Chapter 499

“Why are you? No. Why are you here?”

I wasn’t sure what had been wrong with the way Elias had said it before, but apparently he’d noticed something off about it himself and corrected it. His tone was exactly the same, so I still couldn’t tell what had changed. Either way, we were already inside a soundproofing spell.

Elias pointed at himself and flashed a bright smile.

“Don’t tell me you came to see us?”

“As if.”

“You ruined the touching moment.”

Elias replied with a sulky pout, and Leo laughed softly.

“Were you touched?”

Elias exaggeratedly pulled down the corners of his mouth and merely shrugged. Leo opened his pocket watch and answered simply.

“It wasn’t just me. His Majesty came through the portal as well. We’re going to the Papal See at midnight.”

“Really? Then what exactly did you come here for?”

“Atropos. I can’t say much more than that.”

“Ah~ Atropos. Then we should’ve waited one more day instead of leaving first!”

“Yeah. I didn’t expect this either. I only got word four hours ago telling me to come.”

Four hours ago? Around then, it would’ve been shortly after I broke the Pythia of Delphi. Could it be that if I hadn’t destroyed it, the Papal See wouldn’t have urgently summoned the Bavarian Royal Family? No. What did Atropos have to do with the Pythia of Delphi anyway? I was reading too much into it.

Even so, my vision suddenly seemed to darken, and I rubbed my lips for no reason. Leo looked at me.

“Are you all right?”

“Yeah, of course.”

I nodded with a perfectly composed expression, as if nothing had happened.

“You didn’t look all right.”

“What do you mean?”

Leo’s lips tightened into a smile that said he’d be keeping an eye on me. Then he looked at Narke and Elias.

“What about you two?”

“Of course we’re fine. Though we almost burned to death.”

Elias said it as casually as if he were talking about nothing much. There was soot on his face, which I’d asked him about earlier, and he’d told me that the fire had broken out just as I’d written in my notebook near the Zugspitze.

Leo looked shocked.

“There was a fire? Are you sure you’re both all right?”

“We’re fine. Otherwise, we wouldn’t be standing here. If we weren’t, I’d have climbed onto your back the moment you arrived and asked you to take me home.”

“…….”

Apparently completely reassured, Leo looked at Elias with an expression that seemed to say he’d rather not hear any more.

“Tell me about it later, then. You look tired. Did you drink the potion I gave you?”

“I drank some.”

I shook out my clutch as I answered. Seeing that the bag was completely empty, Leo stepped outside the soundproofing spell and asked one of his aides for a potion. Must be nice, never having to worry about running out of medicine for the rest of your life.

I thanked him and downed the whole thing in one go. Leo suddenly held out his hand, and while I was briefly wondering what he wanted me to do, he took the empty bottle from me. Elias pressed him again.

“So what exactly is the reason you’re here if you can’t tell us the details?”

“If I can’t tell you the details, why would you ask again about the part I left out?”

Watching Leo’s reactions, I could understand why Elias kept messing with him. Elias grinned and pulled a face at Leo.

“You’re really going to be like that with us too? After putting up a soundproofing spell and everything!”

“It’s work.”

At Leo’s cool, matter-of-fact reply, which showed no sign of taking offense, Elias’s eyes went wide.

“Heheheh.”

Elias covered his forehead and burst into some inexplicable laughter. Only then did Leo glance up at the sky with a slightly troubled look. He slipped his watch into his vest pocket and said, “Book a hotel somewhere that can provide the coordinate system, under an alias. I’ll go there too under the name of the Bavarian Embassy.”

“So I guess you’re going to explain everything there?”

“Yeah. Even so, it probably won’t be anything that impressive.”

“Hey, sure. It doesn’t have to be anything impressive for us to have some fun.”

At the mention of having fun, Leo gave him a hollow smile, as if he already had a headache. Considering the formal attire Leo was wearing, Elias’s comment sounded especially ridiculous. After chuckling to himself as he went over Leo’s words again, Elias’s expression suddenly hardened.

“Ah, wait. The embassy!”

“What?”

“Smuggling into the country through the embassy! No, damn it. Why go through all that trouble?!”

Apparently, he had finally realized that all those smuggling routes were a pain. I was secretly relieved. Otherwise, I might genuinely have ended up racing Elias through Reichenau’s underground passage.

“You can’t do that. I told you, we can’t get caught. We can’t trust anyone who isn’t one of my close aides.”

Leo gave him a stern warning before turning around and disappearing. Elias grumbled about why Leo was telling him to book a hotel under the embassy’s name if he was so concerned about getting caught.

