Chapter 88
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 88
My time at the Custoria mansion was drawing to a close.
Jupe had suffered a humiliating defeat at my hands. The gap in our skills had been laid bare for all to see. Worse still, he'd behaved bizarrely near the end of our spar. The blow to his reputation must have been devastating.
As I was packing my bags to head for the airfield, my uncle, Artur Custoria, paid me a visit.
"...I will throw my support behind you when the time comes. Though you are adopted, you are more of a Custoria than anyone else. You have the makings of an outstanding soldier. The head of the Custoria family must be strong—just like you."
Artur gripped my shoulder and nodded firmly. This was the foolish elder brother who had lost the position of Family Head to his younger brother, Heilas.
"And I have a daughter who is ten years older than you. You may be cousins, but biologically there's no blood relation between you, so..."
Artur whispered the words, glancing warily at our surroundings. So that was the real reason behind his support. It seemed he wanted to use me to place his own grandson in line for the position of Family Head.
"I understand your intentions, Uncle. But it's difficult for me to give you an answer right now, so perhaps another time..."
I dodged a definitive answer with the polite, evasive phrasing I'd practiced.
As I tried to excuse myself, Artur pressed on quickly, a mechanical smile plastered across his face.
"Of course. There's still plenty of time. I'll speak to my daughter soon. I can be of great help to you. You have what I lack, and I can give you what you don't have."
His persistence was top-tier. I gave a curt nod and brushed past him—a gesture that could easily have been read as rude.
But Artur was the desperate one here, not me. If things kept on like this, his descendants would gradually drift into a distant branch line. A few more generations, and they might not even count as nobles anymore.
"Luka, are you leaving?"
I ran into Giselle at the entrance of the mansion. She'd been waiting for me.
"My business here is done, so yes."
"I'll come visit you in the Lower District soon."
"I told you, that place isn't a playground," I said dryly.
Giselle shook her head. "I'm not going there to play, either. I'm going for business."
"Business?"
I paused, one foot already out the door, and looked back at her.
"You'll find out soon enough."
With that, Giselle nudged my back, ushering me out of the mansion.
Creak, thud.
The door shut before I even had the chance to turn around. Feeling oddly awkward for no reason I could name, I rubbed the back of my neck and walked toward the airfield.
Whirrrrr!
The engine of the aerial vehicle roared. Beneath it, Heilas—fully prepared to depart—was speaking with a few family members.
Spotting me, Heilas boarded the vehicle without a word. I followed him inside. The moment the door closed, we lifted off.
The Custoria mansion quickly shrank into the distance.
"Is the family's private mission suspended for now?" I asked, turning my gaze from the window to Heilas.
"It's on hold for the time being. Return to your original mission. The work you're supposed to be doing."
He meant the background investigation on Kinuan. But it was a meaningless mission.
...Because Kinuan was acting under the direct orders of the Imperial Family.
I know things Heilas doesn't.
It would be a lie to say I felt no guilt toward Heilas, the man who had given me so many opportunities.
But Heilas didn't always tell me everything, either.
Heilas and I had a mutually beneficial relationship. I'd proven my worth to him, and in return, he'd given me chances. Our bond wasn't built on goodwill alone. So there was no reason to feel guilty. I sorted through my thoughts, chewing over the true nature of our dynamic.
"...I have no interest in becoming the head of the Custoria family. Please name Jupe as your successor and hand it to him. Otherwise, his jealousy and anxiety will destroy him."
This was my way of doing right by them.
As a Watcher, I may eventually have to do things that harm the family.
I was not fit to lead the Custoria.
"Luka, naming a successor is my right—not your decision to make."
"I know. But... I believe you have me in mind as your successor, Captain. If that assumption is arrogant, feel free to laugh at my arrogance. I'm simply saying that even if you name me, I'll decline."
"I won't laugh. But this is unlike you. Even before you became Lucaus, Luka the Imperial Guard Cadet was a deeply ambitious young man."
"Leading a family doesn't suit my temperament. I realized as much while building my organization in the Lower District."
"In what way?"
Heilas asked calmly, his voice stripped of emotion.
My lips parted, but the words didn't come easily. I...
"...I'd rather not speak on it. It makes me sound weak. But if it's an order, I'll answer."
Heilas said nothing. He seemed to be turning my words over, yet he didn't press further.
"Hmm. If I were speaking as the Imperial Guard Captain, I would have demanded an answer. But right now, this is more of a family conversation. It's bad form to pry into the tangled feelings of an adolescent son."
"I'm well past adolescence, I believe," I said, a hint of irritation slipping into my voice.
"Haha—if you truly were, you would have laughed it off just now. You're still in a sensitive phase. And that's precisely why you can grow even more."
Heilas laughed heartily.
I enjoyed these brief moments in the aerial vehicle. They let me talk with Heilas about all sorts of things, just the two of us.
Sometimes, a thought like this would even cross my mind:
I could die for Heilas.
Not for the Empire—but for Heilas, the man himself. That was how magnificent a leader he was. He had a charismatic pull that made me willing to throw my life away for him.
Was this, too, part of Heilas's design?
Was our bond something natural, or had Heilas engineered it?
A bitter taste lingered on my tongue. I drank some water, though my throat wasn't particularly dry.
Before long, Akbaran spread out wide beneath the vehicle. Familiar sights came into view. I felt as though I could navigate the entire geography with my eyes closed.
Swoooosh.
