The world froze still outside of Tasuku’s office, and the sound-absorbing wards were running at full power. The plague ran quiet and the economy stalled. Tasuku Sumeragi and the kneeling woman in black remained the only ones left unaffected in the new world of frozen time.
“...Are my ears mistaking me in my old age, Juno-san?”
“...No sir.”
Since they were alone, the two spoke freely in Nihann. Tasuku stood from the table and paced back and forth. This was impossible. It didn’t make any sense! They’d taken every measure imaginable to hide their existence, and yet...
“Fuck! You’re saying that Harold is even aware of Sumeragi's elite shinobi forces…!?”
“We will look into any and all possible leaks immediately sir. There will be no stone left unturned, I assure you.”
“The damage is already done, but yes. Conduct an immediate investigation with all the resources we can spare to use!”
This wasn’t something the Sumeragi could simply cover up by assassinating the leak himself. Harold was an enigma, and one beneficial to the Sumeragi at that. There were millions of potential consequences if they acted so recklessly, but even so…
“Depending on how much he knows and how much evidence he’s gathered, if this information were sold to the wrong people then…!”
“Yes. Coupled with our current situation, as well as past controversies, it wouldn’t be jumping to conclusions to say that a war would break out.”
“...And with this natural disaster, on top of our domain being sandwiched between the two nations, the Sumeragi territory would hardly survive such a conflict breaking out! There’s no telling what atrocities might be committed against our citizens due to racial tension; the casualties could easily reach tens of thousands!”
A loud crack exploded through the room as Tasuku’s fist slammed down onto his desk, shattering the first and second defense wards protecting it. Adrenaline surged through his veins, and his usually calm and collected demeanor was wiped from his appearance entirely. The Sumeragi were one wrong move away from complete collapse, and they were still dancing to the puppet strings of an unknown party with questionable motives and a wealth of knowledge with unseen limits at their disposal. Was this all somehow related to the controversial tax records that had been stirring tension in the country since a decade ago!?
“...Sir, I apologize if it is not of my standing to ask, but what is it that you plan to do now?”
Tasuku looked up from his desk and furrowed his brows even further, before he inhaled a deep breath in order to recollect some of his trademark level-headedness. At this rate, he would be getting wrinkles and grey hairs at an early age, even despite his strong aura.
“I am sorry I have displayed such an unsightly appearance. Thank you very much for your hard work, Juno-san! And to answer your question… I will do whatever it takes, to secure the future of the Sumeragi and its citizens!”
Juno was dismissed, and Tasuku ordered her to call for Kiryuu again so he could discuss this unsettling information with him. As she left, the Sumeragi head placed his hand over an inconspicuous scratch on the bottom of the table leg, and poured his mana into it with precise movements before doing the same with a tiny rough patch smaller than a millimeter on the underside of the desk. There were no clicking sounds, but when Tasuku pulled out the bottom drawer that held various financial reports, the drawer no longer stopped halfway, and instead extended the same length as the desk itself.
Tasuku pulled the entirety of the heavy drawer out with two hands and set it down on the floor, before picking out just a few of the secret papers that were now revealed. He then lifted the drawer back up and slid it in, after preemptively applying mana to three different spots on the desk. Now in his hands was a two inch thick stack of folders, three of which were labeled Stokes Family History and Connections, Stokes Tax Controversy, and Harold Stokes Complete Behavioral Record.
“Whatever it takes…Because that is what it means to be a Noble.”
***
“Fufu…Behold, the superior might of my advanced -cough- technology!”
After muttering an imaginary one-liner, Harold coughed roughly into his fist as he pulled off his blanket for the sixth time since this morning. His hot breath irritated his throat even further, and his muscles periodically tensed and shivered as hot and cold waged war within his body. After downing a large glass of water, Harold let out a grumble of frustration as he realized he would need to stand up and walk to the bathroom soon, then continued to move his pencil in careful strokes on his game-styled self portrait. In the drawing, he was dressed in a lab coat and holding a futuristic gun while grinning like a mad scientist. Matchlock guns had been invented decades ago, and there were other versions even earlier than that, so it probably wouldn’t look completely strange to anyone looking at it.
