Maydare Volume 3 Chapter 6 - The Bells of the Two Princes Ring I (Part 2)
On the way back to magic school after leaving the palace, I suggested something to Frey.
“Hey, Frey, why don’t we go to the magic garbage dump?”
“Geh. You still want to scavenge for garbage? Leader, you’re too active for a daughter of a noble. I’m not going.”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what.”
Frey turned his back on me with a huff, stubbornly refusing to go to the magic garbage dump.
Seeing his reaction reminded me of the inexplicable behavior he had shown before at the garbage dump.
“Is there something about the hand mirror I found there before? You were clearly shaken when you saw it.”
“...”
Frey’s gaze slanted to the side, and after a few moments, he said something unexpected.
“That used to belong to Lady Alicia.”
“Eh…!?”
I was shocked. How was it possible for something that belonged to the High Consort of a country to be thrown away in a place like that?
“B-But how? That’s not right.”
“Who knows. I have no idea why in the world her hand mirror was dumped there. But I know for sure that it belonged to Lady Alicia. Because…she always treasured it.”
The more I heard, the more uneasy I became.
I left that hand mirror in the garbage dump, not knowing that it belonged to the late High Consort.
I didn’t know when it would be processed as garbage, and it would be buried under a mountain of garbage soon.
“Shouldn’t we tell Prince Gilbert about it?”
“Hah?”
“It’s a memento of Prince Gilbert’s mother, isn’t it? It shouldn’t be in a place like that!”
“What do I know about that idiot brother of mine.”
Frey suddenly became grumpy.
He stopped on the sidewalk, then clicked his tongue and scratched his head.
“Oh no, I can’t go on like this~~I’m going to go and get comforted by a pretty older lady, so Leader, you can go ahead and pick through garbage by yourself.”
“What, you’re awful!”
“See ya!”
Frey walked along the wall of a building and escaped somewhere.
“What a heartless man. …I’m stunned. He really is a delinquent son.”
However, perhaps it was because I heard about his past, but I could understand why Frey didn’t want to touch that mirror.
Having no choice, I headed off to the magical dumping ground alone.
If that mirror belonged to High Consort Alicia, it was even more important to retrieve it and deliver it to the palace before it was processed as garbage.
“I think it was somewhere around here…”
I came to the magical dumping ground alone.
I was dressed like an aristocratic girl returning from the palace, but I had no choice now.
However, I was so determined to find that hand mirror once again that I frantically searched for it, even while soiling my clothes.
But I couldn’t find it easily. I was prioritizing finding the place I found it before.
Maybe it was already processed…
“Leave this to Popotarou, who’s good at finding things, poyo!”
“Little Donsuke can go anywhere in this world of garbage, dechi.”
“Hey, you two!”
Popotarou and Donsuke scampered out from underneath my skirt, said something with high morale, and then went into the gaps between the piled-up garbage.
“You’ll get crushed! Come back here, I’ll give you sunflower seeds!”
I peeked my face through a gap in the garbage and called out “Chi chi chi” to my ham-chans. However, they didn’t come out even when I lured them with seeds. I think they’ll be okay, since they’re spirits, but…
“Oi, O’Drielle. What are you doing?”
Called from behind, I raised my head.
Before I knew it, Garnet Team 3 had surrounded me.
They seemed to find me suspicious, perhaps because I came here alone.
Putting that aside, they were always here, weren’t they.
“If you’re going to use this place, then you need to collect the gummies for today.”
The leader of Team 3, Dan, threatened me to pay taxes. He was like the tyrant of the land of the garbage dump.
“H-Hold on a minute! Have you seen a hand mirror around here? It’s a silver hand mirror with a handle. It’s old, but it’s fancy with a flower border.”
“...Hand mirror?”
Team 3 looked at each other and tilted their heads.
“You lost an expensive mirror here?”
“Wow, really? That’s hilarious~”
“We told you that this isn’t a place for nobles to come.”
The leader Dan looked unamused, and the Mars siblings were cackling, misunderstanding me.
