410 - Leonardo's Perspective - Augun Castle Archives 2
"Do you have that ring now?"
To Carlotta, who said she wanted to see the actual ring, I could only answer that it was being kept in secure storage. Since I was keeping my origins hidden for the time being, I could not say the ring was being kept in the Kingdom of Ivizia.
That ring was being held by Alfred as one piece of evidence, and if this kidnapping turned out to be the work of the Zugall Empire as a whole, it was expected to come in handy when carrying out retaliation or punitive measures. Even if it was a piece of evidence, it was not the kind of thing I could casually carry around anymore.
Also, if it turned out not to be state-sponsored, it would serve to allow the Zugall Empire side to claim "The kidnapping has nothing to do with us." It was clear evidence linking to the culprit. It was like the human sacrifice to be cut off already had a target on its back from the start.
"Is this not a ring like the one with that crest?"
Opening a locked bookshelf, Carlotta took out an old, worn small box from inside. On the lid of the black box, whether due to deterioration over the years, it was faintly blurred, but a westward-facing Adorutoru was depicted as a crest.
"...This is?"
"It is a ring that has been passed down in this house since ancient times."
It seemed to be a box with a mechanism. Carlotta touched the indentations and decorations on its sides in a practiced sequence. The sound of the mechanism being released clicked and clattered for a while, and when Carlotta lifted the lid, inside were three rings and two depressions meant to hold rings.
She urged me to go ahead and take one, so I unhesitatingly picked one up. I examined it carefully, but no matter how I looked at it, it was exactly the same as the ring that used that westward-facing Adorutoru crest. The shape of the beak, the expression of the Adorutoru, were all exactly the same as the ring that had come from Kalisa's mouth.
"There is no mistake that it is the same as this ring. It seems there are two missing from the box, though..."
"It seems five of these rings were made in total."
Over two hundred years ago, the then-lord of Augun Castle had them made for his children, and once the children came of age, they were apparently taken into each of their married houses. After that, they were passed down to descendants, and one of the three remaining was currently Carlotta's ring.
"...Are there records remaining of the houses the children married into?"
"Two of those houses have already died out, and their rings were delivered to this house as personal effects. The houses with heads remaining, including myself, should number three families, but..."
Carlotta tilted her head, wondering if there would really be someone who would go so far as to kidnap a girl across a distance that a two-hundred-man group of bandits would need to traverse the entire country. It might be possible to simply abduct a pretty village girl found in a castle town or a village within one's territory, but there were few who would leave their own ruled lands to commit crimes, she said. In one's own territory, one could pretend brutality never happened all one wanted, but in another's territory, that was not possible. It might be possible if the lords were exceptionally close, but normally one would be demanded to provide various favors in exchange for the crime committed. To avoid such dangers, families ruling territories would as much as possible not go to other territories, nor let others approach theirs.
"Was Boss Jin's little sister worth taking such a risk for?"
"...My little sister is a reincarnator. For several years now, she has been cooperating with the Sedovara Church in reviving the secret arts of Saint Yuta Hiraga."
"So that is why... the Sedovara Church has begun moving to impose sanctions. How troublesome."
Just from knowing that Tina had connections to the Sedovara Church, Carlotta seemed to have connected the recent actions of the Sedovara Church as sanctions for Tina's kidnapping. There still seemed to be pharmacists remaining at the Sedovara Church in Augun territory, but in territories adjacent to Augun, there were regions where pharmacists had completely disappeared. Even for the Zugall Empire, Tina's disappearance should have become a matter that could not be left unattended for long.
"When it comes to someone who would covet a reincarnator and not spare effort for that purpose... the young master of the Uhlenfurt family, I wonder?"
It seemed the ones who currently inherited the crest rings were three families: Carlotta's Augun family, and the related Slaurum and Uhlenfurt families. Carlotta's ring was stored in the black box, and the current head of the Slaurum family was greedy but had no initiative to take any action himself, being the type who would just open his mouth and wait saying "I am hungry" even if a feast was placed before him. Even if he might snatch a girl that someone else had kidnapped as she passed through his territory, he apparently would not go so far as to leave his own territory to kidnap a girl himself.
...Though I have to wonder about that in its own way.
It was a hypothetical, but that "hypothetical" was "the kidnapping of a girl." In the Kingdom of Ivizia, a lord-led kidnapping of a girl would be unthinkable, but in the Zugall Empire, it was probably something that could happen frequently enough to be casually spoken of as a hypothetical.
"And this young master of the Uhlenfurt family...?"
"He is a young man who is ambitious in a different direction from the Slaurum head. Perhaps because my house is the main branch, I sometimes receive suspicious invitations when I meet him in the Imperial Capital. Things like, 'Do you not want to split the Empire and reclaim the former kingdom?' Of course, he immediately laughed and said it was a joke, but..."
She paused at "but," and Carlotta's expression turned as if she was searching her memory. It seemed she felt something was off about the Uhlenfurt young master.
"...Goodness, it will not come to me. When we met last time, there was something that bothered me, but..."
"Could it be about the lace adorning the young master's cuffs? When the territorial lord returned to the mansion in the Imperial Capital in early autumn, you were expressing suspicion about it repeatedly."
"Oh, that is it, that is it. I thought it was strange because the wise woman's lace was used on Edgar's sleeves. That young master is, no matter how you look at it, not to the wise woman's taste."
It seemed Carlotta's memory had been nagged by the fact that while Edgar was not someone Aurelia would give bobbin lace to, bobbin lace had adorned his cuffs. Compared to the bobbin lace that had been given to Aurelia herself before, the quality was markedly inferior, but it was a finely woven lace that could be recognized as the same bobbin lacework. She had apparently thought that Edgar had quickly obtained the bobbin lace that was becoming fashionable in the Kingdom of Ivizia and promptly had clothes made, but that was a bit strange.
