“We’ve come at a terrible time again, haven’t we?”
The voice was quiet, yet warm and strong, like a summer breeze. The obsidian-like eyes peered at Catherine with concern.
The atmosphere of the man was broken, which did not fit his title as a Commander of the Order. His refined demeanor, on the contrary, exuded a faint stench, like the slight bitterness mixed with sweet syrup medicine.
His jacket, which resembled that of an adventurer exploring the wilds, must have been made to withstand combat, though Catherine could not be sure. Both of his sleeves hang down vacantly, and instead, a mechanical right arm, which looked like a composite of brass wires, was attached to the top of his clothes.
Bertil Lagerbeck, Commander of the Second Order.
Catherine accompanied her father to Terra Kaine to meet him and hear what he had to say about René.
And now she was in front of Bertil. She was in a room at the inn where Bertil was staying, in the reception area.
It was not advisable for an unmarried man and woman to be alone together. Even if it was only a child, Catherine, and a nearly forty-year-old Bertil, it was not unusual in aristocratic society for a middle-aged or elderly man to marry a minor bride.
Bertil therefore arranged for one of his subordinates, the female knight Kaya, to be present to keep up appearances as part of military duties. Normally, a servant would accompany Catherine on her way to and back as well, but for now, Kaya was in charge of that as well.
“Please, Lady Catherine.”
“Oh, what? Ah, Thank you.”
Kaya offered Catherine a cup of steaming tea. She accepted it with some confusion.
She was surprised to see Kaya doing what a servant would do.
“Excuse me. I don’t want anyone else in the room right now…”
Bertil added, as if sensing Catherine’s concern.
“Shall we begin then …? What happened in the capital that day? We need to know.”
＊ ＊ ＊
“Possession, huh …”
Possession, huh …”
“I’ve seen her twice myself, and her clothes were definitely different. But I don’t think she changed her clothes during the fight. There is a certain validity to the assumption that the body itself was different.”
Catherine’s theory was that René was an undead in a spiritual sense, and that she had changed bodies.
It was an opinion that Catherine had thought out in her own way, and she was relieved that Bertil had approved of it. She knew she had not been entirely misguided.
“And I also think that René can read minds.”
“Hmm… why?”
“It’s embarrassing to say this, but one of our servants was an informant of the Night Python crime syndicate. René recognized him. I can only assume she read his mind…”
In the middle of Catherine’s words, Bertil’s eyes widened as if he had noticed something.
“That’s the range!! So that’s why she used the illusion call mark!?”
“Kyaah!?”
Holding his head with his mechanical arm, Bertil suddenly shouted, causing Catherine to shriek.
“Ahhh, that’s how it is! Damn, I was set up at that point and … ah, that’s right, just use a call mark like normal. What was I doing!? I should have known!!”
Bertil scratched his hair and stared into the air in exasperation.
He was angry at something … probably at himself.
Bertil seemed to have noticed something so serious that even he, Commander of the Second Order, had to be distraught in front of the woman and girl.
“No, I beg your pardon. A bit self-serving … Oh, gosh. Anyway! It seems likely that she has the power to read minds. But as is the case with the magical perception of undead monsters, the range is likely to be limited. At the very least, it doesn’t have a range of effect that would be enough to encompass the whole of the capital.”
Bertil then explained to Catherine about his meeting with René through the illusion call mark during the siege of the capital.
A subordinate returned with a message from René. A short-range illusion call mark instead of a normal call mark. René’s words that seem to lead something…
“Then, the Commander was deceived by René?”
“Yes, I was. To be more precise, I was outwitted by deception. She is … intelligent and strong. Even without her abilities as an undead, she has the makings of a general.”
Bertil’s tone was bitter. As if it was too much for him to handle.
“Take a look at this.”
Catherine spread a bundle of papers she had brought with her on the table.
She had asked the Adventurers’ Guild branch in Eltaref to prepare it for her. It was a transcript of the Abyss Spirit data she had seen in the archives and various other documents that might be related to the Abyss Spirit.
