Infinite Mana - Chapter 179: The Person He Wasn't Supposed to Meet (Thank you for your support, TheFrogKnight91!) (Patreon)

Sieghart slowed the carriage as he approached the suspicious alley and quickly confirmed that the behavior he had noticed earlier was not ordinary curiosity. Pedestrians were deliberately avoiding the narrow passage and whoever stood near its entrance. Merchants crossed the street before getting too close, servants lowered their eyes and hurried onward, and several well-dressed travelers glanced toward the alley before immediately pretending they had seen absolutely nothing unusual.

Sieghart followed their attention and finally found the apparent cause. A young girl stood near the entrance, looking far too well dressed to belong anywhere around the warehouses, inexpensive shops, and crowded commercial streets surrounding her.

She appeared a couple of years younger than Sieghart’s real age, probably seven or eight, although the carefully maintained posture and expensive clothing made her seem slightly older whenever she managed to control her expression. Her dress consisted of layered crimson and cream fabric trimmed with fine golden thread, while a fitted jacket rested across her shoulders and several decorative buttons reflected the morning sunlight whenever she moved.

Polished black shoes, spotless white stockings, and a small jeweled brooch completed the appearance of someone raised in a household where servants probably considered muddy clothing a crisis requiring immediate intervention. The bright red hair caught Sieghart’s attention next. It had been gathered high behind her head in a neat ponytail, though several loose strands around her face suggested she had been wandering considerably longer than intended.

Nobody nearby approached her despite how obviously uncomfortable she looked, which told Sieghart almost everything he needed to know. The girl was probably noble, and everybody surrounding her had reached the same conclusion. Helping a lost common child would probably earn gratitude. Helping the wrong noble child without permission could earn accusations of kidnapping, improper contact, political complications, or some other problem designed specifically to punish good intentions.

Sieghart understood perfectly why everyone else had decided that suddenly becoming blind was the safest option. In fact, he found their decision intelligent enough that joining them felt immediately appealing. The girl kept staring into the alley as though the narrow passage might eventually provide directions if she waited long enough. Every few moments, she glanced toward the surrounding streets before pretending she had not been searching for help.

She was definitely lost.

Sieghart tightened his hands around the steering wheel and looked toward the southern gate again. He could simply keep moving, follow his updated map, and leave the capital exactly as planned. Somebody else would eventually help her. A city guard, family servant, noble carriage, or sufficiently brave pedestrian would recognize the situation and take responsibility before anything truly dangerous happened.

Probably. Sieghart had recently learned that relying upon probably produced disappointing results. The girl turned toward an older man walking nearby as though she intended to speak. The man saw her expression, hesitated for perhaps half a second, and immediately crossed toward the opposite side of the street.

Her shoulders lowered slightly after that rejection, although she quickly straightened herself again and raised her chin with the determined dignity of a child who had probably been taught never to look helpless in public.

Sieghart stared ahead and tried ignoring the sight. His experience helping strangers had hardly encouraged him to become more charitable, considering the previous elderly couple had looked terrified of him after he saved their lives.

Granted, he had decapitated several attackers, melted two faces, battered an Aura user with floating fists of ice, and executed the surviving leader while standing beside six fresh corpses. Perhaps the manner in which he had helped influenced their reaction.

The point still stood.

Getting involved created problems. Getting involved with nobles created expensive problems wearing decorative clothing and carrying enough family influence to make disappearing afterward considerably harder. Sieghart moved one hand toward the controls and nearly increased the engine output before stopping himself again. He glanced toward the girl one final time and immediately regretted doing so.

Her lower lip trembled before she caught herself, and for one brief moment the carefully practiced noble posture disappeared completely, leaving behind nothing except a frightened child surrounded by strangers who refused to acknowledge her. Sieghart sighed heavily and reduced the carriage speed instead.

“Amazing… I am a moron.”

Apparently, he had contracted some kind of incurable goody-two-shoes sickness after reincarnating, despite spending years believing that self-preservation and minding his own business were perfectly respectable personality traits. The alternative was slightly less embarrassing. Perhaps he was simply not enough of a lost cause to ignore a child in obvious trouble when helping required nothing more complicated than giving directions.

