Chapter 132
A name is one part of a country's culture.
For example, the Southern Continent has a custom called a "protective name." This is a form of belief in the spiritual power of words; adding one to a person's name expresses a wish for good health and safety or a prayer for success.
Take Lururia, for example. Before she married into the Empire, her full name was "Lururia = Fezaris = Bardusa," a combination of name, family name, and protective name.
In our own country, Thor-sama, commander of the Seventh Knight Order and a man with strong Southern ancestry, has the name Thor di Solrugia and likewise bears a protective name.
When meeting someone from the Southern Continent in a somewhat formal setting, they are pleased if you greet them by their protective name as well. Apparently, calling someone by their protective name is akin to offering a prayer for their divine protection.
Apparently, Lufa has a protective name too, but for some reason she refuses to tell me what it is. She said, "It would be embarrassing to explain the meaning myself," so it is probably something intended to make the name sound cute, or perhaps a protective name that is a little embarrassing.
That said, Bardusa and Solrugia are both old words from the Southern Continent, so I have no idea what either of them means.
By contrast, the Northern Continent, where we live, is a little simpler. Commoners do not have family names, so they go by their names alone. That is why people like me, Roa, as well as Dick and Ryuzel, have no family names.
Only nobles and families with a certain amount of power have family names. Once a family name has been granted, it is never taken away, even if the family falls into decline, so up-and-coming merchant houses are eager to adopt one as a kind of status symbol.
Of course, people cannot simply start using one at will. Family names are granted by the king when a family's contributions to the country have been recognized, so in the Northern Continent, a family name can be considered a great source of pride for the entire family.
For that reason, people almost never address someone by their family name alone. A family name by itself sounds as though one were addressing the entire family.
Even as a light joke, calling someone by their name alone and calling them by their family name alone have very different implications. The former might be something the other person could laugh off, but the latter amounts to insulting the entire family, making it a serious matter.
The occasions when a family name is used alone include addressing the head of a family, such as a territorial lord, as an honorific. When we visited Wickhart's family home, there was nothing wrong with calling Wickhart's father, the lord of the territory, Lord Hogbeck.
Otherwise, it is normal to use the family name together with the person's name in public. In other words, family names themselves are rarely spoken in daily life.
Incidentally, the family name of the Rudek royal family is Torad. That is why the royal capital is called Rudectrad.
However, in our country's culture, it is considered rather improper to use the royal family's family name, so few people address the king or members of the royal family by their full names.
Now, the reason I've gone on at such length about all this is that I want you to understand just how outrageous and outlandish what happened this time was.
Speaking of the outrageous and outlandish, there is no one among my friends who fits the description better than her.
The eccentric Drew.
She was none other than Florencia—the very person Franklurt-Drew had been trying to turn to for help.
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"What?! Then Drew isn't really Drew—she's Florencia Drew?!"
Lapiria-sama was the one who cried out in surprise, but nearly everyone there shared her astonishment. Even Raiz-sama looked at Drew with a troubled expression, so apparently he had not known either.
When we first returned to the royal capital with Franklurt, discussions about him had already gotten underway among the leadership.
Since word had come from Franklurt that he wanted a relative working in the royal capital to act as his guarantor, they decided, "Let's hear from this Florencia person first."
Yet no matter how hard we searched, we could not find any officer named Florencia.
By the time we arrived, Florencia still had not been found, so we gathered at Raiz-sama's place to hear directly from Franklurt what had happened.
Franklurt explained in confusion, "I had heard that Florencia was the daughter of a merchant house from my family's main line, and that she had run away from home and was working as a civil official in the royal capital..." Most of the people there, myself included, tilted their heads with a puzzled "Huh?" It was a story we had heard somewhere before.
When Raiz-sama asked, "What is the name of this merchant family?" and Franklurt replied, "The Bexter Trading Company," Raiz-sama put a hand to his forehead, looked up at the ceiling, and said, "Could someone go fetch Drew immediately?" That led directly to Lapiria-sama's outburst.
The Drew they brought in looked displeased, puffing out her cheeks as she said, "I was just getting to the good part!" When she saw Franklurt spreading both arms and exclaiming, "Oh, Florencia! We have not met since you were little, but I can still see the resemblance!" she simply said, "Who are you?"
After that, Franklurt turned pale and went on talking about Drew's—or rather, Florencia's—family home, trying to jog Florencia's memory of him. Once he somehow managed to elicit the words, "Oh, right, there was someone like that," Raiz-sama took Franklurt and Florencia away to question them about the situation.
All we could do was stare blankly at the backs of the two as they walked away.