CH 443

A Gathering of Rabid Fans

“Well, this is not going so well.”

Ludwig looked at the country scenery from the window of his carriage. The morning sun, which had been shining softly on the quiet country road, was slowly getting hotter as noon approached. The time they were supposed to leave had passed, but the carriage showed no signs of moving.

The carriage door opened all of a sudden, and Dion Alaia stepped inside. He took the sword out of his belt and sat down on the seat.

“It looks like they won’t be able to fix it for a while. The carriage broke down at a good time, didn’t it?”

The trouble started the morning after Mia’s group left the village where they had been staying. Not long after getting on the road, a wheel on one of the carriages broke. Even though they quickly thought about sending the rest of the crew on ahead, they decided to wait until the repairs were done because the damaged vehicle was an expensive Greenmoon carriage. They could see for miles in all directions, so it was unlikely that someone would sneak up on them. At the very least, waiting here didn’t put their safety at much risk.

“And? What did the patrol say?”

“No problem. I wouldn’t worry. We got the Princess Guard, and the Greenmoons sent a good-sized group as well. Also, Sunkland did what they should have done. After all, they are meeting the daughter of one of the Four Dukes. If I were a thief, I wouldn’t even come near us, let alone try to rob us.”

Dion’s eyes were narrowed as he looked out the same window.

“I’m pretty sure the princess also knows that, so whatever’s out there isn’t robbers. It’s more complicated than that. Something that you can’t handle even if you have a lot of forces with you.”

Ludwig nodded in agreement.

“We’re also going in the same direction as where the wolfmaster ran.”

Before he was forced to run away, the wolfmaster, a Chaos Serpent killer, had come dangerously close to killing Mia. Ludwig had told a group of people to go after him, but they lost track of him. He had gone missing on the edges of Sunkland, which was a big deal. Since then, no one had seen him.

“Yeah,” said Dion, “and if that bad boy shows up, normal guards won’t be able to stop him. We’re going to need hordes of men to deal with him, and that’s not even taking into account his dogs. I understand why the princess is so careful.”

“I see,” Ludwig said. “Then I’ll leave security things up to you. Do what you have to so we can stay safe. Most of all, Her Highness. I don’t know how I’d explain it to everyone if something bad happened to her.”

“You mean your friends in the Empress Faction?”

“Yes. About that, I haven’t introduced you to any of them except Gil. I’ve wanted to do it, but…” Ludwig remembered the time he got together with a few of them to talk about who would do what while he was away.

—

On that day, Ludwig rushed to an empty mansion in the capital where he and the other members of his faction had decided to meet. When he got to the house and went into a room, he heard a familiar voice.

Balthazar said, “Damn, Ludwig, you finally made it! Well? Out with it. Let’s hear all the tasty details of your trip to Perujin.”

Gilbert was there, along with about a dozen other people.

“For the love of God, man, just let me sit down. What’s wrong with you?” Ludwig frowned. Balthazar was usually a very calm and quiet person who rarely spoke up.

“What is wrong with me? I can’t stand you and your princess. What is this about a possible change in the pact with Perujin? That’s the kind of thing that goes down in the books!”

“All right. News sure gets around quickly. Yes, you heard the thing right. Her Highness has said that she wants to change the treaty between our nations because it is unfair. She hopes that this will be the start of a new relationship between them. One that is built on the trust we earn and keep.” Ludwig looked up while looking through his glasses. “How do you feel? Is it the wish of a foolhardy idealist?”

Balthazar kept his lips together for a while before giving a shrug. “I don’t know. I only know that the idea is so bold that it throws me for a loop. If Her Highness is really serious about this, I applaud her courage and passion, if nothing else.”

“Who gives a damn about your cheers?” One of the people in the room yelled, “Tell us the juicy details already!”

Just as more people joined in, an older person spoke quietly from the back of the room to stop them.

“Now, now, boys and girls, keep your knickers on. Let the guy speak.” There was Galv, sitting and smiling.

Ludwig bowed very low to his old teacher.

“Master, it’s good to see you again.”

“A pleasure in every way, my dear student.” Galv said, “I’m glad to see you’re doing well.”

“You too, master,” Ludwig said, then looked at the old man’s clothes with a curious look in his eyes. He was now dressed like a high-ranking official, which was different from when he was in the forest.

