The Obvious Story He Wanted to See (1)
There are days like that.
The sky is unusually clear, the wind cool, and even the sunlight warm enough to make the weather feel impossibly gentle. Some will say it is perfect for exercise. Others will call it a fine day for a book on a bench, or a picnic in the park.
Nothing could be more refreshing.
Drip. Drop.
And yet, for someone, it was weather that spared not the slightest thought for the heart.
Knights and soldiers alike had a woman surrounded, swords and spears leveled at her. She had already lost a great deal of blood, and there was hardly a place on her left unhurt. Anyone who happened upon the scene might have scolded the men for having no sense of honor, for persecuting a woman. The men, who remembered the screams of comrades sent to their deaths by that woman's hand, would more likely have beaten the scolder senseless.
And with good reason. She was no powerless housewife.
"Talking with an enemy like this is hardly proper, and it does our dead comrades a disservice, but I have to ask. Why would someone who once rose as high as his lordship's adjutant commit a thing like betrayal?"
"Asking for reasons now is foolish. If you mean to kill me, kill me without hesitating. My sword will aim for your throats just as mercilessly."
"......"
Shring.
Her body was shaking, but her spirit had not died. The knights let out a breath, steeled themselves, and faced her.
"...Don't hesitate."
It sounded like advice to a comrade. It sounded more like advice he was giving himself. He drew his sword, and the other knights drew without a moment's pause and swung—at the woman who had once been Offen's loyal retainer, who had betrayed the house and threatened its head.
"...Hell of a stubborn life, wasn't it."
The woman's name was Elsa.
Thud.
"?"
A notebook had appeared on the table out of nowhere. Lee Han, who had been working through ten panini as if they were dessert, tilted his head.
"What's this?"
"Elsa's diary. The house servants found it, I'm told."
"I don't make a habit of reading other people's diaries."
"Neither do I. But I had no choice. I needed to know why she betrayed the family."
"Yeah?"
Lee Han gave a shrug and nothing more. He showed little interest and went back to the panini. The fillings were all different, and whoever had made them had used only fresh ingredients; they tasted excellent.
Besides—
Food someone else makes really does taste the best.
The fact that it was free warmed his chest even more.
"...Haha."
The one thrown off by his total lack of curiosity was Iliad. They ought to have been acquainted, and the man who had resolved this whole affair was none other than Lee Han. That he could care so little was strange. Perhaps it showed on Iliad's face.
"I'm not reacting like this because I don't care about other people's business. I already know how it goes, that's all."
"Obvious?"
"So-called traitors betray for about five reasons. Money, love, revenge, jealousy."
"...That's only four."
"The last one's nothing special. They just do. People are like that, aren't they? If someone looks safe to look down on, if insubordination seems like it'll slide, they simply charge in. Faithful to instinct."
"Instinct..."
"Well, if you want a name for that last reason, call it survival of the fittest. If the other side looks weak, you bite. It's a beast's logic, but humans aren't any different. Simple."
"......"
"So I'm not very interested in the reason. Betrayal? The ones who will, will. I laid out five grand reasons, but even those are just noble pretexts in the end, and of course you're angry that they betrayed you. But it was a failed betrayal anyway, wasn't it? Then toy with the traitors until you feel better. Don't brood too long. Brood too long and the heart sickens."
"...I see. That way of thinking is possible as well."
"Don't listen too closely. It's just nonsense from a greenhorn who hasn't lived much longer than you have."
"Haha! A greenhorn... I wonder if there's anyone who would call Sir Lee Han that."
"More than you'd think."
"Ahahaha!"
Cough...!
Iliad laughed with all his strength, but before long he had to kill the laughter with a dry cough.
"You'd better settle down. Your body's still a wreck."
"...Indeed. I can't even laugh as I please."
Calling him merely unwell might already have been generous.
Iliad's body trembled. He had weakened as far as a body could weaken. There was so little strength left in him that he might have missed the days when it was only his legs that failed him—something like a man who had spent more than three years in a vegetative state and only just woken. His arms shook so badly that "tremor" would have been a kindness. His face was pale as a sick man's. The muscle seemed to have evaporated from his whole body, leaving only the joints of the bone, and his eyes were hopelessly dim. It would not have been strange if he collapsed on the spot.
Even so—
"...If I think of it as the price of having survived, it was cheap."
"......"
"Thank you again, Sir Lee Han."
For saving a fool like me.
It was thanks from the heart, and Lee Han scratched his cheek as if the gratitude itched.
"...I just beat you up."
"That is what I am grateful for."
"......"
"Ah, that was rather open to misunderstanding. Haha."
"......"
