—————————————————————–
Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
—————————————————————–
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
“You’re bringing this up now because I said you couldn’t suck my blood, aren’t you?”
“How could that be?”
Arwen replied with an absurd expression.
It was a rather rare experience to intuit a cat scoffing in disbelief, but…
“Elena didn’t mention that. Ah, she did say something similar. That it was about time for Her Majesty to pass away. She said at most a month or two.”
“Human memory is not that reliable.”
Arwen, who responded while licking her front paw, seemed to ponder something for a moment, and then shook her head.
“It’s not a month or two, there’s not even a month left. At least according to what I remember.”
“It suddenly feels like there’s a really tight time limit…”
“The shadow of death is growing deeper. Well, whether the human empress lives or dies, it doesn’t matter to me at all.”
Arwen muttered and raised her head to stare at me intently.
“But you’re different, aren’t you, Rudrick?”
“That’s because you’re a vampire, not a human, and if a civil war suddenly breaks out over the imperial throne, wouldn’t there be few people in this empire who would be happy about it?”
“That’s true, but that’s why I said you should talk to the princess. The last civil war lasted quite long, and I remember the empire was completely split in half.”
“…”
“It was a tragedy of blood being washed with blood. At least from what I recall, Rudrick, you probably… for about half a year?”
“What for half a year?”
“You were so angry that you didn’t even talk to the princess for that long.”
I was at a loss for words.
Since Elena had intentionally omitted and not told me anything about this, I didn’t know much about it.
However, given my personality, if Elena had tried to start a civil war over the imperial throne, I would have naturally tried to stop her.
Considering my personality, I would have naturally pursued a low-profile, ordinary life rather than taking this opportunity to make a big move.
The picture was coming together easily, but would Elena listen even if I tried to stop her?
I didn’t think so.
She looked like someone who definitely wouldn’t listen to others.
The saying that physiognomy was a science wasn’t there for nothing.
I didn’t know for sure, but it would be easier to stop a stubborn child than to dissuade Elena once she became fixated on something and lost her mind.
At least this time, I hadn’t experienced it yet.
“But how did it get resolved after half a year then?”
Rather, that was the surprising part.
Even if I had persistently tried to dissuade her, if she had still gone ahead with the civil war, and if many people had died to the extent that Arwen described it that way, there was no way it would have been resolved in just half a year.
Even if I had a personality that made it difficult for me to genuinely hate someone, if it was an incident of that scale, I would have been prepared to never see her again.
“Well… I didn’t see it directly, but I heard she clung to you and apologized profusely, saying she was wrong to the point of being despicable.”
“…Even if she won the civil war, she would be the empress. Even if she’s the empress of a nation, is that okay?”
“I don’t know the details since it was something between you and the princess.”
“Alright.”
That was it for now.
There was no point in chatting with Arwen here since we couldn’t reach a conclusion anyway, and this was an issue I had to discuss directly with Elena, the person involved.
If a civil war really broke out, naturally the disposition of Eileen, the only grand duchess in the empire, would be reflected, and Lassiel, who held the authority to command the entire navy, would naturally be involved as well.
Both of them were in too high of a position to quietly pass by without taking either side.
Even if I knew nothing about politics, I wasn’t foolish enough to not grasp that much of the situation.
“Do you have a method in mind?”
“No matter what, I have to talk to the person involved. I’ll just look for an opportunity in the next few days and have a talk with Elena.”
“Don’t forget.”
Arwen, who nodded as if she understood, then firmly placed her front paw on my chest.
Her amethyst eyes, which already gave off a mysteriously enigmatic feeling like an amethyst, now that she had transformed into a cat, matched the term “cat’s eyes” perfectly.
Along with the violet eyes staring at me intently like before, Arwen calmly added.
“No matter what choice you make, I’m on your side.”
“…Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
Hop.
Arwen, who leaped off my lap, quietly disappeared through the open door gap as if nothing had happened.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The successfully held birthday festival had come to an end.
Actually, since I was busy running around here and there during the festival except for the last day, I wasn’t sure, but the atmosphere in the palace that seemed to be floating somehow returned to normal.
That also meant my daily routine had returned to an ordinary life.
“Is this the feeling of a graduate student commuting to the lab?”
