Albion’s Pastoral House (7)

Kleio went through Fran’s letter once more to ensure he didn’t miss even a single character.

《By the time I arrived, the battle was already underway. I used my equipment to grasp the situation from a safe distance. Soon, the battle was over. The guard post was destroyed, and the Brunnen soldiers that tried to escape were cut down. In the process, a level 6 knight had been captured.

So far, what I have investigated was as follows: The Hydra’s Poison consumers showed reason enough to listen to orders when the ether level expressed was below the intermediate level. But when it reached level 6, they appeared to be in the throes of bloodlust even though they looked fine. The difference between the two is estimated to be related to their ether level.

However, this guy had enough self-control not to go completely berserk and his capability to talk remained. As I watched, his symptoms grew worse. His eyes burst red, and ether fluttered around him like fire. Nevertheless, he kept his reasoning. He repeated the same words in Brunnen and then in Carolingian. He’s a Brunnen nobleman.

“I am a nobleman and a knight. This pain stems from my courage and will to overcome this poison. I’m an officer who crossed the border during a training accident. Return me to Brunnen legally.”

However, the knights carrying him didn’t seem to understand him at all. There would’ve been no reason to treat him nicely even if they did. The knights in dark blue suffered no casualties, but several were seriously injured. However, the man’s rank was apparent, and he was clearly a noble. It doesn’t seem like he was forced into an experiment. Rather, it seemed that he consumed Hydra’s Poison independently. The demon’s blood supply have become easier to come by with the increasing attacks, so the experiment material is abundant enough. As a result, it means that the poison has been stabilized enough to be administered even to a nobleman.

The ones making the poison have moved to Brunnen, and they are likely in close contact with Brunnen’s military and local lords. I believe you will understand what this means.

P.S. I left some portraits to serve as evidence, but I could only take six pictures. Three of them are enclosed. 》

It wasn’t completely surprising. From the start, he sensed that Juleika was behind the poison, but he had no proof.

‘Aslan has grown more brutal at a faster rate than before.’

Perhaps the unclean method Aslan used in his previous life to become a swordmaster was Hydra’s Poison. At that time, the demons hadn’t arrived so soon, so the demon blood hadn’t been as prevalent. Now, however, he was crafting it at the expense of innocent lives.

‘Human cruelty beyond God’s imagination.’

For Kleio, however, it was nothing that surprising. If the reason why God erased the previous world was to aim for a better ending, it seemed that the poison’s invention was something unplanned.

‘Even using the other worlds’ failures as a teacher, the attempt wasn’t necessarily successful.’

Shaaaa.

His [Shield] magic faded as the duration ran out, but he quickly put more ether in to create a new one. He could think of that later. First, he had to focus on the evolving situation at hand. A plan to counterattack Melchior took shape inside his head. If his foe used media, he could as well. He would have to drum up a response that would make killing Arthur impossible.

He had one shot, but it was worth trying.

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The three o’clock bell rang out. The sound of two people walking up the stairs could be heard.

Creak.

“Is that the bachelor’s lady love?”

“It’s not like that. Only a few letters…”

“Ah, as I saw earlier, I wouldn’t want him as a son-in-law…”

“Nevertheless… good…”

“Yeah, I guess both of you are shy. Good, good. It’s Room 202 over there, so go ahead.”

It was the owner’s voice. He was speaking with a woman with a thin, unstable tone and a working-class accent. After the owner thumped back down the stairs, only one person remained in the hallway.

‘Only one person, but no way…’

Kleio turned on Perception to examine who it was outside the thin wooden door. A woman and a cat out were standing outside his door. The cat cried out quietly.

“Meow. (Open it.)”

Opening the door, he saw only a maid with her back to the wall. She wore a coat over a black cotton maid’s outfit, a modest hat, and looked to be in a hurry. The brunette maid was looking at the floor, clutching the handle of a wicker basket as if she were shy.

‘Ahhh.’

Kleio held back a shout as he hurried the visitor into his room. Then, with tremendous speed, he unfolded a [Soundproof][Shield] magic formula. Feeling the ether, Behemoth jumped out of the lid of the basket. Then the maid, who had been holding the cat, raised her hands like an actor in a play and set the empty basket down. As she straightened her back out, the maid’s height increased by a few centimeters at once. It was Cel in a maid uniform.

“I was expecting you to look a little different, but… you’ve really outdone yourself, Cel. If I had seen you on the street, I would’ve had no clue. You aren’t the star of the May Ball play for nothing.”

Cel, who played the prince’s role for two years in a row, also played the role of a maid incredibly well. The innkeeper would assume that this maid and country clerk were on a date.

