The Knight Took Up the Switch (1)
Scratch. Scratch.
A man set words down across a sheet of worn parchment.
Fountain pens had come into their own of late, and ballpoints of every sort besides, yet he still wrote with a quill cut from a bird's feather. Even so, the hand was elegant and the ink never bled. Anyone watching would have known at once that the man and the quill were old acquaintances.
When the tenth angel who follows the Light declared that he would take upon himself every sin of this world, still the angel, at the mouth of Hell, that he might save even one soul more—.
Thup.
"……."
The hand copying scripture faltered for an instant, and the ink spread. The man frowned.
It was a rare thing. Anyone who knew him well would have tilted his head, for this was a man whose feelings scarcely showed. And so he came to see that he was not as he usually was.
"…Is this the 'affliction' the monks speak of?"
His chest heaved and would not settle. It was the first time he had felt so thoroughly out of sorts. He brooded over where the affliction had come from, still gripping the quill. Stay like this, perhaps, and an answer might surface….
"—Pierre. Get ready."
"……And what manner of rudeness is this?"
He had been trying to quiet the tightness in his chest when a colleague shattered the reverie, and a cold light flared in his eyes. The man had opened the door and walked in as he pleased. That alone was offensive. His counterpart brushed the offense aside as if it weighed nothing.
"Rudeness or not, get ready. We're going to crush him in one rush."
"……."
"If even half of what we have on that knight is true, his martial power is at least the equal of Captain Class. We'll need to overwhelm him all at once."
"…His Eminence the Cardinal told us not to make a scene."
"He did. So we finish it quickly, and without one."
"…You were waiting for His Eminence to leave his seat."
"Mere coincidence."
"……."
He was neither foolish nor stupid enough to miss that the words were a lie. Pierre wondered whether he truly needed to defy Cardinal Raphael just to keep company with men like these.
"Remember. They are heretics. Know that interrogating heretics who defy the Light is our role."
"……."
Pierre still hesitated. Was this right? Was following that man truly following the will of the Light? He was swallowing question after question when the other spoke again.
"How long do you think His Eminence will keep shielding you? Remember that a secret does not last forever."
"……."
"If you understand, then move. Now."
"…I understand."
He did not resist any longer. No — he could not. The affliction still made him hesitate.
I cannot be made unable to serve the Light.
If his secret came to light, he would no longer be permitted to remain in the temple. And so—
…There is no helping it.
He rationalized it that way. He knew it was cowardly, and yet he—
"—Being cowardly, or justifying yourself, isn't a bad thing. People are animals. They can't be brave or clever all the time."
"…That's a prejudice…."
A small pushback. Ihan shook his head.
"That's because you haven't seen enough of the world yet. When you get the chance, go to a gambling den, or a back alley. You'll see where human beings end."
"……."
"Anyway, what I'm saying is this. Assistant. A man can be a little cowardly. A little short on courage. Can't be helped. But…."
"……."
"A 'cheeky,' 'noble young master,' 'assistant instructor' lazing around and justifying himself? That is a sin."
"…Shit, that is one hell of a pile of adjectives!"
"Ah-ah. Watch your mouth."
Tears blurred Damian's eyes.
Is this even right?
All he'd done was take a little nap and pull a few fewer weeds, and this was the treatment he got? No — before that!
"I have a right to rest, I tell you! An assistant instructor is a person too!!"
He shouted as if spitting out the injustice of it, the sheer unreason, and Ihan watched him in silence.
"An assistant instructor is a person. Sure. But you're not just an assistant instructor. You're an assistant instructor with 'cheeky noble young master' stuck on the front. So you're not a person. Obviously."
"!!!?"
"You don't get to rest. You've still got two years and five months to grind through. If you're thinking of being treated like a person, the problem is your conscience."
"Would you please stop with the damned noble-hating! You lunatic!"
Thwack!
"Aagh!!"
"Since when does a slave— no, an assistant instructor talk back to his instructor!"
"…Shiiit."
"This one's mouth gets filthier by the day."
"……."
"You crying?"
"……."
"You are. Fine. Cry. You'll feel clearer once you've cried it out. Clear-headed, maybe you'll even work harder."
"……Ghk—!"
"Look at this bastard…."
Ihan clicked his tongue. He'd seen plenty, but never a venomous one who tried to pass out just to get some rest.
The assistant instructor was out cold, and the maid had stepped away to see her elder sister, so she likely wouldn't return before evening. A stretch of time that belonged to him alone.
For once he had a leisurely solitude, but Ihan didn't do anything different just because he was by himself. He spent the day as he always did, trained afterward, and then ate. An utterly identical routine.
"Hm. What should I do, starting next term?"
The only thing added, if anything, was the Academy schedule — recalling what he meant to teach next semester, and setting it in order. He'd planned to settle the content by casually sounding out the assistant, but the bastard had already been asleep for thirty minutes. A violent mental shock piled on top of exhaustion, by the look of it.
"Damn him. Kids these days grow up too soft. That's the problem."
Ihan only frowned, thoroughly displeased.
A shiver ran through Damian, as if a fit had taken him, but Ihan withdrew his attention and looked over the next term's lessons he had written on the blackboard.
