Chapter 19
“Such insolence. Show proper respect to Her Highness the Imperial Princess.”
At that moment, William blocked the old man’s hand with his scabbard. The old man suddenly burst into tears and threw himself flat onto the ground.
“Your Highness, please—please hear our unjust plight!”
“Please, hear us out!”
The refugees behind him followed suit, prostrating themselves toward Rafaella. Rafaella crouched down on the spot to look more closely at the old man’s face.
“Is your story interesting?”
“Y-Yes? Pardon?”
“Go on. Tell me. If it’s interesting, I’ll consider it.”
Looking at the tear-streaked old man who raised his head in confusion, Rafaella smiled with her characteristic mischievous expression.
“I’ll give you one minute. Summarize it well. Start.”
“Pardon? Ah—well, um—”
“Fifty-five seconds left.”
After opening and closing his mouth several times, the old man quickly stopped crying and began pouring out words in a torrent.
“We were tenant farmers on the outskirts of Sester. But Count Sester imposed excessive taxes, and in the end we lost everything and were driven out. Those of us who were expelled settled together in the nearby mountains and formed a refugee camp.”
“Thirty seconds.”
“Gah! A-And that wicked Count Sester declared that anyone who didn’t pay taxes couldn’t even set foot in his territory, and he blocked access to the city entirely. Then a fever swept through the village, and many died. I barely survived.”
“Ten seconds.”
“We have to enter the city to get medicine for our families, and we heard that a relief group sent from the Imperial Palace was passing by, so we came to beg for help!”
Rafaella crossed her arms and asked the old man with a suspicious look.
“Why didn’t you go to the capital?”
“For people like us, who live hand to mouth, it’s already a miracle that we scraped together money for medicine. How could we possibly afford the travel expenses to the capital?”
“Hm. Tenant farmers, you say.”
Rafaella narrowed her eyes even further as she examined the old man and the refugees behind him.
Their clothes looked so worn they might tear if a strong wind blew. Their hair was dry and matted, their fingernails caked with grime. To anyone, they looked like pitiful refugees.
But Rafaella’s sharp gaze did not miss the suspicious calluses on their hands. Moreover, despite their ragged appearance, there was no unpleasant body odor. Normally, there should have been a musty stench—but there was none at all.
Ordinary humans could not be this odorless. In Rafaella’s experience, people like this were usually…
“Hm.”
As Rafaella silently scanned them for quite some time, the uncomfortable knight commander looked toward William. William, however, kept his eyes fixed solely on Rafaella’s back, calmly waiting for her next words.
Having come up with an amusing plan, Rafaella stood up and spoke lightly.
“I’ve decided.”
“Y-You’ll help us?”
The old man looked up at Rafaella with eyes shining with hope. But Rafaella merely waved the club made from a spirit tree branch at him.
“Nope. Your story’s too clichéd. Not interesting. So move aside.”
The old man cried out in shock.
“Don’t you feel any pity? Even if we’re lowly, we’re still citizens of the Empire whom Your Highness should watch over!”
“If you want to keep begging, find another princess. I’m not interested.”
“H-How could you be so heartless…”
“I don’t care about your circumstances, so get lost. Don’t block the road. Can’t you see you’re making us late?”
The gazes of everyone present—including the old man and the refugees—turned cold at once. Disgust filled their eyes as they looked at Princess Rafaella.
Rafaella paid them no mind and shouted to the knight commander.
“What are you doing? Clear them out and let’s get moving.”
“…Yes.”
Even the knight commander hesitated for a moment before answering. Then William stepped forward in front of Rafaella and spoke.
“Your Highness, if you permit it, may I handle this matter?”
For a split second, Rafaella’s eyes sparkled like a fisherman who had hooked a big catch, but William didn’t notice. Rafaella crossed her arms and laughed mockingly.
“And how do you want to handle it, Duke?”
“According to Imperial law, refugees must have their identities verified, be assigned temporary housing and suitable work for a certain period, and receive tax reductions during a one-year settlement period.”
“Oh? So you want to handle it by the book.”
“Yes. They seem to be in urgent need, so we’ll have them move with us for now, then proceed with the legal formalities. We’ll also reexamine whether Count Sester truly imposed excessive taxes.”
