JILL wasn't invited into the castle of Marquess Beil, the lord of the city. She was put under house arrest in a corner of the fortified harbor as a visitor. This was apparently because, as the harbor faced the Kratos Kingdom across the sea, a section of it had been converted into a naval port, and the Northern Division of the Rave Imperial Army had been stationed there. Jill had also heard that it was because Sphere had staunchly opposed her entry into the castle.
Hadis hadn't woken up yet, so perhaps the officials in the castle had struggled over how to handle the unconscious emperor's declaration about Jill being his fiancée. Using Sphere's selfishness as a pretext, they had postponed deciding what to do with Jill by tossing her into the naval port, which fell under the jurisdiction of the emperor. Although Jill was a child, she was still from another country and had been on the ship where the emperor had been attacked. There must have certainly been some suspicion of her being a spy.
From what Jill had overheard, it seemed as though the problem had arisen after they had questioned whether Hadis was really the emperor. Hadis wasn't supposed to be back from the Kratos Kingdom yet. The fact that today wasn't his planned return date seemed to have aroused suspicion, and they were in the process of confirming his identity with the imperial capital.
Something smells fishy… Jill thought.
Couldn't they have found out if Hadis was the real emperor by letting Sphere check?
Even if Jill made allowances for the fact that she knew the history of the future, the situation still seemed questionable. But she had no idea what the enemy was thinking or where they were lurking. It would be easy for her to break down the gates, knock out the guards, and escape, but she decided that she should probably stay quiet for the time being.
Alone in her locked room, Jill propped her elbow against the armrest of her chair and cradled her jaw.
"After all," she muttered aloud, "I don't know the details of the situation either."
Six years in the future, the citizens of the Kratos Kingdom had called the incident that occurred here "the murder-suicide of Beilburg."
A party had been held to entertain Hadis, who had returned from the Kratos Kingdom. The lord's daughter, Sphere, was one of Hadis' fiancée candidates, and when he had refused to make her his fiancée, she went around killing the other fiancée candidates who had been invited to the party, one by one, and then finally committed suicide by setting the castle on fire.
Fanned by the strong winds sweeping across the ocean, the fire had spread rapidly and destroyed all of Beilburg. Marquess Beil had argued that his daughter had been innocent and that the Northern Division soldiers, who were permanently stationed there, had been negligent, but Hadis had refused to listen to him. The entire Beil family had been executed, bringing an end to their bloodline.
The Beil family had been at fault for allowing such a disaster to happen in their domain, but they hadn't committed treason nor attempted to take Hadis's life. The Northern Division, the troops that protected the emperor, had also been present. And yet, after the incident, Hadis had taken all of Marquess Beil's territory under imperial control and had rebuilt Beilburg as a naval port city. Supporters of the crown prince had erupted with criticism that Hadis had gone too far with wiping out the entire Beil family, and they had speculated that Hadis might have planned the entire incident just so he could turn Beilburg into a naval port city. This had only intensified the internal strife in the Rave Empire.
That confrontation had been directly linked to the start of the war between the Rave Empire and the Kratos Kingdom—after the Beilburg incident, the crown prince faction had proactively started reaching out to the Kratos Kingdom. As Gerald's fiancée, Jill had been rigorously trained in etiquette and politics until she began her military service, and she had listened to these messengers herself, so she was very certain about that course of events.
However, all Jill had known for sure was that information was being passed to the Kratos Kingdom. Any incident of internal strife in an enemy nation tended to be turned into propaganda for war by inciting cruelty and inhumanity. And, after all, the informants were from the crown prince faction. It was very possible that they had changed the story to put Hadis in the worst possible light. Jill couldn't just blindly accept the story they had told.
It's so hard to believe that a girl who looks like she can't even hold a sword could do that… Jill thought about Sphere and her "You little homewrecker" comment.
Six years in the future, Jill had learned her lesson that she couldn't judge a woman from her appearance alone, so she wouldn't write Sphere off as having nothing to do with that horrible incident, but Jill felt as though the story might have been exaggerated, or that those events had perhaps been caused by something else.
Maybe there was something Jill could do, while she still had the time to investigate.
Hadis wasn't originally supposed to return home for another half month, and from what Jill remembered, in the original timeline, the Rave Emperor had peacefully remained in the Kratos Kingdom after Jill and Gerald's engagement had been settled. This meant that, historically, the Beilburg incident should have happened after that point in time.
"If I play my cards right, I can prevent it before it happens, or stop it from happening entirely…" she murmured to herself.
The timeline was already out of order because Hadis had rushed back to his home country with Jill. Moreover, he had brought Jill back as his fiancée. It wasn't necessarily set in stone that the same incident would happen at all.
But if it did occur, it would be a factor in the start of the war.
Jill had decided to become Hadis's—Emperor of the Rave Empire's—consort. She was doing this to get away from Gerald, but if at all possible, she selfishly wanted to avoid war with her native land as well.
She wasn't thinking about changing history in any sort of grandiose way, but if war broke out between the two nations, it wasn't hard to imagine how an empress who had come from the enemy nation would be treated in these lands.
Besides, she didn't want to fight against her homeland or her subordinates, whom she still hadn't met yet.
…But, in that future…they're probably all dead… Jill felt a pain in her chest after imagining it. At least they should be alive now, though.
Even if Jill never saw them again, she would feel okay knowing that they were alive and well. Gerald had killed them because they had been her subordinates, after all, so she had no choice but to never see them again.
"Missy? You doing okay?"
"Rave!"
"Here, I brought you provisions."
Rave passed through the wall in a semi-transparent state, and then a pie appeared over Jill's head. Jill beamed, took it in her hands, and immediately started shoveling it into her mouth.
The soft dough and the sour-sweetness of the cherries and strawberries that had been simmered with sugar produced an indescribably rich flavor. The cuisine in the Rave Empire seemed to be far superior—Jill couldn't believe something so delicious was being served at a naval port.
Yes—the very first thing Jill had learned after arriving at the Rave Empire was that their food was delicious.
To begin with, there was a greater variety of dishes. Even with bread, there were breads with different textures, slightly different smells, and different flavors. Jill was also impressed that there were different types of bread used depending on the manner in which it was to be eaten—there was bread to be eaten with stew, for instance, and bread to be enjoyed with butter alone. When she had received a flat, square piece of bread with fried egg, sausage, and thinly sliced onion on top of it, she had even believed she'd started her life over again just for the purpose of eating it.
The Kratos Kingdom was abundant in foodstuffs as well. They had the divine protection of Kratos, Goddess of the Earth, after all, so they could grow anything anywhere under her dominion. One of the riches of the Kratos Kingdom was that no matter where you went, you would never have difficulty finding something to eat, at least.
But the cuisine in the Rave Empire, with their divine protection of logic, was outstanding. Logic was, put another way, ingenuity. Crops didn't grow everywhere in the Rave Empire, and this had likely led to the discovery of different food storage methods and different creative ways to eat food.
