239 - The King and the Coward's Choices
"Leonyaldo Big Brother-sama's crime... what happened to it?"
As my guardian, I worried he might be charged with the information leak crime I committed. But Christoph slowly shook his head. My crime itself had been treated as 'never happened', so Leonardo's crime was also being dismissed as 'never happened', he said.
"Leonardo is one of my favorites. Those who do not like that will certainly use him as a target... but well, that is all there is to it."
"That is all? Just that?"
"That is all."
Unable to fully shake my unease, I looked up at Christoph, and he smiled as if to say there was no need to worry. Leonardo had enough achievements to offset minor crimes, so finding fault with him was difficult.
"Leonyaldo Big Brother-sama's achievements... do you mean his military exploits?"
"That is part of it, but his greatest achievement right now is 'protecting a Japanese reincarnator and building a relationship of trust with her.' Thanks to that, Lady Christina has been cooperative with our country."
"Um... are you saying I should live in the capital and read research materials?"
"It would help if you did, but you want to stay with your guardian (Leonardo) until you turn twenty, do you not?"
As for himself, he said he did not want to forcibly separate a reluctant child from their guardian just to keep them contained. Since she said she would be willing to come to the capital on her own in a few years, he had the patience to wait that long, Christoph said. If a contagious disease like Woz disease suddenly broke out, he might summon her to the capital, but until then, he could protect her freedom.
"However, while I am fine with that... I would like some material to silence the troublesome ministers."
"Material, Christoph-sama?"
"It would be good to have something that lets me firmly shut up the rigid-minded ones, saying 'I am this useful, so do not you dare offend me.'"
"Ahh."
I vaguely understood what Christoph was getting at, and let out a deflated voice. Everywhere, there are troublesome people who cannot see what is in front of them. People who, perhaps due to their status or position, mistakenly believe they are important and that ordering others around is their natural right. Such people, without proper understanding, give orders from above, wearing down capable individuals and stepping on visible landmines.
...In my case, is it like that? I am a commoner, Leonyaldo-san is a Black Knight (commoner), and there are people who think there is no need to humor a commoner child, who might try to kidnap and confine me.
If they forcibly took custody of me and I got upset, that would be the end of it. I would not read Japanese, and even if I did, I would not necessarily read it correctly. If they treated me roughly because I am a commoner, I could die, and even if not, I could deliberately choose to die. But people who mistakenly believe their own opinions are absolutely correct and that trampling others in service of those opinions is permissible cannot even imagine such obvious things. It never occurs to them that someone they assume is beneath them might retaliate.
...When I think about it, becoming a noble is also a way to protect oneself.
At the very least, if I entered my father's family home of Merit Peerage, Flower Peerage members ranked below Merit Peerage would not be able to touch me. Loyalty Peerage members act carefully, trying not to fall in rank and to rise higher, so they are not much concern. As for Staff Peerage, they have been in their positions for so long that their ability to think has been honed. One wrong step and fools drunk on power can be born, but Staff Peerage families cut off such sons early to protect their house.
"Still, I am surprised. Christoph-sama is quite different from the impression I had heard."
I had heard he was someone who pushed people around even more powerfully than Alfred. Before meeting him, I was terrified, but now that I had actually met him, he was an easygoing, friendly uncle. Considering my age and Christoph's age, he might be more of a grandfather than an uncle, but perhaps because of his hair color or his way of speaking, he did not feel like an old man. At most, he seemed like a middle-aged man.
"We had reports from Alfred and Leonardo, you see. If you saw me as a private person, you would run away barefoot and lock yourself in your room, never coming out. My wives warned me to behave strictly as a public figure when meeting Lady Christina."
"...You just almost said you would catch me even if I ran away barefoot."
"I am confident in my legs."
I had not meant it as a compliment, but Christoph puffed out his chest proudly. It should not be possible, but could this habit of mine be genetic from Christoph's second cousin? At the very least, these blue eyes are the same color as Christoph's, different from both my parents and my grandfather.
"Since we are having a private talk, please give me some advice on one thing."
When I consulted him about wanting to return the five thousand gold coins that the Eighth Princess had paid, Christoph praised me as an honest one, then told me to keep the gold coins. It was already a settled matter, something that foolish daughter of his had done, and returning it might cause people to demand that the Eighth Princess's status be restored. A princess who had no intention of working for the country even after receiving a Royal Peerage would be troublesome even if she came back, he said.
"...You are talking about your own daughter, right?"
"She was a disappointing child, but yes, my daughter."
She had not originally been such a foolish daughter, but she lost all reason when Leonardo was involved. In terms of obsessing over an individual and crying out about love, Alfred was the same, but Alfred kept his public and private lives separate. If Claudine, the Eighth Princess, had also been able to distinguish between public and private, there would have been no problem even if she was obsessed with Leonardo.
