stately three-story mansion in an upscale neighborhood.

People were already waiting in front of it.

A middle-aged man who appeared to be the butler stood by the entrance with several maids in uniform.

“Welcome.”

They bowed to Manuel, but the message they delivered next was not for him at all. It was for the baron’s son.

“A message arrived from the baron’s house by communication magic. You are to return at once.”

The butler handed him a letter.

A magic communication marked with the crest of the Mage Tower.

After opening and reading it, the baron’s son frowned. His face showed shock, then complete uncertainty.

“What happened?”

When his younger sister asked, he handed the letter to her.

Valea checked its contents, then let out a low exclamation.

“Oh! Father is dead.”

When she raised her head again, her face was full of grief, but I remembered the tone of that exclamation.

There had been delight in it.