Lady Robur bore Princess Beljeanne’s likeness, and had undoubtedly made a pact with a sacred beast, just like the princess had. Additionally, I knew about the princess’s final moments, and the promise she’d made to the sacred beasts at the very end. I couldn’t help but wonder—could it be that Beljeanne Yevina Rovenia had been reborn as Laviange Robur?
“Laviange, the bones,” Laiyevist suddenly spoke up. His tone was a little...
“Yes, father. Please give them to my brother as I requested.”
The nerve of my old friend, to casually refer to his ex-wife as “the bones” without a single care for his daughter sitting there. Did he show the slightest consideration after the young lady had discreetly caught her breath? Barely.
But she was ever herself. Her face betrayed nothing as she handed over the skull... No, she’d produced a small jar from her pocket dimension and handed that over instead! I knew full well that her outrageously indecent novels were stored in that pocket dimension, hence my relative lack of surprise, but what exactly was that jar?
Laiyevist’s brow furrowed. He pondered a moment before asking, “Is that an urn?”
An urn? Now that he mentioned it... But the design looked like a cursed artifact.
“I tried drawing a cute portrait of my mother.”
A portrait?! Laiyevist was silent.
Lady Robur, seemingly unconcerned with her silent father, lifted the urn’s lid.
I couldn’t help but be unsettled by the design—it looked like a swarm of black snakes tangled around a single dumpling, utterly intent on cursing someone to death. No matter how I looked at it, it seemed like a drawing filled with hatred toward an abusive parent. Yet the lady’s expression conveyed nothing but pure goodwill. What on earth was this?!
That was the moment I glimpsed the darkness within Lady Robur. But with that woman for a mother, it was to be expected. I had received reports from my spies during Lady Robur’s engagement to my second son: Luciana had tried to kill her own daughter in a fit of rage, and had abused her for years. Painting a malicious picture like that on an urn? It was rather endearing, wasn’t it? I revised my perception of Lady Robur’s behavior.
Lady Robur placed the skull atop the urn, pressed one hand against its crown, and magically pulverized it into dust. After gathering it all together in the urn, she handed it to her father. Was that truly an urn? Deep down, I’d doubted it until the very end.
Laiyevist understood perfectly, and I found myself strangely impressed. Should I consider him a father figure as well? Well, in any case, I’d have to tell him to swap the urn out for something else later...
After receiving the urn, Laiyevist suddenly cast a rather deliberately exaggerated glance my way. Lady Robur followed his gaze and turned to look at me as well.
“Shall we take that one back?” Laiyevist said brazenly, pointing at me. “It seems like he followed us.”
He was the one who’d summoned me to his office in the Mage’s Tower and left messy instructions on the back of a used piece of paper telling me to step into a makeshift teleportation circle! Not only had he abruptly summoned the king, but he’d given me orders on a scrap of paper?! What an irreverent and sloppy man he was.
“Oh dear, father. Was that on purpose?”
“You noticed?” From Laiyevist’s unconcerned demeanor, it seemed he’d fully anticipated being seen through by his daughter.
“Well now, it was quite obvious. But remember when I took over for Lia at the Academy? You shared your magic power with me at the last possible moment. This was my way of repaying that favor. Showing a magic fo—ahem, showing my father, since you love magic so much, the proper way to destroy demonic power. Cas agrees it was only fitting.”
Lady Robur had been on the verge of calling her father a magic fool just now. I wholeheartedly agreed.
“Still, I do dislike royalty,” Lady Robur added honestly.
The moment I emerged from behind my cover, Sacred Beast Casquette glared at me before vanishing. It seemed he still held a grunge against me over the matter of Princess Beljeanne.
“But what exactly did he trade?” Lady Robur asked her father.
I expected her to offer some sort of greeting to me, as the king, but she remained seated on the ground, showing no particular concern for my presence. I was certain she had been aware of me from the start. I hadn’t used magic to conceal my presence, yet the lady clearly had some trick up her sleeve. Moreover, she’d summoned a sacred beast and displayed its power, even though she’d known I was there. What possible intent could lie behind such actions?
Unconcerned with my pondering, Lady Robur gazed up at Laiyevist and went on, “To overlook the numerous problems caused by mother and Sienna? Or to expedite the divorce proceedings? Or, no, to arrange matters so that you could devote yourself entirely to magic...?” With a smile befitting an aristocrat, she probed her father while reading his unchanging expression—his was a face rich in cunning.
