Chapter 32
Barys returned to his domain and spent each day trembling with anxiety.
The ongoing purges made it impossible for him to sleep at all.
Barys had tried to go to Poltaine, the capital, to somehow change the situation, but the royal palace would not allow him to leave.
They had specifically ordered him not to set foot outside the lord's castle.
“There must be a reason. What on earth is it?”
Barys paced back and forth across his office, clutching his chin.
His anxiety made it impossible for him to sit still.
His stress had become so severe that he had even developed a bald spot.
“Why are they rounding up the nobles who joined the Second Prince while leaving me alone? Why?”
Barys muttered as he swallowed dryly.
When they fled into the Great Forest, Barys pursued them all the way to House Leon.
He had personally given the order, too.
He had even briefly met the Crown Prince and Princess's eyes from afar.
Yet the two siblings had imposed house arrest on him when merely beheading him on the spot would not have been enough.
And since then, they had taken no further action.
“There has to be a reason….”
The nobles who had sided with the Second Prince envied Barys, but he himself was on the verge of losing his mind.
He would have felt better if they had simply killed him and reclaimed his domain for the royal family, but they had not even done that.
They had merely left him alone.
“They haven’t given me any separate orders, nor will they allow me to send or receive any communications….”
Barys’s eyes trembled uneasily.
Nothing had been decided, yet they simply told him to wait. It was frustrating enough, and he felt as though his blood were drying up.
It felt as though his death sentence had already been decided, but its execution had not been carried out.
In the end, all he could do was sigh.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Father, it’s me.”
“……Come in.”
Barys answered in a feeble voice at the sound of his only son’s voice beyond the door.
Soon, the door opened, and Carlton entered with an equally grim expression.
“Has there been any news from the royal family?”
“Nothing has changed.”
“Phew.”
Carlton let out a deep sigh.
It was a sigh filled with the same emotions as his father’s.
“Have you heard anything from the surrounding domains?”
“They’re all busy keeping their heads down. They don’t even answer magical communications very often, and even when they do connect, they hang up almost immediately.”
“Ahem!”
Barys clenched his teeth.
They had never been particularly close, but they had not been on bad terms, either.
Yet when things had turned out this way, they had immediately turned their backs on him, causing Barys’s sense of betrayal to flare up.
“I wish they would at least tell us why they’re doing this. This is more than simply letting us waste away.”
“Do you think I’m suffering any less?”
“……I’m sorry.”
Though Carlton had been working hard and running around as the young lord, it was nothing compared to what Lord Barys was going through.
And yet the situation remained exactly as it was.
“They’re clearly after something, but I don’t know what it is. Besides, I can’t engage in any outside activities right now….”
“Regardless, don’t we already know how this will end?”
“Phew! That’s true.”
Another sigh escaped Barys’s lips.
He did not know why they were leaving him alone like this, but the outcome was obvious.
Judging by the royal family’s actions so far, there was little chance they would forgive House Leon.
“What about going into exile?”
“Where? The Kingdom of Arhan?”
“The Crown Prince and Princess crossed the Great Forest with even that pitiful number of people. Is there any reason we couldn’t cross it as well?”
“Hmm!”
“I oppose the southern desert, which is made up of countless tribes. They certainly wouldn’t welcome us, either. So let’s cross the Great Forest and go to the Kingdom of Theron.”
As though he had thought it all through beforehand, Carlton continued speaking without hesitation.
He thought it would be better to go into exile than wait for death like this.
Though Baron Leon’s domain was poor, it was still unmistakably a noble house.
If they crossed over with all their wealth and knights, they might even be able to retain their title.
“The Kingdom of Theron….”
“It may be difficult to obtain a domain right away, but wouldn’t it still be better than dying? We can start over from the beginning.”
Honor was important, but Carlton did not think it was more important than life.
Besides, he was a baron, not a count.
As the lowest rank among the nobility, Carlton thought it would actually be easier for him to let go of his attachments.
“The fact that you brought this up means you’ve made a certain amount of preparations, doesn’t it?”
“Yes. I secretly summoned some seasoned hunters to serve as guides. They say it’s possible to reach the Kingdom of Theron without suffering major losses by traveling along the outskirts of the Great Forest. We won’t be able to avoid monsters entirely, but they’re confident they can minimize the number we encounter.”
“A pursuit party might come after us.”
“Our family is one of the families in the Kingdom of Polstein that knows the Great Forest best. Besides, they’re giving us more than enough time. We have to take advantage of this—the royal family’s complacency.”
Barys’s eyes shone fiercely.
His resolve was slowly beginning to waver.
He did not want to die, either.
He had joined the Second Prince’s faction because he wanted to rise higher, not because he wanted to die.
‘There will be no compromise. That much is certain. If so….’
House Leon had never been particularly powerful, but it had sworn loyalty to the House of Polstein for generations.
Of course, the current outcome had been born from a combination of his ambition and his poor choices, but that did not mean he wanted to die quietly.
“This is our chance. The timing is perfect, too. Perhaps they’re gauging the situation by having us send a magical communication to the royal palace. Even if that isn’t the case, we’re giving them the clear impression that we’re obediently waiting.”
“All right. We’ll leave at dawn tomorrow. Can you make the preparations?”
“I’ve been waiting only for your decision, Father.”
