Chapter 22
Gnaw, gnaw.
The ballroom of House Drosselmeyer’s mansion was packed with people dressed to the nines, waiting for the wedding to begin.
In one corner, a man with oversized glasses perched on his nose was biting his nails and scanning the surroundings with resentful eyes.
‘I resent them.’
There were so many dreadful people living in luxury simply because they were nobles, despite having no special abilities at all.
“Just now… Lady Alice called my name!”
“Lady Clary. How many times are you going to say that…?”
“But still!”
‘What do they have to be so happy about?!’
His hysterical reaction peaked when he saw the young noblewomen laughing and chatting with flushed cheeks.
Those women could laugh here despite having made no effort at all, simply because their parents were nobles.
‘I had to work myself to the point of coughing blood just to live like a human being!’
The man glared at the nobles in the ballroom with bloodshot eyes.
I resent them.
I resent these thoughtless nobles!
‘Still, it’s all right.’
Only one hour remained until the Marquess of Drosselmeyer’s wedding.
If he waited until then, the nobles scattered throughout the residence would gather in one place, allowing him to detonate the mana bombs and kill them all.
“Heh, hehehe.”
The thought of nobles crawling at his feet and screaming in agony already made laughter bubble out of him.
‘Now that I think of it, I should check on the mana bombs.’
The man moved the mana coursing through his body and gathered it around his eyes.
“Clairvoyance.”
Once he finished the incantation, several images appeared before his eyes.
The images showed various people: some drinking among the nobles, some clutching the chokers around their necks and struggling, and others crouching in the bathroom and crying silently.
‘No. 1 has submitted. No. 4 seems to be plotting something, while No. 7 is doing nothing but crying. Heh.’
The man… no, the mage, felt nothing at all as he watched the people whose mana would soon explode, turning them into living bombs.
Unlike him, they possessed mana yet had made no effort at all, making them pathetic wretches.
Wasn’t it only natural for such slackers to sacrifice themselves for his future?
“U… uh?”
However, as the man checked the bombs in order from No. 1, he noticed something strange.
‘Where is that one?’
No. 18 was one of the few female bombs among those he had brought along.
She was sitting alone in a bleak room that seemed completely out of place in the lavish mansion.
‘That’s strange. As far as I know, there shouldn’t be any place like that in House Drosselmeyer’s mansion.’
Just as he was about to check the mana connecting him to her, wondering whether she had somehow broken the binding spell and escaped—
Whoosh.
‘Huh?’
An unfamiliar sound slicing through the air rang out in front of him.
Clang!
“W-what the fuck?!”
The mage cursed when he saw that one of the three shields protecting him had shattered.
‘What are the guards doing?! Some intruder is swinging a sword, and they aren’t stopping him… Huh?’
A moment later, after dispelling his clairvoyance, he could see.
“So it is true.”
The person who had swung a sword at him was no ordinary intruder.
“M-Marqess Drosselmeyer?!”
Why was the man who was supposed to be waiting in the groom’s room until the wedding began here?
At that moment, he swung his sword once more.
At this rate, another shield—one that took a full week to cast—would be destroyed.
‘If it’s going to break anyway…!’
The mage raised both hands and extended them forward, causing a fist-sized black sphere to condense between them.
“Hmm?”
“Braggd’s Command!”
At the same time as the incantation, the black sphere rapidly swelled, as though air were being pumped into a balloon.
Then, the moment the sphere was cut by the sword, an enormous blast of wind pushed the Marquess and the mage apart.
Klang!
“Tch.”
Though it had been powerful enough to shatter the shield, the Marquess of Drosselmeyer merely clicked his tongue in displeasure.
He didn’t appear to have been injured anywhere.
‘What a monster. But more importantly…’
The man, who had been horrified as he looked at the Marquess, couldn’t understand it at all.
‘How did he know I was a mage?’
He had driven the people away beforehand and launched an unexpected ambush.
Neither of those things could have been done without first being certain that he was a mage.
‘No, this isn’t the time to worry about that.’
Now that he had used magic, there was no way he could continue insisting that he wasn’t a mage.
He had no choice but to begin the plan a little earlier than expected!
“W-wait! Marquess Drosselmeyer!”
The mage shouted at the Marquess while extending his right hand with his thumb raised.
“The moment you take one step forward, I’ll blow up this entire mansion!”
“You call that a threat? My sword will cut your throat faster than you can cast magic.”
He could kill him faster than the mage could cast magic.
It was an arrogant statement, but it clearly wasn’t an empty boast.
Knowing that the Marquess was more than capable of it, 『Mage Supremacism』 had formulated this plan.
“But I have a shield!”
Though it would shatter in a single blow if the Marquess attacked, what mattered was that it could withstand that one blow.
He needed only an instant to set off the mana bombs.
If someone else broke the shield and the Marquess attacked during that opening, there would be nothing he could do, but such a thing was impossible.
The Marquess was one of the strongest people in the entire Empire, not just the North.
He had already confirmed that none of the people attending the wedding compared to him.
“Clever bastard.”
‘It worked!’
The mage smiled triumphantly when he saw the Marquess glaring at him.
Now, the Marquess wouldn’t dare lay a hand on him while trying to protect the worthless nobles!
‘Once I secure my safety, I’ll set them all off….’
Shatter.
‘Huh?’
A bewildered sound escaped the mage’s mouth as glass shattered.
The Marquess of Drosselmeyer had clearly remained still, yet another one of the mage’s shields had shattered.
When he turned toward the sound, he saw a blond man wearing a mask.
This man had probably shattered the shield.
‘How?’
Slash.