Booking a room under the name of the embassy, rather than the ambassador personally, for someone affiliated with Bavaria to use wasn’t illegal and was perfectly possible. Smuggling into the country with the embassy’s help, however, was illegal, even if it was possible. Elias knew that much perfectly well. He was just looking for something to argue about.

One of Leo’s aides approached the sulking Elias and the rest of us, who were merely standing around and watching him carefully, and asked whether we had a communication artifact. Elias handed him the artifact he had been using.

While Leo was inside the conference hall, they would keep the artifact outside. Once he came out, they would put Elias’s artifact back on his ear. We could contact them from then on.

Aqua Panna is produced in Florence, which is the capital of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany. Unlike the history I knew, the Grand Duchy of Tuscany had been annexed by the Papal States. The Papal States had received requests from Austria-Hungary and Germany for investigative cooperation and support with divine power, so they had no choice but to respond to the Atropos incident. As always, if the Papal See were to join hands with Germany, Bavaria would undoubtedly be its first choice. There was no chance the Papal See would side with Prussia, a Protestant state that had brutally persecuted Catholics. They might try to strengthen Catholic influence in Prussia through aid, but Bavaria was still the most reliable choice as an ally, being a country with both strong military and economic power. That was probably why Leo had come…

“Hmm. Somehow…”

I muttered, feeling strangely uneasy. Looking at Leo somehow made me feel completely at ease and uncomfortable at the same time… Why was that?

It wasn’t as if we had come here for fun either. In fact, we’d run into one obstacle after another, far more than Leo, who had only just arrived. And yet, now that things had turned out like this, it somehow felt as though they were the ones who had actually come here for work.

Elias must have felt the same way after going through all that trouble only to end up looking like he’d gone through a dozen disasters. He started blaming our appearance instead.

“Do we look a bit like beggars?”

“Pretty much.”

“Hmm…”

Elias seriously considered it. Then he lifted his jacket, sniffed it, and grumbled.

“Can we really go to a hotel where royalty would stay looking like this? My shirt, vest, and pants are all wrinkled.”

“Exactly.”

“Not ‘exactly.’ We have two options. We rob the house of someone who looks bourgeois.”

“…….”

I didn’t need to hear the other option to know I wasn’t going to like it. I squeezed my eyes shut, then opened them wide again, pointlessly checking whether I was still in reality. Then I asked Narke, “Narke. I don’t expect there to be a clothing store open at this hour. But do you know anyone whose house we could go to? Could we borrow some clothes?”

“Hmm, sorry. I want to get out of here as quietly as possible.”

“But if Eli’s going to rob someone’s house, do you really think we’ll be able to leave quietly?”

“Haha.”

Narke only gave me an ambiguous smile. I rubbed the back of my neck and turned halfway around, only for Elias to grab me seriously.

“I’m not finished. There’s a second option. Call the aides.”

“Oh, right. They must have spare clothes.”

My face brightened, and Elias smiled as he nodded. He pulled the communication artifact from my ear, found his own line, and tapped it a couple of times. An alert would reach the artifact wherever it was—whether in one of the aides’ hands or tucked into a pocket. Elias started hammering the artifact like a madman. At this point, I figured they’d check it purely out of annoyance.

Sure enough, it wasn’t long before we heard back from their side. Elias spoke hurriedly.

“Sir, please come back to the plaza we were at earlier.”

“What are you doing? Ask them if they have any spare clothes first.”

Despite what I said, Elias shook his head and stubbornly continued.

“You know the coordinates here, right? You got them earlier. Ah, yes. Yes. One more person? Perfect! We’ll wait here. Thank you.”

Elias ended the call with a smug grin. Not long after he handed the artifact back to me, three aides appeared. One of them was someone I hadn’t seen earlier. Elias immediately spoke as though he were giving a speech.

“Yes, thank you for coming. I have something to ask.”

“What is it?”

“We need some clean clothes. Could we borrow some?”

The aide looked slightly taken aback, apparently not expecting that question. But he quickly answered politely.

“We were scheduled to return today, so the only spare clothes we have are those belonging to His Majesty the King and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. I am afraid we cannot lend out either of their clothes.”

Good grief. I had assumed that even as aides, they would have spare shirts—since shirts in this era were essentially the equivalent of undershirts—but apparently they weren’t quite as meticulously prepared as I’d expected. I always carried an extra black robe for Nikolaus, just in case it got contaminated with vitriol.

Elias, as though he’d expected this, merely gave a small nod without looking the least bit surprised. Though perhaps, in his eyes, I was the one who went overboard preparing for every possible situation.

