Chapter 310 Those Who Begin to Move
Edited by: Kanaa-senpai
At the northernmost tip of the Empire territory, in a position exactly opposite the Frontier Settlement¹, lay the territory of Viscount Pelant. Within the office of the Lord’s manor, two men were present.
One was a portly man in his sixties who sat in a chair, making no effort to hide his displeasure toward the man in front of him. The other, under that man’s gaze, was a servant whose whole body was stiff with tension; his back was pressed flat against the door as he stood perfectly still, reading aloud the contents of the letter held in his hands.
”‘…Furthermore, I send these modest items as a token of friendship. I sincerely hope that our respective territories will prosper for all eternity. Neil Atmiras’… so, so it says.”
”A token of friendship, you say?” Viscount Pelant asked.
The portly man narrowed his eyes and turned his gaze toward the wooden box the servant had placed at his feet.
”The contents?”
”Ye-yes? What did you just—”
Because he was clinging to the door, keeping as much distance as possible, the servant had missed his master’s mutter. It was just as he tried to step forward to catch the words.
Suddenly, fire erupted from beneath the servant’s feet, and the flames coiled around his body.
”Gyaaaaaaagh!?”
The servant screamed in the pain of his entire body being scorched. The moment he rolled around on the floor, the fire vanished as if it had never existed from the start.
”Ugh… guuua…”
”When did I ever give you permission to approach me?” Viscount Pelant demanded. “Try such a thing again, and it will not be the distance between us that shrinks, but your lifespan.”
”I… I am deeply sorry…” the servant stammered.
”Hmph. Well? How long do you intend to stay like that? The contents of that wooden box—”
The man turned his gaze toward the wooden box again, but when the servant had been rolling around, the box at his feet had been kicked away. The contents had tumbled out and shattered.
”A plate?”
”Hie!? M-my deepest apologies! Please, have mercy!!”
Realizing he had kicked and broken it himself, the servant pressed his head against the floor in apology.
”Please… at least spare my life…!”
”…Hey.”
”!!”
”Clean up that trash and vanish from my sight immediately,” Viscount Pelant said.
”Y-yes!”
Would there be no punishment for breaking the gift from Neil? The natural question crossed his mind, but fearing that saying anything further would touch his master’s royal wrath, the servant disregarded the shards piercing his fingers. He hurriedly gathered the remains of the shattered plate scattered on the floor and rushed out of the room.
”Haa… every single one of them is a useless fool who cannot even perform a simple task. No contact has come from those I sent to that Atmiras brat either. I suppose I should consider it a failure.”
While spilling words that sounded like a complaint, the man muttered them as if they were a matter of course, without any sign of actual frustration.
That was to be expected; from the start, the man never thought his plan would succeed. He knew it was an unreasonable demand, and anyone with a sane mind would naturally reject it. The man’s true purpose was to see what kind of reaction Neil would give to his actions, and through that, probe what kind of person Neil Atmiras was.
Being in noble society, rumors of Neil would enter one’s ears whether one liked it or not, so he had a general grasp of his character. The man’s prediction was that no reaction was the most likely possibility, followed by seeking a compromise, or—though almost impossible—sending a letter of protest. He had thought those were the three choices.
”To think he would send a token of friendship… I have been quite looked down upon,” the Viscount muttered.
The moment contact from the person he hired with money ceased, the man realized the failure of his plan. He was almost certain that his scheme had been exposed to Neil at that stage, but despite that, Neil had sent a token of friendship knowing of the man’s plot. For Neil, it was an action taken thinking, ‘It was just an unfortunate misunderstanding, we can still become friends,’ but from the man’s perspective, Neil’s action of trying to form a friendship while knowing of the scheme felt like he was saying, ‘I can see through your plots anytime, so it’s no problem.’
One factor that gave birth to such a misunderstanding was the plate Neil sent. Although Neil could draw to some extent, he was naturally far from the level of a professional artist’s work. The reason Neil’s works were praised was due to his own fame and the novelty of the pieces. To a person who didn’t know that, it looked like nothing more than a ‘strange patterned plate with lines here and there.’ A suspicion was born within the man: ‘Did he send a cheap plate sold at a roadside stall somewhere while calling it a token of friendship?’ This became the reason he thought Neil was mocking him.
From Neil’s perspective, it was nothing but an unfortunate misunderstanding, but for the servant who had just received the man’s anger, it was a lucky misunderstanding. As mentioned before, Neil’s work was highly evaluated among Empire nobles due to his fame and novelty, but in addition to that, the fact that there were few of them increased their value immensely. Owning one of Neil’s works had become a status symbol.
