EP.38 – The Knight Does Not Forgive the Golden Sun (4)

By any standard of common sense it was absurd, but Salah meant to carry out a terror strike against Pendragon. The Assassins. To set those loathsome ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠crows in motion was to mean exactly that. Even so, he did not hesitate for an instant.

If the plan went as designed, the sultanate he ruled would gain a formidable power. Perhaps even—

A transcendent Mystery. I might be able to take one.

The South was heaped with mysteries of astronomical worth, Irene Windler foremost among the prizes worth coveting. If he could seize only a few of them, he would accept the cost even if it meant war.

Spill a little blood. Gain the power.

With the future in view, the profit was more than enough. He was certain of it. And yet...

"Irene. Irene Windler. Will you not consent to become my concubine?"

"...?"

Mysteries and war were no longer priorities in the sultan's mind. It felt as though the other half he had searched for all his life had finally appeared, and how could he dare put such a feeling into words? In this single moment, even the man called sultan was nothing more than one among the countless males courting a single woman. Forgetting altogether that he was supposed to kidnap her, he had simply fallen under her spell.

"Ah—was that a discourteous offer? Would you rather be a sultana? Haha. Certainly, with the power of Galahad in your hands, it might well be possible."

"Um, for a while now, if you could just..."

Irene tried to get the words out. She was passive by nature, but when ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠something had to be said, wasn't it better to say it plainly and be done? All the more so—

What kind of lunatic is this...

—when the lunatic could not be reasoned with. She meant to ask, politely, whether he might kindly get lost, or whether something was wrong with him in the head. Unfortunately—

Smack.

"Sultan. I tried to endure it, but what do you think you're doing? What is this discourtesy toward Lady Irene?"

"Mage. And what do you think you're doing? You dare lay a hand on me..."

Before Irene could even take him to task, a blond head was already bearing down on the sultan. Huey de Byron, great disciple of the Magic Tower. When he confronted Salah with his face full of rage, the sultan's expression went cold.

"Mage. I am in the middle of a conversation with her. I cannot fathom why you would shove yourself in without knowing your place."

"Ha. A conversation? From where I stand, you are merely showering her with one-sided drivel."

"Drivel? You dare call it drivel to my face, mage?"

"And what problem is that?"

"You bastard!"

Salah's fury broke—at a lowborn mage who forgot his station and mouthed off to a sultan. But the other man was no easy mark either.

"My place? Ha! So the Magic Tower looked that laughable to you."

The mage cast courtesy aside, as if an arrogant sultan were owed no further manners at all. The Magic Tower was the ivory tower of mages, and it was no exaggeration to say that its power accounted for four-tenths of the vast Central Continent. In other words, if it set its mind to the task, two or three sultanates were well within what it could handle. And so—

"Mage Irene is a treasure of the magical world, a precious talent who ought to belong to the Tower. Show her a coercive attitude and attempt this absurd stunt, and you had best understand that the Magic Tower will not take the slight lightly. Remember that, foreign vassal."

"You—!"

The title of sultan was, in truth, the title of a king, and to hear himself reduced to a mere vassal sent Salah's blood hotter than it had been at any moment before. To be humiliated in front of a woman he fancied? That was an insult he could not swallow.

Thud!

Salah seized Huey by the collar at once, and Huey, no more willing ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to yield, seized his in turn. A spark on a powder keg. Two men ready to come to blows at any moment. And watching them, the crowd was delighted.

"This is incredible...!"

"The Tower's great disciple and the young sultan of the West, fighting over one woman... tomorrow's article writes itself."

"Lady Irene certainly has a great many sins to her name. Heh heh."

A scandal of passion among the powerful—where else would one ever get to see such a thing? Nobles starved for stimulation and youths in the bloom of their years glittered with excitement over the melodrama unfolding around a single woman. And the girl at the center of it all...

"...I just wish they'd all go away."

Irene laid the feeling out with perfect honesty: even if someone handed the pair of them to her, she would rather throw them away.

"...Hmm."

Meanwhile, a gray-haired boy watching this farce scratched his head. What was this comedy that wasn't even funny? The longer he looked, the more impossible the scene became, and Derek, on the off chance, turned his eyes toward the blond girl. It felt a little rude, like peeking, but still.

"...Status."

A man had to check, didn't he?

Ding—.

"......Now I see exactly why those men can't pull themselves together."