“Just so you know, that mirror isn’t mine. …Eh, you got it!? You really got it!? Uwaaaah, that’s my Donpopo!!”
The two ham-chans dragged the mirror out from a gap in the magic garbage, saying “Heave-ho, heave-ho.” The way they carried the mirror with their tiny bodies with all their effort was adorable, and their bravery almost brought tears to my eyes. Wait, there really are tears in my eyes.
The hand mirror was fine. It wasn’t cracked or broken.
I’m so glad I found it…
I wiped the surface of the mirror with a handkerchief I had. I was reflected in the fogged mirror surface.
I thought that the fact it was dumped here meant that it was a magic mirror, but there was no particular phenomenon that occurred that indicated that was the case.
“I wonder what kind of magic tool this is?”
“For someone who went to the trouble of soiling her fluttery clothes to look for it, you don’t even know what it is?”
I didn’t know what he was thinking, but Dan squatted down in front of me and snatched the mirror out of my hands.
And then he shook it, turned it over, and checked the handle.
“This…is probably a mirror letter that was popular among the nobility of Miladriede a while ago.”
“Mirror letter?”
I didn’t remember hearing that name, but the other members of Team 3 were saying “Oh” and nodding. Apparently, it was a famous magic tool in its own right.
“Mirror letters are one of the features of magic hand mirrors.”
The chubby Francis explained.
“For example, you would look at your reflection in this mirror and say something, right? After you do that, this mirror can cut out the image and the words, trap them inside, and store them. If you give it as a love letter to someone you were interested in, it would be much more effective than a handwritten letter.”
“Oh, I see~. So that’s what it is.”
I understood it a little better. It was almost like a video camera, except you saved what was reflected in the mirror.
But a stylish hand mirror would probably be much more romantic than a video camera.
“But the mirror letter function isn’t working. I think something is saved on it.”
Dan returned the hand mirror to me, frowning.
“Maybe it’s broken?”
“Maybe. Or maybe it’s locked. Maybe it’s something with bad circumstances like it’s stolen.”
“...”
Certainly, that was possible. It could have been stolen from the palace by someone.
If the hand mirror had recorded the High Consort’s appearance and words before her death, it could be misused.
“So, why were you looking for this, O’Drielle?”
They finally got to the heart of the matter.
I held the hand mirror tightly in my arms and appealed to everyone in Team 3 as I bowed my head.
“Please don’t ask about that. I just want to return it to where it belongs. The original owner has already passed away…”
“Huh?”
I additionally made one more earnest request.
“And for today’s tax payment! Can you please wait just a little longer!?”
“Huh…?”
“I’ll look for twenty or even thirty gummies when I’m done with everything!”
Silence descended for a few moments.
Huh? I thought and raised my head, and was met with all the members of Team 3 staring at me blankly.
Even Dan, who always had a stern expression on his face, had his mouth half-open with the crease between his eyebrows gone.
“Wait, are you actually serious about that?”
“Eh?”
“You’re such an airheaded noble girl. For someone who looks so arrogant, you’re very earnest.”
I blinked in surprise at Dan’s words.
No, wait. They were so hostile earlier, weren’t they? They were ready to make me pay the gummy tax, weren’t they?
“Ahahahahahaha!”
Everyone else burst into laughter as well, clutching their stomachs.
“H-Hmph. So what. That’s enough. I’m leaving. You can keep laughing here.”
“Ahahahahahaha!”
“...”
I pouted and turned my back on Team 3 to leave the place. I’m not going to pay the gummy tax. I’m committing tax evasion.
“Oi, O’Drielle! If this case is too much for you, then don’t pursue it too deeply!”
But a little further away, I heard Dan shouting that at my back.
So they were worried about me after all? I turned around and waved lightly. Everyone in Team 3 waved back at me carefreely.
When all was said and done, they were a cheeky team full of human kindness.
I would make sure to pay today’s gummy tax next time. I’ll do that.
