EP.7 – Irene Windler Is the Neighbor Next Door (4)
……Why, exactly, had it come to a fight like this?
It felt as if they had run into each other out of nowhere and simply decided, for no reason at all, to fight to the death. It had started as nothing more than a clash of momentum, neither of them willing to be the one who blinked—and looked at another way, it was closer to an accident born of a man's pride.
Which meant, in the end—
This is all that bastard's fault.
Lee Han glared at him, savage and unblinking, and the other man gave it right back. With the black robes stripped away, his face had something of a young noble's looks about it. The scar cut into one cheek announced a rough life, the sort of mark that stirred a woman's pity and made her want to be the one who approached first.
…Which only made Lee Han like him less.
Lee Han growled. The other man growled louder. They weren't dogs, so what was the point—but once two people had decided they hated each other, glaring so as not to lose was simply how the world worked. Lee Han and Lark locked eyes again, fighting spirit climbing, both of them already set to reach. This time it would not stop at fists. They were steeling themselves to take up blades and do it properly, when—
"Enough. How many times must I say it?"
"……."
"…My apologies."
"Hah. Knights."
The rebuke of an overwhelming power was more than enough to smother their fighting spirit.
"…I greet Your Grace, Duke Blake."
"Only now do I receive a greeting. I did not think the Silver Lions had grown quite so stiff-necked."
"I'll take that as a compliment. Thank you."
"…Let me correct myself. It seems only you are stiff-necked."
"Me? My neck bends just fine…."
"……."
"You lowborn wretch! How dare you take that tone with His Grace!"
"I said it nicely. What's the problem?"
"You—!"
The air threatened to catch fire into another fight, but this time the men in black seized Lark first and held him fast. Lee Han snorted at Lark, who could not so much as twitch, and Lark ground his teeth.
"…My head aches."
The duke pressed a finger between his brows.
A man stood inside a mirror.
Not a mirror meant to reflect whoever stood before it, but a Mystery that showed the face of someone far away. An Artifact—a miraculous treasure of Mystery, born of chance, that only the rarest of mages could make. That thing was surely an Artifact. In price alone it matched a castle, and those with the wealth and power to own one numbered only a handful even within the kingdom.
And now Lee Han was face to face with one of those few, a man of fortune and authority both.
…Hadn't they said he was in his sixties? Then what was that?
I'd believe it if someone told me he was younger than me.
Lee Han looked at him and felt a fear of an entirely different kind. The man, unaware of it, slowly opened his mouth.
"First, before we speak, an apology. We were the ones who disturbed your peace."
"Y-Your Grace…! How can you say something so undeserved to a lowborn? You mustn't."
"What must be acknowledged must be acknowledged."
One of the peaks of power in the Pendragon Kingdom. Not a duke in name alone, but the master of Galahad in this generation—a man whose presence was grand enough that he could have proclaimed himself a duke-king and no one would have called it too much. For such a man to willingly show regret to a knight of low birth was something that simply should not be said. Before common sense, it was a matter of authority and station. The nobility of royal blood was meant, always, to stand lofty and absolute.
And yet—
"Enough. How could expressing regret be called a flaw?"
Duke Blake waved a hand as if the remark were nothing at all, and scolded them instead. Stop this embarrassing display. Watching it, though—
"Your Grace, to be so generous…!"
"Khk—! As expected of His Grace."
"Indeed. Authority stands simply because Your Grace exists, O great one…!"
"…Hah."
They were excessive—no, they were like some cult worshipping a new religion—and the duke's sigh grew long, as if even loyalty, taken too far, was not entirely a good thing.
…Watching this, Lee Han's expression turned strange.
That's supposed to be the murderous lunatic? …No. He's normal. Perfectly normal.
Well, the way he spoke looked down on people without the slightest effort to hide it. That was a passive skill of pedigreed nobles. No point being irritated by it. Still, faced with a manner that sensible, he felt an odd wrongness. This was no patient in the grip of madness. He was just an ordinary noble, wasn't he? Doubt rose in Lee Han: was this man truly that Duke Blake?
"—There is no need to doubt. I am indeed the Duke Blake you know."
"I—I didn't say a word."
He blurted an excuse that was not quite an excuse, but how was he to hide from the eyes of a man who had done nothing but politics his entire life? The duke sneered.
"An irreverent look cannot be hidden. You will have heard the rumors of me, so you know. That I am a lunatic afflicted with madness."
"Mmm…."
He was just going to say it outright?
Lee Han was now completely certain. Duke Blake was not a madman. Not now, at least. If anything, the man was a more sensible Your Grace than Lee Han had expected, and somewhere in him there was even the air of a magnanimous man. Had this meeting not come about under these circumstances, Lee Han would have respected him more. He seemed decent enough for that.
Ah. Is this that thing?
The cliché that always turned up in a romance fantasy. The duke, or the grand duke, or the emperor everyone called a monster became a perfectly normal person the instant he found the heroine.
