The Knight Cheers the Young On (10)
Scratch. Scratch.
In the office, the only sound was the soft whisper of a fine fountain pen filling the blank margin of the page. The room held nothing but what was strictly necessary, as if to announce its master's character; even the angle of the chair to the desk was exact, and in that precision one could read the temperament of the person who kept it so.
In that still office, where there was no sound at all but the pen—
"It seems we've been found out. What do you intend to do?"
"......"
Scratch....
An unfamiliar voice.
"......"
There had clearly been only one man in the room. Then, between one moment and the next, a middle-aged man was addressing him, and for the first time the fountain pen stopped.
"...I told you not to come in as you please."
"Sorry about that. I was curious. You seemed entirely too much at ease."
"It has nothing to do with you."
"Come now. How can you say that? Whatever else we may be, we are in the same boat."
"Know your place. Do you imagine that briefly joining hands with the likes of you makes us comrades?"
"Cold."
They did not look to be on good terms. No—the master of the office seemed to despise the middle-aged man outright, and one-sidedly. It was a look that ought to have given offense, yet the middle-aged man only shrugged, as if he had no wish to sour the mood of the householder who was hiding them.
"Well, I'll mind my tongue. I've no desire to defy the master of Loengrin."
"......"
The man's brow drew tighter still. The words had sounded like a sneer.
He was none other than the current head of the holy house Loengrin. Roses set the pen down and, at last, met the middle-aged man's eyes in earnest.
"I hear that outside they call your kind parasites. I can see why. You are incapable of anything but feeding on others. Helpless incompetents, every one of you."
"That's a bit..."
"Am I wrong? You said that if you merely set your minds to it, nothing would be impossible. And yet, contrary to your words, you keep failing. You keep losing to a single knight. Do you know what thought I harbor, watching that?"
"......"
"Regret. Regret that the men I joined hands with were so incompetent a pack—and self-loathing besides."
"Hm..."
"If I had possessed any means of replacing you, I would have replaced you without a moment's hesitation. That is how incompetent you are. Useless wretches."
"......"
"You had best stop disappointing me. If you do not, I cannot say what I myself might do. ...Show me results. Otherwise it will be by my hand, and no one else's, that your lives are ended."
"......"
"Get out. Unlike you idlers, I am busy."
It was a cold dismissal. The middle-aged man could only leave, a bitter smile fixed on his lips. He had wanted to argue...
There's nothing to argue.
Every word of it was the truth.
"......"
Tak....
Even after he had confirmed the man was gone, Roses could not return to his work. The disgust rising in him would not be swallowed.
Flutter.
The fountain pen in his hand had long since crumbled to powder and vanished. Roses let out a sigh.
"This temper of mine is a problem as well."
What was the use of flying into such a rage merely because some vermin had been a little unpleasant? He ought to know how to calm himself, at least a little—and he blamed himself for failing to.
And then Roses—
"......"
Click.
Confirming that no presence lingered around the office, he opened one of the desk drawers and drew something out.
A lock of hair that shone gold.
It looked like human hair, and though it had lain in the drawer a long time it had not lost its luster; some magical treatment had clearly been worked into it. As Roses stroked that hair, he smiled for the first time, faintly, as though the mere sight of it made him happy.
And then:
"...I miss you. So very much.... So wait for me. No matter what means I must use, I will have you back."
Even if—!
Roses murmured it like a vow to himself, and smiled.
Brightly.
"—Truly the finest madman I have ever seen. Where does one even find a creature like that?"
Roses no doubt believed there was no one around him. The middle-aged man, however, watched through the window exactly what he was doing, a thin sneer on his lips, as if mocking him. As if the man could not possibly be more revolting.
"Isn't that so?"
"Yes. It's enough to turn my stomach as well."
"Heh heh. If that too is affection, then it is affection. A mad love and hate, but still."
"...To my eyes it is simply obsession. A lunatic's obsession."
"That would not be wrong either."
The middle-aged man nodded readily. Just as the other had said, Roses—the master of Loengrin—had been mad for a long time. Were he not, would he ever have cooperated with the likes of them? It was not conduct befitting a great noble, nor the head of an honorable house of Holy Knights. He was already nothing more than a man walking a road soaked in blood.
Still.
"Well. Thanks to that, we are making good use of him."
Because he was mad to just the right degree, they could make use of Loengrin. It was nothing short of good fortune. The middle-aged man was satisfied by that single fact alone, and he smiled with satisfaction...
"Ah. Now that I think of it..."
"?"
"I heard that Loengrin's people sent assassins after some impious fellow who has been using their name. Fugitives from the Empire, I'm told."
"...Now, of all times?"
"You know a noble's pride. It seems they wanted to punish the one impersonating their house."
"And if the man doing the impersonating is dangerous?"
"That worries me as well, but according to them, we needn't fret. They say he is nothing like the known threats. And what good is worrying? It is already underway."
"No—what in the..."
The corner of the middle-aged man's eye twitched faintly. They had gone and done this when even keeping quiet would not have been enough? And that, while knowing full well that he and his were here?
