The Knight Does Not Forgive the Golden Sun (2)
Unlike the judgment Lee Han was passing, most of the people in the hall turned looks of open longing on them.
Their faces were striking enough on their own, but what made them truly hard to resist was that they had taken power, fame, and strength into their hands at so young an age. Among the noblewomen, quite a few bloomed with color across their cheeks, and a fair number of men made no effort to hide how little they cared for the sight.
Just as that faintly awkward air had begun to settle—
"Young talents of Pendragon! My name is Salah! I am one of the chiefs who bears a corner of the seventeen sultans of the West, yet the man standing here today is not that sultan. You would do just as well to think of me as some nameless fellow who simply wished to meet Pendragon's young talents!"
The sultan's greeting burst out unannounced, and before the others had even finished being startled—it had not been on the program—he pressed harder still.
"This is a gift, offered in welcome of our meeting today. I brought only enough for the students, so I hope the rest of you will not take it amiss. Whatever else may be said, today's protagonists are the students of this Academy."
He launched at once into a gift offensive, as if meaning to drive the point home.
A light snap of his fingers, and dozens of servants in foreign dress moved as one, laying the offerings out in rows.
"Oh..."
The gasp came of its own accord before a blaze of gold. Palm-sized golden bells stood in a shining line, a sight that dragged admiration out of anyone who looked. The bells were handsome in themselves, yet the craftsmanship was so fine it carried a beauty both lavish and grave. They were plainly the work of dwarves, and the students understood together that this was no trifling gift.
"Students of Pendragon. I do hope the gift of Sultan Salah pleases you. Ahaha!"
Hearty laughter rolled through the hall, as if the awkwardness of the room were none of his concern.
"An unusual man."
"In a certain sense, a man of true caliber."
"The spirit on him is... considerable."
The nobles were impressed, and in more than one sense. He had brought gifts for the students when no one expected it, and there was a dignity in the gesture that did not read as a mere flaunting of wealth. On top of that, the uncommon presence he gave off so naturally—though he could hardly have trained in the Fighting Art—was no less than a knight's own. The quality of a sovereign. For a moment they glimpsed the marks of a man who possessed it. Sultan Salah. People were beginning to understand that he was no one to take lightly.
...And yet.
"...?"
"What's wrong, Master?"
"...Nothing. It's just—everyone else seems to rate that sultan or whatever pretty high, but to my eye he looks thoroughly shoddy."
"Yes?"
"How do I put it. Like a fox pretending to be a tiger?"
"...?"
"I'm comparing him to the 'people above' I've actually met."
"???"
The knight gave a light shrug.
The people above, as he knew them. His princess noona, who seemed to possess the Heavenly-Mile Eye, and the duke and the grand duke, who overwhelmed a person merely by being seen. Every one of them had left an impression so fierce you might doubt they were the same kind of human at all. But that sultan—
Hm. Are my standards too high?
Why did the man look so small? Like a pup that had not yet lived a day.
Salah wore a sneer.
"Simple to a fault. Well, I'll be. I bought their goodwill so easily it's almost dull."
"Set beside the West, the nobles here are a little loose. The South's peace must have gone on a very long time."
"Or perhaps there simply are no men of worth. They said the Martial God's eye for recognizing talent was truly the eye of a god—but that Martial God is gone now."
Salah spoke with a smiling face to the martial chief of his guard, a man he cherished. When the two of them talked they mostly used the tongue of a minority people of the West, so no one here would catch what they were saying.
"As expected. A Pendragon without the Martial God isn't even a threat."
"......"
"Haksan. Is there something you wish to say?"
"...As you say, Sultan, Pendragon has indeed lost its former glory. Yet, Sultan, they still possess Mystery, and they still possess Superhumans. I beg you—do not look only at a single tree. Look upon the forest entire."
"Hmph. You presume to instruct me."
"Forgive my presumption."
"...Tch."
Salah was no small man who dismissed the words of a loyal vassal. Even so, he privately let slip the envy he had worked not to show.
A blessed land really is something to envy.
A land blessed by Mystery.
On this one point, Salah envied Pendragon.
Of course the West had Mysteries of its own. His proud guard, the martial chief, possessed one himself. But Mysteries had grades. If the strongest Mystery the West could claim was at best second or third grade—upper-middle, and no more—then Pendragon was thick with first-grade Mysteries, the kind classed as the very highest. Above all, the Galahad Magic Sword and the Black King of Lionel, both treated as beyond measurement. In the West they were passed down like legend, and many children grew up hearing their tales as if they were fairy stories.
And yet Pendragon, even setting such transcendent Mysteries aside, had Superhumans. Monsters one must not dare to touch—monsters who, even alone, would gladly smash a sultan's entire host if they met it head-on.
So Salah envied those transcendent Mysteries of theirs.
"I truly want them. Their Mysteries..."
He laid his desire bare without restraint. A greed-soaked slyness. The bold, spirited figure might as well have been a lie; there was something faintly dank and furtive about him now.
Forcing down the appetite that threatened to show on his face, the sultan asked:
"—Haksan. What is that one doing?"
"Do not worry. We are watching him well."
"Are you? Even so, do not grow careless. Mages are a breed one must never relax around. If it seems the bastard is up to something..."
"We will cut him down at once."
"Good. I'm counting on you."
"It shall be as the sultan wills."
Salah was satisfied with his loyal vassal's answer. He wet his throat lightly with champagne, turned his gaze once more, and put on a good-natured smile.
I'm looking forward to this.
Salah was in high spirits. The stage was set. This was a current that could not be stopped even if someone tried. If there remained an obstacle—a variable, so to speak—
...The Magic Tower.
