Berserk? (1)

The woman loathed the press.

She had no love for the creatures called reporters, whose rudeness knew no bounds, as if they themselves were justice. She found their double standard equally offensive: the way they handled information like a kind of power, and carried themselves as though they belonged among the highborn.

Even so, she did not go so far as to deny that they were necessary. And so she read the papers every day, and sorted them. Those to be eradicated, and those still to be watched a while longer.

Now, she had decided to spare one paper she had lately been weighing whether to wipe out.

Was it not rather commendable, that they had written a line so much to her liking? It was a third-rate piece, stuffed with flattery for the royal house, yet thanks to an article that dressed the Silver Lions as the side of justice and criticized the mages without restraint, it seemed one newspaper would be permitted to survive the year.

…What the next year might bring, no one could say.

"Your uncle is stirring up something amusing."

"Wuu?"

"Heh. I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠do not mean those incompetents bound to you by blood. How could such creatures ever be called uncle to you? The uncle I speak of is Lee Han—the only friend this mother of yours has acknowledged. He may not be of the royal blood, but he is the sworn younger brother I have recognized, and so, when no one else is watching, you must keep ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the proper courtesies. Do you understand, Arthur?"

"Auuu."

"Yes. Does it interest you as well? Your eyes are growing bright. Well they might. I am already looking forward to seeing what manner of bloodshed my sworn brother will raise."

"Wuu?"

"Arthur, my son. Remember this. A warriors' fight to the blood is a splendid stimulant against boredom. This mother of yours sometimes watches such battles to ease her stress. Or, should some criminal ever try to harm you, cutting off his head with your own hands would make for an interesting experience. For one who means to be king, it is a useful method of relief. Sit long enough in this seat, and one finds there are simply too many beasts whose necks one wishes to pluck…."

"Wuu?"

She whispered affectionately to the child in her arms, and yet the content, somehow, contained nothing that could be called sound for a child's emotional education. It was fortunate the boy was not yet old enough to understand a word of it.

And the one person in the royal household who could point out her faults offered a rebuke.

"Morally speaking, those are not words one should say to a child, Princess."

"So it is you. Still without a presence, I see. Walk more carefully. You will frighten Arthur."

"I rather suspect that, in time, he will come to fear you more than he fears me."

"And what, pray, have I done?"

"That you truly do not know moves this Albert to admiration. Heh heh."

"Impudent wretch."

Albert, the princess's butler, shook his head as if she were beyond saving. Even now, he wondered whether the ethical thing might not be to take the child away from this cruel princess's side.

"Your outings have grown frequent of late."

"You yourself gave me the work, Princess. What choice do I have?"

"You moan far too much."

"It is not moaning. Digging into the lions from the heart of the North is no simple matter, even for me. Heh heh."

"Hmph."

Her brow drew tight—Isis Irene de Pendragon's.

If she took it for the usual complaint, the usual excuse, that would have been the end of it. But a fatigue he could not hide showed plain on Albert's face. To see even that peerless Aura User so worn meant it was not mere playacting.

"The North. A troublesome lot."

"Rather than poke a hornet's nest for nothing, might it not be wiser to leave them be?"

"I have not failed to consider that. It is only that, by temperament, I prefer to burn a nest that offends me."

"…If you would only mend that violent streak of yours, it would be a fine thing."

"I have lived this way my whole life. Leave it."

If something offended her, she burned it, honey in the hive or no. A coldness both brutal and devoted to nothing but efficiency. It could well be called the foundation of Isis herself.

Of course.

She has improved a great deal, compared to before.

Isis had carried on a blood-spattering war of succession from the day she was born, and not against strangers, but against her own blood. That her nature should be cruel was unavoidable. Betrayed again and again by siblings she had trusted, hunted by assassins dozens of times—had she grown up gentle instead, that upbringing would have been grounds to suspect madness.

For that reason she did not hesitate to look upon blood, and she had driven even her own brothers and sisters clean out of the palace. Of late, however, there was a side of her that had softened, somewhere. Most likely it was thanks to a friend who delighted her more than that contemptible, unpleasant crowd.

