Cowardice Is Not the Villain's Monopoly (4)
"Sir Knight, you said yourself it wouldn't be easy to punish that noble in a single stroke, didn't you? He's a great noble, and if he dies, his death will make problems of its own. So wouldn't it be better not to kill him at all, and take his life instead?"
If he claimed that the so-called plan she had rattled off to him the day before had taken thirty seconds to invent—no, not even ten—would anyone believe him? It was a striking reminder that even wickedness, the business of doing wrong, required a mind that turned quickly.
"The point of the plan is simple. We use the Dream Fiend's Mystery to seize Count Loengrin's body. Ah, don't look at me like that. This isn't some devil's talk of stealing his soul. Think simply. When a person commits a crime, they have to go to prison, don't they? If it's hard to judge Count Loengrin under the kingdom's law, then we judge him in its place. We lock him in a prison called a body. And while he's locked in there, we make a little use of the body in his stead. Rather than leaving it to rot with no use at all, wouldn't that be a service to the kingdom—no, to the world? Hoho."
"...You've been leaning on that we since a while ago, and it's starting to grate."
"Ehehe. If this plan is going to succeed, you have to help me, Sir Knight. Honestly, if you don't, I wouldn't even dare try to make it real. Look at me—I'm taking quite a large gamble myself."
If one boiled down exactly what that sly woman, Judia, was saying, it came to this.
"You turn that bastard of a count into a vegetable, then stuff your other half into him. That's what you mean, isn't it?"
"In short, yes."
"...There's plenty I'd like to tear into, but I'll ask just one thing. Is that even possible?"
"Yes. It is. By my guess, though, I'd have to sacrifice more than half of the Dream Fiend's Mystery. And to keep putting Count Loengrin's mind back to sleep whenever it wakes, at regular intervals, I would have to stay at his side the whole time. Which means..."
"Which means?"
"I would have to become the count of Loengrin's wife, or his younger sister. Or his daughter. We'd always have to go about together, after all. Hehe."
"...If I say that sounds like the real objective, am I the strange one?"
"Hehe. I can't deny it. I ought to try living a new life, too."
"......"
"D-don't glare at me like that."
"Tsk. I'll give you this much. You were honest."
"Haha..."
Judia did not deny him. For the first time she showed what she actually felt, and the smile she wore was a bitter one.
And then—
"Living as a Dream Fiend has its advantages, but it has just as many hardships. ...And more than anything, I know myself. So long as I keep this power, someday I'm going to do something bad. Something very bad. I'm a bit of a wicked woman, you see. Quite a bit of one."
"You've got a fine sense of yourself, haven't you?"
"Th-this is when you're supposed to deny it a little. Hmph! A-anyway! I don't hesitate when it comes to doing wrong. And if, later on, I use a Dream Fiend's power to do something wicked and you catch me, Sir Knight—"
Snick.
"—that's when my head would come off. I don't want that. If I can help it, I want to live a long, comfortable life."
She mimed the stroke that would take her own neck, then lifted both hands as if she had laid everything bare and held them out to him.
"So. What are you going to do, Sir Knight? ...Deal?"
"...Stand by, for now. I'll need to get permission for this."
"From whom?"
"From a man with money, and with power to match."
"??"
It hardly needed saying that a plan this absurd could not be rammed through by stubbornness alone. Lee Han sent word to a power capable of approving recklessness like this, and of cleaning up after it. He expected the answer would take days, and wondered whether he ought to settle in for a long wait.
"Huh. He gave his permission..."
"...?"
"H-he said to contact him when it's over. H-he says he'll come himself."
"...It hasn't even been an hour since I sent word, has it?"
"......"
"Don't tell me His Grace has been idle lately?"
"...Haha."
Luna Bridget laughed, taking it for a joke. Lee Han was entirely serious.
And so, the present.
"I hear you asked Luna whether I was idle."
"......"
"Don't misunderstand. That child's mouth is not loose. It is only that, among the shadows who were with her, there happened to be one whose mouth was."
"How fortunate. You've even got loyal subordinates who report every trivial thing."
"A point of pride. Burdensome, now and then."
"...You aren't actually idle, are you?"
"What an impudent mouth!"
Blake, Duke of Galahad, laughed aloud, as if thoroughly amused. The strangely idle-looking power who would clean up the aftermath of this affair. Or rather—why did the man seem idle every single day?
This country. Is it going to be all right?