Because they were extremely rare, no one would let go of them easily, and they were not something that could be obtained simply by piling up money. Therefore, if the man had known that the plate earlier was Neil’s work, the servant would not have gotten off easily.
”Now then, what to do?”
Due to the Dhru Wheat matter as well, Neil’s existence was a great eyesore to the man. In addition to that, the man misunderstood that Neil was mocking him, but he showed no sign of expressing anger regarding that.
In a different sense from Neil, this man was someone uncharacteristic of an Empire noble. Despite being an Empire noble, he did not care about appearances, and his reputation among the citizens and fellow Empire nobles was the worst. Especially among the Empire nobles, he was a person famous for being the noble one would most like to avoid interacting with.
Empire nobles aim to make their own house, and by extension their territory, prosper. On the other hand, this man thought that neither his house nor the prosperity of the territory mattered. If anything, he thought that whatever happened to the house or territory after he died was none of his business.
He himself was the most important thing in everything; he was faithful to his own desires and had no mercy for those who obstructed them. Normally, it wouldn’t be strange for such a noble to be dealt with by those who inherited Grelego’s⁴ will, but the man had lived until today acting according to his desires without trembling in the shadow of Grelego. That was the terrifying part of this man, and the greatest reason why the Empire nobles all avoided interacting with him.
”Shall I use ‘Pediros’³?”
While the man valued his own life, he did not fear death.
If he had to live a long life contrary to his desires just to avoid dying, he would rather meet his end while following his desires. The wish itself was very mundane and common, but the man’s status and values changed such a wish from something common to something worst-case.
Neither status nor wealth would be of any use after death. If so, there was no meaning in leaving such things behind when he died. That was exactly why this man—Viscount Broome Pelant—had no hesitation whatsoever in sacrificing the Viscount House and the territory (everything) if it was to fulfill his wish.
* * *
Located south of the Kingdom’s capital was a town, and slightly further east from that town was the settlement where the Lycus² lived.
The Lycus, who were discriminated against even by the people of the same Kingdom, found it difficult to live within the town. They lived peacefully by having their own settlement and keeping interaction with the outside to a minimum.
A single letter arrived at that settlement from the outside. It was a letter from Bearty, who had gone missing.
The first ones to receive that letter were Bearty’s parents. While the two were leaning against each other reading the letter sent from their daughter, the door of the couple’s house opened roughly and a woman burst in.
”Uncle! Auntie! I heard a letter came from Betty!?” Foru shouted.
”Foru? You’ve returned?” her uncle asked.
”I heard a letter came from Betty and came back in a hurry! That’s the letter, right! Let me see!”
The woman called Foru snatched the letter before obtaining the couple’s permission and read it with a demon-like expression.
The contents written there stated that she was doing well, that she was currently in the Empire, that she had been kindly protected when she was collapsed on the road, that she was currently practicing reading and writing, and that for this letter she had thought of the sentences herself and copied them while looking at something someone else had transcribed into characters for her, and that she would be in the Empire for a while longer, and that she would definitely return home so she wanted them not to worry.
In this letter, there were a few points where information was intentionally blurred; those were the specific location of Bearty and information about her employer. Originally, Neil had intended to write the letter without hiding anything, but Bearty, who knew the overprotectiveness of her tribe, said that if she wrote her location honestly they would definitely come all the way to the Frontier Settlement. Neil also agreed that it would be bad if more Lycus came to the Frontier Settlement, so specific locations and information that could lead to guessing it were omitted.
”I can definitely smell Betty from this letter, but… Uncle, was this letter the only thing sent?” Foru asked.
”That’s right,” he replied.
”If so, then what does this mean?”
The woman who read the letter was perplexed. It was the same regarding the sudden arrival of a letter from Bearty, who had been out of contact, but the part that stuck out the most was the part about Bearty being protected.
The Lycus were the dark side of the Kingdom; they were called ‘filthy dogs’ not only by foreign countries but even by the people within their own country. Could there really be a person who would kindly protect such a Lycus?
(That girl knows too little about people from the outside. She’s surely being deceived. Even if so, what is that person’s goal in making Betty send a letter?)
The first thing that came to mind was a ransom demand, but only Betty’s letter had been sent, and no letter demanding a ransom was enclosed. Though the woman thought there must be some ulterior motive due to her distrust of outsiders, here too, misfortune occurred for Neil.
Neil, who had blurred the location and related information on Bearty’s advice, had blurred only that information so conspicuously that the fact he was trying to hide something was conveyed to the woman. That became the cause of accelerating the woman’s misunderstanding.
”Foru, do you think that girl is alright?” her aunt asked.
