Is Hitting the King a Crime? (2)
The disciples' fervent thanks did not end until a full hour had passed. Even afterward they promised to send invitations, so this tiresome gratitude looked likely to drag on a while longer.
It was a nuisance, and he had no need of it. He wanted badly to refuse. If he did, though...
"The kids' pride would take a hit, wouldn't it?"
"Without question. You're better off just accepting them. It'll be a bother for you, Instructor, but still."
"Hm. You look awfully comfortable, though, Assistant."
"It's a rare day off, isn't it? A man ought to rest a little."
Lee Han stared flatly at Damian. Guests had come calling, and still the boy lay at his ease in the kennel—no, the boarding house built in the shape of a kennel—that Lee Han himself had made for him, gazing vacantly up at the sky.
"...What? Is there something you want me to do?"
"No. Just looking."
"Your eyes are strange, though."
"You're imagining it."
He had made the boy this way himself, and yet the shamelessness of it, the meanness, still struck him. A year ago Damian had been a textbook young master from a rich house.
"...How in the world did he get this ruined."
"Because of you!"
"Ah, you heard that? I meant to say it in my head."
"Fuck! Who do you think can't tell you did that on purpose!"
Bang!
His nerves scraped raw, the hammer knight Damian ripped his sledgehammer free and threw himself at him.
"Enough."
"Gack!?"
He was pinned in a second and a half.
And so the pleasant lunchtime warm-up, conducted with his assistant for equipment, came to an end. It had finished too quickly to loosen anything. Lee Han's body was still stiff. He turned his head.
"Well? You two want to loosen up with me?"
Their heads whipped from side to side. The two boys made their feelings violently clear and smiled with bitterness.
"I'll pass."
"I would rather not pick up a pointless injury in wartime, Instructor."
"Quit the dramatics."
"...It isn't dramatics."
"Mm."
"That so...?"
Derek and Roen refused with feeling. Lee Han shrugged, as if nothing could be done about people who didn't want to, and folded his disappointment away.
"D-damn it..."
Unlike the two boys, who had lost all will to fight, the assistant rolling on the ground spat a curse thick with grievance and burned with fighting spirit, as if someday, without fail, he would land a single blow.
...Whether that would be possible in this lifetime was another question.
Lee Han was not particularly rattled by the two boys' visit. He served them tea—not because he had known they were coming, but because he had already felt them nearby. They had likely been waiting until the first wave of visitors left.
"Lot of guests today."
"If we were in the way, I'm sorry..."
"You're not in the way. I was wondering what brought you. You're not the commendable sort who'd drop by out of concern for whether I'm alive."
"...I think you may be mistaken about us, Instructor."
"Ungrateful brats who don't show their faces unless they need something, and the mouths on you are the only part still working..."
They had nothing to say to that.
"Right. Mouths that'd float even if you drowned. What's the business."
"...Instructor, if you're going to beat us with facts, you at least have to give us time to recover the damage."
The two of them were granted a brief moment to reflect on themselves. Lee Han paid it no mind and waved them off, as if they ought to leave the moment their errand was done.
Perhaps they understood they were not welcome. And so they went straight to the point.
"We succeeded in removing the Brass Knight Order hiding in the Royal Capital, along with every traitor to the kingdom."
"Because you held the Brass Knight Order and drew every eye, arresting them was not difficult. Of course, once Galahad moved, the traitors' annihilation was a foregone conclusion. It is true, however, that the work became much easier."
"The others helped a great deal too. With Kunta, Arno, and Garand there as well, things went much more smoothly."
This was the part that explained why only Lee Han and Levi had gone after the Brass Knight Order, and where the others had been, and what they had been doing.
Thanks to Lee Han running wild, dozens of noble houses in the Royal Capital had been wiped out completely, and no one cared. Even now the reporters covered only what had happened on the central avenue. The vanished houses drew no interest at all.
In a word:
"A successful aggro pull."
"I told you to ease up on the game talk."
"...Attention. Drawing attention."
They had lost the Brass Knight Order to the Noble Council's consecutive bout of trolling, but there had still been meaningful results. In truth, incompetent allies and turncoat traitors were more dangerous than the enemy. With those driven out, the inside of the kingdom should at least be safe.
"Meaning, now that we've wiped out every traitor who sold the country..."
"All that's left is to cut out the incompetent allies. Which is... well. That's the trouble."
The turncoats in question were those who had cooperated with Loengrin and joined hands with the Blood Cross Army. Bold enough to dream of overthrowing the kingdom, they were fertilizer underground now, and that dream would have to remain a dream.