...Great nobles, the lot of them!
"Look at them now and then, and they're worse than we are."
Mad stock, past all belief.
"Hah. I'll have to hope it resolves cleanly."
Rather than agonize over a matter already in motion, the middle-aged man could only wish that it would end well.
......Well.
Crunch—!
"Is this all of you?"
"......"
"Ah. I was being a fool. What use is talking to men who came to kill me? Fighting is the answer."
"......"
"—Here I come."
Fwoooosh!
...The trouble was that Loengrin's choice had been the worst one possible, quite contrary to the middle-aged man's hopes. They did not yet know that what they had poked was a hornet's nest.
Shhk!!
The hand-axe the knight hurled did not fly at the assassins who had ambushed him. It struck empty air. And yet, from a space that had clearly been empty, came the sound of something being cut—and in the next instant...
Thud!
...a human silhouette appeared out of nowhere and collapsed where it stood. The short staff in its grip marked the figure as a mage. That was not a reassuring sign.
"Y-you bastard!!"
Crackle!
A telekinetic storm charged with violent lightning. Blood poured from the mage's chest, but a Mana Barrier had barely kept him alive, and he drove every last drop of mana he had left into one desperate blow, as if to burn his rage to ash, concentrating it upon a single man. One mage—an old, wily one, by the look of a long life—was grinding everything he possessed into a single strike, power enough to pierce even a large monster in an instant. And yet...
Thwuck.
Drip....
"...Huh?"
"Did you think I wouldn't know a spell-slinger's tricks?"
He had punched through the telekinetic storm and the magnetic field in a heartbeat, and there he was, his weapon already through the mage's throat. The knight ended the man and still spared him a blank look. Then, just like that—
Crack!
—he wrenched the neck in a direction it was never meant to turn.
"Lord Banri!!"
The third assassin howled the dead mage's name. The knight dusted his hands with leisure to spare, and even took the time to retrieve the hand-axe.
"You dare...!"
Whoosh!
Face twisted with hate, the third assassin charged, blade thrust forward. The force pouring off him was no ordinary thing. The very air around him wavered; he was plainly a strong man venting his fighting spirit. A master it would be no exaggeration to call a knight of the highest rank came on like that, and—
Crunch!
"Aaaagh...!"
"This one's a funny bastard too. You came to kill me first, so why are you acting like the victim? What are you, sick in the head?"
Catching the destructive blow lightly on the edge of his hand, the knight snapped the third assassin's wrist like a dry reed and wore nothing but a look of sheer disbelief all over again.
"The spell-slinger whose neck I just broke was bad enough, but the stink of blood on you is no joke."
"Th-this..."
"Hm. Where have I seen this? That spell-slinger, and you too. I feel like I've seen you somewhere."
Crrrack!
"!!?"
The knight's hand had already seized the man's jaw in a brutal grip. He looked from the third assassin's face to the dead spell-slinger's and back, wearing the expression of a man on the verge of remembering and not quite there. Somewhere. He was sure of it.
And then, abruptly—
Fwik!
Fwik!
Silent needles came flying. He swatted and blocked even those with ease. But that had been the enemy's aim. They were hidden weapons thrown on the assumption that he would block them.
Only—
"Fool! Arachne's poison is as corrosive as hydrochloric acid! The moment you block it, your hand will melt—"
"Ah. I remember. You're Blood Wind, aren't you? The assassin band that worked in the Empire."
...It seemed to have no effect on him at all.
"......"
"The name's childish as anything, but the work is atrocious. A pack of madmen who, so long as it serves the objective, will butcher anyone—pregnant women, children—by any means they please. You went after the head of an imperial warlord and got your organization annihilated for it, then managed to get yourselves wanted on top of that. Idiots."
Crrreak...!
"No wonder you stank. So that was why."
"Th-the poison was on it, so why..."
The second assassin's pupils trembled as he watched the knight recite their particulars in a flat voice—and, with one hand, snap the third assassin's neck. A moment ago he had been full of confidence. He knew this was not a man who should have been taken down so emptily.
But what shocked him further was this.
"Well. The joke ends here..."
Crrrrunch!
......The knight's form—no. His body—
His body was changing.
Larger. More massive. And then—
"...About fifty of you? Good. Even if I leave one or two alive, pulling information out of them will be easy."
A form of nothing but violence
Looking upon the knight, who had transformed—no, evolved—into that shape, the assassins began to shake. The shirt he had been wearing was long gone, torn apart by muscle fit to burst. Clad in an armor of muscle that overwhelmed even full plate, the knight—
BOOM!
—overturned the whole of the ground around him. Not as a figure of speech.
Rrrrrumble!
The earth itself was, quite literally, turning over.
......That day a quake measuring 4.2 struck, yet it only set the windows trembling lightly, and people dismissed it as nothing more than a minor fuss. They never guessed the earthquake had been made by hand.
He could have raised a far greater trembling of the earth if he had wished. Thanks to the consideration of a gentle knight cheering on the young people enjoying their party, the party—the party of those young lives—was able to go on.