The Knights' Night Raid
Have you ever, as a child, blundered into a beehive without knowing any better?
Then you know. You know how bees that are perfectly gentle when left alone can turn savage and vicious the moment they are angered—how frightening the meek become once rage takes hold of them.
Dong, dong—!
Bells pealed through the temple, one after another, sounding the alarm. It was the warning of an intruder, and the footsteps of priests and nuns swept the Grand Temple in tight, disciplined order.
"Apostate! Find the apostate!"
"Inquisitors, Holy Knights—move, now! And get word to the Monks, quickly!"
"...The Monks? They won't move..."
"Then tell them the temple itself is in crisis!"
A violent shock of ruptured air shook the Grand Temple. No one failed to hear it, and priests who almost never raised their voices or hounded anyone over anything clenched their teeth. The mood had already been ugly of late, and now it was not some outlying chapel but the Grand Temple that had been breached. This could not be let pass. It had become the sort of crisis that demanded even the Monks be summoned, though they never involved themselves in the temple's affairs at all.
People gathered in droves. Those bearing torches bristled like enraged Spartan soldiers, and in this one moment—
"Those gentlemen are scarier than Demon People."
"An angry priest is a frightening thing."
"Cross them wrong and you'll burn to death."
—even Champions, men who feared nothing, could only startle and draw in on themselves.
It happened on a certain moonlit night.
"...So why'd you charge in like a lunatic and turn this into a mess?"
Lee Han scolded the two of them inside the narrow emergency passage he had barely managed to find. He was not a man who shifted blame onto others, but he was angry, first of all, that after all the trouble of breaking into the Grand Temple things had come to this—and even so.
"Hmph. And what were we supposed to do about how suspicious you look?"
"I felt a presence that wasn't to be taken lightly, so I thought I'd put you down first. Let it go. It was only a light greeting between men, wasn't it?"
The second thing that set his blood boiling was that neither of them showed a shred of apology.
God, I want to draw my sword.
He was beginning to understand why violence stayed rampant even after a world grew into a civilized society. It was because the place was full of people who made your fists shake like this.
What if I beat these two down and surrendered to the priests?
They might even count it as a mitigating circumstance.
Lee Han considered it in earnest, and as if they had read the thought, the two idiots spoke in turn.
"Calm yourself. A scuffle now would only cost you, you ruffian."
"I don't refuse a fight, but this is a time for patience. Ha ha!"
"...The worst part is you two acting cool-headed now. You bastards."
The intruders the priests had been hunting, before he ran into those Half-Fiends, were probably these two. Already caught, and still putting on a show of being rational. Especially—
"For someone who acted so superior, you got found out fast."
"...I'm already sick with rage because of that one, so kindly drop it."
"Rage-sickness? A bit early for that at your age. Careful. That sort of thing turns into a real illness."
"......"
For a moment Lee Han thought he could read the spearman's heart.
That face says he wants to kill him, doesn't it?
He knew the feeling. If he had to guess, the reason the spearman who had slipped in secretly had been discovered definitely involved the giant, and right now the man wanted nothing more than to drive a spear through him.
Yeah. I know that feeling.
From their first meeting through the mess in the Tunnels, he had come to know the man called Maximus well enough to guess what the spearman had endured, and he felt a flicker of pity. It was an unexpected fellowship of the miserable, and for the first time—
"...How the hell did you get tangled up with him?"
"...Damn it."
He patted the spearman's shoulder as if in comfort. The spearman pinched his brow without mercy and clutched the back of his neck. He was getting a proper taste of what a sickness born of swallowed rage felt like.
A silence settled over them.
It was not that they had agreed to keep quiet. There was simply nothing to say. And what would the first words even be? Should he come out and ask, So what are you doing here?
...Not a chance.
The very fact that all three of them were hiding this meekly already announced that none of them had broken into the Grand Temple for any upright reason. Better, then, to keep the silence than to sour the air with needless talk—wait until the noise outside thinned, and part ways when the moment was right.
But.
"...You've grown stronger."
"?"
"If it weren't for a situation like this, I'd want a serious match."
"...I'll pass. Especially with you. I am never fighting you."
"Hoh. Have you forgotten that burning battle? We both enjoyed it, didn't we?"
"...Crazy bastard."
Shameless, the lot of him. A headache slammed into Lee Han the moment Maximus brought up the fight in the Tunnels. Remembering that day did this to him every time.
I was the idiot...
Yes, he had fought the man then as if something had gotten into him, but looking back, that duel had plainly been one of the all-time great feats of stupidity. Why, of all places, in the middle of the enemy's ground, had he pulled a stunt like that?
Even a gnoll wouldn't do something that brainless, and the fact that he had proven himself a greater fool than a gnoll—an enormous insult, by Pendragon standards—was enough to make him kick his blankets in his sleep.
A black chapter. That was the proper name for it.
And then—
"A fierce battle?"
"......"
Of all people, the one he least wanted catching wind of that black chapter reacted. A man who, so far as Lee Han knew, was quick to notice and quick to think, and on top of that—
"Ha. Seems the two of you had quite the entertainment down in the Tunnels."
—he knew too much.
From the exchange between Lee Han and Maximus, the man seemed to have gathered what he needed and finished his calculations. A sneer touched his mouth.
"So the Tunnels collapsed because of you."
