Chapter 33 - Escape

I continued speaking seriously while looking at Liana, who was expressing disbelief on her face, "But it's not impossible, right?"

"No... that's not the problem. Haa, listen carefully. I'll explain why I can't do it."

Liana brushed up her hair and explained the reasons to me one by one.

"Announcing it after the hero appointment ceremony... means we have to do everything within a week at most. Realistically, it's impossible to create perfect evidence to frame Grand Duchess Elisia in such a short time."

That was an undeniable fact.

The moment we say Elisia colluded with black mages, all sorts of investigations will begin, and it would be revealed that this was a lie.

"Moreover, the North won't sit still, right? Even though Dale has become a hero, the fact is that the North made a big contribution to making Dale a hero... I think the repercussions will be too much to handle."

That was fine.

It wasn’t me who was suffering, it was Dale.

"And creating evidence isn't that simple. Since the rift itself is an unknown field, to insist that she created it, we'd need to discover at least a black mage group of a certain scale. Both discovering it and subjugating such a large group are extremely difficult."

If there wasn't one, we could create it, and as for subjugation, we had Loraine, so it should be roughly solved.

If it didn’t work out, we could ask the family for help.

"Above all, Grand Duchess Elisia has no reason to create a rift. First of all, there's a big rumor that the Grand Duchess is aiming for the family head position, and on top of that, she's been sacrificing herself for the North since childhood. It doesn't make sense that she would try to ruin the North by causing a rift."

We could spread the word that she did it because she thought she would lose the family head position.

As in the North, people tended to believe what they wanted to believe, not the truth.

Thinking this, I nodded, and Liana looked at me and sighed.

"Do you really intend to do this? The chances of success are very low?"

Hearing those words, I nodded as if it was obvious and said, "But it's fun, isn't it?"

"..."

Liana looked at me with sunken eyes for a moment, then turned her gaze and said to me, "...I suppose it is?"

With those words, we decided to proceed with the “Elisia colluded with black mages and caused a rift” project.

***

Now that we had a goal, we needed a detailed plan.

Of course, as we proceed with the work, there were many moments when the plan became meaningless, and things often proceed in the opposite direction of the plan...

But even so, the existing plan often served as a milestone, so a plan was absolutely necessary.

Thinking this, I looked at Liana, and she started telling me various things while contemplating.

"First of all, we need to decide two things."

The first was to find or create a black mage group in the North that would be good to use for this plan.

The second was about how to link Elisia with the black mages.

"We can skip the first one as I have a rough idea... The problem is the second one. How do you plan to link Grand Duchess Elisia, who has no connection to black magic at all?"

To that, I told a story I had seen somewhere.

"Agitation is possible with just one sentence, but it takes dozens of pages of documents and evidence to refute it. But by the time you try to refute it, people are already agitated, so it doesn't matter."

It was known to have been said by Goebbels, but in fact, it was just a story about agitation itself that Goebbels didn't say.

Liana seemed to like those words and nodded, saying, "...That's a good saying."

I wasn’t sure if it was right to call this a good saying, but I decided to go along with it for now and nodded.

Then I continued my thoughts.

Anyway, the important thing is how satisfying a doubt we can plant in those who want Elisia to fall or those who want stimulation.

The truth wasn't necessary for them, anyway.

What was important to them was profit or interest.

So if we threw bait at them, they'd bite, tear, taste, and enjoy it, eating away at Elisia's image, so even if the truth was revealed, there was a high probability that she'd already be in tatters.

When that happens, Elisia will be far removed from the family head competition.

She'd be trapped in the North without even being able to take revenge.

So, thinking it was important to create some evidence that would help people spread their imagination and a “big event” that would add certainty, I fell into contemplation.

I shared these thoughts with Liana and started shaping the plan.

Liana nodded, participating in my plan even while finding it ridiculous.

"Then I'll go and see if there's a usable black mage organization in the North. Oh, and could you give me some tea? I'd like to bring some to the Saint too."

"Me too."

I nodded while calming Loraine, who was poking her face in from the side.

***

Loneliness grown in poison-like despair.

There would be no sentence that could express Siren better than this.

She had grown up in loneliness for a long time and grew by eating others' despair.

So for Siren, loneliness and cold were natural, and she thought they were a permanently bound curse that could never be removed even in the distant future.

But after meeting Damian, that thought changed.

The first person to reach out to her.

The first person to make her know the feeling of not being lonely and being warm.

And...

A person who makes me lonely again with the excuse of “being busy these days.”

Siren chewed her lips and looked at Damian eagerly with a somewhat blunt expression.

But he seemed so busy that he didn't look back even once.

Feeling a bit hurt by that, she wandered around aimlessly, but he was still immersed in his work and still didn't look at her.

"..."

So, feeling gloomy, she approached her first friend Loraine who was nearby.

"Ah, I'm sorry! I'm too busy today, so I'll play with you next time! Really!"

Loraine also disappeared somewhere, being so busy with something, leaving her alone in the lodgings.

So she had no choice but to spend time doing nyan nyan fist training, mercilessly exchanging punches with her second friend—who she was on slightly bad terms with—Myeongmyeong-i.

"Myamyamyamyamyeong."

Unlike in the past, thanks to eating well these days, her hands had become faster than Myeongmyeong-i's.

She could easily claim victory by lightly hitting Myeongmyeong-i's head.

"Meuyang, no...!"

Hearing the loser's scream, she proudly shrugged her shoulders and looked at Damian.

But seeing that Damian still had no interest in her, she couldn't help but shrink again.

...

It seemed he would continue like this all day.

Having no choice, she decided to read the novel Loraine had lent her before and sat on the sofa to open it, revealing a love story between two people.

To be honest, it was difficult to empathize with the emotion of love yet, so it was hard to express.

But thinking that the description written in the book seemed similar to the feeling she got when thinking about Damian, she narrowed her eyes.

I'm not sure.

Thinking she would ask Loraine when she returned, she got up from the sofa to study magic again when

She saw a couple kissing outside the window.

She already understood that this was an act of sharing love from seeing it in books.

But she couldn't empathize with why they wanted to do such a thing, let alone why they did it.

As she was blankly watching this, she suddenly remembered Liana kissing Damian before.

"Hmm."

As that memory came to mind, she thought something, and turned around.

She saw Damian getting up from his seat and stretching, having finished what he was doing.

Thinking she could finally play together, she scurried forward with the stupid Myeongmyeong-i when the thought of what it would feel like to kiss or make out with Damian suddenly crossed her mind.

"..."

The moment she had that thought... Damian's red lips came into view.

The moment she saw those lips that looked soft and warm,

...Her face suddenly became hot and her head became dizzy.

...?

Not knowing why this was happening, she was flustered when Damian suddenly approached her and started calling her name, "Siren, what's wrong?"

At that moment, Damian's characteristic warm scent strongly stimulated her heart.

Unable to endure any longer, she had no choice but to run away.

***

I blinked blankly as I watched Siren suddenly run away.

She usually always clung to me, so it was bewildering to see her suddenly run away like that.

Seeing this, I thought she might be running away because I hadn't been paying enough attention to her lately, so I decided to pay more attention to her in the future.

Anyway, I was about to wrap up what I had been doing when I saw Loraine entering with Liana.

It seems the investigation is over.

Seeing that they finished all the investigation in just one day, it seemed they had already decided where to go.

I greeted Liana and Loraine, who were bringing documents, and decided to depart immediately for the place Liana had chosen.