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As the distance with the guard narrowed, the Chairman’s face turned pale white.
At this rate, he would be caught.
Clutching the secret letter, the Chairman’s hands trembled violently.
Heaving his ribcage and exhaling rough breaths, the Chairman seemed unable to even make the simple judgment that he had to hide the secret letter.
He was merely standing stiffly, looking only at the guard like a person waiting for a death sentence.
Agnes read the perilousness of the situation at once.
She did not know exactly what document was in the Chairman’s hands, but she could know instinctively that at least it was a situation where he must not be caught by the guard.
Above all, if her identity were exposed after getting swept up in a useless commotion, that would become troublesome in its own way.
Sensing a presence that approached right behind her back, Agnes pulled the secret letter out from the Chairman’s loosened hand.
Following that movement,
Clink—.
A clear metallic sound resonated from Agnes’s wrist.
It was the sound made as the ornament of the bracelet Leuceviten had put on her swayed.
Even in the midst of his mind being faint with extreme tension, the Chairman did not miss that sound.
His two slit eyes enlarged in an instant.
Though she was bewildered for a moment by the Chairman staring intently at her wrist, Agnes pushed the secret letter back deep into the bag as naturally as possible.
And then she pulled down her hood even further.
“You seem to have misapprehended something. This is indeed our luggage.”
“Ah, oh, th-that is so. I seem to have been confused. I am sorry.”
Whether he was at least not completely lacking in quick wit. The Chairman awkwardly chimed in with Agnes’s words.
Fortunately, it did not seem particularly strange to him.
The guard looked alternately at the three people for a moment, then returned toward the side where inspections were taking place.
As the guard’s footsteps moved away, the Chairman rested both hands on his trembling knees.
“……Th-thank you.”
After a brief expression of gratitude, his gaze headed toward Agnes’s wrist again.
The Chairman recalled in an instant.
The daughter of Raul Herben Guten, who recently made the Empire stir, and the deceased Duchess.
‘Before boarding the ship, I heard the ticket examiner whispering that he seemed to have seen the Duchess. Don’t tell me…….’
The Chairman tried to confirm Agnes’s face.
However, when it was not feasible due to the hood, the Chairman twitched the corners of his eyes and asked while killing his voice as much as possible.
As if he had no room to weigh and calculate this and that.
“Are you perhaps…… Duchess Valheim?”
“……!”
At the Chairman’s words, in one instant, Agnes, Kain, and Leuceviten inhaled a dry breath simultaneously.
Kain even spread his arms as if to protect Agnes, blocking the Chairman’s front.
By that momentary reaction, the color of the Chairman’s face brightened in an instant.
In an attitude entirely changed from until a moment ago, the Chairman stepped hesitatingly toward Agnes.
“Are you truly Duchess Valheim!”
“You have the wrong…… person.”
Agnes tried to leave the spot hastily.
However, as if he would not lose her, the Chairman followed closely behind.
“Please help me, I beg of you! I do not know how the Duchess, who was known to have died, is somehow alive, but it does not matter either way. Please save me.”
In a barely audible voice, whispering with all his breath held, the Chairman’s hands were trembling like an aspen leaf.
“The Emperor is pursuing me. At this rate, before long he will find me and kill me……!”
In a voice thoroughly seized with fear, the Chairman once again pulled out the secret letter from Leuceviten’s bag.
And he held it out toward Agnes.
“Before that, this secret letter, this secret letter must be delivered to Colonel Valheim!”
The Chairman’s pupils distorted with terror.
“Why the war started, all of that truth is inside here!”
***
There were too many eyes at the landing stage.
They could not continue the conversation further in a place where they could not know who might be listening.
Lionel’s name was brought up, and it was a situation where her identity was exposed as well.
She thought briefly about trying to deny it until the end, but if a commotion broke out again at that moment and guards stormed in, it would rather make matters worse.
In the end, Agnes had no choice but to move locations hastily.
To a small house on the outskirts of Marsen that Leuceviten had prepared in advance.
Inside an alley with sparse traffic of people, a house where thick curtains were drawn over every window.
As soon as they went inside and closed the door, the Chairman collapsed onto a chair with loosened legs.
Kain drew back the curtains drawn over the window and looked outside to see if anyone had followed.
Leuceviten took a seat beside Agnes without a word.
And Agnes slowly took off her hood.
The Chairman’s shaking gaze landed on top of Agnes’s face.
“……As expected. My eyes were not mistaken. I threw it out half like a gamble.”
“How…… did you recognize me?”
The Chairman pointed at Agnes’s wrist.
“Because of that bracelet. Raul Herben Guten, I saw that man carrying around the same ornament. And, upon boarding, I heard the noise of the ticket examiner jabbering that he seemed to have seen the Duchess.”
Agnes’s fingers clutched the bracelet.
She should have been more careful.
She did not know she would be caught so vainly.
To think that her identity would be revealed as soon as she arrived in Marsen.
What should she do now.
As if reading Agnes’s anxiety, the Chairman shook his head quickly.
“Do not worry. I have no intention of divulging the Duchess’s identity. As you see, I am also a person being pursued.”
