“This village—you called it Plume, yes? I never would have guessed that a place like this was distributing the Aster goods. It took a great deal of time and effort, but I uncovered it at last. And it was all thanks to that orange-haired brat.” Lomigos pointed a short finger at Allen.
The villagers automatically turned their confused gazes to Allen and stepped a little bit away from him.
“M-Me...?” Allen blinked repeatedly, his brow wrinkling.
Lomigos sneered. “I put out an order to cast investigation magic on the brat if he was spotted in the capital. That fox-faced merchant has been very scrupulous about how he peddles his wares. If he was that desperate to stay anonymous, then he must have some dark secret to hide. Shall I report this to Duke Fylachtó?”
Fylachtó was the noble who governed the area around Plume Village. The merchant had taken precautions not because he had any dark secrets, but rather to deter people like Lomigos—but Lomigos seemed to have the wrong idea.
However, bringing the duke into this further complicated matters. Plume Village paid their taxes to the duke as was proper, but the tax amount was determined solely based on the number of people counted in the census. If Plume Village had a new source of income, that might change. Therefore, they couldn’t discount Lomigos’s threat.
Lacey was somewhat acquainted with the duke and knew that he wasn’t that sort of person, but from the perspective of the Plume Villagers, the duke was even more lofty than Lomigos. The children looked up in disquiet at the adults who were knitting their brows and making bitter faces.
Lomigos surveyed the villagers with satisfaction. He was fully certain that his threat had been effective.
Amid all of this, Allen’s usual cheery expression had vanished from his face. Instead, he was quaking. His body was trembling a freakish amount. He tried to stabilize his right arm by grabbing it with his left hand, but even then, he couldn’t stop.
“It’s my fault... It’s all my...”
Lomigos’s words had deeply injured Allen. The thought that these men had come because of him made his still childish face grow pallid.
Lacey quietly narrowed her eyes and then slowly approached the boy.
“I’m getting tired of this. Hey, you soldiers. Nobody will care if one or two of them die. Play with them as you will. You can pick the old woman if you like.”
Lomigos spoke to the escorts behind him. Many heavy swords scraped out of their sheaths. Kargo immediately spread his arms wide to protect Granny behind him. Screams rang out at the same time, but when they met the glares of the soldiers, the villagers frantically covered their mouths.
Despite this, Allen raised his voice. “Stop it! Don’t hurt Granny or my dad!”
He was gasping for breath and crying. He was straining his voice from deep within his throat, thinking that it was all his fault. Even so, he was trying to make his way through the crowd.
It was too upsetting to watch.
“Wait, Allen.”
“B-Big sis Lacey...”
Lacey knew what kind of feelings had led him to go to the capital, trying to look ahead with his still childish eyes and move forward.
That was why she stopped Allen. She tugged his arm and stared fixedly at him. When he turned around and showed his face full of tears, she grew even angrier.
“Hic— Huh? B-Big sis...?”
Her hazel eyes were exactly the same as ever, yet the timid girl who always smiled hazily was nowhere to be seen. Everybody who knew how she normally looked felt a shiver when they saw her now.
Allen was no exception. He felt pure fear from the very pit of his stomach. He looked at Lacey in a daze, flapping his mouth and trying to say something that just wouldn’t come out.
“Allen, you didn’t do anything wrong.”
“Huh...?”
That was why he didn’t understand what she was talking about.
Lacey slipped past Allen.
She was now holding her enlarged staff in one hand. She made her way through the crowd of villagers and stood defiantly before the soldiers, her face lifted up.
“That’s enough, all of you,” she said soberly.
Her voice wasn’t raised at all. However, strangely enough, everyone there clearly heard what she was saying.
∗ ∗ ∗
Marlado Lomigos was supposed to have everything handed to him on a silver platter.
He wagged his tail to those above him and used the people below him as a stepping stone. He was a greedy man, but from his own perspective, this was simply the secret to success in life. This was how he had made his way in noble society.
Lomigos felt that he didn’t need to attract people to himself—he could accomplish the same things by making connections with people higher up the ladder. He mocked anyone who didn’t understand this as a tremendous imbecile.
