The Obvious Tale He Wanted to See (3)
Even after Lee Han's unhesitating refusal, the argument went on.
"I don't need it."
"D-don't be like that..."
"I said no."
"But whyyy?!"
"What am I supposed to do with a helpless sunfish?"
"A what?"
"Someone exactly like you."
"!!?"
For a moment he wondered if this was what they meant by a spear meeting a shield. To any third party, it was simply absurd. He was being offered an empty promise by an Aura User, and he hated the offer so openly that it almost looked like an act.
The man himself, however, had no thought of pretending. He was saying only what he meant, held fast by one certainty: a rejuvenated Aura User was a child carrying a bomb. No different from pure evil. No different from an overwhelming hazard.
"Let's just say I'm refusing because getting tangled up with you would wear me out."
"...What a cruel child."
"If anyone here is cruel, it's you."
"......"
"...Why are you tearing up again? Determined to make me the villain, aren't you!"
Lee Han clicked his tongue at the sight of her eyes welling once more. An ordinary noble or knight would have folded before a lady's tears. He could find no reason to yield to them unless the one crying was his own woman—a friend, at that. He meant to hold that cold line.
And then—
"Yes. Elsa said the same. Called me cruel... This happened because I was worthless. So damnably worthless..."
"?"
A wet lament spilled out of nowhere, and Lee Han tilted his head. Why was the traitor's name suddenly in the room?
"I-I'm sorry, Instructor. This matter has aggravated Grandmother's emotional instability again..."
"Emotional instability? Don't tell me that's another side effect of Rejuvenation."
"...Yes."
"...Worse than a sunfish."
Lee Han took one step back. Truly, someone he had no wish to grow close to.
"I never imagined that child Elsa harbored feelings like that. But to me she was only a friend, and a comrade."
He really did not want to know.
"After she owed me her life at our first meeting, she followed me strangely well and guarded my back with everything she had. When I left the battlefield and became an adventurer, she supported me, and after I returned to the house she helped in countless ways. Did you know? This house has many of that child's disciples. She was good at a maid's work, but she was better with a sword. In skill and talent alone, she was a match for Gardin."
Right...
"Ah, speaking of Gardin reminds me. Even he was not so corrupted when he was young. He disliked me, yes, but we competed in good faith, and sometimes he supported me. If I had not made a name across the continent, Gardin would surely have become Offen's heir. ...Thinking of it now, I wonder if I succeeded to Offen for nothing. I didn't want to take his place. I was never a greedy person. I only wanted to live in peace and train hard with the sword, and yet... haah. I have so many regrets."
And what was he supposed to do with any of that?
"And two of the children who betrayed us this time were such lovely things when they were small. How lovely, you ask—"
...When was this going to end?
"Whoa. Is she always like this?"
"Once the instability starts, she stays that way for a while. She'll likely remain so until the source of the stress eases, even a little."
"This is bad. Should I run while I still can?"
"You needn't. She talks more, but talk is all it is. She doesn't actually do anyone harm. Grandmother after Rejuvenation is mischievous, a little tactless, and indecisive, but aside from that she causes no trouble. She simply goes on until it's irritating."
"...Wolf pup. Do you hate your grandmother?"
"I respect her. Only, as a person, somewhat..."
"......"
Family, it seemed, was not something one could affirm in every part.
"You've got it rough."
"Not at all."
"A headache of a grandmother, a father who eats what the wrong person hands him and brings disaster down, and a great-uncle who starts a rebellion?"
"...When you put it that way, I suppose I am suffering."
"Um, Sir Lee Han. I am also standing right here..."
Iliad, freshly awarded the title of accident-prone father, answered with an awkward look. They did not respond. They simply went on.
"So what are you going to do? Take leave? Drop out?"
"Me?"
"You planning to keep attending the Academy? You've got a house to put back in order. Aren't you busy enough?"
