Chapter Two Hundred and Sixty-Nine: What to Do with These Feelings (Licht’s POV)
“So, Master Licht, you’re not joining the hunting festival and instead want to judge whether your friend’s fiancée is truly worthy of him, right? That’s fine! Let’s stick together!”
“Could you stop saying everything before I even get the chance?”
Karen had been exactly right. However, it was vexing to have the person he was trying to test accept it. Still, he had no objection to that proposal.
Licht sighed and said:
“So, what are your plans for today? I intend to accompany you to see your true self.”
“Mostly business, I suppose.”
“Potions?”
“Yes. Under the pretext of selling potions, I plan to take in children with little magical power who are mistreated in the territories of the nobles gathered here.”
“Charitable activities before announcing your engagement to Julius? How touching. Are you already feeling like you’ve joined the ranks of nobility?”
Noble women often did charitable work. It was one means for those who were exempted from battle by bearing children but still wished to contribute to their territory or country.
When Licht spoke cynically, thinking she was imitating that, Karen’s eyes widened. Would she cry? Licht panicked slightly, but for some reason, she was impressed.
“I see, so that’s what people think of me…!”
“What’s with that reaction…?”
“It’s a secret.”
With a smile, Karen said so and proceeded to carry out charity work alongside her sales, just as she had declared.
With the earnings of a B-rank alchemist, supporting them might be possible, yet she continued to casually promise to take in more children. Was she planning to sacrifice the children’s futures to gain favorable impressions from nobles before her engagement to Julius?
—Still, even as he was suspicious, he didn’t truly doubt her.
After all, Licht had begun keeping an eye on Karen long ago.
Helfried Ehlertt had at one point set out to conquer the territorial capital dungeon. When he gathered people, his stated purpose was "for Ehlertt." Since the dungeon had nearly collapsed during the previous earl’s time, there was the perfect excuse of preventing a tragedy from occurring again.
However, everyone understood that the conquest of the territorial capital dungeon was for the earl’s son, Sieg. An enormous reward was promised, and from among the volunteers attracted by that reward, the strong were selected, and Licht was among them.
In Licht’s grandfather’s generation, the Zenkel family had still been a viscounty. However, his grandfather became an earl for the achievement of conquering a dungeon in the vicinity of the Ehlertt territory, and the Zenkel Earldom was given the land around that dungeon as territory, becoming the small lord of Zenkel territory.
Things were fine when his grandfather and that party were still active as a fighting force. However, maintaining a dungeon was originally a difficult enterprise. Originally no more than a minor vassal house, the Zenkel Earldom nearly collapsed under the sudden weight of responsibility; they even struggled to manage a dungeon cleared only to the tenth floor, and by his parents’ generation, it was already on the brink of collapse.
Dungeons weren’t simply better the deeper they were. If you conquered too much, eventually you wouldn’t be able to manage it. The fact that the Ehlertt Earldom continued to maintain countless dungeons, including the territorial capital dungeon within its territory, and supported a large population was a tremendous achievement.
Returning territory was shameful for a noble. Returning a title was also shameful. Causing a dungeon to collapse was a grave sin.
Licht had understood since childhood that things couldn’t continue as they were. His desperate training to become strong and volunteering for the Ehlertt territorial capital dungeon conquest party were for money. With money, he could hire people and attract adventurers.
To rebuild his territory, Licht had come to serve even an unseemly lord who made excuses that it was for his territory out of love for his child. The one who led Licht and the others was that lord’s younger brother, Julius.
At first, Licht had harbored resentment toward Julius too. However, Julius was strong. Inside the dungeon, constantly alongside the danger of death, his strength was such that one couldn’t help but follow him—eventually, Licht’s anger turned toward Earl Ehlertt, who had driven Julius to deadly ground for the sake of his own child.
Certainly, for nobles, it was standard practice to entrust decisions about their own fate to the head of the family for the sake of the house. Still, after having Julius risk his life in dungeon conquest, was he now going to have Julius stake his life again? When Licht learned that Julius was about to be used as bait to bring a commoner woman alchemist into the Ehlertt Earldom, he tried to storm into the Ehlertt estate.
Helfried, Earl of Ehlertt.
Despite not knowing what Julius had been through—!
It was Julius who stopped Licht from protesting. It was always like that. Far from finding being used by his brother burdensome, Julius even actively wished to be used. As if he thought that otherwise, he had no value in existing.
Licht was strictly forbidden from both protesting to Earl Ehlertt and making contact with Karen. To Julius, Licht was merely someone who had unavoidably conquered the dungeon together with him.
Licht knew that his trust, his respect, and his anger on Julius’s behalf were all unwanted interference to Julius. But even so, he couldn’t overlook it.
While being careful not to be exposed to Julius, Licht had independently gathered information about Karen. So he knew Karen’s character. She wasn’t someone who would use children and then easily discard them.
He believed he understood Julius’s feelings as well.
Perhaps because he had persistently pressed the matter, or because he had kept his reservations about Karen hidden on the surface—
Julius told Licht that he had, of his own will, revealed his secret to Karen, and permitted Licht to meet Karen.
Did he think Licht would leak the secret? That secret, which Licht knew Julius wanted to hide so badly he was nearly driven mad?
—Unable to settle his lingering unease, Licht chose to skip the hunting festival and monitor Karen up close.
He wanted to directly confirm what kind of person the woman Julius had chosen was.
And that woman, with whom he exchanged words directly, was strangely overfamiliar, rude even, and showed no fear of Licht at all—so much so that it actually made Licht uneasy.
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