It had been two days since he returned from recruiting Lifa, and Harold had two days left until he had to return home, even less so if Hayden decided to return early despite his wishes. Luckily, his parents would always listen to him as long as they also had their way, and neither of them wanted to end their vacation so soon. They might have even been angry if Harold suggested he wanted to leave early because of his fever, but that would depend on their mood and random chance; they were somewhat inconsistent when it came to prioritizing their son before themselves.
Father might change his mind any day, so we’d better finish our business quickly...
Harold had somewhat considered the possibility, but to contract the Withering after only traveling to some out of town villages was considerably unfortunate. Luckily he appeared to have avoided taking the full brunt of it; if no one around the mansion had it, that meant he had to have gotten it somewhere else. All he could do was wait out the whiplash from moving from a healthy area to a corrupted area, especially since it was his first time contracting it.
Harold heard a knock on the door, and after receiving his permission, a familiar servant entered the room and expertly poured him a cup of sweet chrysanthemum tea, which was said to soothe one’s fever and throat.
“Your hand is as steady as ever, Harold-sama”
“Of course it is; a little cold like this could never affect my artistic talent.”
“Never. But it’s always better to get rid of annoyances sooner rather than later. Here, please lean back.”
“Thanks.”
Harold felt a rush of euphoria toward himself as Norman refilled his glass of water before replacing the wet towel on his forehead. Ever since his epiphany with Erica, he had been experimenting with how to say the words he actually meant to say. It wasn’t perfect by any means, and he had to actively concentrate, but it was leagues better than it had been before. It was a delicate balance between too friendly and too rude, and Harold needed to take extra care to observe his thoughts and emotions to predict how the ‘translation’ would end up. But the end result was far worth it.
It was especially reliving that he could finally say ‘thank you’ to his most faithful servant! Norman’s diligent care and aura of competent reliability lived up to his name as the number one butler in the Stokes house, and Harold felt safe and secure under his watch.
Regretfully, he and Norman had been keeping distance from each other in order to not draw suspicion, but there was no way his favorite servant wouldn’t come with him on a trip. It would look even more suspicious to not take him along.
Harold watched as the white haired man rigidly bowed, before walking out of the room as if they were nothing more than master and servant. As expected of Harold’s closest aide, his acting had only grown as the days passed! After taking a deep sip from the iced tea and stowing his drawings away in a drawer, Harold inhaled the late spring air and flipped open the special notebook that he kept within arm’s reach at all possible times. It was plain looking, but terribly expensive for most non-nobles; it was subtly enchanted to be durable, lightweight, and have dangerous security wards protecting it.
Maybe I should pay someone to add something that also destroys it if we don’t touch it for twenty four hours? This basically holds the summarized versions of all of our current plans and what we need to remember whenever we go out. I’d never let it out of my sight of course, but this is way too important to leave up to chance.
Noting that thought for later, Harold checked over his reminders. Their current priorities list was as follows; Organize the science team, appoint a trusted servant and teacher to look after Lifa, hide Lifa’s identity, hide their own secrets, and build goodwill with Erica. ‘Finding and recruiting Lifa’ as well as ‘negotiating with the Sumeragi’ had already been crossed off of the list, but so far their whole structure had been a complete mess.
Harold was far less organized and diligent than Kishino, and some of that seemed to have unfortunately mixed in with him, since they’d practically just been practically ‘winging it’ ever since they set foot at the Sumeragi mansion. If things had gone as planned, all of their energy would initially have gone into negotiating with the Summeragi, finding Lifa, negotiating with Lifa, hiding her identity, and finally hiding their own secrets.
But instead of sticking to that, they’d tried to get Harold to practice negotiation and almost screwed everything up, destroyed their first impression on Erica and had to repair it later, and ended up having an hours-long science discussion with Lifa in which Kishino almost blabbed about tons of their secrets, rather than just negotiating and leaving it at that. That latter mistake even ended up costing Harold precious time with Erica, since for unknown reasons, her own schedule was apparently packed and they weren’t allowed to see her nearly as much since that day.