That possibility somehow felt worse because it meant his conscience remained functional enough to inconvenience him. Sieghart guided the carriage toward the alley and stopped several meters away. The unusual engine immediately attracted the girl’s attention because there were no horses standing anywhere near the vehicle.

She stared at the carriage first, then at the apparently fifteen-year-old boy sitting behind its controls, clearly trying to decide which part of the situation deserved more suspicion. Sieghart climbed down and approached slowly, stopping far enough away that the girl could retreat if she considered him dangerous. Scaring her would defeat the entire point of getting involved.

“Hey. Are you lost?”

The girl turned fully toward him. Sieghart immediately felt something tighten unpleasantly inside his stomach. Green eyes. Bright, unmistakably green eyes looked back at him beneath the sunlight, accompanied by red hair close enough to his own natural color that the resemblance became impossible not to notice.

For several seconds, Sieghart simply stared while his mind tried finding a harmless explanation. Plenty of humans probably had red hair, and green eyes were hardly unique enough to prove anything. Having both simultaneously was less common.

Having both while being a young noble girl inside the human capital was considerably less comforting. Something about her face also felt familiar, although not because Sieghart remembered meeting this particular child recently. The resemblance came from features he had spent his entire life seeing in mirrors and family members.

“That has to be a coincidence.”

The thought sounded increasingly weak even inside his own head, but Sieghart accepted it anyway because every alternative immediately created complications he did not want to examine. The girl finally nodded, and her eyes became slightly wet despite her obvious effort to prevent herself from crying in front of an unfamiliar person.

“I am.”

She took a slow breath, straightened her shoulders, and restored enough composure that her next words sounded more like a noble reporting an unfortunate navigation error than a frightened child requesting assistance.

“Yes. I seem to have taken the wrong street.”

Sieghart almost smiled despite himself. The entire capital had apparently moved several districts around while she was not paying attention, because one wrong street did not explain how thoroughly lost she looked. He pulled the updated capital map from inside his coat and unfolded it between both hands, deciding that directions would remain considerably safer than asking personal questions.

“Do you know which district you’re supposed to be in?”

“The noble district.”

Sieghart found the section immediately and tapped the eastern portion of the map with one finger before looking toward the street where they currently stood.

“That’s on the eastern side of the city. You’re pretty far from it.”

The girl’s expression tightened with embarrassment, confirming that she had apparently wandered much farther than she realized. Sieghart resisted asking how anyone had managed to lose track of her for this long.

Maybe she had escaped from servants intentionally. Maybe a crowd separated them. Maybe somebody responsible for watching her was currently experiencing the worst morning of their professional life. Sieghart decided he did not need those details.

“I can take you as far as the entrance of the noble district.”

The girl immediately looked toward his carriage again, and Sieghart found himself slightly reassured by the hesitation. Following unfamiliar teenagers into strange horseless vehicles was objectively questionable behavior.

She looked back toward him without answering, apparently unsure whether that observation was supposed to make him more trustworthy or considerably less so. Sieghart pointed toward the eastern side of the map again and kept his explanation simple enough that she could refuse without creating another awkward situation.

“I’ll bring you to the district. From there, you’ll need to recognize your own house.”

The girl studied him for several seconds while occasionally glancing toward the surrounding pedestrians. Nobody nearby seemed willing to volunteer a safer alternative despite clearly listening. Eventually, she looked toward the carriage again and apparently decided that accepting a ride from one suspicious stranger was preferable to remaining surrounded by dozens of strangers pretending she did not exist.

“Very well.”

Sieghart opened the passenger side and allowed her to climb aboard first. She carefully lifted part of her dress so the fabric would not catch against the step before settling into the seat beside him.

He returned to the driver’s position, placed both hands against the steering contacts, and released mana into the engine. Fire Runes awakened throughout the mechanical system before the pistons began their familiar rhythmic movement. The girl jumped slightly at the sudden vibration beneath the seat, though she recovered quickly enough that Sieghart almost pretended not to notice.

The carriage began moving eastward, joining the morning traffic while Sieghart concentrated upon reaching the noble district without learning anything else about his passenger. Conversation created questions. Questions created introductions. Introductions created names. Names were precisely what Sieghart wanted to avoid while traveling under an incomplete version of his own.

