“YOU took an interest in the feather I found because you were concerned about Lord Featherio’s presence, isn’t that right, King Glenreed?”
I’d convinced Lord Featherio to use his feet to leave the villa so as not to upset Fon. Afterwards, I decided to bring this topic up with King Glenreed.
“Right. Heaven-Wing clan members don’t follow common sense, so it’s impossible to tell what’s going on in their heads. I didn’t know what his intentions were in observing you,” the usually composed king revealed with contempt in his tone.
“So you’ve interacted with his people before, I see. Legends say that the Heaven-Wing clan judges the king. Does the royal family share a connection to them?” I asked.
“I don’t know any details, and the texts with their accurate history have been lost to time. Maybe my father would have known something, but he passed away before he could teach me.”
“…Yes, I remember hearing he was found unconscious in the bath one winter.”
The castle went into an uproar, believing it to be a poisoning or some manner of assassination. But they never found any evidence.
Dying suddenly in the bath during winter. It felt like heat shock—something I knew from my past life memories—but the answer was still shrouded in darkness.
Four years ago, sometime after the previous king’s passing, King Glenreed began to concentrate his efforts on the wars with neighboring countries. He emerged victorious, but when the wars were over, it was time for him to pick a queen from one of the four candidates.
I imagined he’d been at his wit’s end during his entire reign and had little time to consider the Heaven-Wing clan at all. While they were residents of this country too, they essentially existed as an independent group. They didn’t openly antagonize the kingdom of Wolfvarte or interfere with domestic affairs, but from what I gathered, they didn’t care to follow King Glenreed’s orders either.
“I didn’t smell any lies when Featherio said he wasn’t going to remove you, so that’s a relief… But I still can’t let my guard down either,” he said.
“I found him to be strange, but nothing more. What makes you so wary of him?” I asked.
“He smells strange.”
“Strange? Do you mean you don’t care for his scent?”
King Glenreed’s power of ancestral reversion granted him a unique sense of smell. He was able to detect lies, and so long as there was a scent, he could perceive a person’s emotions and character. This was how he managed to detect Lord Featherio, even when he was invisible.
“No, it’s not that. If anything, he smells rather pleasant… But that scent is exactly the same as the other Heaven-Wing clan members who live in this country. Parents and siblings with similar personalities tend to smell alike, but this was something more than that. Even twins with nearly identical dispositions don’t smell exactly the same.”
“They smell the same…”
I took a moment to try and think of an answer. However, human cloning was the only thing I could come up with.
Clones were said to be genetically identical to each other, though human cloning wasn’t achievable, even on twenty-first-century Earth. It was hard to imagine this country had managed it with their inferior science and technology.
Magic in this world generally didn’t have an effect on the human body itself. As far as I knew, there were no spells to heal someone, revive them, or turn them young again.
But if it’s not a part of science or magic, does that mean there’s some other factor involved?
Of course, King Glenreed’s ability to transform into a wolf wasn’t explained by this world’s system of magic either. It seemed possible that the Heaven-Wing clan might hold similar strange abilities.
“Lord Featherio really does resemble an angel, even if his personality is a different story,” I mused. “Perhaps it’s only natural that he would possess powers that surpass human understanding.”
“An angel?”
When I heard His Majesty repeat my words, I remembered something.
That’s right. This world has no angels or any concept of them.
There was a concept of gods—as well as the customs of revering ancestors and mourning the dead—but there were no large state religions or powerful spiritual leaders. That part was a bit strange.
The history of Japan in my past life made different religions unavoidable, and I knew Europe and other Asian countries to be the same.
On the other hand, there was little religion to be found in this world—at least not on the western continent. Aside from simple prayer rituals to the gods, there were no clergy members to be found in the centers of any government. Glimpses of religions could be seen before the time known as the “Great Darkness” over five hundred years ago, but no one knew their specifics, as most documents were lost during the long period of war.