Maybe Lifa’s appearance made it hard to believe she was a scientist, and the Sumeragi grew suspicious? I can only guess.
Speaking of the negotiation itself, having a script was actually pretty useless, and even made it more difficult at a lot of points. He pushed his own agenda way too far, and blackmail probably wasn’t a good first impression. Then there was something he’d only remembered recently from Lifa; let yourself and the other party small talk, for god’s sake! Kishino decided to give himself some slack for being rude sometimes because of his trash-translator since he hadn’t had his epiphany with Erica yet, but if he’d tried just a little bit harder it might have been possible to be at least slightly friendly. Harold had also completely eliminated small talk as a possibility right from the start, and when he looked back on his past negotiations that one mistake was probably far more detrimental than he’d realized.
The only possible praise Kishino could give himself was ‘probably better than a normal ten year old noble,’ and even then he was certain that there were other noble children that were better than him based solely on the fact that they had the capacity to be friendly at all. It was a complete disaster!
Wait, am I still Harold...? Ah, who cares. What matters is that I learn from this. The whole ‘Hiroshi Yuki’ identity was even made up on the spot because we forgot to hide our own identity from Lifa, for god’s sake! If we’re not careful, we’re gonna get caught in our own web of lies… Yeah, I’m definitely Kishino.
If he were Harold, he’d be thinking more like…
-Hmph, you could’ve done better, but everything worked out in the end. Don’t beat yourself up over it.
…Like that. Harold didn’t like Kishino blaming himself after all. Moments like these where they weren’t entirely sure who they were at the moment, were relatively common, and nothing to really be concerned about. It used to be a lot more common, but as time went on they began to feel something indescribable change in their Souls, and they became more distinct from each other. Even so, Kishino had no idea what that was actually supposed to mean. It could mean his own soul indeed existed within Harold, or that DID could just be weird and different in the humans of this world since they have magically tangible souls.
DID was a result of childhood trauma if he could remember correctly, and Clara’s burning could easily clarify for that, right? There was also…
-Oi. Stay on track.
-Oh, right, thanks! Uhm… Right, we still need to flesh out the background of ‘Hiroshi Yuki’ regardless, and it’s a part of ‘hiding our secrets’ so we might as well while we wait for the meeting.
-Damn, I wanted to practice our aura control.
-That’s not on the priorities list. Besides, that’s dangerous as hell right now.
-You’re not wrong, but it might help too.
-I know it MIGHT make us feel better faster, but we’re not risking it! We can always do it later at home.
-Fine...
With his train of thought being stuck on aura, Kishino then wondered how strong he should portray ‘Hiroshi Yuki’ as, and he automatically reached into his shirt and took out his necklace, which was holding an inconspicuous silver toe ring that had two small holes in the ends to loop the string through. The toe ring was a rare, expensive artifact that disguised his aura up to a certain limit as long as it was charged. Unfortunately it was also sweaty and irritated his skin, but he would never have been able to look like a regular ten year old in front of Lifa without it. He also wore the ring whenever he expected prolonged contact with other people, or went to sleep. It’s usual settings were to disguise himself as having an average fourteen year old’s aura, which was within the expectations for Harold, who was prodigal in military studies and combat even before Kishino ‘awakened’ inside him.
Honestly, their normal aura was extremely abnormal, and neither of them had any idea why they’d grown so much over the course of only a month or so. It probably had something to do with the growing pains, which had just recently gotten so bad that they needed to mix expensive pain-relieving potions into their ‘food potions,’ as they’d named them.
-Hey, you already revealed our full strength in front of Lifa, remember?
-Eh!? Shit, you’re right. See, this is why we need to plan things! If I never got interested in voice acting that one time, we would’ve already been fucked. Especially with the brand new vocal cords and all.
Regretting that he couldn’t discuss this together with Norman, Kishino put himself to work for the next hour, writing down multiple different possibilities for the background of Hiroshi Yuki, mostly thinking about what he would need to use the identity to do as well as solid explanations for those things. As he was just about to finish his third draft, the silencing wards on the door were once again partially deactivated as the person behind it knocked three times.
