Chapter 50
#Chapter 50: Servant Cedric (16) - Family Bonds
After Cedric left.
A hellish silence descended over the garden.
Marquis Redbell remained motionless for a long while, deep in thought.
One of the vassals, gauging the marquis's mood while cautiously exchanging glances with the others, finally took the plunge and spoke.
“My lord. Shouldn't you punish that man's insolence?”
Marquis Redbell was one of the kingdom's three most powerful figures.
What on earth had a mere servant like Cedric said to a great man whom even the princes of this country dared not address informally and had to treat with caution?
Even if a noble's magnanimity meant forgiving and embracing the ignorant mistakes of others, Cedric had gone far beyond the point where he could be forgiven on those grounds.
If not for the marquis's intense hatred of his subordinates acting arbitrarily under the pretext of doing something ‘for their lord,’ the vassals under him would already have stepped forward and punished Cedric.
“Insolence... Well, he certainly was a seriously cocky fellow.”
“Then...”
“Enough. Leave him be.”
“Pardon?”
Seeing the wide-eyed vassal, the marquis mischievously curled one corner of his mouth.
“I said leave him be. It doesn't look like we'd see anything good by laying hands on him.”
“……”
The vassals who had raised the matter, as well as all the others nearby, wore complicated expressions.
They clearly had plenty they wanted to say in response, but since it was the marquis's decision, they could not argue with him and were left to stew inwardly.
It was an exceptionally unusual sight for the main house's vassals, who generally did not readily show their emotions on their faces.
‘True enough, this is rather unlike my usual behavior.’
Even as he thought that, the marquis did not believe his judgment was mistaken.
‘I vaguely suspected it before we met, but he certainly isn't some ordinary commoner.’
The vocabulary he used, the accents in his pronunciation, his natural eye movements, and his confident bearing—all of it.
Though he deliberately covered it up with clownish behavior and remarks, Cedric exuded the distinctive air of a learned man.
‘Magic is sophisticated knowledge to begin with. An ordinary adventurer might be able to learn and use wandering spells as they are, but modifying a spell—especially a family's secret art—to suit one's own tastes is impossible even to attempt without having received highly systematic training.’
If the modification proposal for Blood Demon Beasts that Cedric had described was truly viable—or even if it achieved only half the claimed performance—the marquis would have been willing to pay any amount of gold for that technique.
Powerful bodyguards comparable to knights were certainly appealing, but how could they compare to a security system on the scale of an entire nation?
If an individual had truly created this, that would mean he was a once-in-an-era superhuman destined to leave his name in history. If it were the work of a group, then that group was clearly a massive faction wielding more power than even House Redbell.
The marquis judged the latter to be the correct answer.
He was a rational and intelligent man, and thus could not arrive at the conclusion that ‘the crown prince of the Aizern Empire, exhausted by endless work, was serving as a servant under his youngest daughter as a hobby, and had modified the secret art single-handedly with a special knack for gifts.’
In fact, if he had been able to reach that conclusion immediately, it would have been a matter of divine revelation rather than deduction, so it would have been excessively harsh to call the marquis incompetent over this.
Unaware that he had fallen into a subtle misconception, the marquis began planning what to do next.
And the first move he made was…
***
“The head of the family has taken ill, so he says that meeting face-to-face should be postponed. You may return as soon as day breaks.”
At the words of the main house's head butler, the expressions of the four children changed bizarrely.
They had been summoned to the main house supposedly to see one another after so long, only for their father not to show his face at all and instead order them to leave, so their reactions were only natural.
Who could fail to know that talk of being ill and the like was merely an excuse?
The most serious reaction of all came from the eldest son, Armin.
He had originally planned to use this family meeting as an excuse to keep Claudia at the main house.
Unlike Claudia, who had no proper allies outside the family, Armin's side only had to keep her here, and the Second Prince's faction would push the marriage arrangements forward on its own.
Armin had calculated that even if Claudia hurriedly tried to mount a resistance, everything would already be over by then.
And there was no way the marquis had failed to see through this calculation.
After knowingly turning a blind eye until now, was he really going to sabotage everything like this?
‘...His mind has changed.’
Armin's face stiffened.
The marquis had not clearly taken any action that seemed intended to help Claudia or interfere with Armin.
If anything, it was closer to standing by as a spectator and refusing to interfere no matter which way things went.
Of course, even if the marquis did not support him, the fact that Armin held the advantage remained unchanged.
In a contest that had been all but a guaranteed victory for him, Claudia had merely gained a faint chance of winning—so faint that it was difficult to say whether it existed at all.
However, Armin was extremely cautious by nature, the sort who tested a stone bridge several times before crossing it, and the mere fact that he might lose made him deeply uncomfortable.
‘Should I withdraw the plan even now?’
Canceling it would not be easy either.
That might have been possible if he had initiated the whole thing alone, but the royal family was involved in this matter.
If he unilaterally canceled a plan that had been proceeding according to the interests of both sides, he would incur a considerable debt to the Second Prince.
