[V9C13] A Pretty Boy’s Greatest Concern
Translated by Jodas 9: Battle for the Tower“Gerald Anker is the name of a boy in the service of a certain influential noble house.”
Sevil cast a gaze across Wren, Tia, and Rukiye who encircled the table with the lantern on it as she spoke.
Wren thought back to Gerald’s ordinary activities. Certainly, Gerald was a studious boy whose conduct was always exceedingly proper. If someone told him that Gerald was from a wealthy household, he could buy that story.
“That influential noble house had a number of young people serving them, but it appears that one of them had run away not long ago. I heard these rumors around the middle of Summer… as I was in the middle of making my way to the Wedge Tower myself.”
So she was implying that Gerald was the boy who ran away — Wren assumed, but Sevil continued to speak.
“Suspecting that a fake name would be necessary to enroll in the exam, he must have decided on the spot to use the name of one of his fellow servants, Gerald Anker. Unfortunately for him, I, who knew the real Gerald Anker, happened to be present at that exam.”
“Piyo? So Sevil, you knew Gerald wasn’t Gerald this whole time?”
“You are precisely correct.”
Sevil nodded, prompting Rukiye to ask another question.
“…So, what’s the true name of the Gerald Anker we know, then?”
Sevil took a deep breath, exhaled, then spoke his name.
“Gerhard Blanke. The grandson of the Sword Saint and the younger brother of the Margrave of Warmberg.”
Wren was shocked to his core. It wasn’t only Wren: even Rukiye widened her eyes.
Tia, on the other hand, made a confused expresion.
“Piroro… Is a ‘mar-grave’ an important person? A noble?”
“Indeed. Should he so desire, he could even declare independence and become King in his own right.”
Yes, just as Sevil had said, this was an incredibly influential noble they were talking about.
On top of that, wasn’t the Margrave of Warmberg the hero who fought on the front lines to stop the enemy in their tracks during the war against the neighboring country a long time ago?
(Did that war happen during the previous Emperor’s reign or the one before that? Either way, that’s totally a super important noble house that even the Emperor can’t just boss around! Damnnnn, I’ve said all kinds of rude things to Gerald, haven’t I? Won’t he get mad at me and shout ‘You insolent cur!’ or something like that?)
While Wren panicked, forgetting that there was an Imperial Princess sitting right in front of him, Tia tweeted “Pirorororo…”
“Piyopp! I remember now! The ‘Mar-grave of Warm-berg’ was Sevil’s darling!”
“What the hell?” Wren asked with a straight face.
Sevil was smiling. She showed a delighted smile like he’d never seen before.
“You are absolutely correct! You’ve done well to remember that, Tia. I shall give you my compliments.”
“Pyofufun!”
“So in short, Gerald is essentially my future brother-in-law. As a result, I have chosen to safeguard his secret and not reveal his identity to anyone.”
Setting aside the frankly terrifying choice of words that was ‘future brother-in-law,’ Wren asked a question about one part that struck his curiosity.
“Hey, did you know Gerald… no, wait, Gerhard Blanke at all before coming here?”
“No, I hadn’t met him. When I visited Warmberg, Gerhard Blanke had already been sent out to serve another family.”
It seemed that the one Sevil knew was actually the real Gerald Anker.
However, during her travels, she had heard rumors of Gerhard Blanke running away. Then, when time came for the entrance exam, there was a boy there of about the right age claiming to be Gerald Anker.
So it wasn’t hard for Sevil to clue in to the true identity of this boy calling himself ‘Gerald.’
(Right, Rose’s card game… All of the rules were written in Ridillian, yet Gerald could read them all like it was nothing! If he grew up in a noble family in the Western marches along the border with the Kingdom of Ridill, of cooooourse he could read that!)
“Also… What truly confirmed it for me was the sword.”
Rukiye reacted to Sevil’s words.
“He has a pretty good sword, doesn’t he? I don’t know much about swords, but… That wasn’t some cheap sword made of scrap metal, for sure.”
‘Really?’ Wren was surprised.
To be honest, ever since he had started to suspect that Gerald might be a Monster, he had just naturally assumed that the sword was something he’d just picked up somewhere.
“The Warmberg Margravial House is rather impoverished, and when sending their brother out for his service, they could only prepare a common workhorse to carry him, so it appears that Gerhard had suffered no shortage of ridicule from other houses. At that juncture, his older sister had thought to at least provide him with a quality sword, so she sold off her own dress and hair in order to commission a piece of the highest quality.”
“Ah—…” Wren let out a voice.
Now, Wren finally understood the reason behind that heavy feeling of guilt and self-loathing that the Gerald he knew had expressed.
The land of Warmberg was poor and ill-suited for growing crops, while dragon disasters were frequent. Thus, they had no choice but to earn their keep through combat. As they spoke, the Warmberg army frequently sent deployments out to the front lines in the South.
