After He Left (5)
The cadets—no, the boys and girls who were now members of the Turtle Alliance Knight Order—could only marvel.
Marvel at what?
"Whoa. This actually works?"
"This actually works?"
"This does, in fact, work?"
At the fact that a knight order could be born in a single week.
The Royal Castle was burning, and the air hung thick with the promise of war. In a season like this, the ordinary thing was for everyone to keep still and wait. The girl, as if to laugh in the face of that gathering storm, went briskly about her work with her blue hair streaming behind her.
The girl—no, Levi Jeanne d'Arc, the first chairwoman of the Turtle Alliance Knight Order—went to each of them in turn, persuading them and asking them to add their strength to hers.
Why those words struck so deep…
They had not been speaking thirty minutes before she had them convinced. Somewhere along the way they began to move with the girl at their center, gathering people, until at last a new power was taking shape in the sword faculty's training yard.
"The Turtle Alliance Knight Order will accept anyone. We will not, however, accept those who do evil, nor the negligent and the idle who will not make an effort. But a person who knows how to strive—we will not cast them aside, even if they have no talent, even if the body they were given is frail. …Words like these may sound like the talk of a foolish girl chasing an ideal. Even so, I will say this plainly. Rather than raising the parasites that eat an order from within, taking in the people who will build it up and keep it healthy is both the orthodox path and the shortest road to making every foundation firm. A group that may look slow at the start, and yet possesses roots harder and stronger than anything else. I hope that we become that."
She was speaking of an ideal. But the girl also showed them that she had a reason for giving that ideal voice.
And so—
Clap…!
Clap, clap, clap, clap, clap!!
Applause crashed down like thunder.
Here and there the work was still clumsy, still short of what it needed to be. Even so, the hard road the girl meant to walk was, without any question, the road of chivalry. Honor and pride. Both lived in her words, and in what she did.
"…Is it really all right for me to sit in a seat like this? Young Lord Roen would suit it better."
The remarkable girl who had spoken with such confidence only moments ago was nowhere to be seen. In her place stood Gomsoon, fidgeting.
"Gomsoon—no. Levi. Compose yourself."
"…You were about to say Gomsoon just now."
"You're imagining things."
"……."
"I gave you that seat because I believe you belong in it. At the very least, you will do better than I would."
"It sounds like you're changing the subject…"
"…Ahem."
Levi was speaking plain good sense. The handsome young man clearing his throat was, for all practical purposes, the very person who had gathered the great nobles.
However uncommon her convictions, however great her potential, she was not yet someone who could draw in figures of that weight.
And yet.
Young Lord Roen stepped forward himself, drove every negotiation through, and brought them all the way here.
She did not know what sort of bargain had been struck. He must have offered something that caught at their greed, and those powers must have promised their backing in return. So Levi still thought it only right that he take the chair. Roen refused, saying he had matters of his own to see to. She could tell it was no empty excuse. She had watched him grow haggard of late.
Perhaps that was why.
"I wonder if I've just been acting spoiled. I'm sorry, my lord…"
Levi murmured it, looking guilty.
"No. Don't apologize. I did it because I wanted to. And I have not lost anything by it. If anything, I have gained."
"Gained?"
"Yes. To put it more precisely, you may consider that I am achieving, at one remove, the ideal I mean to pursue."
"…?"
"You needn't understand it. Only remember this. Your standing in that place does not merely lighten my burden. It is a great help."
"…Yes. I'll remember."
"Good."
He really was different. She must have read the sincerity in his words at once, for she pushed back no further.
"If Young Lord Roen says so, I won't say it's too heavy for me anymore. It's more than I deserve, but the right thing is to carry out the duty I've been given. I'm still lacking in a great many ways, though. I trust you'll help me."
"Of course."
"…In that spirit, there's something I've been thinking about. Would you help me with it?"
"Oh?"
Roen's eyes lit, as if to say, well, look at this.
For all her groaning that she couldn't do it, hadn't she already drawn the blueprint?
In any case.
She astonishes me in a different way than the instructor does. Well. That must be what makes her herself.
The woman he had admired. The woman who had been like a teacher to him. She was none other than the mercenary queen he remembered.
And sure enough—
"Thanks to the guild's help, gathering people wasn't difficult. There were commoner talents who had to leave the Academy over family circumstances, and plenty of people who lost their livelihoods in this chaos. Among them, I was able to pick out the ones the Alliance needs."
