Following the peddler’s advice, we boarded a royal-capital-bound coach from the city.
The road was maintained, and six horses pulled the linked carriages. The ride wasn’t bad — but for a route to the capital, the fare was steep.
Five silver coins per person.
For me and Novem combined, the cost came to one gold coin.
Sitting and watching the scenery, I looked over.
Tired, probably — Novem was sound asleep, leaning against me, breathing softly.
(Maybe I pushed her too hard.)
It made me feel useless. But it was because of her that I’d come this far. Without her, I’d have been bumbling along on my own, or walking toward Darion on foot from somewhere.
I’d never camped a day in my life. Solo travel — per the ancestors — was out of the question for me. I’d vaguely thought I’d be fine; they were collectively exasperated at how naive that was.
Even Grandfather, the Seventh, didn’t defend me this time.
Trying not to wake Novem, I looked around.
The Second’s voice came through.
Today was the Second’s day to handle me.
By what criterion I didn’t know, but during travel, only the First, Second, or Fourth would talk to me at a time.
Mana was the issue — two ancestors talking at once was draining. So we settled on one chatting with me.
“Convenient stuff exists now. In my day there were no linked coaches like this.”
I answered quietly.
“That so?”
“It’s been about two hundred years, after all. Magic Tools too — we didn’t have those convenient things either.”
Magic Tools were the modern, simpler version of gems — letting a person hold a borrowed Skill. The catch: gems were too powerful, and you couldn’t carry more than one or two Magic Tools.
I personally couldn’t even hold a Magic Tool, given my mana issues. Even the ancestors’ Skills were a load on me right now.
The number of usable Skills was, in fact, smaller than the unusable ones.
The Seventh’s Skill — Grandfather’s — was beyond me to bear. The Second’s Skill paired with others and required combination.
The First wouldn’t even let me try his — he didn’t approve of me yet.
Same with the others. I couldn’t bear them, so they wouldn’t authorize use.
(Basically zero functional Skills, then.)
“Even so — five silver per person, stop included? That’s expensive?”
I had a clearly skewed sense of money. The Fifth onward had genuinely lived as nobles and didn’t think like commoners.
Same when we were choosing a weapon. The Fifth and after had recommended an expensive sword, arguing better cost-performance over the long run.
But my actual cash on hand made that impossible. I could buy one, but the Second and Fourth had vetoed it — the rest of the trip would be too tight.
“It’s cheap, actually. Safe travel to the royal capital plus lodging for five silver? I’d jump at that. Sure, they’re packing in volume to make it pay off, but still.”
Five silver was a lot for a commoner. But for safety, plenty of people paid.
“Convenient times.”
The Second went quiet. I took the Jewel in hand and looked at it. A blue Jewel, passed down through House Walt’s generations.
Was it really okay for it to be with me right now?
(Will this cause trouble?)
Novem stirred slightly against me. I tucked the Jewel — strung as a necklace — under my shirt.
She didn’t wake.
“Five days of travel and that’s it.”
Mounted guards rode alongside the coach. The other passengers seemed reassured. According to the ancestors, the guards weren’t all that good. Their era’s guards had been better, blah blah — they were off on the “back in my day” speech.
(That phrase, more than anything else, makes them sound their age.)
I gave up and slept too.
Five days later, evening.
We reached the capital — the terminus of the linked coach. Since it was already evening, we decided to find an inn first.
It would be a hassle to do it after dark, and travel had built up fatigue. Unfamiliar surroundings were tiring all on their own.
The ancestors — for Novem’s sake — proposed we rest properly.
“Lord Lyle, are you sure about this? It’s a bit pricey.”
The inn in front of us was the kind with private rooms and private baths.
The Banseim capital — [Sentral] — was beautiful, as befitted the seat of government.
The atmosphere was different from the towns and villages we’d passed through.
“Just for today, let’s relax. Travel fatigue matters. (More importantly, if we don’t, the ancestors won’t shut up.)”
The First through Fourth were extremely concerned about Novem.
Because their generations were the ones House Fuchs had helped most.
The First was rescued when starting the pioneer village. The Second had been helped with territorial management know-how and even wife-hunting. The Third had been helped during the rank-promotion chaos.
The Fourth — having inherited young, after the Third’s death, on top of the rank promotion to baron from the Third’s achievements — had been quietly supported by House Fuchs through it all.
In short:
(My family — House Walt — wouldn’t be where it is without House Fuchs. And we’ve made them vassals and haven’t been able to repay them.)
Novem wasn’t directly involved, but I felt the weight of it.
The view shifted, though, with the Fifth onward.
It had been a long relationship — they figured the debt had been reasonably repaid. The First through Fourth, having been personally helped, didn’t accept that view.
(And to think with all that history, no Walt has actually married into Fuchs…)
Whatever the reasons, the two houses with such deep ties had never been blood-linked.
Normally with relations that close, you’d expect at least one or two cross-marriages.
(What were you doing, my ancestors…)
Listening to the meeting-room talk, I felt something fundamental had been missed.
The First, by oral tradition, was the man who opened up unsettled land. In reality he looked like an actual barbarian in animal fur.
“Thank you for the consideration. Shall we?”
“Yeah.”
Inside, a counter stood beyond the entrance.
Clean. Lit by Magic Tools powered by mana-stones.
“Welcome,” the clerk said.
“You’ll be staying?”
