kscans

Chapter 64 - Little One and the Kodoku Curse

"Hmph. And?"

Standing before Romel and the other dignitaries who had summoned her, Little One fixed them with a sullen stare. They were in the royal palace, in Romel's office. Romel gave a slight nod at Little One’s curt words and replied with equal brevity.

"Well, I thought you’d say that. Can I leave it to you?"

"Of course♪"

The little girl flashed a bright, cheerful grin.

Well, she should have been approaching the age of a young lady, but she still looked to be about five years old. Even among her peers, Little One was a head shorter, yet her presence was immense.

"Then I’ll leave it to you. Just be very careful not to let Chihaya notice."

The captain of the Royal Guard stared at Romel, who was trying to bring the conversation to a gentle close, his eyes wide.

"What do you mean, you’ll leave it to her? This is a crisis that concerns the young lady’s future, is it not?"

His name was Camero la Dolphonis. He was the heir of one of the four great Marquis houses. He had neatly styled blue, silver hair and orange eyes, and was somewhere in his late thirties or early forties. The handsome man looked back and forth between Romel and Little One in a panic.

As if to second the man, another man nodded emphatically. He was the director of the palace's covert unit, ‘Wedge’. He was the one who had taken an interest in the twins and instructed that they join the knights to be taught their skills.

"The captain of the Royal Guard is correct. The young lady is taking the danger to her person too lightly. What will you do if the worst should happen?"

The man had his white hair tied back in a single tail. He was likely an old man, but his age was impossible to read. His well, built physique and sharp features looked youthful, perhaps in his fifties or sixties, while his keen, deep grey eyes held the dim light unique to those with a certain kind of experience. It was not the gaze a young man under a hundred should possess in Frontier, where the average lifespan was one hundred and fifty years.

In response to the two men who were worried for her, the little girl raised a cynical eyebrow and muttered in a sharp tone.

"And so?"

"Eh?"

Camero let out a sound of surprise. The director of the covert unit didn't say anything, but his expression was much the same.

"I don’t care what happens. I believe in my brother. I know he would never do anything to harm me."

Little One puffed out her chest proudly.

"It will be too late once something happens!"

"Exactly. The more trust you place in your brother, the more you will be hurt if he betrays you, my lady."

As the two continued to press her, Little One sighed and spoke as if to admonish them.

"When I’m betrayed? If I’d get angry or hurt by something like that, I wouldn’t have trusted him in the first place. Don’t you get it? I can forgive him for anything he does, and I wouldn’t even mind. That’s what it means to believe in someone, you know?"

Her words sounded like she was reasoning with a child. The two men in question were left speechless by the little girl's calm eyes.

"Believing in someone means accepting everything about them. Their lies, their struggles, all of it. If you can’t forgive that, then it’s the fault of the person who believed. If you get angry because you were deceived, then you shouldn't have believed in them from the start."

At first glance, it sounded like an incoherent theory, but a strange sense of understanding filled the room. Most people would say that the one who deceived was in the wrong. That was the common view. But the little girl before them said that the one who believed such a person was the fool. That, too, sounded like a kind of truth.

"I believe in my brother, and if he does something to me, I’ll just think, ‘well, this is a problem’, and that’s it. So I’ll be fine. Got it?"

Absolute trust.

Romel’s eyes curved into a smile, a wicked look on his face.

What could anyone do when faced with such complete trust? When someone exposes their unguarded back to you, the only thing you can do is gently embrace it. The more affection you have for someone, the less you can break that trust. It was an ironclad armor. Little One knew this. Even if she were stabbed with a weapon, she would probably just look at her attacker with a troubled smile.

Even Romel could predict that, so there was no way her doting brother wouldn't imagine the same. How terrifying must the thought of losing his sister’s trust be for him? Even if Chihiro forgave him, Chihaya would never be able to forgive himself.

That was why Chihaya would desperately suppress the mysterious parasitic entity. He would never let it take him over. It was paradoxical, but that was Little One’s greatest defense.

"I’m leaving it to you, Chihiro. You’re the only one who can hold his reins, you know?"

"You got it♪"

No extra words were needed.

