Chapter 164 - ...Huh? (3)

"...?"

Watching the woman suddenly burst into tears, Alon could only feel utterly bewildered. She had merely been staring at him, then abruptly started crying.

'Did I... do something?'

All sorts of thoughts flashed through his mind, but of course, he had done nothing. In fact, he had not even had time to do anything.

His bewilderment lasted only a moment.

"I'm sorry. Um—something suddenly got in my eye."

"... Is that so?"

"Yes."

"... I see."

As the woman slowly offered her explanation, he could only respond with some misgivings. No matter how he looked at it, she seemed to be crying out of sadness, rather than because something had gotten in her eye.

But it would be awkward to press her when she insisted otherwise, so he decided not to pursue it.

"... Let us introduce ourselves first."

"Of course. My name is Lina, and I am the caravan leader who heads the Teal Forest Trading Company."

Alon briefly tried to recall what he knew about the Teal Forest Trading Company, but soon gave up.

'It must not be particularly well known.'

All he knew was what his servant had told him a little earlier.

"I was told you wished to speak with me about gold handicrafts. Is that correct?"

"Yes, that's right."

"Let us hear the details, then."

Wiping her eyes once more, she nodded.

####

Thirty minutes later.

"My lord."

"What is it?"

"Did your discussion go well?"

"It went fairly well."

"Oh, did it?"

Seeing Evan's surprised reaction, Alon asked,

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"Well, discussions with caravan leaders usually don't finish this quickly. And we're talking about gold handicrafts, aren't we? I understand there's quite a lot to negotiate."

"Well—you're not wrong."

Alon nodded in agreement.

'Gold handicrafts certainly are valuable.'

Gold itself was expensive to begin with, and the price of handicrafts varied enormously depending on the artisan who worked it.

While he did not know all the finer details, Alon understood the common knowledge of this world.

"To be honest, I was a little surprised myself."

"Why?"

"Because it ended so quickly."

In truth, Alon, too, had been puzzled throughout by how smoothly everything had gone.

'... The terms were far too favorable.'

Of course, favorable terms were hardly a bad thing for Alon. But the better the terms were for him, the less the other party stood to gain.

Trade was fundamentally about weighing each party's gains and losses to find a balance. An advantage in one area inevitably meant accepting a concession in another.

The same principle had held true in his dealings with the many trading companies he had contracted with so far.

Yet this deal had included numerous terms that favored Alon alone, even before negotiations began.

'... Something's strange.'

That was precisely what struck him as odd. The negotiations had ended successfully, but no matter how he thought about it, he could not quite work out what the trading company was getting out of the deal.

'... Well, strictly speaking, they won't lose anything on it either... But there were certainly plenty of points where they could have asked for more. Didn't they give up far too much?'

Alon was about to ponder it further, but soon shrugged, as he usually did.

The outcome was good. It was not a contract that would cost him anything, so there was no need to dwell on it this much.

'... Though I still don't know why she cried at the beginning.'

The way she had suddenly cried upon seeing his face gave him a separate puzzle to mull over, but—

"Oh, come to think of it, my lord."

"What is it?"

"The deputy tower master said she thinks she's discovered a new formula."

"... Has she?"

The news reached him before he could lose himself in thought, and Alon rose to go to Penia.

####

The caravan leader of Teal Forest who had spoken directly with Alon only a little earlier—no, the elven queen Magrina—was deep in thought.

Perion, who had accompanied her as a guard, had removed his human disguise and was watching her with a rather odd expression. The reason was the behavior the queen had displayed earlier.

'... What is going on?'

Perion could not understand her behavior today as a whole.

There was only one reason why the queen had left Greinif, a place she should ordinarily never leave, to visit Marquis Pallatio: to determine whether he was the primordial elf.

... But privately, Perion had thought the queen would gain little from this journey.

If the conjecture of Pilde, a mage who had risen to the most exalted position among the elves, was correct, then even if Marquis Pallatio was the primordial elf and recognized Magrina as the queen and his younger sister, he could not acknowledge that he knew her.

In other words, as long as that restriction existed, the queen had no way of knowing whether Marquis Pallatio was the primordial elf.

Thus, unlike the queen, who was certain she would find a way to judge for herself once she saw his face, Perion remained skeptical.

And yet...

'... Why did she shed tears?'

The queen was now lost in thought, her expression deeply solemn, but he had clearly seen it: the tear that had rolled from her eye the moment she saw Marquis Pallatio's face.

"..."

Perion could say with certainty that he had never seen the queen like that before. She never revealed her personal feelings in front of others.

