Interlude: Miracca Afterward
After leaving Curtis Village, Miracca arrived in the port town of Deras.
Here, she was supposed to meet up with Gary, who had been investigating the area around Hank’s family home.
Entering the designated eatery, Miracca spotted Gary already waiting for her while having his meal. He gestured for her to come over.
“Oi, over here.”
“You seem pretty relaxed. Did you find anything?”
“Not a damn thing. In fact, people around here seem to treat talking about the Delant family as a taboo.”
Gary lowered his voice as he spoke. In a way, that itself could be considered a result of their investigation.
“Is there some kind of gag order in place?”
“Something like that. It’s an unspoken pressure.”
“Really?”
“You know as well as I do—the Delant family has been an elite lineage for generations, holding high-ranking positions in the Knights Order for a long time. Rumor has it that their influence surpasses that of the nobles who govern this land, to the point where people call them the shadow rulers. And just look at what they’re capable of.”
Midway through his explanation, Gary placed a note on the table.
Miracca scanned the contents but found it so shocking that she couldn’t immediately process it.
“Is this… real?”
“Seems pretty likely.”
The note contained information passed on by a knight who had approached Gary as an emissary of Vice-Commander Bellows.
According to it, the Knights Order was planning to assign both Gary and Miracca to border security duty in the far east in the near future.
Justin’s demotion had raised their suspicions, leading them to investigate independently—only for them to be suddenly relocated far from the capital. The timing was far too convenient.
“So, they figured out we were poking around.”
“That’s quite a blatant move. But doesn’t this put Vice-Commander Bellows at risk too?”
“That guy isn’t someone they can get rid of so easily. His wife is from a prestigious family as well.”
“… That’s true.”
Both Gary and Miracca came from commoner backgrounds. Unlike Hank, who had noble lineage backing him, they lacked any powerful support.
While the transfer hadn’t been officially confirmed yet, it was clear that their standing had played a role in this outcome.
Of course, such actions shouldn’t be allowed.
However, as long as they couldn’t definitively link their reassignment to their efforts to prove Justin’s innocence, they had no grounds to challenge it.
“There will probably be some kind of decision before the next royal assembly… but it’s frustrating.”
“It really is…”
“If only we had a noble backing us with influence on par with a duke’s, we could conduct our investigation openly.”
“That would be difficult. We don’t have any connections like that. If the lord of the Abbott region were still the previous head, it might have been easier to get through to him, though.”
“Yeah… but the current young lord still lacks experience, so I doubt he’d want to get involved in something this troublesome.”
With heavy sighs, the two stared at the note in front of them.
Their investigation to clear Justin’s name had now hit a dead end.
What do you think about this chapter?