“By the book, huh. Nice.”
Rafaella took a step closer to William and asked,
“But tell me, Duke.”
“Yes.”
“Did you consider the possibility that they might be criminals?”
At that, the refugee old man panicked and waved his hands frantically.
“C-Criminals? No! We were just poor—we’ve never committed any crimes!”
Rafaella snapped her head around, glared at the old man, and lowered her voice dangerously.
“We’re talking right now, old man. If you don’t know when to keep quiet, you’ll die early.”
The moment the old man met Rafaella’s eyes, brimming with killing intent, he felt the hair on his body stand on end. Trembling, he could only bow his head and avert his gaze.
Rafaella turned back to William and continued.
“If you take them along and something happens, will you take responsibility?”
“Why, as a member of the imperial family, do you not show a sense of responsibility and protect the citizens of the Empire?”
William felt offended by Rafaella’s cold, sharp words. Forgetting for a moment that others were watching, he spoke back.
If it had been another royal, thunderous wrath and punishment would have followed. But Rafaella instead seemed pleased by the criticism and replied playfully.
“Duke, why do you think they didn’t directly ask us for medicine, and instead insisted on being allowed into the city inside the lord’s domain? They must know that our relief group has plenty of medicine.”
“I assumed there were circumstances. As former tenant farmers, they may lack education and not know much. The shackles of ignorance and poverty bind far more citizens than one might think.”
“Sure. That may be so. But how far do you think the goodwill of nobles like you can really reach? Are you confident you can embrace even those who exploit that goodwill?”
“To help as many people as I can and to protect the Empire—that is my duty as a duke. Even if I fail ten times, if one success can save even a little, I will always do my utmost.”
Step by step, Rafaella walked until she stopped directly in front of William.
A strange tension hung in the air between their gazes as they faced each other.
Rafaella found William’s unusually long rebuttal amusing and wanted to tease him more, but there were too many onlookers. For the sake of greater fun later, this was enough.
“Fine. Since you’re so devoted to your duty, I’ll leave this matter to you.”
“Thank you.”
“But there’s a condition.”
“?”
William raised an eyebrow slightly, wondering what she would say next. Rafaella’s lips curled even more crookedly than before, her expression playful yet oddly menacing.
“If they cause trouble, you take responsibility.”
“What kind of responsibility do you mean?”
“A kind of voucher. One that lets me summon you whenever I need you. How about it?”
“That phrasing is misleading. As a subject of the Empire, it is my duty to answer a royal’s call at any time—”
“Enough. Three times. Deal?”
Rafaella cut off William’s stiff words and held up three fingers.
William fell into thought for a moment, then spoke with a firm expression.
“Very well.”
From William’s perspective, since he would have to respond whenever royalty summoned him anyway, it wasn’t much of a loss.
Rafaella’s lips curled into a grin at the satisfaction of having landed a big catch.
Then the old man interrupted once more.
“T-There’s a peculiar fever that only spreads in this southern region, so medicine from the capital doesn’t work well. That’s why we wanted to go to the lord’s castle—”
“Hah! Hey, old man.”
Rafaella glared at him with an even more murderous look than before. She had already warned him and given him a chance, yet he still didn’t know his place. It irritated her deeply.
“You. You’re really going to die early.”
Rafaella swallowed the unspoken thought—How can someone be this clueless?
Foolish humans often failed to notice opportunities, even when a god went out of their way to give them one.
Rafaella considered the matter out of her hands now. In any case, she had gained a pretext to make use of a somewhat useful, if frustrating, duke.
She lightly issued orders while looking between the duke and the knight commander.
“Wrap it up and get moving.”
“Yes. Understood.”
A day later.
The relief expedition arrived at a village one day’s distance from the lord’s castle. Since they would enter Castle Sester the next day, everyone busied themselves checking equipment, supplies, and the relief schedule.
At dinner, Rafaella sensed the chill in the way people looked at her. Their eyes judged her as a heartless royal.
Of course, it didn’t affect Rafaella in the slightest. She couldn’t care less.
Then, deep in the night, when everyone was asleep,
Rafaella quietly woke Ferry and stood by the window of the lodgings.
“Ferry, are you ready?”
