Chapter 73 · Cyrus's Choice (1)

“What did you say, Weo?”

“…Nothing.”

I couldn’t quite hear what he muttered. Leo clamped his mouth shut in a straight line.

“But youw mothew is so bootiful. Weo takes aftew hew, huh?”

He kept his face flushed and said nothing.

“She seems to have a good pewsonality too. Vewy ewegant, but with a cheewful feew.”

A healthy beauty—that was exactly what Leo’s mother was.

“You must miss hew tewwibly.”

It had been over four years since they were separated, so I couldn’t even imagine how great his longing must be.

But then Leo dropped a shocking statement.

“…I can’t see her anymore, anyway.”

“What?”

“She passed away.”

His voice was calm, but I could feel a piercing sorrow.

“I-I see… I’m sowwy…”

She had looked so healthy, so it didn’t seem like she died of illness… Then did she die during the war? I was too afraid to ask.

As I just hemmed and hawed, Leo spoke in a desolate tone.

“When the Santran army stormed the royal castle, she died shielding me.”

“…!”

As expected. He had every reason to hate Santra to death. Unlike me, who had no memories of my mother and only later learned she had passed away, he had lost a mother he loved in an instant.

“Why are you making that kind of face?”

He asked with a furrowed brow.

“Um… because I’m the pwincess of this countwy too, aftew aww…”

“…Forget it. I won’t blame you for things like that anymore.”

What a magnanimous person. Still, I couldn’t stop worrying. I felt a lot of guilt too. Was it really all right to make someone who hated Santra more than anyone help save Santra?

“But Weo… awe you okay? You know now why I’m doing what I’m about to do.”

“Yeah. Because you know the future, it’s to stop the plague.”

“I-if you know that, why…”

“Because it’s so you can survive.”

Leo said with serious eyes.

“I’ll help you. For your sake.”

“…”

My heart pounded for a moment.

‘Huh? Pounded? What do you mean, pounded?’

Did I get too strong a dose of emotion? That must be it. There’s no way I’d have my heart pound over a little kid like this! For Leo, who used to look at me with such cold eyes, who used to order me out with a voice full of hatred and contempt, to say something like this! It was an incredibly moving thing, after all.

“Let’s try the three-year-old memory now. Do you have enough mana?”

“Y-yeah.”

I had been dazed for a moment, then quickly pulled myself together.

“Then shall we go again?”

Finally, I could obtain the decisive key to making that flower bloom!

Once this matter was successfully concluded, I absolutely had to get Leo out of this damned tower. I owed him far too great a debt.

◇ ◆ ◇

The inn street on the outskirts of Salus.

Deep in the night when there were hardly any people around, the sound of a carriage broke the stillness of the quiet street. The carriage stopped in front of an inn with a lavish exterior, and soon the door opened and a figure wrapped from head to toe in a pitch-black robe stepped down. Just from her movements, one could tell she was a woman of noble birth.

“Welcome, oh my… To think I’d be hosting Princess Aquila in such a humble place.”

A man who appeared to be the innkeeper bowed and scraped, guiding her inside.

“The interpreter?”

“Y-yes. Of course, I have him waiting!”

“I’ll say this again…”

Aquila spoke in a cold, sunken voice.

“No one must know I met them. If even the smallest rumor spreads…”

Gulp. The innkeeper broke into a cold sweat and swallowed hard. He had received enough gold to live on for years without working, but the thought that his life might be forfeit brought a wave of terror.

In the inn’s reception room, a man sat with his legs crossed. He sprang to his feet at the sound of someone approaching. He was a man with bronze skin and platinum-blond hair, an exotic appearance. His attire was so revealing by Santran standards that Aquila frowned the moment she saw him.

“I greet the jewel of Santra. My name is Cyrus Sohrab.”

Cyrus bowed politely, then kissed the back of Aquila’s hand.

“You are even more beautiful than your reputation suggests.”

“I don’t imagine stories about my appearance have spread all the way to the southern continent.”

“The rumor that Santra’s three princesses are peerless beauties has long circulated across the continents. Ah… I suppose it’s two princesses now. My apologies.”

“Still three princesses. A new one has appeared.”

“Pardon?”

“It seems that news hasn’t reached the southern continent yet.”

When Aquila smiled faintly, Cyrus looked as if his pride had been wounded.

“To think there was something I, who considers myself the best-informed in the world, didn’t know.”

“It seems you’re still far from being the best in the world.”

“But a new princess—what on earth does that mean? Did His Majesty have a late child? But I hadn’t heard he remarried…”

Aquila’s face hardened. She spat it out as if even saying it in her mouth was disgusting.

“A bastard born between my dead sister and a mercenary from an enemy nation.”

Cyrus’s mouth fell open.

“…I understand now why the information hasn’t circulated.”

‘Then how does the succession order work? Santra is a mess too.’

Brilia was currently in the midst of a blood-soaked succession struggle among fourteen contenders, so it didn’t feel like another country’s problem.

“I can’t very well have a noble personage lingering outside the palace late at night. Please, let’s get to the point.”

Aquila had no intention of talking long with a lowly interpreter either, so she went straight to the point.

“I want this trade agreement to be destroyed.”

