kscans

Chapter 31 - Interlude, The Castle Without Hyrulia

"That’s why I told you! There’s no way Hyrulia would do something so foolish!"

A young boy was fuming in the Castrato royal castle. His name was Augfel. The third prince, fifteen years of age this year. He was a childhood friend of Hyrulia, who had come to the castle as a candidate for the Crown Prince’s fiancée. They were also cousins of the same age and had often played together since they were small. Hyrulia, who was to become a duchess, needed to take a husband, and even setting aside their familial relationship, the two were so close that there was a plausible rumor that they would one day be engaged. But her status and qualities met the conditions to become queen. The Crown Prince, who was his elder brother, knew of his younger brother’s faint feelings of love, so he had not included Hyrulia among the candidates, but Hyrulia’s adoptive parents had pushed her in.

If she couldn’t even become a candidate, the ducal lady’s honor would be tarnished, they argued.

There was certainly some truth to that.

The two great ducal houses and the four great marquess houses. Candidates should have been chosen from each of these to select a queen fairly. Making an exception for Hyrulia would look bad.

Thus, Hyrulia was invited to the royal castle as a fiancée candidate, but she had been excluded from the Crown Prince’s considerations. She was his younger brother’s beloved. He had no intention of laying a hand on her. It was just for show, for now. That is what he had thought.

However, the incident that occurred later changed the situation completely.

How did such a rumor start?

Even thinking back on it now, he had no idea.

The small whisper of whether Hyrulia might be the culprit instantly became a great flame, crawling and licking its way through the nobility without exception. Proving someone is a culprit is easy. You just have to find solid evidence and present it. But proving someone is not the culprit is difficult. Hyrulia had been granted a palace, and as long as she did not leave it, she could act alone. Unlike the other young ladies, she was not constantly accompanied by attendants, so there were gaps in her time. That had lent credibility to the rumor.

In modern times, such logic would be laughed off.

However, if Frontier’s culture was late medieval, Castrato’s was early medieval. An unenlightened era where rumors and falsehoods could become evidence without any significant reason. It was a country where if someone in power disliked you, you could be beheaded on the spot.

Earth’s early medieval period was much the same.

In Castrato, where that was still a reality, no matter how much Hyrulia proclaimed her innocence, it was like a drop in the ocean. But Hyrulia had the younger prince and the Crown Prince. To save their cousin from her predicament, the two tried to use their power to silence the nobles.

But then, an unexpected ambush came.

The king himself declared Hyrulia a criminal.

"Father?! Do you truly believe Hyrulia is the culprit?!"

The King of Castrato smirked at his two sons who snapped at him, his lips twisting into a nasty grin.

"That is of no consequence. If she becomes a criminal, the dukedom can be given to another. Her assets can be confiscated. It will enrich the national treasury."

At their father’s blatant words, the two princes clenched their teeth with a giriri.

For the past ten years, ever since the conflict with Frontier, Castrato had been cut off from food imports from that country, and furthermore, neighboring countries, learning of this, had ostracized them. The countries that did trade with them took advantage of their situation, charging prices that were several percent higher. For Castrato, whose foundations had been slowly crumbling for the past decade, confiscating the ducal house, with its rich and vast territory and enormous assets, was a windfall. It would also put an end to the scandal that had tarnished the royal family’s name.

Isn’t this all for the best, the father king laughed, and his two sons shuddered. To their father, even the heir to a grand ducal house was no more than an insect. But even if they sympathized with that, they had no obligation to consider it, so the two took action.

At this rate, Hyrulia would be killed.

Exchanging nods, the two moved to make all the arrangements they could to have Hyrulia’s false charge reduced. The only ones who could override the king’s single word were the decrepit old fools of the House of Peers.

Usually, they were troublesome old fossils, but at times like these, they were reliable ghouls.

The incident was what it was. It would not be strange if she were immediately beheaded. Therefore, to receive the king’s mercy, they conspired with influential nobles and, using the fact that she was the heir to a meritorious ducal house as a reason, guided the sentence from death penalty to exile. But despite the princes’ efforts, the grace they managed to wrest from their father was only one day. Exiled without a trial, with nothing but herself, there was no way Hyrulia could escape on her own two feet. That, too, was likely part of their father’s calculations. He wanted to execute Hyrulia as a criminal by any means necessary and confiscate the ducal house.

Their status served as a shackle, preventing the two princes from acting openly. But slipping past their frustration, there were those who moved as swiftly as the wind. The foster brothers who had sworn loyalty to Hyrulia and become her attendants.

With the help of their wet nurse, the two hired adventurers and succeeded in escaping the country among them. It seemed they were pursued by some of the palace soldiers, but the princes’ men intervened, and they reported that the three had safely crossed the border.

No, it could hardly be called safe.

The wilderness that spread beyond the border was a desert of death.

Whether they could cross it depended heavily on luck.

Live, Hyrulia.

The two princes looked up at the deep blue sky, which surely also stretched over Hyrulia, with prayerful eyes.

The Castrato side persistently searched for the three’s whereabouts, but their location remained unknown. Nevertheless, convinced that the ducal house would be confiscated, they sent a trustee to the adoptive parents.

And there, a new fact came to light.

It turned out that the ones who had murdered the young ladies in the inner palace were Hyrulia’s adoptive parents. Hyrulia’s adoptive parents, who had been claiming ownership of the ducal house, went mad when they learned that the rights to her property, as a criminal, belonged to the state.

"If I had known this would happen, I never would have sent her to the inner palace! She is my official adopted daughter, so why? I went to the trouble of eliminating those pesky young ladies, and we were so close!"

Eliminated the young ladies?

Words with a clearly ominous implication.

As a result, after merciless torture, Hyrulia’s adoptive parents confessed everything.

And so, the story returns to the beginning.

"Well. I expected as much, but you never fail to disappoint, do you?"

In the Crown Prince’s vision, as his eyes involuntarily hardened, was his younger brother, dressed for a journey. With a large pack on his shoulder, looking just like an adventurer, he stood up straight.

"Are you going?"

"You bet I am! If Hyrulia’s becoming a commoner, then so am I! I’ve played adventurer in secret before, anyway! I’m leaving the rest to you!"

Augfel, the easygoing third son, had often gone down to the city and gotten into mischief. He had learned his adventurer-like skills then. This time, it would serve him well.

"There’s no point in a castle without her. See ya, brother!"

Watching his brother sprint across the royal castle garden with practiced steps, the Crown Prince let out a deep, thin sigh.

"That’s my line. I’m leaving Hyrulia to you, you idiot brother."

And so, Augfel pursued Hyrulia, while Hyrulia, rescued by the Little One, was rocked in a carriage.

Augfel, unaware that Hyrulia was moving away faster than he was advancing, began to search the towns and villages from the Frontier border, combing through them one by one. Little did he dream that at that very moment, the girl he was looking for had arrived in the Frontier royal capital and was being introduced to Romel as the Little One’s new lady-in-waiting.

Travelers in company, kindness in the world.

Augfel had no way of knowing that the new member of the Little One Squad was staying at the count’s mansion with a smile on her face. A prayer for him.