Chapter 127
Chapter 127
Contact with Cassis has been cut off for a month.
Still, according to what I hear through Isolini, both Cassis and Roen are alive, not dead. The situation isn’t good, but they’re managing.
It seems that while contact with me has been cut off, reports are still being made.
<Roen said he misses seafood.>
<…Lord Roen doesn’t usually eat seafood.>
<That’s why he appears to be doing well.>
Oh…
Regardless, communication ceased one month in.
And two months in, demonic beast outbreaks spread across the empire.
I came down to the south to overturn the game.
The reason I came to the south was to find the unknown person who eliminated all the demonic beasts and contributed to city stability.
“Uweeeek!”
“Oh my.”
I gently stroked Yen’s back as he threw up outside Vroom-Vroom.
“Aack, don’t hit me! It hurts!”
“Oh my.”
I gave Yen’s back one more slap and then hopped out of Vroom-Vroom.
The place where Yen and I have arrived is a leisurely territory in the south, Count Seike’s domain.
“It’s been quite a while here as well.”
It just so happened that the southern cities bore the brunt of the demonic beast attacks. The individual credited with the ‘holy light’ remained in the south, and since our family was based there too, we naturally made our first stop at Count Seike’s lands.
Since we used Vroom-Vroom to come down here, I didn’t separately notify my younger brother Ijin, who is the current master of Seike.
After parking Vroom-Vroom in Seike’s garden, I quickened my steps toward the mansion I had missed very much.
From afar, I saw the butler who, thinking I was a guest, approached, then recognized me, and his expression brightened visibly.
“My lady!”
“Hello! It’s been so long!”
“What brings you here? You always seem so busy that I’ve only been getting news of you through the newspapers!”
“I missed everyone so much. I had business in the south, so I came straight to our mansion.”
The butler welcomed me warmly and then pointed at the haggard Yen behind me.
“Who is this?”
“This is the number one contributor to our ‘Lu & Cream’ and my minion number 2.”
“Ah, I see.”
“Not number 1, but number 2?”
“Yes.”
Yen just sighed deeply once and greeted the butler.
“I am Yen Kavitz.”
“Pleased to meet you, I am William, the head butler of the Seike Count’s mansion. You may call me Will for short.”
Just as the three of us were engaged in what barely qualified as small talk, a voice called out from behind, “Sister?”
“Ijin?”
“My goodness, it’s my sister! Sister!”
When I turned around, there stood a man who had grown so much that I could hardly remember what he looked like the last time I saw him.
However, just as he had been at the imperial party where we last met, still young and fresh-faced, he ran to me and embraced me tightly.
“What brings you here, sister? You didn’t even say you were coming!”
“I just came by. Wanted to see your face.”
“Wow… why did you come so late? I really missed you.”
My brother was already taller than me before I left, but seeing him again after so long, he seemed even bigger than then.
I patted Ijin’s back and buried my face in his chest, inhaling deeply.
The fresh smell of wine, the sweet and sour scent of grapes, and the earthy smell that lingered at the end. These were smells I loved and had forgotten for a very long time.
“It really has been so long…”
* * *
“So how did you get here?”
Ijin asked while pouring wine.
“I came riding Vroom-Vroom.”
When I pointed to my cute and lovely ice cream truck Vroom-Vroom outside the window, Ijin glanced at it curiously.
“Be it Grand Duke Luwin, House Luwin, or even you, sister, isn’t the imperial court’s control notably strict? The number of checks and balances is overwhelming…”
That’s right.
Despite neglecting his own duties, the Emperor kept me in check even though all I did was tirelessly work to maintain the empire’s peace on his behalf.
At every turn, he would accuse me of being blinded by money. At every turn, he would block even teleport gate movements, saying my intentions were impure.
“That’s why I came riding Vroom-Vroom. All the teleport gates were blocked.”
That’s why I had to bring Yen, who hates riding Vroom-Vroom worse than death due to severe motion sickness, all the way to the south.
Ijin looked at me once as if he felt sorry for me and smoothly handed me a glass of wine he had poured.
The red wine looked incredibly tempting. Even without bringing the glass to my nose, its rich aroma already filled the air around me.
“It’s been a while.”
“They don’t have this in the north, do they?”
“There, it’s all whiskey.”
“Oh my, but you prefer wine more, sister.”
Such casual conversation went back and forth for a while, and only when Yen poked me from the side did I straighten up from my almost lying position.
Having come all the way down here, I needed to work!
“Ijin.”
I looked at my brother, for whom the title of Count Seike no longer seemed awkward. Blue eyes identical to mine blinked.
“I heard a ‘saint’ has appeared in the south.”
“Ah.”
“Rumors say that the ‘holy light’ he brought killed all the demonic beasts, and thus stability was restored to the south.”
At my words, Ijin nodded with a slight smile.
“I knew you would come after hearing that rumor.”
“Really?”
Ijin lowered his eyes halfway and nodded slightly. I felt a surge of elation inside me.
It wasn’t just me.
Yen, who was beside me, had opposed my opinion to go south to find the ‘saint’ from the beginning.
