The Knight Cheers for the Young (7)
The royal Debutante, the first in years, was still ten days away, and yet nobles were already pouring into the Royal Capital in droves.
Step into the street and there they were. Was that the simplest way to put it?
So many had gathered that, for the past fortnight, the capital had not let its lights go out once after dark. Party followed party without a break, and from daylight through the night and on into dawn it was no rare sight to find a lesser noble asleep in the road, dead drunk.
Today was no exception.
"The Chancellor's trouble is that he worries too much. So what if there are a few unsavory elements about? I hear they couldn't even do any real damage to the Royal Capital. Trash like that—our knightly order alone could wipe them out in a single stroke."
"You think the Chancellor enjoys fretting? Sit that high, and the worries come with the seat."
"All the more reason to show them in the War Game. Let them see just how fierce our house's strength really is!"
"I'll be looking forward to it, Jekson. To your performance."
"You'd better!"
The banquet hall was in no danger of going dark. If anything, it burned hotter.
At the center of a raucous hall hosted by some count, a cluster of men were holding forth at extravagant volume. They were of a respectable age, and yet among friends their talk had a childish edge to it. No one looked on that unkindly.
Lord Jekson must be desperate for coin.
Well, that house has hardly any fortune to speak of, and they still forced a knightly order into being. Of course they're frantic.
Everyone knew the bluster for what it was: a man thrashing to stay afloat.
Nobles without trade or any proper wealth lay thick across the South, and for that very reason a great many of them flailed about, starving for attention. The exaggerated talk was transparent enough—a man advertising himself, hoping as many people as possible would come watch his War Game. For a noble, attention was profit, and fame turned into money. A War Game was nothing but a noble's pastime, yet win it and fame was fame; a wealthy patron who wanted to borrow that force might well follow after.
Lose, though...
He'll lose everything.
Well. Laughing at the loser made for fine entertainment too.
The nobles answered him readily, a two-faced sneer tucked inside their smiles, hoping he might offer even a little charming stimulation to their tedious lives.
"...This is vile. Truly."
A young man who had been watching it all from the rear clicked his tongue, sick of the sight. They called themselves nobles, and yet there was not a trace of dignity or nobility in them. All he could see was arrogant vulgarity.
"Don't be so harsh. It's people like them who keep the economy turning."
"That may be so, but..."
"Because they open their purses, common folk in every sort of trade will pass this winter in plenty. It's a good thing."
"Mmm... I suppose that's true."
It was a point he could accept. The flowers, crops, and fruit that furnished this hall had been bought in bulk from all manner of farmers, and even the trifles—drink, food, spoons, towels—had been made to order by setting every workshop in the Royal Capital to work. It amounted to a year's commissions arriving all at once, and even in the rush the common people were surely smiling.
Though—
"I suspect the one smiling widest is my lord's purse."
Jack could only marvel at his lord, who seemed to have foreseen all of this and was now raking in coin across the kingdom. This very hall was his. The wealth taken in over the past fortnight would more than cover the cost of construction and was already posting an enormous surplus, and the great and small banquet halls bought up in this fashion already numbered past several dozen. It was not merely impressive. It was a vast talent for affairs.
"Unfortunately, I don't have a purse. Rather than put money into one, I simply reinvest it in the company."
"J-just how rich are you trying to become, my lord...?"
"Nothing much. I only need enough to eat and live in reasonable comfort. I'm still a long way short."
"Ha. The Instructor said those who already have it are the worst of all, and I think I finally understand."
"You might."
He let out a short laugh, then patted the shoulder of Jack, whose face had still not lost its heat.
"Jack. You're still angry."
"Ah, this is..."
"It isn't simply their vulgarity that's angering you, is it?"
"......"
"Our instructor—our teacher—shed blood and sweat to build this peace, and they treat it lightly. That's what angers you. Am I wrong?"
"...My lord reads even the heart I myself can't see clearly."
Jack gave a bitter smile to the black-haired young man who saw straight through him.
"Don't be angry. Fools swollen with confidence who have never even shed blood are everywhere. Lose your temper at every one of them, and you're the only one who loses."
"That... is true."
"If you know it, that's enough. Don't waste your spirit on nothing. It's a waste of time."
"...The way my lord speaks is starting to sound rather like the Instructor. Haha."
"......I must have caught it."
Roen let a faint smile settle on his lips, recalling that he had not originally spoken this way. It was not that the feeling was unpleasant. Only a little...
I, too, am overcoming the past.
What would be the future to others was, for him, a phantom of time whose claim to be the past was anything but certain. The memories and the scars were still carved into his mind and his soul inside that phantom, but fortunately Roen no longer flailed within them as he had the day before.
The seizures have grown fewer.