”…I don’t know, but no scent of blood drifts from this letter at all, and I think there’s no lie in the part about her doing well,” Foru replied.
’I don’t know about her spirit, even if her body is fine,’ she thought, but the woman did not put it into words so as not to make the couple any more anxious. Instead, the woman turned her gaze toward the envelope that the letter had been contained in.
”Auntie, can I check that envelope too?”
”This? Sure.”
”Mm, thanks,” Foru said.
Whether she had calmed down somewhat, this time she did not act as if snatching it, but received it while saying thanks and sniffed the scent.
”There are scents of many people. The strongest is the scent of the servant from the Twize house who always comes. Did that guy bring the letter?”
The woman continued to sniff the scent as if to confirm further.
Bearty made two mistakes. One was that as a result of advising to keep her location unknown, she conversely fueled the anxiety of her kin, and—
”Eleven people in total, huh. Yeah, with this, I can trace it.”
It was that her kin, who were overprotective to a sickening degree, wouldn’t give up just because the location was hidden.
”Uncle, Auntie, I’m borrowing this letter and envelope!”
”Are you going?” her uncle asked.
”Of course. Betty is like a sister to me, and besides—”
The woman wore the best smile she could muster to ease the couple’s anxiety even a little, but the moment she turned around and her face could no longer be seen by the couple, that face was clouded with sorrow.
”The reason that girl jumped out… is probably because of our home.”
* * *
The place was the Empire’s Frontier Settlement. Within the Clinic prepared for the priests who came from the Theocracy, Inquisitor⁵ Espera was in a private room on the second floor.
Moonlight shone through the window, slightly illuminating the bed. On that bed, Espera was clutching the wooden box that had been handed to her by Pope Arcanimus a few days ago.
”……”
Espera remained silent with her gaze dropped to the box, but her hand repeatedly moved to open the lid only to stop, and then moved to open it again only to stop.
”Just what am I doing?” Espera whispered.
Espera ruminated in her heart the conversation she had with Arcanimus a few days ago.
”I act for the sake of ‘me’? No, I am me but not ‘me’. That is why I act for the sake of me.”
While uttering words that seemed contradictory, Espera shoved the wooden box she was clutching into the bed’s side table and threw herself onto the bed.
”But, if so, what was ‘her’ wish? Was ‘she’ trying to tell me something? If it was going to be this painful, I wish everything had been left hidden.”
Espera muttered as she pressed her hand to her chest, feeling her heart ache, and curled her body up like a fetus.
”…Hey, tell me, ‘Grandmother’.”
Who was the grandmother Espera spoke of? Was it the old woman who was the Pope, or someone else? The only one who knew that now was the existence called “me” that Espera had mentioned many times.
—
Summary:
Viscount Broome Pelant reveals his selfish nature and misunderstands Neil’s peace offering as an insult. In the Lycus settlement, a letter from Bearty arrives, but its vague details lead her kin to suspect foul play. Meanwhile, Inquisitor Espera struggles with a mysterious item and her own identity in the frontier settlement.
—
Character Insight:
This chapter highlights the stark contrast in perception between characters. Broome Pelant’s narcissism and lack of artistic knowledge turn Neil’s genuine gesture into a perceived slight, driving him toward a scorched-earth decision. Similarly, Bearty’s attempt to protect her family from her own overprotective kin by hiding her location backfires, as her friend Foru interprets the secrecy as a sign of coercion, showing how even good intentions can lead to conflict in a world defined by deep-seated distrust.
—
Behind the Scene:
The author notes that this chapter combines three perspectives that were too short to stand alone, marking the final update of the year and setting the stage for new developments in the next year.
—
T/L:
Notes:
• Grelego – Ally of the empire. The one who judges those who harm the empire.
• Broome – A Viscount of the Empire’s northernmost territory. He is a portly man in his sixties with an extremely selfish worldview, caring nothing for his family name or territory’s prosperity. He is known as the noble other aristocrats most wish to avoid.
• Bearty – Gray-haired Lycus girl from a remote settlement, ran away from overprotective family, appears after collapsing from exhaustion, becomes the girl Neil protects and mentors.
• Foru – A female of the Lycus race who considers Bearty to be like a younger sister. She possesses a sharp sense of smell and a protective nature.
• Espera – An Inquisitor (middle clergy rank) of the Pentis faith from the Theocracy, serving as the official point of contact. She is characterized by her crisp tone and brutal honesty, defending the necessity of charging high fees (‘fair compensation’) to maintain their resources and aid the suffering. She possesses a cool, assessing gaze and is highly perceptive, noticing Bearty and closely examining her distinctive features before choosing to leave without incident.
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Edited by Kanaa-senpai.
Thanks for reading.
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