A Future Too Cruel to Accept
“Haah.”
It was only a small inn in a town near the demon lands, but the place was better appointed than I’d expected.
Especially when it came to soundproofing.
Once Carbin left, silence settled over the room.
It was so quiet it felt as if not only the room next door, but the entire floor, had been abandoned.
Feeling that stillness, I closed my eyes and tried to calm myself.
It had been quite some time since I’d opened my eyes in this vampire body, and though I hadn’t slept a single hour since then, I didn’t feel physically tired at all.
Only…
This is insane.
Now that Carbin was gone—the one who always had a knack for interrupting my thoughts at the worst possible moment—my mind drifted back to the scene I’d seen earlier.
The near future Banua had shown me after receiving my blood and becoming my subordinate.
The fragmentary vision I’d seen with Banua had been something hard to believe.
Silvia looking at me with a face full of terror.
Her silvery platinum hair had been exactly as I remembered it.
But the expression on her face was one I had never seen before.
The eyes that trembled with fear and confusion were looking at none other than me.
Even that, by itself, would have been bearable.
No matter what happened, it meant Silvia was still alive before I stood in front of her.
But what followed after that was not something I could dismiss with a simple thought like, “Fine, I don’t believe it.”
In the future Banua had shown me, the “I” in that vision reached a hand toward Silvia without hesitation.
It was not the gesture of someone trying to embrace a living Silvia.
It was to seize her—more precisely, to take her blood.
And so that merciless “my hand” slowly extended forward and pierced straight through Silvia’s abdomen.
Without the slightest trace of hesitation.
Grip.
Unconsciously, I clenched the white sword resting beside the bed.
I forced myself not to picture the slick warmth of blood and flesh coating my right hand, not to imagine the sensation of my hand driving through Silvia’s stomach.
Silvia, impaled by my own hand, collapsed forward as if falling into me.
And then I—
“Damn it.”
As I looked at Silvia bleeding from the stomach, “I” in that vision was smiling.
Smiling with those red eyes gleaming in a way that made my skin crawl.
At first I couldn’t believe it, but Banua had not lied to me.
Banua, now bound to me, was serving me with utter sincerity.
Which meant this really was my near future.
A future in which I killed Silvia with my own hands, the very woman I wanted to protect even if it meant going beyond death itself.
That will never happen.
According to Banua, the fragmented future seen through sorcery could not be changed.
Still, it wasn’t as though there was absolutely no possibility.
As far as Banua knew, there had been exactly one person in history who had changed a future seen through the serpent’s sorcery.
That alone was enough.
If someone had surpassed even death, then what couldn’t I do?
Bang—!
At the deafening explosion that shook the entire building, my gaze snapped toward the sound.
It was perfect timing.
It was exactly the kind of noise I needed to drag me out of that foul mood.
…Carbin?
At the sound coming from upstairs, I rose to my feet with the sword gripped as though it were part of my body.
Now that I thought about it, this inn wasn’t well soundproofed because it had excellent facilities.
It was because there truly wasn’t anyone on this entire floor.
And the noise I’d just heard from above was almost certainly made by Carbin, who had left the room a little while ago.
Considering there didn’t seem to be any other guests in the inn besides us and the unwelcome visitors on the fifth floor…
Ordinarily I would have left the work to Carbin and rested, but in this mood there was no way I could sit still and relax.
It would be better to finish things quickly, even if it was bothersome, and then hear Carbin out afterward.
About how to suppress impulses, for instance.
Creak—
I opened the door and slowly moved toward the stairs.
*
“W-what the hell is this guy!”
“How dare a human act so high and mighty.”
Gail stared in bewilderment, glancing back and forth between Esby, who had been sent flying in one blow, and the brown-haired boy.
He hadn’t expected the boy to be this strong—not when he wasn’t even the white-haired swordsman.
The boy had blundered cheerfully into their trap without a trace of caution.
They’d planned to use him as a hostage and work things out easily from there, but the situation had taken a completely different turn from what Gail had imagined.
The boy, who had marched in through the door with a look of calm confidence, had somehow avoided Esby’s ambush with ridiculous ease.