"Is that the king speaking? Or the father?"
"I would say the same thing either way. My wives say I am cold to my own flesh and blood."
If someone was merely useless, he would keep them fed until marriage, but if they unnecessarily burdened the national treasury, it was better they did not exist. Everything the royal family lived in, ate, and wore was funded by the people's taxes. Those born as the king's children who neither fulfilled their duties nor responsibilities had no right to sit atop the people's hard-earned tax money.
"If you are worried that five thousand gold coins is too much, just think of it as an advance payment for Japanese translation fees."
"...That is still too much."
"I think it is almost too cheap."
With Aurelia's death, many of Saint Yuuta Hiraga's secret arts were lost. If the research materials written in Japanese could be deciphered, even if not all the secret arts could be recovered, some might be revived. If the secret arts could be revived, countless lives would be saved by the medicines they produced. Being able to read Japanese had value far beyond what one might imagine from just 'reading letters,' he said.
"A mere five thousand gold coins can save my people. And not just now. For the future as well, as long as the secret arts are not lost, you will save hundreds, thousands of my people."
"But I... before that, I let many people die."
I learned that a reincarnator who could read Japanese was needed when Leonardo and the Black Knights came to Mey Village. The village had already been destroyed by Woz disease, but if I had declared myself a reincarnator at that point, I might have reduced the number of people who died afterward. I learned at Aurelia's house that someone who could read Japanese was needed to decipher the prescriptions for the lost secret arts, but I could have told them I was one right there and then. Aurelia had taught me it was better to stay silent, but at the fortress in Grenore, I was clearly conscious of it. That by keeping my mouth shut, I was letting people die.
"If I read Saint Yuuta Hiraga's research materials, I might indeed be able to revive some medicines. But I have already let about as many people die as those I could save."
"...You really are Leonardo's sister, are you not. You cannot keep even things you do not need to say buried in your heart."
When Christoph called me a lovable honest one, I corrected him that the word 'foolish' came before 'honest.' I thought Leonardo's honesty was a virtue, but my honesty was just guilt, not a virtue. Not being able to keep quiet about things I should keep quiet about... you could also call me a small-time villain.
"You are not foolish. You made a truly correct choice."
"It was not correct at all. I did not know how reincarnators would be treated, I was scared, and I only protected myself by keeping quiet about being able to read Japanese."
"But when you found the prescription, you tried to tell Aurelia, did you not?"
"That was a crime of information leakage."
"I hear that in Grenore, you went into the quarantine zone without regard for your own risk of infection and cared for the infected."
"I could only do cleaning, and I wore a mask."
"I hear you were the first to notice that the infection source was small animals carried by merchants."
"I just remembered about an incident like that."
"In Waiyakku Valley, you helped Aurelia."
"The Black Knights did the helping."
"...You are stubborn."
"It is all facts."
Then let us change how we think about it. Saying that, Christoph took out a bottle of liquor from a hidden door. Perhaps he thought he could not deal with a stubborn person like me without a drink.
"Suppose that in Mey Village, you had told Leonardo 'I am a reincarnator.'"
That was the point where I first thought I had made the wrong choice. If I had honestly told Leonardo then, Saint Yuuta Hiraga's secret arts should have ended the Woz disease sooner.
That is what I thought, but Christoph's view was different.
"Whether you were truly a reincarnator or not, without question you would have been sent to Waiyakku Valley. At that time, manpower would have been divided. Someone to report to Grenore, someone to go to the valley, someone to send word to the capital."
They might have noticed the anomaly in the surrounding villages. I had noticed that when I was traveling with them.
But from there, things would have developed somewhat differently.
While you were clearing suspicion of infection under Aurelia, the infection would have been brought into Grenore city. Aurelia would have started making medicine immediately, but by that time, the message that had reached the capital would have sent people to Waiyakku Valley, ordered to protect you. Leonardo, as your guard, would have accompanied you to the capital instead of returning to Grenore city, and Aurelia, who should have been making medicine, would also have been made to accompany you. They would have ordered her to prioritize reviving Saint Yuuta Hiraga's secret arts over making medicine that worked on early symptoms.
As a result, the identification of the infection source might have been delayed. If so, the infection would have spread even further than it did.
"How long would it take to actually complete the secret arts prescriptions as working medicine? In the meantime, the medicine that should have been made would not be made, and people who should have survived would die."
In that case, Jean-Jacques would certainly have died, Christoph said. Hearing the name of a living person, cold sweat ran down my spine. I had thought that if I had been brave enough to tell Leonardo I was a reincarnator right when we met, there should have been people who would not have died. But Christoph said the opposite. Because I stayed silent, Aurelia's medicine was made. The number of people saved by that medicine was probably greater than those who would have been saved by reviving medicines through the secret arts.
