The Dream (2)

Being a maid was busy work.

"A master who only ever stays home is a bad master."

Hiren had heard that from her senior more times than she could count.

"Listen well, Hiren. You are a very lucky girl."

In her senior's words, Grand Duke Heir Elaine Serjilla was a good master. The people of the Inner Castle called him a recluse, but the maids who served the manor knew the opposite to be true.

The Grand Duke Heir took his morning meal at the manor. Then he went out, returning only late at night to sleep. Which meant the hours when the maids had to be sharpest were every morning — when the Grand Duke Heir coughed, and before he set out.

"Hiren, don't make a mistake."

Her senior gave the same warning each day, and each day Hiren thought she was making far too much of it. The Grand Duke Heir was a magnanimous man. Whether he was kind, she couldn't say — but he had never once called out a maid for a blunder.

"He lives in a different world, that's why."

So her senior had said, the time the Grand Duke Heir let one of Hiren's mistakes pass. The man was busy watching the enemies beyond the Great Wall and the people within it; he had no attention to spare for a mere plate. The Grand Duke Heir, then, was a noble who deserved respect. Even Hiren, who knew little of the world, respected him.

Which was why it felt so strange when, today of all days, he was off.

"What is this?"

Hiren stared blankly at the thing Elaine was pointing at. It was the tea she had prepared to be ready the moment he woke.

"It's snow-greeting tea."

A brew of dried snow-greeting flowers. The flower was called the North's weed, so hardy it pushed straight up through the snow. It was a flower every Northerner had tasted at least once, and Elaine himself enjoyed snow-greeting tea every morning.

"Was the color always this dark?"

Elaine glowered at the tea he drank every day. Then his gaze swung to Hiren — and his eyes were somehow sharp.

"You — Hiren, was it? Have you always avoided meeting my eyes?"

"Y-yes? Yes!"

Without understanding a word of it, Hiren bobbed her head in a deep bow. She had rarely met his eyes even in ordinary times, but right now it felt as though she must not, more than ever.

In the end, Elaine never touched the snow-greeting tea.

"Why does this taste so delicious today? Who prepared this meal?"

Today's Grand Duke Heir looked dangerously on edge. The cook who set the breakfast table every morning came out and dipped his head, just as Hiren had.

"Laurent. Have you always worked this hard?"

Laurent, mid-haul with an armful of things, bowed lower still.

"The windows are remarkably clean. Almost as if magic had been worked on them. How did you clean them?"

Hiren's senior, who had spent the morning wiping those very windows, went white. Take the words alone and it was praise, but the look that came with them was nothing short of murderous. From a man who was never like this, it was all the more terrifying.

"This is maddening."

Elaine muttered. Hiren felt madder still.

Awkward as it was to say of himself, Elaine was well loved. The people believed without a shred of doubt that he would be the next Grand Duke. The soldiers admired him; the knights counted it an honor to follow him. It was proof that Elaine, as Serjilla's heir, was walking the proper road.

There had been times it weighed on him, but never once had he felt it a garment that did not fit. Elaine had the will to answer everything that was given to him. Talent granted for that very purpose — so he believed, without doubt. Give him trust and he would return it; give him love and he would shelter you; follow him and he would hand you victory.

Was that trust, that love, that loyalty real?

He could have sworn it was. Right up until yesterday.

"Doubt everything."

Alcohol and tobacco, once tasted, kept calling to him. Of course, Elaine was confident he could give up either at any time. He indulged anyway — they could do his body no harm, and they washed away the burdens and stress that sometimes piled up.

"Well? Has what never seemed amiss until now started to look suspicious?"

Doubt, was it?

This is genuinely maddening.

But this — this he could not quit. Whoever he looked at, suspicion followed. The very people who had been precious to him only yesterday all looked like magicians now.

Absurd, surely? He had never once suspected the keeper of the tavern he visited whenever boredom struck of being a magician. It had never occurred to him that such a tunnel might exist beneath Serjilla.

