We gathered our heads together like people fitting pieces of a puzzle and threw ourselves into the conversation.

“Mom was on her way to her family home in the west. I had argued a little with Leviathan that morning.”

“No, wait. Question.”

Boyd raised one hand.

“You and Father fought?”

“Yes. Why?”

Mom tilted her head, as if wondering what was strange about that.

“Mom and Dad....... fight?”

When I asked, Grandpa’s lips twitched, and he let out a sharp snort.

“......Don’t even get me started. Do you know how bad those two were together? I was so stressed watching from the side that my beard turned white!”

There was such a secret behind Grandpa’s beard?

“Well, people fight, grow closer, fall in love, get married, and all that.......”

Ahem. Mom cleared her throat, apparently embarrassed, and continued.

“In any case....... Back then, I had also received news that my adoptive father was unwell, so I was heading west. While passing through a valley, I came across an injured mage.”

That much was already known.

“But in the middle of the valley, the mage said she felt sick and made the carriage stop. At that moment, she rushed at me and cast attack magic.”

Mom added that it had happened in an instant, with no way to do anything about it.

“When I came to again, I was inside the overturned carriage. It had rolled down below the cliff. All the escorts were dead.”

“But....... how did you end up traveling with a runaway mage? Even if she was injured.”

At Boyd’s question, Mom spoke with eyes that had sunk low.

“She was pregnant.”

“.......”

“Of course, later, it seemed that had been fake too. Boyd, could you have looked away?”

“......Absolutely not.”

A short silence passed.

Every person had a vulnerable spot. And the Mage King was a master at digging into things like that.

“It’s certain the Mage King planned it from that accident onward.”

I spoke.

“Because killing all the surrounding escorts and overturning the carriage....... wouldn’t have been possible for one runaway mage alone.”

“Yes. That’s why Leviathan said there had to be an accomplice, but there was no evidence at all. And the war broke out almost immediately afterward, so there was no time to pursue it further.”

Crack. A log split in the fireplace. Bathed in the hot warmth blazing from it, Mom clenched her teeth.

“Honestly, back then, I never imagined the Mage King might be behind it.”

“.......”

“But now, I understand very well.”

I sat still and chewed over the conversation we had just had.

I had shared the truth I had grasped, guessed how the grave in the memorial garden had been dug up, and heard about the carriage accident eighteen years ago directly from Mom.

“Now there’s only one thing I’m curious about.”

“What is it?”

“My...... body, the one that died back then.”

Beside me, Boyd seized my hand in his large one. My brother’s eyes were full of tears.

“How it came back to life.”

I patted his hand and thought hard.

They said I was already dead when I was born....... so if some device was put in place, the accident itself is the most likely moment.

When the mage’s magic ran wild and the carriage overturned into pandemonium.

Could something else have happened there, something even I could not imagine?

If so.......

Then that meant someone else had been at that place.

“Hoo.”

I sprang up from my seat.

“You have to feed yourself.”

“What did you say, Ruby?”

“If you just sit still and think, the spoon won’t put food in your mouth, will it? Since all of this is guesswork anyway, let’s take the direct route and find out!”

“What is this, my daughter is so smart.”

Mom hugged me tightly. Hm. Grandpa, who had come close at some point and was stroking my hair, clenched both fists.

“What are you saying we should do?”

“Let’s catch the Mage King and ask him. There’s an exploration vessel in the south anyway, and Dad’s forces are there too.”

I smiled.

“Isn’t that a pretty good setup for invading?”

As always, I was not alone. Around me, there were any number of strong people who would fight with me.

So.......

A frontal breakthrough.

Instead of curling up because I was scared and afraid, I would advance on my own two feet, uncover the buried truth, and gladly fight the Mage King.

“Strike first, raise hell after.......”

The old Duke bared his teeth and made a low, growling sound.

“That’s my style!”

The two whose eyes were gleaming hurried to their feet. I, too, was about to move my magic to ask Khal about the southern situation when—

Boyd’s reluctant voice reached the backs of our heads as we moved like the wind.

“But...... everyone.......”

“Huh?”

“Aren’t you forgetting one member of the family?”

Ah, now that he mentioned it.

Mom’s eyes and mine met. Grandpa tilted his head, as if he had no idea what Boyd meant.

“......Hazel?”

—As if that’s who I meant.

*****

“Something about this.......”

Liam raised his head.

“Makes me feel like I’m being left out.”

What was this premonition?

