Chapter 101: Then We Should Go With Him
Blood is thicker than water.
I gained a new understanding of that phrase.
Rose-colored hair, just like Leila’s.
Although he was dressed like a tourist, his shining facial features couldn’t be hidden at all.
A tall man with strong, muscular arms.
This was Delward Thermion, the youngest son of Duke Thermion, whom I had only heard of through word of mouth.
“Delward, is that you…?” Leila sobbed.
This seemed to be the first time in years that Leila had seen her brother. It was a little strange that Delward came out of the grass, but a reunion was a reunion.
“You’ve grown so much in the past few years. You’ve become prettier…”
But that mood was immediately broken.
“Do you want to die?”
“Ugh!”
Leila created two magic bullets like I had taught her and blasted them at Delward, then ran up to him and started hitting him on the back.
“Do! You! Know! How! Worried! I! Was! How! Could! You! Not! Contact! Me! Even! Once!”
“S-sorry! O-ow!
“Does it hurt? Good, I hope it hurts more!”
I turned my head away.
Hmm.
I think I would react like her, too. If the sibling I’d been missing so desperately showed up after not contacting me for so long, I’d be happy but also angry.
“Do you want to die? Wasn’t that really too much?” Leila demanded.
“I’m sorry! I’m really sorry! It’s not that I didn’t mean to not contact you…” Delward prevaricated.
“What are you talking about?! I’ve been waiting for news from you for years! Owen is in the East, but at least he sends letters!”
Eventually, I stepped in and separated them. However, Leila was still huffing, as if her anger was not easily relieved.
“Owwww… Your hands are really heavy. You’ve been training hard all this time, haven’t you?”
Even in the midst of all this, Delward was smiling faintly as he spoke. Rather than being oblivious, it seemed as if he was trying to relieve Leila’s anger in his own way.
Leila crossed her arms and glared at him, demanding, “Tell me. Where did you come from and what did you do?”
It looked like if Delward didn’t answer, she would rush back at him. Delward ended up scratching the back of his head and—
“I was in the Drenik Empire.”
Leila and I were dumbfounded at his unexpected words.
* * *
We moved to a different place.
Of course, we were still in the garden, but we moved from a path that many passed by to a bench in a corner to continue our conversation.
“Um, Dane Sogres? I thought that striking silver hair seemed familiar. Since when have you been friends with Leila?”
I told the story of when I first met Leila on my seventh birthday.
“Aha. I see. Please take good care of our Leila. There aren’t many people who approach our family with pure intentions. Even the little brats come to see if they have something to gain.”
Well, they were members of House Thermion.
“Actually, I heard rumors about you when I came to the capital a few days ago. They say that you’re an incredible talent in the academy.” Delward added jokingly, “Of course, I heard about our youngest too. Haha.”
“…”
But that didn’t make Leila feel any better.
“Stop talking nonsense and answer the question. What happened?”
Leila was now looking at him with eyes as cold as ice. But the ice was very thin. It felt like if Delward made the slightest wrong move, it would break and hidden tears would pour out.
Delward finally started to say, slowly, “I really wanted to contact you… but I was actually in the Drenik Empire.”
“…!”
I was more surprised than Leila. Who would have thought that my past life’s home country would appear here?
“Drenik… Empire? Why did you go to such a dangerous place?!”
“That’s why I couldn’t contact you. It hasn’t been that long since the ceasefire, and if I made a mistake and my identity was revealed, I’d be caught right away.”
“…”
“I’m sorry. I really wanted to contact you, too, but I couldn’t help it.”
Delward was said to have been in the Drenik Empire, the enemy of the Altheon Empire, my home country in my previous life.
“I’m so sorry, Leila.”
“…Fine.” Leila wiped away her remaining tears, sighed deeply, and asked, “Fuu… Then why on earth did you go there? It’s been almost five years. Was there a reason you had to go like that right after graduating from the academy?”
