EP.70 – The Reason the Knight's Hatred Is Right (4)
A succubus had newly joined Lee Han's project to round up the fanatics. With Judia among them—the Flower Harboring Poison, as the System Window called her—the intelligence they gathered changed at a stroke, rising sharply in quality.
"I know it is a strange thing to say with my own mouth, but if a succubus only sets her mind to it, even the greatest secret is easy to take."
"Let's see. The Brass Knight Order, was it? Hmm. Ah. Here it is."
True to the epithet Demon of Dreams, the way Judia acquired information was peculiar. Every night she went out to collect it—which was to say, she took it from dreams. She did not even need to seek out a particular person. She found dreams that matched the keyword she wanted, slipped straight into the other party's dream, and stripped away the information she desired in an instant. It was an absurdly easy theft of secrets, and even Luna Bridget, watching, could not suppress her admiration, nor a certain unease.
"Slipping into dreams to gather information... that is certainly a method only a Dream Fiend could use."
A technique for being fleeced with one's eyes wide open.
"A dangerous race."
It was only natural that the ability should feel like a threat. Carelessly used, it could expose not merely the enemy's secrets, but every secret on their own side as well. For the moment, though, she was an ally, and so they had no choice but to trust her and leave the work in her hands.
"If she ends up a target later, that's none of my business."
Lee Han had no interest in whatever became of the bewitching Dream Fiend down the road. Only the present mattered. And so they gathered information across some four days—briefly.
"Oh my?"
The Dream Fiend's expression shifted in a subtle way. He wondered whether it was a bad sign.
"Um, I did find them, for what it's worth. It's certain that members of the Brass Knight Order are staying in Loengrin."
"I knew it!"
"Shing!"
The instant that certainty left the Dream Fiend's mouth, the Galahad Shadows threw their full weight into preparing an all-out attack. But wasn't there a saying that one ought to hear a person out to the end?
"Th-there's just one thing. The Brass Knight Order... no, these people called the Blood Cross Army... the places they're hiding don't seem to be only one or two...?"
"...?"
"What I mean is, Loengrin isn't their only collaborator. At the very least..."
Judia spread all ten fingers in a single clean motion, and they went pale. More than ten factions lending those people aid—however one looked at it, that was enough to make the blood run cold—
"Not ten. A hundred. And even this is only the number of factions I can confirm right now. I'm not all-powerful. If they're too far away, or if magic or shamanic means are blocking my power, I can't make out what's being said in the dream. In that sense, the number of factions that feel suspicious comes to about a hundred and fifty in all."
No one answered.
"Looking at people's minds, there really are so many in Pendragon and Galahad who nurse private grudges. Though 'grudge' is a generous word. Plenty of them are simply faithful to their desires. Do they want to become a new king? Are they dreaming of a second Galahad? Ooh..."
Still, no one answered.
There was no response to the rest of what Judia said, either. It was that hard to take in.
"Right. We ought to verify this for a moment."
Because it was a story so shocking it was difficult to believe. Galahad soon bent every nerve toward grasping the truth and began investigating the hundred factions Judia had named. Another power might have needed a month, or half a year, or longer to confirm a truth like this, but Galahad was different. A fortnight would have been enough. And when the guild's aid was added on top of that...
"This is insane..."
Having judged the truth of Judia's words in five days, Galahad lost its cold composure for the first time. The betrayal was real.
"After that, Loengrin stopped being the problem. No—Loengrin is still a problem. What's accurate is that we can't afford to worry about them alone anymore."
Derek said nothing.
"Think about it. There are this many traitors. How are we supposed to handle it by ourselves?"
"...Even striking Loengrin would be a problem, I should think. If anything, should we strike Loengrin, the traitors will assume that their own existence is about to be exposed because of it, and they will hide themselves all the faster."
"Right."
Derek was silent again.
"What?"
"...No. You simply do not look angry, which I did not expect."
Derek tilted his head despite himself. The person he had thought would be the most furious was, unexpectedly, perfectly cold. Among those who bore a deep grudge against the fanatics, the instructor ranked easily in the top ten, and for the past several weeks he had been the one to suffer every hardship alone. A situation in which they had only to strike Loengrin had become a situation in which they had to strike a hundred traitors, and yet the instructor, far from raging, was nothing but cold. The question rose on its own.
"Mm. Why I'm not angry... probably because there's someone who'll be madder than I am."
"Pardon?"
"There is. Someone who'll burn hotter than me. Think of that person, and I can let it go. They'll sort it out on their own anyway."
Before that muddled answer, Derek could only tilt his head again. Lee Han, for his part, pictured a certain princess seething over the news he had sent, and let out a thin scoff. Right about now—is she throwing things? He knew he ought not think it. Serves her right. Heh. All she knew was how to grind down the people beneath her. Imagining her at last with a headache of her own was delicious.
"You ill-mannered wretch. News of this sort ought to be delivered in person. Who sends a thing so crude by letter?"