“Hm? Oh, yes. I’ve changed my clothes, as you can see. Even by my standards, my old clothes were a little too country for a teacher.”

Ludwig took a deep breath of relief when he saw Galv’s friendly smile. As his name suggests, the Wandering Wiseman Galv was not known to stay in one place for long. Ludwig had been worried about this, so he was glad that his worries were finally put to rest.

“That reminds me: when we were in Perujin, Princess Arshia helped us out at just the right time.”

Ludwig asked Galv about Arshia, who was a teacher at the same school as the wiseman. “Did you give her any of your wisdom?” he asked.

Galv had a laugh. “Now there’s a girl who can make her own decisions. I’m worried that you don’t give the good girl enough credit. She didn’t ask for my advice, and she doesn’t need it to find out the truth.”

“I see…” Ludwig said as he walked to the back of the room and sat down at Galv’s table, as his friends motioned for him to do so. He picked up the glass of wine in front of him and took a slow sip, letting the smell of the wine relax his mouth and throat.

“All right.” Galv said, “That should be enough small talk for everyone to get comfortable. Tell us your story now, good student. Tell us about the Great Wisdom of the Empire, our princess, and what she did in Perujin.”

“All right.” Ludwig put the glass of wine back on the table. “The first thing Her Highness did was eat some of the fruits that had just been picked.”

He started with Mia’s time picking rubyfruit, during which she picked and ate until she was full.

“I see. By working hard alongside the people, she tried to gain their trust… I heard that during the harvest, Perujin princesses are the first to go to the fields and show their farmers how to work. It’s clear that Her Highness chose to act like them.”

“No, there’s more. She also ate like everyone else. When she was given a rubyfruit, she ate it right away.”

A man in the room gasped when he heard that.

“You can’t really mean that! Rubyfruits taste good, but they are very messy to eat. The juice makes your hands sticky. It has a bad reputation among noblewomen, and none of them would come within three feet of it.”

Ludwig looked at his clueless coworker and, as the person in the room who knew the most about Mia, said in a teaching tone, “Her Highness is not one to be bothered by things like this.”

Mia was the kind of person who didn’t mind getting her hands dirty, as long as she got to eat delicious foods. In this way, Ludwig was right. He wasn’t exactly right, but he wasn’t wrong, either.

“Makes sense,” said a different voice. “It was given as a gratitude for all she had done. You could say it’s a sign of friendship. By working together, she had made them feel like she was one of them.”

“And by eating it,” said someone else, “she showed that the acceptance was mutual… The central nobility, who see Perujin as a vassal state, would never agree to this kind of exchange.”

The responses kept getting more and more wrong.

Find the original at bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

“The next episode is about the golden slope,” Ludwig said. “Does anyone among you know how Perujin treats nobles from the empire? Master Galv, you must be.”

Galv spat, “Yes, I do, and it’s a stupid one. They put a blanket of newly harvested wheat on the slope leading to the capital and let the carriages roll over it. Someone from Tearmoon with no brains probably came up with the idea a long time ago, and it stuck. Its only reason for being is to physically step on Perujin pride. The height of stupidity, for sure.”

After expressing his dislike for the practice, he turned to Ludwig and said, “At the same time, it is a sign of welcome, and as a guest, she can’t afford to ignore it. So, I’m very interested to know how Her Highness handled the situation.”

Ludwig smiled arrogantly when his master looked at him with an interested look. Gilbert, however, spoke up before he could.

“Oh, I get it! Didn’t she get out of the coach and walked up?”

Everyone in the room nodded in agreement.

“Very clever,” said one of the younger people. “If the wagon rolled up, it would ruin all that hard-grown wheat, but walking up would do less damage. So, she shows her thanks for their welcome without wasting what they worked hard to make. It’s the best of both worlds!”

Other members of about the same age all agreed and seemed proud that they had found the right answer.

On the other hand, Ludwig shook his head. “No. At least, it’s not the best solution, because that’s only half of it. Her Highness did walk up, but she took her shoes off and did it barefoot.”

“You can’t really mean that! Her shoes off?!”

“Not at all! This is the princess we are talking about!”

Mia’s friends (fanatics), who were already crazy about her, let out a round of amazed gasps. In the middle of their excited talk, Ludwig puffed with pride and kept telling his story.