At Leila’s question, Delward hesitated for a moment before saying, “Well, um, coincidentally… the timing was a bit bad.”
“Timing?”
“Yes. Timing. I thought it would be quick if things went as planned. I was young then. But before I knew it, I ended up drifting all the way to the Drenik Empire. I wanted to contact you in advance, but I didn’t have time to do that. The illegal immigration was a bit rushed.”
“Ha…”
So, to summarize, Leila’s second brother, Delward Thermion, left home several years ago and became a wanderer. Leila said he was a free knight, but it turned out he was not, and had actually been in the Drenik Empire for several years.
And then he came back.
However, the important facts had not come yet.
“So, why did you go…?”
Why did he go all the way there? It was something that could turn into a big political issue depending on the circumstances. It was not an ordinary thing for the youngest son of Duke Thermion to have stayed in the Drenik Empire for several years.
Leila also gulped, realizing the seriousness of the situation. But then an unexpected reason came out of Delward’s mouth.
“To find a way to cure Mother’s illness.”
His mother’s illness. The Duchess was currently ill, so…
“…Wh-why? Couldn’t we have looked for it together? Why did you have to go yourself? Huh? You could have sent someone! Why did you put yourself in danger…”
Delward smiled faintly and said, “I had no choice. The opportunity came. But still, I came back safely, right? Look. I’m fine… Oww!”
Leila’s smash hit his back. It must hurt so much. It definitely seemed like it was strengthened with mana.
“…Th-there’ll be a handprint on my back.”
Since he hadn’t stopped joking, I wondered if he’d not been hit enough. Well, it wasn’t my place to judge, I just observed the situation without saying anything.
“…You’re really too much. You jerk!”
“I’m sorry. Really.” Delward then knelt on one knee in front of Leila and took her hand.
“I’m so sorry for leaving you alone.” Leila’s shoulders shook.
Delward was surprised by her reaction and mouthed at me for a solution. I shrugged. How would I know?
Eventually, Delward had no choice but to comfort Leila until she stopped crying. “Don’t cry. alright?”
“…Alright.”
“Good little sister.”
The way he stroked her hair was exactly like my older sisters did. The conversation returned to the main topic.
“So, you’re really back now?”
“Uh, um. Not really… L-Leila. Listen to me until the end.”
“Tell me.”
She looked as if she was ready to break both his legs if he said he’d return to the Drenik Empire.
Delward gulped with genuine fright before continuing, “…I found a clue. I also found out what ingredients are needed to cure the disease. But those ingredients are not available in the Drenik Empire, so I came back.”
That meant一
“It’s in the Altheon Empire?”
“Yeah. But there are only clues, and I have to find them one by one. That’s why I came back.” Delward then told a rather shocking story. “According to what I managed to find in the Drenik Empire, Mother’s illness is caused by some kind of curse.”
“A curse?”
“Yeah. The symptoms match. Total lack of energy, shaking hands and feet, occasional dizziness, vomiting blood, and purple spots on her back.”
There was silence. As far as I knew, the Duchess had been in bed for quite some time. But the reason was… a curse.
“This can’t be…”
Leila slumped. I comforted Leila.
Delward gave Leila a moment to calm down before continuing, “I couldn’t believe it when I first found out. Curses don’t happen spontaneously. It turns out that someone… put a curse on our mother.”
This was a shocking fact.
“How… How did you find out?”
“I met a man in the Drenik Empire who suffered from such a disease. He knew what had caused him to become like this. The answer I got was that he was cursed.”
This was a story I had never thought of.
“I don’t really know about what the grudge is about. Honestly, our family has quite a few enemies, don’t we?”
That was true. There were countless instances where one could incur resentment simply because they were from the capital’s most prestigious noble family.
“But we can find that out later. What’s important now is treating the disease.”
“Did you figure out how?”
“Yes. As I said, I found the materials and the method of the ritual.”
Leila breathed a sigh of relief.
