『WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH-!』

As soon as he entered the room, Rei’s ears were greeted by such cheers.

Guided by those voices, he turned to look towards the arena, where he saw the woman with a spear clutching her chest as the man with the gauntlets sank to the stage.

「Huh, I hadn’t thought the one with the spear would win. Too bad.」

Turning around to face the voice behind him, Rei saw Tangu, who had invited him here, holding onto a betting card in his hands while letting out a disappointed sigh.

From his expression, Rei realised that Tangu had bet on the losing side.

The baron invited Rei to take a seat on a sofa as he went to the trouble of filling a glass of water from a jug in the room before offering it to Rei.

「……Thank you very much.」

Rei was momentarily surprised by his behaviour, which was quite unbelievable for a noble. However, Tangu just smiled as he spoke up.

「Is it that surprising for me to do these small things with my own hands?」

「Yes, well. I just thought that nobles would have had servants do this kind of work.」

Rei replied with those thoughts in mind, but recalling the nobles he had met up until now, he realised that it wasn’t necessarily the case.

In particular, Elena had been practicing in order to serve him tea.

……That said, her actions were an exception as a maiden in love.

「Hahaha~, well, I might be a baron now, but I was originally the third son. Normally speaking, I shouldn’t have been able to inherit the title. So, of course, I had to become a soldier or adventurer. I had to become an ordinary person to support myself……」

「But, aren’t you a baron now?」

What happened? Those were Rei’s honest thoughts.

Since Tangu was the third son, it meant that he had to have had at least two older brothers. If the eldest son hadn’t been able to inherit the family title, it should have gone to the second son first.

In other words, the position of third son was to be a backup up to the family heads’ backup. Even Rei doubted how a third son had managed to inherit the family title from such a position.

However, Tangu explained as he brought his own cup to his mouth.

「Well, I understand why you might be confused. Normally, it would be unthinkable for the third son to become the heir. In fact, my older brothers treated me like a bastard and told me to leave the house immediately or die.」

There was no sense of negative emotions from the way he shrugged his shoulders lightly. That was probably because Tangu didn’t think it was a strange action to take as a noble himself.

「Then, how did you become a baron?」

「Well, first of all, my brother……oh, in this case it’s my second brother, died in the Spring War.」

「……」

Rei was momentarily surprised as he had no idea he had been involved at all.

However, Tangu continued on as if he didn’t think much of it at all.

「The reason why my brother had gone to war was originally to raise the name of the Baron Otos family. I guess he also had a lot of thoughts about being the second son and being treated like a backup to the eldest son, although not to quite the same level as me. However, as a result, he was simply killed in battle. As a member of the Baron Otos family, he lost his honour entirely.」

Tangu shrugged his shoulder as he said that.

Even though it was his own family, he didn’t seem to care about it at all, maybe because he really didn’t care.

(Well, from what he said, his two older brothers had treated him like trash. Did his love for his family fade in the process?)

Regardless of what Rei though, Tangu continued his story.

「If that was the end of it, I wouldn’t have inherited the title either, I would just have been a carefree bastard.」

「……So, something happened?」

As he asked that question, Rei had a guess in his mind.

His second brother had fought in the Spring War to earn honour for the Baron Otos family, but had died without a victory. The Bestir Empire army as a whole had also been defeated.

If that happened, it was only natural that the eldest son of the Baron Otos family would find this to be a humiliation.

「Yes. Just as you guessed, Rei.」

Tangu nodded, as if he knew what Rei was thinking just from his expression.

「But even so, the Bestir Empire had lost the war to the Mireana Kingdom. If he tried to mess with you, the cause of their defeat……I will say this to you straight, if he succeeded, it would still be fine. But if he failed and the Mireana Kingdom found out, it would be a huge loss for the Bestir Empire.」

「So they were eliminated as a result?」

「Correct. Well, I used my contacts to ask His Highness Kabajid to take care of it, to be precise.」

Kabajid. Rei knew that name.

It was the name of the First Prince of the Bestir Empire, the man closest to the position of emperor.

He was Vihera’s older brother and one of the people keeping the Third Prince, who Theorem served, under house arrest.

Rei asked a question without voicing his internal thoughts.

「……You cut off your own brother?」

「That’s right. Is there anything wrong? I believe it’s only natural for a noble of the Bestir Empire.」

Seeing Tangu say that so easily, Rei shook his head without saying anything more.

It was fair to say that he could see the charisma of the person named Kabajid.

(As expected of the most likely candidate to the imperial throne.)

Thinking to himself, Rei decided that there was no point in continuing this conversation any further as he spoke up.

「Then, what did you bring me here to talk about?」

「Hm? Oh, that’s right. It’s not quite the real reason, but I wanted to meet and talk with you, Crimson, myself. That aside, His Highness Kabajid told me that I should meet with you.」

「……Me?」

Since Rei knew how he was perceived in the Bestir Empire, he was surprised when Tangu said hat the First Prince had told him to meet with Rei.

It seemed that Tangu was quite interested in Rei’s response as he nodded with a smile.

「Of course. You should know how have been evaluated. ……I know that you are not well regarded within the Bestir Empire right now due to the Spring War incident. However……if His Highness Kabajid were to back you, that evaluation would change completely.」

After saying that much, Rei was able to understand why this Baron had wanted to talk with him.