With the hand mirror, I returned to the glass bottle atelier at Lune Ruschia Magic School.
Assuming that the mirror belonged to the High Consort, I wanted to clean and polish it before going to the palace, and I wanted to change my dirty clothes.
I also wanted to confirm it with Frey again.
Did this really belong to Lady Alicia?
But in the glass bottle atelier, only Nero and Lapis were there, and Frey was nowhere to be found.
Nero and Lapis seemed to be disassembling something they had brought back from the magical dumping ground before.
“Welcome back, Makia.”
“I’m back, Lapis. Say, has Frey come back here?”
As I looked around the atelier restlessly, Nero, who was working, raised the goggles he was wearing.
“Frey? I thought you went to the palace to go and get him?”
“I did, but he disappeared on the way back. He really is unmatched at running away.”
“Really…” Nero and Lapis said with straight faces. Well, I supposed they could imagine the scene.
“By the way, Makia, what are you holding in your hand?”
Lapis noticed the hand mirror I was holding.
“Well, I went to that magical dumping ground again. There was something on my mind, and I picked this up…”
“It’s a hand mirror with a mirror letter function.”
Nero only glanced at the hand mirror and immediately recognized the magic tool.
“It is! I’d expect nothing less from you.”
I explained to Nero and Lapis what happened.
About how I found this magic mirror in the magical dumping ground.
About how Frey had a strange reaction to this mirror before.
About how I ran into Team 3 at the magical dumping ground and learned that this was a mirror letter.
Lapis and Nero’s eyes blinked in surprise, but they listened quietly.
“I think there might be a mirror letter left behind by the High Consort before her death in this hand mirror. But it might be broken, since it didn’t say a single word. Hey Nero, is it really broken?”
“...Show it to me.”
Nero took the mirror in his hand, turning it upside down and stroking the mirror’s surface with his fingertips to examine something.
He removed the metal fittings that had been set into the mirror’s handle and pressed his thumb against it, trying to decipher the magic formula that he could only see with his contact lenses.
Oh, the magic formula was being displayed densely on the mirror’s surface.
What was Nero doing? Was he doing something like hacking??
“!?”
The surface of the mirror shimmered like water, and just when I thought the magic formula disappeared, something appeared that wasn’t supposed to be there.
It was a beautiful woman with curly beige hair wearing a bluish-purple dress.
“Could this be…the High Consort!?”
“...I’m not Ruschian, so I don’t really know.”
Next to me, Lapis was also peering into the mirror, but like me, she didn’t know the face of the High Consort.
“She must be a member of the royal family at the very least. The coat of arms of the Ruschia royal family is painted on the furniture behind her that’s reflected in the mirror.”
Nero also seemed unable to determine whether or not she was the High Consort, but he was right, there were indeed several pieces of furniture and other items behind Lady Alicia with the Ruschia royal crest on them.
The beautiful woman in the mirror smiled gracefully and blinked occasionally. It seemed that this wasn’t just a still image, but a moving image.
However, she didn’t start speaking about anything, only staring at the mirror and making gestures like she was checking her appearance. It was as if she was really looking into the mirror to check her face and makeup.
“A magic mirror is supposed to keep a daily record of your appearance like this. It must be playing at random right now.”
Immediately after Nero said this, the surface of the mirror wavered, and this time something else was reflected.
“I wonder…what this is.”
There was a small, distant reflection of a canopied bed and several people surrounding it.
“Disappear.”
Only the voice was clearly audible. It was a hoarse woman’s voice, clearly in pain.
“Disappear, Frey. From my sight…from the palace.”
Frey…?
By Frey, did she mean that Frey?
After a while, one of the children who had surrounded the bed ran out of the room. His arm was pressed against his face, wiping away tears.
Then there was the sound of a door slamming shut.
“I’m sorry, Frey. I can’t…protect you anymore.”
The woman sounded like she was crying.
“Gilbert, take good care of that child.”
“Yes, Mother. I will protect Frey.”
