How a Knight Treats Beasts (5)

"...Hey. Anybody know where the Head Maid is?"

One of the servants tossed the question at his fellows while he hunted for her, but they only shrugged.

"Now that you mention it, I haven't seen her."

"Where could she have gone? I've got something that needs her approval."

"Hmm. Oh—don't tell me she went to the young lady's rooms again?"

"Ah. That. That'll be it."

As if to prove that several heads were better than one, they had the Head Maid's whereabouts guessed in no time, and soon they were nodding along to the likeliest answer.

"The Head Maid's temper is rotten. I mean, she doesn't even have to take it out on the young lady..."

"Hey!"

"Mmph!"

The grumble aimed at the Head Maid drew a sharp rebuke from a coworker, and the maid who had let it slip clapped a hand over her own mouth. She knew perfectly well she had misspoken.

"Watch your mouth. If you were the only one who caught it, fine—but don't go splashing the rest of us."

"I—I'm sorry..."

The maid apologized.

There was a precedent. The day before—no. About two years ago, the entire staff had been punished together because one servant dared to voice a complaint about the Head Maid. Would you believe it? Grown adults, beaten across the calves with a switch until the blood bruised black under the skin. And yet not one person had complained about even that. The servant who had spoken was driven out before his wounds had healed.

Small wonder. The Head Maid's backing was House Orodo, the greatest power among Mordred's branch families. There was even a rumor that she was the lover of Orodo's current head.

The Head Maid really does go too far.

The maid who had complained cursed her in silence. Fear kept the words locked behind her teeth, but she found the woman genuinely repulsive.

That poor young lady is miserable enough already. Why torment her on top of it? An adult shouldn't do such a thing...

Not one servant in the castle was ignorant of Lady Louise's situation. Born without Mordred's hereditary Mystery, she could vanish without a sound and the branch houses and vassal families had judged that no one would care. So they waited—for Lady Louise, a child of the direct line, to die in some accident for want of an adult's care, or simply to disappear. They wanted the child's very existence erased from the world.

What the adults were doing, out in the open, was a cruelty no one could call the proper treatment of a child. The Head Maid knew it perfectly well, and still she went further, hounding Lady Louise all the more. The maid had once heard that the Head Maid, born a commoner, tormented the girl even harder out of an inferiority complex toward the nobility. Vicious hardly began to cover it.

Haa...

Sighing inwardly, she resolved to slip a few cherries to the young lady tomorrow, when the child would surely be sunk in gloom. Lady Louise...

She loves cherries.

It was the only kindness a powerless maid, who still knew how to pity a child, could offer.

"Mira. You wouldn't happen to know where Santa is?"

"Yes?"

"Santa. Santa. I've got work to do with him, and I can't find him anywhere."

"Ah, Mr. Santa... I—I'm not sure? I don't really..."

"Tsk! Where the hell is that bastard...!"

"......"

One of the menservants scowled as he searched for Santa.

There he goes again.

The man's name was Tony, and as servants went he had put in a fair number of years. He was also known for a violent, overbearing streak that made the others avoid him—and for failing to rise, no matter how those years stacked up, precisely because of that temperament. Not that he himself understood why. Perhaps it was because his peers kept getting promoted while he stayed a low-ranking servant. Out of some pointless inferiority he bullied the new hires, and he disliked handsome men most of all.

Is it because he's ugly himself?

So even though most of the castle staff had taken a liking to the new servant called Santa Rihan, Tony alone hated him.

Mr. Santa's gone and gotten himself tangled up with the wrong person...

She was just tucking a note into the corner of her mind—warn him to stay clear of Tony the next time she saw his face—when the man himself appeared.

"Hey, you bastard!"

"...Ah."

Of all times, he showed himself before she could offer a single word of warning. Santa Rihan's face came into view, and ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Mira smacked her own forehead before she knew it. The timing couldn't have been worse.

Mr. Santa, run!

She tried to signal him with her eyes and a jerk of her foot, as if to say that if he didn't flee now he was in danger. But whether he simply had no sense for such things—

"......"

—he only stood there.

Mira wanted to smack her forehead again, but Tony was already striding forward and left her no time.

"You little shit! Where the hell have you been slacking until this hour? A newbie who won't do a lick of work and just lies around thinking about play!"

It was the sort of speech ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠that sounded more like Tony introducing himself. The others stared in disbelief. The man actually facing that vicious scowl, however—

"......"

—answered with the same flat calm as before, and that was oil on Tony's fiery temper.

