The Girl Has Found a Family... Right? (3)
Lee Han's face curdled, but the marquis—absurdly enough—laughed as if even that delighted him.
That was how sincere he was. Truly.
"I want to make you my son."
It was not an offer to take him in the way he had taken Levi, as a foster daughter. This was Tristan in the truest sense of the name. Astonishingly, he meant to bestow the surname of a house that had boasted centuries of history—and with it, the qualification of heir.
"Nor would it be a mere qualification. I have no children at present, and among the cadet lines there isn't a single clever lad fit to inherit Tristan in full. Vale comes closest, I'll grant you, but that boy threw away every claim to the succession the moment he entered the knight order. In that sense, the instant you become my son, you stand first in the line! You could become Marquis of Tristan itself! Come now—where else would you find an opportunity like this?"
An opportunity that existed only now. It was a sweet proposal if ever there was one, the sort that would shake even the most desireless heart. Anyone with so much as a scrap of hunger for power or honor could not possibly refu—
"No. I'm dead serious. I'll pass."
"......"
"In case you're wondering whether I'm playing hard to get, I'll say it again. I really don't want it."
"...Are you not taking Tristan a little too lightly?"
"I'm not mocking it. It's just that calling a mister like you 'Dad' is already nightmare-tier difficulty."
"...That wounds me worse. Nobles are people too, you know. Could you not put it a little more gently?"
"This is me putting it gently. If I hadn't, you couldn't have handled it."
"...You go too far."
The marquis's face sank into a sulk.
He had spoken as if in jest, but the marquis had not declared him a son on a whim.
A true shame. I knew it would not be easy, and yet.
Had the man accepted, he would have taken him as a son in earnest. If the house's senior retainers and elders had heard of it, they would not have been able to hide their shock. However personally fond he might be of the fellow, how could he give the name of Tristan to the very intruder who had trespassed upon the marquisate?
The marquis, however, did not think his decision strange in the least.
A man of this caliber... I could entrust the marquisate to him.
Tristan wore the title of a great noble house, yet they possessed no Mystery. The founder was said to have held a Mystery, and something like a Demonic Bow besides, but that line had been severed long ago. Perhaps that was why. In all honesty, Tristan had stumbled through crisis after crisis across the past several centuries—easily more than a few dozen of them. At times a fool who could not even have been called a master archer became heir, and just as often the cadet branches rose in rebellion because there was no token, neither Mystery nor Demonic Bow, to prove who ought to be head of the house.
Jenimia himself was the prime example. In his youth he had only to leave the house unattended for a short while, and the senior faction and the elder faction fell to fighting and split the family clean in half. Had it been Galahad or Lionel, such a thing would never have happened. They possessed a Mystery that proved an absolute legitimacy.
And so—
What matters to Tristan is the name of Tristan, and force of arms. Nothing else.
The potential to carry the name of Tristan centuries into the future, and the overwhelming martial power to hold the entire house in one's grasp. So long as a man possessed those two qualifications, it did not matter who inherited the name. Some nobles insisted that blood was what mattered. A ridiculous claim. Setting royalty aside, the blood of most noble houses had thinned past all meaning—so what use was blood?
And if some fool still tried to pick a fight over it?
Have him get a child on one of the cadet women, and that would be the end of it.
Fortunately, the blood of Tristan was excellent in its nature. Whether because the founding head had borne a child with a fairy, or for some other reason, any child they sired—man or woman, it made no difference—was born with Tristan blood, and the proof of it was a head of red hair. Blood, then, was a trivial matter, solvable whenever one pleased.
Anyone who overheard Jenimia thinking along these lines would have gone blank. Even so—going that far, just to obtain a single knight? He would have answered them thus: He is more than worth it.
This boy is a jewel. And one with far too many facets still left to cut.
For now, Jenimia could still beat him. It would be something of a headache, but killing him was not beyond reach either. That, however, was a matter of now. Later—no. What of tomorrow?
His presence has settled since yesterday. Young as he is, can a man truly grow this frighteningly fast? Ha.
And so he found himself expecting. If it were this boy...
