Chapter 84
Chapter: 84
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>Translator: penny
>Chapter: 84
>Chapter Title: Bruno Green (2)
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After his body recovered, Bruno Green ended up staying on at the Pearl Palace as a guest.
I half-expected him to shout something like, "I have no right to such treatment!" and bolt back to the slums, but that turned out to be needless worry.
He settled into one of the palace's rare guest rooms, naturally accepting the maids' service as he rested. His demeanor was so impeccably noble that no one would have guessed he was a man who had spent years cowering in the slums like a dead rat.
A lowborn man who had clawed his way up through sheer talent.
The ill-fated commoner knight captain who had lost everything in a single stroke of misfortune.
That was the image people had of him, but in reality, Bruno Green brimmed with composure in everything he did, and not a single fragment of tragedy could be found on his bright face.
And, in a ridiculous turn of events, the very first thing Bruno Green did upon arriving at the Pearl Palace was to meticulously groom his mustache.
"...That's one impressive mustache."
It was a stunned remark from Seongjin upon facing the captain's countenance at dinner that evening. The mustache was so uniquely striking that it commandeered his gaze.
His hair was still unkempt from not having been cut, but the mustache gleamed smoothly, maintaining a precise angle of 165 to 170 degrees in a graceful curve.
In response to Seongjin's praise, he put on a solemn expression and tugged his mustache sideways.
"It's the mindset of a warrior, Your Highness."
"Huh?"
"When heading into battle or facing a duel, I always sharpen my mustache to an edge and steel my inner sword."
"......?"
"Even now, I groomed it with the resolve of one entering combat. This second life granted to me by His Majesty and Your Highness—I can't show half-hearted determination. A mustache is the most accurate measure of a man's resolve, after all."
N-No way?
Reason screamed that it was all nonsense, but before he knew it, Seongjin found himself stroking his own smooth upper lip, where not even the hint of stubble had appeared.
And thus, someone strongly influenced by his mustache came into being. The prime example was Sir Karmen.
"Uh... it's to steel my resolve as a warrior..."
His attitude was still awkward, but Karmen, who had begun showing Seongjin proper respect, fiddled with his chin as he spoke.
Unfortunately, having grown it only a few days prior, it just looked dirty and unkempt, revealing nothing of any resolve. Still, Seongjin figured it was Karmen's way of showing respect for his master.
The problem was that the master himself wasn't even pretending to notice.
"Before you worry about mastering your inner sword, focus on getting your swordsmanship in order, you dimwitted disciple who got thrashed by a mere seven opponents. Don't go around bragging that you're an Imperial Knight."
"Captain!"
As Karmen burst out indignantly, Bruno snorted derisively.
"What? Did I say something wrong?"
"That time, I couldn't help it... No, but isn't your attitude way too different now? Just the other day, you were encouraging me, saying I had decent talent!"
"What? Did I ever say you had talent or anything like that? No way. Have you forgotten that I was Prince Logan's swordsmanship instructor?"
To the captain, who had once been called a genius, anyone short of Prince Logan's caliber all looked the same.
Frustrated, Karmen stomped his foot.
"You said it while we were sharing drinks! That one of the best things in your life was keeping on a disciple like me...!"
But the captain just rolled his eyes with a shady expression.
"Hmm. I do remember you occasionally bringing good booze."
"That's why, that time...!"
"But I don't remember sharing it with you. Why would I give good stuff to you?"
"Eek!"
Seongjin sighed as he watched the ridiculous exchange between the master and disciple.
Well, Karmen was hot-tempered as ever, hopping mad without a clue. But anyone could see the affection for his disciple gleaming in the eyes of the captain, who was feigning cold detachment to tease him.
Still, Seongjin knew the captain wasn't just messing with Karmen.
-There will be sporadic blanks in his memories. For now, that's the best we could do.
Those had been the Holy Emperor's first words after finishing the captain's treatment and removing the eyepatch.
Reversing a completely shattered brain was no easy task, for sure.
As proof, a few small salt crystal remnants lingered in the captain's mind like scars.
[I have my suspicions.]
After much deliberation, the Demon King explained.
[Salt crystals are organs that can normally form in the body. The issue is that they formed in the wrong place and in abnormal numbers.]
His theory went like this.
The salt crystals weren't so much traces of the plague beast's invasion as a natural human reaction to something emitted from the Rophrum eggs.
[That's why holy power doesn't work well on them, right? It's like getting a sunburn treated by a priest—your moles or freckles don't vanish along with it.]
It reminded him of Lady Claudia's recent ordeal. She had trained rigorously under the strong sun and suffered a mild burn. At Ninnias Hospital's urging, she received priestly healing, but her charming freckles remained intact.
In other words, the burn from intense sunlight was treatable with holy power, but the body's natural responses to it persisted.
'Then...'
That left only one way to cure the Gray Plague: fully reverting the body to before the salt crystals formed.
But before even considering whether time manipulation was feasible, the Demon King explained that fully rewinding one person's timeline would entangle an unimaginable web of causality.
[So he preserved as much of the healthy parts as possible intact, then forcibly pieced the body back together by rewinding only the sections damaged by salt crystals to earlier states. Since the crystals formed gradually, the rewound time would vary by area.]
That queasy feeling of the Holy Emperor dismantling the captain down to the cellular level hadn't been pure imagination.
[For the impossible bits, he twisted the very definition of holy power multiple times to pull off tricks. Even then, a massive backlash of causality shook this world. You probably felt it a little.]