Only a little, and only quietly, Lee Han found himself worried for the nation's future.
"...So it was true."
Blake's face hardened, as if he had never laughed at all, and he looked at Roses. Or rather, at the being who had once been Roses.
"...I greet the great lord of Galahad, master of the Magic Sword and guardian of the river."
"Heh."
That Roses—an existence lower even than the vermin who had dared, blind to his station, to keep turning a baleful gaze on him—bent at the waist and offered reverence. Blake very nearly lost hold of his expression. He rubbed the spot between his brows. The reports had already told him, but hearing a thing and confirming the thing itself were, in many ways, different feelings.
"Hah. Astonishing. And I thought there was nothing left that could astonish me..."
"......"
"Astonishing..."
"......Khk."
Pierre could not swallow the groan. A pressure like a weight on his whole body bore down on him. Nothing had been thrown at him but a look, and yet it felt as if a branding iron, heated in the fire, were searing his flesh.
And did he know what was more astonishing still?
Th-there isn't even killing intent...
There was not even killing intent. The man only met his eyes in silence, and still it was this much. A monster...!
Like the Sword Saint, the present head of House Offen, he had been called a genius of the sword from youth. Even after the Magic Sword chose him, he succeeded not in being swayed by it, but in making it submit, and so became the strongest Galahad in the line's history. Because of that, rumor ran thick that he stood as a peer of the Superhuman. ...This was the passage that proved the rumor had not been exaggerated in the slightest.
And yet Blake, having overwhelmed Pierre, turned his gaze as if the man held no interest for him at all. He swept a look over Judia, then shifted it to a shadow.
"You verified it, I trust."
"Here. If you look at the figures on the graph, the wavelength of Mystery is under forty percent. Given that the average wavelength of a Mystery-race is eighty percent, he is showing less than half the average. At this level he is only somewhat better than an ordinary person. In other words, he will no longer be able to wield a Dream Fiend's power freely."
"Is that so."
"...If I may speak to the most important part: the absurd act of making another personality with a Dream Fiend's power—Inquisitor Pierre—and an uncanny feat like this one, occupying another person's body, are both no longer possible. He is healthier than most ordinary people, and he still has a Dream Fiend's characteristic power of allure, but even that is subtle. It would be accurate to call him nothing more than a human with somewhat abundant potential."
"And what can be done with forty percent of the power?"
"At most, peering a little into another person's dreams. Even that, I would cautiously guess, could not last more than five minutes."
"The chance he recovers the power?"
"On the order of a 0.03 percent probability. The Dream Fiend's cells and Count Roses's flesh have mixed far too well. It is like stirring ash into pure, undiluted milk. Drawing the ash back out again would be impossible, unless a fairy, or Archmage Merlin, returns from Avalon."
"Good news, that. You are saying it is impossible."
"Yes. ...However."
"Hm?"
"If a child were conceived between this woman and Roses—no, Pierre—there is a chance a fairly powerful Dream Fiend would be born. Failing that, even by atavism, the odds of a powerful Dream Fiend being born are high."
"That is not particularly positive."
The duke's face went cold at once. He had lent his authority because the affair was a means of punishing Roses, but the mere fact that a person could steal another's body was enough to make the danger chilling. A confirmation of this kind had been indispensable, and from Blake's side a thorough verification had been necessary as well. It was while he held to that exceedingly cold position—whether the sprout of the Dream Fiend ought to be cut away even now—that a voice broke in.
"Your Grace. Your Grace."
"...What is it."
"W-well, I couldn't help overhearing, but I don't think you need to worry about that."
"Why do you think so?"
Blake was a reasonably generous lord, but he was not humane enough to send a dangerous seed away in peace. Even so, he listened to that knight, because the man was worth ample respect. And sure enough, the knight did not spare his wise counsel.
"Look at their faces."
"...Hm?"
Only then did he look. The Dream Fiend woman and the Dream Fiend man both wore the look of people holding down nausea. Faces like those of witnesses to the most horrific thing in the world; a feeling as if they were shaking, taken by a plague beyond all description. He was just wondering why, when the knight went on.
"Their relationship is like—you know the ones—that spear-handler and his little sister. ...No. It might be a bit worse than that."
"......"
Duke Blake recalled the brother and sister he had all but raised with his own hands. That relationship was, how to put it...
"Hm. I see. Then there is no chance of it."
He nodded, calling up the childhood of those two little troublemakers.