Surely simmering cherries and strawberries with sugar came from a stroke of genius! Jill believed with all her heart.
In Kratos, cherries and strawberries were eaten in their natural state. They had refined sugar in Kratos as well, but they hadn't established the technology to mass-produce refined sugar, so it wasn't distributed in such quantities that it could be readily used. Of course, cherries and strawberries were delicious enough in their natural state, but when simmered with sugar and made into a pie like this, they were addictive.
"Well, you look like you're enjoying that, Missy," Rave commented. "Aren't you worried at all about being under house arrest?"
Jill was happily chewing away, her cheeks bulging with pie. When she met Rave's flabbergasted eyes, she tilted her head.
"I'm being treated like a guest," she stated. "I've got a clean room with a bed and a table, and I can take proper baths… Best of all, not only do I get three meals a day, but you also bring me sweets!"
"The important thing here is your appetite, eh? So, Hadis wasn't wrong about you…"
"How is His Majesty?" Jill asked.
"Finally got around to asking about him, huh? Are you mad about the Lady Sphere thing, by any chance?"
Jill blinked. The hand she was using to eat the pie froze. "Isn't it normal for an emperor to have lots of potential fiancées and wives? I only just met him, and, as I said, we're going to be married in name only for a while, so I don't have any reason to be mad." She shrugged.
Rave's small eyes blinked several times, and then a curious smile crept up on his face as he flew around the room. "Well, don't go saying stuff like that, Missy! After he woke up, that idiot's first words were, 'My amethyst wasn't just a dream?!' And then, when he heard that Lady Sphere had confronted you, he was crying out all night in his sleep, 'It's all over… She's gonna dump me…'"
A slight sense of insecurity is fine, but surely he's being overemotional? The fact that he's that troubled over it…well, to be honest…how should I put it… I feel…kind of pleased…but also not really…
Jill chewed the pie with a red face. Rave smirked.
"But he's recovering quickly, you know. He'll probably come here ready to fire on all cylinders, so get fired up to see him! …Ah, speak of the devil."
They heard the guard's voice from the other side of the door, challenging someone, but Jill immediately sensed a buzzing of magic power, and the guard fell silent.
Perhaps the guard had been put to sleep or stunned. Jill swallowed the last bite of pie with a gulp without tasting much of it. Footsteps approached, and then she heard a single knock at the door.
"It's me. Let me in."
"Okay."
Jill got to her feet, and as soon as she saw the silhouette that resembled Hadis's form, she kneeled with her head bowed, as decorum dictated.
…Hm? Something smells kind of good.
Jill's curiosity was piqued, but she remained fixed in her kneeling position. There had been so much chaos before that she'd forgotten about it entirely, but you weren't supposed to show your face to the emperor until he gave permission.
Hadis seemed bewildered by this reception.
"You don't need to kneel before me."
"Yes, I do. You're the emperor," she stated.
"Why are you acting so formally with me? A-Are you upset, my amethyst? If it's about Sphere, that's just a misunderstanding. She and I don't have a relationship like that— You're the only consort for me."
"…It makes me happy that you're so considerate of me, Your Majesty." Jill squashed down the second half of that sentence—even if you do have a thing for little girls. "But if we're just married in name only," she continued, "then you don't have to worry about things like that."
She didn't want him to get any weird ideas.
Hadis, who seemed to have sat down in a chair, pondered for some time before quietly saying: "Even if we're married in name only, we still need to work hard to maintain our relationship, don't we? I don't want you to dislike me—I want you to love me, if at all possible. Or is it wrong to strive to one day become a real couple?"
"N-No… It isn't wrong. But is now really the time for this?"
"To me, how my wife feels is more important than anything else," Hadis declared. "Are you saying what you really think? Despite your outer strength, you're really surprisingly delicate, aren't you? When I put your shoes on for you, you seemed quite flustered."
Jill was speechless.
"So, I'm right, huh?" Hadis said, the proud smile she knew must be on his face very apparent in his tone of voice. "My interpretation is correct?"
"No! In fact, I'd rather you not do things like that in the future…!" Jill requested loudly.
"But you really enjoyed eating the cakes and pies I made, didn't you?"
Jill looked up, in spite of herself.
Hadis's complexion had improved. His strength must have returned. But for some reason, the emperor, descendant of Rave the Dragon God, had a triangular bandana wrapped around his beautiful hair.
Jill was silently taken aback.
Getting to her feet, she looked at Hadis's appearance from above.
There was a low, square neckline—was that an apron?! Incredulously, his long, slender fingers were covered by oven mitts! Each of these articles of clothing was deep crimson, a color forbidden to anyone except the imperial family of the Rave Empire. It was only natural for the emperor to wear these articles of clothing.
Wait—no, it's not!
The real question was, why was the emperor wearing a triangular bandana, an apron, and mittens, with which he was holding a baking sheet with freshly baked bread?
Wait, isn't there a more pressing issue?!
"There are no flaws in my happy family plan, after all," he said, oozing confidence. "Now, here are the croissants I made for you."
Jill accepted the croissant he handed over on his mitten.
It was airy and still warm. Jill could almost hear the crisp of the flaky dough just by looking at it. The outside was a glossy, brown color. This had been the cause of the smell that had been wafting through the air since Hadis had arrived.
A croissant of this quality could not have been produced by a novice. Did it have something to do with the fact that he was the descendant of the Dragon God?
"People try to poison me on a daily basis," Hadis explained. "It was also a pain searching for the culprit every single time, so I started to cook for myself. It ended up being pretty fun, and I've been hooked ever since. Even after becoming an emperor, I don't have enough manpower."
"…Y-You…cook for yourself…"
"It's also been a way I manage my health, but I never thought it'd be helpful in this way… Persistence pays off! Now that I'm emperor, and I can use ingredients and tools more lavishly, breads and sweets are my specialty. I'm pretty much good at everything."
"I-I can't believe…everything I've eaten so far has been…" The emperor's home cooking.
Jill trembled, but she couldn't let go of her croissant. Hadis smiled faintly, as if he had already seen right through her. Before she knew it, the fiend in the triangular bandana had kneeled on the floor to meet her gaze and whispered: "If you'd like, I'll treat you to meals personally. I've heard that the secret to a happy marriage is keeping your partner's stomach happy. From the looks of you, I'd wager that's correct. Sometimes even lowbrow books can come in handy… Now, let's make you fall in love with me!"
Hadis had apparently learned this from a very subjective book, but when it came to Jill, the tip was spot-on. She couldn't move.
"I'll make you eggs benedict in the morning. That dish doesn't exist in Kratos. I'll smother the egg with sauce and put it on top of thick-cut bacon and crispy, toasted bread…"
"…I-I'm not going to give in…to a breakfast like that…!" she huffed.
"You'll change your mind soon enough. Your tongue has come to know my taste. Once you've experienced it, there's no going back. You're going to taste your fill of me and want even more."
"D-Don't talk to me in that obscene way! I'm just a kid!" Jill managed to retort.