Her green eyes flashed in the dark room.

“Completely ruined, beyond any hope of recovery.”

Cyrus was inwardly startled by her words. Her demand completely defied his expectations. He had assumed she would ask him to rig things in the princess’s faction’s favor when the trade venue opened, or to quietly skim off goods or money. But to smash the trade entirely?

‘That’s a bit much.’

He couldn’t shake the feeling that he had stepped into a dangerous trap.

“Um… You do know I’m part of the Brilian delegation, correct?”

“Don’t pretend you have any patriotism. Don’t even think of refusing under some paltry patriotic pretext. You’ll do anything for money, won’t you?”

“…It seems your information network is indeed superior to mine, Princess.”

Cyrus swallowed hard and asked.

“May I ask the price?”

“If you name it first, I’ll match it.”

‘Oh, come on. I don’t want to do this.’

He agonized for a long while, but realized it was already too late to seize the initiative. Since it had come to this, he might as well name an outrageous sum.

“Ten thousand arum?”

“Very well. I’ll give you a thousand arum as an advance.”

“…!”

‘Ten thousand arum isn’t exactly chicken feed!’

Her easy acceptance made Cyrus more and more afraid. Somehow he felt that if he took this money, there would be no turning back.

‘Ahh, I wanted money, but I didn’t want a deal that plants death flags so thickly!’

He swallowed dryly and, trying his best not to show how nervous he was, opened his mouth.

“The proposal you’ve made is very tempting, Princess, but it also sounds like something that would put my life on the line.”

“I understood you to be the type who enjoys adventure.”

“No matter how much gold I receive, what good is it if my life is gone?”

“Of course I’ll protect you. Once the job is done, I’ll send you safely to another country.”

A drop of cold sweat rolled down Cyrus’s forehead.

“You say you’ll protect me, but you could also just… you know… I-I know you wouldn’t do that, of course…! It’s just that I’ve seen a teensy bit of that sort of thing. Haha.”

“Hah.”

Aquila clicked her tongue at his vulgar manner of speaking.

“It seems you don’t quite understand the situation…”

She quietly recited an activation word, and in an instant a rippling ball of fire formed in her hand. The ball of mana crackled menacingly.

“From the moment you agreed to meet with me, you had no choice.”

I’m doomed.

Cyrus had that thought only after it had become utterly irreversible.

◇ ◆ ◇

The Brilian delegation had arrived. A delegation, in the midst of a plague that continued to spread—normally they would never have been received, but… since you can’t send back a delegation that sailed for over two months before they even arrive, the king exceptionally permitted their entry.

‘Wow, a delegation is a first for me!’

I had come to the audience chamber to watch their reception. Aquila and Stella were there too, but I didn’t want to stand next to them. So I gripped the hem of Paeon’s clothes tightly and stood on the opposite side from them.

“The Brilian delegation comes to have an audience with His Majesty the King.”

The Brilians who entered through the doors were all unique and unfamiliar. Unfamiliar appearance, unfamiliar clothing, unfamiliar foreign language. Everything was so unfamiliar that the nobles, priests, and knights in the audience chamber all gawked and busied themselves observing them.

“Papa, it’s so amazing. Wight?”

I was excited too and whispered quietly to Paeon. But he furrowed his brow deeply and said something unexpected.

“…It is blasphemous.”

Well, from a priest’s perspective, their attire was indeed quite lewd. No, it seemed most conservative Santrans couldn’t easily accept it either. Some people were covering their eyes or turning their heads.

Clothing made of thin fabric you could see right through. Men and women alike were exposing their arms and legs, and some even had their navels exposed!

“Atar Behloop, the foreign minister of Brilia, greets the king of Santra. As a token of gratitude that Hodayar III has accepted the trade, we have sent various gifts, and we humbly ask that you graciously receive them.”

When the foreign minister spoke in the southern continent’s language, the interpreter quickly translated for the king. The interpreter was a very young man, and he was dressed the most lewdly of all. The trinkets dangling all over his body and the earring swaying from one ear made him look even more disreputable.

‘Papa will be disgusted.’

Paeon, who always buttoned his clothes all the way to the neck, would probably feel like he was committing a sin just by looking at the man. Sure enough, he was glaring at the interpreter with utter contempt.

‘But he seems very skilled?’

I had been learning the southern continent’s language in my spare time to prepare for the future. Though I’d been studying in secret, so I was only at a basic conversational level… His Santran was perfect. It was enough to make me wonder where he had learned Santran so flawlessly.

He interpreted fluently for quite a while, explaining each of the gifts the delegation had brought. The king, whose face had been scrunched up at their attire, gradually softened as he listened to the interpreter’s dazzling eloquence.

“Ho ho ho, how marvelous. Is this ice magic?”

“Yes. It is a supreme work of art created with rapid-freezing magic and a preservation spell. It would be an honor if you would add it to your collection, Your Majesty.”

The king examined the flower-shaped ice sculpture the interpreter handed him with a pleased smile. The atmosphere continued to be somewhat warm. However, having been watching the interpreter carefully, I noticed he kept anxiously glancing toward Aquila.

‘Somehow he seems to know Aquila… Is it my imagination?’