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Chapter 33
“Are you… joking?”
Franz nearly shouted, then quickly lowered his voice.
“I’m serious.”
Aleksei remained completely calm.
“But it can’t have been that long ago, right? You played recently?”
“Hmm. Maybe three years ago.”
Franz’s jaw dropped.
“And you still stepped forward that confidently?”
“I remember the rules.”
“Should I say I’ll do it instead, even now?”
“No. I don’t want to entrust Angelina’s fate to someone else.”
Suppressing his frustration, Franz replied,
“Don’t forget that my fate is tied to this too.”
“I’ll do my best.”
The butler, who had gone out under the duke’s orders, returned. In his hands was a telescope. He placed it at the center of the table.
“Now that the stake has arrived, preparations are complete.”
Duke Lyon smiled in satisfaction.
“Sit.”
Aleksei took the seat opposite the duke. The butler pushed in his chair before standing in the middle.
“We’ll each keep score ourselves.”
“Very well.”
The butler handed them score sheets and fountain pens before leaving the room.
A strange tension settled across the table between them. Duke Lyon’s lips smiled, but not his eyes.
“Shuffle the cards.”
The duke raised a hand leisurely. Aleksei swallowed once and picked up the deck.
Whenever he saw nobles enjoying card games in salons, he would avoid them as though he had seen something obscene. Those places overflowed with alcohol, crude jokes, and loud laughter.
All things Aleksei despised.
“The world isn’t found only in books, Your Highness.”
At the insistence of the eldest son of Count Zerdy, Aleksei had reluctantly joined a table once and experienced his first defeat in life. The drunken count’s son had mocked him with vulgar laughter.
Who would have thought that awful memory would become useful experience someday?
I can’t let them see an opening.
Aleksei shuffled the cards, dealt twelve each, and placed the remaining deck face down in the center. Duke Lyon tilted his head as if telling him to go first.
Aleksei shielded his cards with his palm and looked at them.
Twelve number cards.
“…Carte Blanche.”
One of the duke’s eyebrows twitched. He discarded cards the same way Aleksei had and drew three more.
Franz stood a step away, watching the game. From their expressions alone, he couldn’t tell who had the better hand.
“Set of four.”
“Point five.”
“Point three.”
The game flowed smoothly.
At least that was a relief.
Franz had worried the crown prince might stumble around not even knowing the rules. But perhaps the rumors about his intelligence were true after all.
He remembered what the passengers aboard the Aurora had said.
Some called him a lifeless bookworm, but still…
“This is the final round.”
By rough calculation, Duke Lyon seemed to be leading by around ten points.
As Aleksei picked up his cards, he made a silent wish.
The fates of three people rested on this round.
At the beginning, the odds had been fifty-fifty. Now they had tilted seventy-thirty.
“Point three.”
“Equal.”
“Set of three.”
“Not good.”
“Sequence five.”
“Good.”
At first it seemed as though Duke Lyon was overwhelming him, but after the crown prince declared “Sequence five,” the atmosphere reversed. The duke answered “Good” repeatedly, and Aleksei’s score sheet quickly filled.
“Repique.”
All the cards in his hand disappeared. Duke Lyon smiled bitterly and closed his score sheet.
Even by rough estimation, the winner was obvious.
“A splendid defeat.”
“It was an excellent match.”
Duke Lyon stared at Aleksei, who wore the smile of victory.
“Then, as promised, I’ll take the telescope.”
“Of course.”
The duke rose along with Aleksei. Aleksei picked up the telescope.
Now I just need to hand this over to the pirate…
“Wait.”
Franz grabbed Aleksei’s arm.
“This isn’t the item.”
“What?”
“This isn’t the telescope we had.”
The pattern looked similar, but…
As Aleksei turned the telescope over in confusion, Duke Lyon took a decorative sword from the display and pointed it at the two men.
“Who are you?”
“……”
“Why are Latrians in this country?”
His sharp gaze pinned them in place. Aleksei answered calmly.