Hadis looked puzzled. "So, what if you're a kid? You're my wife. What's wrong with me hitting on you? In fact, it's being polite."
"The problem is my age! Use some of your adult common sense!"
"Adults are children who have just gotten older!" Hadis smiled sweetly after brazenly saying something so childish. "Now, open your mouth. I'll feed you. I want you to learn the form and taste of my love that I've made just for you. You'll never be able to eat anyone else's food again."
"S-Stop!"
The appealing croissant was getting ever closer. Hadis grabbed Jill's chin. She shook her head, but she just couldn't resist.
The aroma of the freshly baked bread blended with the smell of the butter and sugar. Freshly baking it… Hadis was playing dirty. How could Jill refuse the moment of pure bliss when it slowly entered her mouth and made a crunching sound?
"Good girl. Now you can't leave me… That's right, we're going to become a husband and wife bound by croissants."
"…That's…the…"
After gulping the bite down, Jill stepped away and grabbed her croissant back.
"That's the stupidest thing. I've ever heard! Open your eyes and realize how weird you're acting, you perverted emperor!"
Jill shoved the croissant in Hadis's mouth, sending him straight to the floor. Rave's thunderous laughter echoed from the ceiling. After taking the baking sheet Hadis had brought in, Jill huffed to herself aggressively and started on her second croissant.
"I don't get it… What went wrong?"
"Your head. Your head went wrong."
"That's ridiculous! My plan was perfect. But she still hasn't fallen for me… What didn't work?!"
"I told you, it was that head of yours," Rave repeated. "You should have just shut up and let your looks do the talking. You would've had this thing in the bag."
"Your Majesty, Rave… If you two don't feel like engaging in an intelligent conversation, would you please leave?" asked Jill, her voice icy. The emperor had been conducting some post-operation analysis with the snake-like creature across the table, and Jill had lost any desire to keep up polite appearances.
Hadis, however, did not seem offended at this and simply tilted his head. "Casting me out after you gobbled up those croissants I made?"
"Th-That's not… A-Anyway, now's not the time for this! You putting that guard to sleep suggests that you slipped out of the castle to come here, right? Doesn't that mean something's happened?"
"Not really. I just wanted to see you."
This caught Jill off guard. Her face belatedly turned red.
Hadis, however, didn't seem to notice this. He repositioned himself on the chair, crossing his legs. Even in a triangular bandana and an apron, he looked handsome. "This is a bit of a hassle, though. You should have been released from house arrest long ago on my order and come to nurse me back to health."
Jill didn't remember hearing about an imperial order like that… Which meant…
"So, Marquess Beil is ignoring your orders?"
"He ostensibly acts like he's following them, but you're still here," Hadis said. "He has refused me any contact with the outside, pretending to be concerned that my health will get worse otherwise. I asked for the imperial capital to send someone to come fetch us, but I don't know whether that message was delivered either."
"No way… Is this an insurrection?" Jill asked in a hushed voice. Hadis laughed coldly.
"If so, they've got a lot of guts, taking on the cursed emperor."
"…By cursed, you mean…?"
"You didn't hear about that in Kratos?" he asked, one eyebrow raised.
"We just hear the common tales of people accidentally dying around you, and the never-ending conflict, and things like that," Jill explained.
Hadis's eyes widened slightly at this. "The common tales… I never thought it would be interpreted that way."
"I don't mean to suggest they're made-up stories, but you can't say Kratos and Rave are fond of each other, can you? So, I've taken everything I've learned about you with a grain of salt. I'd like to hear about you in your own words," Jill told him.
"You want to judge me with your own eyes and ears? …That puts me in a bit of a pickle."
"What do you mean?" Jill tilted her head to one side.
"I might just fall in love with you," Hadis grumbled in a sulky tone.
Only after Jill's face had turned red did her mind catch up and understand his words. "What are you… W-Wait, how is that a problem?! You were trying to woo me just earlier, weren't you?!"
"I want you to fall in love with me, not the other way around."
"WHAT?!" Jill yelled.
"Ah, ah!" said Rave, cutting them off. "We're getting off-topic, so talk about that later! We don't have time! Hurry and explain!"
Hadis cleared his throat and set aside his perplexing revelation. Truthfully, Jill also wished to avoid those sorts of subjects, so she settled in to listen carefully.
"Did you know that I was originally a very minor imperial prince, very far removed from the line of succession?"
Jill had happened to overhear that much before, so she nodded.
"My mother was a concubine," he continued, "and her social standing was so low that only one of her sons, me or Vissel, had been permitted to stay in the imperial capital as an imperial prince… So His Majesty the Emperor forced me out to a remote region of the empire."
As Hadis explained all this, Jill suddenly realized…Hadis's mother hadn't chosen him.
Hadis laughed at Jill's shock and confirmed her suspicion. "Well, I think they cast me away, technically. I guess they thought I was weird because I could see this guy," he said, winking at Rave. "They said they'd given birth to a monster."
"The former emperor couldn't see me, you see," Rave said with a sneer. "Nor had any emperor for many, many generations prior."
"But I could see him," Hadis said. "So, I knew… I knew that one day, I would become emperor—no, that I had to become emperor."
Hadis went on to explain that strange accidents then started to occur, beginning on his eleventh birthday.
The crown prince, one of Hadis's half-brothers whom he had never met before, suddenly died. It had been a heart attack. But there were still many other princes of higher social standing worthy of becoming the next crown prince. No one had reached out to Hadis, forgotten completely in the empire's frontier region. The next crown prince was decided, and again that crown prince died. He had drowned in the baths.
"The next crown prince hung himself," Hadis explained. "Apparently, he claimed to have heard a woman's voice every night after becoming the crown prince. The next one suffocated when he was washing his face one morning. Every boy chosen to be crown prince before me died like this, one after the other—every single year, on my birthday, one by one, like a messed-up gift."
Jill was speechless. She unconsciously glanced at Rave, but he became indignant.
"It wasn't me!" he denied. "I wouldn't have even needed to do something like that for him to become emperor."
"I sent a letter to the capital, but my older brother—Prince Vissel—was the only one who would answer me. But my brother was a minor imperial prince too. He didn't have the power to summon me back. If anything, his communicating with me only caused more trouble and broke something inside my mother."
"Broke something inside of her? But you two are brothers… I can't believe it…" Jill felt shaken by this, but Hadis continued with an easiness she couldn't wrap her head around.
"After this went on for five years, though, I guess they couldn't dismiss it as a coincidence anymore. The emperor accepted what my brother told him, summoned me back to the imperial court, and appointed me crown prince. That year, no one died. But that was the decisive blow—my father decided to abdicate the throne to me… He was probably scared of what would happen if he was above me."
The former emperor's retirement felt to Hadis like he was running away. He bequeathed everything to Hadis, like he was begging for his life. And so, at the tender age of eighteen, the young emperor came to be—Emperor Rave.
