The Knight Put On a Suit (3)
The pillar, hurled like a spear, struck the central fountain. A landmark of the upper-class street, the fountain was laced with countless defensive magics and could have withstood two or three cannon shots. It could not, however, withstand a pillar carrying a knight's strength. With a shattering crack the fountain collapsed all at once, broken apart in the most literal sense.
To the people of this street, who so often met before that fountain for a first outing, a confession, or a promised rendezvous, it was a shock fit to draw bitter tears—
"Bleeeegh!"
The tears fled. What remained was revulsion, and people who could not hold their stomachs began to multiply. Monsters of a hideousness beyond all comparison poured out of the shattered fountain, their shapes calling maggots to mind. Given that the fountain's water had served as drinking water, the residents' retching was hardly strange.
The sight only grew worse. The enormous maggots, their true nature exposed, swelled all at once and began to grow. Already revolting past words, they started evolving into the forms of flies, swelling in a breath from the size of puppies to the size of goats. Steel rang where their teeth met, and they breathed poisonous fumes besides. These were no mere vermin given monstrous shape.
Mid-grade monsters, at the least. And with more than a hundred of them, the threat was enough to reach for the highest grade—
"I told you. I'm not interested in you lot."
With the pop of a bursting balloon, a monster became a handful of blood. It happened every time the man's fist—the knight's fist—shot out. Smoke rose from his knuckles. He did not even hold an ordinary boxing stance, only throwing his fists out in blunt silence, and yet more than ten punches flew each second. Every one of them detonated a shockwave, until the onlookers' ears rang.
A release of force known by that name.
It was a technique that might as well have been a Mystery, yet the knight who displayed it showed no particular feeling. A year ago he might have found them somewhat troublesome. Against opponents of this level, he no longer felt the least sense of danger.
Simply because he had grown?
No.
I've fought things like you until I'm sick of the sight.
Experience. An intangible asset that even that boy Taechang's eyes could not see. The experience Lee Han had piled up over nearly a year was thick enough that he could grasp, by sense alone, how to deal with them.
Those flies, for instance.
Things that have to be erased before they take off.
So long as they did not fly, finishing them was easy. The trouble would come if they scattered. Lee Han calculated the danger and the way to meet it in an instant, and he showed little feeling for what he had just done.
Instead—
"You've seen it with your own eyes by now, so you ought to know. This district is dangerous. The monsters are bad enough, but there's plenty else here that's dangerous."
The words were as flat as a recitation. And yet, strangely, there was no one who failed to hear that voice. If anything, it felt as though he were speaking right beside their ears. Even while those who still could not accept reality blinked in a daze, his cold advice went on.
"The proof is right in front of you. Monsters, overflowing. You were scheduled to be today's feed."
"......"
"Here's my advice. Run. Now. Carriage or whatever you've got, get off this street at once. Unless you want to get dragged in and die for nothing."
"...Th-this is..."
"An explanation? I can give you one if you want to hear it. But if you end up in a monster's mouth while you're listening, don't call it my fault."
"!?"
A roar split the air.
"Aigoo. They just keep coming."
"Ugh...!"
Screaming until their voices seemed ready to tear, the people fled in a blind panic. It was no exaggeration to call the street pandemonium—the sort of rout one might expect if a zombie outbreak from a film had broken loose. Even as the orcs and the fly-shaped monsters fell, more monsters poured from buildings here and there, and the screams had no chance to die down. If anything, they only grew louder.
By all common sense, this was the moment for soldiers and knights to show their worth.
"You bastard! How dare you!"
"Guhk!"
"Break through! I said break through!"
...And over there, that was exactly what they were doing. Soldiers and knights, seized and mauled by packs of monsters—orcs and gnolls—not distinguishing themselves in the least, only floundering. Stabilizing the situation was out of the question. They would be lucky not to be wiped out.
For the record, they were neither incompetent nor weak. They were exactly average. Even so—
About the level where they'd do fine if I put them up against our kids.
Just because Lee Han beat them easily did not mean the monsters were easy. If anything, those knights were holding out decently. Rather than help them, he released his force again as if simply doing his job, and with every release the monsters dwindled.
"Th-thank you!"
"Eeeek!"
Those pulled clear of the monsters began to collapse where they stood, as if the strength had left their legs. Lee Han did not offer them a gentle word.
"Where do you think you're going?"
"Wh-what...?"
"You lot don't get to leave."