However, his life had crumbled in a flash.
Lomigos had been one of the hangers-on of the Dejafaim ducal house, but the oldest son, Raymond Dejafaim, had committed a deplorable offense.
The rumors said that Raymond’s womanizing had grown so dire that he had gotten involved with the princess despite having a fiancée. Whether this was actually true or not was irrelevant—a rumor repeated enough times would eventually become an accepted truth. Raymond, who had incurred the king’s wrath, had woefully been disinherited. It was a foolish tale.
However, the terrifying part about noble society was that this did not simply end as a foolish tale.
The fall of House Dejafaim was swift and magnificent. Lomigos, as one of its hangers-on, had clung to it like a leech. He believed that this was the right choice, even if he was mocked for being a mindless follower.
To make matters worse, House Lomigos was a branch of House Dejafaim. He’d thought that this made it a perfect target to latch onto, but as tightly as he had stuck to it, he fell with it all the faster.
That was why he had been so engaged in the rumors of the Aster artifacts. Believing that he had finally caught hold of them, Lomigos had impatiently traveled all the way to the village himself. If they tried to resist, he could just threaten them with brandished swords. These ignorant rural commoners wouldn’t be able to talk back to that—or so he thought. Those were just facts. They should have been facts.
“That’s enough, all of you.”
It wasn’t a very loud voice, but it echoed in his ears with tremendous dignity.
The girl before him was wearing a large hat and plain garments. The only unusual thing about her was that she was gripping a disproportionately sized, old-fashioned staff, but for some reason, Lomigos couldn’t take his eyes off her.
“What an impudent brat. Get back!” someone immediately shouted at the girl standing in front of Lomigos, pointing a sword at her. It was the pepper man. Though Lomigos was unaware of this, this was the soldier whom Lanze had wrapped his pepper-spiked shawl around. The pepper man was confident that since he was dealing with a mere girl-child, a simple flash of his weapon would be enough to make her run away in fear.
Just then, a shiver ran through Lomigos’s entire body. He had seen a glimpse of the girl’s hazel eyes hidden beneath her large hat.
“Stop! Don’t lay a hand on her!” he shouted before thinking.
The pepper man stayed his sword without knowing why, but the girl showed no trace of fear.
Lomigos was now convinced. “That’s the Dawn Witch!”
Everyone’s focus immediately centered on Lacey.
The Dawn Witch Lacey, one of the members of the hero’s party. The public believed her to be a tall, red-haired beauty, but Lomigos knew otherwise. The Dawn Witch had been engaged to Raymond Dejafaim.
It was mere coincidence that Lomigos knew what she looked like. One time when he was visiting the Dejafaim house as usual, he’d heard that Raymond’s fiancée was present as well and had seen her in passing. That was before Lacey had set out on the quest to defeat the Demon King. Lomigos remembered her as a timid, gloomy child with black hair and scrawny limbs.
A few years had passed since then. She had grown taller and wasn’t quite scrawny anymore, but her face still had traces of how it used to look. Her voluminous black hair billowed in the wind. Her powerful eyes vividly reminded Lomigos of something.
“Don’t assume that what you want is the same as what everyone else wants.”
Wayne Cielanic...! He had been the impertinent youth who had admonished Lomigos at that evening party. His lady-killer looks and sloping nose were infuriating.
Lomigos had restrained his emotions and acted deferentially, but the youth hadn’t paid him any notice. He should have chased after him when he turned around and left, but the words and gaze of the slender, handsome man had left Lomigos unable to move, as if his legs were pinned to the spot. The youth had staggering gravitas.
The girl presently in front of Lomigos was exactly the same. She appeared to be no different than any other girl, but Lomigos couldn’t budge his legs. He keenly understood that he was no match for her.
However, there were plenty of people who refused to acknowledge this. The pepper man was one of them.
“That’s absurd! There’s no way that this little girl is the Dawn Witch, a member of the hero’s party!”
“I-I told you to stop!”
The pepper man ignored how Lomigos was frozen stiff and suddenly grabbed Lacey by the neck, lifting her slender body with ease.