“Is this a copy of the Adventurers’ Guild documents? Abyss Spirit … Possession and Emotion Detection …”
“I believe that René might this monster called Abyss Spirit. It is not supposed to have the power to turn the person it possesses into a Dullahan, but…”
Bertil quickly flipped through the stack of papers and handed them back to Catherine.
Catherine had no idea what he had done, but she had the feeling that Bertil had read the entire document and memorized it in his head in the last few seconds.
“I’m here, aren’t I? You think about René-chan much more than I do. As a man who holds the title of Commander of the Second Order, I am ashamed to say that I am not worthy of your kindness.”
“No, it’s not like that…”
Catherine was horrified, but suddenly felt caught up in Bertil’s words.
“… You also call her René, don’t you?”
“Oh … yes, I do.”
Not “Princess Rose of Hellrage”, but “René”, as Bertil called her.
Catherine was very happy about that. It was as if she had been forgiven for her thoughts, which could even be called treacherous.
“Miss Catherine. I hear you were captured by Rene-chan, but you don’t feel any fear or hostility towards her.”
“Yes…”
Bertil would not have the ability to “sense emotions” like René, but he still saw right through her.
Catherine herself wondered.
How many people had René killed and how many more would she kill in the future? Some of them were justified as revenge, others were collateral damage. If one were to make a common sense judgment as a human being, René might be something to hate and … to stop.
But still, Catherine couldn’t help but pity René in that ‘common sense as a human being’ part at the same time.
“I want to save René.”
“Oh, dear.”
Bertil was taken aback by Catherine’s bold declaration.
“How exactly do you mean by ‘save’?”
“… To tell you the truth, I don’t know. Can you help me?”
No matter how much she thought about it, Catherine did not understand.
In the picture books that were read to her when she was a child, there were stories about wicked witches who were mended by the love of a prince. Catherine somehow knew that the reality was not so sweet.
“Sometimes even the person themselves don’t realize what salvation is. However, if there is one thing I can say, it is that René is lonely and needs a … friend or someone to take the place of her parents. After all, she lost her mother in the worst way.”
“Friend…”
Oddly enough, that was the question that Catherine had been piling up to ask René.
René was not only terrifying and a mad avenger. But she was also just a girl of Catherine’s age.
If she and René could become friends, would it be possible to cure her of her loneliness?
…Was it really that simple?
“But you can’t say, ‘All you need is affection nd you will be saved’, as if you were preaching from a priest’s pulpit. When I think of the fate that René-chan has taken upon herself. Maybe when she destroys this world, she will be freed from vengeance for the only time and will be able to think, ‘Okay, I’ll try to be saved.'”
“… The world?”
The tone of the phrase made her heart flutter, and Catherine was taken aback.
“Oh, no. This was a bit of an exaggeration. I was just remembering what someone said about René, about ‘the world’.”
Bertil jokingly waved his hand in a deceptive manner.
He seemed to be saying this only as an example.
“At least René-chan has a grudge against the Four Great Powers. If all of them were destroyed, even if there are … survivors, well, the world’s population would be reduced by about half, wouldn’t it? Then maybe there would finally be room to think about something other than revenge.”
“Well, that’s …”
Such a thing was unacceptable. No matter how pitiful René was, she would not trade half of her race for her salvation.
Suddenly, Bertil’s gaze turned sharp.
Catherine felt like she had just drunk ice water under his penetrating gaze.
“I know, Lady Catherine, that you are not a dreamy child. I speak to you as if you were an adult. …Not everyone has a path to salvation. This world is not so sweet. It’s possible that the only way to salvation is through theoretical and unfeasible means. There may be people like that.”
“…”
Catherine felt as though something was gripping her chest.
She realized how naive and arrogant she had been.
Catherine thought of a way to save René. She turned away from the hopeless possibility that such a method had never existed in the first place.
“So, then, if that was the case, should we … defeat her? Faith preaches that the … undead can be saved if they are defeated. I can’t do it, but …”
“At least she won’t have to suffer any more. But to call it salvation would be a tease on the part of those who want to get rid of René-chan.”
It was needless to ask.
It’s not so much salvation …, as like a stroke of mercy, that ends a soldier suffering from a mortal wound…
A terrible ending that just couldn’t be called ‘the worst’.