“I don’t know what misunderstanding you’ve had, but we came from the Kingdom of Rio.”
Duke Lyon smiled coldly.
“The scoring methods for piquet vary slightly by region. Recently, however, the Tordy Empire and neighboring nations joined the Piquet League and standardized the rules.”
Sweat gathered in Aleksei’s clenched fist.
“I once stayed in Latria. I saw a peculiar calculation method there. You used it just now. And on top of that, you failed to notice the telescope was fake.”
“……”
“You pretended to be the telescope’s owner and entered my house. Why?”
Only then did Aleksei understand the duke’s scheme.
The similar-looking telescope had been the first test. The card game had been the second.
Now he finally understood why the duke, after flatly rejecting strangers, had suddenly proposed a game.
It had all been a trap to uncover the identities and motives of suspicious visitors.
Blinded by the desire to retrieve the telescope, he had failed to judge the situation calmly.
“As the duke says.”
Once their lie had been exposed, there was only one solution left.
Face it with the truth.
“We are not from Rio. Nor are we the telescope’s owners. We have no intention of harming you. I’ll introduce myself properly, so please lower your sword.”
Aleksei spoke with steady eyes. Duke Lyon lowered the blade.
“I am Aleksei Werner, Crown Prince of the Latria Empire.”
“You are Latria’s crown prince?”
Duke Eberhard Lyon was genuinely shocked. He had suspected that the Latrian imperial family might somehow be involved in whatever dangerous business had brought them here, but the crown prince himself?
Unable to believe it, he studied the man before him once more.
The unwavering eyes did not seem to be lying.
“Can you prove it?”
“I cannot reveal imperial secrets simply to prove I am the crown prince.”
It did not sound like empty bravado. Now that he knew their identities, the only question remaining was why they had come.
“For what reason did you come to Tordy?”
“We were attacked in the East Sea by the Devilon.”
“The Devilon?”
“The ship commanded by the pirate Jin Blasque. The passenger ship we boarded was seized. We escaped by sheer luck and transferred to another vessel, but its final destination happened to be the Tordy continent.”
Lyon had already heard from naval officers that pirates had been running rampant lately.
Jin Blasque’s Devilon had been plundering trade ships headed toward the Western Sea, forcing many to take longer routes. As Captain Blasque came to dominate the seas, other pirate ships had also grown bolder.
Duke Lyon had repeatedly urged a large-scale anti-pirate campaign, but the Tordy Emperor had shown little interest.
No matter how arrogant the pirates had become, hijacking a passenger ship carrying a crown prince had clearly crossed a line.
The real question was whether they had known who he was—or not.
“What does the telescope have to do with this?”
“The telescope belonged to that pirate. If we don’t return it, my subordinate’s life will be in danger.”
“That is impossible.”
“……”
“Because the telescope was originally mine.”
Aleksei’s eyes widened.
“And if you truly are the crown prince of Latria…”
Duke Lyon raised the sword he had just lowered.
“Then it is my duty to report this to His Majesty the Emperor.”
“Duke Eberhard Lyon, I wish to return quietly. I believe you can help me.”
“No. My duty as a subject comes before hospitality toward a foreign guest.”
“But you do not want war either.”
Duke Lyon’s gaze wavered.
Aleksei remembered hearing Duke Eberhard Lyon’s name during conversations between Emperor Werner and the ministers. There was an opposition faction within the imperial court that wished to halt war and preserve the peace policy of the previous emperor—and Duke Eberhard Lyon stood at its head.
“If I and the crown princess fall into Emperor Raul Garcia’s hands, the current peace will shatter.”
“The crown princess?”
“The hostage being held by the pirates is my wife.”
So even the Crown Princess of Latria was in Tordy.
Duke Lyon was deeply shocked, though he maintained a composed expression.
“The history of the Tordy Empire may be rewritten, then. According to the emperor’s wishes. I see no reason to stop it. It could become a different kind of peace.”
“And even if pirates are involved in that affair?”
Duke Lyon’s eyes widened for an instant.