Then, beside him, a man wearing an eyepatch over one eye spoke.

“You need friends before you can be left out....... and you don’t have any. Just like His Grace.”

“What a capable aide. You just took out two people with one sentence.”

Hmmmm. Ignoring Allen, Liam resumed the steps he had stopped.

“I somehow feel as if I’m the only one being excluded from a very important narrative.”

“That’s probably just your imagination. But...... did you hear my report just now? What should we do? Should I write a letter to the Duke? Or will you write it yourself? Also, where are you going right now?”

Allen attached himself to Liam like a human question mark.

He had just returned from checking the mood in the Imperial Palace, and this was what he had told Liam.

“Rumor is spreading in secret that the princess may be a mage. It seems that boatman bastard may have run his mouth. Perhaps the First Prince spread the rumor before he was locked in prison.......”

The instant Liam heard that, he moved. No, even without Allen’s report, he looked like a man who had already intended to move that way.

When the princess was sick and groaning, he was wasting away like he was the one in pain.

A little color had finally returned to the young lord’s pale face.

Honestly, I thought he’d cling to her like Lord Boyd and follow her north. Unexpected.

Once Liam confirmed that his sister was safe, he had decided to remain at the ducal estate himself.

“Ah, where are you going?”

“The magic-tool production tower.”

“Huh? Why there?”

It was the place where the stationed mages who had settled in Babilon produced the magic tools indispensable to the Empire.

Because their performance was better and more excellent than the ones imported from the Magic Kingdom, the people of the Empire praised them highly.

“Ah, now that I think about it, what you’re holding....... is that a new blueprint? I suppose it’s Asha Drukan’s work again.”

“You know nothing.”

“Oh dear, first of all, I’m quite sure you don’t know the way, my lord.”

Allen snorted and turned Liam’s body in the opposite direction.

“Most of the magic tools currently made at the production tower were all developed by the youngest fairy. Our teacher, in effect, only lent her name. Seriously....... Of course she’s a fairy. She’s too smart. So admirable. But they really aren’t doing something without me, are they? I’m scared.”

“For now, what scares me most is you turning your back on the building right in front of you, my lord.”

Liam unfurled the magic-tool blueprint with a rustle. At the very end was one strange little drawing.

^o^/

“See it? The youngest fairy’s signature?”

“Wow. No tension at all.”

“She always draws this trivial yet cute thing on her blueprints. But the magic-tool makers thought it was some kind of artisan’s logo, so they engraved it on all the magic tools.......”

“Oh. Then that mark must be on most magic tools. So? Why bring that up all of a sudden?”

Liam stopped walking.

Behind the clear lenses of his glasses, the young lord’s eyes gleamed sharply.

“This will protect our family and the youngest fairy.”

Liam knew what he had to do.

Rubian’s identity will probably rise to the surface soon.

Since a full-scale war with the Magic Kingdom was planned, it was something they had braced themselves for.

The nobles would run wild for no reason other than the fact that House of Zebbert had harbored an enemy nation’s mage until now, and they might even face condemnation from the allied nations.

The Emperor would try to protect Rubian by wielding absolute power, but well.

Liam preferred a visible, certain method to that.

Realize, down to your bones, whose grace you’ve been living under without worrying about magic, you ignorant fools.

The magic tools the nobles were still happily using even now.

Whose work do you think all of that was made by shaving away?

As if glaring at our youngest isn’t bad enough when praising her wouldn’t even be enough.

He pushed up his glasses as he looked toward the capital in the distance.

After that, he gathered all the blueprints left at the production tower and headed for the Imperial Palace. He could not claim confidence in everything, but when it came to beating nobles half to death with words, he was sure of himself.

*****

Saaah—

Leviathan drew his sword down in a long stroke.

The monsters charging at him died instantly, spraying dark-red blood.

That was the last of them.

“Tch.”

He clicked his tongue harshly. He roughly stirred through the filthy magical-beast corpses with his foot and sword, but he could not find the traces he had expected.

“These aren’t dark creatures.”

He dropped the magical beast he had just killed into the black, distant gorge below.

Beside him, the dead monsters piled into a small mountain formed the background.

“What the hell...... are those southern bastards doing?”

He had received word that the horde of magical beasts appearing in the gorge leading south was growing larger by the day.

When he heard it would soon spread to the nearby villages, he could not remain still.

Ruby should have woken up by now.

Had Rosetta met the princess?

News will come soon.

He swallowed once against his dry throat, gripped by a strange tension.