"Finally, on my coronation day, my mother committed suicide," Hadis said matter-of-factly. "She said she didn't want to live in a country ruled by a monster. And so now, I'm a cursed emperor."
So this is what it means to be at a loss for words…, thought Jill, who didn't have the faintest idea how to respond.
Hadis smiled faintly. "But that's all in the past now. It's not something you need to worry about."
"B-But, Your Majesty… You didn't do anything, right? You didn't do anything wrong…" Jill contended.
"It's fine. My brother went around getting a lot of people on my side, so I can live peacefully—for now, at least."
"Is… Is that so?"
"Yes. My brother can't see Rave, but he trusts me," Hadis said cheerfully. But Jill nearly broke out into a cold sweat for another reason entirely.
If my memory is correct, you're going to go around executing your older brother and all your half-brothers in the future because of their treason and rebellion, and you won't spare a single one…!
What's more—Prince Vissel would be the one leaking information to Kratos. Jill had seen the man himself having secret talks with Gerald.
"I won't say that everything is going to go smoothly, of course," Hadis continued, not noticing her pallid countenance. "I'm sure even my older brother probably feels conflicted. My other brothers avoid me. But I want to believe that one day, we'll be able to talk about things calmly."
Will the emperor really continue to be betrayed, even though he has so much faith in them? And in the end, will he really abandon himself to despair? That's terrible…
But nothing was definite yet, so Jill fought back against the helplessness that made her want to punch the wall. She clenched her concealed fists and changed the subject.
"…In the Kratos Kingdom, the people have wondered why there haven't been any noticeable developments in the Rave Empire these last few years. I presume it was your curse that caused this?" she asked.
"That's right," Hadis nodded. "Because the crown princes were dying every year, a lot of talented people fled the empire. I've worked to stabilize the political situation since becoming emperor, but I've just been treated like a cursed abomination. My brother tries to keep the rumors in check, but if someone gets even slightly injured, a big fuss is made about my curse. Meanwhile, people suspect that the serial deaths of the crown princes was something I had planned from the very beginning."
Hadis was an imperial prince who had been driven out to a remote region of the empire and then forgotten about—everyone ought to know such a plan would have been impossible for him to carry out. But it was easy for fear to overpower logic.
"Plus, my older brother is a fine man and popular to boot, so the movement to appoint him emperor has been ramping up lately. It doesn't matter what my brother wants to do, you know. They'll say it's a curse or what have you, but those who don't learn from their past mistakes are doomed to repeat them."
"…Then perhaps Crown Prince Vissel or someone around him orchestrated the attack on the ship before?" Jill guessed. "Or maybe one of your other brothers went rogue…"
Hadis shook his head. "Vissel and my other brothers have witnessed first-hand their relatives in the imperial family dying one by one. I was once told that becoming the crown prince was a death sentence. I don't think that's a fear they could forget about that easily."
It was certainly hard to imagine that anyone would try to dethrone Hadis under those circumstances.
"Then for now, the only one we ought to be suspicious of is Marquess Beil, right?" asked Jill, deep in thought.
"I'm sorry," said Hadis, his expression suddenly despondent. "It's well-known here that I'm cursed, but I shouldn't have assumed that meant that you, a native of the Kratos Kingdom, knew all the details. I should have explained it to you before we got married… I guess I was just on cloud nine…"
"And how far did you ride it, exactly…?" Jill couldn't hide the sarcasm in her voice.
"But you don't have to worry about the curse anymore. Now that you're here, it won't happen anymore."
"…What's the curse got to do with me?" asked Jill, dumbfounded.
Hadis cheerfully answered, "I'll spare you the details, but basically, you can think of it as a curse that occurs if the Dragon Emperor doesn't have a consort. As long as I have a bride who has received Rave's blessing, the curse subsides."
"Then shouldn't you have gotten married much earlier…?" she asked, pointing out the obvious.
Hadis was nineteen years old, and he was the emperor. He probably had his pick of the litter of potential brides. It was a simple enough question, but Hadis smiled uncomfortably.
"I told you, didn't I? I was an imperial prince sent out to a remote region of the empire. I was a monster who would never starve to death, even when locked up and never given food. No one wanted to come near me."
Oh crap, Jill thought. But she couldn't take back the words that had already left her mouth. All she could do now was apologize.
"…I'm so sorry, I didn't even think about that…"
"I've told you many times, that's in the past. You don't have to worry. Besides, you can't receive Rave's blessing if you can't see him. Even if I had been treated like the crown prince from the very beginning, it probably wouldn't have been easy to find a girl with enough magic power to be able to see Rave."
Jill was beginning to understand why Hadis had welcomed her with open arms. This also explained Hadis's enthusiastic excitement and why he was trying so hard to make Jill love him.
So, he was alone all that time, with only Rave to keep him company?
Happy family plan… The phrase Jill had once thought was ridiculous now took on a more profound weight.
"Your Majesty… Don't you feel outraged? You know…after everything with your family and the nation and the people around you…"
"Why would I? I'm the reincarnation of the Dragon God Rave. I was born to be emperor, and I became one. Those people are my subjects and my family—people I ought to protect. To deny them would be to lose to fate."
The emperor's easy smile was beautiful and full of pride.
"I have Rave. Now I have you too. I'm not going to lose."
Looking at his eyes, eyes that challenged the future, Jill suddenly felt as though a wound that had not yet fully healed was scratched open again. She blinked in mute surprise.
No… This is clearly different. Just calm down. He's basically saying that he wanted to marry you because he wanted to end the curse.
Thinking about things from that perspective, it all made sense. Jill could see a glimmer of hope.
"Wait—then, is the requirement of your bride being younger than fourteen also related to this curse?!"
"No, the only absolute requirement is that they can see Rave. The age is like a precaution—or just an aspiration, I guess."
I shouldn't have asked.
"You really are my ideal partner in every way," Hadis continued.
"I see… That's disappointing…" Jill said coolly.
"Because we can be together for the next three years without having to worry about anything."
Jill felt uneasy about the way he phrased that remark, but Hadis just smiled. When she looked over at Rave, he turned the other way. Neither of them seemed to be in the mood to disclose the full truth.
He's not lying, but he's not telling the truth, either. There's still something at play in the background that they aren't filling me in on.
Whatever that extra detail was, it didn't seem to have anything to do with the situation at hand. They were pressed for time, so Jill quickly changed the subject.
"I understand that you have many enemies around you, Your Majesty," Jill said, letting the issue go for now. "How do you plan on dealing with them?"
"I'll respond to any danger, so if they want to try anything, I'll crush them. But I don't want to fight anyone unnecessarily, either. As long as they don't interfere with us, I'll have no objections."
Jill took a deep breath and pulled herself together.
Hadis's plan of action was almost the same as hers.
"Then first, we'll need to gather information about what Marquess Beil is up to, won't we? But your health is poor, Your Majesty, so you should just rest inside the castle. They'll probably lower their guard with you in the castle, too, so that would be safest. I'll figure something out in the meantime."
Jill got to her feet. Hadis blinked at her with a blank expression.