"Have you ever seen such a disrespectful little bastard!"

He seized him.

"T-Tony! Calm down...!"

"Mr. Santa's just frozen because he's scared."

"Senior Tony, you can't do this. If the Head Maid finds out later, it'll be serious!"

"Let go!"

Already blind to everything in front of him, charging like a maddened boar, Tony raised his fist at last. True to a hasty nature that trusted fists over words, he threw the punch before anyone could stop him.

Crunch!

"!!"

Sure enough, something burst. The servants squeezed their eyes shut, certain Santa's face had been ruined. The thought of that face—like a work of art—turned into a pulp of blood was enough to make every one of them ache.

"Aaaagh!!!"

There, see? Tony was screaming from the pain—

...Huh?

"What? Why is that guy the one screaming?"

"Tony?"

Those who had turned their heads or covered their eyes looked back at the scene of the violence, and found it all wrong. The one crying out in agony was—

"T-Tony?"

"??"

Not Santa. Tony.

"Gaaaaah..."

Clutching his hand, Tony rolled across the floor, screaming as if his soul were leaving him. By contrast—

"Pathetic..."

The man who had been struck regarded Tony with open disgust on an utterly unharmed face, and the mismatch was so complete that the onlookers felt their minds simply stop working. He looked like an entirely different person from the kind, innocent, polite, hardworking Santa they knew.

But whether they understood or not, Santa had no interest in being understood.

"It'll be a disability for a good while. Maybe for life. When you hit me, I put inch-Gyeong through you. Not just the fist—the muscle down the whole arm tore. You'll never put real strength through that left arm again."

"You—you...!"

"Hm. Holding a defiant glare all the way to the end. That's fine. You've got spine. A hell of a lot better than that bastard Richard, or whatever he was called. ...But listen."

Crack—crunch!

His foot lashed into Tony's fallen leg, and in that instant the servants learned, for the first time, that a human leg could break in a direction like that. A fact they had never wanted to know. As was only natural, Tony let out a horrific scream—but his screaming was not, it seemed, a matter worthy of any great sympathy. The other man's face stayed blank.

Or perhaps cold was the better word.

"Tony. Right. That was the name. You're the one who told the young lady to sign a guarantee for you, aren't you?"

"S-spare..."

"Relax. I'm not going to kill you. That would be too easy, wouldn't it?"

"!!?"

A chill.

The hollows of their ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠knees went weak. Their spines crawled, and the cold surging up through them set their jaws trembling of their own accord. It wasn't even a cold day, and yet they felt as if they were standing naked in the dead ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠of midwinter. They looked at Santa with terror in their eyes.

Presence?

Mira, who felt the chill less than the others among the servants, tried to judge what was happening from a clearer vantage. Long ago—when she was a child—she had followed her grandfather, a hunter, into the mountains and seen a tiger. He had hidden little Mira against his back and told her not to move, but even without his words she could not have moved. The tiger, that beast of prey, had only to stand before her eyes for her body to freeze as if turned to ice. Fortunately it had left them untouched and vanished at its leisure into the mountain, but Mira had never been able to forget it.

And now the tiger of her childhood and Santa looked the same to her. No—in a sense...

Bigger. And maybe more frightening...

While every one of them stood unable even to swallow, Santa finally opened his mouth.

"Those whose names I call will go outside. Go out, look after Lady Louise, and treat her with respect. Understood? With respect."

"......"

"I'll call the names. Mira, Viole, Anna, Erwin, Max, Elvin, Donna. The seven of you—outside."

"??"

"I'll count to five. One, two, three..."

"?!!"

Given no room to hesitate or question, the seven whose names had been called hurried straight out. Like Mira, they were less caught by his presence—or, more precisely, they were people he was letting off—and so nothing bound their limbs. The rest, however—

"M-me too, p-please..."

"Urgh—ghk—!"

"W-wai... t..."

—stayed pale-faced, bodies frozen like ice. They wanted to reach out for help, but they couldn't even manage the attempt, and could only scream without sound.

On her way out Mira stole a sidelong glance at him, and she heard it. Santa Rihan's voice. A savage murmur.

......Ten minutes later, when he showed himself again, blood was plastered thick across his body. She could tell it was not his own.

—One week from then.

Half of Mordred's branch families and vassal houses had been annihilated, and the remaining half knelt before Mordred's new master.

"The cherries are delicious!"

"Please, eat as many as you like, my lady."

"Santa, you eat some too!"

"Yes, yes."