The Knight Holds an Interview (3)
The girl stared blankly at the fountain.
Water leapt skyward in a sharp, vigorous spray. It was the pride of the Southern Plaza, a fountain anyone might look upon regardless of station, and jewels, gold, and marble had been poured into it without stint until the whole thing blazed. Precious metal used that freely was a standing temptation to thieves, so the guard kept a rotation on it at all hours. In truth there was scarcely a safer stretch of ground than the square itself, and no one was fool enough to start trouble there for nothing.
Perhaps that was why.
"...It's quiet."
A fine place to sit alone with one's thoughts. No quarrels stirred, and there was not even a nuisance to interrupt her, so simply remaining where she was set a little ease in her chest. She wanted to stay in that spot so badly it ached.
Haa. I can't, though.
Linger past a certain hour and the guards' eyes found you more often than not. Staying was not a wise decision. The girl—grace and elegance together, like a lush bloom of blue hydrangeas—rose and started on her way.
"...Oh."
Every time she passed, the guards' gazes gathered. Not because she looked suspicious. Simply because she was lovely.
"That girl's pretty."
"Never seen her before. Has there been a girl like that on this street?"
"Prettier than the flower-shop girl. First time I've seen one..."
"Didn't you say the exact same thing when you fell for the bakery girl?"
"Love's a reed. That's its nature."
"Lunatic. What you do isn't love. It's just lust, you idiot."
The guard ran extremely heavy on young men in the full flush of blood. A man could not do his watch by halves, but there was no law that could pin a rolling eyeball in place. Vigorous men losing their heads over a pretty woman was simply the way of things.
"Clothes say commoner... Hey. Watch my post a minute."
"You lunatic. You're not even guarding. Where do you think you're going?"
"What are you talking about? I'm only stepping over to look at a 'suspicious person.' That's a duty too, strictly speaking."
"...Do something stupid and it won't end with a written reprimand. You do know how vicious the mood is in the royal capital right now?"
"I said it's fine."
Whether ignorance had made him brave, or his brain had been conquered by his groin, one of the guardsmen strode toward the girl without a moment's hesitation. He meant to lean on the authority of a guardsman's coat and force an introduction.
And then—
Thud.
"Hey, pal. No cutting in line. I've got business over there first."
"You... what..."
The guardsman's mouth shut. He could not have said when the stranger had come up beside him. An arm settled over his shoulder, and his face creased at once—but the moment he actually looked at the man, a chill raced down his spine.
He was big. Enormously big. A frame that swallowed three ordinary grown men and still had room to spare. Size alone, though, was not why the guard felt crushed.
Wh-what the hell is this bastard? What's wrong with his eyes...
The eyes were frightening. Frightening enough to put a chill even through a guardsman with backbone, a man who had stood face to face with no small number of criminals. It was not the look one person gives another. It was the look a butcher gives meat on a hook, and before it the guard froze like a mouse in front of a snake.
"Go quietly, pal. Quietly."
"Y-you dare threaten the guard...? E-even losing your fear has a limit—where do you think you—!"
A guard still has his pride. The man was frightening, yes, but he trusted the name of the guard, and he thought a threat like that would land.
"You ranked higher than Mark?"
"...What?"
"Your boss. One eye. Peculiarly fond of taverns. Rough-looking fellow, but they call him guard captain, don't they?"
The guardsman's eyes flew wide.
"Anyway, what's your name? Didn't think I'd live to see one of Mark's men with this much spine. I'll have to pass it along later. Let him know he's got such a splendid subordinate under him. Haha."
"..."
He could not muster a single word of backtalk against the giant who spoke his sky-high superior's name without a flicker of hesitation. He might have called it a lie. But the guard captain's single eye was, unexpectedly, a secret known only to those who knew; the man went about with a glass eye in. The words could not be dismissed as empty, and so the guardsman could do nothing but bow his head in silence and withdraw.
"...I-I apologize."
The giant smiled, satisfied.
The girl—no, Levi—turned a look of contempt on the giant coming toward her, wearing a kindly smile that did not suit him in the least. Was he watching her? A chill passed through her, but she hid what she felt and opened her mouth with a flat face.
"...What brings you all the way here? The day we agreed on should still be far off."
"Nothing special. I just came to escort the young lady. Wouldn't do to have strange vermin like that one earlier get tangled up with you, now would it? You're a precious 'commodity.'"
"..."
"Ah, slip of the tongue. I'm such a lowborn wretch I pick the wrong words! Trouble is, this mouth of mine."
"...Just go. Looking after my own body is not the problem."
Disgust crawled over her skin, but Levi called on her patience. The giant trampled that earnest endurance without mercy.
"Can't do that. How would I know when the young lady means to run?"
The blood left her face.
"...You would do well to watch your tongue. I made a promise. I gave up everything to keep it. And you mean to say you will not trust that promise of mine?"
She was the one being ground underfoot, and still Levi was a noble. A noble's promise was supposed to carry weight, and trust. To Levi, who held the name of House Fault the way another might hold pride itself, the suspicion alone came as a considerable insult.
He spat something worse.
"You think I've only run into that precious noble honor once or twice? Honor, my ass. Nothing but liars and wastrels, every last one of them, running their mouths! So why should I trust you? A young lady who's got shit-all to her name."
"..."
Her hand was already on the rapier, as if she might draw at any moment. The giant snorted.
"I can see you've got a fairly sharp trick for your age. It won't work on me, so put the sword away. Unless you want to lose an arm or a leg."