And yet the food Ellen had so enjoyed all this while had been magic, and beneath this land ran a tunnel that led to the Boundary.

He must not deny that he had been deceived by magic. It was a mistake the Grand Duke Heir of Serjilla could never allow himself — and the doubt learned from that mistake, he must never let go.

The Order was impressive in its own right.

How did they live like that without going mad? Seeing the world through their eyes, Elaine realized anew just how insane the Order was: through that lens, there was no human being who was not a magician.

And the magicians are more impressive still.

The magicians of the continent, undetected to this day, seemed greater than the Order itself. How did a person survive inside that kind of suspicion?

Harad, who had gone undiscovered until the age of twenty, was impressive too. The Iagar domain had kept a church of the Sun and a church of the Moon both. Family influence must have played its part — but even so, Harad had deceived the eyes of both.

And yet they said he was frail.

The intelligence bureau had once advised against expecting anything of Harad Iagar: a man so faint of heart that after killing a servant, he lived in dread of his magic being exposed and rarely left his room.

Frail, was he? Where, exactly?

He had also heard the man might not even be able to use his magic properly — and the bastard wielded it beautifully. Magic was not all. He had nerve, too. What other creature alive would dare speak to the heir of Serjilla the way this one did?

Sharp-eyed, as well.

The tavern keeper's recognizing him as a magician might have owed to the exceptional origin called the Sun — but spotting the tunnel was Harad's own quick eye.

So the claim that he can recognize magicians was true as well. A man has no reason to tell a lie that will be found out within the day.

Ability, nerve — and brains on top of it all.

Poor Iagar, truly cursed with ill fortune.

Had Harad not been a magician, the future of House Iagar might have been bright. A respectable Count, ruling his domain in prosperity.

Perhaps the intelligence bureau's discipline really has slipped.

Incompetent? In what way? One could write the man off for being a magician — but that was the stuff of private prejudice, not assessment. Information was a thing that must never carry the warmth of anyone's hand...

"Grand Duke Heir."

A stray sound threaded into the steady rhythm of the wind. Elaine stopped his swinging sword and turned. A young man stood there — young only in looks. He was one of the mere five Sword Masters in all of Serjilla.

"Your thoughts are straying."

Moresz Palaz. Ten years ago he had laid down the commander's seat of the First Knight Order and retired — and had since appointed himself Elaine's swordsmanship ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠master.

"Ah. My apologies. I can't seem to focus today."

"You never could."

"And yet all you ever give me is warnings."

"That is all I am able to give."

It was not flattery; it was the truth. Stray thoughts peeked through here and there, but Elaine's sword had no flaw worth naming.

"Then teach me something."

"There is nothing left to teach."

That, too, was the truth. Moresz had nothing left to give Elaine. Once there had been a great deal — and Elaine's talent had stripped it away in the blink of an eye. His talent was greed incarnate.

"Then what's left is how to become a Sword Master."

"Have I not told you any number of times? It is not something that can be taught. When the time comes, real combat will awaken it in you on its own."

It was not a realm that effort alone could reach. Talent alone could not carry him there either. He had to tread countless lines of death. Elaine's talent would surely shorten the number of those lines — but tread them he must.

"Then send me to them."

"The hunt is soon, no?"

"You know as well as I do. That is a hunt, not a line of death."

"Real combat is still too dangerous for the Grand Duke Heir."

"You tell me I need the lines of death, yet you never actually send me to them."

Elaine smiled, thin and bitter.

"Forget it. Mere grumbling."

None of it was Moresz's fault. A genius of the age — and yet Elaine had never once seen true combat. A few low-grade magical beasts at most; he had never so much as laid eyes on a magician of the Outlands. It was the order of Grand Duke Aratus. Nothing could be less like the North... and yet he did not wish Elaine to face real combat.

