After He Left (4)

Slurp.

"Fortunately, he stopped short of killing the man. Has he finally learned a little patience?"

Some, gazing at the burning royal castle, felt a freedom as if their shackles had fallen away. Others felt nothing but calm.

"The tea smells wonderful."

There was even the leisure to drink black tea as if it tasted good. It was a scene wholly at odds with the moment, and yet she—and the hundreds of attendants who served her—bowed their heads without so much as a tremor.

In all of that, there was only one exception.

"...Shouldn't you, of all people, not be doing this, client? The man burning over there is your father, and that palace is what you're supposed to inherit."

Only one person raised an objection. Or rather, it was so close to an obvious question that it hardly counted as one.

Well.

"Hmph. It is a broken thing, nothing more. If it has been ruined past any hope of mending, is it not simpler to smash it completely and begin anew?"

She only scoffed.

"Y-you're that sure of yourself?"

"I can hardly go about wearing a weeping face. Above all, a person ought to have confidence."

"Mmm..."

The man let out a low groan at a declaration of boldness that bordered on the absurd.

Quality really is quality.

He could only wonder how a specimen like her had ever come from a father so wretched. Isis, princess of Pendragon, took the burning royal castle for her view and enjoyed her tea with tranquil eyes, pouring herself another cup of black tea.

"Will you have a cup, at least?"

"No, thank you. I'm so tense it won't even go down."

"For a man, you are rather lacking in boldness. Your master is a man who would be counted among the boldest even in the South."

"The old man and I are different."

He contradicted her, then laughed, awkward. He had reason. It would be more accurate to say his master was not bold so much as a man who simply never minded what others thought. If anything, he was the sort who made others mind him. A truly troublesome man.

"—No. I am not speaking of that master. You gained a new one recently, did you not? It is he whom I mean."

"......"

"Well. If you do not regard him as your master, then this is a meaningless conversation. —Sir Agravain."

"...You really are as spiteful as ever."

He frowned, tasting bitterness at two facts at once. One was the matter of a second master. The other was the surname Agravain, which he had not heard in a long while. Both caught in his throat with the same irritation, but what grated most, inevitably, was the name.

"Hah. I am not mocking you. Only, the commission is finished, and I found myself wondering what you mean to do now."

"......"

"Ah, there is something I would ask, if I may. Was there anyone who noticed your identity?"

"Not completely. There was a gentleman who saw straight through me—saw that I was something strange."

"Who?"

"...Who else would it be?"

The man answered.

"No one but the Instructor."

Agram Garland de Agravain. At the Academy he was more often called by the name Garand: disciple of the Mercenary King.

Last spring.

To keep watch on the two people who threatened her power, Isis had placed a commission with the knight she favored most. Watch them, she had said. But it was not in her nature to entrust anything to only one person. She thought it inefficient, and so she also sent a commission to a mercenary company with which she had no small connection.

Fortunately, that company possessed a man who more than met her conditions. He was in his twenties, of an age with the students, and he had both the intellect and the martial skill to pass the Academy's examination. For certain reasons he was staying with the mercenaries now, but once, when he was nothing more than a boy in his teens, he had been the very one called the Wild Horse of Agravain.

And he carried out his task superbly. He never let his identity slip. He buried himself naturally among the students, watched every person of note from the closest possible place, and sent her information as it happened.

"I received great help, thanks to you."

From her, it was rare praise. To the one who heard it, the tone sounded somehow mocking, as if she were commending him for having betrayed his friends so excellently.

"Haa... Please don't paint me as such a villain, client. I only did a job. If you keep trying to make a bad man of me, we'll both just end up red in the face."

Garand—no, Agram—grumbled that her high opinion only drew a sigh out of him.

Agram certainly thought of himself as a mercenary. It had been some time since he left his house, and it was the mercenary company that had taken him in. So he had no regrets. He had, in effect, deceived his friends, and he had betrayed the second master he had gained in his life, but even so he was a mercenary, and he had done nothing more than carry out a commission.

