The Knight Came to Hate the Ball (5)
The Kingdom of Pendragon was, at present, buried under headaches of every kind.
Chief among them, a full-scale monster terror had erupted in the middle of the Academy's midterm evaluations, and not long after came the collapse of the Tunnels, the greatest fertilizer works on the southern continent.
Either incident alone would have been enough to shake the kingdom. They had struck one after the other. It was no exaggeration to call them an ominous portent, and a crisis.
Even so, the kingdom showed no sign of unrest — most likely because both affairs had petered out in a blur.
Meet the "Heroes" Who Stopped Terror in the Kingdom.
The Princess Works a Miracle!
Prince Aren's Valor Sets the Tunnels to Rights.
And so on. For disasters that had come in such succession, the damage was nearly nothing, and so the kingdom was scarcely thrown into confusion. Internally, of course, every organization called its meetings, and raised voices flew back and forth all day — but that was talk among the high-and-mighty. The common people went on living their days. Peaceful, one might fairly say.
And perhaps because that peace still held:
"Pendragon indeed. 'Hegemon of the South' is no empty title."
"So it would seem. And yet they say grave troubles have come often of late."
"Hah. You believe rubbish like that? A thousand-year monster showing itself, a giant Mother Worm bringing down the Tunnels."
"...They are certainly hard to credit. I couldn't speak to a thousand-year monster, but a single Mother Worm is trouble enough on its own."
"Quite. In the West, if a worm is found, it must be killed. Let it reach full growth and it is nothing short of a nightmare."
Two men shared a splendid carriage. Gilded, and plastered over with jewels of every kind, it looked beyond any reckoning of price, and the team that drew it was five enormous black horses. If one were told those horses cost as much as raising a fortress, would one believe it? It was, quite simply, an obscene waste of money.
But the owner of carriage and horses was a man who could pour out such sums like water: a magnate of the western continent, and one of the seventeen sultans who ruled it.
"Sultan, is there anything further you require?"
"Chill the wine I bought at that stall just now, and bring it."
"I... I greatly fear it may foul the Sultan's mouth...."
"Come now."
"...As you command."
Salah al-Adil Muhammad. Or Sultan Salah. Even on the western continent, he was the sultan who kept beneath him the greatest oasis, a vast gold vein, gem mines, and a merchant company of matching scale. Copper-toned skin sat well on a young, handsome face. He was only twenty-seven this year. A man who had seized a sultan's seat in his twenties, his charisma was no less than the arrogance of youth — the sort of man who, if you looked at him, made you think, Ah. This is one of the high ones.
"Hah. Say what you will, southern wine is never poor, no matter where you buy it. And this came from any old stall."
"That even commoners can readily sell wine of this quality means the flow of goods moves that smoothly."
"The Military God's achievement. A remarkable man, whatever else. How he built a logistics system like this... Fight Pendragon, and you lose to the South on supply alone."
"Hmm. Is that something you ought to say in front of me?"
"You, too, must have an interest in taking Pendragon. Is that not so, mage?"
"Let it go, Sultan. Say what you like; I will not be moved."
"In a place like this, surely one may be honest...."
The sultan spoke as warmly as if a man might empty his heart without a care, but the other was not fooled. He only raised his guard.
"I am grateful, in many ways, for the courtesy you've shown. But if you continue in that vein, this journey together ends here."
"Oh my. One must not dare ruffle a mage's temper. Kahaha!"
He only pressed on, unbending.
"......"
Ordinarily the man would have burned at so frivolous and infuriating an attitude, but the other party was, of all people, a sultan. Showing emotion to one called a king among the West's Seventeen Lords was a matter requiring care on every side, and he swallowed his temper.
Offend him, and we are the ones who lose.
The rare materials that existed only in the West were supplied to the Magic Tower through the company the sultan ran. Watching one's mouth was essential.
...I wish this uncomfortable company would end soon.
The man's name was Huey de Byron. He was the man designated heir of the Magic Tower, that ivory tower of mages.
"Now you turn your eyes clean outside. Dull man."
Huey barely held down a sigh and turned his gaze outward, toward the crowd welcoming them with fervor. And yet, for all that fervent welcome, his eyes held nothing but an endless cold.
"At a glance, your common spell-peddler."
"Yes?"
"Look at the eyes. Those aren't a person's eyes. A gnoll or a goblin in a human face, nothing less."
"...Master, isn't that discriminatory?"
"It might be."
"Y-you're admitting it more readily than I expected?"
"I know I lose my head the moment a spell-peddler gets involved. That's why your part matters, Bear-Girl."
"Mine?"
"Yeah. If I snap and try to tear that one apart, you've got to hold me back. Your duty is grave."
"Um... I-I don't think I can...?"
Bewilderment swam in irises the blue of violets. She wanted to grant most of the requests her dear Master made of her, and yet—
...When it's anything to do with mages, it feels like Master's fighting ability climbs even higher.
True to a talent with the makings to rise, one day, as far as Mercenary Queen, Levi understood the man's strength well, and she scratched at her cheek to let the feeling out. She had a bad sense that a truly enormous accident was about to happen.
The West's sultan, and the Empire's Magic Tower. It must have been some fifty years since both powers visited the South at once. Things that had been unable even to draw breath beneath the Military God's majesty, that had shrunk from so much as visiting, meant at last to show their true colors now that the Military God was gone.
Some nobles took it as an affront. Others said otherwise.
"Their coming is no great discourtesy. The visits merely happened to overlap."
Above all, they had a perfectly clear reason for coming. None other than this.