He hated fighting, but being born to the Margrave’s family, he had known that running away from that duty would not be allowed.
(They were probably a nice family though. They really did think of him…)
Gerhard’s sister cut off her own hair in order to make him a worthwhile sword.
Yet, to Gerhard who only wanted to run away from battle, that sword was nothing but a burden.
When he ran away from the house he was serving, Gerhard could easily have left that sword behind or sold it off at any point. But he didn’t.
“When I saw that sword, I was certain. Gerald Anker was in fact the younger brother of the Margrave of Warmberg, Gerhard Blanke.”
“Piroro… Sevil, that was why you didn’t do sword training with Gerald at all, huh.”
Hearing Tia’s muttering, Wren let out an “Ah.”
Now that she mentioned it, that was true. The only sword users among the Apprentices were Sevil and Gerald. In that case, it wouldn’t have been strange for Sevil to have joined in with Gerald’s training.
Yet, Wren had never seen Sevil asking Gerald to train with her.
(Even when we were practicing our coordination for the magic battle, Gerald only ever used the drawing board shield, and never used the sword at all…)
If he showed off his swordplay, he would reveal his place of origin. That was why Gerald had tried his best to avoid Sevil, and why Sevil never demanded him to train with her.
And the result of all of that was Wren never having the opportunity to see Gerald wielding his sword, leading to his suspicion that Gerald might have been a Monster.
“Hold on, what about the other part!? Like I said, Gerald was always avoiding me early on…”
“I suspect it was because he assumed you were my lackey.”
In the period immediately after they passed the entrance exam, Wren and Tia were often assumed to be in cahoots with Sevil in some way.
From Gerald’s perspective, he must have been incredibly uncomfortable to find out that the Imperial Princess, who could have discovered his identity at any moment, was there. And even more so that this pretty boy who looked like one of the Princess’ lackeys was his roommate.
Although, in truth, Sevil had already long since found out.
“I suppose he continued his sword exercises in secret so that no one would find out.”
“Sheesh… Jeez, I’m sorry Gerald! I’m really sorry for suspecting you……But still.”
Wren buried his head in his hands and hunched over.
Gerald (real name: Gerhard) wasn’t the Werewolf. But this conversation couldn’t just end with an easy ‘Ah, thank goodness—’
There were other candidates to be the Werewolf.
“If… And this is just an if. If one of the Apprentices was the Werewolf…”
As Wren stumbled on his words, Rukiye spoke up quietly.
“It’d be Finn, wouldn’t it? After all this, I think it’d be impossible for Oliver to be a Werewolf.”
Oliver was recognized by everyone at the Lange Hamlet to be the real person.
Even if someone had killed the real one and took his place, his close relatives like Frederik would surely have noticed something.
Rukiye made a pained expression. She disliked involving herself with other people’s business, but still, Finn was someone she often worked alongside.
At some point along the way, Finn acquired a lovely blue bandana.
“Rukiye gave me this bandana.”
When he heard that, Wren had been surprised that Rukiye would do something so nice.
Yet it wasn’t just Rukiye. All of the Apprentice Mages were kind to Finn. And it wasn’t because Finn was the youngest. It was because he was the kind of kid that made people want to dote on him.
Rukiye closed her eyes and spoke clinically, like she was purposely suppressing her emotions.
“If Finn is the Monster, then it would be possible for him to deal with the crystal shard issue. After all, Finn is part of the ‘Socks to Bed Party,’ isn’t he?”
“Piyo, I get it! If you put a crystal shard on the bottom of your feet, no one will know!”
“That’s right. Since we all know him for having a bad leg, no one would question it if he dragged his feet on the ground even when he’s taking a bath.”
Wren tried to imagine it. Stabbing a crystal shard into the soles of his own feet and walking around. — That had to be even more painful than he could imagine.
Nobody questioned it when Finn walked around dragging his feet. Probably, his feet really did hurt.
(I’d hate it for anybody to be the Werewolf, but… If it is Finn… It has to be hard for him…)
Silence dominated the dark room. Wren hesitated over whether to continue.
Both Gerald’s true identity and the theory of Finn being the Werewolf were quite shocking revelations.
As if to interrupt Wren’s hesitation, Sevil spoke up.
“…So, there’s more to this discussion, isn’t there, pretty boy?”
“Piyo? There’s more?”
Tia tilted her head back and forth.
Rukiye also made a face that said she couldn’t understand what Sevil was getting at.
Sevil stared Wren in the eye.
“Wren, you suspect that the Werewolf might be among the Apprentices. In that case, why did you want to discuss that with just us?”
“Piyo, that’s right! We should go tell Mr. Hütter and Otto about this!”
Tia moved to stand up, and Wren hurriedly stopped her in her tracks.
“Wait! You can’t!”