Chapter 2
“You’re saying my younger brother is getting engaged to the Grand Duke of Valdrowa?”
The second son, Huren Rosnova, reacted as though he could not believe it.
Gray hair and brown eyes.
He was the Rosnova family’s brains and its heir apparent.
He had recently gone to the Empire on an assignment as his father Erembald’s representative and was on his way back.
“Yes.”
The steward who had reported the matter nodded.
“Really?”
“That’s right.”
“That doesn’t make sense. Did the brat misunderstand something?”
“He seems to understand what it means.”
“Well, if even our eldest brother understands it, there’s no way that punk doesn’t….”
Huren scratched his chin.
He could not make sense of the situation.
‘Why did that punk choose death when his choices were either death or leaving?’
Was it a way of proving his manhood to their father?
But since it had been decided by the Empire, accepting it meant he could not retract it—not that he had refused it.
The same went for Ferda.
If Ferda belatedly said, ‘I’ll just leave this house,’ it would be considered a violation of imperial law, and his head would be separated from his body.
“So what is that punk doing now?”
“He’s scheduled to leave sometime today, so he’s probably preparing to depart now.”
“Really? Then we still have a little time to talk as brothers.”
The steward inwardly wore an utterly dumbfounded expression upon hearing that.
Huren was none other than the first person to despise and ostracize Ferda for being the son of a concubine with blue eyes.
It was laughable for him to talk about brothers.
Huren walked down the corridor with his hands clasped behind his back, as though he were strolling through a garden.
When he arrived in front of Ferda’s room, the maids who were supposed to attend to him were waiting outside the door.
“Why are you standing outside instead of attending to him?”
The maids startled and lowered their heads as they explained the situation.
“W-We said we would attend to him, but he ordered us to wait outside….”
“Ridiculous. So you’re saying you’ve been waiting outside?”
“Yes….”
“Pathetic. Are you saying he can even dress himself? He may technically be a noble, but how is he supposed to manage that?”
Huren grumbled, but inwardly he cheered.
‘Of course! Now that the day’s actually come, he doesn’t want to go, does he?’
Huren cleared his throat and flung open the door.
“Ferda! You brat, what are you doing without even getting ready properly….”
Huren, who had intended to get angry, was left speechless.
The image of Ferda Huren had imagined was of him sprawled across his bed, whining that he did not want to go.
Yet what Huren was looking at now was—
‘He’s dressing himself?’
Ferda was fastening his buttons while looking into a mirror.
“How can you just barge in without knocking, Brother?”
Instead, Huren had handed Ferda an opening to point out his rudeness.
“I thought you’d be holed up in bed.”
“How could I? On a day as important as today, how could I afford to dawdle?”
“Then why are the servants waiting outside?”
“It’s simply because I can dress myself. I won’t be able to receive a maid’s help anymore, after all.”
His tone was calm.
His gaze remained fixed on the mirror as he inspected his own appearance.
Huren blinked as he looked at Ferda.
‘Is this really the same guy I knew?’
What sort of person had Ferda been?
A parasite wearing a human face who had tried to survive with a servile smile.
But now?
He was calm and composed, like a dignified middle-aged man.
‘For someone like Ferda….’
For the first time ever, Ferda’s appearance gave off an air of tension.
To smooth over his feelings, Huren coughed and changed the subject.
“Ahem, right. I heard you accepted an engagement to the Grand Duke of Valdrowa.”
“Yes.”
“If you’ve read nothing but books, you should know what that engagement means, shouldn’t you?”
“I know perfectly well. Isn’t it just another way of saying I should stop loitering around the family and get lost?”
“Why put it that way? Even so, do you think Rosnova would send you off without giving you a single coin? We’ll help you stand on your own with it.”
Ferda thought.
Money….
Yes, they did give him money.
How much?
Enough to live on for ten years.
The problem was that this meant ten years by commoner standards.
For Ferda, who was accustomed to a noble’s lifestyle, it was enough to squander in three days.
‘Well, I gave all that money to my master, too.’
Not because he wanted to.
The only magic master willing to accept a late-blooming student was someone obsessed with money.
He had not taught Ferda properly, but simply being able to access information had been meaningful in itself.
‘That old man must still be chasing money and women.’
Recalling those days, Ferda gave a short snort.
‘Did that brat just laugh?’
No matter how he thought about it, Huren believed Ferda had misunderstood something.