It had been Esby’s signature sneak attack from behind—an assault so nasty that even seasoned adventurers couldn’t dodge it cleanly.
And then the boy had done more than just evade Esby’s follow-up sword strike; he’d counterattacked.
Thud—
He drove a fist straight into Esby’s stomach and knocked him unconscious on the spot.
Gail’s instincts kicked in, and he snatched up his axe and leveled it at the boy.
It was far too large for use indoors, but this was no time to worry about that.
Bang—!
Gail swung hard and slammed the axe into the floor.
It was a fast, powerful strike, but the axe never reached the boy.
The boy dodged the attack, and just as he was about to rush Gail with an ecstatic grin on his face—
“Gah!”
Crackle—
There was a sharp, buzzing sound like electricity surging through the air, and then the startled boy collapsed with all four limbs bound.
“I told you this would happen.”
The voice that followed was female.
It was the voice of Lisa, the innkeeper, the one who had entrusted the job to the fallen boy.
At the last possible second, the net Lisa had thrown over him was a monster-capture net.
More specifically, one used to capture top-grade monsters.
“Hah, hahh… This bastard, seriously.”
Gail let out a relieved breath at Lisa’s timely appearance, then glared at Carbin, who lay tangled in the net.
He’d almost been had for good.
“I told you not to let your guard down just because they came out of the demon lands… Anyway, you know I saved your asses, right? You’re adding the net to the bill this time, so pay up proper, got it?”
“…”
Though Gail disliked what Lisa had said, he couldn’t exactly argue, so he nodded.
If Lisa hadn’t stepped in, he would probably be lying next to Esby by now.
Then, as if looking for something to vent his frustration on, he turned his gaze to the boy sprawled on the floor.
“You ratlike little—!”
“Enough.”
Just as Gail’s foot was about to crush the boy’s back, a low voice cut into his ear like a blade.
It wasn’t only Gail who heard it.
Lisa, who had been standing in front of the boy with a smug look, jerked instinctively and slowly looked over her shoulder.
Standing at the doorway was the white-haired knight, a white sword in his hand.
My body… won’t move?
Gail wanted to charge at him on the spot, but his body wouldn’t obey him.
At the knight’s single word—“Enough”—it felt as though the blood in his entire body had frozen solid and locked him in place.
“Carbin.”
“I… I’m sorry.”
The boy lying bound in the net apologized in a crawling, miserable voice.
“No. Are you all right?”
“…Yes.”
Only after the white-haired knight’s presence eased a little did Gail’s body begin to return to normal.
At the same time, he understood something instinctively.
This was not someone he could handle.
And Lisa, quick as ever, seemed to realize it too; now that her body could move again, she was already preparing to slip away unnoticed.
For a fleeting moment, the room was thick with tension.
Swish—
“Huh—!”
Without warning, the white-haired swordsman whipped out his white blade, and Gail shouted in alarm.
The white-haired man’s sword had been swung at the boy called Carbin.
Thud-thud-thud…
“H-how did he—?!”
This time, it was Lisa who cried out in shock.
The white-haired knight’s sword had cut only the net binding Carbin.
The top-grade monster-capture net.
That was a net that couldn’t even be scratched unless the cutting force was perfectly refined.
And yet there was no visible trace of sword energy anywhere on the blade in the white-haired swordsman’s hand.
“A cheap trick.”
A chill ran down Gail and Lisa’s spines at the same time.
Both of them could feel it, deep in their bones.
They had chosen the wrong opponent. Far, far too wrong.
*
Not bad.
I swung the white sword made from Penrix’s fangs a few more times through the air.
I’d felt it the moment I took hold of it, but it was good enough to be called a masterpiece.
There were many branches of swordsmanship, but broadly speaking, they were divided into three currents.
Rapid-sword style, which valued speed and continuous strikes.
Force-sword style, which prized explosive destructive power and the strength of the blade.
And exquisite-sword style, which moved unpredictably and targeted only an enemy’s flaws.
The swordsmanship of the Bernice Empire followed the path of rapid-sword style.
