Splish.
The Judge Tillis walked across a pool of blood toward the mansion.
She moved in a straight line, killing everything that stood in her way.
She didn’t chase those who fled, but anyone who blocked her path was not forgiven.
By the time Tillis who had crushed an entire territory arrived at the mansion…
– Hmph.
It was already over.
The hostage had long been rescued, and Viscount Alec was already a corpse.
– How did it go?
Tillis summoned the demons she had dispatched around the mansion in advance.
She had involved Johan in all this.
But it wasn’t to test Johan.
Rather, it was to gauge someone else’s true intentions through him.
– Was it not the right time?
She could see demons and sense their energy.
The demonic aura lingering near Johan was no different than before.
No—if anything, it was more inflated, as if it could explode at any moment.
That’s why she had laid the groundwork in her own way…
– I suppose we’ll have to wait for the next opportunity.
The Judge set the mansion ablaze.
So that not a single trace of it would remain.
***
A full two nights and three days.
When we finally returned by carriage, morning had already come.
This time, with Melana not around to take the reins, I had to take turns driving the carriage with Yuna.
I was sleep-deprived.
“What the…?”
It was just after we had returned the carriage and dragged my exhausted body to the Cradle.
Someone was there, looking straight at us while visibly flustered.
“You… you’re coming back at this hour? What on earth were you two doing all this time? N-No! I don’t want to know! I saw nothing!”
It was Lobelia.
A man and woman returning together, early in the morning, both visibly exhausted.
Yes, let’s admit it.
It was definitely a situation that could be misunderstood.
“Yuna, let’s just keep quiet.”
“Behbehbeh!”
Still, I didn’t want the misunderstanding to get any worse, so I physically clamped a hand over Yuna’s grinning mouth.
It was obvious that if this girl opened her mouth, she’d start spouting nonsense.
But Yuna, unwilling to let the moment slip by, started licking the palm of my hand that was covering her mouth.
“Ewbehbehbeh.”
Ugh, gross…
You think I’ll let go because of that?
Maybe you don’t get it, but if something’s already dirty, making it dirtier doesn’t change anything, you know?
“It was just a quick trip out at Dietrich’s request. I owe that guy quite a bit.”
“Dietrich… oh, you mean that guy? Hmm…”
“If you’re really suspicious, you can ask him about it later. I’ve got nothing to hide.”
“…If you say it like that, I suppose I’ll believe you for now.”
See? Talking it out works just fine.
As long as someone next to me doesn’t say anything stupid, things can be resolved easily like this.
“Well then, I’ll be heading in.”
“R-Right. Go on in and get some rest.”
And just like that, I returned to the Cradle.
But Dietrich never came around to clear my name.
He didn’t come back.
I get that he’s busy, but he could’ve at least cleared up the misunderstanding before disappearing…
***
A lot of time passed.
No, actually, not that much time passed.
The Cradle still hadn’t shaken off the aftermath of the recent Under Chain incident, and it had only been three weeks.
Still, maybe because things had been rough lately?
The fact that absolutely nothing had happened in those three weeks felt strangely surprising.
“Boring… is the best. Mhm.”
Have I lost my mind?
I almost thought this ordinary daily life was boring for a second.
My brain must be soaked in dopamine.
“Let’s see… this afternoon, I’ll head to the workshop and get some research done…”
I glanced through today’s schedule in my notebook as I thought.
Daily life had returned.
But there was still plenty to do.
There were the issues with Kult and Eden, and also my own personal matters.
I’ve been steadily gathering information.
It’s a bit uncomfortable, but I’ve been getting updates on the internal atmosphere of the Hereticus Marquisate from Cattleya, the head of the Andvaranaut merchant guild.
For now, she seemed to want to maintain a good relationship with me, so this much should be fine.
Just in case, Helena’s artificial heart research was progressing slowly.
Even for someone as brilliant as Emily, it wasn’t quite her field of expertise.
Still, I trusted that someone of her caliber wouldn’t take too long. She was an executive of Ex Machina after all.