Chicks — Thanks to jump rope, they've picked up a little stamina. About time to teach strength training and some light self-defense. Focus on judo, eye-gouging, groin-bursting, and the like. (Before graduation, they ought to be able to drop one or two thugs.)
Bears — Overall stamina should be coming together by now, so real combat experience looks important. Having them fight criminals in Parasite Narak seems worthwhile (something with the feel of a war on crime?). While they build that experience, cliff training and a week of bare-handed survival in the forest would also do them good, and a five-day sleepless drill is worth considering on top of it.
Young Masters — If stamina and strength have attached to a reasonable degree, a curriculum like the bears' should be fine. They've learned Fighting Art, though, so it might be worth testing whether they can last ten sleepless days with no food. (Drop them on the "rock islet" out in the middle of the sea, so they can't simply run off?)
"…Hm."
Ihan read the notes through, thick as they were with his private opinions, and wondered whether he was being a little too harsh.
"Still. Making them fight criminals might be going too far, no?"
Wouldn't it be better to catch a few bears or tigers and have them fight bare-handed? However one looked at it, the kids were still too young to dirty their hands on filthy criminals already at the end of their rope.
"Hah. I've gone soft too."
They were his first disciples, and the worry rose in him that he might be raising them like flowers in a greenhouse.
"—What do you think?"
"…Are you asking me?"
"Who else would I ask?"
"……First, I recommend you abandon this business of five sleepless days, or ten. If it goes wrong, it could be serious."
"?"
"…The students are to be pitied."
The man — a battle priest of the Office of the Inquisition — was aghast.
A trickle of cold sweat ran down him. It wasn't the brutal contents the knight had written across the blackboard that chilled his guts.
…He already knew I was here?
He had heard the talk. That the Concealment Holy Law had not worked. He had dismissed it as a lie, or as chance. His faith in Holy Law ran that deep.
To become one with one's surroundings so completely that even a presence cannot be felt — that is what is normal….
Yet the moment he confirmed he had truly been seen through, he could not hide his dismay. That the man could pierce Holy Law meant this knight's senses were the equal of a wild beast's. The battle priest raised his guard still higher.
"Quite a crowd. Nine… no. Count the one trying to snipe me, and it's eleven?"
"!?!!"
"You people really do whatever you want, huh? The moment old man Raphael steps out, this? Impressive, in a way."
"……."
As expected, this knight was dangerous. The battle priest clenched his jaw, eyes sharpening as he set his stance.
"Ihan Turtle, of the Silver Lion Knight Order. You stand under suspicion of heresy."
"And why would I?"
"…Because you appeared too suddenly, and began distinguishing yourself."
"??"
"Hoo…!"
The battle priest steadied his breath, the better to draw even a little more of the knight's attention onto himself.
"…A mere ordinary knight who, after joining the Silver Lions, had not a single notable achievement to his name was appointed an instructor at the Academy, and thereafter suddenly began to pile merit upon merit — and the greater part of that merit concerns heretics. Furthermore, there are circumstances suggesting you were involved when the Tunnels collapsed the other day."
An ordinary knight with no merit suddenly heaping it up was suspicious enough, but the circumstances were so exquisitely convenient that doubt knew no end. For the temple, it was obviously a matter to question. Might this knight called Ihan be tied to heretical forces, stacking achievements in concert with them? A perfectly reasonable inference. A perfectly reasonable doubt.
"If you wish to clear this suspicion, surrender, and let yourself be bound with rope. Cooperate quietly, and we promise not to treat you to excess—"
"—I've heard enough of this dogshit. That's plenty, yeah?"
"!!!"
Crack!
When had he closed the distance? The battle priest had no time to answer the movement of the man suddenly in front of him before the fist arrived. No — to say it arrived would be wrong. It was only a light tap, dead center on the chest.
"Kh— kh… hhhk…! …h…?!"
His breath failed, and the battle priest's body flipped over. Monstrous pain crashed down on him. It felt as if his whole body were tearing apart.
No.
Crunch. Grind.
It actually was tearing.
"They call it Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocation. Stay like that a moment. …I'll be right back."
"…! …!!"
A flat sentence from the knight. Blood vessels burst at the corners of the battle priest's eyes, and he wept blood. His teeth cracked. He was at the point of fainting outright, but the pain would not even let him lose consciousness. He only shuddered, and screamed without a sound.
And then—
"…Wow. So I really was treating him like a human being."
A certain noble assistant instructor, who had come back to himself without quite meaning to, stayed pressed flat to the floor and took in the ruined priest, and realized that he himself had been receiving rather precious treatment. Watching his instructor stroll off as if on a walk, he thought it over.
"…Are those Inquisition bastards in their right minds?"
If they were going to come, they should have brought the entire holy knight order. What had they been thinking, showing up with so few?
Mm. Ah.
Did they want to leave for Avalon early?
Well. Life these days was filthy enough that he could understand the impulse. Even so—
Our instructor doesn't kill people easily….
—He would, however, be perfectly willing to show them that this life could become hell.
"…I pulled something like that once, and look how I ended up. Tsk, tsk."
As a senior who had already mouthed off to the knight once before, Damian clicked his tongue in sympathy. He could see all too clearly what would become of them.