Valen, who had been sitting indifferently, straightened his posture.
A shallow breeze flowed around him.
Though he didn’t lift a single finger, the wind sorted the papers as if listening to his will.
Shrrrk, the documents stacked themselves neatly on one side of the desk.
Only after the wind died down did Valen skim through the separated papers, then ring the handbell.
His aide who had been waiting approached quietly.
“What is it, Your Highness?”
“The poorhouse in Gelloa Village in the East. There were no requests for aid long before the relocation due to the epidemic. Has it been confirmed what happened?”
The aide briefly scanned the documents Valen handed over, then nodded a beat later.
“Ah, it either merged with another poorhouse or shut down because it could no longer operate.”
“If it was a poorhouse operating in the East, it doesn’t seem like lack of aid would have been the issue.”
“Gelloa Village used to be close to an area where monsters appeared, did it not? It was not exactly an ideal environment to protect children.”
The aide tilted his head slightly, as if his memory were hazy.
It seemed difficult to recall, since it was news from long ago, and from a rural village that was no longer even mentioned.
“If we go by these records, I suppose it might have been like that… But for a merger or closure, it is unusually clean. If it is Gelloa Village, the number of orphans should not have been small.”
There were always children who became orphans after losing their parents to monster attacks.
In places like Gelloa Village, close to monster-infested areas, that number should have been overwhelmingly higher than elsewhere.
There weren’t many places capable of accommodating that many people.
At the same time, Valen recalled the sight of the village, filled entirely with ashes.
In the past, his thoughts would have felt hazy, but these days they lined up neatly, one after another.
Today, that effect was shining twice as brightly.
“…Listen. If it sounds like I am talking nonsense, hit me on the back of the head.”
“At that point, you might as well just throw me out. Charging me with treason is a bit much, is it not?”
“I will not make an issue of it separately. Do you really think I would want to receive the head of an old friend as a gift?”
Valen rubbed his furrowed brow with his thumb, and there wasn’t a trace of playfulness on his face.
“What about the possibility that the children were massacred long before the relocation due to the epidemic?”
When he had visited Gelloa Village, traces of long neglect had been visible everywhere.
Valen’s gaze, raised toward his aide for the first time, was grave.
“The nearby monsters had gone extinct long ago. If Gelloa Village had already been almost wiped out and the relocation due to the epidemic came afterward, that could explain the clean records and the absence of orphans. But…”
He recalled the weapon shop he had entered with Diana.
There had been weapons there that anyone could tell had been soaked in monster blood for a long time.
Though they had decayed to the point that their exact form couldn’t be identified, they were clearly traces of monster subjugation.
“Is there any reason to leave weapons stained with the blood of monsters that had already gone extinct by the time of relocation?”
It was a fact he hadn’t considered at the time.
He had simply dismissed it as nothing unusual, since monster subjugation was commonplace on the continent, and many talented people dreamed of becoming members of subjugation forces.
But when one considered the characteristics of Gelloa Village, there were parts that didn’t quite add up.
All too clearly.
“I need to send a letter to Liselotte. With these documents as well.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
His aide didn’t strike the back of Valen’s head, merely bowing quietly.
***
When Liselotte saw the documents that arrived from Valen, she blinked.
“Not bad, Brother.”
“Not bad, Brother.”
Kairi, who had been munching on snacks beside her and mumbling, repeated Liselotte’s words after her.
These days, he often recited her words exactly as she said them.
Watching the scene from the side, Eren corrected him indifferently.
“It’s not ‘brother’. It’s ‘Your Highness’ for you.”
Sadly, Kairi still didn’t react to Eren.
He merely glared at him sullenly, like someone who was angry.
The more he did so, the deeper Eren’s frown became.
“If you don’t use proper forms of address, you could face serious trouble later.”
“Grrr…”
What did that matter anyway, when he couldn’t even form proper sentences yet?
Liselotte hurriedly stepped in between them, holding up the documents in her hands.
“Your pace is too fast, Eren.”
“Fast!”
