Episode 60: How a Knight Treats Beasts (4)
Knights were a miserable breed to deal with. They dragged that damned thing called honor into every little matter, and their stubbornness was enough to put steel sinew to shame.
And yet, paradoxically, a man without that stubbornness was no knight at all. They carried an iron will and a vicious streak, and if it meant guarding their lord's honor and carrying out his commands, they would hurl themselves through fire and water without a moment's hesitation. A nuisance to face, certainly—but never a man you could afford to dismiss.
However feeble their arms, the stubbornness and loyalty they bore, tougher even than steel sinew, would not break under any violence you could bring down on them. If anything, they took pain and hardship alike for trials sent to prove that they were knights. So Lee Han, though he had no love for arrogant knights, neither despised them nor looked down on them. A true knight was, by that fact alone, a breed worth his respect.
Which was precisely why.
This one isn't a knight.
A fake deserved none of that respect. Obvious enough.
"I—I was only following orders from above! They told me to ignore the young lady, to leave her be.... A knight's duty is to obey the commands of his superiors. Th-that is only proper, is it... not?"
Perhaps he had seen Lee Han's face growing colder. The more the man spoke, the more his words slurred, and cold sweat poured off him. He knew. Of course he knew—knew the contempt in the eyes fixed on a gardener who dared call himself a knight.
This bastard either bought his knighthood through connections, or got dubbed by some idiot noble. Leftover trash.
You saw that sort now and then. Men who styled themselves knights, yet knew less of honor than a mercenary and counted their profit more greedily than a merchant. The ones called mercenary knights. Or wanderers.
Lee Han was certain this one belonged to that breed. What knight obeyed the vague orders of "those above" rather than his own lord's command? What knight ignored his lord's own blood? What knight folded under a little violence and spilled everything he knew? Even the ones Lee Han scorned as White Cats had no manners to speak of, but they were not stupid enough to bite their own master, nor were they groveling by nature. He had not even tortured the man—only put him down a little—and already the fellow was whimpering that it hurt. That alone was enough to confirm the fake.
...So why am I this irritated?
He had no lingering attachment to knighthood. Maybe it was only that he was still in the trade. Watching someone in the same line of work strut around like that made disgust well up in him. He wanted to pound the man the way you pound meat for a hamburger patty, wanted it badly enough to taste it, but he decided to hold back. In a situation like this, the opposite was true.
Trash like this might actually be better.
Give him the slightest poke and he vomited information like a purse that never ran dry. To Lee Han, for whom even a single scrap of information was precious, running into a self-styled knight lower than a third-rate thug might even count as luck.
Of course.
That doesn't mean I'm going easy on him.
The self-styled knight—no, the third-rate thug, Richard—failed to catch the dangerous light in Lee Han's eyes and opened his mouth again.
"...The young lady was born without Mordred's Mystery. I was only hired temporarily from outside, three years ago, so I don't know the details, but they say she has been that way since birth."
"So you really were a wanderer."
"Th-that is hardly the point just now, is it.... Ahem!"
"Keep rolling your eyes like that and I might accidentally pluck them out."
"......"
Wanderer was a name that scraped a mercenary knight raw, and the man made no effort to hide how deeply it rankled. But the moment Lee Han's eyes narrowed to slits, he hunched in on himself as if he had never been offended at all, and started talking again.
"A-anyway, so long as she lacks Mordred's Mystery, there is no denying the young lady is a halfwit. ...From what I hear, there was even a rumor that the late lady had an affair."
"......"
"I—I only heard it somewhere! Th-the margrave himself swore there was no affair, and the color of the young lady's hair alone proves the Mordred blood. I-it was nothing but empty gossip among the servants, nothing more."
"......"
"?"
Lee Han said nothing. Richard, who had been running his mouth, was just beginning to wonder what was wrong with the man when Lee Han spoke, brow furrowed.
"I never asked. I'm staring because I can't figure out why you're bringing up that kid's birth, you moron."
"......"
"What's with the wronged look?"
"Ngh..."
"Ah. There is one thing I'm curious about. Why would Mordred hire a halfwit like you? A great house wouldn't touch trash like you, no matter how you look at it."