"You're right, but I have no intention of taking leave or withdrawing. Whatever becomes of the house, Father is here, and with Grandmother behind us it will be settled soon. Offen's strength does not come from a single genius. It comes from countless disciples."
"Hoh?"
"It may sound arrogant, but if the name is Offen, more than ten thousand hands would come to our aid at once. After all, the swordsmen entered in the register as swordsmen of House Offen number a hundred and fifty thousand."
"...You lot aren't small either."
"Well, they're scattered, so they aren't counted among our forces."
Lee Han nodded, as if the answer were simply not to worry over nobles—no, over the great houses of Pendragon.
Not a manageable one among them.
How was it that every great house except the royal family had a foundation this monstrous? He found himself thinking the common rumor might not be wrong after all: that Pendragon's real military strength came from its great houses.
Well. The royal house is probably hiding something too.
You could never know everything from what showed on the surface.
"Also..."
"Hm?"
A gaze full of resolve pulled Lee Han out of his stray thoughts. The wolf pup, Arno, met him with eyes alight.
"I want to learn more from you. Not anyone else's way. Yours."
"......"
"So from now on, I will call you Master. I would rather use the closer name a disciple gives his master, but I suspect Lady Levi would be jealous."
"...I'm hardly grand enough to be called Master."
"To me, the most ideal and the greatest knight is you."
"......"
"...Honestly."
The boy had a gift for speeches that burned the face. A noble thing, perhaps.
And yet.
"Instructor, you're smiling."
"...Stand your punishment properly."
Just as that brat Taechang had said, the corner of Lee Han's mouth had climbed before he noticed. Having someone take him as their goal was, well...
It does feel good.
He was beginning to understand that becoming someone's master made the heart feel rich.
Pride warmed him toward the disciple who had declared, of his own will, that he wished to become a formal student—and with it came the idle, unworthy thought of whether he ought to receive the full nine bows. Then—
"A joyous thing. My son has gained a master, and that master is a man even I would wish to take as my own."
"You know how to gild a man's face."
"I am not gilding you. It is what I truly think."
"...Father and son, identical."
They knew how to shame a man. Lee Han's face burned under the sincere praise, and at the same time something puzzled him.
"The way you talk, it sounds as if you've never had a master even once."
"Correct. I never particularly had one. I learned the basic Fighting Art, but nearly everything else I studied alone."
"And that's why they call them geniuses..."
"Haha. I won't deny it. If I may offer an excuse, I grasped most of the fundamentals from sword manuals alone, and anyone who tried to teach me gave up before two days had passed."
"Ohh..."
"In that sense, I was never promising disciple material. A problem student, more likely."
"...Not a problem student. Just too far beyond them, wasn't it?"
He had probably swallowed everything the moment it was taught, until the so-called teachers grew sick of it and fled. He would have been too exceptional to be taught by anyone. Overwhelming, to the point that nothing remained to teach.
But that was...
"It isn't particularly your fault. The fault lies more with those teachers. An educator doesn't get to quit just because a student is excellent."
"...?"
"This is something I've felt while doing the work. However high a student's level, an educator still has to teach. If I had been the one teaching you, I would have driven you to madness."
"Driven me?"
"Driven you until you resented me. Teaching unfairness, in so many words."
"......"
"What?"
"...Nothing. I seem to feel a chill."
"You're imagining it."
A sensitive man. If Lee Han had taught Iliad, Iliad would probably not be the courteous person he was now. He would have been very good at swearing. Even so, one thing was certain.
"......"
"My teaching honestly isn't much. Nothing difficult in it. I just make you feel the world's unfairness in your own body, and teach you how to overcome it. A crude method. Measured that way, I'm certainly no normal master."
Lee Han laughed. He was thinking of the eighty disciples suffering under that philosophy of his.
Even so.
"If despair ever crashes down on them, my disciples will get back up quickly. I taught them how to rise inside unfairness."
He believed that what they suffered would one day become a great fortune.