Fortunately, the girl remained quiet for several minutes. She spent most of that time examining the steering controls, engine housings, surrounding runes, and complete absence of anything resembling an animal pulling them forward. Sieghart appreciated the silence until the resemblance began bothering him again. He glanced sideways once while pretending to check nearby traffic and found exactly the same collection of unsettling details.

Red hair.

Green eyes.

A face carrying features that looked irritatingly familiar.

Sieghart returned his attention to the road and immediately reminded himself that his family estate stood almost a week away from the capital under normal travel conditions. There was no reason for his parents or younger sister to be here. His father did possess military and noble responsibilities capable of bringing him to the capital.

His mother could accompany him. His sister would naturally travel with them rather than being left behind. Sieghart disliked how quickly reasonable explanations appeared once he actually considered the possibility.

“No.”

Coincidence remained simpler, and Sieghart had enough problems without manufacturing additional ones from the hair color of every child he encountered. The city gradually changed around them as the carriage traveled east. Crowded commercial streets widened, noisy workshops disappeared, and increasingly elaborate estates began replacing ordinary homes.

Tall stone walls surrounded private properties decorated with gardens, fountains, statues, carefully maintained trees, and enough ornamental architecture to make Sieghart wonder how many people existed solely to clean everything. Pedestrian traffic decreased considerably. Most people remaining on the streets wore expensive clothing, servant uniforms, military equipment, or household colors identifying whichever noble family employed them.

Guards also appeared more frequently near private gates and intersections. Several watched Sieghart’s carriage pass with obvious interest, especially after noticing the young driver and even younger noble girl beside him.

That attention made Sieghart uncomfortable enough that he increased their speed slightly. The sooner his passenger recognized somewhere familiar, the sooner he could resume heading toward the southern gate. The girl eventually leaned forward and pointed toward an enormous estate visible farther along the avenue, her troubled expression finally relaxing for the first time since Sieghart found her.

“There. That’s my house.”

Sieghart followed her finger and initially assumed she meant one of the large homes surrounding the massive property occupying most of the street ahead. Then he realized she meant the entire compound.

A high stone wall enclosed several buildings arranged around a central mansion with broad windows, decorative balconies, and red roofing visible above carefully maintained trees. Uniformed guards occupied the main entrance beneath large banners displaying a family crest that remained difficult to identify from their current distance.

Sieghart felt another uncomfortable sensation crawling through his stomach and deliberately refused to examine the banners more closely than necessary. He slowed the carriage as they approached, deciding to get close enough that the guards could clearly see the girl before leaving immediately afterward.

The girl suddenly stood before the carriage had completely stopped.

“Wait until—”

She jumped down from the passenger side before Sieghart could finish warning her, landed surprisingly well, and immediately started toward the estate gate.

“Or do that.”

The guards noticed her almost immediately. Every trace of their relaxed posture disappeared. Several men moved forward at once while another turned toward the estate and shouted something Sieghart could not hear clearly.

Apparently, people had been searching.

Excellent. That meant his involvement could end now. Sieghart was already preparing to turn the carriage around when the girl stopped several meters from the gate and looked back toward him.

She carefully adjusted the front of her dress, straightened her shoulders, and performed a formal noble curtsy with enough precision that the movement had obviously been practiced countless times.

“My name is Lucélia Emberhart.”

Sieghart stopped breathing. For several seconds, the entire avenue seemed strangely quiet despite the carriage engine still operating beneath him and several guards continuing toward the girl.

Emberhart.

There was no coincidence left to hide behind. Lucélia continued speaking while Sieghart’s mind crashed directly into several years of family history he had spent considerable effort keeping far away from his current life.

“Thank you for bringing me home.”

Sieghart stared at her while every familiar detail suddenly became obvious enough that he felt stupid for not recognizing her immediately.

Lucélia Emberhart… His younger sister…

The same sister whose stronger Aura potential had completed his replacement as family heir after the examiner declared Sieghart unsuitable for the future their parents wanted.

The same child he had barely known before being sent away to live with his maternal grandparents, where his actual childhood had effectively begun after his parents rejected him.