“Ah, if you traveled here by portal, I suppose that makes sense. All right, then. What do you think about swapping clothes with us?”

I stared at Elias, completely dumbfounded. What the hell is he talking about? Sure enough, everyone else had their eyes widened just as much as I did. Since there was no need for me to be any more shocked than the rest of them, I quietly relaxed my expression. An older aide who had known Elias for a long time shook his head.

“I do not think that would be appropriate.”

“No, hear me out. You and I can swap clothes. The jackets are too conspicuous, so I’ll leave those alone. I’m asking because there’s no way I can do anything about His Royal Highness’s royal command looking like this. His Royal Highness just told us we need clean, dignified clothes, so that’s what we need. If you don’t believe me, you can go ask him—… His Royal Highness yourself. And as it happens, your clothes are really quite dignified.”

“That is because our attire also reflects the dignity of Bavaria. I am afraid we will have to refuse this request.”

“Why? Then you can borrow clothes from the hotel. You came here through a portal legally, so you can go to a hotel without worrying about anything, can’t you?”

Shocked by that, I hurriedly explained.

“…There’s been a misunderstanding. We came here legally as well. It’s just that, looking like this, if we went to a hotel where it would make sense for us to stay under the name of the Bavarian Kingdom’s embassy, the staff would obviously find it suspicious. That’s all.”

I wasn’t sure you could really call sneaking into northern Italy and getting through the border with a trail of lies a legal entry, but technically, we had walked through a checkpoint. Elias narrowed his eyes, scowling as he waved a hand.

“Exactly! What if they kick us out before we even make it into the lobby because we look like this?”

“Your Highness!”

The older aide, who had known Elias for years, scolded him for his tone. Another aide cautiously spoke up.

“They will probably find you conspicuous, but they won’t throw you out as long as you pay, will they?”

“That’s true, but you know perfectly well we can’t afford to attract attention. How about you lend us your clothes and we get them cleaned at the hotel? Hotels have irons, don’t they?”

I knew Elias was shameless enough to say things like this, but I still couldn’t get used to it. I couldn’t bear to look the aides in the eye, so I turned away and tried to stop him.

“No, just go. What are you even talking about? Pull the brooch and wrap yourself in the robe.”

“The robe’s all wrinkled too!”

“Just soak it in water and shake it out before you put it on!”

Even then, Elias continued bargaining like he was haggling over a price at the market.

“What are you talking about? Come on, help me out. Just the shirt! Ah, no, the pants too. I’ll just borrow these two. The vest doesn’t count once I button it up—you won’t really see it anyway, right? A few wrinkles won’t matter, will they? I’ll just wear them as is. We only need to borrow two things. How about it? If you do this for us, I’ll repay the favor by next month.”

I couldn’t believe he was saying he’d repay the favor by next month instead of for the rest of his life, but at least he seemed determined to make a somewhat realistic offer.

In the end, we borrowed clothes that were relatively well pressed. I was already mortified enough, but Elias didn’t feel embarrassed at all, since he apparently considered them familiar adults. On top of that, I had this separate, inexplicable feeling of discomfort, so I frantically sprayed the German perfume Narke had brought over my vest and jacket. We were going to have the borrowed clothes cleaned before returning them anyway, but I didn’t spray them because I was worried it might damage the fabric.

Narke leaned closer and sniffed.

“It smells like water~ I was thinking of trying something else soon. Do you want this perfume?”

“Does it smell fishy?”

“No… I mean it smells fresh. You’ve gotten really sensitive.”

“Hmm.”

I gave him a vague answer before asking, “It’s not that bad. What scent are you thinking of using next?”

“Not sure. Musk?”

“Summer’s coming.”

“Ah, maybe that’s not the best choice. This is the first year I’ve actually picked out my own perfumes.”

After buying the perfume, Narke mostly used it to scent his letters rather than wearing it himself. It was almost as though his goal had been to experience the same things his friends had. I still couldn’t figure out why he wanted to buy more.

And so, following Narke’s choice, we moved to the island of Sicily. Unlike Venice, where security had been somewhat lax, Sicily was more strict, so once again, we had to sneak our way there with Narke’s help. As we made our way through the alleyways, Elias spoke.

“One of us checks in. I should wait a bit before following. I’ll look around for some cats first and come in later.”

“Cats…”

I said it with a hollow laugh, and Elias asked, “Or do you want me to do it?”

“No. Go look for cats. Call me if you find one. I want to see it too.”

“Okay!”

Elias grinned and trotted off with a light step.

