Chapter 58: ☆What they did...
It was around 7 AM in the early morning when I walked toward [Suzuya] while princess-carrying Erika.
The fresh morning air and the cool breeze were making Erika’s hair flutter, carrying her rose scent to me.
On the other hand, Erika was blushing furiously while protesting while being held.
"Stop it already until I can stand up...!"
"I’m sorry..."
Because I had enjoyed Erika’s body until around 3 AM, she couldn’t stand up because of the pain between her legs and fatigue.
She was giving me an exasperated, sulky stare while I happily accepted her request to be carried.
Of course she wasn’t actually angry — she was just hiding her embarrassment, which made her even cuter.
I brought my face close and gave her a light kiss.
"You’re cute."
"Now you’re doing it..."
"Good morning."
"Kyaa!"
Erika was startled by the kiss, closed one eye, and looked at me with an exasperated expression.
I was surprised by the sudden voice from the side and grabbed the hem of my shirt in front of my chest with both hands.
I gave Erika a wry smile while greeting Chale.
"Good morning, Chale."
"O-Oh, good morning. Chale-san..."
"So early, but Lady Erika, this is..."
When Chale spoke in her cheerful voice, a note appeared on Erika’s chest.
Erika let go of the hand gripping my clothes and took the note with both hands.
As I walked, I looked at Erika’s note and saw that it was sealed with the royal seal.
Erika noticed it too and looked toward the direction where Chale was supposed to be with a puzzled expression.
"...What is this?"
"It’s a letter from the Prime Minister. It says it’s the donation from the ’first time.’"
"Can I open it?"
"Please do so, Lady Erika. It’s your decision."
I looked at Erika’s puzzled face at Chale’s words and opened the letter with a paper knife that had appeared from nowhere.
The paper knife disappeared the moment I opened it — Chale had probably retrieved it.
At first Erika looked puzzled and frowned while reading the letter, but her expression gradually changed to one of surprise.
She began shaking the letter while reading it and said to me in a flustered tone,
"T-this... eh? This is a donation? Did you say it before?"
"Calm down, Erika. ...So you did donate the money. You donated, Chale?"
"Fufu, yes, we did."
Erika calmed down a little at my words, but she had question marks floating above her head while listening to our conversation.
I thought she was an idiot. Were they really hiding something?
No matter how good the Prime Minister’s negotiations were, once they had given the money, they had admitted it.
"...What exactly did they do, including Baron Deus?"
"No, they didn’t do anything. They’re still doing it now."
I explained with a wry smile to Erika, who no longer called me "father."
What they had done was creating illegal magic tools.
It was the kind of item that humans should never create.
Because of its extreme danger, if the kingdom discovered that anyone was making them, it was immediate death penalty.
These were magic tools that could change a person’s life or fate.
Erika listened to my words with a serious expression and asked,
"Is that...?"
"You’ve seen it too. When I saved Felica."
"...Felica-san?"
Erika crossed her arms skillfully while being held princess-style and rested one hand on her chin, thinking.
Her arm resting on her chin was sinking into the valley between her breasts, emphasizing her chest.
...Didn’t she realize that she didn’t need to emphasize her chest while thinking?
After a while, Erika seemed to remember something and gasped as she looked at me.
"The purple one...?"
"Correct."
I smiled and nodded at Erika’s answer.
That magic tool that controlled Felica didn’t have a name.
That was why no one, not even the country, gave it a name — because it was hated.
But in the game, it had a name: [Marionette].
As the name suggested, it manipulated people like puppets or made them follow orders.
If a person had strong will or high magic power, they could control the body while keeping their own consciousness.
There were also materials for making it that were strictly prohibited.
One of them was human life.
The final step was to pour magic power into it, but this magic tool would absorb the life of the person who poured the magic power and complete itself.
In other words, for every [Marionette] that existed, one person had died.
I really didn’t want to remember this — the memory of standing at the front line during the war.
In the late stages of the war, the neighboring country had conscripted civilians instead of soldiers.
They hadn’t volunteered; they had been manipulated and conscripted.
Civilians surprisingly had strong wills, meaning many were controlled while keeping their own consciousness.
To stop moving, they had to be killed.
But their movements, screams, expressions, remorse, regret, hatred... things like that simply shouldn’t exist.
"Raide-san?"
"Raide-sama..."
"No... It’s nothing."
I was smiling while shaking my head, but Erika and Chale became worried and called out to me.
Erika said worriedly,
"That dangerous thing shouldn’t have been donated, right?"
"We have to investigate their movements first, so it’s a cat-and-mouse game..."
"But... they have so many victims!"
"We are here for that, Lady Erika."
Chale’s calm voice stopped Erika, who was about to raise her voice.
Yes, we weren’t just ignoring it.
I had been wondering how we should handle it, but meeting Chale in Santony had put my mind at ease.
She was probably releasing or investigating the bases of people who might become materials for the puppets.
I calmed Erika down with Chale, and we headed toward Erika’s house, which was finally coming into view.
When I left Erika with Merinu and stood in front of the house, Erika suddenly felt something and spoke up.
"Chale-san?"
"Yes."
"...The expression Raide-san had earlier, was that related?"
"...Yes."
Chale answered in a pained voice.
Erika let out a sigh and smiled, looking toward an empty place where her voice was coming from.
"It wasn’t your fault..."
"But... I made her remember."
"I’m the man she fell for, so it’s fine. If it’s too painful, I’m prepared to embrace her. So you don’t have to feel responsible."
"...Thank you."
"Please take care of Raide-san."
"Yes."
The moment Chale answered, her presence disappeared and Erika gave a wry smile.
While entering the house with Merinu, I glanced at [Suzuya] and smiled before closing the door.