"??"
It was the sort of remark that made heads tilt of their own accord. The ones who felt the doubt—no. More precisely—
"Figures. Just like a pack of parasite bastards."
He hurled an axe at the steward.
"Why?! Why?!"
The scream was thick with shock, and with the question of why he would attack a loyal steward. He did not explain. Instead of explaining, he flicked his eyes aside.
"Guess you wear those eyes for decoration."
A cutting rebuke, and a jerk of the chin that said look closer. At those words the noble whose gaze snapped around could see it: the steward's face-skin peeling away, and a new face revealed beneath. Blood pattered to the ground.
"...Oh. Caught, am I?"
"I told you. I found you."
"I got mixed up. I thought you meant you'd found those beasts. Turns out that wasn't it. You do know how to confuse a person."
"......"
"So, since when did you notice?"
The question was perfectly calm. He showed no concern at all that his identity had been exposed. If anything, he only looked curious. Lee Han answered with his fist. The blow detonated.
"...That's actually dangerous. What kind of man is this?"
He threw the strike in silence, as if he had no mind to talk. The man who lightly slipped the murderous blow immediately stripped off the cumbersome hide he had been wearing.
"Tch. And here I thought it was a decent enough disguise."
"...The owner of that face?"
"I don't owe an answer to someone who won't answer my questions, do I?"
"I think you do. You really ought to answer."
If you want to die cleanly—!
Lee Han's strike hammered the whole of the central street—an indiscriminate bombardment aimed at every parasite wearing a steward's skin.
It had been only the day before yesterday that they learned the Brass Knight Order was on the central street, the place also called the noble district. How had they found out?
"Process of elimination."
"We turned the whole Royal Capital inside out, and the central street was the only place that didn't turn up a single suspicious figure. If they aren't there, then they truly aren't anywhere."
That was the conclusion Roen and Derek—those two boys—had reached after tearing through the Royal Capital in earnest, and Lee Han chose to believe it. If they were certain, there would be a reason. At the same time, it was absurd.
"Them being in there is a comedy. After all that talk about how there was nothing to worry about."
The Blood Cross Army. The cult the nobles had scorned most of all had been the nobles themselves. And now the cult was mixed in among that very crowd? What even was this.
"They're not even worth cursing."
"Then what do you intend to do?"
"Hm?"
"Shall we send a warning, even now?"
"...You think that would work?"
"No. Of course not."
Roen gave a bitter smile, as if he himself found the question he had asked absurd. Yes. No matter how much they warned the central street—the nobles—of the danger, they would not accept it. Once they had decided something, they would not bend their stubbornness even if it killed them. It was a pathetic sort of pride, but wasn't that exactly what nobles were? The sort who would not admit their own fault so long as they lived—no, not even after they were dead.
"Even if they die, it's Self-Made Ruin. Fine. Still, write the official notice yourself. Say it might be dangerous. It'll be something to point at later, when they start assigning blame, and if it still goes wrong after we've gone this far, well..."
"That's their fate."
Cruel, perhaps, but Lee Han only shrugged. Even for him, there was nothing else to be done. People numb to danger—
"They're the kind who only recognize a crisis once it's already on them."
"They really didn't prepare a single thing."
A bitter smile rose on Levi of its own accord. They had sent a warning-laced official notice in advance, and yet there was no trace of any preparation. Never mind the number of soldiers or knights. Watching the so-called upper class stroll and shop in the open was enough to draw a sigh. Was that arrogance, or simply—
"Are they fools?"
Levi drew the rapier she had disguised as a staff and, in a single motion, pierced a monster's throat. It was a clean thrust without hesitation. Recovering the blade, she looked at the person she had saved.
"Madam, are you all right?"
"Th-the young lady of Tristan..."
"Just call me Levi. More importantly, please run. I can't protect you forever."
"I-I... m-my legs have given out..."
"......"
Levi wondered what on earth the woman had done to lose the strength in her legs, but when she saw that the women unable to flee for that very reason numbered well past several dozen, a sigh nearly escaped her. Honestly.
What kind of confidence were these people playing around with?
She swallowed the sigh that rose again. Rather than spend the moment on anger, she stabbed and cut with concise movements. There was no time to be irritated.
I have to lighten Master's burden.
Weren't there far too many burdens already? Another clean cut. Utterly useless ones. In the girl's heart, a seed of distrust toward nobles was sprouting.