Derek studied the girl's traits and could hardly believe his eyes. Unique traits such as Cradle of the Archmage and Fairy Child didn't even register. He had already predicted those. What caught his eye instead were Kingdom-Toppling Beauty, Sunfish, and Sickly Beauty. Those were ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠traits the developers had stuck in like a prank, and the three of them existed for no reason but a joke.

Sunfish was something you received only if your stamina value was 2 or lower—a trait a baby barely past its first birthday might have—and Sickly Beauty was no different from a brainwashing trait. It took especially well the richer and more powerful the target, because it had been built from the sickly heroines who turn up now and then in dramas. And Kingdom-Toppling Beauty, that one...

That's why the sultan and the mage both go down.

It bewitched men. The more arrogant a man was, the more convinced he was of his own greatness, the harder it struck.

"...What a genuinely horrific combination."

How did someone end up armed with nothing but traits that vicious? Sunfish in particular was hard to acquire even if you knew it existed...

Sure, if you've got Sunfish you take a penalty check and pick up extra ability modifiers. Even so, I absolutely do not want it.

Derek decided to give up on understanding the girl. She was armed with traits you could not obtain even if someone told you to take them, and thanks to that she was holding those two villains in place. Well, so long as a sultan was present the odds of Assassins were high, but...

...Moths to a flame?

Walking into a place guarded by an Lv.8-class Hero? This was just...

"Derek! Stop thinking about something else and hurry up and dance!"

"I-I'm sorry, Karin. B-but isn't this already the fifth...?"

"So you were planning to rest?"

"...No."

"Then hurry up and dance."

"......Yes."

Unfortunately, Derek could not follow the thought any further. It seemed unwise to make his partner any angrier than she already was.

The Assassins. The word at the root of assassin, and a people closer to a religious order than to a guild of murderers. In a sense they resembled inquisitors: reapers who served death at once upon any who broke their doctrine, or who believed in another faith. Even in the West, therefore, the Assassins were objects of fear. Sultans themselves did not lightly take them as subordinates, because the conviction they carried burned too fiercely, and because their hands were far too cruel. Once they set to work they did not merely remove the target. They slaughtered, kidnapped, and tortured everyone nearby, whether related to the matter or not. Their brutality was such that even sultans had thrown up both hands, and it was nearer the truth to say they were regarded as wild zebras that could not be broken. In short, they were a goddamn nightmare. They could not be tamed, and use them and you might be the one who got bitten. So even in the West the Assassins were a sword seldom drawn. To entrust them with a task was to invite a calamity whose shape no one could predict.

Except—

Their skill, at least, was such that it would be no exaggeration to call them the finest on the continent. They conversed even among themselves in a cipher of their own making, and most of them were men whose entire bodies had been rebuilt through the great art handed down within the Assassins. A company possessed not only of prowess in battle, but of strange constitutions and abilities besides. Set their minds to it, and they could kill anyone—

"You got an entry permit?"

"——."

They froze.

How long had he been standing there? Perched on the roof and watching the moon, he regarded the Assassins with a quiet gaze, but their eyes were on the figures sprawled at the man's feet. Those were plainly comrades who had slipped in ahead of them. About ten. Their skill was such that even a knight-captain would not have cut them down easily, and yet men of that caliber...

"Oh, those bothering you? Friends of yours? Take them if you want. I won't stop you."

"......"

"...Not taking them? No loyalty at all."

Steel whispered free of its sheath.

"I wouldn't draw that if I were you."

Dozens of Assassins drew blades of a peculiar shape. The kukri—a machete-form sword, and the weapon that symbolized the Gurkha, finest of mercenaries. And the band that had drawn those swords—

"-·1-!"

—poured in upon the man, showing a desperate resolve to eliminate, without fail, whatever stood in their way.

Snick! Snick! The festival of edges put on by dozens of Assassins was nothing short of a steel grate of blades with nowhere to slip through, and it was, without question, a crisis. And yet—

—rustle.

"...?"

The flower that bloomed so out of keeping with the moment—no, the plum blossom—refused to grant that crisis the dignity of being a crisis. Petals of scattering plum blossom sank into steel and into the Assassins' very skin. Blood fountained with the blossoms, and the spray looked like nothing but petals.

"Let's finish this quiet. Quiet. Don't kick up a fuss for nothing."

What good would it do, getting in the way of the kids at play? The low rebuke was his. Lee Han's.