"Figure something out? All by yourself? How?"
"I'm pretty good at reconnaissance missions. Plus, I thought something like this might happen."
Jill removed one of the floorboards and took out the boys' clothes she had stashed away. There were also suspenders and a small hat. Rave looked astonished.
"Hey! Where did you get that stuff?" he asked her.
Jill pointed to an air vent near the ceiling. "I used that to go outside the first night I was here and borrowed them from the naval port's church. I felt bad, but it looked like a donation, not someone's actual clothes…"
"Right, they often look after children in the church… But you already did some reconnaissance? You're a force to be reckoned with, Missy."
"It was nighttime, though, so the best I could do was get a feel for part of the naval port. But I've been very obedient since I've been stuck here, so I think the guard has gotten careless. Besides, frankly speaking, the security here is lax. Are the second and third sons of nobles tossed into these positions as honorary titles or something?"
Hadis nodded, looking impressed with her. "That's right. The North Division is stationed at this naval port, but at the end of the day, this is the dominion of Marquess Beil. We call it a united front against Kratos, but we've also been operating under a truce for a long time. If we were to set up anything too extreme, we would provoke the marquess' animosity."
"In that case, even if they realize that I've escaped, they probably won't make a big deal out of it," Jill said. "They might even try to bury it to cover up their mistake. The fact that I'm a child will also work in my favor. Just leave this to me."
Hadis furrowed his eyebrows. "You've shown me your strength, but it's still dangerous. If anything were to happen—"
"If anything were to happen, Your Majesty, then you'd be the one in danger. If Marquess Beil really is planning something, that means the enemy has trapped you. Besides, don't underestimate me—I'm your wife." Jill looked up and straight into his eyes as she proclaimed, "How can I, your wife, not do anything when my husband is in dange— Your Majesty?!"
Hadis had suddenly staggered, pressing a hand against his chest. Jill ran up to him in panic. "What's wrong? Are you feeling ill again…?"
"I-It seems so," he gasped. "M-My chest is pounding, and it's…hard to breathe…"
"You'd better call it an early night and rest," Jill instructed. "I wish I could walk you back…"
"I-I'll be fine. I can get back on my own… I know this is a bad time, but there's something I want to tell you…" Hadis wrapped both of his hands around one of Jill's. His eyebrows knitted together as if he were in pain, and he spoke through his heavy panting. "Now…I want to make…all the cakes and breads…that I can…for you…!"
"Really?! Then please get better as quickly as you can…!"
Jill squeezed his hand in hers and they locked eyes. Rave looked at the pair of them, his eyes half-lidded, unamused.
"Oh, jeez… Well, if that's settled, then hurry and go back, Hadis. You're still not back to tip-top shape, and if you overdo it, you'll regress and be bedridden again. Can you teleport?"
"P-Probably…"
Hadis got to his feet and started tottering. He seemed unsteady.
Strangely, however, Jill didn't think of him as frail or pitiful because of this. She started regarding him like her little brother or a child, and that such things were bound to happen. I can't just leave him on his own, she thought.
Right. That's it… He's nine years older than me, but inside there's only a three-year difference between us. I'll just turn a blind eye to our age difference, then…
Feeling somewhat relieved, Jill smiled as she watched Hadis leave.
THE next morning, Jill buried herself under her sheets, pretending to be ill. The guard, so worried about her that Jill almost felt guilty, gave her water and medicine. She refused lunch in advance and asked to be allowed to sleep. Then she stuffed her clothes under the sheets to make a lump, changed into her disguise, and crawled into the air vent.
Jill didn't want to use too much magic power. Even during peaceful times, this was still a naval port. Even though it was rare for magic power to exist in the Rave Empire, it wouldn't be unusual if there were some soldiers that could use it.
Jill emerged from the vent behind the church. She brushed the dust off her and tucked her tied-up hair into her hat. Her cover was that she was a young boy who was in the care of the church. From the way the soldiers treated her now, Jill seemed to have successfully pulled off her disguise. After all, the only people who had gotten a good look at her face since she had arrived at Beilburg were Sphere and the guard at her door. As long as they didn't find out that she had escaped, she most likely wouldn't be found out.
…Come to think of it, there aren't any children in the church right now, are there? Did they all go out somewhere?
Jill looked around, wondering where to go first, but just then, she heard a lovely voice.
"Reverend Father, what…what should I do…?!"
It was coming from inside the church. Realizing the window was open, Jill stealthily craned her head to look inside.
Beyond the window was the inside of the chapel. A man stood in front of the altar, wearing clothes that indicated he was a priest. Sphere was in front of this man, hanging her head.
"I have a bad feeling about all of this. He may be bedbound, but he's still Hadis. Why would Father say he might not be the emperor…? What is he thinking? He tells me there's nothing I need to worry about, but should I really just leave it at that?"
"Marquess Beil only has your best interests at heart. Why not have faith in him?" the priest replied gently.
Sphere bit her lip. Her head drooped even farther. "…Even though I'm just the daughter of his first wife from a loveless, political marriage…?"
"You are one of His Majesty's fiancée candidates, after all. Of course, your father treasures you."
"I…I guess you're right. As long as Hadis favors me… But yesterday, Hadis went to visit that girl he brought back with him!"
Jill stared in shock, but her panic was negated by the reverend's next words. "That can't be true. His Majesty is bedbound, isn't he?"
"But that's the only conclusion I can come to! He's agonized every day until yesterday, 'Where's my amethyst?' …H-He's been worrying so much that I felt ashamed of my own selfishness. But then yesterday, all of a sudden, he started saying, 'It's dangerous to get too close… My heart beats so fast… I'll recuperate in the castle.'"
"Well, that's… That means he's calmed down then, doesn't it?"
"No! Don't underestimate the intuition of a lovestruck girl! Hadis is falling in love!"
That's not true…
Sphere, however, couldn't hear Jill's thoughts.
"And then this morning, he was reading every book on pastry-making he could get his hands on…!"
That one might be my fault…
"And he asked me for advice on decorations and flavors that girls would like! He was absolutely thinking about that little girl…! And asking me about it… H-How could he be so cruel…?!"
"C-Calm down, Lady Sphere… That's it! Maybe he's making a gift for you."
"W-Well… Perhaps, but…Hadis…needs someone under fourteen as his bride…!" At this, Sphere finally fell to the floor and began to cry. "I a-asked him if he would reconsider our engagement, and he said that because I'm not under fourteen years of age, he c-couldn't…! If it were a-anything else, he could try, but because of my age… Wh-Why under fourteen?! I'm not good enough because I'm sixteen?! A-And when Father heard that, he arranged for a girl under fourteen to be invited to the banquet…!"
It was painful, listening to Sphere's lamentations, but Jill couldn't stay there and listen to them forever. Even though she felt sorry for her, Jill quietly moved away from the window and along the church wall.
Getting rejected because of your age would certainly be a hard thing to accept. Anyone might be tempted to ask why his fiancée has to be under fourteen.