“You were planning to go even alone, weren’t you?”
“Of course not.”
Carlton shook his head firmly.
He was not even a baron, merely the young lord of a baron’s house. Even if he went into exile in the Kingdom of Theron, no one would welcome him, much less treat him well.
Unless he were a Master, he was certain to be ignored.
That was why he needed his father.
“L-Lord!”
“What is it?”
Just as Barys made his decision, the butler’s voice came with the sound of hurried footsteps.
The voice of the butler, who had served House Leon for many years, sounded unusually troubled.
It was filled with anxiety.
“A-a guest has arrived from the royal palace! H-however, among them are Lord Jade and Arrelia, the representative of the war elves!”
“Huh?”
The butler carefully opened the door despite his evident urgency and entered the office to deliver his report. Barys furrowed his brow.
He understood why guests had suddenly arrived from the royal palace.
But he found it puzzling that Jade and Arrelia were among them.
Of course, he knew who the two of them were.
It was simply strange because they had no connection whatsoever to House Leon.
“Who else is there? Who looks like the executioner?”
“There are three people visiting the lord’s castle in total. Lord Jade, Arrelia, and the court mage Steven.”
“……Only those three?”
Carlton was dumbfounded, too.
The group’s composition truly made no sense.
So he stared at Barys with a blank expression.
“Where are the three of them?”
“I’ve escorted them to the reception room for now.”
“Did they say why they came?”
“I tried asking discreetly, but they said they would tell you directly, my lord.”
“Hmm!”
Barys’s expression grew complicated.
The royal family had sent people precisely when he had decided to go into exile, and for some reason, it left him feeling uneasy.
“Jade is that high-grade spirit mage, isn’t he?”
“Yes, my lord.”
“And a war elf, too. What kind of combination is that?”
“I’m not sure, either.”
The butler lowered his head at Carlton’s words.
He had tried to find out, but they had drawn such a firm line that he could not ask them anything.
“If it weren’t for that spirit mage, we wouldn’t have ended up like this.”
Carlton ground his teeth.
The more he thought about it, the more his irritation rose.
If that high-grade spirit mage had not been there, their plan would have been completed.
And House Leon would have been able to advance into the central political arena as well.
“We should talk to them first.”
“I’ll escort you.”
“I’d like to go, too.”
“Hmm, I suppose it won’t hurt.”
Barys did not particularly object to his son’s request.
Since this was not a scheduled meeting, he saw no reason he could not bring Carlton along.
He did, however, send a message to the captain of the knights through the butler.
He quickly wrote a few words and had the butler deliver them to the knight commander.
“Let’s go.”
“Yes, Father.”
Carlton watched him with a meaningful expression.
He could guess the contents of the note without even seeing it.
“So this is House Leon.”
“Have you heard anything about it?”
A maid brought in tea, but Jade did not even take a sip.
That stood in stark contrast to Arrelia and Steven, who drank without a care.
“Of course. Did you think I would follow Lord Jade without knowing anything?”
“I wanted to handle things quietly.”
“I don’t plan to intervene, either. I’m just going to watch from the sidelines. I’ll get to see the Great Forest while I’m at it. I’ve lived quite a long time, but this is my first time there.”
The reception room was pitifully shabby compared to the royal palace, but Arrelia did not care about that.
In the first place, she had come for an entirely different purpose.
“There’s nothing particularly special about the Great Forest. It’s simply a forest with a lot of monsters. The only differences are that their numbers are enormous and the forest itself is vast.”
“That makes it even more fascinating. In a way, it’s a forest abandoned by the elves who love forests. There may be dark elves there, but we can’t be certain.”
“Come to think of it, I’ve never seen a dark elf, either. And I lived in the Great Forest for quite a while.”
“Dark elves aren’t exactly a race that reveals itself readily. But, Lord Jade.”
“Yes?”
Jade answered as he watched Whid, who seemed excited to be back in a place that felt like home after so long.
But he did not turn his head.
Whid was simply too adorable as he flew around excitedly, swishing his tail.
Especially the way he wrinkled his nose and sniffed as if he were taking in the scent—it was incredibly cute.
“Aren’t you going to shave your beard? I think your looks would improve several times over if you at least trimmed your mustache and chin beard.”
“It’s surprisingly comfortable.”
“Hmm.”
Arrelia furrowed her brow at his euphemistic refusal.
She would have liked him to at least trim it if shaving was too difficult, but from his answer, even that seemed unlikely.
-What’s it to her? Whether Jade shaves or not, Jade is still Jade! Hmph!
-Aren’t you taking it a little too sensitively?
-I wish she’d stop paying attention to our Jade!
Silestin, who had been playing tag with Whid, flew to Jade like lightning and hugged him.
Clinging to one of Jade’s cheeks, Silestin shouted at Arrelia, who could neither hear nor see the spirit.
Elestra, who had been sitting quietly on Jade’s other shoulder, gave Silestin an incredulous look.
-Hey, that’s a sickness, too.
-It’s not a sickness!
-Good grief.
Elestra shook her head at Silestin’s strange fixation.
Meanwhile, a tense knock sounded from beyond the door.
Knock, knock, knock.
“Excuse me.”
“Come in.”
Though the voice was brusque, Jade instinctively knew.
He knew who it belonged to.
‘A father, yet not a father?’
Thump, thump.