“Well, something like that,” Laiyevist responded.
The rumors of an incompetent lady were just that—rumors. Or rather, perhaps she used those rumors to conceal her true nature. I knew what my second son had done, but she must have faced considerable prejudice at the Academy. If she’d turned that against them, she was not only a strategist but also remarkably thick-skinned.
Having that man as her grandfather and this man as her father...well, it certainly showed.
“The exchange is information concerning the sacred beasts, then. Well, as head of one of the Four Great Ducal Houses, that’s only natural, isn’t it?” Lady Robur said with a cool, faint smile.
Laiyevist showed no particular reaction. Rather, within his impassive face, I discerned an expression that suggested he just wanted to leave already. He had finished observing the power of the sacred beast he sought and was likely already daydreaming about returning to pursue his magic studies. The magic fool was, always, in full magic fool mode. His paternal instincts were as extinct as ever.
It was the lady who broke at this sight, her expression softening into a wry smile. It felt like a mother giving in to a whining child, or perhaps a grandmother yielding to her grandchild. Why? Was my eyesight failing me?
“Please, do go home. You’ve seen the sacred beast’s true power. You love magic so much, father, you must be itching to return to your work.”
“You’re right about that,” Laiyevist said, humming in agreement. But did he realize his daughter had nearly called him a magic fool?
“When there’s no one like that former chancellor rushing ahead driven by immediate greed, I’ll have a proper talk with His Majesty the King at least once,” she added. “After all, aside from you, father, the king is the only one here who seems to know some truth about that unmatched villainess.”
Indeed, I knew more about the truth concerning Princess Beljeanne than anyone else, and certainly more than Laiyevist did. Since she said “some truth,” though, she must not have told Laiyevist everything. In fact, I felt she was implying she knew more of the truth than I did.
Lady Robur, who could forge pacts with sacred beasts, would never ignore the will of Sacred Beast Casquette, who had followed Princess Beljeanne until the very end. It was clear that Casquette had not forgiven either the royal family or the Robur family to which Lady Robur had been born. Therefore, unlike the chancellor, I had not the slightest intention of trying to mediate relations with the sacred beast.
However, when I’d first met Lady Robur, had any other ministers besides the chancellor been present? From my position as king, I might have made demands of her contrary to my true feelings. At the very least, I would not have stopped the chancellor from attempting to convey his message.
In the end, Laiyevist remained silent, staring at my face, before teleporting away without uttering another word.
Was he staring at me because I would be speaking with his daughter—a warning for me to handle her with care? Or something else? His expression had been too blank for me to tell. Laiyevist had died off in many ways, including his expressions.
“You may remain seated,” I said, stopping Lady Robur from rising as I approached her, and sat cross-legged on the ground myself. “That black smoke, is it demonic power?”
“Indeed it is.”
“Ah, you may speak plainly. Speak to me as an equal, you should be permitted that. Did you destroy the demonic power?”
Lady Robur gazed at my face for a moment before offering a cool, aristocratic smile in affirmation. “Yes.”
Only the power of a sacred beast could directly destroy demonic power. “So Sacred Beast Casquette has forged a pact with you?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“And you still don’t desire that?” I had to ask; I knew the truth about Princess Beljeanne.
“Of course not. I will never sit upon that throne.”
Hearing that answer, I became certain. Lady Robur truly was the reincarnation of the late princess. “I see. I shall respect that.”
Lady Robur stared intently at my face. “You know everything, don’t you?”
“Yes. Princess Beljeanne was indeed a tragic figure. Yet to us of the royal family, she was also a truly unmatched villainess.”
She froze for a moment, but after that pause, a smile bloomed on her face like a flower, overflowing with a radiance that suited a girl of her age. “Correct,” she said with a giggle. Observing this, I realized that even now, this cunning villainess, skilled in stratagems, might not have spoken the truth even to the sacred beast that was bound to her.
“Did Princess Beljeanne harbor resentment at the moment of her death?” I asked. “Was she lonely?”
“Well, now...”
“Your conjecture is fine,” I assured her. “Please, I’ve always wanted to know.” I knew the princess’s true story, unknown even to the heads of the Four Great Ducal Houses, and that shameful mistake committed by the royal family.