“Nothing urgent on today’s schedule. Maybe I’ll go to the library today…”
Cattleya’s letter arrived yesterday, and I got an update on Emily’s research progress the day before that.
The only thing I really needed to worry about today was my own situation.
“Forget that, come hang out with me!”
“Yuna, aren’t you going to study? Exams are coming up.”
“Unlike you, Johan, I actually pay attention in class. And I’m not planning to do well on the exam anyway. We might get sorted into new classes next year.”
“So you’re saying I’ll still be in Class F next year?”
“Exactly.”
“…Right.”
I’m not too confident either.
“Anyway, if you’re going on a date with Lady Ariel, just hang out with me instead.”
“I told you, it’s not a date. I’m going to study.”
“How is that any different from a date? You’ll just be sitting there stuck together the whole time.”
“Still, no.”
And really, you’re the one who’s always clinging to me. Why are you complaining?
Ariel was shy and tended to keep her distance on her own, anyway.
Honestly, dealing with people was exhausting.
Especially because I didn’t want to turn either of them into enemies.
If either one tried to force their will on me, I wouldn’t have the strength to resist.
It wasn’t just emotionally draining. I really couldn’t physically resist them.
But I couldn’t exactly tell the two of them to fight it out between themselves, could I?
I had to step in and mediate properly.
The best solution would’ve been for one of them to give up on me.
No, actually…the best-case scenario would’ve been for both of them to give up on me.
Well, giving up was hard for Lady Ariel because of the connection between our families.
And with Yuna, the problem was that she didn’t listen to a single word I said.
“Anyway, I’ll hang out with you some other time, so just give up for today.”
“Tch…”
Life felt like walking a tightrope at every single moment.
How did things end up like this?
It wasn’t like I was trying to date both of them, but they each held onto one of my legs and refused to let go.
Haah… I guess being good-looking really was a curse…
***
If my relationship with Yuna had started to feel sticky and complicated lately, then the one with Ariel still felt relatively fresh.
“You can think about it this way.”
“Hmm, I see. I think I get it now.”
Honestly, whenever I met with Ariel, all we did was study.
She would quietly and calmly explain things beside me, and I had to somehow extract meaning from her complex explanations.
Maybe it was because Ariel was a genius, but her explanations often felt sloppy and unpolished.
Still, even that was better than nothing, and my magic training had been progressing steadily.
“Come to think of it, Johan, why do you insist on illusion magic? Do you just like it?”
“I wouldn’t say I like it. I guess I just have a talent for it.”
I brushed the question off vaguely.
And with good reason. It was hard to explain.
Talk to my current fiancée about something that involved my ex-fiancée? That would basically be a roundabout way of saying I wanted to die.
So I had every intention of taking this secret to the grave.
And honestly, if she ever found out, I might literally end up in a grave, so it wasn’t all that far-fetched.
“Manipulation magic might actually suit you too, you know?”
“I’ll give it a try next time.”
For reference, Ariel’s special ability [Telekinesis] would fall under the manipulation magic category if it were to be classified as a spell.
It was an obvious suggestion.
But at this level, it was still pretty cute.
At least she wasn’t like someone who kept trying to force me to learn her own techniques.
“Johan, the first semester’s almost over. Do you have any plans for the break?”
“Not really.”
I’d probably just sleep in at the dorms. Or maybe spend time in the workshop doing research.
It didn’t seem like my routine would change much.
Well… maybe a little.
Yuna would be around this break too, so things might get noisy.
Just thinking about how much she was going to nag me already felt exhausting.
“Um… if you don’t have anything special planned…”
At that moment, Ariel spoke hesitantly.
She even hid her face behind her book like she was embarrassed, which meant she was probably about to make some big proposal.
Of course, it was Ariel we were talking about.
Chances were high that she’d suggest going on a date or taking a trip somewhere.
Well, something like that would be a cute request.
I’d gladly accept it.
“Would you like to visit the Damus territory with me?”
“Sure, I’d be happ—wait, what?”