Eren, who had been staring bluntly at Kairi as the boy echoed Liselotte’s words in protest, let out a small sigh.
The way he lowered his head briefly brought to mind a night from long ago.
Liselotte deliberately acted as though she hadn’t noticed.
‘There was nothing after that.’
He was still overprotective, but at least he didn’t cross her boundaries or disrupt the existing rules anymore.
‘That’s a relief…’
Just as she was about to let out a sigh of relief inwardly.
Buuuu- buuuu-
The short, broken sound of a horn blared loudly through the Keilos manor.
It was so loud that her ears almost rang.
Unlike Liselotte, who startled in shock, Eren had already moved to stand behind her.
“Quiet. It means someone unauthorized has entered the estate.”
After briefly scanning the surroundings, he muttered shortly from behind her.
It was hard to hear, but it seemed he was placing a Word of Command around them.
Only then did he straighten up and walk toward the window.
Voices of unfamiliar people rang out from beyond the window.
“Monsters! Monsters have appeared!”
“Please save us!”
Moments later, Ferento burst in through the door along with the sound of hurried footsteps.
“My Lord! People are claiming that monsters appeared nearby and that they fled here, and they are demanding that the gate be opened.”
“Monsters?”
Around the Keilos estate, there was a village where artisans and the families of some employees lived.
It seemed likely that those living there had fled.
However, Ferento’s report didn’t quite match the situation.
Within the Keilos territory, there were permanent forces that monitored monster movements.
Liselotte recalled the time she had once invited young ladies over.
‘Back then, the guards definitely detected the monsters first…’
They would first loudly warn of the danger, and defensive magic tools would activate immediately after.
They were more sensitive to monsters than anyone else, so there was no way they would make such a mistake.
Especially since this was a period when security had been doubled by Eren’s orders.
Pointing out the window with her hand, Liselotte asked,
“It is too quiet, is it not?”
“Too quiet!”
Kairi echoed her.
As if her doubt were valid, Ferento scratched the back of his neck awkwardly.
“That is… our stationed forces have not detected any monsters.”
“Are you certain?”
At Eren’s question, asked as he immediately turned his gaze away from the window, Ferento answered briskly,
“Yes. But civilians we often see during subjugations were mixed in and came running together…”
“They are not all familiar faces, are they?”
“Not exactly… and there were one or two who looked small in stature as well.”
Ferento’s eyes rolled toward Liselotte.
Sensing the gaze, she pointed to herself with a finger and asked,
“Me? What is it?”
“Well, I am not very good at judging the build of people from other regions.”
He tilted his head repeatedly, as if he were being sincere.
“They looked roughly similar in build to Princess Liselotte… like they would topple over if touched. Their arms were about as thick as branches.”
Ferento lifted his own thick arm and insisted quite seriously.
‘Did he just treat me as physically helpless?’
Of course. If a knight and an ordinary person had the same build, that would be the real problem.
“I am not that small.”
“Most northerners do not look that different from civilians, compared to knights.”
“That is a lie. I can refute that perfectly. Marsha’s arms are about the same as yours, Sir Ferento.”
Of course, perhaps because her bones were sturdy, there was a sense of reliability to her, but outwardly it didn’t stand out much.
However, Liselotte’s rebuttal convinced no one.
“Check whether they are families who relocated along with the increase in foreign hires, assign a scouting unit, escort them to the village, and then survey the surrounding area.”
“Yes!”
Ferento’s expression brightened as he snapped a salute at Eren’s command.
***
The report brought back by the scouting unit wasn’t much different.
Hedmilton, who had come to deliver some documents, spoke blankly.
“It seems someone among the migrants mistook something for a monster and shouted. When a few people ran, everyone panicked and fled together.”
“So it was just a commotion.”
If they were from other regions, they might have been startled by unfamiliar northerners.
In fact, there were occasionally northerners so large that even Liselotte found herself startled.
Of course, there were still some strange points.
After taking a sip of strong tea, Liselotte frowned.
“When a monster appears, were people originally supposed to evacuate inside the walls of the Grand Duke’s estate?”