He definitely had.
Seongjin recalled the strange gravitational pull converging on him and the captain at the time.
[And brains aren't something you tinker with lightly. A slight shift in neural junctions can erase memories entirely or cause disability. Restoring it with almost no damage—that should give you some idea how absurd your father is.]
'Whoa...'
Holy Emperor, what the hell did you do?
After pulling off something that massive, you're dumping the consequences on me? What's your game?
Oblivious to Seongjin's tangled thoughts, the squabble between the two continued.
"I've told you since the day you were knighted: becoming a knight is just the beginning. True training starts then—refine yourself further! So why haven't you improved at all since?"
"Ah, right! And that day, you said something to me too! That I'd become a proper Imperial Knight, and you had no regrets...!"
"Hmm. No memory of that."
"Ugh!"
Talk about selective, convenient recall.
After a few days of rest, Bruno began appearing at the Pearl Palace's training grounds.
"My aura is recovering."
The captain declared, his body already bulking up with muscle from a few days of good eating.
Even without him saying it, most would have guessed. His aura activation had noticeably improved over the past few days.
"Judging by the activity, you're nearing the 3rd layer."
"Yes, Sir Masaine. Should reach it soon."
"Whew, what incredible speed. Even feeling it myself, it's hard to believe."
Bruno smiled at Masaine's admiration.
"It's a path I've walked once before. It can't compare to building aura from scratch."
A Decaron Knight was one who had reached the 10th aura layer and glimpsed the pinnacle of cultivation.
Without profound insight, the 10th layer was unattainable, and beyond that, they no longer measured strength by layer count, no matter how many more they stacked.
Baltazar, hailed as the continent's greatest knight, had built aura to the 12th layer as a Decaron Knight. But that was merely because his sword suited wielding 12 layers; the ideal balanced aura state wasn't vastly different from the 10th.
The same went for lower layers. Bruno hadn't reached the 10th due to insufficient total aura quantity, but the insights he had gained remained etched in his experience.
As proof, if he willed it, he could still effortlessly achieve perfect aura concealment—the ideal state that Dasha had described.
"Plus, is it just me, or has my body's aura affinity improved compared to before? I can't explain it."
"Really? That's intriguing."
Ah, I think I know what that is.
Hadn't Seongjin felt the same after getting caught in that aura storm? It had to be connected to the Holy Emperor somehow.
'...The more I learn, the more insane he seems.'
Seongjin thought so, but engrossed in conversation, he missed the whispers of the resident knights glancing his way.
"...Hey, then what does that make Prince Mores?"
"Stacking aura faster than a Decaron Knight? As a total beginner?"
"What the hell is His Highness, really?"
Either way, it was good news. It meant the captain could fully return to his former glory with just a bit more time.
Delcross now had another Decaron Knight guaranteed.
"So, what are your plans now? Returning to the knights' order?"
Curious, Seongjin asked the captain.
He was staying in the palace under the guise of a guest for now, but that wouldn't last forever.
Conveniently, the 2nd Knights' Order captaincy was vacant. After Masaine stepped down, no suitable successor had been found, so the vice-captain and former captain were filling in.
Bruno Green was currently on [suspension].
No one brought up the old incident anymore, and his disciplinary record was gone. Having him resume as captain didn't seem so bad.
The question was Bruno Green's own will.
Did he want to reclaim his former glorious position, or escape the memories of his humiliating fall and start anew?
"If you wish to serve in the Imperial Guard again, I'll support you materially and morally to return as soon as possible."
But to Seongjin's cautious offer, the captain replied with a bright smile.
"I appreciate that deeply. But worry not, Your Highness. I have some ideas regarding my future posting."
"Oh?"
"Yes. Actually, I recently got an offer to work with a certain organization. Have you heard of [Arenza], Your Highness?"
For a moment, Seongjin doubted his ears.
"...Arenza?"
"Yes. It's an agency under His Majesty's direct command—not widely known to the public."
The explanation that followed was astonishing.
Arenza was a small elite organization formed at the start of the Holy Emperor's reign. It operated so secretly that only his innermost circle knew the details.
Had its annual budget not been steadily allocated under [Arenza], even its name—let alone its existence—might have remained unknown.
Contrary to Intelligence Bureau assumptions, it wasn't composed of priests. Instead, entry required a rare [ability].
Recently, Bruno had manifested such an ability, prompting cautious overtures from Arenza.
"An ability?"
"Yes. Arenza has two main types of agents: those who guard the capital from within using spirit powers, and those operating externally in cell structures. It turns out I gained a fitting ability for external work, so they invited me to join."
Bruno tugged his mustache, looking a bit sheepish.
From his explanation, Seongjin pieced together several facts.
The orb of light he'd encountered wasn't an angel or ghost, but a spirit user—human.
Even among spirit users, abilities varied. Some, like the early ones, were utterly unresponsive, while later ones were stronger and capable of communication.
And perhaps they had been watching Captain Bruno all along. Amid the forced removals of Gray Plague patients around the capital, delivering Seongjin to him at just the right moment couldn't have been coincidence.
That's when the Demon King shouted excitedly.
[Those were humans? How is that possible? They weren't even proper souls! Ask for more details, Seongjin!]
That was the plan anyway.
"So, what ability did you gain? Can you explain?"
"Hmm..."
At Seongjin's question, Bruno gazed into the air, pausing briefly.
"For example, yes. I can hear the voice of the person who just spoke to me, Your Highness. That must make you the [Red] that Arenza speaks of."