We turned down an alley and arrived at the San Domenico Hotel in Taormina, a port city on the island of Sicily. Since the hotel was frequented by plenty of nobles and royals regardless of nationality, it would be a good place to get in under the name of the Bavarian Kingdom’s embassy.

When Elias saw the sea stretching out before us, shimmering beneath the pale moonlight, he broke into a huge grin. I left him and Narke outside and went into the lobby alone.

Fortunately, there were still rooms available. I took the key to a room overlooking the sea and went upstairs. The room wasn’t much different from one you might find in a noble’s mansion, and with two terraces, it was a comfortable place to look out at the scenery. The chrome-colored terrace railings glimmered.

I enjoyed the quiet of the room alone for a while before calling Elias and Narke up about twenty minutes later. When the two of them arrived shortly after, I asked how things had gone.

“Did you find any cats?”

“No. But I found fish!”

“Well, of course you did. They’re probably everywhere out there.”

I pointed at the dark sea beyond the terrace and said it incredulously. Even though Elias had already seen it outside, perhaps the view looked different from indoors, because the moment he saw the sea, he laughed and ran over, reaching his hand beyond the terrace. Then his expression suddenly hardened.

“They actually put some thought into security here. There’s a bidirectional barrier installed on the terrace.”

“That’s a good thing, isn’t it? Were you planning to go out through the terrace?”

“Yeah.”

“Why would you…”

I poured Elias another glass of wine. He gulped down the wine made from Etna Carricante¹ like it was beer, then gave it a surprisingly favorable review.

“Not bad.”

Elias rested an arm over the back of the couch and leaned back at an angle as he looked outside.

“When’s Leo coming~?”

“Around four in the morning.”

Narke answered for me. At the vague answer, Elias’s mouth fell open. Then he staggered to his feet and threw himself onto the bed without even washing up, rolling around on it.

“After paying that much, we have to go home without even spending a night here. I don’t even get to see how well I sleep or figure out how good the bed and pillows are.”

“Go to sleep now. I’ll wake you up in four hours.”

“No! But then, when we go back, can we use Leo’s portal too? By disguising ourselves as servants?”

My head was spinning from how quickly he kept jumping from one topic to another. I raised my eyebrows, trying to get my thoughts back in order. Narke calmly answered in my place.

“I think that’s why he asked them to open the portal in Rome instead of at the Papal See.”

“Ahh~”

Elias clapped his hands, looking relieved. Silence settled over us for a moment. I got up to listen to some music on the SP². I should have enjoyed the quiet while it lasted, but Elias suddenly got up again, raised his voice, and put on his shoes.

“We can’t just lie around like this until we leave. There’s no way we’re spending such a boring early morning.”

I asked cautiously, already feeling uneasy.

“Then what would make it fun?”

“Hmm. I heard they hold weddings at hotels like this pretty often.”

“Old Humans? They do.”

“I went to an Old Human wedding once, you know? It was basically a party. I’m going downstairs to get something!”

“What are you going to ask them for?”

I looked at Narke, hoping he would stop him, but he only smiled as he wet his lips with wine.

Thirty minutes later, Elias returned to the room himself, pulling a cart behind him. My jaw dropped so wide I thought it would dislocate. Narke simply stared at it in fascination.

Elias had brought back every single flower from the wedding venue. Surely not. I deliberately didn’t ask because I didn’t want to know, so the idea that he had actually taken them from the wedding venue was only a guess. Maybe he had bullied them and looted their stock again, like earlier. Did hotels even keep flowers in stock? I had no idea. My head was starting to hurt. I looked at the cart overflowing with bright flowers and whispered as my stomach began to churn.

“The smell is way too strong. I feel like I’m going to suffocate and die…”

“I’ve never heard of a human suffocating from the smell of flowers.”

“Then you’re going to see it today.”

“Aww!”

Elias snickered as he lined the flowers up across the floor and furniture. I had no idea why he was arranging them like that after going through all the trouble of bringing them here. Was he trying to make a line out of flowers or something?

I’d gone out onto the terrace to save my nose, but eventually I couldn’t stand watching him anymore. I gathered the flowers back up, loosely tied them together, and arranged them in vases. Since Elias didn’t try to stop me, I put what little aesthetic sense I had to use and grouped the flowers by colors that went well together.

The perfume and flower scents mixed together and filled the room, making my nose sting even more. My vision was starting to blur, so I gave up on whatever the room’s interior aesthetics might become and sighed.

“I need to use the hot spring…”

“Huh? Me too!”

