It was rough going after that. The Oldman wouldn’t listen to a single word I said, and after just a short nap, the two of us met with Laura to fill her in on the basics. Somehow, it was decided that the old man would be the one explaining to the king. But then, I got all panicked because Laura was the one apologizing to me.
According to her, Oldman Uwe had always been pushy and unreasonable with his requests. On the day he disappeared, the king worried for him and sent a chamberlain only to find a letter stating he had left to investigate some ruins of the ancient kingdom on his own. Laura followed this up by telling me that “he wasn’t a bad guy,” but in all honesty, I thought he was quite the troublesome old geezer.
Still, it wasn’t like there weren’t any oddball nobles in my previous world who displayed that kind of obnoxious personality. There were guys like Pierre de Craon, who after embezzling funds from his master, fled to his home country only to fail an assassination attempt on one of their generals. Then you had guys like the self-proclaimed “Count Cagliostro,” who was probably but a fraud. The noble society of my old world always had people like them coming in and out of the picture.
Truth really was sometimes stranger than fiction. An extreme example was how Hannibal crossed the Alps with elephants in tow. If it wasn’t historical fact, people would say it was too crazy for even a light novel.
However, that was still tripping me up. If we assumed my memories of this being a game were true—even if that pretext was maybe beginning to crumble—it posed an interesting question.
It was strange for a man who had served as a monarch’s teacher to enter a dungeon alone and with no guards. If it was true that he’d always been like this and would often make wild, off-the-cuff decisions like Laura claimed, then I could regard that scenario as a result of his actions. On the other hand, if the game came first and this world second, it was possible that the Oldman was characterized this way in order to create that scenario.
It was a chicken-and-the-egg situation, but I had the feeling that figuring out which came first in this instance would be the piece of the puzzle that told me whether my memories were true or not.
In any case, once the matter with Oldman Uwe was settled, Marquess Schramm, the supreme commander of the reinforcements, asked to speak with me, so it was back to my duties as Anheim’s deputy count. In our discussions, he warned me that the laser pointer posed such a grave danger that he asked that it be kept a secret.
When I told him I was fine with that, since I had invented the device with the intent of using it against the Demon army, he drafted an edict in his name proclaiming it a matter of grave secrecy. He even got Laura to sign off on it too. If the holy woman herself, the second princess, was asking it to be kept secret, I definitely couldn’t go running my mouth. This was getting out of hand.
Since a report had to be made to the capital and honors had to be conferred on the deserving, the marquess asked that I accompany him back to the capital. I jumped at the invitation. He had no ulterior motives, and the only reason I’d used such a flamboyant strategy in the first place was because I wanted to go back there.
Afterwards, I handed over the duties of deputy, concluding my stint with a ceremony to honor those who died in the battle. Since they had died under my command, I thought it was only right for me to do it. I had done my best, but there were still casualties. I never wanted to forget them.
It was my duty as deputy to provide for them, but still, the town had a lineup of guests you’d never expect way out in the province, what with the hero’s party, including the holy woman Laura and Mazel, along with Marquess Schramm and the captains of both the first and second orders of the knight brigade.
Even as I carried out the ceremony in Anheim’s church, I was still beguiled by the same sense that something was off that I had felt ever since my appointment in Anheim; the church was the only place of worship here.
To be completely frank, it was a pain for the church to have to drive out all the commoners every time a high-class noble visited. It was the reason why in Europe, there were prayer rooms built inside noble manors or in public facilities inside the castle. They did their daily prayers there, and it was more convenient for members of the clergy to visit those prayer rooms for rituals and ceremonies.
But in this world, noble manors didn’t have such rooms. There wasn’t one in the local lord’s manor either. For a monotheistic religion, they rarely offered prayers, and if high-class nobles had business with priests or bishops, they had to visit the church themselves. I had just ignored it up till that point, but what did it mean? Did the existence of magic mean there was little use for prayer?
Who knew? I sure didn’t, and no amount of thinking would change that. I had so much to deal with there wasn’t even time to think anyways. I could dismiss it as just the way the world was.
I spent the next few days making ready for Sir Behnke to take over as interim deputy. Thankfully, the civil servants Marquess Schramm brought with him—or rather, the ones who had chased after Marquess Schramm—decided to help out, so we were able to get it done in just a few days. Still, I had been crazy busy. I was absolutely pooped.
“Ugh, I can’t take this anymore.”
“I see it’s tough being a noble. I thought you all were supposed to be more majestic.”
“It hurts that you’re not dying to take my place.”
Currently, I was headed for the capital along with the knight brigade, the army under Marquess Schramm, and Mazel and his party. Marquess Schramn probably allowed Mazel and them to come with us out of kindness, since this was merely an escort, not an arrest.
Mazel smiled bitterly and remarked that politics really wasn’t for him, but I knew he was going to be a noble soon enough. He better prepare himself.
Neurath, Schünzel, and Frenssen were also with us, but in a show of deference, they had chosen to ride in a separate carriage. I supposed that with Mazel and his friends, I had no need for guards. Rafed and Lord Eickstedt were also in our convoy.
Lord Eickstedt would probably receive a reward for helping me out. Or maybe it would simply cancel out his punishment for banditry. I wasn’t quite sure what to do with Rafed either. He really was quite capable.
“You seem more worn out now than when we met in Anheim, Big Bro.”
“You might be right about that.” The only response I could manage to Feli’s teasing was a wry grin. These past few days, I’d been running on fumes. I had even passed out cold in the carriage yesterday, and I must have been making quite the face while I slept. When I woke up, even Laura and Erich were giggling. It sucked.