“Lady Catherine. Please, please remember her name. Even if it is only for your own satisfaction.”
“You mean you want me to see René as a person, not as a monster?”
“That’s about it. Isn’t it sad that she died an untimely death and became an undead, and is just a monster to be exterminated? And if you want to save René-chan, you must first get to know her. But there must be some aspects of her that we will never understand if we look at her as just another monster.”
Bertil then smiled reassuringly at Catherine.
Kaya compared Bertil to a green summer forest. Catherine now understood a little better what she meant.
“We don’t even understand ourselves very well, much less others. … How can René be saved? The only way to answer this question is to know everything about René-chan. That is all I can say with full confidence. I am sorry for all the generalizations. If you don’t mind my irresponsible advice, I can make all sorts of assumptions.”
“No! It’s very …. um, helpful.”
Catherine thanked Bertil profusely as she scratched her head apologetically.
She had thought that Bertil would be able to put an end to her worries. But Bertil knew the weight of saving one person, so he could not say anything rash.
Just knowing that was the point of coming here today. It was important for Catherine to know that she had been naive in her thinking.
“You told me that the Earl will be staying a few more days, didn’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Well, let’s talk again about anything else we notice during that time. It seems that we are at the forefront of the world in terms of countermeasures against René-chan.”
“The world’s forefront?”
“That’s right. If it were natural, the Adventurers’ Guild would be the first to investigate Named Monsters, but because of the fall of the capital, the Adventurers’ Guild in Ciel-Terra is not working at the moment. The Guild of the Federation of Gireshtal is in command, and the branches in each city are working together to barely protect the refugees and the minimal distribution of goods. They are not in a position to do research on a Named. Since the Guilds within the country are in such a state, perhaps the Guilds outside of the country are not informed either.”
“Is that so…”
At this time, Catherine thought from the bottom of her heart, ‘I’m glad Bertil was here.’
As if driven by something, she researched René without any particular sense of purpose, but she never imagined that before she knew it, she was in a position where she could be responsible for the fate of the country.
“Lady Catherine. Please take this.”
Bertil held out a golden plate-like object to Catherine.
“It is a charm. Do you know them? I’ll give you this one.”
It was a disposable armor that protected her from magic.
Catherine had never seen one before, but she knew that they existed. She also knew how much it cost.
“Such an expensive thing…”
“Please don’t mind it. I have called you all the way to this place. May your journey home be as safe as possible.”
“…Thank you.”
Catherine bowed her head again, sincerely grateful and impressed.
She had been taught that it was not polite to be so humble as a merchant, but she still couldn’t help but bow.
＊ ＊ ＊
“So, Kaya. How are the Keelys doing?”
Bertil asked as soon as Kaya returned to the room after dropping Catherine off.
Bertil was not surprised to hear that Kaya had been with her under the guise of an escort.
“Nothing in particular. There was no sign of wariness. The reason for coming to the city was probably nothing more than what he had stated.”
“… He is a man who is not … well, he doesn’t have that kind of back-and-forth. He is really unlucky or clumsy,… and his timing is too bad, though it is not his fault. He is here now, of all times.”
As expected, Bertil had to sympathize with Earl Keely.
He had jumped into the middle of such a maelstrom of all the elements that he did not know what to do. Perhaps he had been entrusted with something by the opposing lords and had come here for political maneuvering, but it seemed that he was not.
And … the Keely family would probably be involved in the battle for Terra Kaine, and if that happened, the Earl would have no choice but to defend Ghislain whether he liked it or not.
The future of the country should be decided through the selection of the crown prince by the Council of Lords, and he, as one of the lords, needed to stand up against any plot to derail that process. He would definitely think so, as if the concept of “seriousness” were walking around with clothes on.
“Anyway, we should be prepared. There have been some unscheduled incidents, but the retreat of Noacurio’s army remains unchanged. In other words, this town is going to be in trouble in the near future.”
“Yes.”
Bertil turned his head.
Bertil’s approach was to give up early on what couldn’t be helped and deal with what could.
–My work starts here.
Neither Marquis Edfeldt nor Kaya knew that Bertil was a kind of half-insider to René.
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