"It is a good thing you were an ordinary, cowardly child. If you had honestly come forward, more of my people would have lost their lives. If not for that, the choice to abandon some of my people would have fallen on my shoulders."
Thank you. Saying that, the king bowed his head to me, the coward. Because I was cowardly and sly, there were lives that were saved.
"I just... let people die. It is not something to be thanked for..."
"You who say you do not want to become a ruler, who do not want to become a noble... surely you understand that rulers are sometimes forced into choices that affect people's lives. Because you hid, my choices were limited to just the single choice of 'save the people's lives.'"
Save as many people as possible with the best medicine Aurelia could make at that time. The option to abandon was invisible. Only the option to save was before my eyes. He said he was grateful for that first of all.
"Thank you for saving my people. I hear you helped make medicine. You found Aurelia when she could not move in the forest. You contributed to identifying the infection source. You saved Jean-Jacques, whom everyone had abandoned, and you lifted the spirits of the infected as well. ...Thank you. No amount of gratitude is enough. And I will not let you carry the burden of 'letting people die.' That burden is mine, as king. Not even a sliver will I share with you, my subject."
Thank you, Tina. The repeated gratitude, and being called by my nickname for the first time... I understood that this one word was Christoph speaking as a private individual. And probably, from this moment on, this person had become one of my weaknesses.
...When he lowers his head and I cannot see his face, his color and hairstyle look just like my father.
I do not know my grandmother's hair color, but since she was Christoph's second cousin, it could have been blonde. And that could have been inherited by my father.
"By the way, Christina. How about becoming my daughter, along with Leonardo..."
"I decline."
As if the heartfelt conversation until now had been an illusion, Christoph raised his face and made an ominous proposal. I was already used to refusing thanks to Ethelbert.
"...Come to think of it, people tell me to become their grandson or their daughter, but no one tells me to become Diet's wife."
Christoph had four sons, the third being Alfred. Age-wise, it would not match with me. In that sense, Dietfried would be the best match, but while I was invited to become a grandson or a daughter, I had never once been told to become Dietfried's wife.
"He is a child I might grant a Royal Peerage if he acquires the ability, but who cannot be given the right of succession to the throne. There is no way I would give a girl I want to bring into the royal family to someone like that."
"...A child who cannot be given the right of succession to the throne?"
Was that a matter of upbringing? If so, it seemed like a problem that had probably been half-solved at the Mandez residence. That is simply how I understood it, but the facts seemed slightly different. Apparently Christoph realized I did not understand as I tilted my head. Christoph casually continued.
"It was the wish of his father, Elvis. A wish of his son (Elvis) that I granted when he received the Royal Peerage."
Prince Elvis, the First Prince, apparently asked the king as a celebration when he received the Royal Peerage. He asked to renounce his own right of succession to the throne, and also to not give any right of succession to his children.
"Huh? Why?"
If he was renouncing his own succession right, I could still understand. In the same position, I too would want to escape. But I could not understand the reason for rejecting his child's succession right. That was like crushing his child's future.
...Ah, but is that why? The reason Dietfried was fatally raised as a ruler.
They had no intention of letting him inherit the throne, they must not let him. Thinking that way, perhaps they raised him as a spoiled child so that he could not even obtain a Royal Peerage in the first place. If Dietfried's current state was the intended result, then indeed the nurse who raised Dietfried to be willful beyond measure could be called excellent.
"As for me, I do not mind at all, but Elvis does not carry my blood. Perhaps he is worried about that."
"...Um?"
I felt like he had just casually dropped something outrageous. Something about the person reigning as First Prince not actually carrying the king's blood.
"Regarding Elvis's father... no matter how close you and I are, that is a secret. He is at a sensitive age too, you know."
"I will not question what kind of relationship you and I have at this point, but... huh?"
Even setting aside what I had decided not to question, I did not know where to start. One thing was certain. The First Prince was far apart in age from Alfred. There was no way he was at a sensitive age.
"Oh, right. If you want Dietfried on the throne, you should become my adopted daughter and take Dietfried as your husband. Then Elvis will not complain either."
"I never even thought about making Diet the king in the first place. And me becoming Christoph-sama's adopted daughter is far too unreasonable."
"It is not that unreasonable. It is a problem that would be solved if you just returned to Bertrand's side once."
I had just heard that Bertrand's wife was Christoph's second cousin. Even if it was a distant relation, it still traced back to royal blood, so making me an adopted daughter seemed to be easy. What a thing. I felt my peaceful, happy commoner life slipping away from me.
I feel like I have finally resolved a matter that had been on my mind. The story of the lives and possibilities that Tina let die.
Will fix typos and errors at a later date. Fixed any typos and omissions I found.