The Meyer Family
"I will retire first."
The music in the banquet hall came to a stop. Everyone's gaze gathered on one young man. He was Ulrich, using the alias Armin, and as the night deepened, he rose first from the seat of honor.
Count Wilhelm Meyer tried to hold him back, asking him to stay a little longer. Ulrich simply smiled, placed a hand on the count's shoulder, and shook his head.
The main figure of the banquet had left. As the young man whom the host had personally attended departed, the musicians stopped playing, and the jesters withdrew. The butler, sensing the end of the feast, cleared away the firewood beside the brazier.
'If we're leaving first thing tomorrow, I should get up soon as well.'
Roberta set down her glass and looked to the side. Fritz was nodding off. After the fatigue of travel and a banquet stretching late into the night, it must have been difficult to endure. She called a servant and instructed him to take the boy to his room so he wouldn't collapse face-first into his plate.
"Priestess, may I have a moment to speak with you?"
As she was about to follow Ulrich out of the hall, the count called out to her.
"Of course."
Roberta sat across from Wilhelm, with the table between them. The smell of alcohol was strong—he had clearly drunk a great deal. His speech was slightly slurred as well.
"How has Alonso been?"
"He is well… though, have you met him before?"
"We met often. Back when he served as a senior priest."
"Ah," she murmured briefly.
Fritz had mentioned that the Meyer family frequently stayed in Dithmarschen. Although they were now barred from entering, when Alonso had first been appointed, travel must have been unrestricted—so it was natural they knew each other.
"Indeed… you do resemble him. It is quite enviable."
Hearing the count mutter as if to himself, she tilted her head.
"What is it that you envy?"
"That both you and Alonso seem to have earned his favor. I have not. My family has served him for generations, yet instead of me, he keeps you—someone he met only briefly—by his side."
The count dismissed the remaining attendants from the hall before continuing.
"I once dreamed of traveling the world with him. But when I was young, he never left his territory, and now that I am older, he will not permit me to accompany him."
"…Perhaps the duke feels burdened?"
The count sighed, saying he had heard that many times.
He revealed that his elder brother Bernhard, King Richard of Osnabrück, and even the duke's other adopted sons had all told him the same thing.
"It cannot be helped. I may correct other things, but this is one thing I cannot change. Just as we cannot bend his will, I too have a will that will not bend."
"…I see."
She gave an awkward smile.
"That expression says you do not understand."
It did seem like forcing one's own feelings onto someone who clearly did not want it—an attitude that could only drive the other person further away. It was difficult to accept.
"That is because you have not been in my position, priestess. And perhaps because there is still much you do not know. Or perhaps you are simply more rational—like my brother and my son."
Wilhelm set down his glass, took out a roll of tobacco, and offered it to Roberta. When she declined with a wave of her hand, he placed it between his lips and lit it with a spark from his fingertip.
"Have you ever seen a fairy?"
"If you mean the long-eared kind, then yes, occasionally."
"Then you must have seen humans who serve them as well."
She nodded. Osnabrück was remote, so non-human races were rare there, but in other regions, dwarves and fairies could sometimes be seen.
Especially in areas where the human empire's rule was weak, the proportion of other races increased greatly, and there were even nations of their own. They had lost their former power long ago, but unlike dragons, they had not perished.
Humans born and raised in such places felt no resistance to serving races like dwarves or fairies. Rather, they considered it natural and even took pride in it. Roberta had seen such sights many times at the Grand Temple of Nua.
"I have seen it as well. A fairy once came seeking him."
"A fairy… you mean the long-eared kind?"
"Indeed. Most other kinds have long since perished."
Wilhelm said that at the time, he had been twelve years old.
A boy who longed to serve his master at his side.
On a day when snow fell heavily, a group of nearly a thousand humans arrived in Dithmarschen. As the civil war in Osnabrück had just begun, the boy thought the flames of war had reached their territory.
But it was not so. That group of humans served a single fairy for generations, and they had followed her to Dithmarschen.
"The fairy's name was Yudebora. They said she was born during the prosperity of the Second Empire, the Isturia Dynasty. She had lived for two millennia."
Young Wilhelm saw a fairy with his own eyes for the first time in his life. It was also the first time he learned that a fairy could live so long. And that there could be a bloodline that served one being for such an immense span of time.
To a boy of twelve, even the three-hundred-year history of the Meyer family felt endlessly long. Yet these guests proudly claimed to have served for several times that span. How could it not be astonishing?
Wilhelm wondered what kind of fairy Yudebora must be.
"She was a very old fairy."
However, the fairy Yudebora who stepped down from the carriage was not young.
She was old—so old it seemed she might crumble at any moment. She could not even descend from the carriage on her own and had to be carried in the arms of an attendant.
"She possessed dignity. Though time had weakened her body, her innate nature had not been broken. That must be why so many followed her."
As the bitter cold of Dithmarschen gnawed away at the lifespan granted to a fairy, she stood before a single man. He was Ulrich—but she called him Selim.
Under the falling cold snow, Yudebora kissed the cheek of the man who had not changed.
"Selim, you have not changed at all. I have grown so old, and my mother long ago became the spirit of the forest you planted… yet you have not changed in the slightest since then."
Everyone present realized why she had come to the northern lands. Anyone who had thought there was some grand reason was mistaken. She had simply wanted to see him before her life came to an end.
The reason Yudebora set foot in the north, burning the last flame of her life, was merely to see one man.