And in fact, why was that the case? Setting aside the possibility that he liked little girls, Jill walked on, wondering. Fourteen… Fourteen…
In the Kratos Kingdom, fourteen was said to be the age when the Goddess, then just a girl in the heavenly realm, awoke to her powers. Because of this, girls born in the Kratos Kingdom had a flower crown made for them on their fourteenth birthday. It was a special celebration… Suddenly, these thoughts brought back a terrible memory.
The night Jill had jumped off the castle rampart… The night that had started all of this… It had been Princess Faris's fourteenth birthday, so I went back to the royal capital and… Stop. Stop thinking about it.
In the end, Jill would have no choice but to get the man himself to tell her the reason. She felt slightly afraid to ask.
"But I need to ask him about it before long… If I don't, the question of what will happen when I turn fourteen will be—"
"Hey, there's been no signal yet!"
"It's after the gate closes. Any moment now. Quiet!"
Jill, having turned to the front of the church, quickly hid behind a nearby bush at the sound of those voices. Several men were hurrying down the road in front of the church.
That's strange… If most of the soldiers here are the sons of nobles, then what's this?
A person's good breeding was always evident in their movements. The way these men walked was vaguely brutish, and their words had a bit of an accent to them. It was as if they had come from a region deep in the mountains. But they were definitely wearing the military uniform of the Northern Division.
"The target is definitely here, right?" one asked, pointing to the doors of the church.
Jill blinked.
"Yeah, the priest is keeping her there now. And we already know where the other one is being held on house arrest."
"And how many Northern Division guys are there inside the base?"
"Ten at most, I hear. They're basically useless."
Jill could do nothing but hide there in mute amazement.
H-Hold on! The Northern Division was entirely useless?! They were that weak…?! D-Don't tell me they used the terrible incident that happened here as an opportunity to rebuild in the future…
But she had bigger problems right now. In the time Jill had spent thinking about the terrible situation she was in, the gates of the naval port had come down, and a voice had rung out. The soldiers kicked down the church doors. Jill heard a scream from inside.
"Wh-What are you doing…?!"
It was Sphere's voice.
I knew it, Jill thought, her head falling into her hands. But she quickly made up her mind.
My duty is to gather information!
"I just heard a scream… What's going on?!" asked Jill, bursting into the chapel.
Sphere, her arms restrained, turned to look at Jill with tears in her eyes. It wasn't long before the soldiers shouted, "Who's this kid?!" and grabbed hold of Jill as well.
JUST as Hadis was about to swap out the book he had been reading for a bread recipe, there was a loud banging sound, and then the double doors burst open. It may have been the lord's castle, but this was the room in which the emperor rested. Hadis looked up with cold eyes.
"Who said you could come in?" he asked.
Marquess Beil entered alongside several guards. His hands were clasped behind him, and he stood with his heels together—habits that seemed to have stuck from his time as a soldier.
"My apologies, Your Majesty, but we don't have time for formalities. Someone has seized the naval port. We've received reports that this was done under the guidance of that child you brought here from Kratos. They have closed the gates and taken total control of the port. Moreover, the assailants have taken my daughter, Sphere, as a hostage."
The marquess's tone of voice was rather detached for a man speaking about an emergency involving his own daughter. Hadis didn't move and looked up only with his eyes as he asked, "What happened to the Northern Division soldiers guarding the naval port?"
"Those spineless cowards are useless. In any case, the naval port has fallen into the enemy's hands. My private army is on its way. My daughter's life is at stake here, after all. I'm sure you have no objections."
"What are you planning to do with my wife?"
Marquess Beil's eyebrow twitched upward. "Your wife? That girl is a spy. I wish you would open your eyes. And I wish you would take this opportunity to send the useless Northern Division out of this city. After all, the Northern Division has always enjoyed a permanent presence in this city because of Your Majesty's relationship with my daughter. This is your blunder, Your Majesty." The corner of Marquess Beil's mouth rose ever so slightly.
Is that what he's after? What a fool.
Marquess Beil was a very proud man. He was a former civilian soldier who boasted about his private army of elite soldiers, yet he had allowed the Northern Division to be stationed there permanently since times of peace. It was Sphere, the daughter of his first wife, that Hadis had become friendly with, not the daughter of the second wife whom he truly loved. It must have hurt his pride that things hadn't gone his way.
Hadis closed the book in his lap. "All right. I'll leave the invaders who have taken over the naval port to you."
"I wish you had done so from the start," Marquess Beil sneered.
"But if we discover that my wife is innocent, I'll have her appropriately compensated for this."
Marquess Beil laughed contemptuously. "That's ridiculous. Besides, you should be more worried about yourself, Your Majesty. If the daughter of a marquess dies because of your blunder, I shudder to think of the political fallout."
So the daughter of his first wife, who failed to become Hadis's consort, would be used as fodder to denounce the emperor… Hadis looked on with disappointment as the marquess left the room with a triumphant bounce to his step.
"Looking at someone like that makes even a reign of terror seem reasonable."
"I'm not averse, but I don't think the little miss would like that much," advised Rave, appearing from Hadis's body. "She dropped all those guys who attacked our ship into the ocean, but she didn't kill them."
Hadis suddenly came to a realization. "I see now… So, this is the pain of being a married man? I can't carry out a reign of terror…!"
"So, what are you going to do now? Aren't you going to go help the little miss with this?"
"I really want to, but she told me to leave it to her… Besides, I probably shouldn't go anywhere near her. I don't think my heart could take it," Hadis said earnestly.
Rave's face fell. "You really said that without batting an eye… I've raised you so wrong…"
"That's not true, you did a fine job raising me."
"Then I'll ask you this—what do you honestly think of that girl? Do you find her cute? Do you think she's cool?"
"What do I think of her…? I think she might be surprisingly dangerous." Rave gave him a strange look, so Hadis, assuming he might not have explained it well enough, continued, "I mean, I just can't get her out of my head, you know? No matter what I do, I'm always worried about her, and my heart's even starting to go crazy. She's my wife, so I want to talk to her more and I want to be with her, but just thinking about it makes my chest hurt. She's got a lot of magic power, so maybe it's had some influence on me, and I've contracted a new disease. And if I collapse, I'll just cause trouble for her…"
"Yeah, I guess you're already sick enough as it is…" Rave said sarcastically.
"I thought so… If I don't get better soon, I won't be able to make her a cake. I love when she really enjoys eating my cooking. She looks so adorable."
"Gods are totally powerless."
Hadis puzzled over Rave's philosophical remark and carried on, "But she needs to stay safe. Rave, could you go see how she's doing? I don't think anyone can easily pull something on a girl that can fight as well as she can, but I will take action if I need to."
"Is that all you want? Anything else?"
"There's nothing else that really needs to be done. If I interfere with this ineptly, Marquess Beil will probably start killing people to try and achieve something. Besides, for me, this is already over. They came to me with the simplest strategy of the several I had envisioned, but that's probably because they underestimated me."
