Chapter 134
Chapter 134
I straightened my back from where I had been leaning against the backrest.
Being doted on by old generals with stars on their shoulders whom I didn't even know.
Anyone who has served in the South Korean military would know.
A general's affection and attention directly translate into burdens and fucking misery with no pleasure or reward, making you feel like you're about to die.
To prevent that fucked-up catastrophe, I answered with sincerity welling up from the depths of my heart.
"Professor. I think you're seriously mistaken about something."
"Mistaken?"
"Yes. I really don't know anything."
I explained with every trace of a smile gone from my face.
"I haven't heard anything about what Rohanna's previous head did for the Imperial Family, either. All I did was eat one wholesome meal in broad daylight with his younger sister to repay Lucius, whom I worked alongside and suffered with during this Legion tour, for the alchemy I borrowed from him. That's all. Nothing more, nothing less."
Do you understand, soldier?
At this point, the normal response would be, 'Ah, I jumped to conclusions. This guy just ate with her out of loyalty,' and to accept that.
But.
"Hmm."
Professor Wilhelm stroked his chin, narrowing his eyes in puzzlement instead.
"So, are you saying this is the stage where you're seriously considering a future together?"
Oh, fuck.
I felt like smacking myself in the forehead.
'What the hell did this old man hear with his ears?'
I said eating one meal to settle the debt for borrowing someone else's skills was the end of it, so why did his conclusion leap to marriage?
I couldn't understand the logic circuits of military men at all.
"No. That's not it."
I let out a deep sigh and corrected him again.
"I only met her because I had to repay a debt. We're nowhere near seriously considering anything."
"Then, there's no chance it'll work out?"
Professor Wilhelm stared at me with hawk-like eyes.
"There isn't. Not even one percent."
Faced with my titanium-alloy fortress, Professor Wilhelm finally relaxed the furrows between his brows and nodded.
"That's a relief."
"……"
Let's not ask why it's a relief.
No doubt he'd lecture me with some boomer mindset like, 'How dare you sully the daughter of a noble family carrying the nation's secret history.'
"Anyway."
I emphasized it once more.
"I haven't heard anything from my father. In the first place, my father isn't the sort of warm-hearted man who casually shares major state secrets with his children just because we're family."
"I know that."
Professor Wilhelm toyed with his teacup and added,
"But since good deeds could be treated as an exception, I thought the Court Count must have quietly briefed his son as well."
"Ha."
I let out a hollow laugh.
This man clearly didn't know my father very well.
"My father's old-fashionedness is beyond imagination. He absolutely isn't the flexible sort who would arbitrarily decide what counts as a good deed and say, 'Eh, this much is fine,' creating an exception for leaking classified information."
"Huh."
Professor Wilhelm let out an exclamation as though I had caught him off guard, then laughed heartily and nodded.
"Well, now that I hear it put that way, that's the correct interpretation of the Court Count, the head of the Intelligence Bureau. As expected of a son, you know your father's character better than anyone."
"Exactly. Anyway."
I hammered in the final nail to bring this unsettling conversation to a complete end.
"So I have absolutely no idea what kind of remarkable person Rohanna's previous head was. Please don't misunderstand."
Getting tangled up in a complicated love affair was hard enough; I didn't want to shoulder state-level secrets too.
I needed to tie this up firmly.
If possible, I wanted those creepy old men with stars on their shoulders who were watching me to be properly briefed on my position as well.
I finished my coffee and tried to rise from my seat.
But.
Shake, shake.
"……?"
Professor Wilhelm slowly shook his head.
The smile on his face was entirely different from his earlier hearty grin—much heavier and more solemn.
"Even if you didn't know."
Professor Wilhelm looked straight into my eyes and opened his mouth.
"If you treated Rohanna with such upright character, without a trace of selfishness or prejudice, then you are fully qualified to hear this secret."
"No, why are you ignoring my opinion—"
For an instant, a powerful sense of déjà vu flashed through my mind.
'......This feels like that thing.'
You know how, in games, you're given a hundred choices?
Option 1: I don't want to hear it.
Option 2: Run away.
Option 3: Cover my ears.
No matter what you choose, the NPC grabs you by the collar and says, 'You still have to hear this!' before forcibly moving you along to the predetermined answer in some maliciously deceptive mandatory event.
This felt exactly like that right now.
Even if I covered my ears and writhed around while shouting, 'I can't hear you! I can't hear you!'
Not only would I be unable to get past this hulking old geezer, a former knight, blocking the door; I'd obviously just exhaust myself for no reason.
"Haa……"
Ultimately resigned, I awkwardly lowered myself back onto the sofa after having half-risen.
"Go ahead. I'll listen."
"Hmm. Listen, then."
Only then did Professor Wilhelm nod in satisfaction and begin spinning out his story.
"Although House Rohanna is publicly known merely as a wealthy count's family that runs a merchant guild in the southern part of the capital and is renowned for its expertise in alchemy."
