Chapter 47

With her cheeks now a healthy shade of pink and her glossy, wheat-gold hair pulled back into a sharp ponytail, Deborah knelt before Elma—though her voice remained sugary and cloying.

“Deborah von Frenzel has arrived! I heard Lady Elma’s call and rushed here faster than the wind itself!”

“What kind of mechanism allowed this person to just pop out like that!?”

“For that matter, hasn’t her personality collapsed even further since yesterday!?”

Irene and Lucas shouted their retorts from entirely different perspectives.

Elma, however, merely tilted her head.

“…? I simply called for her normally.”

She seemed genuinely puzzled that they were puzzled.

“Normally, when someone you’ve become close with calls for help, they rush over immediately, don’t they? Especially if you’ve looked after them with all your heart.”

“Isn’t that a bit too fast!? Not just her arrival speed, but her character development is way too fast!”

“Is it? Moritz is always like this. He usually appears saying, ‘I have arrived-moo (Moo Moo)!’, so I didn’t find it particularly strange.”

“Wait, you can understand the language of cows!?”

The two of them were practically screaming by now, but Elma just casually remarked,

“Whenever I look after someone, they usually open up to me like this.”

Lucas made a mental note that he might need to warn his mother, Juliana, to avoid letting Elma “look after” her too much.

Moving past the others, who were too busy being shocked to progress the conversation, Elma briskly began questioning Deborah.

“I apologize for calling you out so suddenly, Lady Deborah. Actually, [this and that] has happened, and we would like to know the truth behind the rumors that Lord Jonas has been wandering around this area—and if it’s true, we’d like to know the reason and background.”

“I see… I understand completely. So that is why Lady Elma and her companions have traveled all the way to this remote region…”

“At exactly which part did you understand our situation!?”

Lucas and Irene stared in disbelief at the uncanny chemistry between the two, but the pair simply continued their serious conversation.

“First, let me thank you for explaining the situation to someone like myself. I, Deborah, shall never carelessly spread word of Lady Elma’s objectives to those around us. However… I am deeply sorry. As for the crucial reason behind my father’s wandering, even I do not know…”

“Then, is the rumor itself—that Lord Jonas heads out to the vicinity of the swamp night after night—actually true?”

“Yes. However, it is not every night. Nor is it on a fixed cycle. I have been a shut-in until very recently and, I am ashamed to say, was on bad terms with my family, so I haven’t grasped what my father’s goal is in going out…”

“However,” Deborah continued, biting her lip as if troubled. “However… it is possible that my father really is trying to dabble in things linked to the demonic.”

“Things linked to the demonic?”

When Elma asked coolly, Deborah fell silent for a moment. Then, she began to speak, choosing her words with care.

“…Um, you remember that pond you dredged yesterday, Lady Elma? You mentioned that insects were swarming in it and that it carried a trace of miasma.”

“Yes. To be precise, euglena are closer to plants than insects, and the miasma itself was exceedingly faint.”

“Even so, insects carrying miasma are considered Magic Pests, and the fact that they were present is a serious matter for my family—the Frenzels, who deal with my own ‘Miasma-Weak’ constitution. Even if the miasma from those pests didn’t affect the current me, my father, who knew how frail I was as a child and how sickly my younger brother is, should have been thorough in ensuring that no hint of miasma ever entered the mansion.”

In the Frenzel household—lords of a land that has spent history battling the demonic—iron and silver charms meant to ward off evil are hung throughout the estate. Normally, the Lord oversees their maintenance as part of his responsibility.

“The fact that those defenses were breached means either someone with immense malice toward our family engineered that environment… or my father himself permitted it.”

The former possibility—that the family is so hated by the commoners that they would resort to such measures—couldn’t be denied. However, Deborah insisted that a person of Frenzel would never stoop to inviting the demonic just out of spite.

If that were the case, the only person who could have allowed miasma to permeate the mansion was the Lord himself.

If he was going so far as to breed Magic Pests in the garden pond, then the rumors of him being draped in Demon Moths at the swamp on the outskirts of the territory—effectively taming them—might not be so far-fetched after all.

“In his youth, my father was hailed as a child prodigy for inventing the Ringing Chain to drive away Demon Moths. Originally, he was a man who loved inventions and experiments. While my mother was alive, his inventions were solely for the purpose of making the vineyards flourish, but after her death, he shut himself in his room… Perhaps he has been conducting experiments and research all this time to try and bring her back.”

In the Royal Capital, Demon Moths are rarely seen and are dismissed as low-ranking monsters. However, for Frenzel, where grape production is the primary industry, they are the greatest threat now that the Demon Race has been wiped out—exceeding even magical beasts in danger.

In the local fairy tales and folklore, the Demon Moth is depicted as the chief familiar of the Demon Race. To be seen interacting familiarly with such a creature was tantamount to being suspected of making a contract with a powerful dark force.

Faced with Deborah’s head-bowed confession, Lucas rested his chin in his hand and spoke as he pieced the information together.

“The Magic Pests in the pond are a potential clue, but everything else is still within the realm of speculation. Don’t look so distressed.”

“…But until Lady Elma polished them yesterday, every iron and silver decoration in our house was rusted. When I think that my father might have been trying to bring miasma into the house, regardless of the effect on me or the sickly Kevin…”

“In the Royal Capital, iron and silver aren’t used as wards, so it might just be that Count Jonas isn’t the type to believe in such superstitions. It’s too early to draw a conclusion without seeing the swamp for ourselves. Don’t overthink it.”

As Lucas gave his calm judgment, Deborah’s brow furrowed. “Do you really think so…?”

However, when Elma suddenly crouched down beside her and gently tilted her chin upward, Deborah’s eyes widened in surprise.

“I must agree, Lady Deborah. Preconceptions have a way of clouding one’s vision. There are many instances in this world where something one believes to be an unshakable truth turns out to be an utter absurdity from the perspective of others. Please do not corner yourself by making up your mind at this stage.”

“Lady Elma…!”

Though Elma’s words contained a significant amount of self-reflection on her own situation, Deborah, unaware of this, gazed at her with a rapturous expression—as if looking at a prophet in whom she placed her absolute trust.

“Yes… If that is what you say—my one and only truth and light, Lady Elmael—then I shall do so.”

She was back to her “dreamy sigh” mode.

Deborah placed one hand to her cheek and used the other to playfully poke at Elma’s arm—displaying a classic “coquettish” style—as she spoke in a sweet, lingering voice.

“Truly, Lady Elma is such a dependable person… I am so fortunate to have met you. To think you’re only staying for a few days makes me so lonely. I will personally guarantee your lifestyle, so why not stay for a month… no, a year, no, for the rest of our lives—”

But…

“—That’s quite enough, Sister.”

Deborah’s delusions were cut short by the appearance of someone rustling through the bushes.

With slightly wavy blonde hair and a well-featured, somewhat precocious face, the figure looked younger than his actual age due to his slender limbs and thin frame. It was the eldest son of the Frenzel house, Kevin.