If used properly, it was the most threatening of all—capable of ending a fight before the enemy even had time to react.
And I had been the commander of the Bernice Empire’s knight order, which followed that very tradition.
The true inheritor and completion of Bernice Empire swordsmanship.
From the first through the ninth forms of the Bernice Knight Order’s sword arts, there was nowhere my hand had not touched.
So it made sense.
“You mean room 307?”
That the two people in front of me were this frightened.
“That’s right.”
At my question, Gail and Lisa looked at each other, eyes meeting as if silently exchanging some information.
Apparently they both knew something.
Sitting on a sofa too luxurious and plush to belong in an inn of this small city, I looked down at them in silence.
I had only done that, and yet both of them blurted out their words at once.
“That room isn’t usually sold to guests!”
“It’s reserved for a regular who comes by now and then!”
“Hmm.”
“You’d be much more comfortable on the fifth floor! I swear it’s better than the room where the lord of Ronier sleeps!” Lisa, the innkeeper, hurriedly added when she heard my sigh.
The swindlers who had tried to cheat us were subdued surprisingly easily.
There had been no need even to swing a sword or use my fists.
Once I freed Carbin from the net, the two of them dropped to their knees on the spot and begged me, quite literally, to spare them.
I didn’t particularly want to let them off, if only for Carbin’s pride, but unexpectedly Carbin said it was fine.
Not fine, just embarrassing, probably.
“I’m interested in that guest. Who is he?”
“Th-that…”
At my question, Lisa trailed off awkwardly.
She had been lying flat on the floor as though she’d die if I told her to, and now she found it difficult to give up information on a single guest.
It was easy to infer that this person was no ordinary man.
“If it’s difficult to say…”
“N-no! I’ll tell you!”
“…”
I had been about to say she didn’t have to if it was troublesome, but the burly, muscular Gail jumped in with a yelp.
“He’s a dangerous man. I mean, not as dangerous as our, uh… knight here, but he’s still very strong. Rumor has it he’s got some kind of special ability too. He never says anything about himself and pays each month on the condition that you give him a room and mind your own business.”
“I see.”
That was, in fact, reassuring.
If he was a broker secretly moving monsters into the human world, then he ought to be that thorough.
“I came here to meet him.”
“Ah, I see. Then I’ll give him a heads-up that a guest has arrived! He always comes in at dawn. As soon as he shows up, I’ll let you know right away.”
Lisa said, bowing repeatedly.
I was about to say there was no need, since the meeting time was already set, but stopped myself.
If I could glean even the smallest bit of information from Lisa’s reaction after meeting him, it would be worthwhile.
“Good. And one more thing.”
“Y-yes! Just say the word!”
“I need a sheath I can carry this sword in.”
“Ah, right away!”
As I lifted the sword slightly to show it, Gail and Lisa bowed even lower, their foreheads nearly touching the floor.
I hadn’t intended to threaten them at all.
“Then I’ll leave it to you.”
“Yes! Please rest comfortably!”
With their military-stiff voices, Gail and Lisa carried the unconscious Esby and fled the room as if running for their lives.
When the three of them were gone, the spacious fifth-floor room held only two people now.
Me and Carbin.
“You learned something useful.”
“…I’m sorry.”
Carbin hadn’t said a single word during my conversation with Gail and Lisa, but at last he spoke.
“No. If anything, this was a good opportunity. I can promise you that you won’t be caught off guard by a sneak attack like this again. You’ll remember to watch your blind spots, and even the slightest sense of wrongness will make you think twice.”
The most effective education was experience.
That had been my belief long before I became a knight commander.
To truly understand and learn something, you had to experience it.
Even if, as today, it was a painful experience.
Carbin had been hit hard this time, so in the future he would never let his guard down in a similar situation again.
That was enough.
It wasn’t as if he had lost his life or been seriously injured. If anything, he’d gotten off cheap.
“I’m sorry, Lord.”
“I’m not your lord.”
“Ah.”
“Call me Evan.”
I could feel Carbin’s head dropping low behind me.
I didn’t need to look to know what kind of expression he was making.