Editing Rakuin no Monshou:Volume10 Chapter2 (section)

=== Part 4 ===

Raymond passed through the gates of Birac.

He had taken short breaks several times along the way to allow his horse to rest, still he had galloped almost all night. It was now early dawn of the fourth day since he had left Nedain.

Young though he was, he could not hide his exhaustion. But when he thought of his sister and companions whom he had left in Nedain, he felt that he could not possibly lie down to sleep.

Early in the morning, he proceeded towards Lord Aulin’s residence and informed the soldiers on guard at the gate of his identity. He was wondering how long he would be asked to wait but –

“I’ll see him at once,” the crown prince replied with an immediate meeting.

Two hours after arriving in Birac, Raymond was sitting directly across a table from Crown Prince Gil Mephius. Although the night had barely just given way to dawn, there was no trace of fatigue or sleepiness on the prince’s face.

''This person...''

He had known it of course, but he realised it anew seeing him directly –

''… is young.''

There was something frankly unbelievable in the fact that this crown prince, who at a glance looked like a young boy, had accomplished so many feats of arms in so little time.

However, sitting directly opposite him and facing him head on, it was also a fact that the other had a deeply impressive presence.

Immediately after they had exchanged greetings,

“So, you who is employed by the lord of Nedain, what business do you have with me, whose head is currently wanted throughout Mephius?” Gil Mephius asked. He drew his hand across his throat like a sword. “Spurred on by righteous indignation, have you come to ‘collect’ me all by yourself?”

“T-That is absurd...”

“Then speak.”

Having been caught up in the prince’s pace right from the start, Raymond talked about the current situation in Nedain and about Lord Jairus Abigoal’s evil deeds. Gil did not interrupt to say a single word. Finally, when they arrived at the main issue –

“I have brought you some food,” a voice came from the other side of the door.

“Come back later,” Gil started to say but then, for some reason, faltered partway. With a scowl, he altered his tone and his words –

“Please come in.”

The door opened and the figure of a girl with platinum hair appeared.

''Ah'' – Raymond exclaimed unthinkingly. He then stood straight, in an attitude even more at respectful attention than he had when Gil Mephius had entered the room.

With Teresia, her head lady’s maid, behind her, Princess Vileena set the food from a tray onto the table. Watching the warm steam rising from it, Prince Gil asked with a sullen expression –

“Princess, why are you here?”

“I heard that even though you had not yet had breakfast, you had already begun to work, Your Highness. It is good to be enthusiastic, but pushing yourself too hard is harmful to the health. Now then, you too Sir Peacelow.”

The Princess spoke cheerfully but, since she already knew his guest’s name, it looked like she had come to warn him – ''don’t do things sneakily''.

While Gil was sighing off to one side, the princess smiled and curtsied to Raymond.

“This is the first time I have the pleasure of seeing you.”

“Yes!” Raymond was still standing straight. “I have not forgotten for a moment that it was by your grace that I was saved at that time. However, I did not have the opportunity to express my gratitude to you before today. My impoliteness is…”

“But in what way?” The Princess personally added milk to the two men’s cups. “Now, please have some while it is warm.”

“I don’t think it’s really possible but, did you make it, Princess?”

“Not possible?” The Princess smiled and turned towards Gil. “What is not really possible, Your Highness?"

“N-Nothing.”

After a short breakfast, Raymond went into the main issue.

Incidentally, Princess Vileena had remained within the room. For a moment, Raymond had been worried about it, but Gil shook his head and urged him on, saying “don’t mind it.” He mostly looked resigned.

Raymond nodded and explained about the plan that was in motion in Nedain. When he gave the signal, a riot would immediately break out inside the town. Jairus would certainly use a large force to suppress it. They would lure those troops to the quarry, then with the prince’s help…

After hearing him out to the end, Gil drained the milk that was leftover in his cup and, in what looked like a gesture born from habit, waved the cup behind him to ask for a second serving. Since the one who stepped forward was the princess, for a second, his expression turned into a scowl again, but he meekly waited while she refilled it before saying –

“Interesting. If the plan works, we can take Nedain without any effort. Raymond, do you have experience with warfare?”

“I’m ashamed to say it, but no, none,” Raymond lowered his eyes. “Both my grandfather and my father were warriors born and bred, so I learned the basics, but there are not currently any soldiers serving the Peacelow House and I’m presently living at the mansion with my only family member. I was not favoured with any opportunity to achieve success on the battlefield.”

Who could say how much of the other’s circumstances Gil managed to grasp thanks to what he had just said. He once more drained his cup to about three-quarters empty.