The mage’s field of vision suddenly flipped 180 degrees, and he fell downward.
Until his consciousness faded, the mage kept repeating the same thought.
Where had that masked bastard come from?
***
“Good work.”
“Right.”
The masked man bowed to the Marquess, who was wiping the blood from his sword.
“It really went exactly according to your plan.”
“It wasn’t a particularly difficult plan.”
“By the way, how did you know that shields could only be stacked three times?”
The Marquess asked while staring at the masked man.
He found it strange that the man before him knew something even he himself had not known.
“I knew a mage had infiltrated this place, so it isn’t strange that I knew something like that, is it?”
“That’s true.”
“My lord.”
While the two men were talking, a soldier approached the Marquess.
“So, what happened to the guests?”
“Yes. As you instructed, we asked them to gather in the ceremony hall in advance because the wedding would be held a little earlier than planned.”
“Hmm.”
That was fortunate. If someone else had seen this scene, it would have turned into chaos.
“I should hurry and change clothes and prepare. What will you do now?”
“I have to return to where my master is.”
“I see.”
There were many things the Marquess wanted to ask this masked man, but for now, he decided to let him go.
Since the man had attended the wedding, they could continue their unfinished conversation at the reception.
‘I’m also curious who this man’s master is.’
However, the Marquess’s wish could not come true.
At the banquet hall where the reception was held after the wedding,
Heter was nowhere to be seen.
***
“Aaah! We came all this way, so why are we going back without even watching the wedding?!”
Inside the carriage leaving Drosselmeyer Territory and returning to Fortune Territory,
Ruby puffed out both cheeks and complained to me.
“Ruby. I told you to distinguish between public and private matters, didn’t I?”
“There aren’t any other carriages around, so who’s going to hear us?!”
I scolded her for speaking informally, but Ruby was so upset that she refused to back down this time.
“Come on! Tell me, Alice. What on earth was the reason?”
“Well….”
Since I couldn’t simply let the matter go, I lowered my eyes and hunched my body, doing my best to look pitiful.
“The duke’s daughter I met there didn’t like me….”
“What?!”
Apparently my acting had worked, because Ruby shouted and scowled at me.
“What did you do wrong for her to hate you? And why are you leaving so obediently?”
“But… I was the one who wronged her first.”
“What did you do?”
“She sent me an invitation to her tea party, but I couldn’t reply.”
“Hmph!”
Ruby snorted as though she couldn’t believe I considered something so trivial a wrongdoing.
“No, you can be too busy to reply to an invitation….”
“Five times.”
“Then you really were in the wrong.”
‘This girl….’
She calmed down at record speed.
“That’s… right. So I only gave her the gift and left. My purpose in coming here in the first place was to give soap to the marchioness.”
“That’s true, but… ugh, I thought I’d finally get to eat something tasty for the first time in ages.”
Ruby reclined in her seat, clearly disappointed.
Seeing her so dejected made me feel a little guilty.
‘I’ll buy her something delicious when we get back.’
“My lady.”
“Hm?”
Ruby, who had been so excited earlier, soon tired herself out and began dozing off with soft snores, so Heter, who had been sitting on the coachman’s bench, beckoned for me to come over.
I carefully climbed out to the coachman’s bench so I wouldn’t wake Ruby and sat beside him, whereupon Heter whispered,
“So… what was the real reason we left?”
“What are you doing? What if you wake Ruby?”
I scolded him in a quiet voice, but Heter shook his head as though it was fine.
“Seeing her sleep through the carriage shaking this much, I don’t think that’s likely.”
“Ugh.”
Just as he said, Ruby had always been the sort of child who wouldn’t notice even if someone carried her away while she was asleep.
It couldn’t be helped. I didn’t have any other excuse, anyway.
“Why else would we have left? I heard you defeated the mage by cooperating with the Marquess of Drosselmeyer.”
“That is true. But if you want to sell soap, wouldn’t it be better to become acquainted with a high-ranking noble?”
Normally, Heter’s reasoning was correct.
If the other person hadn’t been the Marquess of Drosselmeyer, I would have thought the same thing.
But I knew.
I knew how much the original novel’s heroine, Ezedia Raindeer, and the Marquess would suffer because of this.
‘It’s a cliché in romance-fantasy novels for the male and female leads to suffer once the story reaches its latter half.’
If I became entangled with them for no reason, I had no idea what kind of trouble I would end up in.
“That’s only acceptable up to a point. The Marquess is too much.”
“Hmm.”
It wasn’t an entirely implausible excuse, since high-ranking houses sometimes absorbed weaker ones.
“That’s true.”
‘Good.’
He seemed to accept my explanation and let the matter go.
With that, I had finished promoting the soap and saved the people who would otherwise have died.
Just as I thought all I had to do now was return and finish paying off my debts,
“Come to think of it, my lady.”
Heter spoke to me again.
“Hm?”
“Did I make a great contribution this time?”
“You did, didn’t you?”
He had obeyed my command without even asking why, and he had saved countless nobles.
If that wasn’t a great feat, then what was?
“Then… after we return to Fortune residence,”
“Yes.”
“Could you sign the contract?”
“…What?”
Only then did I realize why he had asked whether he had accomplished a great feat.
“Ah, well….”
I wanted to say no, but I couldn’t.
He really had accomplished a great feat, and I had even acknowledged it as such aloud.
If I made ugly excuses now, I would only leave a worse impression.
“Of course!”
In the end, I had no choice but to nod readily.
“Thank you.”
“….”
Still, Heter looked so happy, smiling like that.
“….”
‘I suppose I can at least give him my signature.’