A Knight Fears the Living More Than Ghosts (2)
The great nobles.
In imperial terms, one might as well have called them warlords or marcher-kings: houses that had heaped up influence, armies, and fortunes no one could ignore, histories too heavy to dismiss. Among the tens of thousands of noble families in the South, only nineteen could claim the name for themselves.
For nearly twenty years the streets had buzzed with talk that merchants, guilds, and mercenaries were growing strong enough to overshadow even the nobility. Let those three powers swell as they liked. They would never climb past the name of the great nobles.
They were, how to put it—
They even carried the nickname of an impassable Wailing Wall, and unlike puppets such as the Noble Council, they were the true holders of power. Within their own houses and domains, they wielded the strength of kings.
Of course, a great noble was not automatically a master of overwhelming armies and treasuries. Some had risen on accumulated history, ability, and achievement, so it was not as if every one of them was mighty. The ten houses that sat at the top, however, unquestionably possessed the power just described—and among those upper great nobles was none other than—
"Mordred."
Paper snapped open.
"Commonly called Mordred of Madness. One of the few houses granted a blessing, however scant—alongside Galahad, blessed by the lake; Lionel, blessed by the Lion King; and Guinevere, said to have been blessed through staple crops."
"Sounds like there's something weird tacked on at the end."
"Are you slighting famine crops?"
"...My favorite foods are potatoes, sweet potatoes, and corn."
"I like them too."
He said it like a joke, yet Simon's face still refused to smooth.
"Even among the great nobles, they are the most dangerous house if you measure by risk. Long ago, to gain power, they received a blessing from some tremendous being, and from that day on, generation after generation, they could commune with ghosts. Because of it they have all sorts of tricks that borrow a ghost's strength—but since they might have their bodies stolen at any moment, every soul in the house is said to live with madness hanging over them."
"...At that point it isn't a blessing. It's a curse, isn't it?"
"They say it isn't. It isn't wicked the way a curse is. Use the ability properly, and you can obtain a ghost's formidable power."
"Which, put another way, means the ability might swallow you."
"......"
"No matter how I look at it, that sounds like a curse, not a blessing..."
"Ahem!"
In his heart Simon agreed, but he did not let his mouth run. Gossip about great nobles had to be handled carefully even when they were nowhere in sight. Let a word of it reach their ears, and the Guild Union would crumble as emptily as a castle of sand.
"Haa. Anyway, as you can guess from the part about wielding the power of ghosts, Mordred is the most dangerous house even among the great nobles."
The look on him all but shouted that he wanted nothing to do with them if he could help it. Lee Han answered with complete indifference. It wasn't that he took the great nobles lightly. It was simply an impression.
Ah. So that's a thing too.
However scary a ghost gets, is it scarier than a person?
Lee Han feared the mad things still breathing in the world far more than resentful souls already dead and drifting through the underworld.
Mages who experiment on living bodies. Mages who steal faces and walk around in them. Mages who've been pickling for four hundred years.
See? Weren't the living ones the ones that raised the hair on your neck?
"...Isn't that only because you've met nothing but strange people, Sir Lee Han?"
"That's not the point. What I'm saying is, don't scare yourself so much. My goal is catching that vampire bastard, not fighting Mordred."
"Th-that is true."
"Well, if we happen to end up fighting, it can't be helped."
"......"
"I said only if it can't be helped. Don't look at me like that."
"...Sir Lee Han, I beg you."
Should such a thing come to pass, kindly understand that the guild has nothing to do with it. The words were firm. Lee Han clicked his tongue.
"...No loyalty at all. Seriously."
A fine knockoff Hao Sect leader—no honor whatsoever.
In truth, it was a strange thing. Information or not, Lee Han—and Simon with him—had turned a wary eye on Mordred while already holding something close to complete certainty. In a way, though, that was only natural.
Ears pricked. A flinch.
"Here—I feel a presence here!"
"It's the one most like the ominous blood the mister gave us! It's clear...!"
The twins—no, the mystery-race beastkin—were sending such a signal through their Sixth Sense that there was no way not to be certain. Ears and tails no ordinary human could possess on full display, they growled, small and petty. To anyone else, that sight would not look petty at all.
The presence the brother and sister gave off while using their ability was powerful enough to stand beside a true wolf and not lose an inch. Cute on the outside—but trust the outside, and a wrist would come off. Ever since they had drawn near Mordred's domain, the twins had held that battle stance, and the children, ready at any moment to bolt on instinct—
A snatch.
"You brats are being a pain."
"??"
"???"
In a single motion their scruffs were seized and they were pinned. The immense pressure pouring from his grip left them unable even to struggle, and they could not muster so much as a complaint about the fix they were in. They only whimpered, puppies caught by the neck.
"Maybe I shouldn't have brought them..."
Still young, it seemed, and hard put to rein in their feelings. Never mind not listening—they flared up this badly.
"...Even so, what matters is that this lets us be certain, doesn't it?"
"You think so...?"
"Haa. I'm really going to lose my mind."
Simon clutched his head and groaned. Certainty only made it worse.
