Chapter 87 - Investigation - 3

Rohan felt his heart race.

An extended assignment. The Empire. A festival.

Those three phrases were what set it pounding.

How stifling it had been, cooped up in the Holy Empire for the past three years. His Holiness giving him pointed looks practically every day was bad enough, but being stuck in that backwater, where the only entertainment was the tavern in a nearby village, had already pushed his restlessness to its limit.

A pleasure-loving wanderer by nature, Rohan accepted the assignment without a second thought when the opportunity finally came. The twins' gloomy faces as they watched him leave did weigh on him..., but what could he do? They all had different duties.

A festival—and the Empire's founding festival, at that!

The largest, grandest festival on the continent, with every sort of entertainment, booze, and women.

Recalling the festival he had visited eight years ago, Rohan broke into a broad, goofy grin.

'Anna was so beautiful....'

He thought of the woman he had briefly become involved with after meeting her at an outdoor tavern.

'I wonder if she's married now?'

She probably was. Hadn't she been indescribably beautiful, and right at marriageable age, too?

But Rohan had no regrets. Every meeting came with a parting! Better to look forward to new encounters than dwell on old ones! Surely this festival would bring another fateful meeting.

When Rohan arrived in the Empire, brimming with those expectations, what awaited him was Bera's cold declaration.

"Keep your nights free."

"... Huh?"

"We will be going out incognito. There is something we need to investigate, so clear your schedule from sundown onward. Oh, and no drinking, either. We cannot allow anything to interfere with the work."

"Th-then what am I supposed to do for fun?"

"Tsk. Get a grip. Did you come here to amuse yourself?"

Bera frowned, clicking his tongue.

Faced with that look, Rohan shrank back, unable to muster a retort. He nodded with a servile smile, but a seething anger rose inside him.

'Of course I came here to amuse myself!'

He had come to see the festival! To drink! To have fun with the ladies!

He had a thousand things he wanted to snap back with, but he knew saying any of them would earn him nothing but a beating.

"R-right...! Must be my age. This old man's getting a little forgetful!"

"For now, rest a little after your journey. You can greet the Saintess at dinner. I'll leave you to it."

With that, Bera walked away.

Rohan glared fiercely at Bera's retreating back as he left the drawing room, then heaved a sigh of utter desolation.

"Should've known..."

He was the idiot for thinking he could have fun with that shameless bastard around.

Moisture gathered in Rohan's eyes. His lips pressed tightly together with suppressed emotion. For middle-aged Rohan, who loved nothing more than having fun, this moment was unbearably sad.

* * *

Rohan had arrived.

In other words, Renée's visit to the Empire would now become public knowledge. The official reason was "a visit to bless the second prince's coming-of-age ceremony."

Naturally, appearing at an official function meant she could no longer dress as shabbily as before. And so, others had traveled with Rohan to help dress her for the occasion.

"Saintess! It's been so long!"

"Oh my, oh my! You grow more beautiful by the day, Saintess!"

"Hella! It's been ages!"

The three novice priests who had attended Renée alongside Hella in the Holy Empire had come.

Hearing their voices for the first time in months, Renée smiled brightly and spoke.

"It's lovely to see you all again. Have you been well?"

It was an unexpected reunion. The implications of appearing at an official function had not quite sunk in yet, so Renée had not anticipated their arrival. She chatted with them for a while, only to feel her body go rigid at one attendant's words.

"Hella can't dress you in your ceremonial robes all by herself! Of course we had to come!"

Ceremonial robes.

The mention of having to wear them brought an involuntary reaction.

"O-oh, of course...!"

She tried to smile, but her expression turned pitiful all the same.

She could hardly help looking dismayed at the thought of wearing that outfit again. Bathing, drying, dressing, adding ornaments, and making final adjustments—the whole process took hours just to get her dressed.

Suddenly, the past few months of throwing on whatever was at hand and living as she pleased felt like a dream, leaving Renée dejected.

* * *

Renée met Rohan at dinner that evening.

"Well now, Saintess! It's been a while!"

Renée smiled in reply.

"It has, Rohan. Have you been well?"

"Oh, I've been living the same as ever. You get prettier by the day, Saintess. Say, there haven't been any men pestering you, have there?"

"Rohan."

Bera, who had been listening to their conversation, cut him off with a growl.

Rohan's shoulders flinched. Lowering his head again, he offered an excuse with a servile grin.

"N-no... I just thought there might be..."

Bera glared at Rohan, suppressing the irritation rising inside him.

Who, exactly, would be pestering her? If anyone who didn't know his place dared harbor feelings for Renée, Bera would never stand idly by.

At that thought, his entire body tensed, and the knife in his hand crumpled.

Watching this, Rohan went deathly pale, while a broad smile spread across Mari's face.

Renée tilted her head at the sudden change in the atmosphere, then spoke.

"Oh, that reminds me. Are we starting tonight?"

"... Yes. Since it is our first night, we will not go far in. It would be best to begin searching the outskirts and work our way inward."

