"Mooooom!!"

Isabelle shrieked and scampered into a woman's arms. The woman, with her soft blond hair and warm expression, hugged her close.

"Aren't you a little old for this? How embarrassing."

"Have you been well?"

"Same as always."

Isabelle's mother and the wife of the hero Maximilien, Maria de Etoile looked like Isabelle might after another ten years.

She looked barely into her early thirties, young enough to pass for Isabelle's somewhat older sister. Esidisi stared blankly, wondering whether Thilles cosmetics might help her skin.

"Lady Etoile, I trust you have been well."

"Oh, young Lord Etakrich. There's no need to be so formal."

"How could I be otherwise? You are my godmother, Lady Etoile."

"Doesn't 'godmother' sound rather distant? Hehe. It makes me wonder if that much time has really passed."

Having warmly returned Oscar's greeting, Maria opened the door and beckoned them inside.

"Come in, everyone. I was just preparing dinner."

"Thank you for having us!!"

* * *

While a maid laid out tea before dinner, Maria watched the group with a smile, then spoke.

"So, Bella. What brings you here in the middle of the semester? Have you decided to drop out after all?"

"Drop out? Mom, I'm practically a star student!"

"Then why didn't you bring last semester's report card?"

"What university student has their mom check their grades?!"

Isabelle grumbled and sipped her tea. As Esidisi munched on the finger food, Elpihera slapped her hand and whispered.

"Don't eat so much. Aren't you having dinner?"

"I can eat all of it, though?"

"I suppose a pig walking on two legs does look rather human."

"Sorry, but I only gain weight in certain places. Can you see?"

"H-how vulgar...!"

Elpihera stared at Esidisi's 'certain places,' then reflexively looked down over her own body and bit her lip hard.

"Sh-shape matters more than size, you know!"

"Oh my, were you asleep in Principles of Economics? You don't seem to know about economies of scale. That's usually what small countries without the necessary scale say. Hehe."

"Sorry to interrupt, but this is getting embarrassing for me."

Eugene was ignored. As Esidisi and Elpihera began growling at each other, he sighed and looked around.

'Maria de Etoile. The hero's wife.'

A commoner from a small farming village. A woman said to have helped the hero who had 'appeared from the sky,' teaching him the language and culture and helping him realize his calling.

Strip away some of the propaganda, and yes. A promotional figurehead, perhaps.

Four years had passed since the hero disappeared.

The vanished hero remained not as an individual named Maximilien, but as a symbol. And like all symbols, he had come to be treated more as an idea than a real person.

The hero was a symbol of peace who had heralded the end of the old era. Some exalted ideal that no longer felt human.

So Thilles's royal house must have made this ordinary woman fill the place of the vanished hero. Proof that the hero had existed, that he was a man of Thilles, and that his home and family remained in this nation's capital.

It would be powerful publicity. For both the nation's prestige and royal authority.

'Which is why they built her a mansion here, in full view of ordinary citizens, rather than housing her in the royal castle.'

Surely there had been room in the palace to shelter one woman. A grand mansion this lavish, in the middle of such a bustling district, could hardly escape notice.

It was too heavy a burden for an ordinary woman who would want nothing more than to live an ordinary life, mourn her missing husband, and quietly fade from memory. Eugene inwardly clicked his tongue.

'I've ended up possessing someone in a world that's rotten at its roots.'

Did the world really need to be rendered in this much detail? Dropped into a vicious struggle for power teeming with political creatures, he was starting to think more and more like Boss.

It even led him to thoughts like this: no wonder the man had ended up that way, after living thirty years in a world like this—and on its battlefields, no less.

It had been only four years since the hero saved the world. That was all the time that had passed. For someone of the hero's stature, it was short enough that one could call it a brief vacation rather than a disappearance.

In that little time, the hero's wife had become a billboard for royal authority, and the nations he had protected were trying to tear peace open and lick its entrails for greater gains.

What a wonderful place to live. With a Demon King or without one. Perhaps that was simply human nature.

He took a sip of tea at that thought.

"So why exactly have you come to Thilles?"

"Oh, we don't know either. The person who knows isn't here yet..."

"Who? You haven't gotten mixed up in anything, have you?"

"... How should I put this... Should I say we have, or that we're going to...?"

Isabelle frowned and tilted her head. It did seem they were going to get mixed up in something, but she hadn't been told exactly what was happening.

Maria's expression hardened at the look on her face. She had sent her abroad to study in peace and spend time with others her age. How could she not worry when her daughter came home midsemester saying things like this?