I could see a young boy nestling close to the woman lying on the bed, holding back his tears and trying to reassure his mother.
I knew who this was.
Although I couldn’t see the details of his appearance, the dignified and proud tone of his voice, in which he was aware of his status as a prince, was unmistakably that of Prince Gilbert.
And so, I was sure that the child who ran out of the room was our Frey…
At this point, however, a startingly red key mark appeared on the mirror’s surface, and the continuation of the footage could no longer be seen.
“No good. I can’t unlock anymore than that.”
It seemed that even Nero couldn’t unlock anymore than that.
“To unlock the rest, you need the set password. Also, you need two.”
“Two!?”
If I needed two passwords when I didn’t even know one, then I had no idea what to do.
It seemed that I had no choice but to simply polish the hand mirror and take it to the palace.
No, that was probably the right thing to do. It wouldn’t be good to peek into the hand mirror of the High Consort any more than I already have…
“I’ve heard all about it!”
Suddenly, a refined voice echoed through the atelier, and we jerked our shoulders up.
Before we knew it, there were two people looking down at us near the doorway of the atelier.
“Beatrice!?”
And her butler Nicholas.
Beatrice, the leader of Garnet Team 1, came down the stairs, briskly sweeping her long blonde hair over her shoulder. She stared at the magic hand mirror on the table.
I had no idea how she knew, but she seemed to understand what was going on.
“This mirror most certainly belongs to High Consort Alicia.”
She, who was Prince Gilbert’s ex-fiancee, stated definitively.
“So it is hers?”
“Yes. If I remember correctly, it was given to her by the king. It’s decorated with the buttercup flowers she loves so much, isn’t it?”
Beatrice had me check the handiwork that framed the hand mirror.
Apparently, the buttercup detailing was something that was always incorporated into the king’s gifts when made at workshops. Beatrice’s words were persuasive because of her close relationship with Lady Alicia.
“Hey, Beatrice. I need two passwords to open the mirror letter left in this mirror. Do you have any idea what they are?”
“...Two passwords?”
Beatrice sat down on a sofa, crossed her legs, and put her chin in her hand. She was deep in thought.
The butler took out a tea set from somewhere, so I thought she was going to have an elegant tea break, but then she was pontificating again for a while. And then, ten minutes later.
“It’s simple. I’m sure the two princes know the passwords!”
Suddenly, she raised her index finger in a confident manner and declared that.
She took a while, so Nero, Lapis, and I were working on other things entirely.
“Do you mean Frey and Prince Gilbert?”
I stopped polishing the mirror and asked Beatrice to make sure.
“Of course. They are on horrible terms now, but when they were young, they grew up as the closest of brothers under Lady Alicia’s care. When they quarreled, she would always set up ‘games’ that could only be cleared if His Highness Gilbert and His Highness Frey worked together.”
“Games? What are…”
I dropped my gaze to the hand mirror again.
I gazed at the face of the High Consort, who was smiling even now.
“I’m sure this is the ‘final game’ that Lady Alicia left for the two of them. I’m not sure why her lost mirror has appeared now…and at a garbage dump no less. How can this be?”
“Yes, that has been on my mind as well.”
That was Beatrice’s standard phrase, but it was certainly unthinkable.
I could only assume that someone intentionally dumped it there at this point in time.
“Say, Beatrice. This is unrelated, but what business do you have here? Isn’t Team 1’s base located in the new atelier in the center of the school? Furthermore, you’re eavesdropping on us.”
Perhaps because of the silence, Lapis asked Beatrice some sharp questions. Well, she had been told by Beatrice before that she didn’t want her as a team member.
“E-Eavesdropping? Don’t say disparaging things about people, Lapis Twilight. I’m here to observe the movements of our biggest rival, Team 9.”
“‘Observing movements’ is even worse…”
Nero, who had been silent until now, muttered.
Beatrice feigned ignorance and sipped her tea.