"...His Grace will have his reasons."

"I doubt they run deep."

The knights did not know the reason. Elaine did. Because she was not a son.

It was not contempt for a daughter. The Grand Duke had acknowledged Elaine as his heir. He had acknowledged, even, that her talent surpassed his own. ...He simply cherished her too dearly to risk her.

Hadn't it been her father, after all, who first suggested the deviation? Until then, Elaine had never once thought to lean on anything outside herself, nor to live as a woman.

...It was a relief, in its way.

The pleasure of the deviation, of course, was beyond anything she had imagined. That sense of liberation was addictive — so much so that, once in a while, the thought crept in: what if she simply threw it all away and lived like this?

"What has you so deep in thought?"

Moresz changed the subject.

"I was thinking that you might be a magician."

At that, Moresz sheathed his blade in aura and pointed a finger at the glow. A magician cannot hold aura.

"No. Of course not. But I've begun to wonder whether that 'of course' is really so certain. Not about you — about the rest. Those who carry no aura."

Moresz's brows stirred. To a man of his experience, the idea was not an unfamiliar one.

"Have you met someone from the Order, by chance?"

"No. Just something I heard. That the Order doubts everything."

"A way of thinking that brings nothing but exhaustion. Best not to dwell on it."

Moresz pronounced it like a verdict. He had survived long years as a knight — a superhuman who had once put down a 5th-Circle magician. So it was safe to take him at his word.

Ordinarily, Elaine would have.

"And what if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠someone you waved off so carelessly turned out to be a magician after all?"

"Grand Duke Heir, the Order's suspicion is pathological precisely because their influence is not absolute."

The Order of the Sun and Moon enjoyed a prosperity without precedent, for a saintess had appeared. But even so, their influence had never spread across the whole of the continent. The continent was far too vast for that.

"But Grand Duke Heir — Serjilla is the absolute power of the North. Even the Outlands cannot cross that Great Wall."

Moresz pointed to the Great Wall standing far off. It rose high enough to brush the clouds. So long as Serjilla stood, the Outlands would never pass it.

"Even if one who slipped through is a magician, even if such magicians were heaped mountain-high, the foundation of this land is Serjilla."

If that were so...

"The one who pays for arrogance won't be Serjilla. It will be the North."

Why did Harad's words keep surfacing?

"All I know is that the intelligence bureau has grown complacent."

And if the complacency were real... then it would hardly stop at the intelligence bureau.

Elaine looked at Moresz. Then he lifted his head toward the Grand Duke's manor, and his drifting gaze stopped on a single point — the smallest of the annexes.

"I've just remembered some business."

"The lesson is not yet over."

"The assignment you set me today is already done."

Elaine swung his sword, almost carelessly. The aura that burst from the blade tore into ten strands.

"..."

Moresz was struck speechless. He had asked for five. Elaine had done double.

"...Remarkable. Even His Grace, at the Grand Duke Heir's age, could only manage four..."

Moresz, composing himself belatedly, offered the praise. But there was no one left to hear it. Far off, Elaine was already running for somewhere.

It was the dead of night, yet Elaine came smelling of sweat.

Ran off in the middle of Sir Moresz's sword training, I see.

Still, the sweat itself deserved credit.

Less lazy at this age, it seems. Or has he simply not yet had a taste of his own talent?

By the time Harad had grown close to the Elaine of his past life, the man no longer broke a sweat even in private training. Running off from practice, in other words, was merely his warm-up.

How insufferable he had been.

"Harad!"

"I hear you."

Harad answered, indifferent — but his eyes gleamed brighter than they ever had. Ellen could afford a slip of the tongue; Elaine could not. And yet Elaine had overturned the way he addressed him in the space of a single day.

"Did you have a dream, by chance?"

Elaine's eyes went round. At that flicker of expression, Harad winced inwardly.

...Damn.