“You’re at an inn like this, wearing a vaguely out-of-fashion bowler, so you look like a stupid office worker for a rural merchant! Hmm, just like in the love letters sent to this maid.”

“Yes, yes, it’s such a setting… It’s worthwhile to pay the extra fee to get a room at an inn like this.”

“Since the hospitality industry general meeting is being held in Lundane right now, it won’t be easy for the intelligence service to work because it’s crowded with outsiders. It’s an opportunity for us.”

“I agree.”

The two shook hands and looked at each other’s unfamiliar faces. There was so much to be said, but the giant cat jumped between the colleagues.

“Meoow!”

Kleio petted and congratulated Behemoth, who had been so helpful. His paws were dirty from running around the streets, but the bedsheets in the room were vaguely smelly and squishy anyway, so it didn’t matter if they were stained a little.

“Meoow, meoooow. (The bed is very shabby, but I’m tired, so I’ll endure the stench.)”

“Good work, Behemoth. Once this is done, I’ll soak you in champagne, wrap you up in silk.”

“Meow. (All you need to do is keep the promise.)”

“Yes, definitely.”

Kleio glanced over at Cel as he scratched Behemoth’s chin. Cel, used to the two conversing, wasn’t surprised as she sat down at the tea table. She had an old hat atop her wig and makeup on her cheeks, but it was the Cel that Kleio knew.

“Where did you get all those clothes?”

“The wig is from a maid, whose hair is growing thinner these days, and the clothes were from the laundry room. The coat belongs to the maid in charge of washing dishes, but I must return it. It was hard to sneak out the back loading door.”

“That sounds like a mystery novel.”

“I will say that it was easy to get out because I always treat the working ladies with respect.”

Her smile was the usual Cel. No matter how much you dressed it up, you couldn’t cover up that natural light. Just having a colleague nearby calmed Kleio’s mind.

As he regained his composure, he was surprised to detect an etheric reaction he hadn’t noticed before. Turning on Perception made it clear that there was activated tiplaum under the maid uniform’s high collar.

“…Cel, is that a suppression collar?”

“Oh, you can see it. The future arch-mage is really keen.”

“Who did that? I heard that your mother paid bail, but the crown prince would never-.”

When Kleio was beginning to lose his composure, Cel grabbed his shoulders and pressed him back down in his seat. Cel thought he looked more disheveled than she had thought.

‘This guy looks tired. He looks like he’s drowning.’

The legs of Kleio’s chair slanted as the cheap quality was unable to bear his weight.

“No. My mother did this to me.”

“What?!”

“But I found a way to meet you because of your note—it’s thanks to you.”

Cel, who hadn’t lost her laughter even when her ether was gone, briefly summarized what had happened.

“Anyway, while I was still shaking off that sleeping drug, Behemoth came to me and punched him with his paws to wake me up.”

“Then, that wound on your cheek is from Behemoth?”

Looking closely, Kleio had noticed she had put on makeup to hide it.

“No, this is also from my mother.”

Kleio’s expression grew awkward. The dynamics of this mother and daughter were something he couldn’t imagine.

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Cel read Fran’s letter as he listened to Kleio’s explanation. She was quick to understand what was going on.

“To save Kision, the news of this raid must spread all over the capital, right? His testimony will prove to be no excuse. The Brunnen’s attacked the border with excellent timing.”

“Yes, it’s luck. We need the front of the stations to be covered with articles about this.”

“Then, Clarion? Presentia? Lundane Standard?”

“Clarion isn’t a daily newspaper and has too few readers, and Presentia doesn’t carry information that hasn’t been cross-validated. The Lundane Standard is just right for middle-class, white-collar workers. It will cause something more likely to be described as small friction instead of a fuss.”

“If you remove those, that leaves the Evening Star and Swift.”

It was the kind of newspaper Mrs. Canton didn’t bring in the morning. As a newspaper with interest-oriented gossip, it held news of opera singer’s affairs, lawsuits about illegitimate noble children, and rumors of ghosts. It had many readers, however.

“Okay, that would work. Use a provocative headline and make it loud and vulgar.”

“Of the two, Swift would be better. Its boss lost his father in the war with Brunnen, so he would want to inflate a story like this.”

“Is that right?”

“Yes. They also introduced a state-of-the-art automatic printer in the basement of their office.”

“Then, the time to make the prints would be drastically reduced.”

“Exactly.”

Cel crossed her legs with a shine in her eyes. She looked excited about an opportunity to repay this humiliation. Kleio stretched out his neck, thinking. As he had seen at Bartleby’s print shop, steam cylinder-type printing machines made it possible to print more than 20,000 copies per hour.

‘Assuming that the report is released immediately, it can quickly spread through the capital.’