"If I had to give it a name, this is what I teach."
A heart that does not waver, and one that never breaks.
"Not a particularly special teaching."
He said it lightly. The answer that came back was anything but.
"...You are a truly admirable man."
"Hm?"
"A complete defeat. In strength, and in spirit. I have lost utterly."
The reaction was fierce beyond measure, and Iliad laughed, bright and pleased. That the man who had beaten him was someone worth respecting made him happier, and prouder, than anything else could have.
Iliad spoke while looking at Felicia, who was still muttering, lost in a world of her own.
"...To be honest, I did not want to become a swordsman. Others said I was born for the sword, but I found more joy in painting than in steel. So when my legs were ruined, a part of me was relieved. I thought I would no longer have to live up to anyone's expectations. ...And yet, foolishly, I..."
It was a sincere heart. Perhaps the first time he had ever shown it to another person. A shameful truth, but he wanted to tell it to this man and no one else. If it was him, Iliad felt he could accept being called worthless, however harshly.
"Once you were broken, you missed the sword."
"...Precisely. Worthless of me..."
Yes. How pathetic a thing. He had hated it so fiercely while he had it, and only ached for it once it was gone.
And so—
"Mother saw straight through that foolishness. She saw that I wanted to walk again."
"......"
"Did you know? The reason Mother underwent Rejuvenation was none other than me."
"?"
"She wondered whether, if a body could be returned to youth, that same method might repair mine, and she sacrificed her own flesh to the experiment. But the result was this: the body may grow young, yet not every affliction of the flesh is restored. The only path left would have been something like the Fairy's Blessing, and fairies seldom grant blessings to humans. In effect, the way to heal me had vanished."
"......"
"...Or so I would have thought, until not long ago."
"Hm?"
"Sir Lee Han. Hearing you, I understood. The truth is that I had not yet done anything."
"My talk?"
"Yes."
Listening to Lee Han, he realized it. He had wanted his legs healed, and yet he had never actually made the effort.
"I should have struggled. Not leaned on a miracle or a blessing, but set my mind on walking by any means I could. Not surrendered, but tried something—anything. I never even made the attempt, and this is where it left me."
Hearing the man, he thought he understood: he was someone who did not know how to stand back up. People had praised him as a genius, and he had believed them and lived in idleness. Nothing but a fool. He had realized it far too late.
Hopelessly stupid...
A tremor ran through him.
"Look. Forget standing. Even lifting an arm is a struggle now. I am only now paying the price of a foolish life."
"Foolish, my ass. Could a man like that paint a masterpiece? That was possible because of effort."
"Haha. Sir Lee Han is a deeply considerate man."
"It isn't consideration. I mean it."
"Ahaha!"
"Why are you laughing?"
"Because I find it astonishing."
How could every single word be sincere?
This man never speaks empty words.
And so Iliad felt both regret and envy of his son. If he himself had had a master like this, might he have lived a life a little less wretched?
He held that thick regret, and pressed it down. His time was already over—
"......"
For an instant, those eyes seemed to see straight through him.
"Teach me... what."
"This."
A soft thud.
"??"
Lee Han's fingers struck three times, exact: chest, abdomen, and the point between the brows. To someone else it might have been an insult. What Iliad felt was not insult.
Heat flared like flame, and with it a warmth that sank into the flesh.
"!?"
"Hot, right? It isn't dangerous. I just put my strength in."
"......"
"Put some force into it."
"?"
"Yeah. Good thing it took."
"...Pardon?"
Iliad tilted his head, unsure what the words meant, and in the middle of tilting it he saw. His son, wearing a look of shock. His son's friend. His mother, done with her muttering, mouth hanging open like a fool.
And then—
"Ah.........?"
Iliad had to wear the same foolish face.
His toes were moving.
"Well, I'll be damned. It actually works?"
Lee Han rubbed the back of his head, regarding a knack with which he might, perhaps, even found a religion.