"I see. That's news to me. Anyway, yes."
"In reality, they are an imperial back-channel family that secretly handles all sorts of affairs beneath the shadow of the Empire."
A back channel.
The word carried an unusual weight.
"Rohanna's previous head played a pivotal role, under the guise of ordinary trade, overseeing secret development projects in the forward regions that qualified as Class-One state secrets, as well as the core of military logistics."
"……Wait a second."
Hearing those words, a chill ran down my spine, and cold sweat began pouring from the back of my neck.
I hurriedly raised both hands and crossed them into an X, cutting Wilhelm off.
"That's far enough. Stop!"
"Why?"
"Why are you telling me that?!"
"Heh heh, qualifications……"
"Qualifications or whatever! This is seriously not okay!"
Ah, fuck.
I'm seriously fucked!!!!
A covert family at the heart of the Empire's top-secret forward-area development and military logistics?
Just hearing that was practically enough for assassins to press knives to my throat and say, 'You're now a dog of the Imperial Family, so you have to take this secret to the grave!'
Even at my horrified scream, Professor Wilhelm seemed completely unaffected and instead let out a hearty laugh.
"Don't be alarmed. Even if you came to know, you aren't subject to punishment because you are the son of the Court Count."
"……Yes?"
"Apart from Class-One secrets directly ordered by His Majesty the Emperor, matters classified as Class Two or below……"
Professor Wilhelm lifted his teacup and continued explaining calmly.
"Imperial law guarantees direct family members of the Court Count, the head of the Intelligence Bureau, a special exemption from legal punishment even when such matters are shared with them. So set aside your worries about losing your head."
No.
Fuck, was avoiding punishment all that mattered?
Being legally innocent didn't mean I was safe from this fucked-up power struggle!
In fact, the mere fact that 'that bastard knows the secret' would make me the number-one target of enemy spies and aristocrats opposed to the Imperial Family!
'I really don't want to get dragged into this, fuck!'
Why the hell.
Why, for a family that hadn't even properly appeared by name in the original novel, let alone been important enough to be an extra!
Why was it saddled with all this complicated, heavy behind-the-scenes lore!!!
It was just then, while I was cursing out the author in my head with every insult I knew, that—
Flash!
"……Huh?"
One of the details from the original novel scattered through my mind flashed across my consciousness like a bolt of lightning.
The middle-to-late portion of the original novel.
Around the time Crown Prince Louis and Saintess Lily were busy suffering through a frustrating plot and making blunder after blunder, there had been one massive terrorist incident that shook the entire Empire.
It was called the 'Red Moon Liberation Front.'
At the same time, the pieces of the puzzle began fitting together at a maddening speed.
Rohanna, the covert family responsible for the Empire's secret military logistics.
The greedy younger uncle who seized real power after the previous head died young.
And an old nobleman twice Sophia's age whom that uncle tried to force his frail niece to marry.
If we assumed it ended in a bad ending?
'......What the fuck?'
But when my thoughts reached that point, strangely enough,
The episode related to the 'Red Moon Liberation Front' suddenly began to rise several times more clearly in my frontal lobe.
That insane, fanatical terrorist organization that committed terrorist attacks in the capital while plotting to overthrow the Imperial Family.
The episode in which it was revealed where those bastards had obtained their enormous financial resources, cutting-edge military supplies, and endless stores of alchemical bombs.
Maybe.
The culprit had been trying to plead, 'The truth is, I'm a victim too,' but the male lead, that bastard Crown Prince, had chopped off his head while saying, 'I don't want to hear something shameful in the face of the responsibility borne by countless people who willingly shoulder their own crosses.'
The dialogue from the original text appeared in my mind with unbelievable clarity.
-"The weight of the crimes of insulting the Imperial Family and treason is not something we can overlook, even for a meritorious family. I will tear Rohanna out by the roots from the Empire."
'......It's Rohanna.'
Exactly.
Rohanna.
……Wait a minute.
I sucked in a sharp breath.
Only now did I fully understand to my bones why Lucius had so desperately pestered a complete stranger like me to try to woo his sister.
Because the state of the family was already a fucking disaster at this point.
So that's how Rohanna ended up in that state, after all.
Damn it.
Even if I fell forward, I'd smash the back of my head, and even if I fell backward, I'd break my nose—there had to be a limit to this bad luck.
I had exchanged a few words with someone who didn't even seem important enough to be an extra, and now even she was a villain in a main-story arc?
"Cassian?"
Seeing my face go pale, Professor Wilhelm called out to me curiously.
"You don't look well. Is the mental burden of learning this heavy Imperial secret too much?"
"……It's not a small burden."
"I believe you can shoulder this weighty secret. You're a fine patriot."
No. I can't bear it. I don't want to.
If you were going to hear things however you wanted from the start, why did you ask me in the first place!
Aagh!