Chapter 34
0.
Before heading to the Imperial Palace.
Suddenly, I became curious about something.
‘Does bringing me to the banquet hall mean she intends to reveal my identity?’
Perhaps making equipment or enchanting things.
Was it all right for me to show such abilities in front of people?
Wondering what Doloris intended, I casually asked her before we left.
“Mama, does that mean I’ll have to reveal what I do?”
Doloris smiled brightly at the question and explained calmly.
“That depends—on who the other person is.”
“Depending on the person….”
“Yes.”
She gazed at me intently and asked in return.
“Lionel. Why do you think noble titles are bestowed?”
“I’m not sure.”
The achievements of the family?
Wealth?
I thought of various answers, but I wasn’t particularly confident in any of them.
When I couldn’t choose an answer, Doloris raised her index finger and tapped it against her lips.
Then she closed one eye.
“The weight of one’s words.”
“The weight of one’s words?”
“That’s right.”
Her voice grew even gentler.
“The higher a person rises, the more responsibility and weight accompany every word that comes out of their mouth.”
“……”
“That’s why they don’t casually pass words along. Rather than lightly blurting out what they’ve heard, they keep it within themselves and mull it over again and again.”
The greater the ripple caused by a single word, the heavier the speaker’s mouth becomes.
“The mouths of those who pretend to have dignity but lack the weight to match that dignity are the lightest—and most dangerous—in the world.”
To understand what she meant….
She was saying that even if I revealed my identity, what mattered was who I revealed it to.
In front of middling people, I might become the subject of gossip and invite trouble.
But if the person was truly high-ranking.
Their mouth would be heavy, so it would be all right.
“So, Lionel, if you really intend to show your abilities…”
“Please choose someone capable of bearing that weight.”
I promised myself that I would keep those words in mind.
1.
Could the woman before me truly bear that truth?
Of course, damn right.
There were hardly any people in the Empire who ranked above her.
The meaning of that conversation must have been part of why Doloris had let me go so readily.
“You have something you wish to say, Your Highness?”
“Yes.”
I stared directly into the Imperial Princess’s eyes.
[Oppa, you might need to lower your gaze a little…]
I think it should be fine.
It could be an expression of trust.
Sometimes it was better not to avoid someone’s gaze.
Her face came into view up close.
A small, delicate frame… She looked older than me, though.
Her complexion was pale with illness, and her wrists were slender.
Yet strangely, that pallor only added an air of mystery to her.
Should I call it a face that turned frailty into an atmosphere?
In the end, it was her appearance that transformed even her individual features into part of that atmosphere.
“Your Highness seems to be quite knowledgeable about accessories.”
“……That’s an unexpected remark. Did my accessories stand out that much?”
Rather than taking my words at face value, the princess immediately probed for my intentions.
She didn’t seem interested in prolonging the conversation, either.
“Yes. The necklaces worn by Your Highness and the Imperial Prince particularly caught my eye at the banquet.”
“They are indeed quite fine accessories.”
“…They are good, but….”
I subtly contradicted her.
“There is one thing many people overlook.”
“What is that?”
“Those who carry swords or other weapons diligently learn how to use them properly.”
My gaze naturally shifted to the necklace around her neck.
“Yet for some reason, people consider accessories finished simply by wearing them.”
“……”
“Even accessories have proper ways of being used, after all.”
The princess’s eyes widened slightly.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that if you continue using it this way, calling it a good accessory would be somewhat misleading.”
Having come this far, there was no reason to beat around the bush any longer.
I trusted her position. For reference, she was Duchess Doloris.
“…Though it is belated, allow me to introduce myself properly.”
I placed one hand over my chest and bowed my head.
“Under the protection of House Doloris, I am responsible for the production and maintenance of equipment.”
Then I slowly raised my head.
“…I am Lionel, a blacksmith.”
“…A blacksmith?”
The princess furrowed her brow.
There must have been more than one thing she didn’t understand.
I was young, for one thing, and what kind of human being was talking about being a blacksmith?
Most human blacksmiths had disappeared long ago.
But that didn’t matter.
I had one absolutely certain weapon. It was also a way to prove myself.
Doloris’s existence.
Come to think of it, it was simple. A duchess wouldn’t have kept a little child like me by her side for no reason.