For Romel and the little girl, who were so close to the twins, the conversation was too brief for the other two men to comprehend.

"Unbelievable. Are you just going to leave it be? She is a count’s daughter and a quasi, royal under His Majesty’s guardianship. As the Royal Guard, we cannot simply ignore her."

"Her own intentions take top priority. His Majesty has also given his consent."

Prince Romel declared coolly.

"Lord Camero. The reason I summoned you here was so that you, as the one in charge of the palace security, would be aware of the situation. To be precise, Chihiro’s temperament and the tendencies of her brother, Chihaya."

Romel faced Camero with the expression of a regent. Camero, in turn, received his gaze with the demeanor of a knight.

"She has many secrets. Most of them cannot be made public. His Majesty the King is aware of this. There is a royal decree that her freedom must not be impeded."

Camero’s eyes widened slightly.

"All decisions are left to her will. Chihiro, I believe in you."

After the whole conversation they just had, he was saying that now?

Little One looked at Romel with a bewildered expression, and he gave her a mischievous wink.

An unspoken smile conveyed the emotional distance between them, which suddenly shrank, correctly transmitting Romel’s feelings to Little One.

Leave the follow, up to me.

Ah, that's right, Romel. You’re always like this.

Without a word, he understood Little One's intentions and sought the best course of action.

Little One silenced the two still grumbling men with a cold stare and escaped with Pochiko-san through the skylight.

"Hiro!!"

When Little One returned to the Count’s residence, a pale, faced Chihaya greeted her. His eyes were fragile and wavering, and he looked as though he might burst into tears at any moment.

"Hiro, Hiro, where did you go? Don’t leave me behind, please?"

Chihaya clung to her tightly, just like a child searching for his mother.

"It’s okay, nii-ni, I’m right here."

Chihaya was so much bigger than her. When did such a gap form between them?

Adults were foolish. Including herself. The Chihiro within her had harbored the same fears as the captain of the guard. But the child, Chihiro, thought the exact opposite. She hadn’t lived on the technologically advanced Earth for nothing. If you take love away from someone who craves it, they will fly into a rage. Stir up their anxiety, and they’ll become self, destructive, and there’s no telling what they might do. So, you give it to them. If you give and give endlessly, they will stabilize and strive not to lose it.

It was a shrewd and cunning method, using the other person’s affection and turning it against them.

Chihiro laughed self, deprecatingly.

"I’ll always be with you. So, let’s live happily together, okay♪"

Let’s live happily together...

Chihaya’s expression softened into a gentle, relaxed smile.

"Yeah, it’s fun. Everything is fun as long as I’m with you, Hiro!"

Your honesty is dazzling, dear brother...

Dancing in the palm of his sister's hand, Chihaya made a renewed vow in his heart.

I will protect Hiro! I don’t know what that thing is, but I won’t lose to it!!

And so, kicking aside anxiety and unrest, the twins returned to their daily lives.

The Count’s residence, a place from which even groundless worries would flee barefoot. Little did they know that while the laid, back family was unaware, another unsettling storm was brewing elsewhere.

"Well now... shall we hear what you have to say?"

In an interrogation room in the palace dungeons sat the three men who had been speaking with Little One and the others just a moment ago.

Furnished appropriately for interrogating nobles, the room contained a heavy table where a single man sat opposite them. Dressed in the robes of a magician, he showed no particular sign of agitation as he sat leisurely in his chair.

Romel, who had been toying with something in his hand while staring at the man, placed it on the table. It was a fragment of a magic stone that had been part of the magic circle in the Bastok underground. The magical traces on it matched those on the magic stone from the cave in the Queen's Forest.

"How do you explain this? Marquis Lombard."

Before Romel, who narrowed his keen eyes, Marquis Lombard answered with a fearless smile.

"You must understand, don’t you? I was trying to prepare the strongest magical beast for my master. A fitting vessel for him, you see."

What is he talking about?

Marquis Lombard muttered as if in a fever dream.

Here, the oral tradition of the four great Marquis houses, unknown even to the royal family, would be brought to light.

It all began with a mistake made by the gods. The deep scars it left behind had not yet faded.