"Lady Irene. Will you choose to meet them, or will you wait until they come to you themselves? Whichever you choose, see that you accept it."
"I... I just don't want to meet any of them...."
The mage of the century who might come to represent the age — a girl like a golden egg. They had visited the kingdom to meet Irene Windler. Diplomatically, receiving them would have been the proper course, and yet....
"Hmm. If the young lady refuses, there is little to be done."
??
...He hadn't called her in to persuade her?
The dean gave the matter up with astonishing ease, and Irene only blinked, wondering what sort of situation this was.
"...Um, Dean. I know it's odd to say I don't want to meet them and then say this, but is it all right to give up so readily? They're precious guests from abroad, after all."
"Right. Our Arin would've met them if he'd pushed. Her nerve's just that thin."
You be quiet!
She had said she didn't want to meet them, but if the dean had pressed, then — just as the ghost girl said — Irene's nature would have had her receive the others.
"True enough. The Magic Tower and the sultan alike are precious guests. That is correct."
The dean agreed. As the girl said, they were precious guests: the Magic Tower, which boasted formidable power within the Empire, and a sultan of the western continent. Neither was a force to take lightly, and if even Pendragon committed a discourtesy, it would be nothing but a great diplomatic loss, and the making of an unsettled current.
However.
"You are no ordinary noble young lady. You are the ducal daughter of Galahad, are you not? If the daughter of Galahad says she dislikes it, what madman would dare force the young lady?"
"......"
"I dislike saying this, but I, too, have no wish to make an enemy of His Grace the Duke. That man nurses a grudge to a terrifying degree."
The dean gave an exaggerated shudder, as if the very thought sickened him — half in jest, half in earnest — and Irene was left speechless.
"...Dean — no, Chancellor — is there actually something you're afraid of?"
This, from a man who still held strong power even in retirement?
"Former chancellor. And even when I held the office, I would not have brushed his temper. I saw the man in his younger days with my own eyes. I am someone who knows that making an enemy of him is a hundred times worse than making enemies of the sultan and the Magic Tower."
"......"
The might of Galahad, tossed out as if in rebuttal, seemed far greater than anything she had known. Irene felt, if only in a fragment, the weight of the house that greasy uncle managed.
The dean went on.
"In any case, Lady Irene. Do as you yourself please. Well — if you do mean to meet them, tell me the day and the place. The Academy will do its utmost to accommodate you."
"...This is you pressuring me on the sly, isn't it?"
"Hah. Perish the thought."
"......"
...Sly old snake. His eyes were piling the burden on, hard.
I ought to just bite him!
Irene found herself wanting to call down a Buster Call.
"......So that's how it went. What should I do?"
"And you come to me with this?"
"You're the only adult I could think of that I actually trust, Instructor."
"Flattery."
"I mean it, I mean it!"
The events piling onto her one after another must have weighed on her; Irene came to Lee Han for counsel. Hearing it, he thought:
The timing's good.
Absurd, and yet slightly welcome. He already had business with the Magic Tower. If there was an easier way in, he was glad of it.
Still....
"...Do as you like."
"Yes?"
"You probably want nothing more than to refuse, because the whole thing's a burden. But that's not you. You're tangled up worrying what happens if somebody else takes the harm."
"Ah...."
Irene startled, small. For an instant it was as if Lee Han had seen straight through her.
"There'll be almost no harm. If anything, those bastards are the ones who came to our kingdom. If anyone ought to be watching their step, it's them. Why would you? You can ignore it. From the start, you'd rather nap and eat dessert than meet people like that, wouldn't you?"
"Hk—!"
A remark that looked straight into her. He had read her with the ruthless accuracy of a tutor who knew the exact question on the exam, and if he told her, right now, to buy insurance — or anything else at all — she suspected she would be taken in whole.
"Don't exaggerate."
From Lee Han, it was a rare warmth. Advice that gave up his own gain, one might say, and yet it was only natural. The chick used magic, yes, but she was also one of the students he taught.
A spell-peddler, but a student! A spell-peddler, but a student...!
A will like self-brainwashing. The revulsion still rose, but he did not deny that she was a student under his hand, and so he set aside as partial a gaze as he could and did not stint on advice for Irene's sake. Anyone who knew Lee Han's hatred of mages would have seen, in that, just how hard he was working on the inside.
......And yet, as if to make the consideration pointless:
"I'm sorry for Lady Irene, but it seems they were a step faster than she was. ...Or would 'underhanded' be the more accurate word?"
"Levi?"
Levi, cutting into their talk, turned a pitying look on Irene.
"It's a paper that just came out. They mean to meet Lady Irene no matter what. Legally — but in a cheap way."
"......Do I actually have to call that greasy uncle?"
Irene's face twisted with the disgust of someone who had just met a stalker. And well it might.
Lord Huey and the Sultan have made known their wish to visit, if only briefly, the Academy so full of Pendragon's talents, and have announced that they will attend the Academy party on the night of the full moon. The royal house, showing a broad magnanimity in the matter—
They had come out underhanded, in so many words.
"See? Not a scrap of conscience."
"......Yes."
That was Lee Han, having seen it, and Levi — the only one who understood what he meant — found herself nodding along before she knew it....
Wait. If it goes like this...?
A sidelong glance.
"A party.... Hm. Can the faculty attend?"
"...So this is really happening."
Levi's face went bloodless at the thought that she might truly have to start calculating the odds of her Master tearing the Magic Tower's disciple apart — recalling, as she did, that she was supposed to be the brake that stopped him.