But what came out of her mouth was quite unexpected.
Why was she talking about visiting my territory like she was the one inviting me?
More importantly, it was kind of scary.
What did she need at my house?
Then again, considering we were engaged, it wasn’t that strange of a thing to say…
…from my side.
But what was I supposed to think of a girlfriend who picked her boyfriend’s family home as a date spot?
“W-Well, okay. I guess it wouldn’t hurt to go home for a bit.”
“Then I’ll be looking forward to it.”
Ariel nodded with a bright smile in response to my agreement.
Yeah… you never know what might happen.
There might’ve been some discussion between our families that I just didn’t know about.
Or, like last time when our engagement was suddenly finalized, it could’ve been something that only played out entirely in Ariel’s head.
To be honest, given her history, the latter seemed far more likely.
“Ahem, ahem. Shall we continue studying, then? This formula, you see, is actually…”
And just like that, the conversation ended.
***
Just in case, I contacted home.
– This is the first I’m hearing about it?!
“Ah, I thought as much.”
It seemed there hadn’t been any talk between the families after all.
Which meant, in the end, it was something Ariel had decided entirely on her own.
She really had no fear, saying she wanted to visit our family home like it was nothing. I couldn’t tell whether she was fearless or just unusually sociable.
At any rate, I didn’t think I’d ever be able to ask her if I could visit the Ether Duchy.
Just thinking about it made my stomach churn.
– We’ll have a lot to prepare, huh?
“I doubt Ariel would care about that kind of thing. Wouldn’t it actually be better to just show her things as they are?”
– You realize how ridiculous that sounds even as you say it, right?
“Yes.”
Still, we were talking about a duke’s household.
Even if Ariel didn’t mind, there’d be no stopping the mouths of the servants she would bring with her.
We didn’t need to throw a dazzling party or anything, but we’d have to at least make it look like we’d made an effort.
Of course, none of that was really my concern.
The family would handle it.
Wasn’t that part of why they accepted the engagement in the first place?
– Johan.
“Yes?”
– What are we going to do about the flower bed?
“Hmm…”
There was a flower bed in the backyard of our house.
Until I came to the cradle, I had tended it myself.
Now, the servants were the ones taking care of it.
“No need to hide it from anyone. Let’s just leave it as it is.”
– Then you take care of that problem yourself.
“Yes.”
In truth, the security in our backyard was quite solid.
At the time, I had been a little crazy, so I had saved up what little allowance I had to set up a decent security system.
Didn’t I say it before?
That our backyard would be safer. That hadn’t been an empty boast.
Though Ariel was someone with skills nearly on par with an archmage. There was no way a system like that could harm her.
Aside from that, it would actually be one of the few interesting sights in our house.
Well, even so, I’d still need to disable it in advance.
– So, when exactly are you coming back?
“If nothing unexpected happens, I think I’ll be leaving next week.”
– That soon? Wait, the semester hasn’t even ended yet!
“Oh, you hadn’t heard? This time, there are no end-of-term exams, so the break’s a bit longer. Seems the Under Chain’s terrorist attack damaged a lot of the facilities, so everything’s been pushed to next semester.”
That’s why the field training had to be done off-campus as well.
For the record, aside from the incident with Kult and Helena, the training had ended without any major problems.
– How am I supposed to know anything when my own son doesn’t tell me a thing?!
“I didn’t think it would matter much.”
Originally, I hadn’t planned to come home for the break.
The distance was one thing, but the back-and-forth just seemed too exhausting.
The way things turned out was entirely because of Ariel’s impulsive actions.
I was not to blame. It wasn’t like I could have said no to her.
If I had, there might have been a disaster with Ariel marching off alone to the Damus County.
I swear, I wasn’t standing by. I was preventing a disaster before it could happen.
– Haah… Fine, what’s done is done.
“You accept things quickly. That’s admirable, Father.”
I could hear my father’s teeth grinding from the other side of the mirror.
Hmm. He really was getting on in years. He was already making me worry about his dental health.
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