Editor 155

The Idyll of Albion (7)

Kleio once again unfolded Fran’s letter. He did so in order to use every single word as material and cast it into his own bullets.

“…

By the time I arrived, the battle was already underway.

Without approaching the outpost, I assessed the situation from a distance using ‘Spectacles of Appraisal’, ‘Clarity Telescope’, and ‘Echo Amplification’.

Soon, the battle came to a close, and two knights who were severely wounded were carried out by their comrades. There was considerable blood loss, and the outpost was also heavily damaged. Of the two rampaging Brünnen soldiers, one died during the engagement.

During that process, one of them, who was displaying power equivalent to level 6, was ultimately captured as a prisoner.

Here is what I have discovered so far.

Those who ingested Hydra’s poison retained enough reason to obey orders if their manifested ether level was intermediate or lower, but once their manifested ether level reached level 6, even if they appeared sane, they exhibited bloodthirsty behavior.

The difference between the former and the latter is presumed to be related to the ether level of the subject at the time of Hydra’s poison ingestion.

However, this one, despite using level 6 skills, maintained enough self-restraint not to immediately engage in bloodsucking, and still retained language abilities.

As I watched, the unique seizure symptoms of Hydra’s poison users grew increasingly severe.

His eyes burst blood-red, scattering rays of light, and red ether surged around his body like fire. He likely didn’t have long to live.

Even so, he maintained his reason. At first, he repeated the same words in Brünnenese, then later in Carolingian.

The man is a noble of Brünnen’s military aristocracy.

‘I am a noble and a knight. I cannot be dragged away by commoners. Mind your manners. This pain stems from my courage and will in overcoming the poison. I am an officer who crossed the border due to an accident during training. Legally return me to Brünnen.’ That’s what he kept commanding.

However, it seemed that the knights escorting him didn’t understand a word he said. Even if they did, there would be no reason to treat him kindly.

There were no fatalities among the knights in navy-blue armor, but facing a level 6 knight resulted in three or four serious injuries.

Regardless of how the knights treated him, the insignia on this user’s arm was that of an officer, his hair was long and lustrous, and his accent was unmistakably that of a noble.

Given how coherent his speech was, it is judged that he ingested Hydra’s poison of his own volition, not by force.

After the rampage of magical beasts, it has become easier to obtain the blood of magical beasts, the raw material for the poison. So there would have been plenty of experimental material.

As a result, it means the poison has now been stabilized enough to be administered even to knights of noble origin.

Those who manufacture Hydra’s poison have moved their base to Brünnen and are very likely colluding with Brünnen’s military or local lords.

I believe you understand what this means. I will deliver further details in person soon.

P.S. I took ‘instant portraits’ as evidence whenever the situation changed, but only six were clear due to the distance. I enclose three of them.”

It wasn’t something completely unexpected.

From the start, there had been suspicions that the mastermind behind Hydra’s poison was Zuleika. It was just that there had been no proof of when, where, or how it was done.

‘Even in the previous manuscript, Aslan claimed at the end of the prince’s rebellion that, by virtue of his bloodline, he could wear both crowns. It just happened a bit sooner, and the means were more brutal.’

Perhaps, the ‘illegitimate method’ Aslan used in his previous life to become a swordmaster was ‘Hydra’s poison.’

At that time, magical beasts didn’t appear this early, so the supply of beast blood would have been delayed. Thus, he might have fallen behind in experiments and achieved swordmaster status later than Arthur. Who can say?

All by relying on an unstable poison made by sacrificing the lives of innocent people.

‘Human cruelty exceeded even the imagination of the gods.’

For Kleio, who had memories of the previous world, the twentieth century, there was nothing surprising or even sigh-worthy about it.

If the reason the gods erased the previous world and began to write the final world anew was to seek a better conclusion, then the invention of a poison not planned by the gods might also have been a reason for them to decide on a rewrite.

‘Even if they try to write a new world, learning from the failures of another, that doesn’t mean the attempt will necessarily succeed.’

Shuuuu―

The light from the [Shielding] spell began to fade as its duration neared its end. Injecting ether into the circle once more, Kleio shook off his distractions.

Those were things he could think about later.

For now, he would focus solely on overcoming the immediate situation.