“Fufu. Mistress Beatrice brought some refreshments for Team 9. The final team assignment has begun, so we should wish each other luck. Also, she has a few questions she would like to ask you, Miss Makia.”
The butler, Nicholas, presented an assorted basket of luxury baked sweets.
Beatrice turned bright red, probably because she had been exposed, and she glared at her butler.
The butler was smiling, completely unfazed.
“What is it that Beatrice wants to ask me?”
I asked as I picked a seashell-shaped madeleine from the basket of baked sweets.
“Well, um…” Beatrice, however, was reluctant to speak, and her gaze wandered around.
Was she embarrassed or troubled?
“What’s wrong, Beatrice? You don’t have your usual smug look on your face.”
“Um…I was wondering if you might know how His Highness Gilbert is doing.”
Beatrice finally put her worries into words.
I widened my eyes slightly.
“I have heard rumors lately that he has been absentminded, that he’s tired, and that he has lost weight. I was wondering if something had happened.”
I recalled the appearance of Prince Gilbert, who I had seen earlier in the palace courtyard.
His usual close-fitting clothes had their collar unbuttoned, and he was all by himself, hanging his head.
“...He did seem very tired. There must be a lot of pressure on him.”
Even I could understand that much.
His role as prince, his role as Guardian, his responsibilities at the alliance conference…
Above all, there was also Airi. Various circumstances must have been entangling that person tightly.
“Beatrice, do you still love Prince Gilbert?”
Because she still seemed to worry about him even after he publicly accused her before.
But Beatrice shook her head.
“I have known him for a long time, and I still love him as much as ever. But it is no longer the love of a dreaming girl. I am only concerned about him. Each of the princes of the Kingdom of Ruschia bear heavy responsibilities.”
Even if he was her ex-fiance and first love, even after all that had happened, Beatrice didn’t speak ill of Prince Gilbert and worried about him. She was incredible.
I, on the other hand, was also concerned about Frey, who had grown up deprived of his princely privileges but was now expected to have self-awareness as a prince at this stage in his life.
“Makia. Do you know how many times His Highness Gilbert has had his life threatened and nearly died?”
“Huh?”
“It is nothing compared to His Highness Frey. The reason why Lady Alicia and His Highness Gilbert drove him out of the palace lies there.”
My eyes slowly widened.
I recalled what I saw earlier, the words Lady Alicia left in the hand mirror.
“I am no longer in a position to have anything to do with Prince Gilbert. But before Lady Alicia passed away, she personally asked me to look after him. …And to remain by his side, no matter who becomes his enemy.”
Lady Alicia entrusted Frey to Prince Gilbert.
And she entrusted Prince Gilbert to Beatrice.
“But I don’t think I can keep that promise.”
Beatrice smiled wryly.
“So please, please take Lady Alicia’s mirror to His Highness. I’m sure he will be encouraged by seeing his mother as she was before her death and by hearing the words she left behind.”
“..Yes. I will. Thank you, Beatrice. You’ve brought a lot of things together for me.”
At my words, Beatrice smiled graciously and proudly.
“I told you, Makia. I’m on your side. If you ever need anything else, you can rely on me.”
“Yes, I’m sure. Beatrice, you really are my reliable rival.”
Then we gingerly took each other’s hands and shook hands tightly.
We usually competed with each other, but we believed in each other, and our eyes faced each other.
Thanks to Beatrice, I now had the courage to take the hand mirror to the palace.
To be honest, I was a little worried. I was afraid that an outsider like me, by bringing this hand mirror into the palace, might reveal the parts of the two princes they wouldn’t want to be brought up the most.
But I was the one who found this hand mirror.
Back then, this mirror was sparkling, as though saying that it wanted me to find it.
And the images I just saw in the mirror…
Beatrice’s words convinced me. The reason Frey was thrown out of the palace was because Lady Alicia and Prince Gilbert tried to protect him.
“Disappear, Frey. From my sight…from this palace.”
Frey didn’t know the true meaning of those words.
He had to know. Otherwise, no one would be able to move forward.
tftc
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