Looking at this situation alone, it was a happy thing. After all, the cause of the disease and the way to cure it had been found. The conclusion was simple. It meant that we were going back on the road to get those materials.
“Fortunately, I don’t think a few of them will be hard to get. They may be expensive, but they’re not impossible to get. I’ll get those first, and then I’ll go get the most important ingredient.”
“The most important ingredient?”
“Yeah. The most important thing… Roxinna’s tears.”
Roxinna’s tears.
I recalled what Arabella had told me about it. It was practically a mythical magical ingredient that was said to be effective against almost any curse in the world.
However, it was extremely difficult to obtain.
“It is said that the Roxinna’s Tears can be found in the Khabarosk Mountains between the empires.”
“What? ‘It is said?’”
“…It’s definitely there. In a place that’s hard to access. According to the information I’ve gathered, it’s in a ruin guarded by some ancient being…”
An ancient being.
Ruins.
I had a hunch.
In the midst of this, Delward concluded, “I’m going to go find it.”
“But the Khabarosk Mountains are an incredibly dangerous place!”
I also added, “It’s a place full of all kinds of monsters and traps. You have to avoid the eyes of the rangers of each empire, and you might even fight the Abur tribe that lives in the mountains.”
Delward looked at me with wide eyes and said, “You’re so knowledgeable, aren’t you? As expected of Leila’s friend.”
“Thank you.”
Hmm. Leila’s second brother seemed like a nice man.
“Ugh, Delward! Dane!”
We returned to the main topic at Leila’s rebuke.
Delward tried helplessly to comfort Leila, “You know how dangerous that place is. We don’t know how many will return alive if we go there. It’s safer for me to go alone. I didn’t just find evidence in the Drenik Empire.”
Delward then showed off his arms.
Something was mounted on his sturdy arm. It was a complex mechanical device that covered his entire right arm. It was something I knew well.
“Isn’t that a combat arm?”
“Huh? You know about this?”
Of course. If the Altheon Empire had magic engineering, the Drenik Empire had mechanical engineering. Both studies were so excellent that it was difficult to determine which side was superior.
In my former home’s case, the mechanical devices were so advanced that they were used in this way, a weapon attached to parts of the body to reinforce physical strength.
What Delward was wearing now was a pretty good quality piece.
“I read about it in books. I also heard about it from merchants traveling between empires.”
“As expected, you’re very knowledgeable. Yes, that’s right. This is a mechanical device, a combat arm. It’s easy to hide and much more useful than I thought, so I’ve come to use it a lot.”
Click, click.
If you listened closely, you could hear the faint sound of gears moving. I never thought I’d see one again in the Altheon Empire.
For reference, I didn’t use it in my past life. To use one, you needed to spend a lot of money, and even though I had no use for my salary in my previous life, I didn’t receive enough money to use that kind of thing.
Still, I had some relevant knowledge, so I figured it out right away.
“More than anything, I had to get used to things like this in order to live in the Drenik Empire. Well, thanks to that, I’m now as good as a penta-class with just four cores, though I’d need to hide it here.” Delward winked. “Got it? It’s a secret here.”
Then he covered his arm again and continued talking. “Above all, if the knights head towards the mountains, there may be war again between the empires.”
In the end, it meant that he had to go alone for complicated reasons. However, that was too dangerous.
“No matter what, how can I send you off alone…?”
Leila started to cry again, and Delward panicked. I wondered if my sisters would look that flustered if I cried.
“I-it’ll be fine. I’m not going there without a plan! I have to investigate the area and get other materials in advance, so it’ll take time…” Delward added urgently, “And I’ve also managed to get hold of some medicine that can slow down Mother’s illness. This will give me enough time to prepare.”
That was good to hear, but Leila was firm as she said, “That’s a good thing, but that’s not the problem!”
Just when Leila was about to get angry again, I spoke up while recalling some keywords: ancient beings and ruins.
“Then we should go with him.”