Kishino immediately shoved his notebook under his pillow, put on his toe ring, and reopened his sketchbook before letting the person in; Norman would always knock in a specific way and call out to him every time he was about to enter, so the one knocking this time had to be a maid of the Summeragi.
“Come in.”
“...H-hello, Harold-sama. Has your fever gone down?”
But to his surprise, the door carefully opened to reveal a meek-looking Erica. Smirking, he transferred the front over to the flustered brat in his head.
“Ah! Erica-sama. It’s- I mean, No need to worry, something like this is practically nothing! More importantly, what are you doing here? I thought you were busy.”
“Ah, I’m sorry! I apologize for intruding, it’s true that I’m busy, but, well I’m not entirely busy actually, it’s more like, um…”
Harold quickly shot up from laying down and pulled the towel off his head, trying his best to look composed in front of Erica. Finding it way too adorable, Kishino burst into laughter at his sudden panic within the confines of their brain. Knowing that Erica definitely saw his flustered scramble to sit up, Harold just wanted to pull the covers over his head and hide. But before he could succumb to embarrassment, Erica mumbled just loud enough for Harold to hear.
“I’m not really supposed to be near you. I'll get in a lot of trouble from my caretaker, but, I heard you were sick and I just wanted to, uhm... ”
Ahh, Harold understood now. Erica was raised to place a high value on morals, so she probably felt guilty about breaking the rules and lying, even if it was just to check on him. If he wanted Erica to stay, he needed to act fast before that guilt overpowered her!
“Well, I’m strong enough to handle this much on my own, but I’m grateful, Erica-sama. You have a -warm- heart!” (It’s tough, but I’m pulling through, no need to worry. Thank you so much for checking in on me, Erica-sama. You are a kind -and thoughtful- person that will grow up into an honorable noble!)”
Because his feelings aligned with his words, it wasn’t too difficult to navigate the trash-translator. Even so, since he still had to speak while infusing the intent of being overly-friendly into his words, and he sometimes needed to speak slowly or pause to do it properly. He only occasionally had to try to think of a literal entirely different word. If he’d had to think of two different sentences every time he spoke, it’d be impossible after all. Harold had been getting faster with practice, but it was still mentally exhausting work. It wasn’t just imagining something in his head like he’d thought it was at first, it was something indescribably magical in nature, similar to how he could feel the distinction between him and Kishino through some kind of sixth sense.
“Ah, thank you Harold-sama, but I’m not so sure… Right now I’m being considerably rebellious.”
“...Those idiots are just worried for you because they’re scared of a ten year old with amateurish negotiation skills and an unknown background.” (It’s fine, your family is just being rightfully cautious of you interacting with me, since I displayed god-awful negotiation skills and acted rude and threatening when we first met, and they don’t know how much information or power I have.)
Harold cursed internally. No matter how hard he tried to remain calm and optimistic, the translator clearly revealed his internalized outrage. Could anyone blame him? Even after all they had done for the Sumeragi, that bastard still had the audacity to treat Kishino like crap in all of their meetings together! For the past two days, Kishino tried his best to ease up on the tension and dispel their first impression, but Tasuku stubbornly continued poking and prodding into all of their secrets, and giving them increasingly petty deals!
“Well, I can certainly understand why. It isn’t every day that a young noble child suddenly appears in front of us with a groundbreaking medicine after all.”
“Oh, so you’re taking their side!? Figures, since-!”
Harold stopped. Erica was looking away from him. No, no, it was happening again! He was acting like that again! He was better than that. He’d changed. He’d learned!
“...I apologize. This wretched fever is messing with my judgement.”
“It’s alright. You’ve had a stressful few days after all. Should we speak again when you’re feeling better?”
“No!”
Harold winced. That was louder and much more commanding than he’d intended it to be. No, this was bad! He couldn’t be showing this side of him to Erica of all people!