"Who is it? Count Autléans? Count Grandmartel? Or Baron Gramont?"

"... Well, now I know who's been bothering you lately, Mom."

"Or is it the Krasilof nobles? I've heard they're all thugs. If you're having any trouble, you can come home whenever you want."

"That is awfully accurate."

Isabelle chuckled and continued.

"He is a Krasilof noble, but I think you know him too."

"I don't know any nobles in Krasilof... Who is it?"

"Dad's friend. Oh, telling you in advance would spoil the fun. He said he'd be here by dinner. Just wait."

Your father had so few friends you could count them on one hand, dear.

As Maria struggled to swallow those words, a maid approached and whispered to her.

"A guest has arrived, madam. Shall I show him in?"

"Who is it?"

"He says he is Viscount Yeremov. Is he an acquaintance of yours...?"

"I've never heard the name."

Maria's face grew cold. Some wastrel had approached her young daughter pretending to be her father's friend. And now he had the gall to come to her house himself?

She gestured for the others to wait, then quietly rose and followed the maid to the drawing room.

* * *

On one side of the lavish drawing room hung a large portrait of Maximilien, Maria, and Isabelle.

The man called Sir Yeremov stood with his back to the entrance, looking up at the portrait.

Broad shoulders and a solid build. A soldier's physique. A strong metallic tang wafted from him, as it so often did from veterans of that war.

Maria quietly shut the door and faced him. This was her home. Whoever this man who had deceived and lured Isabelle might be, she could not show weakness.

"You've come."

A low voice rang out, deep as rough steel being ground smooth. Maria tilted her head at the strangely familiar voice.

Then the man slowly turned.

CRASH.

A picture frame tumbled to the floor. Maria had staggered and reached for a shelf, only for her hand to slip.

Her eyes trembled as she stared at the man before her.

"Sir Petrovich...?"

"Maria."

He no longer looked like the young man she remembered, but she recognized him by the blue eyes that had stayed the same through the years.

The young man who had always worn a cold expression in her memories had become a man with eyes as arid as the winter sky.

"I heard... you were dead."

"It was necessary."

"Krasilof is no different from this country, then."

"I suppose it's the same wherever people live."

Ivan approached with heavy steps and supported her, his touch careful and courteous. Trembling faintly, Maria laid a hand on his gaunt cheek.

"I'm so glad you're safe. I was worried after what Bella told me. That someone had dared to call himself Max's friend..."

"Anyone who did would die."

Maria couldn't help chuckling. Even his utterly humorless jokes were just as they had been back then.

Had it been ten years? A little less? Her memory wasn't clear, but it must have been about that long.

She had cried for two days after hearing he was dead. Thinking that not even a handful of friends remained to remember Max.

Because there really were almost no friends left who could see that radiant man as a person, who could remember Max the human being alongside her.

And because she had thought that, in the peace that had finally come, he too had fallen to the nobles so eager to bury the heroes of the past in history.

"You've been looking after my daughter."

"It was something I had to do, my lady."

"Thank you. Thank you so much. I'm always indebted to his friends. To the Duke of Etakrich, and to you."

"It is only right, my lady."

Because Maximilien had saved the world. Because everyone who set foot in this world ought to feel indebted to that man.

At Ivan's words, Maria smiled weakly.

"But this is a world where what ought to go without saying seldom does, isn't it?"

Mulling over the implications of her words, Ivan spoke in a low voice.

"That is why I am here. My lady, what in the world is Gilles Vert doing? While you live in a house like this, being treated this way?"

"The Duke of Etakrich has done all he can. But as you know, he too is a member of the royal family. I suppose it cannot be helped."

"Gilles Vert is the Lord Protector. The royal family's wishes cannot compel him. If he has done nothing, that is simply because he chose to do nothing."

"No. That isn't so, Sir Petrovich."

Maria smiled sadly.

"Much has happened in four years. Thilles is no longer a united country. The royal family is so frightened that I must live like this, a canary in a cage. Because they need even the help of a commoner woman like me."

She opened the drawing-room door for him and beckoned. The fragrant smell of food drifted in from the corridor.

"Let us eat. This isn't a pleasant story to hear before dinner. Besides, there is far too much to tell with a meal waiting."

"Gladly."

As Ivan gave a quiet nod, a maid approached and took his coat.

Maria glanced at Ivan following behind her and stopped. Their eyes met for a moment, and she asked with a quiet smile,

"Will you help?"

With what? And how? It was a question without context, those words left unspoken.

But the moment Ivan heard her, he nodded.

"Gladly."

That was what he had come from Krasilof to do.