He might even reach it.
Like a certain brave gladiator from Jenimia's younger days. Like a priest who had once been nothing but a fanatic. Like a woman once dismissed as a dullard. This young knight, too, might arrive there.
An Aura User.
He had given up. A distant, lofty realm that he had, in a sense, abandoned of his own accord. The man was not his son, and yet the marquis wanted to watch, from the closest place possible, as the man he had acknowledged reached that height. Some would call it vicarious satisfaction. And if it was, what of it? Was it not an adult's privilege to place one's hopes in the young?
I look forward to it. Truly.
For now, then, it was enough simply to sow the seed. Well...
He'd be exactly the sort who's fun to keep close.
Wanting him for a son was not purely a matter of living through him. There was a feeling that this youth would not grow tiresome, seen from nearby. In the proposal itself, Jenimia had weighed neither profit nor loss. Just look at him now—what an entertaining fellow!
"Tsk. A shame. In that case, could you at least teach our knight order that art of walking on empty air? I'll pay you handsomely."
"There it is, your real aim! No. They're not my disciples. Why would I teach my techniques to another sect—no, to some knight order?"
"Is that so? Hmm... This is merely me talking to myself, but when I added up the cost of the gate and the buildings some intruder smashed, the brick and the marble, the statues and all the rest, it came to roughly three thousand gold coins. Some of the ruined pieces were even dwarf-made, so the cost of restoration will climb higher still... Dear me. I wonder if I ought to catch the culprit and make him pay."
"......"
"Well? Shall I have him pay?"
"...By any chance, would you be in need of a way to walk on snow without leaving footprints? There's a thing called Treading Snow Without a Trace."
"Oh-ho-ho!"
See? Wasn't he entertaining just to watch? The marquis laughed with pure delight, as if this were exactly how it would feel to have a son showing off his tricks.
"...Nasty old man."
Lee Han looked thoroughly drained. A fistfight or a clash of blades would have tired him less. Talking with a politician smooth as an old snake didn't merely suck the strength out of him—it wore his head out. Exhaustion of the mind, not the body. In every respect, he was being run ragged.
And then—
"You two not going to the closing ceremony?"
As if to shake off the fatigue, Lee Han scrubbed a dry hand over his face and let the words out like a mutter to himself. For an instant, somewhere, there was a faint tremor—finer than a branch shivering in the wind, the sort of tremor anyone else would have failed to notice. Not him.
"That's a bad habit. Always hiding and listening in. Get caught at it someday, and you'll be hurt for real."
It was advice offered like a warning—no, like a lesson from a master—and the moment it ended...
"...That may well be true. Still, if it weren't for you, Instructor, I doubt anyone would know we were hiding here."
Two silhouettes stepped out of the shaded dark. Familiar faces. Lee Han finished scrubbing his face and looked at the two cadets: Roen and Jack. Lord and aide met him with wry smiles, and Jack scratched at his cheek.
"I thought we'd hidden well this time..."
"You did. You really did. How is it your hiding keeps improving faster than your swordplay? You're not planning a proper class change from knight to assassin, are you?"
"...No. It's only that I seem to have a talent for it, so the skill improves even when I don't practice."
"Now that is an obnoxious thing to say."
The boy might draw less attention than most, but he was every bit as insufferable.
"...Haha."
Under that accusing stare, Jack's head sank lower and lower. Lee Han glared a moment longer, then turned a sharper look on the black-haired youth opposite him.
"Looking at that face, I'd have sworn you were the type to sit in a chair and wait for the reports to come in. So why are you out running the field?"
"It seems sitting still simply isn't in my constitution."
"That's an illness too."
"...Do you think the marquis noticed I was here as well?"
"He probably knew before anyone. That old man's senses are better than mine. I suspect he pretended not to."
"......"
"Why the look?"
"...For a man who refused the offer, your opinion of Marquis Jenimia doesn't seem especially poor."
"He isn't a crooked sort, as people go."
"Then why did you refuse? A marquis of his standing would make a fine patron."
"Awful lot of curiosity about other people's business..."