Much less personally brought me to this Imperial banquet.
That fact alone meant the princess could not simply revise her assessment of me.
And besides.
“The Essence Necklace of Moonlight and the Sun Rising Pendant.”
“…You know their names.”
Her eyes wavered when I mentioned the names of both necklaces.
A basic appraisal could reveal an item’s name and grade.
A more advanced and profound appraisal could even reveal its Origin Script.
But because they were unique pieces of equipment, there was only one of each in the world.
The moment I correctly named them.
The princess would have no choice but to suspend judgment.
Those two pieces of equipment had never been mentioned anywhere in the community, which meant they had never been made public.
“Have you ever had a thought like this?”
“……?”
“That this pendant, rather than healing your body….”
I paused for a moment before quietly adding.
“…might actually be harming you.”
The princess didn’t flinch at all, and not a trace of emotion showed on her face.
Quite the poker face… Surely she wasn’t genuinely failing to suspect anything….
[No, Oppa.]
[Her pupils jumped for an instant—just barely.]
I almost let out a sigh of relief.
Yuna’s analysis.
She was already suspicious of this necklace.
In that case, this time….
“Yet no matter how you look at it, it’s difficult to find evidence that it’s harmful, and you can’t exactly take it off, so you simply keep wearing it.”
“……”
“The appraiser—and probably even the physician—would say there was nothing wrong with it.”
As I continued speaking, I assessed the woman before me.
“If I were to guess….”
The woman before me was royalty, after all.
“As an Imperial Princess, you must have been taught from a young age to stay away from anything harmful to your body. You must also have learned how to distinguish such things.”
The princess quietly listened to me.
“And yet, even though Your Highness sensed somewhere inside that this necklace was somehow not beneficial, you deliberately chose not to take it off.”
“……”
“Because every other indicator tells you that it’s fine.”
“……”
“Your instincts are warning you, but there is no visible evidence. Since Your Highness values evidence, you must have decided that trusting your intuition would be irrational, and worked hard to ignore that uneasy feeling.”
I paused for a beat and refined my words.
This item, too, merely pretended to fulfill its role. It reassured its wearer by pretending to restore her.
Once the essence was depleted, it revealed its true nature.
The Sun Rising Pendant could be considered a victim, at least.
“Moreover, at first, wearing the necklace must actually have made your body feel lighter. Otherwise….”
- Flinch.
The princess’s shoulders twitched at those words.
I quietly brought my sentence to an end.
“As you also considered the feelings of the person who gave you the pendant, perhaps you kept wearing it because taking it off for no reason felt like rejecting that person’s sincerity.”
Perhaps she couldn’t bring herself to reject the feelings of someone who had given her such a luxurious four-star accessory.
Perhaps that person was extremely important to her.
In the end, her instincts warned her, but there was no evidence.
In reality, both necklaces had seemed harmless until all their essence was consumed.
Just then, I suddenly felt as though I had become the protagonist of a mystery story alongside my assistant, Kim Yuna.
The princess, who had been silently looking at me, opened her mouth.
“…Please, continue.”
Her expression had barely wavered.
I supposed that meant she had admitted as much.
“I do enjoy conversation. However, I wouldn’t want to waste Your Highness’s precious time.”
I added with a faint smile.
You find getting involved with other people tiring and boring, don’t you?
You only came because you were curious about me as the duke’s child.
But now I’m telling you something interesting?
‘If she is already somewhat aware of her own intuition.’
There was no need to drag this out.
Going on and on would only ruin the mood.
“Could you grant me just one opportunity?”
“An opportunity?”
“Please hand the pendant over to me for a moment.”
“……”
The princess narrowed her eyes.
Of course. We had only just met, and I was asking her to readily hand over something she was wearing.
Not just any accessory, either, but a piece of Imperial jewelry.
“I’m well aware that this is rude.”
I met her gaze without looking away.
“Even so, seeing it once will be faster than hearing a hundred words.”
She stared at me for a long while.
She measured me, and measured me again, but….
When one’s life was at stake, a person could not help but change.
“There are more than a few things I don’t understand.”
“I understand.”
- Swish.
“I hope I won’t bring shame upon the Duchess’s reputation.”
She brought a hand to her neck.
That would never happen.
