Chapter Two Hundred and Seventy-Five: Softhearted
“But Captain, if a Great Collapse can truly be triggered deliberately, that would be a serious matter indeed.”
“No. It wasn’t that I sensed the Great Collapse itself had been deliberately caused. Only that something was going to happen—that was all.”
Karen found Gottfried’s answer to Licht’s question puzzling, and asked:
“Captain, how did you go from that feeling to predicting that your knights might be framed for something?”
“Less a prediction than a response to things already happening. Several troubling incidents had occurred around them—incidents that looked like attempts to pin false crimes on them. I felt they couldn’t remain where they were, so I obtained Lord Helfried’s permission and led them away from the looming threat.”
“Pin false crimes, you say.”
The knights under Gottfried’s command had apparently chosen to remain in the order, knowing full well the disadvantages of belonging to families associated with the former earl’s faction. But they had been accused of stealing things they had never touched, or had woken up in restricted areas—perhaps drugged with sleeping agents—facing charges for deeds they had never committed. The incidents had mounted one after another, and friction within the order had followed.
“I have a talent for seeing through lies. Especially from people I know well—there’s very little they can deceive me about. At first glance, it looks like a petty power struggle, but I could tell my men were being framed. And whoever was behind it didn’t appear to be operating from within the order. I think it should be treated as an attack on the Ehlertt Earldom by some malicious outside party.”
“A campaign to drive a wedge between you…”
“The question is—what do they want? Who are our enemies, even? Not knowing is what unsettles me.”
Someone was sowing seeds of discord throughout the Ehlertt territory. Without knowing what they were truly after, Gottfried had followed nothing but intuition in taking his men and fleeing.
And then he had turned to Karen for help. What on earth could she possibly do for any of them?
“What would I need to do to actually help you all?”
“Well…”
“Well?”
“I’m not sure myself. What I do know is that I need to breathe some life back into these men—they’ve lost ground, and it shows. Do you have any ideas?”
The knights sat gathered around the fire, talking and laughing among themselves, yet their expressions carried a shadow to them—as though the weight of their situation was never far from their minds. Karen tilted her head.
“Nothing comes to mind, I’m afraid.”
“I thought as much.”
Just what did Gottfried’s so-called intuition want Karen to do? Gottfried shrugged his shoulders, as though admitting he had no answers.
The following morning, Karen responded to Helfried’s summons and visited the tent that had been re-pitched in a new location.
“Thank you for coming, Karen… The truth is, there were casualties in yesterday’s monster attack.”
“Do you need potions?”
Karen had started to move, thinking she had been called upon as an alchemist—but Helfried shook his head.
“No, potions have been taken care of. But there’s something I need to explain to you…”
Helfried broached the subject with evident difficulty.
“If a noble were to die at a hunting festival, it would be considered a complete failure. The festival would be canceled immediately, and the deceased given a proper farewell.”
“The hunting festival would be canceled? Even after all that preparation?”
“It won’t be canceled. The person who died this time was a commoner merchant.”
Karen blinked, and Helfried elaborated with a pained expression.
“When nobles hold a hunting festival, merchants of unknown origin tend to gather, seeing it as a business opportunity. Among them—if a noble dies, it’s a problem, but if a merchant I never invited dies, it’s not considered an issue. It may be unpleasant for a commoner like you, but that is noble culture.”
Helfried had just finished saying this with a look of discomfort when a commotion broke out outside. Karen and Helfried paused their conversation and stepped out of the tent. Moving toward the source of the noise, they found Ehlertt’s knights standing guard around one of the tents, and a group of commoner men facing them. Judging by their appearance, the men appeared to be merchants.
“What is going on here!?”
“The Earl is here!”
“Please, let us give our companion a proper farewell!”
“At least let us take back the body!”
Helfried, faced with the pleading men, grimaced.
“I have already told you it cannot be done. If the body of someone killed by a monster isn’t disposed of properly, it could turn into a wandering dead. We’ll handle the disposal later, identify the body, and notify the family, so don’t cause a commotion.”
“That’s outrageous! If you leave him, the body will rot! Stop the hunting festival right now and confirm that we’re his relatives!”
“…That cannot be done.”
To nobles, it was a trivial death. That was why there was no need to stop the hunting festival—the very idea would be unthinkable.
“Then we’ll handle it properly ourselves! Please, let us take him! We want his family to see him one last time!”
“We intend to compensate his family. Be patient.”
“No amount of money brings the dead back to life! A man died because of your decisions, Earl! Does that mean nothing to you!?”
“Or are you saying a commoner’s death doesn’t matter?!”
“That’s not—”
Helfried’s face was a picture of misery as the merchants wept and shouted at him. As a high-ranking noble, he could have easily ignored men who were, by any measure, D-rank at best—yet because of how deeply he valued family, he felt what they felt, and could not look away. Karen had been watching Helfried’s pained profile, and she turned her gaze to the men and spoke.
“If you had no power to fight monsters, why did you leave town in the first place?”
“What…?”
The men stopped crying and looked up at Karen with expressions that said they hadn’t expected anything of the sort. Their eyes were wet with tears, but there seemed to be something oddly flat in them too—a coolness that made Karen frown.
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