A Toast Among Knights
Before Nicoletta came to Antico.
The knights who had been stationed at the outposts returned in groups, taking the chance to rest. Among them were Guido and Lucas, who had been exploring Angolo alongside the prince.
The streets of the capital, stretching out before them on the way to the training grounds, soothed minds and bodies worn thin by the front lines.
Lucas murmured,
"It's pure white."
Guido nodded.
Just as Lucas said, the capital too was blanketed in white snow, painting a beautiful scene. The ground reflected the light so brightly the whole world seemed to glow. People in thick furs crunched across it, going about their business.
And it wasn't only them. Families walked the capital streets laughing together. There were people already drunk in the early afternoon. Women dressed far too lightly for the winter weather. Couples whispering shy words of love.
From atop the rolling cart, Guido propped his chin in his hand and let out a quiet snort of laughter.
Looking at people who still hadn't lost their smiles, he could feel that what they did wasn't meaningless.
He never once thought, Why do only we have to suffer like this? For a knight, it was only natural. He had chosen this path himself, and he regretted nothing.
While he stared blankly at the people from the cart, it arrived at the knight barracks of the royal capital, Sperita.
"Halt."
With a jolt, the monster pulling them stopped, and the cart came to rest.
A trainee knight on guard at the barracks entrance blocked the cart with a wooden barricade. He walked over at a measured pace and approached the driver.
The driver reported the number of passengers. The trainee then peered into the cart himself. Guido pulled his knight's badge from his coat and held it up — the token that marked him as a full knight.
"…Confirmed!"
The trainee immediately opened the barricade.
Guido cracked the window and looked at him.
"Good work."
"Thank you, sir!"
The carriage rolled straight into the barracks.
Crack! Thwack!
Even on a day this cold, the knight barracks were never quiet. Those who aspired to knighthood crossed wooden swords in training.
Bare hands gripping wooden blades felt ready to freeze solid, and the sweat that poured off them only made the body colder. Enduring the winter chill was part of the training itself.
Lucas watched the juniors and touched the corner of his mouth. Looking at them brought old memories back.
"Judging by their faces, they all look like they're having fun."
Guido asked with a look of pure disbelief.
"You serious about that?"
"I'm joking. Who the hell would call winter training fun? Still, there were some good times now and then."
Lucas's mouth curved up as he spun the story.
"Back then, if you got thirsty, you just ate snow right there on the spot. Sometimes we even sprinkled jam on it."
"Ah, right. That part was pretty fun."
"Clearing snow, too — well, we all did it together."
"We still have to do that."
Guido drifted into the old memories alongside Lucas.
If he actually went back to those days, he doubted they'd feel all that pleasant — but thinking of them now, they were happy ones.
Soon the cart stopped, and the driver opened the door.
"Let's get off."
Guido hopped lightly down from the cart. White breath spilled from his mouth as he set foot in the capital. It was cold, but the weather here in Sperita felt comparatively warmer than Angolo.
"Been a while. About three months, roughly?"
"Yeah."
Guido stretched hard, working out the stiffness from sitting in the cart so long.
They served the royal family, but the knights' lodgings were here at the barracks. Guido ambled toward the dormitory, and Lucas followed behind him.
The lodgings were far more carefully built than the makeshift quarters in Angolo. The important thing was the complete absence of Angolo's signature sand and dust.
Guido drew a deep breath and blew it out.
"Air's good."
"No murky feeling to it."
Just then, someone was wandering outside the dormitory in casual clothes. It was Evan, who had been deployed to Lacrima.
"…Hey, is that Evan?"
Lucas craned his neck, spotted him, and spoke.
"Looks like he came down from Lacrima for a short break too."
"Lacrima, huh."
From what they'd heard, it was a highland so cold the snow never melted. You had to watch for frostbite and altitude sickness both — one of the most dangerous of the five lands.
Of course, the wasteland had its own hardships. Every plant was withered and twisted, so if it wasn't monster meat or corn, there was nothing. They depended on supply lines for most of what they needed.
Even so, compared to Lacrima, the wasteland was far better off.
Guido clicked his tongue.
"Must've had a rough time of it."
Lucas let out a low hum.
"We've all been scattered across different regions. Been a while since we saw each other — want to get together and talk?"
"Talk about what…? Sit around eating snacks and laughing ha-ha-ho-ho?"
Guido looked disgusted. Lucas shook his head, then shaped his hand as if holding a beer mug in midair and waved it near his mouth.
"I mean drinks. It's winter. Alcohol warms you up."
The knight dormitories kept the men's and women's quarters completely separate. Between them stood a hall where they could eat.
Lucas and Guido planned to gather the knights that very night of their return and drink in the hall. Word of mouth somehow ballooned the gathering until it became something like a knights' reunion.
Everyone talked about their own stories, catching up and letting loose.
Among them were Evan and Aido.
Lucas raised his beer mug and asked,
"I called everyone together to reconnect after so long, and looking at the turnout, it seems like you're all doing all right. That's a relief."
"…You just wanted to drink, didn't you?"
"Yep. Even if nobody else showed, I would've drunk with you, Guido."
Lucas laughed. Guido shook his head in resignation.
Aido watched the foam bubbling up on his beer and said,
"Still, it's good to see everyone alive like this."
Aido's words made Guido think of Minoro.
"Right… what happened to Minoro was a real shame."
"Yeah. Minoro was a fine knight."
Aido's expression grew a little heavy. Beside him, Evan turned his cup in his hands and chewed on his words.
Minoro had fought Neveumano to the end to protect the soldiers. He had even reported their position and completed his duty with honor.
Lucas read the mood, rose at once, and lifted his glass.
"Then — to our easygoing knight, Minoro!"