Otherwise, there was no way he could be relaxed enough to laugh.
“No matter how I look at it, you seem to have misunderstood something. Do you know why getting engaged to the Evil Dragon means death?”
“Why wouldn’t I? I know perfectly well. Didn’t your first fiancé get torn to pieces?”
Valdrowa’s first fiancé was the Empire’s Third Prince, a man old enough to be the current emperor’s uncle.
He had a brilliant mind and outstanding looks, and was renowned for his popularity.
He had even been mentioned as a possible successor to the throne, only to reject the prospect himself.
Yet that Third Prince had been beaten into an unrecognizable mess, torn into more than three pieces.
It happened less than a day after he went to the Grand Duke.
Based on that incident, the public interpreted it this way.
-Any human who would become Valdrowa’s fiancé must possess abilities surpassing those of the Third Prince.
After that, when Valdrowa sought another fiancé, no one volunteered.
Even the Third Prince had been nearly perfect, so there was no way anyone could possess enough ability to fill his place.
Still, a fiancé had to be selected, so one noble was chosen every year.
The problem was that they all either ran away or declared that they would cut themselves out of the family register and left, causing the arrangement to fall through.
As it gradually took on another meaning, it became a pretext nobles used when driving their children out.
“Do you believe you can do what even the Third Prince couldn’t?”
Can he?
“I don’t know.”
Honestly, he was not confident.
Even Ferda, who had proven his abilities by becoming the youngest eighth-circle Archmage in history, had not been certain enough to say so outright.
But Ferda was not the sort of person who moved only when he possessed certainty.
“Well, can’t I find out gradually?”
Huren thought Ferda was being reckless.
Huren looked at him with a fed-up gaze and threatened him.
“I don’t care what you do, but don’t run away.”
“…….”
“The moment you run, the Rosnova family will send people after you and cut off your head. Understand?”
Under normal circumstances, Ferda would have been utterly terrified by that expression.
Yet Ferda stared at Huren without revealing any emotion.
“Brother.”
Huren was momentarily overwhelmed by that gaze.
“W-What?”
“Keep your lower half under control. Everyone knows about that lecherous look you give First Sister-in-Law every time you see her.”
Huren’s face flushed bright red.
“W-What?! Y-You, what are you talking about…!”
“Even if you want to hit me, please restrain yourself. I have to go into a dragon’s mouth, so your younger brother will be off now.”
Ferda patted Huren on the shoulder and passed by.
Huren merely stared stupidly at Ferda, who seemed not merely mature but utterly at ease.
* * *
“It was an honor to serve you, Young Master.”
The steward who had come to see him off on his final journey had tears in his eyes.
Ferda quietly stared at those tears.
‘He’s saying things he doesn’t mean.’
If those tears had any meaning, they were closer to relief than sorrow.
Serving a young master with neither ability nor use in a noble household was humiliating for a servant.
‘Did this bastard tamper with my food too?’
He had not known at the time.
He had thought that being made to slip on a smooth floor, or vomiting in the middle of a meal, was due to his own weak constitution.
Could he ever have imagined that the servants had done such things?
Under normal circumstances, it would have been more than enough to kindle hatred and a desire for revenge.
The only mercy he could offer would have been to kill them so thoroughly that they would not even realize they were dead.
‘What meaning does that have now?’
Yet the Ferda of now was utterly at peace.
The burning flame had vanished, and only peace remained.
Having already taken his revenge once, he decided not to hold any further attachment to that place.
So Ferda patted the steward on the shoulder encouragingly.
“Yes, you’ve worked hard. Taking care of someone like me for so long.”
“……What?”
The steward had been pretending to weep, but he was so flustered that the tears vanished from his eyes.
“Please take good care of the Rosnova family after I’m gone.”
“Ah, yes….”
Ferda turned away.
He was far too calm for someone going to his death.
When Ferda exited the house just like that, the servant waiting for him greeted him.
“My name is Hans, and I have been assigned as the coachman to escort you to your destination, Young Master.”
“Coachman?”
“Yes, that’s right.”
Ferda tilted his head.
“Am I traveling in a carriage?”
“Pardon? Ah, yes. A carriage. What else would there be besides a carriage?”
“Hmm, I see.”
“Is there a problem?”
“No, nothing. I was just thinking it felt nostalgic.”
“Ah, I see. ……What?”