The existence of the Magic Tower. An outstanding mage always gave birth to variables. He had deliberately traveled with the man all the way to the South, sounding him out without a moment's rest, but the mage had not shown his insides at all. As expected, mages were an arrogant, haughty breed, and impossible to read.
Which was precisely why.
"And that makes it stranger still. To think our targets would overlap."
He could not read the Magic Tower's thoughts, but the prize they were aiming at was the same. The fact stirred his competitive spirit in an odd way, and the smile at the corner of Salah's mouth deepened.
"Irene Windler, was it. I want to see her soon."
The owner of a jewel-like Mystery that Salah himself wished to confirm. If talent for magic could also be called a Mystery, then hers was a truly luscious one. Even if only half the rumors spreading about her were true, she was well worth going after.
He was holding that expectation when—
"Oh, it's Lady Irene."
"The young lady?"
"G-good heavens..."
At the sudden stir, and at the name Irene caught amid it, Salah turned his head.
"At last I'll see that precious face..."
A heel clicked.
"......"
Silk rustled.
There, as if strolling through a garden of flowers, a goddess appeared.
No. She was so mysterious, so dreamlike, that fairy might have been the better name. One thing, however, was certain. His breath caught of its own accord.
"......"
He was speechless.
Like the sultans before him, he had a harem of his own, and that harem was full of peerless beauties he could take into his arms whenever he wished. To him a woman was nothing but a jewel in a cabinet. Nothing but a collectible.
And yet.
The moment he saw her, a tremendous shock struck him, as if his chest had caught fire. It was as if the word beauty existed for her sake. A face and an air that made him dizzy. Golden hair streaming on the wind, and blue eyes like a lake wrought of diamond—it would not be too much to call them jeweled eyes. Each time she passed, he even seemed to see the hallucination of flowers bowing their heads.
"Irene. Irene Windler..."
The sultan called her name under his breath, and in an instant he understood what that fierce shock and emotion really were.
Yes. This was—!
What cruel trick of fate was this.
Arin, that person seems to be looking at you really hard.
"Ugh, creepy. Look at that face. He looks exactly like a courtesan."
Not a courtesan's brother?
"That's just a courtesan. Why is a man wearing makeup that thick? Kills my appetite."
Arin, that's sexist.
"...Mmm. Then the fact that he's wearing makeup kills my appetite. I completely hate it!"
That, I'll grant you!
Irene Windler shuddered at the greasy human staring at her so intensely.
...Honestly, why was he looking at a person in such an embarrassing, burdensome way?
Every time Irene passed, the eyes that followed her were more than a little uncomfortable. Her looks had always drawn attention easily, but today the gazes gathered even thicker, and inwardly she had to break into a cold sweat. On the outside she was a splendid, haughty young lady. Inside, Irene Windler was nothing but an endlessly young woman—and an extreme introvert.
Still, this was also something that could not be helped.
You did dress up today like you meant it.
On ordinary days Irene did not dress up at all. She barely even washed her face. Only lately, because there was someone she wanted to look good for, had she started washing her hair properly and glancing in a mirror. Before that she had been laziness at its peak, keeping herself only roughly clean with mana. And that girl had, for the first time today, dressed with intent.
Irene was already called the greatest beauty of the Academy. For a girl like that to dress as if she meant it was truly—
You're pretty, Arin. It would be so nice if you went around like this normally.
A jewel that had already been excellent, raised to the splendor of a crown. If she set her mind to it now, might she not tempt men as well as any dream fiend?
...Though the person in question had no interest in such things whatsoever.
"It isn't what I wanted. The maids forced it on me. Seriously, what a pain..."
The dress, the makeup, the jeweled ornaments had all been put on her for the dignity of the ducal house, and every bit of it only felt awkward to Irene. She did not stop grumbling, and she moved her feet quickly. Fortunately, no one came up to her first.
A mage's distinctive mana could serve as a shield that kept others from drawing near. Irene, whose mana was especially strong, constantly shed a water-hued mana and wore a fierce aura that would not let people approach carelessly. It was mana so thick that even someone who had learned the Fighting Art would find it hard to come close, unless they were of knight grade. People opened a path for the girl of their own accord, like a river before Moses, and without obstruction she made for the people familiar to her.
The magic faculty?
Of course not.
What was familiar to the girl was—
"Ah, there he is!"
The sword faculty.
However far off he stood, Irene wanted to run straight toward the man whose presence was enormous. Unfamiliar shoes left her no choice but to approach him slowly. She smiled brightly and was just about to speak to him, when—
"Excuse me, Mage Irene. Might I request a dance of you?"
"?"
...Some blond head had planted itself in Irene's way.
Grease poured off him every bit as thickly as off the copper-skinned man a moment ago, and the fierce golden mana spilling from him was considerable. Judging by the outside alone, a quantity of mana to match Irene's own. An ordinary mage would naturally feel drawn to a mage of the same kind, and it would have been normal to take at least a little interest in a man with eyes so full of melancholy—but.
"Ah, I'm busy."
"......"
Unfortunately, Irene had no interest in whether he was a mage or steeped in melancholy. As if dodging a man pressing her to believe in the Way, she put on a straight face, slipped away, and at last stood before the people she knew.
"Hehe, Instructor~!"
She was grinning so foolishly you might have wondered whether a tail had sprouted behind her—impossible to believe she was the same girl who, a moment ago, had swept the blond aside on a trail of cold wind. Looking at her, the knight...
"...Chick. This instructor is only saying it because he's seriously worried, but you really need to watch out for men."
"?"
"You seem like the type bad men flock to."
"Huh?"
"N-never mind if you don't get it. If you don't get it..."
Having watched, in real time, the sight of her making bad men fall for her, the knight clicked his tongue.
Is this why they called her a villainess?
Because so many bad men had stuck to her.
It was the moment he understood that a face, at least, came with its own plausibility.