A Knight Makes a Home Visit (3)
The unease only settled in after he saw the cross-section of the bronze statue.
...No sign it was ever melted?
Bronze was metal too. To work it, you had to melt it once in fierce heat. And yet this piece showed no trace of melting at all. What it showed was the opposite.
Carved?
Nothing but marks, as if a chisel had pared it down.
No. That wasn't a chisel.
Then what had left them?
...A slender sword?
The cut face of the bronze, and the hairline blade-marks left in it—those were unmistakably the marks a thin sword like a rapier would leave.
How could he be sure?
I saw plenty of men sliced apart like that in my mercenary days.
He had watched a rapier take flesh, and he had taken such a cut himself. The man who gave it to him died by his hand, of course. Even so, Lee Han had the experience and the eye for it, and concluding that a rapier had carved this was no great leap.
The moment he was certain, though—
A monster.
The awe came naturally.
I could probably make a statue myself if I crushed metal down with my grip, or shaped it as I went. Failing that, I could carve it away with Sword Ki.
But that would only be forcing the thing into shape with raw power. He could never have made it look this natural.
That face wasn't carved with Sword Ki. It was simply cut.
The way you would slice tofu, or clay.
An impossible art. No—wasn't this a realm of the sword?
"......"
A soft click.
Lee Han ran a hand along his own sword and took its measure, wondering whether his blade could stop the strike of someone who worked a pure skill like that with no Sword Ki at all.
...Not a chance.
Right. Impossible.
If someone with sword skill of that caliber came at him, blocking would be the wrong answer. Dodging would be the only one.
...Except.
Hm. I might be able to take the hit and not die...?
And just like that, Lee Han found he very much wanted to be struck by that sword skill.
Past the village, they reached the manor of the Offen Estate.
Ordinary noble houses sat far from the city and swallowed whole forests for their manors and gardens. The Offen manor, by contrast, stood inside the city, and its scale was truly modest—or rather, less small than practical, and close to austere. What filled the grounds suited the name of a vast training hall better than a mansion, and that alone showed how House Offen set itself apart from other noble families.
"You came? Kunta welcomes the guest!"
"...?"
"If you need something, say it. Kunta brings it. Kunta guides!"
"...K-Kunta? Wh-what are you doing here?"
"Kunta is living in society! Kunta earns pocket money at Arno's mansion!"
"???"
A barbarian taking on a servant's work in a house like this pushed the scene past distinctive and into something outright alien.
"Don't you get a monthly allowance as an exchange student? Quite a lot of it, as I recall."
Lee Han wondered whether this was some noble house's nasty habit of tricking a foreign student into unpaid labor, and he set a hand on Arno's shoulder.
"Turn yourself in and step into the light, wolf pup. I don't want to put cuffs on my own disciple."
"Haah. Is that my new nickname? ...I can see the misunderstanding, but it truly is a misunderstanding. Kunta really did ask me to find him work."
"Why?"
"He says he spent all his allowance."
"What?"
"Books and food. He bought them and sent every bit of it home. He wanted to be of help to his homeland, he said."
"Oh..."
Lee Han let out a quiet breath of admiration and looked at Kunta.
The black-panther brat still wore that pure, innocent face.
Sent books, did he. This one only plays the fool in how he acts. When no one's looking, he really is the type who reads self-improvement books.
An exchange student fit to represent the barbarians. He seemed to have sent home the thing that would help his people most.
"Admirable. Still, you ought to leave yourself something to live on."
"Kunta is reflecting too. But Arno—no, young master—gives Kunta lots of money! So it is fine."
"...Wolf pup."
"I never told him to call me that. He simply watched the servants and copied them. So please, stop looking at me like that..."
Lee Han had half a mind to bring the educator's hammer down, but the wolf pup's violent protest looked sincere.
"Master, aren't you teasing him a little too much?"
"The reactions are funny."
She was the only one who knew he was doing it purely to needle the boy. Lee Han, for his part, simply kept at it.
And then—
"Young master. You've arrived."
A maid came out from behind Kunta, and Arno brightened at the sight of her.
"It's been a while, Miss Elsa. I'm glad you look well."
"I'm always well. I'll stay healthy until the young master's child lives to see his own grandchildren. Heh heh."
"...Mm."
A woman who had only just passed fifty, perhaps.