"...Why is my sister in the yard of my house?"
"Hmph! Having seen this, how could I endure staying away? Use your head. Think."
"I'm saying... why come to me, of all people?"
Rotten... Lee Han was at a loss. Only a moment ago he had been smug, thinking she could stew by herself; faced with her sudden appearance, he could only gape. What is this...Was filling out a hundred traitors some kind of princess-summoning spell? He grumbled that a troublesome auntie had arrived.
Thwack!
The fan of the princess—who might as well have mastered mind-reading—spat fire straight at the space between the knight's brows. It was an act that would accomplish nothing but hurting her own wrist.
"Sir Knight, your black tea!"
"Ah, thank you, miss."
"Hehe. Oh, I baked scones too. Shall I bring those?"
"If you're offering, sure."
"All right! I'll bring them right away!"
Layla Winter, a maid whose beaming, docile smile was its own charm, hurried off at a trot to fetch the scones. She did fall along the way and collide with a rock, but no one was worried. If anything—
"Oh! This is the rock Sir Knight uses when he trains! Sir Knight! It broke!"
—that shout alone was proof of her health. No: of a sturdiness beyond all reason.
"So it isn't the forehead that gets hurt. The rock breaks..."
He looked upon a fair brow, smooth and moist, without so much as a bruise, and the admiration slipped out of him. Whether Layla Winter fell or not concerned the cold-blooded princess not at all. She spoke.
"This is the second time in my life I have been this furious. The first was when my father declared he would wage a war of conquest upon Britannia. The second is now."
"...You're that angry?"
"How could I not be? If I followed my heart, I would raise an army and strike every last one of them at a single blow."
"Then do it. You've got the authority to raise an army, at least."
"I cannot."
The refusal was so flat that Lee Han only blinked at her, and Isis smiled bitterly.
"My sworn younger brother, it seems, does not truly understand how important this banquet is."
"Isn't it just a first-birthday party for my sister's boy? No—his birthday?"
"As I thought, you do not know."
"...Sorry. I'm ignorant."
Lee Han grumbled once more, and Isis's gaze grew a shade gentler. That he would complain so openly, right in front of her, was irritating—and yet it pleased her that there existed someone before whom she could lay her heart bare without weighing politics. She let none of that feeling show as she went on.
"I spoke of it a moment ago. The first moment in which I was most furious."
"The conquest of Britannia?"
"More precisely, the unification of the southern continent. In any case, I remain as opposed as ever to unifying the South."
"Why?"
"Because the losses outweigh the gains. Enough to make a nation reel..."
He said nothing.
The mere memory of that time seemed to leave Isis dizzy, and a weary look crossed her face. Already pale, she looked paler still. She murmured in a low voice.
"War is a monster that devours money. No—if it only devoured money, that would be a mercy. It is no different from a magical beast that shakes not only the economy, but the daily lives of the people. And a war of conquest is of another order entirely. The economic losses and the damage that went into it are greater, I should think, than anything you can imagine."
"And yet the present king, my incompetent father, caused a thorough disaster out of a greed to surpass even one of the Military God's achievements."
"...We did win, though, did we not?"
"Of course we had to win. No—we could not have lost. We fought that war bearing the glory of the Military God's era. How could we lose? Our Pendragon cannot lose. But say it the other way. Even in the Military God's time, why did we not conquer a state we were capable of conquering? Do you know the reason?"
"How should I know?"
"Because conquering it brings nothing but loss."
Lee Han stared.
"Culture, history, language, politics, economy, values. Laying hands on a state in which all of those differ is hardly a wise act. Force it into submission, and a great backlash will come sooner or later, nothing more. Even if one means to conquer, a war of conquest is something that must be carried out over a very long time. And not by force of arms, but slowly, by the force called culture—pouring in nearly sixty years before the industry of conquest becomes barely possible. We took by arms a thing that takes that long. Of course problems were bound to arise."
He had nothing to say to that.
"I have not spoken of it, but Britannia, which we have conquered, is said to be erupting in riots and resistance dozens of times in a single day. Absorbed by Pendragon, their lifelong enemy—who could predict how great their resentment would be? ...Were I in their place, and those Britannian wretches suddenly conquered Pendragon and ordered me to bow my head, I would sooner bite down on a blade and die."
"Isn't that just you being extreme, Sister?"
"Hm? Did you not know? The moment Pendragon succeeded in conquering Britannia, most of the Britannian royalty truly bit their blades and took their own lives."
Lee Han went quiet.
"That is the degree to which we are as oil and water. Enough that we would choose simply to die rather than kneel to one another."
"That's..."
...So it isn't that they just blindly hate each other? Lee Han shook his head, wondering if this was the way a mustached dictator had looked at the Jews.
I'm better than that, at least. His contempt for mages, or for nobles, had a proper and rightful cause behind it.
So I really am normal. It was a moment in which he reminded himself, with fresh conviction, that he was a normal man.