“Well, Nedain Fortress might find itself in a strategic position soon,” he said offhandedly.

As for Raymond, he felt a little dizzy.

“However,” Gil’s expression and voice both changed, “I said it earlier, but I’m the one that Mephius’ Emperor has denounced as an impostor. Why did you decided to believe me?”

The way he asked the question was like he was probing the intentions of an enemy general. Raymond felt overawed but still just managed to force his voice out.

“Of course, it is because I believe that Your Highness honours justice and…”

“That has nothing to do with anything,” Gil said flatly and, for a second, Raymond averted his eyes.

“What’s the matter? Say it openly.”

“I-It may be presumptuous of me to say.” Raymond looked at the ‘crown prince’ before him with neither reverence nor dread, but only with his own resolve. “I did not believe in the prince, I believed in Her Highness, the princess, who saved me. Since she is by your side, most probably... no, certainly, there can be no mistake that you are the real crown prince.”

“Oh,” the prince and princess exchanged glances, then, “very well. Then I’ll also believe you, who believes the princess.”
 


A messenger had arrived from Raymond. He was a soldier from Birac Fortress who was disguised as a pedlar. Dolph’s hand shook when he received the letter from him.

It said that a military force would leave from Birac late that night. Two days from then, they would be waiting in watch by the highway, which was when they were to riot and lure Jairus’ soldiers away.

It was finally time to put their plan into action, in other words, it was time to snatch Nedain out of the hands of a foolish usurper; and for Dolph, it was time to accomplish the revenge that he been waiting for for so long.

At midnight of the next day, all of the companions gathered at the quarry. After finishing their final preparations there, they would disperse throughout Nedain in units of fifty men. They would cause disturbances, and set fire to empty houses and to stores belonging to merchants who acted as purveyors to the Abigoal House. Once the troops were sent out, they would once again assemble at the quarry. That was the planned sequence of events.

Dolph treated everyone to the wine that he had been keeping back for the occasion.

“Finally,” everyone said and clapped Dolph on the shoulder.

He drank while nodding back. He had always had a strong head for alcohol, but that night in particular, it did not get him drunk.

Weapons that they had scraped together from all over were leaning in a row within the man-made cave. There were only a few spears and swords, with the rest being pickaxes or hoes at best. Even so, in Dolph’s eyes, they represented unsurpassed strength and the symbol of victory.

There was also a single artificial flower decorating the wall. If his little brother’s wedding had been held as planned, the bride would surely have worn similar flowers in her hair.

With his wine in one hand, Dolph wept.
 


At around the same time, a man who was entirely concealed beneath his hooded cloak swaggered into sight at the entrance of a path that led straight to the quarry. The figures of other men in similar attire followed behind him.

The men on lookout, just as they had when they stopped Raymond, pretended to be drunk and went up to them.

“Yo, newcomers? Brought any booze with you?”

It had been arranged that about thirty men who endorsed their goals would be joining them that evening. That was an achievement which had been accomplished by Molt, a man who had participated in the plan from the first. He was originally a farmer and was not a man who usually stood out, so everyone had been astonished and had praised him tremendously for his feat on the previous evening.

That group, led by Molt, had arrived.

“We’ll drink a toast in Solon –”

Upon hearing the password, the man on watch felt reassured and started to turn back to go and inform his comrades in the quarry.

And in that second, a sword was drawn from beneath the cloak.

“– but did you think you’d be sharing it?”

The man who had been on watch fell without a sound. The blood-spattered cloak was flung aside.

“Go!”

The man in the lead yelled, brandishing his sword, and the soldiers flooded into the quarry, their rough voices reverberating.

Soon there was the uninterrupted sound of gunshots.

Screams that would have pinned a normal man to the spot if he had heard them welled up one after another. Caught in a surprise attack, ordinary people were no possible match against that troop from Nedain’s defence forces under Boyce Abigoal’s command.

The artificial cave was quickly filled with the corpses of those who had taken a bullet or a blow to the head from an axe or a sword.

“F-Fuckers.”

Wielding a sword, Dolph put up a desperate resistance, but a soldier’s sword sent both his weapon and his wrist flying through the air.

“Guah!” With a cry of pain that sounded like that of a crushed frog, Dolph crouched to the ground in pain. The blood spraying from his severed wrist stained the flower on the wall a dark red, and the secret massacre continued.
 


“Shouldn’t it soon be starting?”

Boyce Abigoal muttered as he looked up at the night sky filled with twinkling stars. He had not gone to the quarry. What currently lay in front of his eyes was the Peacelow mansion.