On a rare occasion, Albert looked at a newspaper that had made it onto the table in one piece, without being torn to shreds. A story about a certain knight occupied the front page.

Heh heh.

Carefully hiding how pleased he was, Albert spoke.

"I heard the news. He has been lively. Youth really is a fine thing."

"…Were some other old man to say so, I might agree. Coming from you, I find I cannot."

"Heh heh. I too have grown quite old. Setting that aside—you do not mean to interfere, Princess?"

"Why would I?"

"Hoh."

Left to her original nature, she would never have allowed a foreign contaminant like a mage to run wild. There was the risk it might disrupt the task she had given him. Yet now she was quiet, even though a mage would surely grate on her.

"As expected of my butler. You know me well."

"Well…."

"But this time, I will not step forward."

?

It was unexpected, and Albert tilted his head. What had gotten into his master, that she meant to sit quietly? The words that followed told him.

"If I—if this princess—were to step in, would I not be stealing from ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠my sworn younger brother a rare chance to raise his name?"

"……."

"If he can grow his fame through this opportunity, it ought to be a gain."

"Heh heh. How devoted your thoughts of your younger brother are."

Only then could Albert guess his master's heart.

"That fellow holds fame far too cheap. After piling up such achievements, how can he still mean to remain a nameless unknown? Honestly."

"Hmm."

"Hm? Why are you looking at me with those eyes?"

"Heheh. I was only thinking that our princess, too, is still a youth whose spring has not cooled."

"…What nonsense is that?"

"There are such things."

He understood perfectly why she was not stepping in, even with that foreign body called a mage in the way. She was a woman who acknowledged knights more than anyone, and she had always been displeased that he remained unknown. So she must have chosen not to interfere in the War Game. It was a rare chance for his name to be known.

There are young ladies in the theater world who labor so that unknown actors might be discovered, are there not?

The wish that the actor one cheered for would do well. In their private term for it—

A fan's heart. Heh heh. So some innocence remains in you yet, our princess.

Albert was pleased. Only—

"Hm. I cannot tell why he carries on so."

"Wuu?"

"More importantly, Arthur, we shall have to prepare for an outing before long."

?

"It will be amusing."

The trouble was that the feeling Albert had called innocence amounted, for everyone else, to an enormous calamity.

……Word that Crown Princess Isis would visit the Academy arrived four days later.

"……Haa."

The boy sighed. A boy whose very impression seemed gloomy, somewhere. A shaggy head of hair, shot through with a dull gray, only amplified the outward melancholy, and the air about him poured out a relentless don't come near me besides. He was nothing if not the sort of person who inspired no desire whatsoever to grow close.

And yet.

"Derek? Derek, where are you!"

"……."

"Ah! Found you!"

"?!"

Of late, the boy—no, Derek—was facing a serious crisis in his life as a loner, and all because of a certain girl who had suddenly taken to lingering at his side and meddling. He had killed his presence as best he could and hidden himself on a branch thick with leaves, but evading the eyes of that sharp-looking girl, who wore a ponytail so well, was more than he could manage.

"L-Lady Karin. Wh-why are you looking for me again?"

"I came to have lunch together. We're friends, aren't we?"

"…C-couldn't you eat with the others? You have plenty of friends besides me."

"Hehe. Those ones are my followers. I don't have many friends."

"……."

Is it really all right to say it that bluntly? What a personality.

"Derek, looking up is hurting my neck, so won't you come down already? I even packed a lunch, specially."

"…I-I don't mind coming, b-but you mustn't touch my hair this time."

"All right. I promise."

"Th-then, very well."

With a soft rush of air, the shaggy-haired boy dropped from the branch. He came down so lightly it was as if a flying squirrel had leapt, and the girl's eyes sparkled.

His physical ability really is nothing ordinary.