"If a vampire is truly hiding in Mordred—if a vampire has seized Mordred—how far could this spread...?"
Ghosts bound to a vampire. There was no worse combination. And a greater problem still.
"There's also no way into that closed-off House Mordred."
Whether from the madness or from the power to handle ghosts, Mordred's domain was shut tight to an extreme. Great-noble land though it was, would you believe that not even merchants came and went? Even so, the reason Mordred could stay closed was said to be an environment that let them live off their own land—but no one knew the truth. That was how sealed they were.
"At least, thanks to the information you brought back, Sir Lee Han, we've managed to learn something of Mordred's recent circumstances..."
Secret intelligence on Mordred, gained by means no one could guess. Secret or not, most of it was nothing more than talk of ordinary days inside the house—but even that was worth a fortune.
...Does he personally know some information broker?
"What?"
"Ah, nothing."
As if he had eyes in the back of his head, the man spoke the instant he caught the look, and Simon gave a small shiver. Still holding a twin in each hand, Lee Han fixed his gaze on the land where Mordred's domain lay. Then—
"You're thinking I don't have to go this far, aren't you?"
"Pardon?"
"If there's a vampire, I could just tell the royal house. You're wondering why I'm stepping forward myself. Am I wrong?"
"...That is..."
He did not deny it. In truth, the man was buying himself trouble. Perhaps because Lee Han had raised first a sensitive matter Simon himself found hard to voice, Simon showed his honest feelings for the first time.
"T-to be frank, I don't understand it. In a fortnight, Sir Lee Han, you have already brought down more than ten enemy forces. That alone is a major result, and a fair amount of evidence has been gathered. In other words, you have more than enough justification to request support or aid not only from the royal house, but from the other great nobles as well. In particular, I understand you are on friendly terms with several of them. You could certainly ask..."
So why didn't he? It was an utterly sincere question, and to that question—
"...Treat everything I'm about to say as nothing more than my guess. A delusion."
"?"
From his mouth:
"I think one of the high people of Pendragon is cooperating with the fanatics."
"!!?"
An outrageous slander. Lee Han gave a dry laugh, as if to say he had told him not to listen too seriously—but Simon could not possibly take it lightly. Rather—
"M-my heart hurts. Seriously..."
The guess coming out of that mouth had his heart not merely fluttering, but hammering.
"You're overdoing it. It's nothing special. Looking at how things have gone, I don't find it strange at all if someone in the royal house or among the great nobles is working with the fanatics. You know it too. Religion and ideology are like cockroaches or gnats. They turn up anywhere, and they spread somehow."
"...You mean others have taken up the Blood Cross Army's ideology? That they've betrayed the kingdom!?"
"I don't know that much. It's just that whenever the kingdom was attacked, there were strangely many times it got hit while completely unprepared. Once or twice, fine, but..."
What Lee Han already knew of ran past ten. Suspicion was unavoidable.
"So right now I suspect everyone. That's why I'm not asking for help. Well, my sister and those gentlemen aren't fools enough to cooperate with fanatics, but the people under them are another story. That's why I don't ask. Say the wrong thing to the wrong person, it leaks, and all this trouble could come to nothing."
"Th-then why tell me?"
"Because even if you lot betray me, you're easy to deal with?"
"......"
"I'm joking. Just think of it as trust."
"...It didn't sound like a joke..."
Simon argued, and yet he found himself convinced.
This man was watching the guild as well!
Just as Simon had come to grasp the man called Lee Han while working beside him, Lee Han had been watching Simon and the whole of the Guild Union—in case someone suspicious was hiding among them.
Really...! He plays a different game than his face suggests.
Simon was impressed, and at the same time relieved. Impressed by the man's eye and his habit of seeing a move ahead; relieved that there was no traitor in the guild. The very fact that Lee Han would tell him such a thing was the proof.
"...Ha. So a life has days like this, when you get this surprised. I don't think anything from here on will startle me."
The strategist's face on a knight who looked as if he would solve everything by strength alone. Nowhere in the world could there be anything more surprising than that.
"I don't know. There might still be more to be surprised about."
"Pardon?"
"I told you. In the end I'm doing it alone, without anyone's help. Which means I have to slip in, whether it's Mordred or somewhere else."
"Th-that's true, isn't it?"
Just as he was wondering what mysterious means the man meant to pull out this time, a strange sound reached him. A crack of bone.
Crack.
"But I'm a bit conspicuous if I'm trying to sneak in, aren't I?"
Crunch.
"A disguise would only go so far."
Snap!
"So what can I do? I'll have to change the whole body."
"......"
"So I wrung out a little idea of my own. How is it? Pretty seamless like this, right?"
"......"
"Why no answer? Is it weird?"
"......"
"...This bastard fainted on his feet?"
Lee Han was disappointed. He had wanted to hear what they thought of this look. It wasn't even anything special.
Bone and muscle crushed inward. The whole silhouette rewritten in a breath.
A body no longer the one that had walked in.
All he had done was cast the Bone-Compression Art and the Reverse Circulation Art. Why faint over that?