"To Minoro…"
Everyone drank.
And one by one, more names came out.
"It wasn't only Minoro. Valerio, too…"
"To Valerio!"
"Can't forget Raymond either."
"To Raymond!"
The liquor went down.
Before long the atmosphere grew heated, and the knights poured out all the stories they hadn't been able to tell each other. Tales of lost soldiers. Tales of nearly dying to monsters. Conversation flowed freely in every direction.
Been a while.
Guido sipped his drink and surveyed the knights. Someone was starting to get into it and dance. Someone else had collapsed face-down on the table, snoring with sleepy eyes.
Guido glanced at Evan.
The guy who used to train with pure spite after losing to Alice now looked far more settled than Guido had expected.
Guido called to him.
"Hey, Evan."
"Yeah, what?"
"Your face looks a lot better than before."
Evan gave a small laugh.
"My thinking changed a bit. I ran into that hunter again."
Guido raised his voice without meaning to.
"Oh, right. The hunter was in Lacrima. So you saw her yourself."
"Yeah. She was incredible. Really."
Evan recalled Alice bringing down Neveumano. Guido caught the admiration in Evan's eyes and chuckled.
"You got to see something good. Right — I said some harsh things back then. Something about how a knight who loses to a mere hunter isn't a real knight."
"…Yeah. You did."
Evan remembered the feelings of that time and smiled bitterly.
Guido had the talent for it, and he was a rising star of the knight order — so of course he'd talk that way.
Guido spoke with easy shamelessness.
"That was a slip of the tongue. Against that hunter, even I wouldn't stand a chance."
Lucas beside him asked in surprise,
"Guido, I didn't know you could say things like that."
"What the hell do you take me for?"
"A guy who lives off how great he thinks he is. A sword-obsessed bastard."
"…"
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Guido's face went red and he clicked his tongue. He was about to snap back, then decided they were just drunk and let it go.
He settled his temper quickly and let out a sigh.
"I saw that hunter up close this time, and even I felt hollow. I mean — is a human really supposed to be able to swat a worm that huge clean sideways…? Doing that with a greatsword — wasn't that all just theory? The way she uses essences is completely different too. Made me realize I'd been a frog in a well."
Lucas sipped his beer and listened carefully.
He's changed a lot. Who would have thought the always-superior Guido would tuck his tail like this.
Talking this much about someone else was rare for him, too.
Just then, Nicoletta slipped over to their table and said,
"I'd like to hear more of that story."
"Ugh — Nicoletta…"
Guido flinched and leaned back.
Nicoletta was one of the knight order's rising stars alongside Guido.
She tucked her messy red hair behind her ear and said,
"I never imagined you'd lose to anyone who wasn't me."
"I put it that way, but I didn't lose. I just…"
Lucas cut him off.
"You lost. You couldn't even take down one monster properly, got grabbed by the scruff, and got thrown on the ground…"
"You want to die?"
Guido seized Lucas by the collar. Lucas laughed and raised his hands.
"Spare me. I have a family to support."
"…"
Guido let go and sighed. Lucas straightened his rumpled clothes, shrugged at Nicoletta, and said,
"That hunter — we didn't think she was ordinary from the start either. But out in the wasteland, the evidence kept piling up. Future Master Hunter, was it? She'd taken down a ridiculous number of monsters. Impressive. And this time she basically soloed Neveumano, right?"
Evan nodded.
"Yeah. I saw it with my own eyes, and there's no way I could copy it. The way she dodges by a hair's breadth is just…"
Nicoletta listened to both of them and nodded.
"…I see. What's her name?"
"Alice. Alice. White hair, pink eyes, and…"
Guido started to speak, then blinked. He tried to find a way to describe her, but the words simply wouldn't come out right.
Lucas took over cleanly instead.
"She was beautiful."
Aido and Evan both nodded. Lucas continued.
"But monsters don't seem to think so. They bolt in pure terror. She shoots an arrow into an eye, then digs the eyeball out and chews it?"
"Whoa. She's a real monster."
Aido recoiled. Guido shook his head beside him.
"Lucas, did you come from some other timeline? Sounds like you and I saw completely different people."
"I'm joking. But her killing intent really was that intense."
"Fair enough."
Nicoletta pictured Alice in her mind.
How strong did a woman have to be for them to talk about her like that? In Nicoletta's head, she conjured a white-haired, shaggy-haired beauty of a warrior with muscles bulging all over her body. Sticking the word pretty into the middle of all those modifiers somehow threw the whole image off balance. Did she have monster-shaped muscles on her back, maybe?
"I have to meet her myself."
Aido asked,
"Why?"
Guido exploded at him.
"Hey, Aido!"
"H-huh? What?"
"Why would you ask that?!"
"Ah, right. I forgot."
But it was already too late.
A little tipsy, Nicoletta caught Aido's question immediately and answered.
"I've always been pretty interested in hunters. I should start from when I was little. When I was seven, I was walking down the road and I saw a hunter…"
Here we go again.
Guido hung his head and plugged his ears.
Is Alice going to survive this?
Guido offered a silent prayer for her.
And now — back in Antico, with Nicoletta at Alice's side.
Nicoletta's mouth showed no sign of stopping.
"I thought about it. Becoming a knight and protecting people directly, and becoming a hunter and standing against external threats. Both are truly wonderful callings. So I agonized and agonized between them, and in the end I arrived at knighthood as my destination…"
"Th-that's enough. I get it now…"
This is hard to welcome.
Alice had been so pleased to have a new recruit that she'd even bought her a meal — and now that mouth was going to be the death of her.
"So what is it you actually want to see?"
"I want to see a hunt. I think it'll help."
Simple enough.
For all the grand talk, what she wanted was modest. Alice let out a breath of relief.