Asking who would do something that even the High Priest couldn’t do.
The imperial court was already monitoring us, and with the saintess, considered close to Princess Leilyranda, involved, the temple had listed us as persons of interest.
“Is it true that this person has more divine power than even the High Priest or the saintess?”
Yen seemed excited.
Ijin looked at me and Yen alternately, then smiled slightly.
“Sister, didn’t you come down already knowing who that person is?”
“…As expected.”
“And you guessed well that he would be here.”
No sooner had Ijin finished speaking than the reception room door burst open. A familiar face stood there.
“You’ve chased me all the way here, Irina.”
“Lord Sian!”
There stood Sian, dressed in attire suitable for southern nobles to avoid the scorching, almost burning sunlight.
* * *
While listening to the explanation Isolini gave, even though no one mentioned a specific person, I naturally thought of Sian Terezia.
That thought solidified into certainty when I saw the ‘holy light’ mentioned in the documents.
That’s why I had pressured Yen to find Sian’s whereabouts immediately.
Sian’s trail was cut off again on the way to the south. But then suddenly, the movements of my brother Ijin became strange.
He’s not that kind of person, but strangely, he was actively moving around regions devastated by demonic beasts.
“For these reasons, I guessed that Lord Sian is in the south, staying at the Seike mansion.”
Sian sat proudly as if he were the master of this mansion and nodded slightly. With the wine in his hand, anyone would think he was a Seike, not me.
Currently, I was in a private audience with Sian after sending out everyone, including Yen and Ijin.
Sian didn’t seem too pleased with my actions, but he complied with my words as soon as I mouthed ‘Your Highness the Crown Prince.’
“You guessed well.”
Contrary to my expectations, Sian looked very unmotivated.
I had been hopeful from the moment I suspected that Sian might be the person who saved the south.
He had said he would destroy the world, that this world would be better off destroyed, but I wondered if he had cast aside such feelings and been reborn anew.
That’s why the sight of the man before me—void of motivation, will, and seemingly living only because he couldn’t die—felt deeply unsettling.
After hesitating for a long time, I finally asked:
“…It was you, wasn’t it, Lord Sian?”
“What?”
“The demonic beasts in the south.”
“…That’s right. I did it.”
It was an answer that seemed mixed with a slight sigh and lamentation. In some ways, it seemed to contain self-blame as well.
“Why, Irina. Are you asking why I would do this when I was the one who summoned the supreme demonic beast?”
“I didn’t say that.”
“…Actually, that’s the question I want to ask myself.”
I was stunned by the self-deprecating inner thoughts that Sian dropped unexpectedly.
He said that the seemingly mocking question was actually what he wanted to ask himself.
“Do you regret it?”
“What? That I brought destruction with my own hands?”
“No. That you saved the south, Lord Sian.”
“Ah.”
Sian’s condition looked quite bad.
He seemed to be putting himself down, and he seemed to have doubts about all the choices he had made.
Whether it was accepting Leilyranda’s proposal, or going to save the south after acting that way.
“I don’t know.”
At his dejected-sounding answer, I decided to change the subject for a moment.
“How did you come to know about our family and arrive here?”
“Just, I thought the south was appropriate. And then I remembered you inviting me to visit Seike… so I came.”
“How long have you been staying here?”
“A little less than two weeks?”
Not as long as I thought.
“How has it been, staying here?”
Seike in the south is a beautiful place.
Especially like now, when summer is ending and autumn is when grapes are harvested. Fresh grapes are picked all over the territory, and wine is produced from those grapes.
That’s why the area around the Seike mansion is always filled with the scent of grapes. The smell that was pleasant when the winery first started was still pleasant after so long.
“…It’s a nice place.”
“Right? And the wine is really delicious here.”
“Yes, it certainly is such a place.”
“I hope your time here is comfortable, Lord Sian.”
No matter Sian’s condition, I spoke with hope that he would be alright as long as he remained in Seike, but he just stared at me blankly.
I didn’t avoid his gaze and I quietly looked at Sian. He had a gloomy face and blinked his eyes slowly.
“Why don’t you ask?”
He asked when the silence was about to become tedious.
“Ask what?”
“Why I’m doing this now, when before I said I would destroy it?”
“…Because I understand why you desire destruction, Lord Sian.”
I could tell just from what he had said about how much he loved his country and the expression he had then.
He said he had tried hundreds of times to save his country. Although the god had called him a hero, he admitted that at first, he probably acted out of a sense of duty, believing himself to be the hero chosen by the god.
But what ultimately allowed him to endure hundreds of repetitions must have been solely his determination to save his country.
But in the end, he saved everything except what he most wanted to save.
That which he loved more than anything was lost beneath the waves and forgotten, now absent even from history books.
“I understand. From my own perspective, I’m a bit angry, but I understand.”
“…”
“Still, knowing that someone like you took action and saved the South, even if it’s hard to fully grasp or accept, makes me feel grateful above all else.”
Looking at his yellow eyes mixed with various emotions, I instinctively felt that this was the last chance to hold onto Sian.