She was undoubtedly a benevolent queen, but she bore and fulfilled the weighty duties of a sovereign more conscientiously than anyone.

Had she truly sensed something from Marquis Pallatio? By some means unknown to him?

'But if that were the case—'

Perion looked at her again. By now, Magrina had returned to the solemn expression of a ruler. She was unmistakably a sovereign, not a younger sister revealing fragments of emotion over the primordial elf.

Just as Perion was considering satisfying his curiosity, even at the risk of being discourteous—

"Perion."

The queen, who had remained silent ever since they left the Pallatio estate, suddenly spoke.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Perion caught his breath. A multitude of emotions had crossed the queen's face, which until moments ago had been wholly solemn.

They vanished in an instant, but regret, sadness, and a gentle smile had unmistakably touched her features.

After a brief pause, Magrina gave her order.

"... Place the Dark Leaves at his side."

"...! The Dark Leaves, Your Majesty?"

"Yes."

The Dark Leaves.

Where the Pagade guarded the roots, the Dark Leaves were elves who protected the queen from the shadows, every one of them a Swordmaster.

They were, in effect, the queen's personal guard.

"Then you mean—"

"Yes. That's right."

"... How did you recognize him?"

Perion looked utterly baffled.

Magrina recalled the glove Marquis Pallatio had been wearing. A glove only elves could use.

No, more precisely, a glove used only by the primordial elf—

... Her older brother.

The moment she saw it, Magrina had shed tears without realizing it. But that was not the only reason she was certain Marquis Pallatio was the primordial elf.

"I have my own way of knowing."

"..."

The queen answered with a smile, then took something out from inside her clothes.

It was an old ring, faded in places, having failed to withstand the ravages of time.

... A ring of which there should, by all rights, be only one in this world.

"My own way."

"..."

Resting in her palm was the Ring of Constraint, the first ring Alon had obtained in the labyrinth.

A ring she had received from the primordial elf.

Meanwhile, Alon was going over the earlier incident with Penia.

"Hmm—so the gold-handicraft caravan leader gave you everything she possibly could, then went from crying to laughing?"

"Well... You have the order reversed, but that is roughly what happened."

"It wasn't something like... forcing her to sign a contract... was it...?"

Just as a look of sympathy for a fellow sufferer began to surface on Penia's face—

"What do you take me for...?"

She hurriedly waved her hands.

"Ah, ah—no, no, that's not what I meant. Haha... Then, um... maybe the caravan leader simply has something like bipolar disorder...?"

"... Hmm, perhaps."

"Poor thing, at such a young age."

Their conversation ended with a word of sympathy whose intended recipient(?) was unclear.

... The sun was setting.

####

In Hidan's opinion, Blue Moon's regular meetings tended to be somewhat noisy.

... To be precise, they started quietly, then grew louder and louder as time passed.

At any rate, that was how they had always gone, and Hidan had never found it particularly uncomfortable. Whenever a meeting grew too loud or heated, Red Moon would step in to mediate appropriately.

Now, however, Hidan felt deeply uncomfortable.

The reason was—

["You've all heard, haven't you?"]

["A birthday present, hmm..."]

The Great Moon's birthday present.

No, more precisely, it was because, over that birthday present—

["Deus, I'm warning you: nothing too absurd."]

["I know."]

["You really do understand, right?"]

["Yes. I intend to keep it 'appropriate.'"]

["Hmm—so do I. I intend to keep mine very appropriate."]

["Likewise. We mustn't make Big Brother feel burdened."]

... The Moons had begun a peculiar game of keeping one another in check.

["Good. You've all thought this through. You seem to understand that we must never burden him with an excessively grand gift."]

["Yes, I understand that perfectly too!"]

Hidan looked over the other Moons, including Yutia. They were all smiling leisurely.

Looking at them now, one might believe they truly meant what they said. But Hidan, who traveled from place to place to deliver reports, knew the truth.

... Not one of the five Moons was preparing an 'appropriate' gift.

In other words—

["That's right. We should keep our gifts 'appropriate.'"]

["Yes, I agree. 'Appropriate,' of course."]

["I understand perfectly. 'Appropriate,' yes..."]

["... Me too."]

["Me too!"]

As they kept repeating the same words, everyone except the unfailingly cheerful Gold Moon was watching the others' reactions and deliberately hiding their true intentions.

... All to give the Great Moon a better present than the other Moons.

And so—

'Do they really... have to go this far?'

Feeling utterly drained, Hidan silently swallowed a sigh.