And yet.

The Instructor already seemed to know something was wrong with me.

Even so, the man had not blamed him.

...If he'd just condemned me, I think I would have felt less sorry.

Because the Instructor understood, it only hurt more.

"Yes. He would have treated it as a trifle. No—more likely, he saw through me."

Isis nodded. They were old acquaintances. Would he truly not have known her character?

Impossible.

He must have realized the man was someone she had sent. And even then—

He pretended not to know.

How ironic, that even after leaving he could still shake her. The moment Isis thought of him, she wanted strong liquor instead of black tea: a fierce drink, strong enough to scour the bitterness from her mouth. But she hid her feelings with perfect thoroughness and burned them to ash. They were not emotions she would need for what came next.

The die has ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠already been cast.

She could not stop.

She would.

I will be king. I will see to it that no one can ever treat me lightly.

Isis had a purpose that was hers alone, and for that reason she buried even her own heart by force. She had no need of any feeling that made her weak!

"...What is past may stay past."

"You're the one who brought it up, cli—"

"Do you mean to take the next commission?"

"......"

"Consider it seriously."

"Mmm..."

"Ah. For your reference, your master said he would accept my commission."

"Uh—which master do you mean?"

"Of course."

A soft rustle.

"The leader of the Wild Wolves."

"......"

If her beautiful smile felt, somehow, like a black widow's web, was he the strange one?

"...Ah, right. May I ask just one thing?"

Agram, who had all but accepted the commission already, put the question to her. He had wanted to ask for a long time and had never found the chance to settle the doubt.

"What is it? Are you curious what I agreed to give the leader of the wolves?"

"I don't care about that. The old man does as he pleases. He'll have arranged to take something that suits him."

"Quite right. You know him well."

"I thought so. He'll come back with some absurd thing for a fee again. What I'm curious about is something else. There's a matter that's been nagging at me."

"Nagging at you?"

"Yes. It's just... who, exactly, is the Mad Second Prince?"

"...?"

"You know the one. The Mad Second Prince. The one they say is mad. The prince enrolled at the Academy right now as a student. Who is he, really?"

The Mad Second Prince. He had already been the subject of rampant rumor when Agram entered the Academy, a celebrity Agram had heard named so often that his ears ached.

And yet.

Strange. I've never actually met anyone like that.

There was someone he suspected. A gray-haired boy whose identity he could not place, and whose extraordinariness was anything but ordinary.

Derek...

A person of such ability that even the Instructor acknowledged him. But no matter how Agram looked—

He wasn't a madman. He didn't look like royalty, either.

He might have lacked a royal's particular arrogance, but he seemed not to know a single point of court etiquette, and he showed nothing one could call madness. He was only a kind boy. And so Agram could not begin to guess who the rumored second prince was supposed to be.

"You'd know who he is, wouldn't you? You're royalty too."

It was not a question asked merely to scratch an itch. In this affair the royal house of Pendragon had fallen, but Pendragon's legacy remained. Those with the right to inherit it would be of Pendragon blood, and aside from Edmund only five of that blood were left.

The client, the duke, the First Knight Captain of the Silver Lion, and last of all the young lady called Chick and the baby prince.

Crown Princess Isis. Duke Blake. Aren. Lady Irene Windler. Prince Arthur.

Only these five ought to have been qualified to hold Pendragon's legacy. Duke Blake and Irene Windler would have no interest in property in any case, and Aren belonged to Isis's supporters, so he would not grow greedy. As for Prince Arthur, still no more than an infant, there was nothing to say. In other words, Crown Princess Isis alone was qualified to inherit everything. If the rumored second prince also truly existed, the number of those who might inherit would grow, and the matter could all too easily become a problem.

"The Second Prince? Whatever are you talking about?"

"?"

"This is the first I have heard of such a thing in my life. A Mad Second Prince...?"

Isis tilted her head as if she truly could not understand, and—rarely for her—wore a look of sheer bafflement. In a way, the reaction was only natural.