The aerial vehicle touched down at the Imperial Guard airfield.
Clack!
As Heilas stepped out, the adjutant and Imperial Guardsmen waiting to receive him saluted with crisp discipline, paying him their utmost respect.
We had returned to the Imperial Guard. Heilas went back to being the Imperial Guard Captain... and I had to take up my duties again—as both a cadet and a Watcher.
* * *
Kinuan always drinks tea. His is an obscenely expensive luxury, brewed from the leaves of tea trees grown from seeds carried all the way from Earth.
I still don't understand the appeal of tea. Same goes for coffee.
"I brewed it a bit weaker this time. How does it taste?"
Kinuan waited for my reaction. I was currently in his office.
"Isn't it about time you stopped offering it to me? No matter how many times I drink it, I still don't get it."
I touched the tea to my tongue and frowned.
"Now, now, that's only because you don't know any better yet. Savor it. Appreciate its depth. Don't just use your tongue—engage your sense of smell as well."
I suppressed the urge to fling the scalding tea straight into Kinuan's face.
"...It tastes like you made it bitter on purpose, just to torment me."
I drained the teacup in a single gulp. Sipping it slowly was far more painful.
"I don't play games when it comes to tea. I take the tea ceremony quite seriously."
The hot tea warmed my esophagus and stomach with a sharp heat. Once my stomach settled, I posed a question.
"Lately I've fought a lot of Akies Combat Style practitioners, Ken Noma among them. I noticed they use a technique where they click their tongues."
"You mean echolocation."
"Yes. As I understand it, it's the ability to perceive one's surroundings through reflected sound. Seeing with the ears instead of the eyes. I thought it was a useful skill and tried to learn it, but it wasn't easy."
"I was the one who taught Ken Noma echolocation. And there's a reason I never bothered teaching it to you."
"Because it's too difficult?"
"For the same reason the Imperial Guardsmen don't learn the Akies Combat Style."
I answered at once. "Hard to acquire, low in utility."
Kinuan paused, perhaps calling up the finer details of echolocation.
"The easy way to learn echolocation is to surgically draw and bind the regions of the occipital and temporal lobes responsible for sight and hearing closer together. That's how it was with Ken Noma. As the adjacent sensory regions blend, a form of synesthesia—neither purely sight nor sound—takes shape. But easy as it is, it's equally dangerous. There's a risk of losing both sight and hearing."
Kinuan explained, tapping his temple with an index finger.
"And the hard way is step-by-step training?"
"If you master echolocation, the precision and resolution of your vision will degrade. Literally—your eyesight worsens. The brain resources that should go to visual processing have to be diverted to auditory processing. And the more accustomed you grow to processing sound, the slower your brain becomes at responding to sight."
I listened, then spoke up. "So there's no reason for someone like me—someone with a high-performance prosthetic eye—to learn it."
"Echolocation does have its advantages, true. But there's no reason for a man with a high-performance prosthetic eye to acquire it at the cost of ruining his vision. Your right eye can pierce even pitch-black darkness, without a single speck of light."
"But what if I still want to learn it?"
Kinuan chuckled at my persistence.
"I won't stop you from practicing. That drive for self-improvement is exactly why your superiors favor you. Just keep one more thing in mind. In the end, the core of it is visualizing auditory information while temporarily shutting out visual input. In other words—you can only use it with your eyes closed. You won't be able to process sight and echolocation at the same time with your eyes open."
"I'll keep that in mind."
His explanation finished, Kinuan set down his empty teacup. He crossed his legs and rested his clasped hands on one knee. For a fleeting instant, his pupils gleamed cold.
"A lot must have happened during your time away, Luka."
The moment of truth had come. I... had to tell him what had transpired within the Custoria family.
The Custoria had not committed treason against the Empire. But it was a fact that they'd handled certain matters while keeping the Empire in the dark.
Heilas entrusted me with the family's mission because he trusted me.
And that judgment had been Heilas's mistake.
From this moment on, I would report even the facts that hurt the Custoria family. The "depth of the Empire" was far too unfathomable to gamble on lies.
Perhaps Kinuan already knew the whole story and was asking anyway—just to test me.
Akies Domini. The Emperor's Watcher.
What a terrifying title.
A single omission in my report could see me "disposed of."
Kinuan liked me. That was undeniable. But he'd disposed of Rick Silva Nunez—a friend of decades—without a second thought. Someone like me, whom he'd known for a mere handful of years, wouldn't even earn a moment's hesitation.
...No need to tremble, Luka.
Remember the essence of your loyalty. The Custoria family, the position of an Imperial Guardsman—all of it is merely passing scenery.
It was the Empire that chose me. That recognized me.
"The Custoria family, and the Family Head, Heilas..."
Kinuan listened to my report without a single word. I poured out everything that had happened. It genuinely felt as though I were vomiting it all up.
The Empire watched the Custoria family's movements with its own eyes. And those eyes were mine.
"...That is all."
Kinuan rested his elbow on the armrest and propped his cheek against his hand—an arrogant posture. As the sun set, the light beyond the window vanished as if swept away.
Shadows fell across Kinuan's face as well. In that darkened visage, only the rims of his pupils glowed a vivid, cold blue.
Click.
Kinuan parted his lips, his front teeth clicking faintly, as though trembling. His breath escaped in a low sigh. Whether it was relief or lament, I couldn't tell.
"It seems you're ready to meet His Majesty."
I had likely just crossed the boundary between life and death.
Probably.