“I mean, no, I’m just tired. You’re correct, It’s just- Uhm, please, don’t leave yet…”
This time Harold couldn’t stop himself, and he sank down into the sheets until they reached his waist and shrunk into his shoulders. He couldn’t bring himself to look Erica in the face. Kishino tried to reassure him, but he didn’t deserve it; he was a stuck-up brat that would have grown up to be a trademark narcissist villain if Kishino didn’t give him a reality check. The only reason he was around was as a body for Kishino to possess and even then he was too stubborn to just disappear like in a normal isekai. Erica was right, she should just leave and forget about him…
“...!”
But instead, as he was lost in thought with his face turned away, Erica had crossed the room to his left bedside and suddenly wrapped a brand-new towel around his neck. He had tossed his old one onto the night stand in his panic. When Harold glanced up to her face he could see a gentle smile unfit to be directed at him. Was she hiding the towel behind her back before?
“Well, if you ask me so nicely then I have no choice but to comply.”
“What kind of logic does that make…?”
Though he mumbled that, he couldn’t help the wave of relief the towel brought him; the earlier exchange must have gotten him worked up and raised his temperature. With the tension gone, Harold started shivering more obviously than before as he leaned back on his pillows again, and Erica rubbed his shoulder reassuringly.
“Che, you sat up that fast even though it was this bad. Who’re you showing off your scales to?”
“?”
“Ah, that was a Nihann euphemism for acting tough, sorry.”
“Ah, it’s fine...Hey, Erica-sama?”
“Nn? What is it?”
“This likely doesn’t make sense, since you don’t really know most of the things that are happening but… Do you think I’m doing a good job?”
Harold didn’t know what he was asking. Was it just in general, or in relation to Kishino’s goals? For the latter, Harold was good at some things that Kishino wasn’t, sure, but the only way he directly contributed to their current goals was by writing the contracts since he had better handwriting, was raised with noble etiquette, and was more in tune with the country’s laws. Kishino was the one doing the majority of the work, so maybe he felt bad about not contributing enough to the whole medicine deal? But even so, Harold felt like he was asking about more than just that.
“You’re right, but while I might not understand all of it, It’s obvious to anyone that you’re working really hard! From what I’ve heard from father, I think you’ve done a great job so far.”
But even if he didn’t understand his own question, or what Erica’s answer even referred to, her words felt unmistakably warm and comforting.
“Is that so… But I’m not doing anything at all.”
“You’re putting a team together to create a groundbreaking medicine though?”
“No, that’s not right, that wasn’t my work.”
“It does not matter if you didn’t come up with the plans itself. You still went through all the effort to execute those plans, which is more than an average ten year old could ever accomplish. I mean, the only noble act I ever did was getting engaged to you.”
Harold laughed despite himself. Erica didn’t get the whole story, but she was still correct in a sense. He was already contributing in whatever ways he could, even if it wasn’t as immediately obvious as Kishino. Expecting himself to save millions of lives before he’d even hit puberty was just starting to muddle his common sense of how much productivity equated to his self worth. The bar set by Kishino was also set way too high, with his otherworldly science, future knowledge, and ambition to change the world. It was a miracle that Harold’s mind was even still in one piece after that sudden existential crisis. Or two pieces, at most.
“I suppose that’s true. Though getting engaged to a puritain is tragic enough on its own, so no need to sell yourself short.”
Erica giggled.
“Well I’m eleven, not ten, so that doesn’t count.”
“It does.”
“Nope!”
Harold gave her the stink eye, but Erica remained as stubborn as a Hornhead and boasted a haughty smile.
But that isn’t something to be proud of…?
Amazed at her twisted sense of pride, Harold felt that Erica wouldn’t budge no matter how much he tsukkomi’d, so he only hummed disapprovingly and changed the topic.
“By the way, since you’ve been studying it, what can you tell me about the Withering? You don’t need to waste time with me on the basics, by the way.”
“Ah, right…”
Erica suddenly became crestfallen at the mention of the disease, with no sign of her earlier childishness. That only made sense, given how little progress they’d made in their research. Conventional methods were practically useless, since normal healing magic relies heavily on interacting with astral bodies to heal the body, and the withering attacks the astral body itself. Knowing her heart, Harold wouldn’t be surprised if she idiotically blamed herself for how badly the epidemic had spread.