The Chairman said so, but not a single person inside the house felt relieved.
Kain’s gaze was still sharp, and Leuceviten also squeezed Agnes’s hand tightly as if to protect her.
“……Earlier, you said that the truth of the war is contained in the secret letter. What does that mean?”
“This war was a wrong war from the beginning.”
The Chairman’s voice sank tragically.
Wheeeing-.
The sound of the winter wind seeping between the window frames resonated particularly loudly inside the house.
“Raul and I opposed until the end, but we could not stop it.”
The Chairman’s hands curled roundly as if trembling.
“Everything was planned from the beginning. The war was something necessary to fulfill someone’s greed.”
And that someone was the Emperor of the Empire, and the Supreme Chairman of Sercadia.
The Chairman of the Council spewed out a voice full of resentment.
Agnes’s breathing grew shallow.
With tired hands, the Chairman set the secret letter down on top of the table.
“Inside here are all the records. What went back and forth for the war. Originally, I intended to reveal this in the Imperial Council.”
A bitter smile flowed from the Chairman.
“However, because the Emperor noticed, all the other council members lost their lives, and I alone survived to barely flee like this.”
Agnes unfolded the secret letter and skimmed through a portion of it.
Inside it, even more explicit and hideous greed of the Emperor than what she had heard about was surging.
“……Why are you trying to deliver this to the Duke?”
“I heard Colonel Valheim holds a grudge against the Emperor. Also,”
The Chairman inhaled a deep breath once and continued his words.
“Because he is also a person who wished to stop the war.”
The Chairman unleashed as if pouring out the reports from the front line he had received all this time—during those long years, how countless efforts Lionel, who stood at the vanguard, had made to ensure that not only the Imperial Army but also the Sercadian Army shed minimal blood.
Also, how earnestly he had wished for that war to end.
“Since he is such a person, I believe that if he obtains this secret letter, he will expose the Emperor’s hideous dark side.”
Leuceviten, who had been listening silently by Agnes’s side, asked quietly.
“By doing so, what is it that you gain, Mr. Chairman?”
“……Atonement.”
Muttering, the Chairman dropped his head.
“While saying I would create a world without discrimination, in the end I was standing in a position of power. Joining hands with the Emperor, for having stood even for a time on the same side as those who drove people to their deaths…… atonement.”
Sincerity was imbued in it, but Leuceviten’s voice was cold.
“We have heard your story well, but we cannot help you. What will you do, Duchess?”
Leuceviten asked for Agnes’s opinion, but at the same time, she put strength into the hand holding Agnes and shook her head slightly.
As if telling her not to get involved in a dangerous matter.
Agnes, who was silent for a moment, placed her hand on top of the secret letter.
Her hesitating white hand pushed the secret letter away.
Lionel.
He was also a victim of the war, and the fact that it was caused by the Emperor’s trickery weighed on Agnes’s heart like a heavy stone.
It was a fact that she could not simply close her eyes and turn away from.
However, even so, she did not possess enough conviction to make the decision to stake everything and connect her fate with Lionel again.
Above all, she lacked the power to help.
She was a Duchess in name only, and now she had discarded even that identity.
What could she possibly do.
“……I am sorry, but I do not think I can help. I will consider it as not having seen this secret letter.”
At that moment.
The Chairman suddenly stood up from his seat and knelt down on the floor.
“I have rattled off hypocritical talk. I will tell you my honest heart. In that war, my…… my son also died.”
The Chairman prostrated himself entirely and bowed his head.
“That is why I want to take revenge.”
The Chairman revealed his true heart that he had painted over with justice.
It was an extremely human heart.
Perhaps no different from the Emperor’s greed.
“The pain I experienced…… I want to make the Emperor feel it too.”
Without raising his head, the Chairman continued his words.
“You do not necessarily have to deliver it yourself. Just so that this secret letter can enter Colonel Valheim’s hands, please give even a small amount of help.”
Silence settled inside the room.
Once again, with a rattle in the wind, the window moved.
And Agnes’s gaze rested on top of the secret letter for a long time.
“At any rate, if Colonel Valheim does not strike first, the Emperor will choke the breath out of the Colonel. Therefore, I am saying this secret letter can become a means to protect the Colonel.”
“…….”
“Please, I beg of you. Duchess.”
***
Meanwhile.
At the Duke’s mansion, the main gate opened and a carriage was entering.
Leaving long wheel tracks on the snow-piled front yard, the carriage came to a stop.
And as Lionel revealed himself from inside, the waiting servants inhaled dry breaths simultaneously.
On their faces was an expression quite shocked by the gauze wrapping the back of his head and their master’s drained face.
However, Lionel himself pulled off his gloves nonchalantly and searched for Simon.
“Did you call for me, Your Grace?”
“Contact Agnes. Tell her that as soon as the day breaks, I will go visit the Bardo Trading Company.”
“…….”
At those words, embarrassment set over the face of Si
mon, who was worryingly observing Lionel’s condition.
And the servants standing behind him also busily exchanged glances.
Unlike usual, at the response that did not return immediately, one of Lionel’s eyebrows went up askew.
“Why is there no answer. Can you not hear my words, Simon?”