Well, this world had things like magic and Mythical Beasts, so it wasn’t that surprising that other aspects would be different from Earth too. The clothes and food of the people here were relatively familiar to me, but it was possible that religion was just a different thing here.
“Angels are people with wings on their backs who follow God’s will and deliver blessings,” I explained.
“That sounds convenient. Such things could only exist in fairy tales.”
“That’s true. I only learned about them in a fictional story I read long ago.”
Or, more accurately, it was a book I read in my past life. But I didn’t clarify that point. I decided to change subjects so he wouldn’t press me any further.
“That reminds me. You said I had a strange scent when we first met, didn’t you, King Glenreed?”
“…I did. I’m sorry I said something rude during our first time meeting.”
“No, that’s all right. May I ask what kind of scent I have?”
“It’s like…” King Glenreed’s brow wrinkled slightly, like he didn’t know how to respond. I tried not to laugh when I noticed how much it made him look like Lord Aroo. “…It’s hard to explain. It’s something I’ve never smelled again before or since. I’m not saying it’s unpleasant. In fact, these days, I can’t get eno— No, never mind.”
King Glenreed started to cough to cover up the point he’d trailed off from.
“Sorry, but it’s hard to explain these things in ways you would understand. It’s just a strange smell that neither your father nor your brothers shared.”
“I see…”
If it had nothing to do with my family’s blood, then perhaps my past life memories were involved somehow. This made me curious, but it didn’t seem like anything urgent, so I would have to put it out of my mind for now.
“Thank you for talking to me about it,” I said. “There are some other things I’d like to discuss with you, but you seem very busy, so let’s speak after your birthday party when the two of us can be alone.”
After that, King Glenreed left in the form of Lord Aroo again, and I went outside to give Fon some special attention.
✦ ✦ ✦
“…I hid something from Laetitia.”
Glenreed leaned back in his chair and sighed quietly. He furrowed his brow, squeezed his eyes shut, and let the chair carry his full weight.
“What’s the matter, Your Majesty? Haven’t you lied to Queen Laetitia many times before this? Why let it trouble you now?”
Despite his harsh words, Melvin, the king’s aide, presented him with a cup of his favorite tea. This tea was made with leaves Laetitia had selected for him. The faint scent of strawberries tickled his nose.
“……”
He thought of the man with fiery red hair, so much redder than the surface of that tea.
Emperor Ishnad…
Despite not coming from royalty, the man had risen to the top of his country at a young age, then turned his homeland of Ringrard into a massive empire not long after. He was a masterful ruler with bright, crimson hair.
He’d met the emperor once at the start of spring and confirmed that he was a talented, powerful man like so many rumors said. But for some reason, he also smelled like Laetitia.
How can that be? Why does Ishnad have the same strange scent as Laetitia?
Glenreed could never come up with an answer to that question, no matter how much he thought it over. But he was hesitant to ask Laetitia directly, so he’d been avoiding the topic just as he did earlier.
This was a problem with Glenreed’s unique sense of smell alone. There was so little information he could use as reference.
“…Has Leonard reported anything from his infiltration into Ringrard?” he asked.
“We haven’t received any word yet, no. I don’t think he’s the kind of person who would blunder a mission like this.”
“Of course not.” Glenreed nodded confidently.
Leonard, the former prince who now worked as a spy, was a very capable man. Glenreed hadn’t wanted to assign his brother such a dangerous role—having just reunited with him after more than ten years—but there was no one more capable of carrying out this important work. As the king, Glenreed suppressed his personal feelings as he ordered Leonard to infiltrate the Ringrard Empire.
“Keep an eye out for word from him.”
“As you wish.” Melvin bowed before returning to his own work.
Glenreed finished his cup of tea and turned toward the map on his wall.
“It’s going to get rough out there very soon.”
A certain emperor would be the one standing in the eye of the storm.
Glenreed was staring, intensely and silently, at the map of the countries throughout the western continent.