A Knight Fears People More Than Ghosts II
There is such a thing as a million-dollar night view.
Once, to Lee Han, it had been romance itself, and the very emblem of success. Back in his twenties, in the life before this one, he had sworn that he too would make it big someday and go look upon a million-dollar night with his own eyes. That resolve never came to anything. In this life he was living as a man who kept success at arm's length, and so he had judged that he had no fate with million-dollar scenery either.
And yet.
If a ten-million-dollar view existed, it would look like this.
Something greater than a million dollars lay before his eyes, and Lee Han understood, down to the bone, why people said you never knew how a life would turn out.
Light broke over the world. Even in fog-choked Wales, a day of hard, blazing sun was rare beyond rare. As the mist drew back, what emerged was Wales's pride, the great waterfall. A thin veil still clung about the falls like cloud, and through that cloud a rainbow took shape. It was more than beautiful. It was a spectacle. Watching it from a front-row seat atop the soaring castle wall, the words ten-million-dollar view rose of their own accord.
A sigh of wonder escaped him. He was just thinking that if only there were steak and wine to go with it, he might truly count as a man who had made it, when a voice arrived at his elbow.
"Lord Santa. Thinking you might be hungry, I prepared a lamb rib steak. It's a young lamb, so there's no gaminess, and it ought to chew tender. The garnish is seasonal vegetables gathered from Wales's clean wilds and cooked just so. For the sauce, I reduced a wine with a moderate acidity and simmered it together with the meat's own juices, the finest butter, and spices. The wine is Wales's specialty, cherry wine. Please, enjoy."
"...Yes?"
"Ah, if meat doesn't suit you, I can have a trout steak ready at once. As for fowl, quail and pigeon are quite tasty this season, but how shall I prepare them?"
"......"
"Lord Santa?"
"...I'll just eat what you already made."
"Aigoo, please don't speak so formally. Be at ease! Speak down to me, comfortably—I beg you!"
"......"
Well. How was he supposed to put this.
This feels strange.
Half of it was envy toward Santa Rihan, who had pulled off the success his real self never managed. And the other half—
This is also what it feels like to become a minister who props up a child king and enjoys the power himself.
...No. Not a feeling.
"I really am exactly that, aren't I?"
"Pardon?"
"No, I mean... this is cooked exactly the way I like it. Haha..."
"What a relief! So Sir Santa prefers medium well! I'll remember that from now on."
"Do you really have to...?"
The hospitality was burdensome past all bearing, and yet Lee Han, fortunately, did not choke. To choke on it—
This is terrifyingly good...
—the steak was simply too delicious.
Lee Han was enjoying a power above all men, and he had never meant to. In a sense, though, it was only natural. He was the very man who had set Wales to rights after chaos and a scramble for power had been tearing it apart. That the common folk had taken no harm, and that he had wrecked only the nobles, was surely one reason the popularity ran so high.
Is it a talent, racking up this much resentment in five years?
He had learned it while the unification war was being fought. After the margrave—no, the former margrave—left his seat empty, nobles who bled the people had apparently been everywhere. The nobles of Wales had been diligently saving up resentment, and the moment they collapsed—
"That rotten bastard!"
"Useless noble scum—ptui!"
"Spit's a waste. Throw stones! No—throw shit and piss!"
...that was the state of things.
They were cursed for having collapsed so neatly, and thanks to that, support for the new lord ran rather high. Entirely by accident.
This is why a person shouldn't go around making enemies.
"Ugh... gh!"
"Urk...!"
For the record, the ones tied to the pillars and taking a beating included nobles, but also men who had committed crimes such as graft and assault.
I figured anyone who went around tormenting children wasn't right in the head. They were worse bastards than I thought.
It was also one reason an eight-year-old, the youngest margrave there had ever been, enjoyed such support. Better a pure child, people must have thought, than beast-whelps who knew only greed and never knew enough. Watching it, he did feel sorry for the people. Even so, the whole chain of events had helped. There had been no great resistance or upheaval despite the sudden shift in power. Bloodshed had been kept to a minimum, and the settling of Wales had gone quickly.
Of course, behind that swift stabilization lay the help of the Guild Association. The guild was shouldering the administrative work more diligently than he had expected. It was no joke. They labored as if they meant to grind their own bodies down. That secretary alone had been working in the same hunched posture for a solid week, as if there were no time even to eat, let alone sleep.
"S-Sir Knight, you're here?"
"...You've had it rough, secretary."
"H-hardly. Th-this is all for the guild, after all..."
"Hire more people or something. The nobles left plenty of slush funds."
"E-even with money, finding hands isn't easy, hehe..."
"You work so you can eat, don't you? Why does it feel like you've got the meal and the work backwards?"
"...Ah, I know. But we have to finish before the Royal Castle catches on. H-honestly, I'm dying of anxiety..."