Inside his tangled, fluttering hair, a plan to counter Melchior was taking shape.

If he used the media, then so would they.

If he monopolized power and ruled like a dictator, there were plenty of people on this side to join hands with.

He would have to release Arthur when confronted with a response he could never have attempted himself.

It was a method that could only be tried once, but it was an adventure worth taking. Kleio became coldly calm.

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The chime of three o’clock in the afternoon reached even the corridor of this secluded inn.

Creak, creak.

Tap, tap.

Click, clack.

Soon after, the voices of two people climbing the stairs came through the door.

“Is that young man the lady’s sweetheart?”

“Oh, it’s not like that. We’ve only exchanged a few letters so far….”

“Aigo, when I saw him earlier, he looked so thin and weak. If it were me, I wouldn’t take such a fellow as a son-in-law.”

“But… he’s a good… gentle… person.”

“I see, the two of you are so shy, it must be a match made in heaven. Enjoy it while it lasts. That’s room 202, so go on. Hehehe.”

It was the innkeeper who had guided Kleio earlier and a woman’s voice he had never heard before. The thin, unstable tone had the accent of a working-class native of the capital.

After the pot-bellied innkeeper stomped downstairs, only one person was left in the corridor.

‘There’s only one person who would come, but still….’

Kleio activated [Perception] and checked the person outside the flimsy wooden door. The person detected by ‘Promise’ was one, and there was also one cat.

The cat meowed very softly.

“Meow―. (Open up―.)”

When he opened the door, there was only a maid hunched over in the corridor.

She wore a plain coat over her black cotton maid uniform and a simple hat, looking as if she had rushed out while working.

The brown-haired maid, staring only at the floor while clutching the handle of her rattan basket tightly as if shy….

‘Ughhhh.’

Kleio stifled a scream inside and quickly ushered the visitor into the room. Then, at breakneck speed, he deployed [Soundproofing][Shielding] spells.

Bang!

Sensing the magic, Behemoth kicked open the lid of the basket and leapt out.

The maid, who had been lightly carrying a basket containing a giant cat as if it were a bread basket, lifted both hands like an actress, then set down the empty basket with a thud.

As she straightened her hunched back, her height increased by several centimeters at once.

It was Chel, dressed in a maid’s uniform.

“You said to come in a different guise than usual, but… this is a truly unexpected disguise, Chel. If I had seen you on the street, I never would have recognized you. No wonder you’re the star of the May Ball play.”

Chel, who had played the prince for two consecutive years, also acted the role of a cleaning maid incredibly well.

Even now, the innkeeper probably thought the maid and a country office worker were on a sweet date.

“And look at you. Wearing an out-of-fashion bowler hat in a shabby inn like this, you look just like a bumbling office worker from a rural trading company! Hmph, perfect as the pen-pal boyfriend of a shy cleaning maid.”

“Y-yeah. So that’s the setting… I’m glad I got a room in this inn, even paying an outrageous price.”

“There’s a hospitality industry conference in Lundane now, so everywhere is crowded and there are lots of outsiders. That should make it harder for the secret intelligence service to work. It’s a chance for us.”

“I think so too.”

The two naturally shook hands, checking each other’s haggard faces.

With so much to say, they fell silent for a moment, and the giant cat leapt in between the two colleagues.

“Meooooow! (Aigo, my whole body aches!)”

After stroking Behemoth’s cheeks in praise, Kleio offered the only bed to the grumbling old cat.

Behemoth’s paws, which had run around since morning, were dirty with the dust of the streets, but the room and sheets already smelled musty and rank, so a bit of dirt wouldn’t make a difference.

“Wheeeeng, ewoooong. (The bed is shabby, but I’m too tired to complain.)”

“You’ve worked hard, Behemoth. Once this is all over, I’ll let you soak in champagne and sleep wrapped in silk. I don’t know what I’d have done without you.”

“Meow, ewoyot. (As long as you know, keep your promise.)”

“Yeah, I promise.”

While gently scratching the chin of the spoiled Behemoth, Kleio turned his attention to Chel.

Chel, now accustomed to Kleio and the cat having outlandish conversations, plopped down at the tea table instead of being surprised.

A worn hat sat atop her wig, and mismatched makeup was on her cheeks, but it was unmistakably the Chel that Kleio knew.