If it was a mistake, it was a mistake. For the question to sound natural, he should have asked it yesterday as well — but the one Harad had questioned yesterday was not Elaine. It was Ellen.

"A dream, if you like. I did dream."

Fortunately, Elaine did not seem to have thought that far.

So this is what he's like when he stops using his head altogether.

Relieved, Harad asked.

"What was the dream?"

"You were in it. Trembling at the mere sight of me."

Harad's eyes lit up. The first meeting of his past life. Elaine had dreamed that memory.

Back then, he had simply wanted to die. But he had lacked the courage to end it himself — and the nerve, for that matter, to let someone else do it for him.

"You pissed yourself, too."

"I did not piss myself."

"And how would you know that?"

"Because I am not the sort of man who would."

"True. You didn't, as it happens."

Harad barely kept the laugh off his face.

So it wasn't a physical trigger after all.

He had a rough sense now of what kind of stimulus was needed.

"So why have you come?"

"..."

Judging by his face alone, he seemed to have a great deal to say — but Elaine could not open his mouth. Because the one standing here was Elaine, not Ellen. Unlike Ellen, everything Elaine had ever shared with Harad amounted to a few exchanged words.

"...I remembered that you insulted Serjilla yesterday."

"The insult came from the Grand Duke Heir first."

"For that, I apologize. I was discourteous. Magician or not, those were words that should never have left my mouth. You are Serjilla's hostage, after all."

Elaine owned it without excuse. This was why Harad, even in his past life when they were sworn enemies, had never quite managed to hate Elaine. Just when the man seemed reckless enough to deserve killing, he would turn around and admit his own faults without a fuss.

"Is that why you came?"

"No... Yes. That's it."

Elaine denied it, then confirmed it.

"I accept."

"Much obliged."

"Then leave, if you would."

"What?"

"I'm busy."

The Harad saying this looked not the least bit busy. Indeed, right up until Elaine opened the door, he had been lying in bed.

"You don't look busy."

"A magician can train lying down."

Harad promptly raised a flame in front of his own chest. The flow of mana was remarkably smooth — apparently the claim was no lie.

"You're not leaving?"

Elaine bit his lip. Snubbed to his face, he still did not leave. No — he could not. Memories of the previous night kept flaring in his mind like fire. It had left him with a case of paranoia, but that time had meant something. The tunnel. Even setting aside the existence of that shame, it had.

It had been valuable.

Worth enough to be called a lesson. Where else in the world could one hear a magician's knowledge and his way of seeing things?

...Not that Serjilla has any need of it.

Know your enemy before you kill him — was that how it went? Before overwhelming power, everything else was rendered powerless. That was the kind of name Serjilla was.

And yet Elaine felt a thirst — the kind that talent alone could not fill. He had always craved exactly that.

"...Do you drink, by any chance?"

"As well as the next man."

"Then let's go drinking tonight."

"I meant to. But I have no money. Hostage, you see."

"I'll cover it."

Elaine pulled every coin he had from his pocket. Two gold and five silver landed in Harad's palm.

"This is too much."

"Think of it as compensation. I blundered yesterday."

"I blundered as well. We could call it even."

"It's fine — just keep it. And get out. Where are you headed?"

"Will you be following me?"

"As if. I'm only asking out of courtesy."

"To the Footprint of the Snow Leopard."

The Footprint of the Snow Leopard was the tavern across from the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Flowerbed's Flesh.

"I see. Enjoy yourself."

The Footprint of the Snow Leopard. Stepping inside the tavern, he found a woman sitting alone at the bar.

"What a coincidence, hmm?"

It was Ellen.

Knights really are fast. I left first, and all.

Harad answered without letting it show.

"So it is."

"Got any money today?"

"None."

"What?"

"Pour me a drink, then. On your coin, of course."

"..."

Ellen's delicate brow creased. The sight wrung a laugh out of him unbidden.

So regression comes with little pleasures like this, too.

It did not feel bad at all.