…Something like that?
The thought had barely formed when—
"Irreverent thoughts again?"
"…No. I was only thinking that rumors really can't be trusted."
"Hearing you say it so plainly, I find myself thinking the dignity of the ducal house has fallen into the dirt."
"Please look on it generously, Your Grace."
"…Seen this way, you have the look of a flatterer after all."
Lee Han bent deep at the waist, and Duke Blake grew no angrier. Or rather, he seemed to have judged there was no value in anger. Well. From that man's position, a life like Lee Han's was probably no more than a blade of grass.
Which is actually convenient.
Dealing with a man who only ever looked down was surprisingly easy. He was the sort who did not want to dirty his own hands. Which meant that the moment his interest waned, slipping out of his sight would not be hard at—
"—I would prefer you not misunderstand. I do not take you lightly, hidden dragon of the Silver Lions."
"……."
"I heard that among those teaching my precious adopted daughter was a knight who had been demoted, so I looked into it. At first there was far too little information on you, but through the people I planted in the royal house, I came to know the rough shape of it. What sort of man you are."
"Is it all right to say that out loud?"
Was planting spies in the royal house something a man just admitted this easily? Whether Lee Han found it absurd or not, Duke Blake went on, as if what he meant to say next mattered more than the spies he had set in place.
And sure enough—
"During the war with Britannia there was a stretch that was especially vicious. In the Hundred Days Siege, the battle in which Pendragon seized its decisive advantage, there came a moment when every soldier's life hung in the balance. And yet, amid that peril, a nameless soldier saved no fewer than 1,257 men."
"……."
"Also, when Britannia's assassination unit moved to kill that child, Isis, there was a soldier who protected her. I am told the hero who saved those countless soldiers and the benefactor who saved that child were one and the same."
"……."
"Furthermore, that soldier caught the eye of Sir Baltar and was made a full knight without ever passing through the trainee knights. There was also word that he alone receives instruction from Sir Baltar, a man famous for taking no disciples."
"Who the hell got instruction from that old man? All I ever do is get beaten!"
On this point he simply could not help flaring up. Instruction? Don't make him laugh. The only things he had learned from that man were how to get hit harder, and how to thicken his hide. Lee Han ground his teeth, not forgetting the grudge of being shoved into the knight order by force, but the duke's reaction was perfectly calm.
"Hm. Why so sensitive? I am only speaking of some nameless soldier."
"…Cut the games."
"No. The most important part remains. After becoming a knight, that nameless soldier wiped out fifteen major slave rings and twenty-nine notorious Illegal Mages. To accomplish alone what might not have been possible even if the royal army moved—he is a truly remarkable man."
"…And where's the proof that nameless soldier did it? Sounds more like an empty rumor."
"It is not an empty rumor. The information came from those rescued out of the slave rings, and from those who had been tortured as test subjects by the Illegal Mages."
"……."
"With power, money, and capable people, confirming whether information is true is entirely possible. Remember that, knight who lives while hiding that he is a hero."
"…Damn it."
A monkey in the Buddha's palm. The image of his own situation flashed through his mind, and at last Lee Han lowered his head.
…As expected. He hated men of power.
The duke withdrew, and with him every soldier of Galahad.
Lee Han did not know why. There had clearly been more left to say, and yet Duke Blake wore a meaningful smile and simply, leisurely, pulled his forces back—as if the conversation alone had been enough to take Lee Han's measure. As if everything he himself had been curious about was already resolved.
……Lee Han, meanwhile, still had questions to spare. Well. To that man, those questions probably did not matter.
Right.
He felt filthy. This was clearly a moment to be glad that an overwhelming power capable of killing him had turned and gone, and yet he was not glad at all. If anything, the fact that his lifeline had dangled in someone else's hand was unpleasant beyond words.
He realized it all over again. He was still—
"Weak. Filthy weak."
He had thought himself better off than in his past life. He was still only a man being swung about by others.
He swayed. Lee Han's body lurched. He had tried not to show it, but his body was nowhere near whole. It hurt like hell—an injury so foul it refused to close. That bastard's fist was a filthy thing. The highest praise, from the one who threw it. The worst, for the one who took it.
But what stung worse than the pain was this.
"…This isn't even the old trick of giving the sickness and then the cure."
Lee Han looked at the vial clenched in his hand. A potion. Not the low-grade stuff alchemists churned out by the batch, but a highest-grade potion made from a troll's living blood. Hadn't they said the purity was fifty percent?
"……."
On any other day he would have taken it gladly. His brow simply would not unknot. He felt toyed with. That someone had grasped him down to the last detail was nothing but unpleasant.
……Even so, Lee Han had not the slightest intention of carrying that displeasure around forever. He knocked the potion back in hard swallows, and as he drank, he made a vow.
I haven't lost yet.
It is not the strong who win. The one who survives to the end—the one who is happy—that is the one who wins. Lee Han vowed it again. He would be happy.
……No matter what.