"I keep telling you there's no need to be anxious. Why won't you take me at my word?"
"Even so..."
"......"
The Royal Castle—those exalted official gentlemen—could not remain ignorant of Wales's anomaly forever. Mordred might be a great noble house, and it might hold rights of independence, but so long as its name stood on Pendragon's rolls, outside pressure could come at any time, in any form, and no one would call it strange. Once the court learned of this affair, sanctions could come down from the royal house itself.
They would not, of course, be able to touch Lee Han, or Louise. Louise was a direct-line blood descendant of Mordred, and Lee Han was the agent acting in her stead. Everyone else was different. The guild, especially. If the Royal Castle ever put a mark on them, a full-scale suppression of the guilds might follow. For the Guild Association, hollow-eyed secretary included, that anxiety must have felt like walking a tightrope over a pit of fire. Which was why they were working so desperately, and so fast.
They don't even need to go that far...
To Lee Han, though, they seemed to be making a bit of a fuss, and rating the Royal Castle far too highly.
They're too busy fighting among themselves to spare a thought for the marches...
Lee Han knew. The bastards called nobles of the Royal Castle were busy with the fights they named court politics, the ones they named secret struggles. Honestly, the men being stoned on the pillars right now were greedy enough, but how could they compare with the nobles of the Royal Castle? He would stake his name on it: in a year—no, in ten—those bastards still would not have properly grasped what had happened in Wales.
Did that sound like a joke?
I wish it were a joke. I do too...
Lee Han smiled bitterly, because he knew the true nature of his workplace.
If anyone might notice, it would be my sister. Even she probably wouldn't care much.
If the other nobles failed to notice because they were too busy fighting one another, that sister of his would not involve herself even if she knew. Not unless Mordred actually broke from the kingdom.
Whoever sits as master, she'll think she can rule them all anyway. That sister of mine.
She was a princess who brought the words Law-Breaking Sovereign to mind of their own accord.
And so Lee Han had advised the Guild Association, almost in passing, that there was no great need to rush.
They don't believe me.
They took it instead for a joke meant to ease their nerves. For Lee Han it rankled, telling the truth and not being believed. For the Guild Association, it must have been hard to accept that the Royal Castle could truly be that incompetent. It sat on the line between sense and nonsense. Lee Han wanted to tell them the Royal Castle was a place with no common sense at all, but he decided to let it go.
If they work hard, it's convenient for me.
The harder they worked, the less he had to do, and the little margrave would have more time to play. Two birds with one stone, wasn't it? So he told them to ease off, but he did not tell them very hard.
Sorry, but do work hard for me.
If he had to look at nothing but paperwork, he was fairly sure his head would spin. And so Lee Han fell silent, offering them that small, private apology.
Of course, it wasn't as if he meant only to dump the work on them.
I ought to help with what I can help with.
Mostly things that took strength. Or things that took strength.
Or things that took strength...
...Honestly, it was awkward to say it with his own mouth, but aside from work that took muscle, he rather suspected he wasn't much use for anything else.
That's oddly depressing.
Just as something adjacent to self-reproach was settling over him, he saw someone running in from one side.
"Lee Han—no, Sir Santa!"
"...It's just us. Do you really have to call me that?"
"Th-there's always a what-if. Hah—huff. W-we have to be thorough, haah, haaah...!"
"...Get some exercise, man."
A short run, and he couldn't even get a sentence out. Lee Han wore a look of pure disbelief, but Simon paid it no mind. He shoved his crooked glasses straight and spoke.
"A-anyway, Sir Santa. Something terrible has happened!"
"Enough with the fuss."
"It isn't a fuss. It really is terrible. A ghost has appeared, I tell you."
"?"
"...I'm not crazy, so don't look at me like that. No—the way I feel right now, I'd be grateful if I were just crazy, damn it! Why does a ghost have to show up at a worksite in the middle of everything and raise hell—hell, I say...!!"
"...Sounds like a split personality. Go to a temple for now."
"......It really isn't."
Lee Han had offered the advice with genuine concern. Simon shook his head as if deeply wronged.
"I said it's out. Right now."
"?"
"Just come with me."
"What the hell are you even saying..."
A ghost, in broad daylight?
Tell me a tiger showed up. I'd believe that sooner.
"...Why is this real?"
Lee Han stood dumbfounded before the scene unfolding, live, in front of him. Broad daylight, and around the castle of Wales, where sunlight had finally come pouring in after so long...
Ki, kigi... gik, kigi, gigik...
...a real ghost was flitting through the air. And in the next instant it shot toward him, as if it meant to take him down.
Smack!!
"Shit, that startled me."
"......?"
"Why did that thing suddenly jump me?"
"...What did you just do?"
"Huh? I hit it."
"...And how, exactly?"
"......With a slap?"
"??"