“Raymond is a fool,” Boyce’s clean-cut features wore a vicious smile.

For a while after he had been released, they had deliberately had soldiers keep him under conspicuous surveillance. But as soon as those soldiers had been removed, Raymond became completely careless. Immediately after Dolph’s brother was executed, they had once again reinforced their watch on Raymond to see if he was not getting any strange ideas again.

And Raymond had hatched a plan, just as they had thought – or rather, one that went far beyond what they had expected.

''But this is a good chance.''

Boyce had persuaded his father to make use of Raymond’s plot and to make preparations to ambush the soldiers who would be sent from Birac. Jairus going to Solon was certainly to formally request reinforcements, but it also served the purpose of giving Raymond free rein.

''If I can defeat the impostor crown prince before reinforcements arrive from Solon, His Majesty’s evaluation of the Abigoal House would all at once rise exponentially.'' He thought about how he might even receive an exceptional promotion and be made one of the twelve generals in place of Folker or Yuriah who had failed to subjugate the impostor.

That ambition dyed his heart completely black.

He was a man who had not one ounce of compassion towards those commoners. That was something he had inherited from his father. His heart did not feel so much as a twinge of pain at knowing that they were deliberately staging a rebellion and, furthermore, that their plan involved slaughtering his father and him.

Quite the opposite, he had won over the man called Molt in order to perfect the plan. Because his mother was ill, Molt urgently needed money. Boyce had paid from his own pocket to call in a doctor from Solon and had made the farmer into his spy.

By now, the quarry would have become a one-sided hunting ground. The hunt-loving Boyce did feel like wanting to go there, but he had something else to do.

''Right.''

“Let’s go,” he called out to the line of fully-armed soldiers then forcibly intruded into the Peacelow house.

By that time, a minor ruckus had broken out inside the mansion.

However, it was not because they had been able to predict the surprise attack. Rather, just in case the worse happened, Raymond had taken in about a dozen young children belonging to those who were involved in the rebellion. The children of course knew nothing about the situation. They had simply been told that it was because their fathers had to work overnight.

At first, they had been as quiet as lambs, but the children were between five and ten-years-old, and were at the ages when they most wanted to play. Even though all of them seemed to fall asleep as Louise read to them by their bedside, they were all over-excited by the change of environment and by seeing such a large mansion for the first time. Waking up again at midnight, they immediately started playing tag and hide-and-seek.

And into that –

“Where’s Raymond?” Boyce had violently come trampling into the mansion.

And of course, because men in helmets and armour had appeared, the children had run screaming.

“W-What do you want? At this hour…” A long-serving steward to the Peacelow House went to intercept them but Boyce treated him like nothing but a pain and swept him aside with a swing of his brawny arm.

“Search for Raymond! I’ll see that rebel hanged.” Shouting angrily, he smashed his way into one room after another, knocking over tables and slicing at pillars.

Boyce was, of course, well-aware that Raymond was not there.

He went up to the second floor and kicked open a door. The children had been lying hidden. Like kindling set alight, they all started crying at once.

“Lord Boyce, this is – outrageous.” Louise rushed over, her face pale.

Boyce’s eyes gleamed ferociously as turned towards her. He had had his sights on her for a long time. And especially when they had passed by each other near the Abigoal mansion recently: he could not forget how her limbs had seemed to give off heat as she had slipped quickly past him.

Already at the time, he had expected that this would happen. The ache of lust swelled until it was unbearable.

“Where is your brother, Raymond? Why isn’t he at home?”

Boyce heard her gulp. Louise’s large eyes darted around restlessly.

“M-My brother has gone to one of the neighbouring villages. There was an emergency and…”

“Hmph, don’t pretend ignorance. Did you think I didn’t know? What do you think is happening right now to the fools who gathered at the quarry?”

Louise looked startled, then her entire body started to tremble.

“You… Y-You… You can’t have…”

“Judging by your reaction, it looks like you also knew about the plan to rebel. Come! I’ll examine you in person.”

Seizing her slender arms that looked as though they might break from it, Boyce dragged Louise to an empty room.



<noinclude>
{| border="1" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaaaaa solid; padding: 0.2em; border-collapse: collapse;"
|-
| Back to [[Rakuin no Monshou:Volume10_Chapter1|Chapter 1]]
| Return to [[Rakuin no Monshou|Main Page]]
| Forward to [[Rakuin no Monshou:Volume10_Chapter3|Chapter 3]]
|-
|}
</noinclude>