"If the choice is to sit still after an insult like that, then I ought to accept a crippling wound and be glad of it."
"...Those eyes mean it."
He clicked his tongue. Only then did the giant realize that this girl, unlike the nobles he usually dealt with, was stubborn to the bone. A little more arguing and someone was going to bleed. Damn it.
Stiff as some moldy old knight, this one. What am I supposed to do? Can't actually snap a piece off her.
He would say it again: the girl was a precious commodity. Damage her, and the guildmaster would chew his ear off for nothing. He would rather not. So he changed course, meaning to persuade her with words. The surest way to make this refined noble young lady obedient was, when he thought about it—
"—if you won't listen nicely, I'll have no choice but to lay a hand on your little sister, or your mother. Well? Is that what you want?"
"You—!"
"So do as you're told. Don't make this a hassle."
The finest method for handling a refined human being is to become a thug. Touch family, or friends, or a lover, and nine out of ten of them go meek. Sure enough.
"...Don't make empty threats. I will cooperate."
"Haha. Should've done that from the start."
The giant was satisfied, and also curious. Family or not, a person's whole life was hanging on this. How could she offer up everything with such desperate devotion?
Me, I'd sell family and the rest of it. She's only like this because her belly's full.
Live as hard as he had, and you learned that family and lovers alike were pointless. Looked at that way, even a noble young lady was a pitiful thing.
No. In this case, maybe she just drew the wrong father.
A father who sold his daughter, nothing like this refined girl. To sell off the makings of a future lady knight, all in the name of the house... Funny. Funny twice over. This must have been what people meant when they spoke of a tiger born under a dog.
Hss. Mouth's watering.
The giant liked women of this sort. A filial daughter, unstained and high-minded, and a noble young lady besides—the kind a low thing like him could never dare aim at.
Pretty, too. So pretty.
Desire boiled up in him. She wore shabby clothes to hide her station, but the grace and the beauty would not be hidden. She was still young, and that beauty had not fully bloomed, yet a flower that has not opened is a flower all the same. Worth the picking.
We'll have to stick together for a while anyway... Shall I sweet-talk her in the meantime?
He already had her weakness. Hold her family over her head and pick at her whenever he liked, and he might even shove her as far as a bed. The guildmaster had only told him to protect her until the day came. He had never said not to touch her.
And so the giant meant to begin by resting an arm, lightly, on the girl's shoulder.
Just a little...
"—I'll take that arm reaching forward to mean you don't need it for the rest of your life."
Crack!
He ought to have known what misfortune—no, what calamity—would follow from putting an ungovernable desire first. The realization, of course, would come too late.
"Gyaaaaaah...!"
"Don't bark, you bastard."
Asking to die.
Crunch!
The screaming giant's mouth was forced shut under a brutal hand.
"—!"
He wanted to thrash, to flail in the pain, but the hand sealing his mouth—! From the raw strength itself there poured a pressure that crushed his whole body, and he was living through that horror now. The experience, however, was only beginning.
Crack. Crunch...!
"!?!"
His body was folding in a direction a body must never fold. An ominous rupture climbed up out of his spine. Terror—the knowledge that this could not be undone—flooded him, and the giant threw everything into resistance. People do, sometimes, find a strength beyond ordinary men when they stand at the edge of their lives.
Unfortunately for the giant—
"That was you trying? ...Waste of a big body."
His opponent was a man who had faced true Superhumans, and resistance of this sort did not even rise to the level of contempt. That was the giant's first misfortune.
Whud!
He—Lee Han—wore a gaze as cold as sheet ice and drove the giant into the ground, again and again, the way a child slams a ddakji tile. Over and over. A tile, at least, leaves the hand. The giant never did. He simply kept striking the earth.
Once. Twice—
Crack!
...Ten times.
Even after exactly ten, he could not escape Lee Han's grip. And even if he had, it would have meant nothing. Blood pattered onto the stone. The giant was already well-pounded meat. He no longer had the shape of a person. It was hideous, and it was wretched.
"...Kh... hk..."
But the giant was not dead. Lee Han had chosen not to kill him, so that when the man woke he might be taught what it meant for death to be the kinder option. That was the second misfortune of the giant—of the thug who was, by now, a slab of meat.
"...Tsk. Just got my clothes dirty."
Lee Han brushed at the blood-spattered cloth, openly displeased, as if laying hands on a thug who was not worth touching had only fouled his mood.
"I-Instructor..."
Levi Fault looked wretchedly up at the master who had appeared from nowhere and pounded the giant flat. Five days. Only five days since she had seen him, and she could not understand why the sight was this welcome, this full of longing. A rush of feeling she had no words for moved through her, and just as she was about to offer some excuse—
"Runaway ninja—no. Disciple. We'll have our interview later."
"...Pardon?"
"I'm 'a little' worked up right now."
"..."
He looked it. In all the time since she had met him, she had never seen her master this agitated. No—this angry. She did not even dare to speak. And then he said it.
"This thug bastard's with the guild, right?"
"...Wh-why do you ask?"
"So he is. Guild. Let's go."
"W-wait, just a moment—!"
She tried, pitifully, to catch hold of her instructor. She was only dragged. He did not stop. Levi's face crumpled toward tears.
...Ah. No. This is bad...!
She was fucked. One of the foul little curses she had picked up in Lee Han's company. Only now, in this moment, did Levi come to understand why such words existed.
...She was not glad of the lesson.