The Knight Holds an Interview (7)
…He had made one hell of a mess.
The moment he stepped outside, reality came down on him. A minute ago the blood had been in his head and he had simply smashed everything in reach; looking at the wreckage now, he had to admit he had gone too far. A building that must have covered well over three thousand square feet lay in ruins. No one was dead, but the men now guaranteed a long stay in bed would fill a truck. No—three trucks, easily.
If this got out…
This isn't ending with a docked wage or a written reprimand…
He had already told the maid to ask his sister to clean it up, though he doubted even she could settle a thing like this. No. With her power, an incident of this scale could be buried without much trouble.
She's got a proper hold on me now.
There had already been a collar around his neck. Now something worse might cinch it tighter still.
…This is going to drive me mad.
Lee Han put his situation into those few light words and pulled a miserable face, telling himself there had never been a fiasco to match this one.
And yet.
"M-Master…"
"Why are you here? I told you to hide somewhere safe."
"B-but…"
Strange. He didn't regret it in the slightest. What was it they called this?
Favoritism, was it?
A teacher had no business playing favorites with a single student, but Lee Han knew that sort of thing didn't obey him. She was a commendable kid. Worth the teaching, and as far as he knew…
No.
He corrected himself. She was simply a good child. Wanting to receive back as much good as you yourself had given was no fault, was it?
So.
"Let's go eat. I'm hungry."
The aftermath would be a headache, but his chest felt endlessly clear.
"……"
The girl stared blankly, mouth hanging open, at her master as he trudged out. The Guild Union building—twentieth largest on the streets of the Royal Capital's east—had been a breath from collapsing altogether, and she could hardly believe the one who had done it was her master.
Overwhelming. That was the word that came to her as she watched him knock flat, with ease, even fighters she herself stood no chance of beating. Levi swallowed dry.
"M-Master…"
"So now that you've withdrawn, you've settled it? Master, not Instructor?"
"N-no, that isn't what I—!?"
"I'm joking. Joking."
"…Ah."
"…My fault. I won't joke anymore, so stop making that face."
"Yes?"
"……"
"…Huh?"
A tear slid free. Only then did she realize tears had gathered in her eyes, and that they were falling now. Why?
"…I-I'm sorry…. I'm s-sorry…."
Levi, who didn't even know why she was crying, kept welling up and wiping at her eyes, apology after apology. He neither looked troubled nor scolded her.
"People do that when the tension breaks, or when relief hits. The scary ones are all dealt with, so you can rest easy now. …So could you not cry? I don't trust myself to comfort you…."
Only gentle encouragement, and a worried look. Moments ago he had been the man smashing the Guild Union to pieces; now he was fretting over her so badly she could hardly believe they were the same person. Levi looked up at him—at someone truly worried for her—and seized hold.
"Hnngh… hhk."
"……"
She buried herself in his arms and cried without a sound.
"…If you're going to cry, cry loud. Why so quiet?"
At his mutter, the girl's shoulders shook all the harder.
Yes. Now I understand.
Why the tears had come so suddenly. It wasn't shock at seeing the guild reduced to a wasteland. Sometimes you cried because you were relieved, and because you were glad—because someone had fought like this for a nobody like her, because she had a side that was unconditionally hers. At that, the girl could not hold the tears. Levi stayed in his arms for a long while, shoulders heaving.
For a long while….
Meanwhile, the players who had arrived late, meaning to take the stage…
"Seems we didn't need to come after all?"
"So it seems."
"Mmm. Kunta wanted to fight too."
"Life really is all timing."
"Likewise. And here I thought I might finally look impressive for once."
"…Haha."
"……"
They wore the awkward faces of actors who had failed even to land a walk-on part. Hesitate, and the chance was gone; you had to run if you meant to catch it. Even so, a smile of relief rested on the mouths of the seven students, glad above all else that their classmate was safe. It had not been meant to be only them. All eighty had planned to move, but even they had known that was too much, so only these seven had come as representatives—and in the end, they could have stayed where they were.
Still.
"So, Jack. What did you find?"
"I looked into it while the Instructor was tearing the place in half. Tristan is involved after all. This is going to get complicated."
"…Tristan…."
Some things you only learned by coming to the scene yourself. The man with the striking black eyes listened to what his subordinate had brought, and the complication sat plain on his face. Tristan. A name tangled with affection and hatred both. The man who led that house was, as a knight, unquestionably formidable—but of all things, that damned…
"If he'd only fix his womanizing, there'd be nothing left to complain about."
