Chapter 19
After a brief exchange, Gregorio suddenly called out to my parents, as if he’d just remembered something. “Ah...!”
“By the way, Count Beltz was looking for you over there. Perhaps you should go?”
“Well, but...” My parents hesitated a little.
“Oh, don’t worry!” Gregorio chimed in, rather theatrically.
“Your son looks quite capable, and you have a maid right here at his side. As it happens, I was just planning to gather some children around his age and give them a chance to meet one another.”
Gregorio pressed on, piling words onto my parents.
Convinced, my parents went off in another direction.
After seeing them off,
“Whew, all these greetings can be pretty exhausting, can’t they?” Gregorio said casually.
With the stiffness gone, he gave off the air of a slightly older big brother.
Though in reality, he was a big brother who was a complete con artist.
“That’s true,” I replied.
Gregorio whispered in a voice low enough not to be heard by anyone nearby.
――Would you be interested in somewhere a little more fun?
“Somewhere fun, you say...?”
When I asked with a puzzled look, Gregorio smiled gently.
“Yes—you were born special. Why don’t you come to a place worthy of someone as special as you?”
While Big Brother Gregorio escorted me to this “fun place,” I thought back over the event.
Now then.
In Last Arcanum, Lyon is called the Starting City.
Because an incident occurs there that gives the protagonist, Sieg, the impetus to become a hero.
The basic outline goes like this.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The protagonist, Sieg, is a villager who lives in Rag Village near Lyon.
Sieg’s father belongs to the knightly order in Lyon, and naturally, Sieg admires him and spends his days training.
And then...
One day, Sieg hears that a noble young lady has come to the neighboring village of Hafen, and he goes to meet her, full of curiosity.
The girl he meets there is one of the main heroines—Iris Webern.
She is the daughter of a noble from a remote region. Because of the frequent monster disasters, she was staying in the village with her parents on their way to a conference in Lyon.
The two young people hit it off.
Sieg vows, “I’ll protect you,” and Iris blushes and nods: the classic childhood-friend route is set in motion—but...
But here’s the thing.
Iris arrives in Lyon, having promised to reunite with Sieg, only to find a crowd of thoroughly decadent high-ranking nobles waiting for her.
Even after the conference ends, they indulge themselves at a lavish ball, while crucial measures against monsters are delayed at every turn.
Worse, even Duke Randall, hailed as a wise ruler, seems to her to be doing nothing but indulging in pleasure.
And to make matters worse, the next head of House Randall (me) was carrying on even more disgracefully.
Kuzutos was cavorting with women alongside the foolish sons of nobles of similar rank.
Naturally, brimming with a sense of justice, she confronted Kuzutos.
“What do you think your duty as a noble is?”
But when she asked him that, Ultos—who was supposed to shoulder the future of this country—answered in a mocking tone:
“How dare a mere girl from the frontier presume to tell me what to do!”
He even went on to say, “In light of your beauty, I might even forgive you if you became my mistress,” showing off his baffling condescension and driving every player up the wall.
Naturally, Iris, who had admired the nobles of the capital until then, was deeply shocked and fled Lyon as if running away.
And on the way, she was kidnapped—
~~~~~~~
After her abduction, the story shifts into full-blown combat, but this is the first half of the Lyon event.
...Yeah. Wonderful.
Our very own young Kuzutos is a big help everywhere he goes.
Incidentally, this incident leads Kuzutos, after he enrolls in the Academy of Magic, to spend his youth interfering with Iris, who rejected him long ago, and the commoner protagonist—and ultimately to get his comeuppance.
I-I’m not happy about this...
Gregorio’s voice brought me back to my senses. “We’re almost there.”
I was being led to a place a little way from the ballroom.
So, in other words, Big Brother Gregorio was trying to lead the heir to House Randall to a discreet place of amusement where no one would notice him, and corrupt him.
It was an unwanted favor if ever there was one.
There were several burly-looking guards in front of the building, too. It seemed they had security well covered.
At Gregorio’s signal, the door opened.
Inside was pitch-black; I couldn’t see a thing.
Now then.
――I wonder how this will turn out.