Perhaps the flowers he’d brought had already slipped completely from his mind again, because Elias sprang to his feet the moment he heard about the hot spring. Narke’s eyes lit up as well, but I grabbed Elias by both arms and stopped him.

“Don’t come in!”

“Why?!”

“Because you’ll swim in there.”

“That’s a fair point.”

I didn’t have the energy to argue with them, so I ignored the two of them and went to the hot spring alone.

I sank into the warm water and relaxed. After a day like a storm, it was nice to finally have some time to listen to my friends spout nonsense—though, to be fair, I’d heard plenty of nonsense back on the utterly chaotic Reichenau Island too, but anyway.

I’d expected Elias to follow me soon, but he didn’t. Thanks to that, I could feel the irritation in my eardrums and nasal passages finally easing, and I spent some time diving alone in the spacious hot spring bath. If Elias saw me doing this, he’d probably ask why I was complaining about him swimming when I was diving myself, but as far as I was concerned, the two were a little different. It wasn’t that he wasn’t allowed to swim, but judging from what had happened before and everything I’d experienced with him, Elias seemed like the type to take the opportunity to test every swimming stroke he knew the moment he was given a pool of clean water. I just wanted to rest in peace for a while.

I don’t know how much time passed like that. Just when I’d gotten bored enough to think I wouldn’t mind Elias showing up and doing the butterfly stroke, my core suddenly tingled. I jolted and hurried out of the bath.

When I came out, Leo still hadn’t arrived. He must have sent a signal to let us know that he’d be leaving soon. I sent a pulse back through his core, then got back into the hot water and soaked myself again.

About ten minutes later, I figured it was probably time to head out, so I put on the shirt and trousers I’d originally been wearing and left. The advisor’s clothes had conveniently been sent out for cleaning, so I could return them when we went back home.

With that carefree thought in mind, I slowly made my way back to our room. The moment I opened the door, I heard a piano piece that was currently popular—and saw flowers.

“What are you doing?”

I stared at the flower heads spread across the floor like a carpet and asked. For some reason, all the stems had been cut off and gathered in a vase in the middle of the table. No, more importantly, I’d definitely left the flowers scattered sparsely across the floor earlier, but now they seemed to have been deliberately piled up near the entrance. There were even bunches of the flowers I’d painstakingly arranged scattered across the furniture.

I’d have to use divine power to sweep up every last bit of pollen before we left. There was no way I could leave the room like this. I took out my wand and tried to clean the room, but Elias shouted and stopped me. I had no choice but to carefully avoid the flowers and jump my way inside.

“Seriously, what are you doing, turning a room we borrowed into a mess?”

“A mess?! I worked hard decorating it!”

“Yeah, my bad… Where’s Leo?”

“He’s not here. Why? Is he coming now?”

“Yeah.”

“Ah, no wonder he was contacting Narke earlier. He shouldn’t come yet, though?!”

Why shouldn’t he? If he hadn’t arrived yet, I should’ve taken my time looking at the frescoes beyond the corridor on my way back from the hot spring. I dried my hair with a towel, thinking that.

Elias busily opened a matchbox and struck a match. He quickly lit the candles on the table. Just then, it seemed there was a little commotion outside. But the moment I saw a flame other than the fireplace being lit, my eyes went wide and I sprang to my feet, hurrying over to him. Before I could even worry about him burning the whole room down, Elias floated the candle into the air and snatched up the bouquet on the sofa and the bundle of stems gathered on the table.

Just then, there was a knock at the door.

Elias leaned forward and opened it, then quickly stepped back. Leo, who had been looking down as he removed the artifact from his ear, raised his head with a frown. Elias thrust the bouquet and bundle of stems toward him.

“Ta-da~ Wooooow~!”

Elias turned to look at us, prompting us to join in. Narke immediately started clapping, but I still had no idea what Elias was trying to do, so I did nothing.

“…Ta-da? What? What is this?”

Leo looked around the room in confusion. I hadn’t been inside Elias’s head either, so I had no idea what to tell him. Narke, who at least understood what Elias was trying to do, simply watched with a smile no matter what Elias did.

Elias waved the bouquet up and down, perhaps because his arm was getting tired, but Leo didn’t even seem to consider taking it. He stood there stiff as a statue, staring us down before cautiously asking, “Does this mean I shouldn’t come in?”

Translator Note

1. Carricante is an ancient, indigenous white grape variety from Sicily that serves as the star of Etna Bianco DOC wines on the slopes of Mount Etna. ↩︎
2. SP (Standard Play) refers to 78 RPM records, an early format of recorded music played on a gramophone. ↩︎