Already, the girl was reaching for the next step.
"But as you know, it's hard to tell whether we can truly trust them. If I had a nose or an ear like Master's, something that could catch a lie, that would be different."
"That is not a talent a human can possess."
"Hehe. That's true. So I was thinking—could we perhaps get her help?"
"Her?"
"The Loengrin Lady."
"…I see. She would certainly be useful."
"Yes. They say she's lost most of her power, but I heard she can still use Charm. If we use that, we can catch the suspicious ones, the vicious ones, and the people hiding their own crimes."
"Only those who have been proven. That is what you mean."
"It's a harsh thing to say. But as I said in the address just now, we need to make the roots strong."
"Excellent. I will have that wench—no. I will have her summoned at once."
It was a good idea. No question of that. Who would have thought there was a use for that poisonous weed of a woman?
I hate to admit it, but the ability is extraordinary.
Well. With an ability of that order, there had been a time when he himself…
"A wench, is it…? Isn't that a little cruel to say about your fiancée? Hehe."
"…Who said you were my fiancée?"
"Hm? Oh—I'm not? There's a rumor going around to that effect…?"
"—!!"
…Roen felt he knew exactly who had spread that rumor, and he was seized by the urge to take an axe, then and there, to that loathsome dream fiend's neck.
Fortunately for the dream fiend, however—
"Ah, pardon me. Might I have a word with the two of you?"
"…Guild Union Chairman."
"Please, call me Simon."
Someone had, without meaning to, rescued him from the crisis.
His Lordship left a treasure behind when he departed.
Simon looked at the boy and the girl before him with a quiet, private satisfaction. With the kingdom this ruined, who would have thought there would be people shining so brightly?
There are still people worth something in this country after all.
The trouble was only that there were too many thieves. Just looking at the two of them was enough to fill him.
Riding that satisfaction, Simon opened his mouth.
"First of all, congratulations, Miss Levi. Or rather, I suppose I ought to call you Chairwoman Levi now."
"Ah, no. You can just call me whatever's comfortable. And I'm the one who should thank you for gracing today's gathering."
"Haha, gracing it? Next to the other guests, my standing is so far beneath theirs it's embarrassing."
"Standing? What could the Chairman possibly be lacking…"
She meant it. Her eyes said, quite sincerely, that she did not think Simon lacking in anything. He had felt it while she stood on the platform as well. That gentle charm of hers was striking. In a sense, a charm like that was an inborn gift for leading people and drawing them in. A quality vanishingly rare.
Tch. Looking back now, I was a rotten one myself.
The Guild Union had been the very party that arranged a match for a capable girl like this. He had not stepped forward personally, and it had not been his fault, but so long as he sat in a seat that bore responsibility, Simon felt he owed her a debt.
And so.
If there is a debt, it ought to be repaid with everything I have.
"An apology matters. Repaying what you owe matters just as much."
A brilliant mind had surely played its part in making him the youngest Guild Union chairman. But so had this belief, which Simon kept as if it were his own creed.
"Chairman Simon. So what did you come here to say?"
"Forgive me, Young Lord Roen, for cutting into your conversation so abruptly."
"That does not matter. What matters is why you cut in. I cannot believe a man of your caliber came over for some paltry greeting, or a word of congratulations."
"Goodness, you rate me far too highly."
"And I think even that is rating you too low."
"…Well, now."
The young ones these days were frightening.
With that thought fresh in mind—
"You're not wrong. I did come because there was something I had to say."
He did not deny Young Lord Roen's words.
"It's nothing else. I have a feeling something is going to break within the next fortnight."
"Something?"
"…?"
"I don't have clear information. I don't have proof, either. It is nothing more than my prediction, so you shouldn't put much trust in it."
"…Your predictions sound more certain than any proof or information I can name."
"Me too. Master said that when the Chairman speaks, we ought to listen carefully. He said you aren't a man who talks idly."
"…Well, now. It seems His Lordship left after talking up his opinion of me far too much…"
Simon smiled wryly. Still, with the relentlessly sunny thought that being trusted was better than not being trusted at all, he went on.
"The thing is—I have a feeling every single councilor of the Noble Council is going to be assassinated within a fortnight."
"……."
"…What?"
"Well. Perhaps…"
It wouldn't even be strange if they were all already dead.
"Well. It's only a prediction."
Simon smiled at the corner of his mouth and gave a shrug, as if to tell them not to take him too seriously.