“Well, let's see, the part that is affected the most is the Spirit, so do you want to begin with that?”
Many people categorize the Astral Body into three main parts. The spirit refers to the part that maintains and interacts with your health and mind in magical ways. The aura is what the ‘attack’ and ‘defense,’ as well as other stats, refer to in Brave Hearts. The will is the part of you that deals with casting Spells, like launching fireballs at people, and activating Skills, like having a sudden burst of light envelope your weapon and increase your attack for a split second.
They are all interconnected, and since no language is perfect, there are always exceptions and you sometimes need to take context clues into account. Interestingly, in the game, the Will was actually referred to as the kanji for the emotional Heart in Japanese, but the language didn’t work that way in this country. It kinda sucks part of the meaning from the game’s title, Brave Hearts, but there wasn’t anything Harold could do about that.
“Actually, to begin, what do you know about how it spreads? It’s a bit too late for this, but it’d be troublesome if I infect you.”
“As far as we can tell, this disease infects people through mana. Other than that, it is known to spread incredibly quickly through unknown means and then mysteriously dissipate. The symptoms show up faster in those with untrained astral bodies, but against those with strong wills and auras like soldiers, it is much more dangerous.”
“Is it different for men and women?”
“We think so. There are a lot of different ways someone can be affected by the withering, but certain trends are obvious. Men grow more powerful auras and deeper wills than most women so the withering tends to be more intense in them, but similar to how women are better at controlling aura and bending skills and spells to their will, the withering sometimes manifests within them in unpredictable ways that can spell death if not treated properly.”
“Mm…”
Harold interrupted because knowing how the Summeragi believed the withering spread was extremely vital information to him. Luckily, it was just like he thought; compared to Kishino’s knowledge from Brave Hearts, the Summeragi actually knew very little about the plague. This made sense since it was so enigmatic and theorised to be only a couple of years old, on top of originating in a poor area of the territory. Fear and tension had been brewing for a long time, but it was only recently that the Withering began touching populated cities, and even a section of the capital. Harold had information that could prevent thousands of tragedies if he were to tell the Sumeragi, but it was also dangerously indicative of a crucial future plot point. If he wasn’t such a coward, he could even destroy the disease at its roots. The deaths and agony of all of those innocent citizens rested in the palm of his hands, and yet he could do nothing but pass around metaphorical first-aid kits and watch…
“Harold-sama?”
“Ah, I apologize. Could you tell me more about how this ‘aftershock’ affects my astral body now?”
The two continued to talk about the withering and healing magic, and gradually shifted into a tangent about the quarantine and the preventative measures taken by the Summeragi, and finally into pure politics. Sadly, Harold’s attempts to hide his sore throat eventually fell apart, and Erica quickly left him to rest while panicking about how much time had passed. Taking the opportunity to finally get up and empty his bladder, Harold decided to take a warm bath before gracefully passing out on the bed with his notebook closed on his lap; the stupid schedule was way too harsh for just a sick noble brat. Kishino’s expectations were way too ambitious…
Thanks for the chapter! The scene with Tasuku in the beginning is certainly more realistic than the OG novel. He knows he needs what Harold has, but is going to be as careful as possible to prevent a mistake that could negatively affect his people in their already precarious position.
Harold being flustered in front of Erica was adorable. It definitely conveyed that first childhood crush feeling with the trying and failing to act tough.
Based on the discussion it sounds like Harold has a strong Aura from his training, but unrefined control. I'm curious to see how control is trained. If it is manipulating the strength of the body through combat drills to make strikes hit harder and defense better, I can certainly understand why Kishino would think that doing that while sick was a bad idea.
Thankyou so much! I thought a lot about these things!
harold ur adorable... small flustered child is a good genre actually, who knew pfft
thanks for the chapter
Thank you for reading!
will this be harem?
No, not really*. Small spoils in the spoil tag
Kishino will like not like Erica in a romantic way. But he might like others. Even if they were to possibly both end up in romantic relationships, it’d be two separate relationships. Erica is a kid after all.
Thanks for the chapter
Thank you for commenting!