"If it is worse than those two, then at the least there will be no continuing of the line."
He meant the adorable quarrels of the brother and sister who had flung his cherished pottery at the backs of each other's heads, and come to blows besides.
"Memories."
"......"
...The shadows sent him looks that asked why he was leaving out the part where he himself, furious that the pottery had broken, had beaten the pair with a club. They did not commit the folly of letting that objection out of their mouths.
A time of thorough verification. For a power who stood within the ten fingers of this kingdom—no, within three—it was a safety inspection of peerless rigor. But to say the same thing the other way around, it was precisely because they were that thorough...
Is he even inside the top three?
Arrogant, and yet not arrogant. Lee Han privately thought that if the people of Galahad were perfectionists to this degree, the duke's influence had to be part of the reason.
Then—
"Your Highness, he has come."
"...Show him in."
Lee Han felt a familiar presence. Not long after he had shut his mouth, heavy and tight—
"......"
An old man appeared. More precisely, an old priest whose expression was strangely rigid.
Raised up as the new Pope-King and still going about in a worn priest's robe, the old man wore a hardened look unlike his usual self. Many emotions showed in that gaze, and for this moment alone Lee Han, the duke, and the others quietly watched the old priest's mood. But the old priest's eyes were not turned toward them. They were fixed only on the man and the woman.
"Oh my? Isn't that the old fellow? What's he doing here?"
"......"
"......"
"Pierre, look over there. Your boss from work is here."
"...Shut your mouth."
"Why's he snapping at me?"
The Dream Fiend who could not read the room—no, who was refusing to on purpose—only shrugged.
"Haa..."
The old priest, Raphael, let his gaze rest on the girl a moment, then opened his mouth with sorrowful eyes.
"Pierre. Are you Pierre?"
"......"
"...Or must I now address you as His Excellency, Count Roses?"
"...I am sorry."
"...Haa."
An apology with a great deal packed inside it. From that single word, Raphael felt and understood a great deal. He was a man judged to have gathered wise insight across a hundred years. Even without anyone explaining, he could read another's feelings and mood from the eyes alone, and so Raphael said:
"...You are reveling in freedom. And in joy."
"......"
"At the very least, you ought to feel a little guilt."
"...I am a sinner regardless. One who committed, horribly, things a human being must never do."
"......"
"Did you know this? By entering this body, I share the count's memories as well. Right now I know this man's evil deeds better than anyone. In truth, even a punishment like this is more than he deser—"
"That is not yours to judge."
"...Even though Roses, this apostate, is the murderer who killed the previous Count Loengrin?"
"!?"
"He is an unfilial wretch who killed his own kin with his own hands, for no reason but that his father got in the way of his plans! So why...!"
Pierre poured out a great many words. They were the charges Roses had committed, and among them were great evils tied to the temple. If even one came to light, the knowledge would drive the kingdom into shock, and some of those present thought that merely being placed under a Seal had been a light measure. Even so—
"Yes. You committed many sins."
"I did..."
"And yet, to this old man's eyes, why does it look like nothing but you spinning excuses?"
"......"
"...You might as well have spoken your true heart. Haa..."
Raphael could not feel a shred of sincerity in Pierre's words. He saw neither the duty of a priest who upheld God, nor an inquisitor's sense of mission. All that showed were excuses and self-justification. It looked like nothing but the deceit of someone who has done wrong and tells an obvious lie so his parents will not catch him.
"In the end, you stole another person's life. And yet I cannot see even a sense of responsibility for that in you. Heh heh... You forgot this old man's trifling teachings long ago. All of them..."
A hollow murmur. His eyes held neither anger nor disappointment. There was only sorrow in them.
And so Raphael spoke.
"Judia Pierre."
Tuk.
"!!!"
...In a single motion, he snapped Pierre's crucifix necklace.
"...I am sorry, for all this time. Upon the life that knew nothing but bondage because of me, I wish the Light's... no. I will simply wish you richness of heart, and good fortune."
"......"
Pierre looked at Raphael, who had taken up his cross and was wishing him luck, and still he could not manage any answer. He only gazed, guilty and silent, at a back that seemed somehow ten years older.
......Even though he did not even have the right to feel guilty.
"......"
"...Hm."
"......"
"...Sh-should I start by slamming my head on the floor?"
"Haa..."
"...Just get angry, would you."
To Lee Han, there was nothing in the world more frightening than an adult's anger.