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…Nearly thirty minutes passed with the aide’s mouth clamped shut. He was probably planning to keep this up until time ran out.

Maybe I should try the laughing gas to make him laugh?

I comforted myself with this ridiculous idea as I continued to put silent pressure on the aide.

Moment by moment, time slipped away. I checked the map and the clock on my menu. There wasn’t much left until the deadline.

The door to the office opened quietly, without so much as a knock.

Since this was as good a time as any, I tried speaking to the aide.

“Mr. Aide, couldn’t you please sign the certificate of delivery completion?”

Just as I expected, there was no response from the aide.

“I suppose I shall have to sign it, then.”

At this unexpected voice, the aide opened his eyes.

The man who had spoken smoothly signed the delivery note on the office desk, then stamped it crisply with the seal on his ring.

“C-Count Kuhanou!”

The aide’s startled cry echoed in the office.

I gave a nod to the person behind Count Kuhanou.

“M-Mistress!”

“It seems you’ve had quite a difficult time of things, Inenimaana.”

Following my gaze, Ine yelped in surprise as well.

Yes, the old witch had ridden on the elder sparrow to pick up Count Kuhanou from Kuhanou City.

I’d worried it would be a close call when I checked their position on the map earlier in the abandoned village.

This had been a worst-case scenario backup plan, but I was glad they’d made it in time.

The old witch patted Ine’s head gently, then bowed in gratitude toward me.

“Mr. Satou, I cannot thank you enough for your help in this matter.”

Nestled in Ine’s hair, the puffbird gave a little “pou-kwee,” as if to say that it deserved some thanks, too.

Now, this peaceful atmosphere applied only to my party. The aide, on the other hand, was in serious distress.

“Wh-why are you already…?”

“Can you not tell? Mistress Witch here has informed me of your evil deeds.”

The aide sank deeper into his chair, and Count Kuhanou stepped closer.

A few knights, clearly the count’s guards, had slipped into the room unnoticed, and they pulled the aide up out of the chair.

“Your father was a vassal of Marquis Muno and a friend of mine at the royal academy. Thus, I thought I would help his family, who had left their territory to depend on ours… But it seems I was blind.”

“Please, wait. This is a conspiracy between the witch and this man here—!”

“Hmph, a conspiracy, indeed! Do you take me for a fool?”

The aide tried to pin things on us, but Count Kuhanou cut him off in a booming voice.

“Have you forgotten the debt of gratitude my county owes to Mistress Witch? Why, your own younger siblings were among the beneficiaries of her medicine in the plague of five years ago, were they not? And in this current conflict with the kobolds, how many knights and soldiers do you think have lived thanks to her potions?!”

The aide withered under the count’s powerful rage.

“A man who does not help the viceroy is not fit for the title of his aide. And you shall no longer have the privilege of perpetual aristocracy in my territory. I shall leave you only with the title of hereditary knight, that you, your elderly mother, and your younger siblings shall live as commoners with only the smallest of pensions,” Count Kuhanou spat at the aide.

At this, the aide gazed up at him in a silent plea, but the count refused to change his decision.

The aide muttered with his hand to his chest, and something like static electricity forced the knights to let go of him.

“As the acting servant of the viceroy, I invoke thee—”

The aide mustered his strength for a desperate cry.

It was clear that he was trying something, but Count Kuhanou stopped the knights from grabbing him with a wave of his hand.

The count clearly knew what he was doing, so I refrained from interfering, too.

“…How foolish,” Count Kuhanou murmured pityingly, standing defenseless in front of the aide.

“Spirit of Sedum City, attack the enemy of our home! Punish Chuubatsu!”

When the aide recited the final command word, lightning flew from the amulet in his hand toward Count Kuhanou.

I jumped in front of him immediately, but the lightning dispersed before it even reached me.

“How truly foolish. As the count of Kuhanou, I could never be harmed by such a spell in my own territory. Or have you forgotten who lent you your borrowed power in the first place?”

I see… That must have been an attempt to use magic from the City Core, then. So a count can grant a viceroy the right to use the City Core, and the aide is serving as a stand-in for the viceroy, but of course it can’t be used to harm someone higher-ranking than himself. Got it.

“I shall have mercy out of respect for your deceased friend. Instead of charging you with treason, I shall reduce your sentence to a simple capital—”

Wait a second.

Trusting my intuition, I jumped over the aide’s desk and in one smooth motion delivered a kick that broke his jaw and knocked him unconscious.

I hadn’t made an error in holding back my strength.

I had needed to very noticeably injure him.

“…And why did you feel the need to make such a show of interrupting?”

Count Kuhanou turned a cold stare on me as if I were an insect.

…So he really was planning to execute the man right here and now.

“Because there are children present. Forgive my insolence, but if you’re going to put the man to death, surely the execution grounds would be a better place for it. This is hardly something that a little child should have to see.”

To be honest, I didn’t want to see it, either.

If they’re going to throw him in jail or whip him, I could accept it, since it’s his own fault, but I seriously don’t want to watch an execution happen right in front of me.

I met the count’s gaze for a moment and smiled, which seemed to drain some of the fury from his countenance. After glancing toward Ine, he finally calmed down completely.

“It seems you have made yourself a most worthy acquaintance, Mistress Witch.”

With that short comment to the old witch, Count Kuhanou collected the amulet from the aide, and on his order, the knights carried the man away to jail.