Actually, even if I said I was commuting to the lab, it was a distance that took less than five minutes to walk.
Moreover, since it was in the same detached palace, the movement path was very short.
If I wanted, I could spend my entire day without leaving the detached palace building.
But apart from that, I didn’t really feel like going to the lab after a few days to start endless magic research.
The research I was doing to try to fix my constitution by focusing on recovery magic had failed miserably.
Actually, it was a bit much to call it a failure, but after all the methods Sylphia had been researching privately failed, I felt discouraged, so to speak.
They say the important thing is an unbreakable spirit, but it seems I’ve put in quite a bit of effort, but since there were no visible tangible results, I couldn’t help but let out words like complaints.
“Your expression doesn’t look good from the morning, did something happen?”
“Ah, Sylphia.”
As soon as I opened the door to the lab and entered, Sylphia, who was sitting with her back against the chair, greeted me.
I momentarily flinched, but soon received the greeting as if nothing had happened.
Something else had happened in Sylphia’s lair besides just experimenting, but now, both of us had reached a tacit agreement to act as if nothing had happened.
I roughly scanned the lab where my mentor was still nowhere to be seen, sat at my seat, opened a magic book, and answered.
“I just don’t feel like doing it because it’s been a while.”
“Ah, I know how that feels. I understand.”
“…I have to do it even if I don’t want to. But where did Mentor go to play again?”
“No, he’s holed up in there today.”
Sylphia turned her head and gestured towards his lab.
“It seems he’s doing some important research.”
“I think the research is reaching its final stages.”
Sylphia shrugged her shoulders.
Certainly, when I focused my mana a little and examined it, I could feel the unusual flow of mana, as if the research my mentor had shown me last time was entering the finishing stages.
But if there was one thing that bothered me, it was that the feeling was not ordinary.
Should I say it was an ominous feeling that was felt through animal instinct?
There was no particular basis, but somehow my sixth sense was warning me of something ominous.
“It’s a chronic problem for mages. An occupational disease.”
“Pardon?”
“From the looks of it, it seems there’s not much left.”
Sylphia, who muttered, glanced at the lab and continued.
“I think that unlucky bat girl warned him once before. It might be proof that the mages’ desire for the unknown, their thirst for knowledge, has even surpassed their instincts.”
“…What do you mean?”
“It’s nothing much. Only the bat girl and I knew the full story. Around this time, Her Highness the Princess was too busy with other matters to pay attention.”
Sylphia, who ended her words in a strangely sarcastic tone, briefly added while turning her gaze back to the magic book.
“You’ll find out soon too. It’s not at a stage where words can get through anyway.”
“…?”
“Rather than me explaining it now… it’s faster to see it then.”
As soon as Sylphia’s incomprehensible words ended, a burst of laughter erupted from Mentor’s lab.
“Hahaha! Rudrick! Sylphia! Both of you, come here! Hurry!”
“Suddenly…?”
The timing was quite uncanny.
I looked at Sylphia with a puzzled face, but Sylphia just shrugged as if it was inevitable and didn’t give a satisfactory answer.
“We should go since he’s calling, right?”
“…Is there some problem with the research he’s doing?”
“You’ll find out when you go. From the beginning, it wasn’t at a stage where words could dissuade him, and it’s within the range I can handle. So you don’t need to worry.”
As soon as Sylphia got up, Mentor’s voice boomed again.
“Come quickly! Hurry! It’s the discovery of the century!”
I couldn’t shake off the strangely ominous feeling, but I had no choice but to go when he was calling like that.
With a face that seemed to ask if this was right, I had no choice but to get up as well.
…This time, I had a really bad feeling about it.
It was like an additional ability I had attained as my level of magic increased, but because of my body that was sensitive to mana, it was more accurate to say that my instincts were a bit more developed than others.
And now, my intuition was ringing an alarm bell.
A kind of warning that I wouldn’t see anything good if I went.
In the end, unable to completely erase my uneasiness, I took a step towards the lab.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Those last few paragraphs were stupidly redundant.
Also, Wasn’t the protagonist originally supposed to still be in his hometown during this time (before regression)? How can he be angry at the princess and break contact with her for 6 months if they never even met??