Even yesterday, the flood of memory that sometimes swallowed his thoughts would bring the seizures on. He would smash whatever lay around him, or the Power sleeping inside him would run wild. Of late, though, those fits had been declining sharply.
It was after I met the Instructor.
More precisely, after the man's teachings had been beaten into him and he had sat through counseling upon counseling, he had gradually improved. In a sense, he was being forcibly treated by brute strength.
That fist is frightening enough that I can't afford to go mad.
A single flick to the forehead, loaded with tremendous force, was enough to split a man's skull.
The more I think about it, the more absurd it is.
It was almost funny that he, of all people, was keeping his wits because he was afraid of being hit. Even so, Roen did not think the change entirely bad. And for good reason.
Within this change, I too will grow.
In mind, and in the sword. He simply chose to take the phenomenon as a good thing.
While he was steeped in that strange feeling, a murmur reached his ear.
"What's going on?"
"...A new noble seems to have arrived. Let's see... Ah, they're on the list. A guest invited by the count hosting this party, I think."
"A guest?"
Roen blinked, puzzled. He was not surprised that a guest had come. What he could not understand was the nobles suddenly growing noisy over a single, ordinary one.
"Ah, of course. My lord has been so busy of late that you haven't heard the rumor."
"Rumor?"
"Nothing grand. They say a woman has appeared who currently holds high society in her grip."
Roen's face asked the question for him.
"Mmm. The rumor is that she's an extraordinary beauty. Young noblemen strain themselves for the chance to hold her hand even once if she appears, but she won't permit so much as that, and she refuses a kiss upon the back of the hand as well. And yet, far from hating her, a tremendous number of people are desperate to catch her eye. It isn't only the young men, either. Among those who want to be noticed by her, there are titled nobles as well."
"...Is this the plot of that play that's been in fashion lately?"
For a moment Roen frowned. The story was that absurd. Nobles who were corpses the moment you took away their pride, fawning over a woman for nothing but her looks—of course that was his reaction. A false rumor ought to know its limits. This was simply—
Tok.
"......"
Tok. Tok.
In the next instant Roen could not finish the thought. His eyes flew wide, as if he had seen a ghost, and everyone in the hall fell silent with their mouths hanging open. What pierced that stillness was only the ring of a heel striking a floor of pure white marble, and the people could not hide their shock.
"...So the rumor was true."
"It brings back the shock of when Her Highness Isis first debuted in society."
The woman who appeared, cutting through the rapidly murmuring press of nobles, was beautiful. Red hair that called roses to mind, and mysterious wine-colored eyes that recalled a well-aged vintage, stole the gaze of their own accord. Beyond that, the ripe allure she gave off held a sensuality that tempted without distinguishing man from woman. The black dress that suited her so well lifted her charm another degree, and people turned their eyes on her as if they were viewing a work of art.
And yet, strangely, no one approached her lightly. They only stood still, as if staring blankly at a rose blooming under moonlight on a street sunk in true darkness. That was how tremendous the charm of a single woman could be—enough to make one doubt she was the same kind of being as they were.
And—
"That damned creature—how dare she show herself here!"
The young man who knew she was not human boiled with rage. She was a woman who, by sight alone, stirred the trauma of his past.
"Judia..."
Roen spat the name through clenched teeth and meant, at once, to go down. It was an impulsive act, but he felt he could not endure without pouring this rage out. Seeing her appear exactly as he remembered her, he could not possibly leave her be. Even knowing that the identity he had hidden with such care might be exposed in the banquet hall, he did not hesitate. Jack's urgent voice, trying to stop him, slid past unheard, and he was about to stride forward when—
A hand seized him.
"!?!?"
An irresistible force closed over him.
"Look at this bastard, eyes rolled halfway out of his head. You always like this when you get worked up?"
A familiar voice. Roen narrowed his eyes, realizing at once whose strength had caught him.
"...Let go, Instructor. Instructor or not, this once you cannot stop— ......Who are you?"
A moment later he forgot even his anger and tilted his head.
"Who? You don't recognize me either?"
Roen could only stare.
A handsome man. Someone with a refreshing sort of charm, at that. A face too striking to forget after a single look. In that sense, Roen was seeing him for the first time, and he was still lost in the confusion when the man went on.
"Ah, is it because this is the first time you've seen me like this? Hold on..."
Bone cracked and grated, a hideous shifting sound.
"......"
"Ah, undoing it only in part is tricky. Geomdung, you got an empty room? I think these clothes are about to tear."
"......"
"Geomdung?"
"...Instructor?"
"What?"
"...You are human, aren't you?"
"Hm?"
"...Haa..."
What sort of person went around transforming? The regressor, his anger forgotten entirely, let out an empty laugh, struck dumb.