"......"
"Not going to answer?"
"...The g-garden."
"?"
"I—I wasn't hired as a knight. I was hired as a g-gardener. B-but I was dubbed a knight. So I am a knight, properly—"
SMACK!
"Gyaaah!!"
"...The real halfwit is you, and you called that kid one. You son of a bitch."
Lee Han could not hold his temper any longer. Up came his fist.
Information could go to hell. First—
I need to beat this bastard.
Lee Han's mental health came first.
Right. No tiger in the den, so the foxes are running wild.
Lee Han wiped the filthy blood from his hands and flicked them clean. Somewhere nearby a man writhed like a worm, but if Lee Han felt any guilt, it was for the grass under his boots. He was not sorry in the slightest for stepping on something lower than a beast. What mattered was sorting through the information he had beaten out of the man across forty long minutes.
Five years ago, the Mordred family and most of their elite knights went into a place called the underground secret grotto, for some reason or other. They're still there.
They had entered Mordred's Secret Grotto and left only their youngest daughter, Louise, behind. Because of that, House Mordred had become a fenced-off power vacuum with no master in it. The Margrave of Mordred was no fool. He had temporarily entrusted the authority to govern the house to his head steward. Unfortunately—
Not long after the steward started acting in his place, he dropped dead of a sudden heart attack. That was the problem.
The death had been far too abrupt, and there was no one designated to take the domain in hand after him. So the collateral bloodlines and Mordred's vassal houses, as if they had caught rabies, fell on one another out of nowhere like upstart warlords, clawing for dominion over the main house.
In truth it was a fight of breathtaking stupidity. Once the head of the house returned, all that scrambling would mean nothing.
Then again, the master of the house has been gone for five years. Hardly strange that this happened.
The real problem was Louise, the only one of the direct line left. However much noise they raised, the royal house would recognize only direct blood—Louise—as the next heir. Her existence was an unbearable thorn to the branches. Laying hands on her themselves would draw too many watching eyes, so instead—
...they simply neglected her.
A little girl left alone, with no adult to help her, would die quickly. That must have been their judgment. Leave her be, and one day she would meet with an accident and die. From the branches' point of view, no result could have been more satisfying.
Truly—
"Haa. Why are there so many bastards worse than beasts."
The place overflowed with trash that turned his stomach. Low. Unspeakably low. Hoping a child would be good enough to die on her own.... Even the fiends of Hell would have had to admire a character like that.
Ghosts really are better than people.
At least a ghost would not be this revolting.
Lee Han let out a sigh, tasting the bitterness of it.
"...Hold on. Then there isn't a single person here I have to watch myself around. Is there?"
He had been muttering when the fatal fact struck him.
There were no tigers in the house. No one of the direct line who bore a Mystery. Not even the knight order they called the elite. Their closed-off territory seemed to have hidden it well enough, but now that he had walked into the heart of their stronghold, he knew the whole truth. And what that meant was—
"I've been wasting my time?"
He could feel it: he had left the short road sitting right there and taken the long way around for nothing. A headache threatened to rise. Walk straight and you were done, and instead he had wandered as if he were solving a maze. How stupid was that?
What the hell have I been doing all this time?
Disguising himself, raising all this hell, throwing the hours away—it stung like madness, how much of it he had wasted.
Still.
"...If you've realized you're being an idiot, you ought to think about fixing it. Even now."
Regret was not a thing you dragged out. You cut it short, then put the lesson into practice so you stopped being a fool. That was the wise course. Lee Han muttered something heavy with meaning and set off at a vigorous stride.
"A p-potion, please..."
The thug was babbling something. It never reached Lee Han's ears.
Louise had been truly happy today.
"Hehe. I made a friend."
The first friend of her life! A friend who not only saved her, but carried her on his back besides. Aside from her grandfather, who was away for the moment, Louise had never been shown kindness like this, and that made the friend all the more precious.
"N-next time he comes, I should give him this too—!"
Clink.
Louise smiled with her whole face as she looked at the money she had saved, a very small wish showing through: if she gave him this, maybe he would stay her friend a little longer.