This sort of thing was my specialty, so I was confident.
- Click.
The princess’s hand undid the clasp, and the pendant was held out to me.
It was around then, I think,
that I noticed every gaze in the banquet hall had somehow turned toward us.
The moment my hand touched the pendant.
- Chime!
A notification suddenly appeared on the Tower’s interface.
[……?!]
[The god who is both a descendant of the sun and governs the sun, ‘Solau,’ has become aware of your existence!]
[『I didn’t believe it when I heard the news. How astonishing.』]
What, what was this?
I froze for a moment at the sudden message.
‘Solau? If it’s Solau, then he’s the pendant’s owner.’
Why was he appearing before me….
Given the situation, I did my best to act unfazed as I accepted the pendant.
Right now, Solau-whatever wasn’t important.
And I immediately stood up.
“…You aren’t planning to run away with it just like that, are you?”
“I’m not particularly fast on my feet.”
I headed toward the thing I had noticed earlier.
A small flowerpot placed in one corner of the banquet hall.
A small houseplant had been planted in that flowerpot.
The reason this pendant could drain vitality from humans to replenish its essence was….
Because humans possessed such an abundance of life force.
And as royalty, she must have been supplied with countless sources of life force, from elixirs to medical treatment.
But what if its target were not a human, but a tiny living creature?
It wasn’t a plant rooted outdoors, either.
What if it were merely a plant stuck in a flowerpot, barely clinging to life in a corner that didn’t even receive proper sunlight?
Perhaps someone occasionally watered it whenever they happened to think of it.
If that sort of plant were the target, there was no reason it would take long to confirm.
“What are you doing?”
She was less patient than I had expected.
Instead of answering, I stopped in front of the plant.
‘I’m sorry.’
- Spin.
I wrapped the Sun Rising Pendant around it.
Then I blocked it from the descendants’ view with my back.
At that moment.
─────────────────
[Special Effect: Lunar Eclipse]
[Begins absorbing the vitality of the equipped entity.]
─────────────────
[Warning! The life force of the equipped medium is at a critical level.]
[Remove immediately. Remove immediately.]
─────────────────
One, two, three.
How many seconds had passed?
- Saaaaaa….
One of the leaves drooped limply.
At first, there was one.
- Rustle.
Next, two leaves turned black.
- Saaaak….
The third, then the fourth.
The leaves began to wither one by one, drooping helplessly.
The once-lush plant began to dry into ash-gray in an instant.
“……!”
The princess swallowed hard.
For the first time today, her expression crumbled.
──────────
[Immediate removal recommended.]
[Remove immediately.]
[Remove immediately.]
──────────
Before the warning could even finish.
- Rustle.
The plant died first.
What a crazy item.
The plant’s leaves had completely dried up.
It had been sucked dry in a matter of seconds.
Keeping the plant hidden behind my back, I quietly removed the pendant.
- Crinkle….
Then I held it out to the princess.
Standing up and meeting her gaze, I saw that the woman, a head taller than me,
was looking back and forth between the withered flowerpot and my hand.
“Didn’t I tell you?”
I smiled faintly and returned to my original words.
“If you don’t know how to use it, calling it a good accessory would be… somewhat misleading.”
“……”
The princess couldn’t say a word.
Her face deathly pale, she stared back and forth at the remains of the flowerpot that had been perfectly fine moments ago.
“…How could this happen? There was no magical trick….”
Only after a long while did the princess finally manage to speak.
How could I have used a magical trick when I couldn’t use magic?
This was one hundred percent real.
Anyway, I hoped she would take the necklace back.
After seeing the plant sucked dry, the princess seemed reluctant to take the necklace itself back.
Even though she hadn’t wanted to give it to me earlier.
As I stood there holding the princess’s necklace.
More and more gazes began drifting toward us. At this point, it might have been better to go somewhere else entirely.
It was fine if the princess and the Imperial Prince saw, but I didn’t like being visible to everyone else.
“Your Highness, how much can you trust me now?”
“……!”
At that moment, her eyes widened as though she had realized something.
“Surely my brother’s is the same…!”
“Ah….”
I slowly nodded.
“If anything, that one is.”
“……”
“Much worse.”
Because I only speak the truth.
You know that famous saying, right? The truth is always one.