The duke seemed to have picked up on my concern and addressed it directly. “There’s no need to worry. We’ve already agreed to share information with the royal family, so there’s no tension between us,” he said.
“Well then, that about wraps things up on the request front, yeah? So... How about you tell me what Albert’s been up to lately?”
“Father!”
“You know, maybe we should call Gramps and Amur over for this,” I said.
“Tenma!”
“Tenma, I’m really sorry for all the trouble my brother causes you.”
“Primera!”
Albert raised his voice in protest as the three of us started piling on him.
And somehow, the duke, Primera, and I all chimed in at once.
“Are we wrong?”
“We’re not wrong.”
“I’m not wrong.”
The effect was devastating. Albert looked visibly deflated and sulked like a scolded kid.
A little while later, we actually did bring Gramps and Amur over, and they gleefully joined in. Once Albert’s most embarrassing stories were dragged out in the open, he couldn’t take it anymore and bolted from the parlor.
Albert didn’t get far, though. He ran straight into the barn where Jubei and the others hung out, which happened to be right where Steel was stationed on guard nearby. Primera had gone out to look for him, and once Albert had been caught red-handed, she quickly hauled him back to us.
“Ahh, today turned out great. My request was accepted, the food was delicious...and the stories about Albert were hilarious,” Duke Sanga said.
“Yeah. I always thought my brother was relying on you too much, Tenma... Well, Cain and Leon do that too, but it’s even worse than I thought. They’re completely spoiled!” Primera said.
Once our discussion about the request had wrapped up, the three of them had stayed for dinner. The meal had mostly consisted of the dried fish, which had gained a bit of flavor from drying out naturally in the sun, and the smoked ones I’d finished earlier that morning. The food would definitely be considered plain compared to the meals served at the duke’s estate, but both he and Primera seemed to have enjoyed it.
Duke Sanga seemed like he was in high spirits on the way out, probably due to all the alcohol. Primera also had a bit to drink, although the duke had stopped her after her second cup. By the time she’d listened to enough stories about Albert, her opinion of him had seemed to take a sharp nosedive.
Well, if she was going to be spending more time in the capital, that meant she’d be visiting here with Albert more often. And then, she was bound to see why Albert, Cain, and Leon had earned the nickname “the three noble idiots.” Once that happened, her opinion of him might drop even further.
“I’ll bring Cain and Leon next time...” Albert muttered.
Now that he’d watched his little sister’s opinion of him steadily crumble in real time, he seemed determined to drag Cain and Leon down with him too. His eyes looked dark and cloudy.
“Don’t hold back in the mock battle. Please go all out,” Duke Sanga told me.
“Thanks, Tenma,” Primera said.
“Next time, it’ll be three of us,” Albert mumbled.
When Albert said there’d be three of us, I wasn’t sure if he meant he’d be bringing Cain and Leon along next time or if he meant that all three of them would be equally despised by Primera.
Probably the latter...
Once they left and there was nothing else to do, we kicked off our drinking party for the night earlier than usual.
“Kriss sure has a sharp nose for this stuff. She showed up right after the duke left on a day with lots of drinking and snacks. It’s almost like she planned it!” Leni said as she poured Kriss a drink.
Kriss reached for some dried fish with a smug grin on her face. “Even I’ll admit I was on point today. I ended up helping Jean on a whim and avoided running into the duke! I don’t have a problem seeing him or anything, but with everything going on with Albert, it’d just be more of a mental load, you know? And most importantly, Jean owes me one!” she boasted.
But honestly, it just sounded like she couldn’t be bothered to put up a polite front. And as for Jean owing her, I highly doubted he saw it that way. It was more likely that he’d been thinking something like “Of course she should help” or “I’m gonna make her help more like that from now on!”
Yeah, that sounds a lot more like Jean.
It amused me, though, so I decided to just leave Kriss in the dark about that for now and ask Aina about it later.
“Still, you guys really are spoiled if you think this dried fish is just ‘okay.’ The stuff regular knights eat is way below this. Even the king’s guard gets stuff that’s only maybe a tiny bit better,” Kriss said.
Apparently, dried fish wasn’t that common in the capital, so this kind of meal counted as decent rations for knights.
“Knights have to get used to rations that’ll tide them over in an emergency. Sometimes, they’re only given preserved foods like dried meat, dried fish, and dried vegetables. And not the stuff that’s still a bit moist like this. They get the rock-hard, really dry stuff.”
It felt a little unfair to compare my food to emergency rations, but I guessed that was normal for knights. Even in regular households, they would prepare similar things when stocking up for emergencies.
“Only high-ranking nobles or people with a spare magic bag can afford to eat fresh or half-dried food. You’re all spoiled brats,” Kriss said as she bit into another piece of dried fish and raised her cup with a grin. “So what did Duke Sanga want, anyway?” she asked, as if just remembering. “Oh, you don’t have to say anything if it’s classified or something.”
Dodging the question would basically be the same as admitting it was classified. I didn’t know how much Kriss actually knew about the situation, but it was safer to assume she didn’t know anything. That was safer for both of us, anyway.
I decided to tell her the truth...but not the whole truth. “Oh, it’s nothing major. It was more like a greeting. Primera’s brigade is going to be Sanga’s private guard in the capital. And since Albert’s always causing trouble, he came by to formally apologize. That part was a bit awkward, but after that, he was his usual self.”
Kriss nodded. “Well, it’s Albert, so that makes sense. Still, Primera’s getting assigned to the capital? Things might get interesting...”
A messenger from the castle showed up the next morning, just after sunrise. The duke had said it would happen in about two days or tomorrow at the earliest, but considering the personalities of both the king and Prince Lyle, I couldn’t say I was surprised I’d heard back much sooner.
“So I should head out tomorrow afternoon, then?” I asked the messenger holding the letter.
“That’s what I was told,” he said. Then, he bowed and left.
“Is it a request, Tenma?” Aura asked. She had been the one to greet the messenger. She looked curious about the letter, but I couldn’t give her the full story.
“It’s an invitation to join in the knights’ training tomorrow,” I explained, and that much was true. I asked if she wanted to join in too, but she scrambled away, muttering how she had too much laundry and cleaning to do.
“She’s so easy to handle when it’s stuff like this,” I said to myself as I watched her run away. I put the letter in my magic bag, but I made a mental note to burn it later, just in case. “Guess I’ll go check on Gramps and the others...”
Gramps and Kriss both had hangovers, probably because we’d started drinking earlier than usual yesterday, and also because there had been more snacks than usual. Their being in that state wasn’t unusual, though. Leni had paced herself and was totally fine, and she’d kept Amur in check, so Amur hadn’t drunk too much like she usually did either.
I headed back into the house, trying to remember what remedies worked best for hangovers. Today’s meals would need to be gentle on the stomach...
“Well, Tenma? What do you think?” Duke Sanga asked. We’d finished the mock battle a little earlier than expected.
“Hmm... I think it’ll depend on the situation, but I’d say it’s better not to fight. If you go up against someone like Chaos with only one or two people, it’d be certain death, no question about it. You might be able to stall them with three people if they’re good, however,” I explained.
When up against someone like Chaos, you could buy time, but there was also a chance the monster would self-destruct. That was about the only play I could see working.
“And what did you think of Primera?” he asked.
“If Primera and her second-in-command have a knight skilled in magic backing them up, they might be able to put up a decent fight against Chaos. I really do mean ‘might,’ though. There’s still a higher chance they’ll be killed.”