SML Ch 92

Chapter 92

A Restful Interlude (7)

In the manor’s dining hall, Alex and Heide, having somehow shaken off the shock from the study, put together a modest dinner. At times they ate with Reynald, but today the lord had said there was much to look into; he grabbed a few sandwiches and holed up in his office, groaning over work all evening.

They reheated leftover stew from the previous meal and dipped hard bread crusts into it. Neither had much appetite, so the meal was closer to forcing food down than eating with any pleasure.

“To be honest, I’ve lost my appetite too. Ever since going to the fae realm once, my stomach’s been churning…”

“You worked so hard today, Mr. Heide. Are you really all right, health-wise?”

[O]

Though the question hadn’t been aimed at the clockwork doll, the doll sitting on the edge of the table drew a clear circle in the air, and Heide let out a sigh of relief. Alex, however, continued to eye the clockwork doll with deep suspicion.

Frankly, after what had happened in the study today, taking that thing’s words at face value was difficult. Was it hiding something important, like “the body’s fine but there’s a different problem,” and deliberately keeping silent…? When Alex flicked the doll’s cone hat with a finger, the doll snapped and tried to bend Alex’s finger back. What a brazen little brat.

Heide only laughed, as if even that was cute, and set the cone hat back on the doll’s head. It felt like spoiling it would only make it conceited, but Alex didn’t bother to say so aloud.

“Well, leaving us aside, the lord is what worries me most… If that strange bastard bursts out of the study to take revenge on the lord, what on earth are we supposed to do? He didn’t look in his right mind at all.”

“He didn’t look in his right mind? What kind of person is that Fae King?”

“Can you imagine Prince Arun if he looked like he was always angry? The moment something didn’t go his way, he’d shout and grab people by the collar, and it was terrifying. When he was in a foul mood, he’d even casually slit the throats of his own underlings. And they were so cowed they neither got angry nor tried to stop him…”

Of course, the face that resembled Prince Arun must have been an illusion. Heide added this with a shudder. But Alex sensed that wasn’t the truth. The so-called Fae King had to be connected to Prince Arun in some way or another.

Alex recalled Arun in the midst of that slaughter, surrounded by fae. Unlike the Fae King who supposedly always raged before Heide, Arun cut the fae down with a calm, affectless poise, and that was more frightening than yelling or roaring could ever be.

In that moment, Arun seemed less human and more akin to a fae. Perhaps that was why the fae called him “the prince of the fae.”

“They said countless other beings from beyond—not just the fae—would come to this land. Honestly, that worries me more…”

“I can’t imagine what’s about to happen in this backwater. That Fae King said our village has always been a place that easily draws in unclean things. A hundred years ago, similarly strange beings came to this land and wreaked havoc.”

“…Haah.”

“They even said humans invaded once, too. It’s one thing with monsters—who knows what goes on in their heads—but humans barging into a rural backwater like this? Nothing better to do, I suppose.”

Heide’s words made Alex’s thoughts swirl chaotically. He instantly knew who those “people with nothing better to do” were. Knights who had carved strange sigils into their armor, heavily armed and heading toward this village, noble-born at a glance.

Alex knew that sigil. How could he not? It was the emblem of Alex’s own house.

“They were definitely my ancestors. No matter how many decades pass, I wouldn’t fail to recognize that blazon… But why?”

Once regarded as the finest knightly line in the southern kingdom, theirs had declined at some point, until it was a fallen house barely keeping the name alive.

The swordsmanship passed down for centuries grew duller year by year, the once resplendent estate fell into neglect and dust. Even as a child, Alex knew the ground beneath his feet was collapsing.

—Damn it, this is absurd! Even if our fortunes are waning, was our sword ever that pitiful? Are you telling me the head of our house—who has served the kingdom for centuries—lost the post of Knight-Commander to that red-haired commoner brat? That orphan from who-knows-where is in some kind of sordid relationship with the king…!

—Please calm down, elder brother! The youngest can hear you! You know that wasn’t the issue. From the outset, that sparring match was never a fair contest!

After suffering some failure in the capital, their father returned home and drowned himself in drink. The brothers sank into despair, brawling morning and night, or muttering incomprehensible things under the sway of strange books unearthed from the depths of the library.

—Don’t worry, little brother. There will be an opportunity for revival.

—We failed ninety years ago, but this time we’ll raise the house again. If we seize this chance, we shall regain our former glory…

No revival ever came. The house collapsed thanks to the brothers’ unbelievable deeds. The estate, which had withstood centuries, fell to flame. Left alone, Alex drifted without anchor until he reached the far northeastern edge of the kingdom.

And today, watching the scenes in the Theater while leaning against Reynald, Alex understood. The “opportunity for revival” his brothers had spoken of may have meant this very land.

“Should I tell the lord?”

Half of him said yes, since it concerned the Selection; the other half wanted to bury the past. Since coming here, Alex had revealed neither his true name nor his family to anyone. He was ashamed of his house’s shabby fall.

He had no idea what his second and third brothers had intended to use in this land to revive the family. But they had abandoned sword training itself, obsessing over unknown magical experiments until they drew unfathomable monsters into the fief.

In the end, they were devoured by the very monsters they had summoned, and the estate’s innocent servants and the fief’s common folk were thrown to the beasts as fodder. It was a glorious self-destruction with no one left to blame.

“Our house is already ruined,” Alex told himself. “Those knights I saw a hundred years ago will never come here again. So even if I don’t tell the lord…”

Hadn’t that one-armed youth in the Theater said as much? That a century later, things would have changed and the small matters wouldn’t matter. Alex used such thoughts as an excuse to justify his silence. He simply lacked the courage to expose his family’s disgrace to that strong and kind lord.

Meanwhile, as Alex wrestled with those thoughts, Heide drifted deeper into his own mutterings.

“What on earth is sleeping in our village? No—if something is sleeping here, isn’t it stranger that we never knew?”

“……”

“I’ve lived longer than you lot, so I fancied I knew a fair bit about this place, but everything’s new to me—the study’s true nature, this thing called the Selection. I don’t even know why we mustn’t dig into what’s buried underground.”

“……”

“Even if truly dangerous things happen only once a century, aren’t we going to keep living on land where something strange lies sleeping? If so, then we, at the very least, should learn what it is. We can’t live knowing nothing—that makes no sense at all…”

There was a peculiar gleam of madness in Heide’s eyes as he muttered on and on. The clockwork doll, which had been adjusting its cone hat and tidying itself, squinted and floated up to hover right before Heide’s nose. The key set in its back turned with a slow, grating krrik-krrik.

Even then, half-entranced, Heide kept whispering only, “We must know.” When ready, the clockwork doll raised both arms toward Heide and clapped the ends together with a crisp smack.

At that instant, Heide drew in a sharp breath.

“…!”

[…]

“Hm? What is it, clockwork doll? Do you have something to say to me?”

[X]

The strange light that had ruled him was long gone. The easy calm and leisure had already returned to his face and eyes. When the clockwork doll traced an X with its hands and spun round and round doing a strange dance, Heide laughed and patted its head.

“Or were you worried about me? But you just said it, didn’t you—that my body’s fine. Just to be sure, my head’s fine too, right? I’m not bewitched by those fae bastards, not gone strange, not obsessing over something bizarre—are you certain that’s not happening?”

[O!]

The clockwork doll drew a vigorous circle, then abruptly kicked Alex in the head. Lost in thought, Alex took the unexpected blow and started shouting at the doll, while Heide chuckled and watched the peaceful scene.