"The Meyers have served for three hundred years, and Yudebora's humans for a thousand. Yet Yudebora herself… had served him since before even her mother—one single man who has never changed at all."
He was Ulrich.
His other names were Laurent and Oscar—and now Selim had been added.
"This was sent by the descendants of that fairy, Yudebora."
The count tossed the burned-out cigarette to the floor and tilted his glass.
"They send him tobacco leaves every year as if offering tribute. In return, he only sends them a single letter, yet they still revere him."
He took out another cigarette and offered it to her. This time, she accepted. She did not light it, but held it in her hand and examined it for a moment.
— It's from the forest fairies.
Suddenly, her memory drifted back to the Ice Peninsula. When they had met the giant Uar to reach Luo Beidra's nest, Ulrich had given tobacco leaves as payment for being sent there.
"But tell me—do you think Yudebora is the end of it?"
The end? She looked at him, asking for clarification.
"I'm asking whether you think the ties of Meyer and Yudebora are only two. Do you believe that is all the connections he has?"
One man had lived long enough to be served across generations by a fairy. If he had descendants, how many would there be? And even if he had no bloodline, if he possessed virtue, how many lives might he have taken in and raised?
The count drained the last of his drink.
"Our three hundred years are nothing. The thousand years of those who served Yudebora are nothing as well. Even her descendants are the same. To him, the Meyers and Yudebora are but fleeting ties—things that come and go like dust beneath his feet."
Whether from alcohol or excitement, the count's face flushed red, and his voice rose.
"He is but one man, yet he has descendants all across the world. Even without shared blood, he has taken them in—and they still remember his name. So if… if he were to reveal himself… if he were to say he would claim the world as his own—who could possibly refuse him?"
After finishing his words, his head dropped weakly with a deflating sigh. Roberta, who had been listening quietly, asked with concern.
"Count?"
"…You were right. I shouldn't have forced what he did not want."
But as if he hadn't heard her, he muttered to himself.
The heat that had filled him moments ago vanished instantly. His shoulders trembled. At first it seemed like laughter, but it soon turned into sobbing.
"I was the fool who was deceived. That's why he must have been disappointed. That's why he is leaving."
Ulrich walked alone along the inner castle wall.
The sky was clear, and the moonlight brightly illuminated the ground, yet the city of Witten shone so vividly that it hardly needed the moon at all. Orange lights glowed throughout the city, lighting even the narrow alleys.
After entrusting Count Wilhelm to a servant and leaving the banquet hall, Roberta spotted Ulrich's back. She quickened her pace, caught up, and stood beside him.
"Have you finished your conversation?"
"Yes… well, I mostly just listened."
At her vague reply, Ulrich spoke while looking out over the night view.
"What did Wilhelm—that child—say?"
Roberta took out the cigarette Wilhelm had given her.
"I heard you used to smoke these long ago."
"I did, until I met Hilde. She disliked it, so I quit."
Ulrich accepted the cigarette and examined it.
"It's from the fairies. Children who settled far in the eastern lands. I took them in when the Isturia Dynasty was at its height, hunting down other races."
"When you say you took them in… like the Meyer family?"
"Something similar. Just as the founder of the Meyer line was a slave, they were slaves as well. I bought them and relocated them. Do you know a place called Kuiania?"
She answered that she did.
"You mean the jungle in the Far East?"
"At the time, it was a desert."
A desert?
"It wasn't a particularly good place for fairies to live, but effort and time resolved that. Forests can become deserts, and deserts can become forests—that is what time does."
"…."
"This tobacco is made from leaves grown in Kuiania. It only grows in fairy forests, and even then, it doesn't grow well, so it's quite rare. If someone recognized it, it would fetch a high price."
He placed the cigarette back into Roberta's hand. She looked down at it and swallowed.
Ulrich—the strange lord—having ties to fairies was not surprising. She had seen dragons and giants; fairies were hardly unimaginable. But where had he said he settled them?
Kuiania—the largest jungle in the world. And it had originally been a desert. The fairies had cultivated it into a jungle.
"…That's incredible."
"Just think of it as a piece of history."
He added that she need not dwell on it too deeply.
Was that even possible?
She suppressed a sigh and scratched the back of her head.
"Was that all Wilhelm said?"
"No. There's more… but did you already know?"
"I can tell by your expression. You're easy to read."
He said they had known each other for over a year now.
"I still feel like I don't understand you at all…"
"If you already believed you understood me, that would be arrogance. The time you and I have lived is different. Keep asking questions. That's how you close the gap."
"Doesn't it bother you?"
"No. I like your questions."
You like them? Roberta blinked.
"People who meet me usually fall into one of two types. They either call me a liar and mock me, or they believe me too much and never question anything. People like you are rare—truly rare."
He said that speaking with someone who leaned too far to either side sometimes felt like talking to a wall.
"Conversation requires a process of getting to know one another. Don't you think?"
"That… makes sense."
"Then always ask. I like that. I can't answer everything, but I promise at least that I won't lie."
Ulrich smiled lightly and patted Roberta on the shoulder. She awkwardly smiled back before turning her gaze away. The conversation fell silent, and a long quiet followed.
"…Count Wilhelm was muttering to himself."
After a while, she spoke again.
"He said he had been deceived. That you must have been disappointed."
"So he still held onto that."
Ulrich spoke while looking over the night view.
"The Pantheon—no, Kormilius—tempted that child. So that the throne would pass to me… so that I would not be able to refuse it. And he fell for that temptation."
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