“Where did you get those clothes?”

“The wig belongs to our head maid, who’s losing hair lately; the uniform was in the laundry room. The coat belongs to the dishwashing maid, so I have to return it. I had no choice but to use the back door where they haul out food supplies.”

“You basically enacted a detective novel in the house.”

“Let’s just say, thanks to always treating the working girls well, it was easy to figure out their movements.”

Her silver eyes crinkled with a mysterious smile—it was unmistakably the usual Chel. No matter what she wore, her true light couldn’t be hidden.

Just reuniting with one colleague made Kleio feel inexplicably calm. Regaining his composure, he was now able to sense the ether reaction he’d missed, startled by the unexpected disguise.

It was even clearer with [Perception] activated.

There was a Tiflaum reaction activated beneath the high collar of the maid uniform.

“…Chel, are you wearing a suppression device right now?”

“Oh, you can see that? The future great mage is indeed different.”

“Who did that to you? I heard your mother paid your bail. Don’t tell me the crown prince—”

When Kleio seemed about to lose his composure, Chel, now taller than him, grabbed his shoulders and pressed him down into the wooden chair that matched the tea table.

Looking down, Kleio looked even more haggard. Chel thought,

‘This kid already looks skinny so his eyes look big, but if he opens them like that, they’ll pop right out.’

The cheap inn’s flimsy chair couldn’t even support Kleio’s light weight and wobbled unsteadily.

“No. This was my mom’s doing.”

“What!?”

“Still, that clever Behemoth delivered your note, so I found a way to meet up. Thanks to you, I’m alive.”

Even with her ether bound, Chel didn’t lose her sense of humor and briefly summarized her dealings with her mother.

“…She asked who I take after—honestly, Mom. People say there’s another Katarina wherever I go. Anyway, I was half-asleep from the sleeping pills when Behemoth came and woke me up with a cat punch, so I could get up.”

“So that scratch on your cheek—is that Behemoth’s doing?”

The reason for the awkward makeup was only noticeable up close. It was to hide the scratch on her cheek.

“No, that was also my mom.”

Kleio’s expression turned strange.

It was such a dynamic relationship that he couldn’t even imagine the details of their mother-daughter dynamic.

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Chel read Fran’s letter and listened to Kleio’s explanation. Being quick-witted, she grasped the situation quickly.

“So to clear Viscount Kishion’s name, news of the outpost attack needs to spread throughout the capital? That way, his testimony will be proven not to be an excuse. Those Brünnen bastards picked the perfect time to attack the border.”

“Yeah, it’s a stroke of luck. Depending on how we break the news, the square in front of the station could be plastered with extras.”

“So, Clarion? Presentia? Lundane Standard?”

“Clarion isn’t a daily paper and has too few readers. Presentia doesn’t print unverified information. Lundane Standard is mainly read by middle-class office workers, so it’s perfect, but they might downplay it as just a minor border skirmish.”

“That leaves Swift Gazette and Evening Star.”

Chel named exactly the types of newspapers that weren’t available at school or delivered by Mrs. Canton in the morning.

They were gossip papers, filled with stories like the affair of an opera singer, a noble’s illegitimate child suing for inheritance rights, or rumors of the ghost of a businessman who committed suicide after his ship sank. They were the cheapest and most widely read.

“Yeah. That level of yellow journalism is just right. They run sensational headlines, big and vulgar.”

“Of the two, Swift Gazette is better. The owner lost his father in the war with Brünnen, so he’d want to blow this story up.”

“Perfect?”

“Perfect. He’s made so much money churning out tabloid stories that he even installed the latest automatic typesetting press in the basement.”

“That would drastically reduce the time needed to set type for printing.”

“Exactly.”

Sitting with her long skirt bunched up and her right ankle resting on her left knee, Chel’s eyes sparkled. She looked excited at the chance to get payback for the humiliation.

Kleio also started thinking.

As he’d already seen at Mr. Bartleby’s print shop, steam-cylinder presses were generally widespread, so as long as the print plates were ready, more than twenty thousand copies could be printed per hour.

‘Assuming they publish the tip right away, if it’s an extra edition, they could print it quickly and spread it throughout the capital.’