"…Do you have ties with Marquis Jenimia?"
The question came from the boy with the twin blades. He must have let on too clearly that he knew. He considered for a moment how to answer, then shook his head.
"I can't say there's no connection. Saying there is would be strange as well."
"…?"
An evasive answer was all he could offer. His present self had never shared that bond. That much was true.
"Is that some noble way of talking? Why make it so complicated?"
"Kunta think he must learn common speech again. Can't understand one word black-hair says."
The mercenary and the barbarian grumbled, and he had no way to explain himself, so he only gave a bitter smile. At the same time a fresh feeling rose in him: he had never imagined a day would come when he spoke this freely with the three of them.
Coming back through time truly is a great blessing.
To share friendship with people who had once been enemies—and to think they would be schoolmates.
…So this is why they said school ties and hometown ties were the best?
Remembering something a subordinate had said in the past—no, in the future—he turned his gaze on two people with whom he had formed bonds all over again.
"Um… would it be all right if we stepped out now?"
An extraordinary head of gray, suspicious beyond measure: someone he had never once met, neither in the present nor in the future.
"…I know. I know. I know I have to endure for now, too…!"
Teeth ground. A mad villainess he had been certain he would never grow close to—yet now she was only burning with jealousy, a naive blonde mage who suited her age all too well.
Truly.
I really did choose my master well.
Amid the bonds gained in a second life thick with blessing, it was Roen who felt gratitude toward his master, and Roen who turned a quiet gaze on the girl still far too young, held in that master's arms.
…So it was you. Your face and your name were different, so I didn't know. But it was you.
He understood only today. Not because of the guild, and not because of Tristan. He understood it from the back that wept in silence.
…A soundless crying. The one who might have been him, or her… The Saintess of the Battlefield had always cried like that when she was sorrowful. Even at the death of a close comrade she had only shaken, desolate, and never raised her voice, as if she had never learned how to cry out loud.
…It was a habit from childhood.
"Haa…."
Roen barely held back the tears that threatened to come. She had been the comrade he trusted most. Burns covered her whole body, so she always wore a mask. She always seemed cowed, and yet at the vanguard she had been braver and greater than anyone—a commander, and a warrior. After the Mercenary King died, she had gathered again the mercenary host on the verge of breaking apart and become the mercenaries' new leader, the Mercenary Queen. A terror to the nobles. A noble warrior who had always stood at the very front to save a corrupted kingdom.
……And yet a comrade-in-arms who, for all the glory she seized, had never once been happy, and had lived only a tragic life.
Guilt swallowed Roen.
I'm sorry. I couldn't be more ashamed, Jan. I should have recognized you before anyone, and I didn't recognize you at all…
He was a wretched man. She was a comrade who had saved his life again and again. He had his excuses. She had never once told him what kind of life she had lived. She had lived so hard that even her hair lost its color and turned entirely white. Only after three years of traveling together had she barely let him know her sex, and she had never given him her true name. Only the Saintess of the Battlefield.
No one had ever been curious about her life. Not even he, who had set his back against hers. But what use were any of those excuses now? In the end, he had not recognized her….
So this is why they say a person's life is nothing but one regret after another.
Roen reflected anew on how selfish he had been, and how little interest he had taken in anyone else. Even before he came back through time he had been good with a sword, and people had called him a fine hero…. In the end the people had never acknowledged him. It must have been because he did not know how to look after others, because he had lived for himself. Even if they thought him a hero, they would have known by instinct that life would grow harsh if he became king.
So he regretted it. What if he had been the one to die on the battlefield, and she—no, the others—had lived?
Would the road ahead have been brighter then?
…He didn't know. A failure like him had no business predicting such a thing. But even if he was a failure…!
I'll stake everything I have, so your life never becomes that again.
Roen swore it. Even if she did not know him, so long as he remembered, she was already no stranger. And so he resolved it: her life would not end in tragedy as it once had.
……Of course.
For now, I'll have to be satisfied with a supporting part.
He was not the lead of this stage. The lead was his master, over there—the man who only ever showed a side of himself that was unexpected, and formidable.
How will you untangle this knotted thread?
A variable, and a singularity. He had always produced results and actions that leapt past Roen's predictions and the future he knew, and he had given instruction in a Way Roen could not understand. The regressor let a keen light into his eyes, genuinely curious what choice the man would make this time.