A task still remained. The incompetent allies—more dangerous than the enemy, liable at any moment to endanger the kingdom again with some creative remark—had to be thrown out, and in practice that was far thornier than dealing with traitors.
"The Noble Council. Those things, really..."
Derek usually hated speaking ill of people, but the Noble Council was the exception. He didn't curse normal folk. How could kind words come out for men so abnormal they were creatively running the country into the ground? That he had not yet unleashed a stream of profanity was, frankly, impressive.
"If I had my way, I would feed every one of those vermin to the pigs. Failing that, I would throw them to a bear or a wild dog starved for a week and have them chewed alive."
"Enough. What did the animals do, that you'd make them eat that rot? Have a heart."
"...That, too, is a fair point."
Roen made no effort to hide the cruelty; he piled more on. Derek flinched before it. The two of them were a poor match, and yet this time their will was the same.
"The Noble Council must be reformed. It cannot go on like this."
"They're the leading contributors to devouring the country."
Yes. Of course he knew that people who practiced politics could not all be competent. Even so, there was a limit, and while the kingdom was in crisis an incompetent politician was no help at all.
"If they'd only do nothing, that would at least be a help. They keep trying to pull something strange, and that's the worse problem."
"Hah. My head aches."
People said that sitting still got you halfway there. These men would not sit still. They staked their lives on drawing aggro of an entirely different kind, and every result came out bad. If that was not incompetence, what was it? Cruel as it was to say, they were useless. Reform was necessary.
Political reform...!
"Mm. I see what you're getting at, but don't say it here. I want less to do with politics than anyone."
Between his years in the army, Lee Han was already sick to death of politics.
"I'm sorry. I was just so frustrated..."
"Hah. This certainly isn't something to bring to you, Instructor. Forgive the lapse."
"It's fine. If you're that pent up, it happens."
How stifled did a person have to be? Still, if that resentment ever burst...
I just hope they don't get a taste for red.
He only hoped he would never have to watch his own students grow mustaches. The way they were now, they were more than capable of it, and if they went dark they would overturn the country more thoroughly than those cult bastards.
"...We should have brought only good news, and we mixed in useless talk besides. Please forget it."
"What conversation did we have?"
"...I did not mean forget all of it."
At the teasing reply Roen let out a short breath and finally allowed himself a small smile. He still seemed to have more to say. He worked his mouth, and then...
"...Instructor. I don't know whether you've heard, but the final royal banquet is set for two days from now."
"Huh? They're still holding that?"
"No one died in this affair. There was only damage to property. So long as the royal house itself takes no direct blow, the kingdom's banquets will continue."
"...I've got nothing to say."
An incident of this size ought to have stopped most events, and yet the banquet, it seemed, could not be stopped. Was it a performance to show that the royal house took no harm from a matter of this scale, or was the crown grandson's birthday simply that important?
Or maybe both.
Thinking once again that politics was no work for him, Lee Han pressed his fingers into his brow. Roen was not finished.
"And here is the point that matters, Instructor. It is possible... that two days from now, you may be invited to that banquet."
"...Me?"
"Yes."
"...Why?"
The news was so sudden that for a moment he understood nothing at all. As if to answer him, Roen gave a clean reply.
"You are the one who stopped the Brass Knight Order incident. And through you, the royal house will say this to the nobles."
Sir Ihan Turtle is the proud and valiant guardian of the royal house, a knight of the Silver Lion Knight Order, and it was he who prevented the incident on the central avenue before it could begin. How magnificent an achievement!
"That is what they will say."
Far from clearing his chest, the answer only packed the frustration in tighter.
"So what you're telling me, right now..."
He let out a breath.
"They didn't lift a finger, and now they mean to use me as their clown however they please. That it?"
"...Ahem."
Roen and Derek did not deny it. They quietly looked away, while Lee Han still wore a dumbfounded face.
About a minute passed in a silence so complete that no one could open his mouth. Then he narrowed his brow and asked, almost lightly.
"...Let me ask one thing."
"...?"
"...If I beat the king senseless, would that be a crime?"
Neither of them answered.
"I hope it is. Then I could tear the whole thing down legally. Haha."
Still nothing.
"...Why aren't you laughing? It's a joke. You don't think I'd actually do it, do you? Some stupid stunt just because I'm angry."
"...Y-you wouldn't."
"Right?"
Lee Han answered with a wide, bright smile. Roen and Derek broke into a cold sweat.
For something that was supposed to be a joke...
His eyes...
...are far too murderous.
They knew. Lee Han, their master, was a man who would rather play the fool than endure.
And they knew something else.
The maid said you could tell by his little finger, didn't she?
A twitch.
...That when he lied, his little finger twitched.