A carriage waited in front of the entrance, its sides handsomely painted with the family crest. Two soldiers in leather armor sat on the driver's bench, while servants loaded various things into the back. A knight stood nearby, calming the horses.

'A ducal household, all right.'

It was only a short outing, but they had made proper preparations. Shut up in the mansion, living like a squirrel on a wheel, I tended to forget that the Gresia ducal house was one of the kingdom's foremost noble families. The duke still wielded enormous power. Of course they wouldn't send his eldest son on an outing without preparing for it.

*'If anything, isn't this rather modest for them?'

Still, an excessive escort for a trip that wasn't going far would have been strange too.

'Then again, that's hardly the only strange thing about this.'

After saying goodbye to Flora, I climbed into the carriage. Its other passengers looked up at me: my older brother Simon, his fiancée Adria, and Adria's maid.

"Aren't any other servants coming?"

Strangely, the servants Simon always brought with him were nowhere to be seen.

"... We have enough guards. I told them not to come," he replied with a sour look. Apparently, he still didn't want to talk to me.

It was a curious answer, but it wasn't my place to argue. I set my sword beside me and sat down.

"Where are we going today?" I asked Adria.

"Majorca Fortress! I want to see the defensive walls too!" she answered excitedly.

It was an unexpected request, but it was just like her.

"Metena has a large market and a beautiful temple. The square in the city center is splendid too, and the sunset over the city looks lovely from the temple spire..."

Simon sounded disappointed, and Adria bowed her head apologetically.

"I'm sorry. I want to see the ruins from the Great War first."

Simon could only sigh.

The duke's eldest son seemed thoroughly at his fiancée's mercy.

'Ah, young love.'

Listening to the two teenagers talk gave me a faintly ticklish feeling. Then Adria shot me a glare.

"Why are you smiling like that? You look just like my dad when he smiles that way. You're weird!"

Oops. My thoughts must have shown on my face.

"My mind wandered for a moment. I'm sorry."

"No, you don't have to apologize..." She faltered at my apology.

As we spoke, Simon cut in. "Why do you speak so casually to him? I've never seen you do that before."

Right. She did, didn't she? She'd spoken casually to me since we first met, so I hadn't thought anything of it. But now that Simon mentioned it, she was polite to everyone else! Why was I the only exception?

"Oh! You're right." Adria's eyes widened.

Had she not noticed either?

"Why did I do that? Hmm... Because you're younger than me? No, maybe it's because I'd heard so much about you back home? I suppose you just didn't feel like a stranger, even when we first met..."

Looking sorry, Adria lowered her head. "Sorry... No, I apologize. I hope I haven't upset you."

She apologized as soon as she realized it. Her heart seemed to be in the right place after all. If only she had nothing to do with me, I'd be happy to call her an angel...

"No, it's fine."

I accepted her apology. I thought that would settle it nicely, but unfortunately Simon intervened again.

"Ahem. I don't think you need to start speaking formally to him right away..."

He'd interrupted when he saw us chatting comfortably, and now that she was being polite to me, he didn't like that either. Was this teenage angst? Dealing with children really wasn't easy.

Adria was watching me with bright eyes too. I sighed inwardly and said, "You can talk to me the way you did before."

"Okay!"

Adria beamed. Simon looked at her with a deeply conflicted expression.

The carriage passed through the mansion's main gate and headed straight into town. The mansion stood north of Metena, the central city of the domain. A broad expanse of forest and a mountain range protected it from enemies to the north, while Metena's sprawling streets stretched out to the south. Beyond them, I could see a high wall encircling the city: Metena's outer wall.

We passed through the affluent neighborhood in the north of the city, then crossed the central square Simon had mentioned.

"This square dates back to when the domain was first established... The central market is to the west, and that beautiful building with the spire to the east is the temple. Even the archbishop marveled at its beauty..."

Simon was usually courteous and composed, but right now he was simply an excited boy. He talked eagerly about the sights passing outside the carriage. Adria's maid and I kept turning our heads to follow his explanations like tourists listening to a guide.

Unfortunately, Adria didn't seem interested at all. Eventually, Simon fell silent. What a shame. She could have at least pretended to listen for a little longer. A guide like him couldn't be easy to find.

I'd hardly ever ventured beyond the mansion, so the streets were fascinating to me. Perhaps because we weren't in a back alley, the city was cleaner and livelier than I'd expected. It wasn't as clean as the modern cities of my previous life, of course, but thankfully it wasn't the manure-covered medieval city I'd read about in books either.

The ducal family also seemed to have earned a fair amount of respect from the people here. When the carriage passed, people saw its crest, moved aside, and bowed. Many bowed with fear on their faces, but quite a few greeted us sincerely. It was only natural to fear the lord who ruled your domain. Still, those genuine greetings suggested the duke had won considerable goodwill among his people.

So what?

In my previous life, plenty of celebrated figures had abandoned their families and still won the world's respect. Great man or not, I had no desire to acknowledge the duke, much less forgive him.

Past the square, we crossed a broad avenue and approached the high wall. The gates were open, perhaps because it was daytime, and a long line of people waited on one side to enter the city. The soldiers managing the crowd saluted at the sight of the ducal carriage, while the people in line hurriedly bowed. Naturally, there was no inspection. Once the soldiers recognized the knight, they cleared the way, and the carriage went out through the gate.

Majorca Fortress was about half an hour by carriage beyond the southern wall. We followed a road between pastures and climbed a low hill, where a half-collapsed building came into view.

