Dragon and Ogre, Sacrifice and Sin (3)

Margrave Mule's estate was spacious, but compared with the estate in the capital, it felt plain—or perhaps sturdy and practical, even a little rough.

A huge taxidermied bear was displayed in the reception room, exuding such force that it looked ready to attack at any moment. Wouldn't an ordinary person take one look at it and be scared stiff...? More importantly, was it really all right to keep something like this in the reception room?

As the door opened to the sound of heavy footsteps, there stood the berserker I remembered—or rather, Margrave Mule himself.

"Reiji! You really did come visit my domain! Excellent! Where shall we go? A dungeon? Shall we crack down on all those roughneck adventurers at once? Or perhaps some unexplored wilderness—"

"F-Father, please don't just go on about your own wishes..."

Mira-sama was standing demurely beside him.

When I had seen her with Eva-sama, I had thought of her as a "simple country noblewoman," but somehow, she now had the unmistakable air of a proper noble lady.

Ah—so that's it.

It was because she'd stopped calling him "Papa" and her manners had grown more refined.

"O-oh... right. Thank you for coming all this way. So? What brings you here? Since you'd caused so much trouble in the Holy Capital, I figured you wouldn't be in the Holy Kingdom for a while. Though it seems the Holy Capital is busy with the neighboring country now."...