A freedom of movement even a sword-faculty student might fail to imitate. She had thought him unusual the day they first met, and the more she came to know him, the more that uncommon quality showed. What showed even more than the uncommonness, however, was—

A soft swipe.

"Ah—you said you wouldn't!"

"A woman's heart is like a reed, you know."

"!!"

The moment he came down, the girl stepped in close and flicked his bangs back. When she swept aside the hair that had buried even his eyes, beautiful golden irises were laid bare. They were lovely in a way his gloomy gray hair was not, with a bewitching quality that could have overwhelmed even a woman.

What pretty eyes.

Pretty eyes she wanted to look at again and again, the more she saw them. And, now and then, that flash of something uncommon besides. She could not help turning her interest on the boy, and he was worth cutting away dull followers to come and see.

"Derek, do you really have no thought of tidying your hair? I'll introduce you to a craftsman I know well."

"I-I'm really fine. Hair only grows back if you cut it. Washing it properly is more than enough."

"Then tying it with a cord?"

"Must I?"

"……."

…Still, a gloom this stubborn was tiresome now and then. The girl, Karin Allensia de Guinevere, puffed out her cheeks.

Th-this is too much.

Derek found the girl overwhelming. He could not help it. He had said as much the day before: there had never been a woman in his life, and they were nothing but wild beasts he could never grow used to, however he tried. If he had to name them, a lion, perhaps, or a bear. And with a lion of that sort circling at his side, Derek froze like a herbivore. Cold sweat beading, he brooded that he would have to scout out a new place to hide.

But only for a moment. The girl drawing ever closer was a problem of her own, yet what kept nagging at him was something else.

They said the students who went to train with that man would be back today, didn't they?

The source of all the uproar at the Academy. Foolish warriors, proposing a War Game against mages. By now the sword faculty's students were buried under every kind of criticism and the most naked condemnation—idiots, people said, who had challenged mages to a War Game.

Hm. I don't think it's a foolish move, though.

Derek, for his part, did not consider what they had done foolish. If only the conditions were met, there were cases in which a warrior won a War Game against a mage.

The hidden piece. If they just got that in hand, the odds of winning would rise even higher.

But the only person in this world who knew the hidden piece existed was himself. And so he was curious. That man—Ihan Turtle—just what was he?

If he's someone involved with the game, like me? If not that, then someone who knows the original?

Derek's uncertain guess. That the sword faculty's instructor might be an existence who, like him, knew the game, or the original work. That uncertain guess of his.

If that's what this is, then this time I'll be able to confirm it.

One of the hidden means of defeating a mage. Proof that the hidden piece had been obtained.

He might have gotten his hands on the Magic Hunter's Musket.

Lay hands on the plans for that peculiar musket, and be given only the time to develop it and grow accustomed to its use, and the birth of a mage-suppression unit was possible.

If it were me, I would have raised them that way, no question.

It was the only route by which students of common birth could fight mages and win in a short span of time. And so Derek placed a great deal of hope on the sword faculty's common-born students returning with a rare class: Sniper. If he himself were the instructor, and a man who knew the game or the original, he would have raised the students in exactly that direction. Besides that, the classes a commoner could obtain were, honestly, none too promising.

So if the students come back with muskets slung across their backs, it will mean, without a doubt, that he is in the same position as I am!

And so Derek hoped. It would mean a comrade—someone who would keep him from finding this lonely life, in this lonely world, lonely any longer. As the boy secretly let his eyes shine with that small expectation—

"Hm? It's the sword faculty's instructor. Looks like he's finally back."

"Wh-where?"

"Over there."

"Ah, at last—…huh?"

…What was that?

The Academy's main gate. It being the height of lunch, the students making use of the lawn garden near the gate were, without meaning to, the first to welcome home the sword faculty's instructor and his students. But the mood that settled over them in an instant—

"…?"

—was an awkward look, as if they had seen something they were not meant to see.

Derek….

Th-there isn't a Berserker among the classes you can choose…?

A figure with a bear's hide thrown over him. A berserker—no. He stared at the eighteen students, eyes huge, and blinked.