After a long period of deliberation, Armin made up his mind.
‘No. I’ll push ahead with it as planned.’
It was not a decision made simply because he feared suffering a political loss.
If he could secure the final victory, Armin was the kind of person who could tolerate and wait as long as necessary.
But the fact that the marquis had shown even the slightest favorable attitude toward Claudia was something he absolutely could not overlook.
This time, it had merely served to level the scales, but who was to say that next time the marquis would not openly take Claudia's side?
Armin knew very well what sort of person the father who had sired him was.
No matter how many achievements Armin accumulated or how much he offered the marquis, if his father decided that Claudia was more useful than he was, he would abandon Armin without mercy.
Armin's eyes grew cold.
To him, Claudia was no longer an inferior and inadequate younger sister, but an unmistakable rival.
***
“The royal family, with legitimacy; House Redbell, with wealth; and House Sarnos, with military might. Together, they are the Virka Kingdom's three great powers.”
Some time later.
In the lord's office in Eched Territory, Cedric was in the middle of giving Claudia a lecture exclusively for her.
“However, the royal family currently has many problems. Because the king is advanced in age, the next king must soon be chosen, but the first prince, who was originally the legitimate heir, suffered a severe fever and was reduced to an imbecile. House Sarnos supports the king's younger brother, who has an impressive record, while House Redbell supports the Second Prince.”
It was a bizarre sight: a mere servant calling the ruler of the kingdom ‘Your Highness’ or ‘Your Majesty’ instead of ‘King’ and explaining the kingdom's political structure, but Claudia did not point it out. She had already come too far for that.
“To be honest, from the perspective of a straightforward power struggle, Redbell has the advantage. The Count of Sarnos is no match for the marquis when it comes to political power. However, Redbell has its own source of anxiety, namely that it possesses relatively little military force.”
“Sarnos is inferior to Redbell in most respects when it comes to managing its territory, but its military strength is enormous. Redbell has ample funds, so gathering people is not a particularly serious problem, but it cannot compete when it comes to the quality of its commanders and knights. This is a serious problem both for Redbell and for the Second Prince, who has Redbell's support.”
“The Second Prince is trying to recruit an ally to solve this problem, and that ally is House Beliar. Though it does not rival the kingdom's three great powers, it possesses enough strength to rank among the top ten, has a strong military, and occupies an exquisitely balanced position between Redbell and Sarnos.”
“If the young lady becomes connected to House Beliar, the alliance between the Second Prince and Redbell will both supplement its insufficient military strength and gain a powerful geographical shield. The young lady is affiliated with Redbell, but she also has royal blood, so there will be less concern that the balance between the allies will collapse. In other words, this is a match that would satisfy both the Second Prince and House Redbell.”
“What is more, House Beliar's finances are steadily drying up, to the point that without support from the royal family or Redbell, it is struggling even to maintain its military strength, its only real advantage. This means they can keep House Beliar under their thumb, and the moment the young lady marries into it, that hold will be hers as well.”
Cedric's hand, which had been moving busily across the blackboard, came to a stop.
At Cedric's gaze, which seemed to ask whether she understood everything up to this point, Claudia frowned but nodded.
“So basically, they want to sacrifice me so the Second Prince and Redbell can live comfortably. Give me a break. Seriously.”
“That is a simplistic understanding, but it is sufficient.”
“So what do I do next? I hate being sold off against my will. Every time I hear a rumor that they're moving ahead with my marriage arrangements however they please, I get chills running down my spine.”
Her tone was brusque, but her voice was desperate.
Cedric answered the imploring gaze Claudia turned toward him as if asking for help.
“Of course, there is a way.”
“R-really!? That's why you're Cedric! What way?”
“Stab the Second Prince in the back.”
A brief silence followed.
Claudia tapped both of her ears lightly, then asked again.
“Sorry, I didn't hear you properly. Could you say it again?”
“Certainly, young lady.”
With a face as gentle and docile as a puppy's, Cedric calmly spoke.
“Bring the king's younger brother over as an ally and stab the Second Prince in the back.”
Claudia stared blankly at Cedric's face.
His eyes were remarkably clear, gleaming with a strange radiance.
Claudia carefully spoke up.
“Um, er, didn't you just say a moment ago that the Second Prince was an ally and the king's younger brother was an enemy?”
“The Second Prince is an ally of ‘Redbell,’ not an ally of yours. If he were your ally, he would not proceed with something like this without even confirming your wishes. Conversely, the king's younger brother is one of the people who will be most troubled if this matter succeeds. In politics, enemies and allies can change whenever their interests happen to align.”
“You'd be supporting a political rival and stabbing the Second Prince in the back. Do you think he'll just sit still?”
“Young lady.”
Cedric spoke in an exceedingly calm and gentle voice.
“The eldest son will handle that himself. We're family—we can rely on one another, can't we?”
“……That's true!”
Claudia decided to let go of everything.
And then a great peace came over her heart.
Trust in one's family was truly a powerful thing.