“That’s the gist of it. Take care of things here.”
“Mm. Be careful.”
With that last exchange of words, the middle-aged man rose from the luxurious sofa in the reception room. The beautiful girl with him saw him off—her demeanor completely clashed with her appearance.
It was early afternoon. The man’s name was Beryl Gardenant, and the girl was Lucy Diamond. The two had just finished a not-too-long but not-too-short meeting—around thirty minutes. They were going to be parting ways for a while. Beryl had to leave Baltrain due to certain circumstances, and naturally, he’d shared his objective with Lucy.
Lucy generally already knew everything that Beryl did. This didn’t extend to his private life, of course, but when he’d come to her mansion with an abnormally tense expression, she’d managed to guess most of what was going on. That was why their conversation had gone smoothly and why she hadn’t been particularly worked up when she’d seen him off.
“Whew... He, too, suffers from such hardships,” Lucy mumbled to herself once she was alone in the room.
By hardships, she was referring to the responsibilities and duties he was burdened with—and his own personality. For a man who lived by the blade, he was extraordinarily softhearted. He was incapable of flat-out refusing any request, no matter who it came from. He would always at least hear them out. After that, his lack of agency made it easy to push him into going with the flow. If he had not had such physical strength, he would’ve surely become an ordinary man swallowed by the vortex of history.
However, Beryl Gardenant possessed a prowess in battle that more than made up for his softheartedness—so much so that Lucy found herself making use of how easy he was to manipulate.
If anything, given his nature, perhaps it was better to say that this side of his character had been born from his talent for the blade. That was how much of an abnormality he was in Lucy’s eyes. The environment he’d grown up in had played a major role, but even for Lucy, it was hard to figure out the exact details of why he was like this.
After the end of the last summer season, she’d sensed a significant change in mindset within him, but she still didn’t know what had caused it. She had no intention of prying either. Lucy’s motto was that those with power had to live in a way that suited their power. Beryl was starting to do so, so she was fine with leaving it at that. It was a positive change.
“Anyway...Lysandra, huh? Hmmm...”
She moved away from pondering Beryl and sank into an entirely different ocean of thought. The black rank adventurer Twin Dragonblade hadn’t returned to the guild. Lucy acknowledged Surena’s abilities. The woman possessed so much strength that most obstacles were nothing to her. Even against a named monster, she was capable enough to escape or even kill it on her own.
And yet, Surena hadn’t returned from her mission. Lucy generally didn’t have an interest in anything but wizardry and herself, but Surena was one of the very few people who piqued her curiosity.
That said, Lucy wasn’t concerned, exactly. She was, at most, interested, though her curiosity centered more on the question of why an adventurer of Surena’s caliber hadn’t returned. This was a display of Lucy’s guiding principle—what others saw as her being a free spirit. She had human empathy but intentionally chose to keep it from influencing her decisions. She did her best to spend her days trying not to lie to herself about what sparked her curiosity.
That was why her behavior was hard for other people to understand. Lucy also didn’t put the slightest effort into helping others understand her. She didn’t view it as a problem—though it very much was a problem for those on the receiving end.
“Now, now, what to do...?”
She wasn’t always one to immediately take action. Her very existence broke half of the principles that governed humanity, but she still spent as much time worrying and hesitating as anyone else. Since she’d accumulated far more experience than any ordinary person, it was simply rare for that anxiety to be visible.
This was one such instance where her hesitation was clear. She wasn’t against sacrificing anything for the sake of her own interests—she was just calmly considering the possible outcomes of her actions.
She could easily do something for Surena. And in all likelihood, no human in the world could physically stop Lucy Diamond from acting. The problem was that if Lucy made a move on her own, entire organizations could be provoked—countries, even.
Lucy didn’t consider any individual’s feelings much, but she did give some thought to the circumstances of nations. She was fairly attached to Liberis, so she didn’t want to see it destroyed due to her poor decision-making. The magic institute and magic corps she’d built with her own hands were also quite precious to her.
Honestly, she was curious about what kind of opponent Surena was having such a hard time against. She wanted to see it with her own eyes. But it was simply too far away, and she had too few reasons to go. If the magic corps’s commander suddenly vanished from Baltrain and appeared in Vesparta—right at the border of the Salura Zaruk Empire—it could invite unnecessary chaos.
It would be fine if nobody found out, but she would have to drag quite a few influential figures into pulling that off. That sounded like too much effort. Though a good half of her being had ascended, her mind was still human. Cumbersome work was still a bother.
“There’s no time to take it easy...”
There was also a time limit on this situation. She couldn’t put off these thoughts for later. This crisis would come to an end if Surena was rescued, if she was found dead, or if Beryl eliminated the source of the issue. Even a generous estimate had things being resolved in just a few weeks.
Regardless of whether she stepped in or just decided to watch the situation play out, she had to come to a decision quickly. Lucy fundamentally never postponed any problems—she often crushed them immediately—so she wanted to get this settled within the day. If she agonized over it, it would become unnecessary mental noise during her magic research.
“Mistress Lucy.”
“Hm? Ooh, Haley. Sorry, the room is yours.”
How long had she spent here? After she’d sunk into a deep sea of thoughts for the first time in a good while, a voice from the other side of the door pulled her out of her contemplation. It was Haley Shaddy, a servant who’d served in Lucy’s house for many years. Lucy had complete trust in her—she left not only all of the housework to Haley, but even her own personal care.
It was only after Haley spoke that Lucy noticed she’d been occupying the reception room despite the meeting with Beryl being over. Haley wouldn’t be able to clean up like this, and Lucy could think in her own room, so there was no reason to get in the way of Haley’s work.