With a snap, Hadis closed the book he had been reading.
"No matter who's behind this, Marquess Beil is just a pawn they're going to use and then throw away. I had wanted to let him roam freely for a little while longer, but the only use for him now is making an example out of him. Marquess Beil has been taking all the teeth out of the Northern Division too, so it's high time I started taking drastic measures. This is the perfect opportunity for me to do away with the things I don't need. In the end, this area will fall under the direct control of the emperor. This whole thing is a farce. I have a plan to rebuild this naval port city all set and ready to be implemented."
That much was easier than thinking about what kind of cake to make for his wife.
Next is bread, Hadis thought, reaching out for the stack of books on the table.
"I hope a few decent people are left, at least, but if there's not, that's how things will end." He shrugged.
"…What about Lady Sphere?" Rave asked.
"We can save her, but her father, Marquess Beil, will die, and it's possible that the Beil family will be wiped out. If that's the case, she'll have nowhere to go. She'll be doomed to misery. I'll do whatever I can for her, but…considering her future, she might be happier just dying here."
"Why not make her a concubine? Fortunately, you've already got a consort who has received my blessing, and the Goddess can't enter the Rave Empire anymore. Even if she's over fourteen years old, there's no need to be that cautious, is there?" Rave asked.
"There's another way for the Goddess to get in. Or shall I keep Sphere by my side as a test, to see if she'll be killed or manipulated by the Goddess? Will she be used as a disposable thing not just by her father, but by me as well?"
Treating a woman who harbored at least some feelings for me that way would be too heartless.
Rave responded to Hadis's unspoken thoughts with a quiet agreement.
JILL and Sphere had been placed in iron handcuffs and tossed into a storehouse near the church.
"You stay there and stay quiet! Damn… Hey! Have you found that girl?"
"Not yet. We questioned the guard, but he kept saying he didn't know where she was."
"Th-They know I'm the d-daughter of Marquess Beil…" Sphere said in a shaky voice. Her body was trembling too.
The soldier wearing the uniform of the Northern Division sneered. "Of course, we know! I should have explained earlier, huh? You're a hostage, Lady Sphere. Just wait there quietly until it's your turn."
"A h-hostage… Wh-What in the empire do you people want…?"
"We came here from Kratos, thanks to the guidance of a certain girl," he said, grabbing Sphere's bangs and jerking her face upwards.
Sphere grimaced. "N-No way…the girl Hadis brought back with him…?!"
"That's right. What was her name…? Jill. That's right, Jill. We tricked Emperor Rave with a child! That's gotta be a new level of stupid for him!"
"D-Don't insult Hadis!" Sphere, who had been trembling all the while, shouted suddenly. "Th-There's some—yeah! There's got to be some deep-laid plan that I can't even think of right now! The one at fault here is the deceiver, not Hadis, the deceived! That girl is just—that's it—she's just the most wicked girl in recent history!"
The soldier snorted, roughly tossed Sphere back onto the ground, and turned on his heel. Jill used her entire body to catch Sphere from behind. Sphere blinked at her with wet eyes.
"Th-Thank…you…"
"No problem."
"I-I'm so sorry. I hate that such a little boy got detained because of me…H-Hadis got tricked by that evil girl, just because I'm not under fourteen years old…!"
Sphere started to cry, but considering the situation they were in, she was actually holding up quite well.
She's got some steady nerves, huh? The fact that she's not ranting and raving alone is a big help.
When the soldier left, leaving Sphere and Jill alone in the storehouse, Jill looked around. There was barely anything inside. There was a solitary window very high up, just near the ceiling, which a child might narrowly be able to squeeze through. The only entrance or exit seemed to be the iron door through which the man had just left. Despite it being midday, the inside of the storehouse was dim, with the sun streaming in through the window as their only light source.
It would be simple for Jill to escape on her own, but if she was going to escape with Sphere, she'd need some help. She also wanted to find out the number of enemies they were dealing with.
I know they're trying to make me out to be some spy, but…if I don't figure out exactly what their plan is, I won't be able to outsmart them.
Unfortunately for them, Jill had broken out of the room where she had been held under house arrest, so they weren't able to capture her with Sphere as planned. That was probably why the naval port was in such chaos. Both Sphere and the men thought that Jill was a young boy right now. It was still too early for her to reveal her true identity.
I'd better exchange information with Sphere while I still can.
"Lady Sphere, why did you come here today?" she asked.
"Huh…? M-My father… He suggested that I ask the priest for advice about Hadis and urged me to come pray… He even let me take the carriage…"
"Then what happened to your guards? If you're the daughter of a marquess, even if you were coming to pray, surely guards accompanied you to the church, didn't they?"
"…Maybe they all got caught too… Y-You're awfully calm, aren't you? Aren't you scared?"
Before Jill knew it, Sphere had stopped crying and was staring at her. Jill realized that she hadn't been acting like a child, but under the circumstances they were in, she couldn't smooth things over.
"Yeah, well… I'm used to conflict, so…"
"I see… I'm hopeless, aren't I? Getting so flustered…"
"That's not true! I think you're keeping it together pretty well."
"You don't have to be so polite," Sphere said. "I'd probably be crying the whole time if I were here by myself… But we'll be fine. I know my father and Hadis will come save us…"
"Pardon me for asking, but why do you have so much faith in His Majesty the Emperor?" Jill asked. "I just… I heard you were one of his fiancée candidates, but…"
Sphere blinked in surprise and then smiled, looking a little embarrassed. "…Well, I love dragons."
"Dragons…" Jill repeated.
Dragons were only born in the Rave Empire, which received the divine protection of the Dragon God, and they protected the skies. Jill had only ever seen dragons on the battlefield.
…Maybe now I can meet and ride dragons too?! Just as Jill's thoughts almost pivoted in that direction, Sphere suddenly pointed far off in the distance.
"Northeast of here, my father has a villa… There's a place there where dragons gather. My mother died when I was young, so that was where I was raised. There was nowhere in the estate I felt like I belonged, so I often escaped to the place where the dragons rested. Not even my mean governess would come looking for me there. No one would mock me or laugh at me for being a girl abandoned by her own father, either…"
There were no dragons in the Kratos Kingdom, so Jill didn't know much about their behavior, but she was fairly certain they were dangerous. This thought must have been obvious on her face, because Sphere smiled impishly.
"I knew that dragons were dangerous. They're the messengers of the Dragon God Rave, after all. But when I was a small child, they talked to me."
"Dragons talked to you?!" Jill asked, stunned.
"I couldn't understand their language, of course. I could just sense very trivial things, somehow, like if they were saying hello or telling me to be careful… But it made me so happy, feeling as though they were listening to me. I spoke to the dragons every day, and then rumors started to spread that I was a crazy girl who talked to dragons…"
All of a sudden, Sphere's eyes glazed over.
"No one would come near me, and I was so sure that I'd never get married… But! Then Hadis, who had just become emperor, said that he had heard the rumors and really wanted to meet me!"