"I am your disciple. This much meddling ought to be permitted."
"Oh-ho?"
Geomdung, it seemed, found the choice itself strange. Accept the marquis's offer, and Lee Han might have become, overnight, a leading noble of the royalist faction, one of the pillars of the realm. Why refuse? Was it truly nothing more than not wanting to call Marquis Jenimia his father? To that question—
"Yeah. That's really all it is."
"......"
Lee Han answered lightly, and Roen was struck speechless. ...It really was only that?
"You think too much."
Lee Han offered something that was not quite advice to a disciple who fretted like a man who had already lived his life once, for all that the boy had not wasted the years he actually possessed.
"At my age, am I supposed to go asking my parents for pocket money? Or act cute for them? This is the age where I'd be late even if I got married and had a kid, and now I'm supposed to pick up a set of parents?"
"Becoming a child of a marquisal house is not, I think, simply a matter of receiving an allowance..."
"To me it's the same thing. And you shouldn't need a family for a vulgar reason like that. What matters in a family isn't money, and it isn't power."
"Then what does it require?"
"Loyalty, and a sense of responsibility."
"......"
The answer came without a moment's hesitation, and Roen's eyes went round. Lee Han went on regardless.
"That's what matters in a family. A husband and wife keep the faith they owe each other. A child keeps the duty of a child, and at the same time you carry the responsibility of holding that bond together. That's what makes a family. People who become family out of calculation almost always end the same way. Nothing but misery for each other. ...Not that it always ends in misery, mind you."
"......"
"Anyway, that's why the marquis and I aren't the sort of pair who ought to be family. I don't need parents. And he, for his part, doesn't want a son. He just finds me interesting and wants to raise me. Like a dog or a cat."
Lee Han already knew the marquis had not made the offer out of simple goodwill. The man coveted something—his strength, or whatever else it was. That didn't offend him. It meant his ability had been recognized. Wasn't there an old saying? A true man will lay down even his life for the one who knows his worth. ...He simply wasn't hungry enough to need anyone's recognition. If he had been worn out by the world, or starving for someone to acknowledge him, he might have bowed his head to an offer like that on the spot.
Still, living under that man and performing tricks for him... yeah, no.
The mere imagining set his teeth on edge, and he clicked his tongue. Toward that man—
"...From where I stand, I don't think that's quite right."
"What isn't?"
"You, Instructor, are plainly neither a dog nor a cat. A lion or a bear would be closer."
"......"
"And one that, once fully grown, might well tear people apart."
The black-haired brat was running his mouth. Lee Han was faster than words.
"...Want to take an Arhat Divine Fist and find out?"
"...I don't know what that is, but I'll decline."
"No. I'll decline."
He held out his fist.
"—Quite the trouble, eavesdropping in secret like that."
The marquis let his regret show, as if those wildcats listening in the dark had kept him from asking everything he meant to. There had been something he absolutely wanted to ask. Chewing on that disappointment, he climbed into the carriage—
"Hm?"
A slip of paper was caught in the crack of the door. The marquis paused.
"My lord, is something the matter?"
"...What matter? More to the point, did anyone approach the carriage?"
"How could they? This many soldiers are standing guard."
"Is that so."
"Why do you ask...?"
"It's nothing. Haha."
"??"
The marquis boarded with a broad, empty laugh, and the man who looked to be his steward tilted his head. The marquis did not satisfy the man's curiosity. Instead he simply felt a fierce admiration for whoever had slipped a message through that many troops with such ridiculous ease.
He had wondered why the uproar at the marquisate the day before had been buried so very quietly. Now that question was answered, cleanly. The knight he had wanted for a son was, it seemed...
"Haha. The rascal. Earning the favor of a dangerous person. Heh heh."
No name was written. But a dragon had been impressed into red candle-wax, as if to declare exactly who had sent it. And on the note itself—
—a warning that blunt, and that strong. The marquis shook his head. And then—
"Your Highness. The only one who may give orders to me—no, to Tristan—is a king who possesses true power. ...You do not yet have that right."
Riiip.
Wearing a heartless smile, he simply tore the note apart.