“I shall personally give you a reason to agree to my request,” Roselia said.
She reached into her pouch and pulled out a big case. It was at least one meter wide—far too large to ever fit inside the small pouch. The bag must have been a magic item.
Roselia placed the case down in between us.
“You know I’m engaged, don’t you?” she asked.
“I do. To the son of a margrave, if I remember correctly.”
“This is something I received when I got engaged,” Roselia said, opening the case.
“That’s?!” My voice couldn’t hide my surprise.
Inside the case was a horn. Despite being wrapped in a special type of paper that could contain mana, the horn shone with a faint gleam. Roselia gestured for me to touch it, so I reached out my hand.
“There is no mistaking it,” I said. “This is the horn of a thunder dragon—not any subspecies of dragon, a real dragon.”
“If you agree to sign a magic contract stipulating that you will not hurt innocent people in your quest for revenge, I shall give you this horn.”
“This is—”
“Something that you’ll absolutely need in the future,” Roselia finished for me. “I’m giving you the horn and a reason to not hurt the people. Not a bad deal, right? To be honest, I would have loved to add a few more conditions to make sure you won’t hinder Her Highness in any way, but too many conditions tend to render magic contracts useless.” The corners of Roselia’s mouth turned upward. “So, what do you say?”
“Roselia, do you understand what giving this to me means?”
“Of course I do.”
The horns of thunder dragons held considerable quantities of thunder mana. If I processed this correctly, I could turn it into a weapon powerful enough to work on Bulat, even if he used Thunder Spiritification.
“I’m just surprised,” I said. “Even if you serve Adel now, I always believed you were loyal to the kingdom.”
I’d always thought that Roselia was similar to my past self. I assumed she’d accepted the position as Friede’s aide—and eventually decided to serve Adel—because as a noblewoman, she had a duty to do everything in her power to serve her country.
“What prompted this change of heart?” I asked.
Hesitation flickered in Roselia’s eyes and she paused, but she answered nonetheless. “Before I departed for the empire, I had an audience with the king. I asked him what his plans were for the future.”
“What did Bulat say?”
“That since Her Highness can control the prince, he’ll make sure Friede retains his status and he’ll allow him to live out his life in the palace.”
“That’s so naive of him,” I said.
“Very naive indeed,” Roselia agreed.
That idiotic prince had already committed far too many crimes to be given such leniency. If the kingdom were to pull itself back up, it would be crucial to first root out corruption, and then to pin everything that had gone wrong onto Friede before cutting him off. That was most likely Adel’s plan.
“The fearsome God of Thunder is also just a father in the end,” Roselia said. “He can’t bring himself to give up on his darling son, especially since Friede has inherited the mana he’s so proud of. When I heard the king’s response, I made up my mind. As things stand, protecting the kingdom means cutting off its head.”
“In other words, you’ve given up on the current kingdom.”
“Indeed. I shall make sure that King Bulat is removed so that Her Highness may sit on the throne in his stead. That is why I have no intention of stopping your plots against him.”
Putting it differently, Roselia had every intention of opposing me if I tried to involve Adel’s people in my schemes. Making enemies out of Adel, Roselia, and my brother all at once sounded like a terribly unwise idea.
“All right,” I said. “I shall accept your proposal.”
✦ ✦ ✦
Eiwass was sitting in one of the lounges that had been given to the Haldorian delegation, organizing and reading over documents, when someone waved a piece of paper in front of his face. He looked up and met Roselia’s eyes.
“What is this?” he asked.
“Our most important mission for this trip,” she replied.
Eiwass took the paper from her and looked it over. It was a magic contract. As he read through it, surprise took hold of his features. Elizabeth had sworn not to involve the masses anymore.
“How did you manage this?”
He’d been convinced that the negotiations with his stubborn, uncompromising younger sister would be long and arduous. It wasn’t often that Eiwass found himself genuinely astonished, but this was one of these times.
“How I got her to sign it is our little secret,” Roselia said. “But now that she has, she should stop causing us so much trouble.”
“Does that mean Elizabeth is ready to wash her hands of Haldoria entirely?”
“No, not at all. In fact, it’s the opposite. Now that hurting the masses isn’t an option anymore, she’ll attack the kingdom itself—or rather, the royal family.”
Roselia’s words could easily have been taken as lèse-majesté, but Eiwass started laughing as though he couldn’t hold himself back.
“You’re tougher than I thought,” he told Roselia.
“Isn’t that what nobility is all about?”
“Thanks to you, we won’t have to worry about Elizabeth anymore. You’ve done a wonderful job.”
“You say that, but you would have been pleased either way, wouldn’t you?” Roselia’s gaze turned sharp. “Elizabeth yielding means you get to return home with a distinguished feat under your belt. But even if she hadn’t, you simply would have used her to take down the royal family. You wouldn’t have cared even if Her Highness got dragged into it. You’ve always planned to catch everyone off guard so you can reap the benefits in the end, haven’t you?”
Eiwass chuckled. “What a bountiful imagination you have, Lady Roselia. Let’s assume you’re right for a moment. I’m sworn to serve Her Highness Princess Adel. Don’t you think I would step in to shield her if the situation demanded it?”
“Sure, let’s pretend you would,” Roselia replied. “I do have another question, though. What was the point of me participating in the tournament?”
“Well, it was fun, wasn’t it?”
“You told me to do it so I could make contact with Elizabeth, but I never needed to fight in order to do that, did I?”
“Ha ha ha! Who knows? I’m afraid I can’t recall that particular conversation anymore.”
Roselia sighed at his frivolity. The way he sounded like a playboy chatting up girls no matter what he was saying annoyed her to no end. The scariest thing about him, Roselia thought, was that this entire persona of his was fake. That carefree facade was his way of concealing his real thoughts.
“Since the matter is settled, we shall change our plans. We will depart tomorrow morning and return to the kingdom,” Eiwass declared.
“What?! But we have a luncheon with Prince Okyst and a meeting at the empire’s Merchants’ Guild planned!”
“I’ll cancel them.”
“Are you serious?”
“Yes. Don’t worry about the meetings; I’ll take care of them. Just get ready to depart.”
“You have no intention of listening to my opinion on the matter, do you?”
“Oh, I’m happy to listen,” Eiwass said. “But I can’t promise that’ll make me change my mind.”
“I see. I shall take my leave, then. I have to go pack, you see,” Roselia shot back. She turned away abruptly and left the room.
After returning to the bedroom she’d been allocated, Roselia changed before ordering all the maids to leave.
She sighed. “At least I managed to convince her. And I got to see Lord Eiwass dumbstruck. It wasn’t such a terrible day.”
She put the magic contract she’d signed with Elizabeth inside a small box and closed the lock with a spell before putting it away in her magic bag. The face of her former rival popped into her mind. Elizabeth had become quite different compared to the days when she had kept that annoying fake smile plastered on her face. She’d seemed a lot more human now. Today, for the first time, Roselia had seen emotions on her face, and she liked this new Elizabeth a lot better.
“You finally got away from your idiot father and the royal family. I wish you could just forget about them and focus on living your life.” Roselia sighed again. “What a troublesome girl you are, Ellie.”