In Pendragon—

"No such man as a second prince exists."

Most of those called princes were dead, and even Aren held nothing more than the title of Eighth Prince.

"At least, so far as I know, no such person exists."

"......"

A flat declaration. At that firmness, Agram blinked.

Then what was that rumor?

And the boy named Derek—

What is he, exactly?

For Agram, the question only deepened.

"Achoo!"

"Derek, what's wrong? Did you catch a cold?"

"Ah, no. It just tickled a little."

"Hopeless. Here, a handkerchief."

"Ah, no. I'd only get Karin's handkerchief dirty..."

"I told you it's fine."

"......"

"Mm. Handsome."

"...I'll get cursed if I go around saying things like that."

"Let them. It's enough if you're handsome in my eyes."

"K-Karin..."

"I said you're cute."

!!

The two of them traded a warm, lovey-dovey affection and showed each other how thoroughly pleased they were. It was a pleasant enough sight, and yet—

"Mm. Kunta thinks lovey-dovey should know how to tell the time from the place."

"......"

"Ah, but Kunta understands. A male looking after his ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠female is the law of nature! Kunta learned it in the general lecture."

"...What lecture did you even take, Mr. Kunta?"

"A very good lecture!"

"......"

"Ah. The lecture said it. When the feeling between male and female grows deep, it is, of course, ma—"

"I-I was wrong! P-please, just stop teasing me!"

"...Kunta did not tease?"

The barbarian exchange student tilted his head, looking genuinely wronged. If that was an act, he belonged on the stage at once. He had the talent to become an icon of the age. But they knew it was no act, and Derek only flushed, as if from sheer shame. The woman, by contrast, shamelessly fussed over that same Derek because she found him cute, and from the sight of it one could tell exactly who held the lead.

Even so, as the barbarian exchange student had said, affection ought to be shared with an eye on time and place.

Especially—

"—First, I would like to begin by thanking all of you. It embarrasses me to have been given a post so far beyond my worth, but I will still do my very best. If only to prove that your choice was not a mistake."

—in a situation like this.

A girl was making a speech.

She was small, and delicate enough to call to mind a blue hydrangea: a beautiful girl. But her eyes were strong. What she gave off was not the freshness of a single bloom, but the vigor and charm of hundreds, of tens of thousands of hydrangeas, and it came across as a kind of charisma. Had it been only ten days? Those ten days had been time enough to make her strong and unyielding. There had been a farewell, and there had been chaos, and the girl who had not broken beneath them—who had the wisdom to read the current of the age—stood in that place with every person's support behind her.

Yes. The girl—

"Therefore—!"

A palm struck, sharp.

"Waaaaaaah!!!"

The people cheered and answered her. The eighty students of the sword faculty were there, of course, and so were those who had gathered to support her: the Temple, Loengrin, Offen, Mordred, and Tristan. Even Simon of the Guild Union had come, and he was clapping.

What astonishing leadership, and what boldness in action. It was not a seasoned presence one expected from a girl who had not yet passed her birthday—a mere nineteen.

So the real cheat was Miss Levi...

Derek could only click his tongue as he took in the scene. As the faces backing this faction made plain, it was certain to rise high. Roen and he himself were putting in the funds, and they were even gathering the talents who had left the Academy. Give it a year—no, half a year—and it would be a power no one could ignore.

How to put it.

Isn't Miss Levi what you'd get if you folded Liu Bei and Cao Cao into one person?

She had the magnanimity and the leadership to call up the heroes of an age.

......However.

Of all things, the crest on the flag...

Of all things. Why, specifically? Why carve that?

The axe and the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠plum blossom, he could accept. They symbolized the master they revered, so that much was fair. But why—

That swastika is a little... ah, he knew it wasn't that sort of thing, but still...

Derek knew better, and yet a little mustache kept flickering through his mind. He shook his head as if to deny it.

......The unease, to a modern person's sensibilities, was something he simply could not help.