"...Not because of me, exactly. The place was ready to come down anyway."
"The finishing blow was yours, though."
"......"
"Magnificent. Did you want to pull that sort of thing in the middle of the enemy?"
"...Ahem."
On that point, he had nothing to say.
And yet—
"Haha! What is there to be ashamed of? We fought fiercely then, and we staked our lives! A savage contest that raised the very caliber of the soul, a match that would have drawn sighs even from the Silver Dragon and the Lion King! Our tale of valor must surely have delighted the heroes of Avalon as well! Wahahaha!"
Maximus, so unashamed he overflowed with pride, laughed in a booming voice. Was one supposed to call this magnanimity, or simply the way of a warrior?
Talking to this man makes me feel relatively sane.
And just as that thought struck—
"Come to think of it, Dire Wolf, I hear you too had a burning battle with my friend in the empire. They say you fought the Magic Tower, which committed sins to outrage both heaven and man. Splendid!"
"!!?"
"Friend? Me and you...?"
The reactions missed each other entirely. Where Lee Han only soured at the word friend, Lark seemed to freeze at the discovery that his deeds had been found out. The battle with the Magic Tower was a secret known only to those who already knew it, and the mere fact that even this much of the trail had surfaced was enough—
"...The North's intelligence isn't bad."
"I only know what I know."
It was more than enough to raise a man's guard, and Lark's face hardened. Maximus only shrugged, as if he had not spoken to draw the wolf's wariness.
"Don't be wary. I'm only speaking of what impressed me. And all I know is that you brought the Magic Tower down. The details escape me. My nephew kept his mouth shut as well."
"I'll choose to believe that, for now."
"My, but you are a suspicious one."
That the Dark One had held his tongue was probably no lie. It was a fairly famous thing that the Dark One and the grand duke did not get along. Lark, who understood as much, only raised his guard higher, while Maximus—
"Don't glare so. I didn't say this to show off the North's intelligence. I said it to earn your trust."
"Trust? Now?"
"When it was only the two of us, neither knew when the other might strike from behind, so I raised my own guard as well. But now my friend is here. A strong man whose victory neither I nor you can guarantee..."
"......"
The two knights' gazes gathered on Lee Han of their own accord. Lee Han scratched his cheek. This atmosphere...
Why do I suddenly feel like I just got voted leader of a group project?
He wanted to flee the spot.
Was it true that an ill omen always came true?
"What do you say we cooperate? Our aims look similar enough."
"Do you even know what I'm here to do?"
"Hmm. You're thinking of stealing a Sacred Relic, aren't you?"
"......"
"A man of your temperament would feel a Sacred Relic—no, something like an Indulgence—as a shackle. Proof that you've become entangled with the temple. So I thought you might be after the Sacred Relic. Am I wrong?"
"...You're sharper than you look."
"Aw, you'll make me blush."
"I'm not complimenting you. I'm sneering, you oaf."
A man who had reached the rank of a knight-order's captain, it seemed, was not all brawn. He could turn his head to some degree as well.
...The problem with that one is that he chooses not to.
A body so absurdly gifted that he had no need to think—yet once he did turn his mind to a thing, brilliant beyond measure. That was Maximus.
"...Figuring out my goal is impressive. But you and that one aren't after a Sacred Relic, are you?"
Cooperation was a fine word, but as Lee Han saw it, their purposes were all different. What use was cooperating when their aims didn't match?
To that—
"As it happens, they seem likely to line up."
"?"
"Look at this."
"??"
A silk pouch...?
Lee Han wondered what Maximus thought he was doing, producing a pouch out of nowhere, but the moment Maximus turned it inside out—
Thud.
A single crumpled slip of paper fell out, and the writing on it was clear enough to read.
Follow the knight who hatesmages most in all the world and has killed the most of them, and you may yet achieve what you seek.
...What is this? It reads like it's pointing straight at one particular person.
"What is this?"
"A scheme written down by a shaman, descendant of a witch. He told me that if I entered the Grand Temple, I should take them out one by one. Once when I came in. A second time, in the instant I was about to be discovered. And when I finally opened one upon meeting the two of you, this was what it said."
"......"
"I wondered what it meant, but meeting you, I understood. A shaman's scheme is truly uncanny. Haha."
"...What kind of bullshit is that?"
What, was that supposed to be one of Zhuge Liang's brocade-pouch stratagems?
Spouting nonsense. Where in the world does anything like that exist?
With a look of sheer disbelief, Lee Han glanced at the spearman as if seeking agreement. Doesn't that guy seem insane to you?
"Im—impressive. I wondered what the North had been hiding, and they've kept a strategist versed in shamanism at their side! The North is dangerous indeed."
"......"
......So that one isn't normal either.
Watching the very man he had hoped would agree nod along in acceptance, Lee Han thought it anew.
I just wish every last one of them would get lost....
"It's true? That he's coming here?"
"Yes. If that man's word is fact."
"...Strange. I thought he was dead."
"He must have fooled even us without a trace."
"Hmm. I want to meet him soon."
Steel whispered from a sheath.
"So I can tear him apart with my own hands."
"You'll have your chance."
They smiled, thin and cold, with a faint reek of blood in it. Before long, prey would walk into the tiger's den of its own accord. No—
"Number 8. I wonder how that cute little thing grew up."
They waited, delighted, for the old comrade who had once been so dear.