He wanted to pull Rei to his side.

Was it Kabajid’s idea? Or Tangu’s own thoughts? Rei didn’t know which one it was, but their purpose didn’t change either way.

Until now, he had asked Daska to decline any meetings with nobles, but since he had been asked to meet with a noble tied to the First Prince of the country that had invited them, he had no choice but to accept.

「What do you think? The compensation will naturally be negotiable, but I think we can satisfy your wants. His Highness Kabajid will take action against those who have any thoughts against you……isn’t that obvious when you see my situation?」

Those were the words of someone who had eliminated his own older brother to become the head of the Baron Otos family. That much showed their capabilities.

But……

「I’m sorry, but I have no intention of serving anyone at this point.」

「Is that so? I can offer things you would never regret. I don’t think it would even be difficult to receive a title and become a noble, if that’s what you want.」

「I appreciate your offer, but unfortunately, I’m more sutied to a free career as an adventurer.」

Tangu’s eyes widened slightly with surprise at Rei’s words, as he easily rejected the offer of nobility.

He hadn’t expected Rei to kick away the offer of a title so quickly just because he wanted to be free.

Naturally, he hadn’t expected Rei to just agree either. ……In fact, if Rei had agreed just with the offer of peerage, Rei’s evaluation would have gone down in Tangu’s mind.

That said, he still hadn’t expected Rei to refuse so easily.

(I think……I’ll need to change my evaluation of him.)

Inwardly, he raised his evaluation of Rei.

The more a person valued themselves, the more capable they were. That was Tangu’s maxim.

It was also true that such people usually had unique traits.

In that respect, Rei was a typical example of such a person.

「Hmm, in that case……let me ask you this. If you were to serve the Bestir Empire……or rather, His Highness Kabajid, what conditions would make it possible? From what I see of you, money isn’t an issue……I don’t think you care much for material things like women or power either, so I’d like to hear from you directly.」

「……As I said earlier, I’m quite satisfied with my current life.」

「Does that mean that no matter what the conditions are, you have no intentions to serve His Highness Kabajid?」

After saying that, Tangu closed his eyes for several seconds before speaking up, as if remembering something.

「……Now that I think about it, I heard you have a hobby of collecting magic items. Is approaching from that angle useless as well?」

This time, it was Rei’s turn to be surprised.

It was true that he had a hobby of collecting magic items. However, he had never expected his hobby to become known.

To begin with, there weren’t that many people who knew that about him.

(Where did he find that out from? If it’s Theorem, he probably sent a lot of spies to the Mireana Kingdom, so that much is obvious. But, it’s hard to imagine that Theorem, part of the Third Prince’s faction, would leak that information to the First Prince. In that case……it’s someone else?)

Rei thought of the mage staying at the Eternal Sky Pavilion.

Rei had asked if Mostt knew of any stores that sold magic items. If so, was Mosst the one to leak the information? He thought about it for a moment, but quickly rejected the idea.)

(It’s certainly possible, but I don’t think so.

There was no evidence that he was innocent. On the contrary, circumstantial evidence pointed to the possibility that Mostt was an agent of the First Prince.

But……even so, Rei concluded that Mostt had no involvement, although it was only a hunch.

Maybe his own hopes were mixed into his conclusion.

Either way, Rei nodded back at Tangu.

「Well, I won’t deny that I do collect magic items and, if I work with His Highness Kabajid, I could easily get them. However, collecting magic items is ultimately just a hobby. I have no intention of losing my free life of an adventurer for it.」

He then paused for a moment while looking at Tangu intently.

「Also, a hobby is only fun if you put in the hard work. For example, walking around the city looking for magic items, diving into dungeons to find them, or accepting requests and receiving one as a reward. Because of that, even if I became a subordinate of His Highness Kabajid to receive magic item and received a large amount of them as a result……」

Saying that much, Rei silently shook his head.

It wouldn’t give him a sense of fulfillment.

Even Tangu knew what he wanted to say.

But, understanding and accepting were two different things.

「Hobbies can be quite troublesome in various ways.」

「Do you have any hobbies, Baron Otos?」

Rei asked casually, but the response he got was a bitter smile.

「Unfortunately, as the third son of a noble, if I carelessly picked up a hobby, it would have become a good point of attack for my brothers. I don’t have any……but hobbies, hobbies? It’s true that as a noble, it might be better to have a hobby or two.」

「That’s right. I often hear that having a hobby can enrich your life.」

Enriching your life.

Hearing those words, Tangu looked at Rei with interest.

「Oh? I’d like to to speak about some hobbies you know of.」

「……I don’t know too much either, but from what I’ve heard, some people like to collect wine.」

That was what Rei said, but it was honestly just his impression of a hobby that a noble would have.

However, it seemed like there were some people in the Bestir Empire who did have that hobby, so Tangu nodded back with approval, potentially thinking of someone who had that hobby.

「I’ve also heard about hobbies like collecting furniture or tableware.」

Like that, Rei discussed several hobbies, which sounded like what a noble would have, that he had acquired from comics, novels, and movies from when he was back in Japan as Tangu listened with interest.

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