“Yes.”
Polite service. Long-awaited proper rest. So I thought.
“Zero points.”
I’d been sleeping on a fluffy bed for the first time in ages, and got pulled into the meeting room.
Only the First was there.
He greeted me by grading me, with a zero. I had no idea how to respond. So —
“I see… can I go back?”
“Why are you so passive?! You’re too well-behaved! Boring!”
I wasn’t going to win this no matter what I said.
“What did you want? I want to rest for tomorrow.”
“I know! There’s something I have to tell you.”
He repeated the “monster” claim from before.
I made a face, but the First was serious. He started telling me about the era before he was born — the era of the kingdom’s founding.
“I was born around the year fifty of the kingdom. Veterans from the internal war were still around.”
”…Right.”
“In my hometown, there were soldiers who’d fought on the royal-faction or the noble-faction side. The old men used to say: they couldn’t understand, looking back, why they’d fought so fanatically.”
I thought about Banseim’s three-hundred-year history. We’d learned in school: the kingdom was born from a civil war. Corruption at the heart of the previous regime had pushed rural nobles to rebel. The result was [Banseim Kingdom].
“Their passion cooled?”
“That’s what I thought. But the old soldiers said it had felt like being in a dream. And there was — apparently — a famously beautiful woman in the royalist faction.”
A femme fatale, then.
But the modern view was: the war happened because the circumstances demanded it. It was due. There had been a woman who manipulated politics for a while — but no normal country lets one woman do that. The center had already rotted.
“The femme fatale — I’ve heard that too. But isn’t she just one trigger?”
“No. They really exist. Call it the turn of an era. In those turns, monsters appear. They’re worse than any monsters in the wild.”
The First, expression serious, kept telling me.
“You’ll think it’s a tall tale, but those days were genuinely insane. My grandparents said too many strange things happened. Even they couldn’t believe it. And what caused it—”
”…Monsters?”
“Yes! The femme fatale who toppled a country! The general who alone broke ten thousand! The mage who lifted an island! They show up at era turns. Your sister is a monster. To think one came out of my blood.”
“N-no way…”
The First pressed.
“Then keep your sweet son close? You were an heir. Even degraded, you should have standing. If something didn’t suit you, you order it changed. That’s normal. You got minimum-decent treatment — that’s lucky.”
“Lucky?”
“Yes. You could’ve just been killed. ‘Disliking him, so we’ll throw him out’ — it would be easier to fake a sickness and kill him.”
That hit. I’d been kept in a minimum-survival environment — but no one had killed me. Now that he said it, the fact that I was still alive seemed bizarre. Especially given how much Ceres seemed to despise me.
“Getting it now? You weren’t even suspicious about it. The charm of a thing that warps even reality around it — that’s a monster. You’re lucky to be alive. Your parents may have loved you enough to resist the monster, just enough.”
A creature that warped reality. That was Ceres, per the First.
“They have no common sense. Maybe she just felt like throwing you out on a whim. I don’t pretend to understand a monster’s mind — but they exist.”
Monsters that appeared at era turns.
I was a little overwhelmed. Having experienced Ceres, I couldn’t laugh it off.
“So — Ceres is the cause of everything? It wasn’t me?”
“That, I can’t say. The you I know is a sheltered boy who’s been imposing on the Old Man’s descendants. I don’t know Ceres either. The talking only started when your Skill manifested.”
”…Right.”
I couldn’t argue. He spoke again.
“What are you going to do, from here?”
“Eh? Become an adventurer…”
“NO! I’m asking — if the kingdom’s about to turn, knowing that, what are you going to DO? You’ve got Novem-chan’s life on your shoulders too! Pull anything stupid and I’ll knock you out.”
I learned today how much I hadn’t been thinking. I’d assumed it would all work out — but I now had Novem with me. She’d come on her own initiative, but I couldn’t just abandon her.
“I— I—”
”…Think for yourself a little more. It’s painful to watch.”
He walked to his door, opened it, and slammed it shut. Left alone in the meeting room, I stayed there a while wondering what to do.
“I can see it, Lord Lyle!”
Novem stood on the cart bed, pointing at the city of Darion coming into view.
The long journey was finally ending. Her face was bright. I felt a little lighter too.
I planned to work as an adventurer in Darion for a while. The journey was on pause.
“Yeah. Looks nice.”
The atmosphere wasn’t packed like the capital, but it wasn’t quiet either. A bustling town.
Darion — as Zel had said, a town with momentum.
I looked at Novem’s profile and thought.
(What am I… supposed to do from here.)
I’d been thinking about it since yesterday and had nothing. I wanted to consult, but the First had the floor today and wouldn’t answer me.
He was probably still furious.
“Darion’s Adventurers’ Guild is supposed to be large. Lots of work — apparently a good city for beginners.”
“When did you hear that?”
“While shopping in the capital. Since we were heading here, I wanted to know.”
The Jewel piped up.
“What a good kid. She’s too good for you. And you — collecting no information? …Tch!”
He clicked his tongue.
”…Novem. Sorry for all the trouble. I — I’ll work hard too.”
I felt my own inadequacy. I thanked her.
“It’s fine. I’m doing this because I want to. Let’s both work hard, Lord Lyle.”
“Y-yeah!”
Then the young peddler driving us:
“Tch!”
“Tch!”
…He clicked his tongue. And so did the First.