Majorca Fortress.

A relic of the Great War, when the heroes were said to have fought the Demon King to save the world. According to the kingdom's founding myth, the heroes and the allied forces had fought the Demon King's army here in a battle on which everything depended. After their victory, two of the heroes returned and founded the kingdom.

Now, though, it was only a desolate ruin bearing the scars of war. This wasn't a world that protected its historic sites, so ruins were all that remained.

The soldiers stopped the carriage below the ruins. The knight rode off to check the area around the fortress, and the rest of us got out and headed toward the site. I tilted my head as I watched the soldiers stay behind to guard the carriage.

The duke's domain was famous for being one of the safest places in the kingdom, but with Simon here, this seemed remarkably careless about security. Then again, everyone in our party was reasonably capable, so perhaps it wouldn't be a problem.

"Wow! This is the fortress where the Great Battle of Majorca took place?"

Adria entered the ruins, her face alight with wonder. Simon seemed to have visited several times before. Staying beside his fiancée mattered more to him than looking around. Adria's maid, unlike during the carriage ride, was scanning the area with a tense expression. Though her eyes rested on the collapsed ruins, she did not look like a tourist.

She really was a bodyguard, not a maid. Or perhaps a bodyguard and a maid, since she did that job well too.

Picking our way around heaps of fallen stone, we went deeper inside, where some walls and sculptures still stood. Almost nothing remained of the fortress as it had been, but Adria apparently saw it differently.

"Oh, there are traces of a mural on this wall."

"Ah, yes. Originally, this fortress..."

It looked like a simple scrape to me, but Simon launched into an enthusiastic explanation. He truly was the duke's worthy heir: besides his swordsmanship, he had considerable knowledge and refinement. He was pouring all those talents into courting Adria at the moment, but the ducal house's future looked bright.

'Time to give them some space.'

After all that effort on his part, it seemed only fair. I caught Adria's maid's eye and signaled that we should step back, though not so far that it would interfere with guarding them. She understood at once, and we carefully put some distance between ourselves and the couple.

We stopped where the fallen walls partly blocked our view of them and Simon's voice had grown faint. Then the maid and I climbed onto a wall that gave us a clear view of the surrounding area.

"We can see around the fortress from here. This should be all right, shouldn't it?"

The maid bowed her head.

"I haven't heard your name, by the way."

"I'm Bianca. I'm only a maid, so you needn't speak formally to me."

"Are you really only a maid?"

Bianca turned her head slightly away.

"Then can you tell me what's going on?"

My plan to buy myself some time had fallen through, so I had no choice but to ask directly. Bianca looked at me with curiosity. Had I said something else that didn't suit my age?

"They called you a genius, but you're more than I expected."

Just what kind of rumors had she heard about me?

"You'll find out soon. And what you need to do hasn't changed."

"Guard her, you mean?"

"Yes. I'm counting on you."

Even if I knew, the guard duty would stay the same... In that case...

"Is Miss Adria, the person I'm guarding, in danger? If so, why is security so lax?"

Bianca's mouth slowly fell open. It seemed I wasn't wrong. The pieces of my next thought began to fit together, and something was on the verge of coming to me. Unfortunately, I was interrupted at the last moment.

A cold wind whispered past me. At the same time, the gloomy atmosphere of the ruins grew heavier. Something seemed to creep up my back. The feeling I'd had so many times before dying grew stronger by the moment.

'The air has changed!' This was exactly what people meant by that.

I hurriedly looked around and met Bianca's eyes. She was scanning the area too, her face tense. She had sensed the same thing I had. We ran toward Simon and Adria.

They were talking as they looked at a statue with only half of it left. Had things been going well between them? Simon's eyebrows twitched when the two of us barged in.

But helping his courtship would have to wait. Before I could speak, Bianca asked him, "Where are the knights guarding you, young master?"

"Guarding me? What are you talking about?"

Bianca frowned. Something seemed to occur to her, and she asked quickly, "You haven't brought any of your usual servants either... Don't tell me you came without telling anyone else?"

Surely not. Simon, of all people, wouldn't have come in secret...

"... Why does that matter?"

He had come in secret!

"Other people must have seen us getting into the carriage," I said. "There was a knight and soldiers too."

Bianca shook her head. "They got in before the knight and soldiers arrived. I don't think anyone else saw them."

I could only stare in disbelief. Simon must have seen my expression, because his face turned bright red.

"What does it matter? I couldn't let my fiancée go on an outing alone!"

The ducal family's accomplished eldest son had yet to make it through adolescence. This outing had originally been meant for Adria alone.

Wait. Why were they sending her out alone? Why had they even gone out of their way to keep Simon away from her?

While I was puzzling over that, Adria spoke up. "What's going on?"

"There may be an attack," Bianca said.

Adria drew her sword. "So there is something I don't know about?"

"I'm sorry."

"It's all right. Dad told me there might be danger." She looked Bianca straight in the eye. "Can you tell me now?"

I wanted to hear the answer too.

"I'll tell you when it's over. For now, we need to return to the mansion at once. Things have become a little complicated."

Bianca didn't look at Simon, but no one could mistake whom she meant.

"Don't talk about me like I'm a burden!"

Her words had evidently wounded his pride. His face flushed, Simon drew his sword. With a sigh, I gripped mine too.

I'd been dragged into something I didn't understand, and now even that had gone wrong. I'd made it through the past few years safely, but it seemed my troubles were about to begin again.