No matter how he thought about it, the coachman could not understand what Ferda meant.
“Then we’ll depart!”
-Snort!
The sound of hooves came alongside the horse’s snorting.
The carriage began to roll.
‘It’s been a really long time since I’ve ridden in one of these.’
In Ferda’s last memory, carriages had disappeared.
No, more precisely, they had become vehicles for the middle class, who had only a vague notion of what a carriage was.
‘Because magical automobiles took their place.’
At first, people opposed them on the grounds that tradition would disappear.
But before long, their vastly superior control and efficient use of space compared to carriages established them as the vehicles of the nobility.
‘Then even flying carriages appeared, and all sorts of other things followed.’
All those things were products forged under the name of magical engineering.
‘It had nothing to do with me, though.’
To Ferda, who had raced forward seeking only revenge, it was a field of magic that held little interest.
‘Magic…….’
Ferda had reached the ninth circle, a realm no one else had ever attained, and tried using the Wish spell.
Yet the Ferda of now was not an Archmage of the ninth circle.
‘Ferda, frail and constantly underestimated.’
Naturally, he was now far removed from magic.
He would awaken to magic after leaving home, but the driving force behind it would be anger and a thirst for revenge.
The Ferda of now had none of that boiling anger or blade-sharp thirst for revenge.
Naturally, his magic had not awakened.
‘I don’t want to live like that anymore.’
Looking back, the magic Ferda wielded had been like a drug.
A drug that felt good at first, but gradually raised his tolerance until it became impossible to control himself.
When he was insane, everything had felt refreshing and pleasant, but now it was a terrible memory he never wanted to experience again.
Ferda liked the bitter peace he felt now.
‘But I don’t want to live without using magic, either….’
Without magic, there were many inconveniences.
Like getting dressed by himself.
Upon reaching the third circle, one could use magic to put on simple clothing with ease.
At the fourth circle, one could understand the structure of complex formal wear and instruct magic to dress oneself.
‘To live alone without inconvenience, I’ll have to reach at least the fourth circle.’
Anyone else hearing him rattle off “the fourth circle” as casually as if reciting a nursery rhyme would have been dumbfounded.
Yet the feeling he had at that moment was one of overwhelming uncertainty.
Though he had reached the ninth circle once, it was not a path Ferda was familiar with.
What did Ferda, who lacked anger and a thirst for revenge, need in order to awaken magic?
“M-My lord……!”
No sooner had he asked himself that question than the frightened coachman’s voice reached him.
That alone told him what had happened.
“W-We’ve arrived!”
* * *
The carriage had stopped in the middle of a forest, and a single sign stood where the open road began.
-This area lies within the Grand Duke’s domain. Entry beyond this point is strictly prohibited.
This was as far as the carriage could go.
“You’ve worked hard.”
Ferda got down from the carriage, and the coachman unloaded the luggage he had brought before waiting beside him.
“You may go now.”
“But I’m supposed to wait for the person coming to see you off….”
He was putting on a pointless show of stubbornness.
He had undoubtedly been ordered to keep watch lest Ferda run away.
“A dragon will be coming here shortly.”
“A-A dragon, my lord?”
“Probably not the dragon itself, but a subordinate who inherited its blood—a spawn. But to people like you, it’s no different from a dragon.”
Cold sweat ran down the coachman’s forehead, and his throat bobbed.
Ferda nodded toward the horses.
“Even if you can endure seeing a dragon, those beasts won’t. If the horses go wild and you can’t make it home, won’t you be the only one losing out?”
“Ah……!”
“So report that I entered safely and return. If you die, all this will have been for nothing, won’t it?”
“A-All right.”
The coachman did not put up any further resistance.
He took down a large bag from the back of the carriage.
“Then this humble servant will be off!! Stay healthy, my lord!”
The man who had been ordered to guard Ferda did not even look back as he turned the carriage around.
He was moving so fast that the rear of the carriage bounced.
Ferda sat down on the hard bag as though it were a chair and waited.
“The Grand Duke’s domain….”
Shortly afterward, the wind suddenly began to blow.
Ferda raised his head and looked toward the dark forest.
A young girl stood there.
She was a young maid with silver hair, dressed in a maid’s uniform.
Do not be fooled by her appearance.
She was a dragon spawn.
“Are you Lord Ferda Rosnova?”
She asked politely.
“Yes.”
“I will escort you to the castle. This way.”