04. The lips of his beloved woman

Adam wanted to behead the last legitimate heir of the Sanders Grand Duchy who could become a seed of rebellion right then and there. But since he needed to continue evaluating Greg’s loyalty, he decided to settle for this much satisfaction.

“Hahaha!! That’s right, yes! Of course! Treason? What treason against the great Pergos Empire that unified the continent!!”

Caleb forced the corners of his mouth up in a bitter smile. As he had once told Rudbeckia, he needed to survive to have a next step. For the future, he needed to humor them now.

“Please remove the word treason. That was absolutely not my intention. I just wanted the name my parents gave me……”

“Yes, I know, I know. When I call my dog Lucky instead of Max, for a while he doesn’t answer because he doesn’t recognize it as his name and feels awkward. It’s awkward. I know it’s awkward. If even a dog feels that way, how much more for a person? I’ll understand with my generous heart that you felt awkward.”

“……”

His face flushed red and blue with heat. He never expected his words, spoken to reassure them he wasn’t plotting rebellion, would be thrown back at him this way. He was a fool to expect common sense and courtesy.

Nevertheless, he didn’t remove his smile, which was indistinguishable between a sneer and a genuine smile. Whose son was he after all? He had to put on a perfect performance. With the corners of his mouth raised high, he looked at Adam with contemptuous eyes while bowing his head.

The words of gratitude couldn’t quite make it all the way up his throat.

The nobles began to applaud, praising Adam for having a heart as vast as the lands he ruled.

Adam made a gesture toward the imperial guards with a benevolent expression, and clack! All the swords were sheathed simultaneously.

— Thud

With the earth-shaking sound of a staff, the map was gradually filled as Adam spoke.

“I hereby announce that a lance tournament will soon be held to commemorate the continental unification! The territories must prepare for winter now, mustn’t they? For the winner, not only prize money! But also winter relief supplies in any amount desired for the territory he belongs to as a bonus! I expect many young men to participate!!”

With those words, Adam left his seat.

Baningo signaled the musicians to play, and they made a loud sound before beginning their performance.

With the exquisite melody that flowed out right on cue, the atmosphere in the banquet hall instantly ignited with anticipation for the lance tournament victory and its rewards.

People poured onto the central dance floor covered with clean, ornate patterned carpets. Caleb was bumped this way and that by people. Where should he go? Everything felt unfamiliar and gloomy.

“My, Marquis Finis, would you care to dance with me?”

Just then, a sweet voice reached Caleb’s ears. Elfleda was right when she said banquets were marriage markets.

“I’m sorry. Right now I……”

Caleb turned around to decline the dance invitation.

But his eyes caught sight of dazzling golden blonde hair. Caleb knew that blonde hair well.

“Rud?”

“Yes, it’s me. Where’s Elfleda? I haven’t seen her for a while.”

She pressed her body close to him as she asked, concerned her voice might not carry over the noise from the musicians and nobles.

“When my name was about to be called, she said she’d go out to the terrace, not wanting to see an unpleasant sight. It was foresight.”

“How excellent of her.”

“And you? Where did you leave Zeno to come alone?”

Rudbeckia turned her head to look toward the terrace. Caleb also shifted his gaze and saw Zeno heading toward the terrace. Even from behind, he could see Zeno was trying to suppress his anger.

“After Father died, I should have taken command. I ran away and stood by. I can’t face my ancestors. I ruined everything. It’s as good as if I destroyed it myself.”

Caleb recalled his childhood when he had hidden his abilities, disliking the idea that brotherhood could be damaged by succession rights. From his parents’ deaths to being handed the command staff as if it were natural, and then losing the branch generals one by one until defeat….

“Brotherhood my as$. It makes my teeth chatter to think of being brothers with such a traitor. Damn it. If I had led! There would have been no such humiliation, no deaths!”

“Ah, ow ow ow……”

He had put so much force into his hand out of anger that Rudbeckia’s upper body crumpled. Caleb was so startled that he immediately released her hand.

She shook her hand in the air a few times, then pushed out her lips with a pitiful expression.

“I thought it would break……”

For a moment, Caleb found that expression incredibly cute. To feel cuteness after anger… his emotions fluctuated like a child’s in front of her. So unpredictably that even he couldn’t anticipate where they would go next.

He gently took Rudbeckia’s hand and brought it to his lips, blowing on it softly.

“……I’m sorry.”

“Even if you had taken command, the result would have been the same. Greg was in collusion with the Pergos army.”

“Collusion?”

She spoke again as she let her body follow the melody with him.

When she had gone near the platform to reach Caleb, she had slowed her steps upon seeing Baningo approaching Greg.

And she had clearly heard it.

The secret words directed at Greg.

“While colluding with us, why couldn’t you deal with your brother, the only remaining Sanders?”

Caleb couldn’t gather his thoughts amidst the bombardment of successive shocking revelations.

“No, you must have misheard…… Collusion? D-deal with?”

“No. I heard correctly. And if it wasn’t collusion, Sanders wouldn’t have lost so easily. And didn’t you see Greg’s expression? He had exactly the same face as my birth father.”

Rudbeckia found all this pathetic and ridiculous. Humans blinded by power, abandoning their blood ties and country.

Caleb turned his head to look at Greg.

Had his brother ever smiled so brightly in his entire life?

It was visibly clear that he genuinely liked it. He was truly happy.

Ha… what was power worth anyway?

Caleb laughed with a giggle like someone who had lost his mind.

“Have you made up your mind now?”

At Rudbeckia’s question, Caleb looked at Duke Rufus dressed in a gray suit as a newly ennobled aristocrat, no, the gray-skinned rat traitor Greg.

Greg was enjoying the situation by raising his shoulders high and lifting his nose as if he had become a member of the imperial family while standing next to Baningo Perron.

“Congratulations, Duke ‘Rufus’!”

“Congratulations! My goodness! Your uniform matches your eyes so well.”

“I think your beauty exceeds even mine as a woman, Duke Rufus. Hohoho……”

He seemed to be contemplating whose hand to take as he looked down at the nobles who admired his tall stature.

Which family should he use as his limbs to make his position as duke even more solid?

He must be agonizing over it to the point of his head bursting.

Women who could satisfy both physical pleasure and financial greed wouldn’t be common.

Caleb took his eyes off Greg and met the eyes of the woman in front of him.

“Yes. Sanders never lets a traitor live.”

Their only blood tie had been severed first by Greg, his brother. He had wielded his sword not for the mission that Sanders protected but for his own benefit. Greg had abandoned the name, the mission, and his brother all by himself.

— Smirk

At his resolute answer, Rudbeckia slightly raised one corner of her mouth and smiled coldly. Her eyes, which had been darker than obsidian, began to gleam with a moonlight-like radiance.

“I need to meet my broth… no, Duke Rufus for a moment.”

“Why?”

Rudbeckia asked with wide, bright eyes.

“Because of that ‘why.’ Why he abandoned the country, why he chose to change his name.”

“Obviously for power… My birth father also sold the country for the position of duke and a good marriage prospect, those two things.”

Rudbeckia continued speaking in a cynical voice, as if it was such an old story that she no longer felt angry about it.

“Well, no matter how much I say this… it’s hard to believe without hearing it directly. Cal, I’ll wait outside. Go talk to him and come back.”

After the frenzy surrounding the position of Duke Rufus’s duchess subsided, and only Greg Rufus’s companion remained by his side, Caleb approached him.