"Oh..."

Renée felt tension stir within her.

There was only one reason: they were going to the place where Bera had been born and raised, to face the past he had so desperately wanted to hide.

She knew very well that Bera was not happy about this. Even now, she could hear a faint tremor in his voice. There was no mistaking it.

'Even so...'

She could not send him alone.

It was not simply that she could not let Bera face danger by himself. She needed to go there in person and prove something to him. No matter what kind of person he was, she would never hate him. That was what Renée wanted to prove.

As Renée remained lost in thought, Bera, who had meanwhile been given a fresh knife, continued speaking as he cut his meat.

"On that subject, there are a few preparations we need to make before leaving."

"Preparations?"

"Do you remember that you are scheduled to enter the imperial palace the day after tomorrow?"

"Oh, yes."

"If we go out incognito without taking precautions, we risk having our identities discovered later. We can no longer get by simply keeping our status secret, so starting tonight, we will wear disguises whenever we go out incognito."

Disguises.

The thought that they were taking this quite seriously made Renée's heart flutter for no particular reason. Quickly bringing that feeling under control, she spoke.

"Well, what sort of disguise should I wear?"

"I have prepared the necessary solutions. Essentially, we will change our hair and eye colors and wear recognition-obscuring robes. You will not need the eye drops, Saintess."

"Oh..."

Everything was ready already. Thinking of Bera making all these preparations alone without her knowledge, Renée felt a little sheepish. She smiled faintly and said,

"Thank you for all your hard work."

"It was nothing. Now, is there any color you would prefer? Since we will be traveling incognito, I did not obtain any bright colors, but I will give you a solution as close to your preference as possible from among the darker shades."

In truth, since Renée could not see, it did not matter which color he gave her. But that was not what mattered to Bera. Above all, he wished to respect her opinions. Believing they should discuss even little things like this together, he had asked the question, and Renée considered it for a moment.

"Hmm..."

A color. She really wouldn't mind whatever he gave her, but...

"... Then the same color as yours, Bera."

Thinking that would be nice if she had a choice, Renée blushed faintly and summoned a little courage to say it. Bera's body tensed. Once again, his knife crumpled.

"... I will not be changing my hair color, so I will give you black to match mine."

For some reason, her words unsettled his composure, and Bera stared hard at his plate.

"Yes..."

A peculiar atmosphere began to settle between them. Watching, Mari smiled even more broadly, while Rohan began dry-heaving like a man who had witnessed something he could not bear to see.

* * *

Late that same night, in a back alley off Twelfth Avenue that connected to the gutter, Rohan scowled at Bera and Renée and the peculiar atmosphere surrounding them.

Renée was toying with a lock of her newly black hair as she spoke.

"H-how does it look? Does it suit me...?"

"... You are beautiful, as you always have been."

Bera answered with a stiff expression.

Rohan's scowl deepened.

'What the hell are they doing?'

No, fine. He understood that this was how things were between them. How could he not? That atmosphere had been there ever since their days in the Holy Empire.

But even so, the frustration welling up inside him kept his face twisted in a scowl.

'Didn't they say they weren't together?'

Why? Why weren't they together when they acted like that? Just being near them gave him goose bumps. They were so sickeningly mushy he didn't even want to approach them!

Rohan, a thoroughly jaded older man whose philosophy was that love began with getting into bed together, found the sight unbearably painful.

Naturally, he kept his head turned away from them, only his fiercely narrowed eyes darting over to check what they were doing.

Then the next sight drew a disbelieving laugh from him.

'Well, would you look at that?'

What was this now? Holding hands?

Renée's hand crept over Bera's, and they began to hook just their thumbs tightly together.

Rohan barely swallowed the curse threatening to escape his mouth.

It was certainly innocent. Yes, they were young and in love, so that was understandable.

But...

'... God fucking damn it.'

Rohan began to hate Bera. He hated him so much for indulging in all this sweetness himself after forbidding Rohan any fun, booze, or women.

He felt sick.

Their endless lovey-dovey antics seemed to twist his stomach into knots.

His expression naturally darkened. As those two contrasting emotions mingled in the same space—

"I've kept you waiting far too long!"

Albrecht appeared.

With his hair dyed navy blue and his eyes black, he looked different from usual, but his radiant smile remained unchanged.

Albrecht approached the three, briefly looked over their faces, and greeted Rohan.

"A pleasure to meet you, apostle of guidance. I am the second prince, Albrecht van Frich."

His black eyes curved into crescents. His pearly white teeth reflected the moonlight.

He was as cheerful as ever.

Rohan responded with a bored expression, digging in his ear.

"Oh, sure. Yeah, well..."

It was a natural response for Rohan, who had little interest in men. And, as an apostle despite his behavior, he had no need to speak deferentially. Albrecht froze at his reply.

Watching them from a short distance away, Count Vaishur felt a deep sigh escape him.

A troubling thought came to mind.

'... Is this really a good idea?'

In more ways than one, it promised to be a difficult night.