"He was using bobbin lace in early autumn, you say? That timing does not quite match up..."
The guidebook and the bobbin lace that Alfred had gathered were brought into the Zugall Empire after the Harvest Festival. The existence of bobbin lace itself should have been advertised by Cody within the Zugall Empire during summer, but the actual product had not been brought in. In early autumn, a time when not even the guidebook had been brought in, it would have been impossible to have clothes tailored using bobbin lace within the Zugall Empire. Unless there was someone who could newly weave bobbin lace.
"...Does the Uhlenfurt territory have some secret that could split the Empire if a reincarnator is brought there?"
The only person I could think of who could weave bobbin lace and was within the Zugall Empire was Tina. Feeling as if I had finally reached within one hand of Tina, I turned my thoughts to other matters to suppress my restless heart. I could not afford to lose sight of what was important due to excitement. It was not enough to just find Tina and take her back. I had to secure Tina's safety and bring her back safely to Grenore. Just because I might have pinpointed her location did not mean rushing straight to retrieve her was anything but a terrible strategy. Charging into enemy-favorable territory without securing an escape route carried the risk of just showing the kidnappers our hand and nothing more.
It had been a topic shift to Uhlenfurt territory meant to calm myself, but when asked about Uhlenfurt territory, the smile Carlotta showed was completely different in nature from what she had shown before. When confronting me as a nighttime intruder, she had worn a spirited and composed smile. When welcoming me as a daytime guest, she had worn a contrived but welcoming smile. But her current expression, while her lips formed a smile, her eyes were not smiling at all.
"Regarding Uhlenfurt territory, let me have separate materials prepared."
Carlotta showed a slight hesitation, as if reluctant to speak of it herself. She was an elderly lady who fit the term "heroine," one who seemed unshakeable by anything, but it seemed I should not have asked about Uhlenfurt territory. It seemed to be a topic she did not want to discuss, but Carlotta did not try to hide the materials. After seeing Carlotta leave the archives, an elderly gentleman took over and moved about inside the archives. The elderly gentleman who introduced himself as Carlotta's steward was apparently her husband. From the several materials gathered and the elderly gentleman's supplementary explanations, I understood why Carlotta had avoided stating things plainly.
...Uhlenfurt territory was the birthplace of the reincarnator from two hundred years ago.
The reincarnator who rose to prominence in the Zugall Empire about two hundred years ago was the polar opposite of Saint Yuta Hiraga. Saint Yuta Hiraga established the techniques of medicine-making by human hands, and even after his death, they continue to save many people's lives. Conversely, the reincarnator of the Zugall Empire, while his period of activity was short, the number of people killed in that short period could not be matched even by war-loving tyrants. Of course, it was not that the reincarnator himself directly killed them, but the weapons he created caused the destruction of four entire countries. It was no mistake to call him the worst reincarnator.
...Reincarnator Camilo.
Reincarnator Camilo, born in the Zugall Empire, was a reincarnator whose name was called out extremely rarely, unlike Saint Yuta Hiraga. It would be more accurate to say that even uttering his name was taboo, due to what he had created.
...As his birthplace, does something remain there?
But if Camilo's weapons or something really remained, the former kingdom would not now be called a fallen kingdom. It should have become an empire bearing the name of the fallen kingdom, not the Zugall Empire.
...It seems Carlotta-sama's ancestors did not look favorably upon the reincarnator who created weapons, and the reincarnator, feeling dissatisfied with this, left the country. And the country he moved to was the Zugall Kingdom, which became the foundation of the Zugall Empire. The Zugall Kingdom, having gained vicious power through the weapons created by the reincarnator, chose as its first target of invasion the fallen kingdom, Camilo's homeland. This might have been intended to settle the reincarnator's personal grudge, but the biggest reason was probably that the reincarnator had information about the terrain and such. To verify the performance of the weapons, he chose a location where they could have advantages in aspects other than just the weapons' performance.
By destroying his homeland, the reincarnator proved the usefulness of his weapons and himself, invigorating the Zugall Kingdom. By the time the reincarnator died, he had destroyed four countries, causing the Zugall Kingdom, which had been merely a small nation, to grow large enough to call itself an Empire. In a sense, it could be said that because the reincarnator's period of activity was short, other countries remained on the continent. If the reincarnator had lived as long as Saint Yuta Hiraga, the current continent would probably have been called the Zugall Continent instead of the Erath Continent.
...So what Carlotta-sama did not want to talk about was the reincarnator. As the master of Augun Castle, which carried the lineage of the fallen kingdom, the name of Reincarnator Camilo must be close to taboo. He was a detestable existence who built a vast empire and caused much bloodshed. Perhaps something left by such an existence remained in Uhlenfurt territory.
...Reincarnator Camilo was German, was he not?
The Menhishumi Church did not teach much about Reincarnator Camilo, but as one of the subjects of study for a Silver-White Knight, I had learned about it. His previous life was German, and for some reason he was versed in Japanese. He left diaries and such in German, but it was said that, like Saint Yuta Hiraga, he left his research results in Japanese. Therefore, after Reincarnator Camilo's death, no one had been able to reproduce Camilo's weapons. There was a theory that he deliberately used Japanese to prevent anyone from reproducing them, but few viewed Reincarnator Camilo favorably. If he did not want them reproduced, he should not have left the research results in the first place, they said.
...There must have been something. Something that made him think it was better to pass down the results to posterity, even if they were weapons for killing.
Since this is a continuation of last time, it is short. Finally, the name of the other reincarnator has appeared.
Will fix typos and errors at a later date.