Hard years in her youth, maybe—her hair was full of gray that didn't match the age of her face—and yet she didn't look frail. Quite the opposite. Her eyes were rigidly upright, and she carried a presence to match them.
A swordswoman.
Yes. The maid in that black uniform had surely come up as a swordswoman.
"Instructor, allow me to introduce her. This is Miss Elsa. She was my tutor when I was young, and she taught me my manners as well. She serves as head maid of the estate now, but in her youth she made quite a name as a swordswoman."
"The young master gilds my face."
Not gilding. She really must have been famous.
Even at a glance, she was clearly formidable.
Put a sword in her hand and she'd be stronger than our kids.
R-really?
Against the dark-skinned one... a draw, by a hair?
Whoa. Someone that skilled, and she never became a knight?
Everyone has their reasons.
As Lee Han remembered it, plenty of the women among the mercenaries had been skilled—skilled enough, looking back, that it would have been no surprise if they had become knights. And yet they never did. Honor and a title could be had, but they wanted no part of a knight's life and the freedom it bound in exchange.
She's probably the same.
N-now that I hear it, that does sound right.
The moment his guess about why her name was missing from the knight rolls roughly settled, Elsa asked, as if she had been waiting, her expression soft.
"Have you finished your conversation? Then I'll show you inside."
"...You, personally? A head maid must be busy."
"You're no ordinary guest. You're that person's guest. Of course I should escort you myself."
"...Ah."
Lee Han drew a dagger.
Hadn't he said it to the wolf pup like a joke? A free pass.
It really was a free pass...
"Instructor, that way is the big sparring hall too. Everyone fights with real swords!"
"Real swords?"
"Yes. Everyone bleeds, but everyone smiles."
"Hmm..."
"...Kunta, please don't introduce someone else's house as if it's strange."
"Kunta only said the truth?"
"......"
Kunta likely meant that they didn't spare practical, live-steel sparring. A sword didn't improve just because you swung it and drilled without end.
"Hm. Should I have our kids fight with live blades from now on?"
"M-Master?"
"I'm joking."
"Th-that doesn't sound like a joke..."
Even as he bantered with his disciples, Lee Han kept looking around—at the trainees swinging swords, and at the servants, maids included.
Every one of them is decent...
Nothing but skilled people. They weren't knights, that was all. Every last one of them had real ability, and for a moment Lee Han recalled the report that House Offen kept no knight order and no private soldiers.
Any halfway prestigious house would naturally have at least a knight order. He had thought it odd that they didn't.
...Maybe they simply have no need to make one.
If they felt like it, gathering the servants, the trainees, and the house disciples would birth a knight order in an instant. There was no reason to build one. On top of that, nearly everyone at the training halls around the Offen domain was said to be loyal to this family. The moment they decided to gather those people as well, it would no longer be a mere private force. It would be troops enough to form a division.
This house... isn't it actually the equal of a great house?
A family that had simply hidden its strength. That was what it felt like.
He was quietly marveling when—
Creak.
The sound of wheels.
"—A guest has come?"
"......"
"Haha, forgive me. I ought to greet a guest properly, but look at the state I'm in."
"...Not at all. I'm grateful enough that you didn't throw out the rude bastard who showed up unannounced."
"Haha, that's a kind thing to say."
A man who somehow resembled the wolf pup.
No—to correct himself, it was the wolf pup who resembled this man. Give Arno another ten years and he might well grow into a handsome fellow like this, welcoming Lee Han.
...From a wheelchair.
"I greet my father."
"Arno. It's been a while. I always regretted not seeing your face."
"...When you put it like that, I sound like an unfilial son. You're the one who's always busy and never shows his face."
"Haha! That's true too!"
Looking only at the gentle face and the wheelchair, the man seemed somehow frail. As if to prove that what showed on the surface was not the whole of him, he laughed, broad and open. It wasn't heartiness put on for show. It seemed to be his nature, and Arno, looking embarrassed, introduced him with an awkward air.
"Instructor, this is my father."
"Iliad. I can't use my legs—a crippled body—but I'm the one leading House Offen."
"Ah, Father..."
"Haha, it was a joke so you'd laugh. Laugh."
"......"
...Where, exactly, was he supposed to laugh?
Laugh here and I'm finished. Straight to the bottom.
They had known each other for less than a minute, so Lee Han couldn't rashly judge what kind of man this was. One thing, though, was clear.
This gentleman should not be telling jokes.
Take that one at face value, and he would be buried alive by society.