That didn't sound like a misunderstanding.
Why's he so happy?
Had he hit him too hard?
Maybe I shouldn't have gone for the head, Lee Han regretted, just a little. He had the unpleasant feeling that he had broken a perfectly sound man.
The Offen rebellion, which had broken out between dawn and sunrise, was put down in a relatively short time—no more than nine hours. It was thanks to a single knight stepping forward, but the kingdom did not make much of that point. The revolt had been brief, and with an Aura User present, they had simply assumed it would be resolved.
The Aura User in question, however—
"Didn't do a single bit of good...."
"!!"
"Did I say something wrong?"
"...You cruel child."
The catch, such as it was, was that he had been no help at all.
Even if that truth came out, he was not about to step into the open. He had no desire to be noticed for a mess like this.
Quiet only on the surface. Those above were taking a very great interest in the affair.
"Gardin raised a rebellion?! He did—the man whose name was once entered among the kingdom's Hundred Swords?!"
"They artificially induced demon-humanization in a knight?! What kind of nonsense is this?!"
"Those unbelievers again, again! What grudge do these bastards hold against the kingdom, that they keep repeating this filth...!"
And so, once again, the unbelievers. That the seditious Blood Cross Army had schemed to swallow Offen, and that they had driven Iliad into demon-humanization, was more than enough to plant unease and fear in noble society.
All the more so among knights, for whom the Fighting Art was mandatory.
"The tea was the problem."
"...There's definitely a drug in it. But what kind of drug?"
"......Ominous."
In the teacup the traitor Elsa had given Iliad, they found a drug even the kingdom's alchemists had never seen. A few ingredients were identified. The rest were things no one had heard of in their lives, and the alchemists stated with certainty that this very component sent a knight's heart into a frenzy and brought on demon-humanization.
The materials were rare, so they offered the optimistic prediction that there could not be much of it. A prediction was only a prediction. It was no grounds solid enough to thin the nobles' anxiety. If anything, they fixed on the fact that their enemies now held a dangerous means of turning them into demon people.
"Hm. The nobles are too cowardly, and their eyes are narrow. There's a way to turn it back."
"There, 'narrow vision' would be more accurate than 'narrow eyes,' Kunta."
"Yeah. That."
"I understand what Sir Kunta is trying to say, but isn't Master the only one who can manage a feat like that?"
"...That also sounds right."
Not every noble was wholly bleak, for they had seen hope in the precedent of a human, once demon-humanized, returning to humanity.
But, as Levi had said—
"It's only possible because it's Master. How do you destroy a heart and protect it at the same time? And rebuilding it the moment after you've destroyed it is no small matter, is it? Without an Aura User, restoration would be impossible."
Destroying the heart might, at a stretch, be possible. Restoring that heart was, as a rule, impossible. An Aura User, with vitality vast as the ocean, would not find it difficult to restore a heart and save a human on the verge of death. How could anyone who was not an Aura User manage such a thing?
In other words, they needed a substitute for an Aura User. And that method—
"You would need a potion of ninety percent purity, or an elixir to match it. One that heightens regeneration and recovery."
Troll's blood, worth whatever price one cared to name—and ninety percent purity, which could not even be obtained on the open market, was a difficult thing even for a great noble.
"Hm. I ought to invest a little."
After a chain of events like this, the price of potions and elixir ingredients was sure to climb for a while.
"Since when are you a full-time investor?"
"Because I can see exactly how the money gets made. You earn it at times like this."
"You've already got plenty, and still this greedy for it."
"The more money, the better."
"...Can't argue with that."
Lee Han gave a small nod, wondering if this was the investment mind of a person who actually made money. Even so, a way to earn a fortune was not what interested him most.
"So. Think you can treat that old man?"
"......"
"...That bad, huh."
"I didn't... say anything."
"I can tell from your face. Don't look so miserable. It's not your fault."
"...I'm sorry I couldn't help."
Blaming himself for something that was not his fault—this one's life probably hadn't been easy either.
Life isn't easy, is it.
Lee Han shook his head, thinking of the Sword Saint whom the finest doctor he knew had judged beyond recovery. He had truly wanted to help.
"If, if we had something like the Ghost King's living blood, treatment might be possible somehow..."
"...If you need it, you need it. Why are you looking at me?"
"I just thought you and the Ghost King might be... similar, Instructor..."
"......"
"D-do you think you might try donating about two thousand milliliters..."
"......"
"Instructor? Why the axe all of a sudden...?"
"Because I think an ungrateful little shit could use a beating."
"!!?"
Lee Han gladly raised the rod to correct a disciple drunk on money.
A rod of love, thick with a master's grace.