Then—
"Young lady, I'm coming in."
Clack!
"!!?"
Louise startled at the woman who opened the door and walked straight in, and on reflex she hid the money.
"Why so surprised? As if this were something new."
"......"
Louise's gaze went flat and sullen. She knew exactly how nasty that auntie was—the one they called the head maid.
"Wh-why did you come..."
"My, my. You haven't anyone else to talk to besides me, and this is how you treat me. You're going to hurt my feelings."
"G-get out! Th-this is my room!"
"...Is it because no one ever taught you manners? Speaking to an adult that way, really."
"!!?"
"Yes, yes, don't get angry. I'll go once my business is done. Press your seal here for me."
"Wh-what is that...?"
"It's a thing that exists. Anyway, stamp it quickly. A blood seal would be best, while we're at it."
"A blood seal?"
"You stamp it in blood. Your blood, young lady."
"B-blood!?"
"Yes. Really very easy, isn't it?"
The head maid smiled sweetly, as if a blood seal were something anyone could stamp without a second thought. At those words Louise took fright and hid her hands, every line of her saying she would never, ever do it.
But—
"I told you, it's nothing. It doesn't hurt. It doesn't hurt."
"N-no! D-don't!"
"I said, just listen—"
Clink.
"Oh my? And what have we here?"
"Ah...!"
Louise screamed. She had not hidden the coin pouch deeply enough, and now it was found.
"Well, well. Our young lady was rich. How much is this?"
"D-don't take it!"
The head maid took the pouch. Louise reached for it, tears welling, but a child could not overpower an adult, and the head maid ignored the weeping girl with ease.
"I'd heard a rumor you were earning money somewhere, but this is quite a sum. I thought it would be sweets money at best. You do have a talent for making coin, young lady. Thank you. I'll put it to good use."
"It's not yours!!"
"No, young lady. It is mine."
"!!"
"Remember this well, young lady. People, you see—if you have no strength, everything gets taken from you."
She smiled, pleased with herself, as if she had just imparted a splendid lesson. Louise's tears spilled in streams. The head maid, though, found the whole situation nothing but amusing. The superiority of being able to torment the daughter of that incomparably great margrave like this. This pleasure, as if she herself had become something greater than a noble—truly...!
Thud.
"?"
The head maid could not understand what he was saying. She could not even tell him to take his hand off her shoulder.
Which was understandable.
CRACK—CRUNCH!
Because in a single instant, she had become a hunchback.
"Aaah! Aaaagh...!"
Crunch! Crunch-crunch!
She screamed in agony. He did not particularly care whether the head maid suffered or not. She was being noisy, so he stuffed a floor-rag into her mouth and simply picked up the coin pouch. He had no intention of wasting time on a pest like that.
"...Santa?"
"You mustn't let something this important be taken from you, young lady. Here."
"......"
"S-Santaaa...!"
Louise flung aside the coin pouch that had come back to her and threw herself into his arms, crying as if her heart would break. Just the sight of his face had made her feel safe. So Louise simply cried.
"Aigoo, don't cry, young lady. They say Grandfather Santa doesn't come to children who cry."
"Hic! S-Santa isn't a g-grandpa!"
"...There's another Santa besides me. Aish. Shouldn't have slapped an alias together so carelessly."
"?"
"More to the point, our young lady. I believe I can give you a gift, but I'll need your permission. Might I ask you to grant it?"
"Yes, I'll allow it!"
"Th-this quickly?"
"Yes! Because Santa is my friend!"
"...Hm. Permission is something one ought to give with care..."
"It's still okay! Oh, I'll even make a guarantee!"
"......"
"What?"
"...Let me ask just this. Has anyone ever asked you to make a guarantee?"
"Yes!"
"......I'm going to need quite a few axes."
"Huh?"
"It's nothing. In any case, thank you for your permission, young lady."
"Hehe!"
Louise laughed, bright and unclouded, never knowing that what she had just permitted was leave to turn Mordred upside down—no, all of Wales.
But even if she had known—
"Santa, thank you..."
"...We're friends, aren't we."
"Heehee!!"
The child would have given her permission all the same.