Sphere ecstatically explained that the way people treated her changed dramatically after that day. After it had been decided that Sphere was going to meet the emperor, Marquess Beil had summoned her back to the castle to get her prepared. All the etiquette lessons and ladylike refinement Sphere had worked so hard at was finally going to be put to use. Sphere's stepmother and her half-sister were as cold to her as ever, but she hoped that her relationships with them might improve slightly, once they understood that she could contribute to the Beil family…
"I worked so hard. I wanted to serve Hadis. But then he made everyone leave and asked me if I could see anything on his shoulder."
Hadis had probably been hoping that she would be able to see Rave, Jill realized.
"I couldn't see anything. All I could tell was that there was something invisible there that was very worried about Hadis. So, I answered him honestly. But that was wrong, I guess. When I went back and told my father about it, he got angry. 'Why didn't you tell him you could see it?' he had asked me."
"…But wouldn't that be lying to His Majesty the Emperor?" Jill pointed out.
"Yes. But my father said that Hadis always asked that question whenever he met a woman he might take on as a fiancée, like a quiz. He scolded me, saying that not saying I could see it was the wrong choice… He told me to give back all the money he had spent to get me ready for the meeting, and all the money he had ever spent raising me. He said I could earn money by becoming a high-class prostitute."
In Jill's mind, Marquess Beil became irrefutably classified as a man she wanted to tear limb from limb. It was painful to see Sphere smiling with embarrassment, without even a trace of pain.
"But then Hadis happened to pass by and saw us… He said he wanted to make me his teatime friend. He protected me."
At that point, Hadis had not chosen anyone as a fiancée. Therefore, even if he had treated Sphere as a teatime friend, that had still made her a step above the other ladies. Not even Marquess Beil could disregard this, so Sphere ended up living in the Beil estate in the imperial capital.
"His Majesty was very busy, but he made sure to have tea with me once a month so that they wouldn't start treating me badly. He'd prepare incredibly delicious cakes and cookies for me."
No way—homemade cakes and cookies? Jill thought, though she refrained from throwing a wrench in the conversation.
"But he told me we couldn't get engaged. He said that if he made me his fiancée, I'd be in danger."
"In danger… Getting harassed by the other fiancée candidates, you mean?" Jill guessed.
Sphere shook her head. "The curse… Do you know that the last crown princes died one after the other?"
"I've heard about it."
"Well, I was out in the countryside my whole life, so I didn't know much about His Majesty's curse… The first time I heard about it, I was frightened. But His Majesty always seemed so lonely. Even his brothers avoid him. He said it was inevitable, but…he's such a kind person…"
"So, you didn't stop being his teatime friend… You're very brave, Lady Sphere," Jill told her sincerely.
It must have taken a lot of courage for a girl like her to have faced the cursed emperor all alone. Sphere's eyes widened, and then she looked down at the filthy floor of the storehouse.
"I don't think that's true. If I had stopped being His Majesty's teatime friend, I would have been kicked out of the house. I just didn't want that to happen…"
Jill had wondered if Sphere was someone who just went with the flow in situations, but the girl really took a close look at the circumstances she found herself in.
"His Majesty knew all about my ulterior motive, and he still continued to have tea with me. If I had died by an unnatural death, it would've been His Majesty's fault. That probably took a lot more courage on his part, don't you think?"
"…I suppose so," Jill agreed.
"That's why I wanted to be helpful to His Majesty. Before he went to the Kratos Kingdom, I told him how I felt. I asked him to make me his wife. Then…he said he wanted to be honest with me…and he told me in no uncertain terms that he couldn't marry me because I wasn't under f-fourteen…"
That was the turning point—the remark that spoiled the wonderful story. Jill looked away in spite of herself.
"I-I was so sure it was a joke to avoid hurting me, but then he brought back a little girl from Kratos… And now, that girl caused all this chaos! What should I do to keep His Majesty from getting any more criticism…?!"
"J-Just calm down. We have to do something about our current situation first," Jill said, trying to placate her.
"R-Right… You're right. I'm sorry for getting emotional…" said Sphere, wiping the tears from the outer corners of her eyes and pressing her lips together.
Jill grinned, slightly pained, at this. She's a good person. I want to help her, if I can. But her father, Marquess Beil, was guilty. The priest is guilty too… Is the marquess using his daughter as a sacrificial pawn?
Even if she were to escape with Sphere, wherever they escaped, Jill could be accused of attempting to kidnap or murder her. The only way for Jill to ensure her innocence was to expose Marquess Beil's plot in broad daylight—clearly and in the full view of a crowd so that he could not escape.
If I ask for the emperor's help, he'll be unjustly suspected… How much can I do on my own?
One advantage on Jill's side was that, although she had been labeled as the double-crosser who had guided the culprits here, the soldiers hadn't caught her yet. In that laid her chance for victory. But if she was going to do this while protecting Sphere—she would need a little more manpower, at least.
"Get in there! How dare you waste our time…!"
The iron door opened.
"Don't touch me with your filthy hands, you'll get me dirty— Agh!"
The first person was kicked into the storehouse with a scream.
"Hah—don't make me laugh! You guys wasted so much time on just two people because you're incompetent!"
A second person was pushed inside and fell onto his backside. Then a third person was thrown in like a sack of potatoes and rolled to Jill's feet. For some reason, he was holding the jacket Jill had been wearing before she had escaped.
Jill's eyes snapped wide open.
The soldier who guarded my room! This is bad! If he sees my face, then…!
The soldier, however, was totally unconscious. Jill felt a wave of relief.
"And be quiet!"
Witt that sharp remark, the iron door was shut. The two who had been first thrown into the storeroom slowly lifted their upper bodies off the floor.
"They treated us like the bad guys! This is your fault, you idiot!"
"It's not my fault! They got us because you went wild!"
"…Zeke? Camila?" Jill muttered in amazement.
These were the names of Jill's subordinates who, six years in the future, she would be told were dead.
The two of them looked over at her.
"Who's this kid? Do you know him, Camilo?"
"Shut up! Don't freakin' call me by my real name, you little…! Oh crap. I'm sorry! It's okay, I'm just sweet Camila! This is Zeke. But… No, I don't know this kid. I'm sorry, have we met somewhere…? Crap! What's wrong? Are you crying?"
Jill had covered her face with her hands. Camila looked at her nervously. Camila looked younger than Jill remembered, but the mole under her right eye was in the exact same spot.
"Shit! This is your fault, Zeke! Kid got scared 'cause you look so angry! That girl in the back there is pale too! Do something!"
"Do you think I care? I was born with these looks!"
Zeke's tone was cold, but he sounded a bit embarrassed as he looked the other way. Jill felt like he was shorter than she remembered, but the moody line between his brows was the same as ever.
"Ah," Jill breathed out, and it sounded like a laugh.
I see… So, nothing has been robbed from me yet. This is just the beginning. For the first time since time had been rewound six years, Jill truly, fully believed that was true.