The Divorce of Count and Countess Hogus (2)

He had no intention of butting in.

Laurent's only aim was the Holy Grail, and he had no time to waste on another household's troubles. Yet the problem of travel funds, and the Chivalry trait inside him, rose up to bar the feet that meant to walk on past. The trait in particular had begun to thrash like a mosquito starved for blood.

The Chivalry trait allowed nothing of the small-minded citizen. The moment a stage was set on which strength and honor might be proven, it demanded that he become a valiant knight.

Just then, from a single step off to the side, a low mutter reached him.

"Truly impressive, I say. Back in my neighborhood the heads would already be off, and yet here they are, still only flicking their tongues."

The voice was very low, but Laurent did not miss it. The Chivalry trait had gone so far as to remake an ordinary office worker into a superhuman. Constraining his words and deeds, and sensing where the Holy Grail lay, were not the whole of what it could do.

"Humans really are different, I say."

At the words that followed, he turned his head. What met his eyes was a gray ball of fur: a large cat that walked on two legs, used two hands, and could speak the human tongue. The owner of the muttering was one of the Gang.

The Gang traveler did not stint on admiration. To those barbaric eyes, a war of words was elegant, refined high culture.

"They curse before they fight, curse to start, and then do nothing but curse? This is beauty inside vulgarity, peace hidden behind menace.... Humans are truly astonishing, I say."

"The face is a cat's, yet the mouth runs as long as a yapping dog's. A truly lamentable state of affairs."

"Who are you, I ask?"

"I see. So you wish to know me."

Laurent squared his shoulders. It was time to introduce himself to a stranger.

A shabby cloak wrapped his body. An old-model Lightsaber hung at his waist. A faded pendant that proved him a knight rested at his throat. The outside was threadbare, but the fact that Laurent was a knight went nowhere. A knight had to stand proud no matter how he looked.

Leading figures of the 10-Year War. Lightsaber devotees mad for the cut. Masters of devouring warships in melee. That was a knight. Since the coming of the Armor Frame—those colossal bipedal engines of war—and the new tactics built around them, the knights had fallen into decline, yet the mark they had left on history was shock and awe itself.

"You can't mean—!"

"Indeed. I am Laurent."

"And what is that, I ask?"

"......"

For a moment—a very brief moment—silence fell. But Laurent was not a man to despair over so little.

"Ha! Ha! Ha! I am Laurent! A knight who guards the weak and honors ladies, yet passes judgment first upon the mannerless scum and the hopelessly incorrigible! A hero who cast his studies aside long ago, a glory who ascended from the corner of his room, and a Legend of Legends besides!"

"A madman, I say."

The Gang traveler's eyes filled with ninety-eight percent indifference and two percent pity. Even so, Laurent did not yield. He merely pressed on, steadfast, in the imparting of instruction.

"You do not believe me."

"If someone tells you out of nowhere to believe them, not believing is the normal thing, I say."

"I understand. You who know me."

"Mrow?"

"Doubt has taken a seat in your heart. You have heard of my exploits at a remove, yet never witnessed them yourself, and so this is only natural. But I shall forgive you. Evil I cannot forgive. Ignorance, I can."

"He really is a madman, I say."

"Ha! Ha! Ha!"

While the Gang traveler, beset by a rising headache, cried out to the gods, the knight—who had sunk into a world of his own making, called disaster down, and at last become the disaster—leisurely squared his shoulders.

By now the priest's address had ended and the call for duelists was open. Laurent entered his name through his device, then looked to the Gang traveler.

"Why are you looking, I ask?"

"Fear not. Even the brush of sleeves is fate, and so you and I have shared a friendship."

"...Even the brush of sleeves is fate."

At words that seemed to hold something, the Gang traveler's manner changed. He produced his device at once and let his interest show.

"More, I beg you. After 'even the brush of sleeves is fate,' what comes next, I ask?"

"A friend with a taste for letters, I see."

When his newly made friend hungered for knowledge, Laurent resolved to meet the expectation.

"Thus spoke my master: You look upon your elders and still know not the weight of an earthen pot, and therefore you shall read the Children's Book of Heartfelt Admonitions from cover to cover."

"And then, I ask?"

"And so the disciple questioned him in return."

"What did he say, I ask?"

"Gramps, hop on the carrying frame."

"And what is that, I ask?"

"Your studies are lacking."

Those characteristic cat-eyes went sullen and narrow. With no explanation ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠offered, the air was one of looking on humans as less than human, and Laurent might well have shown him the technique of taking a warship with a Lightsaber. But the fellow did not seem entirely hopeless, and he appeared to have a fair sense of manners, so no blood was shed.

Laurent only laughed it off and waited for the duel. He took an ignorant people's ignorance as a matter of course, and he wanted the victory to come with everything he had.

How long passed that way? The priest spread both arms and urged them to enter.

Laurent's face went hard in an instant, as if some awkward matter had just occurred. The crowd around him, by contrast, began to heat with excitement.

"Waaaaah! An Armor Frame battle!"

"Hooray! Something to enjoy!"

The plaza grew loud. Die-hard fans wild for Armor Frame battles, antisocial personalities who loved violence, and hedonists mad on dopamine began to rampage over the festival to come.

And then—

Laurent...

"I don't have an Armor Frame."

"Are you a beggar, I ask?"

"Enough!"

A civil servant's wages had been a pittance.

Parted from the Gang traveler, Laurent turned down a back alley.

Beneath the high-rises lay a place dark, damp, and filthy, where violence and mockery ran rampant. No place for a proud knight—yet a grave mission had led him here.

A footfall, and he stopped. He stood before an office.

"Receive this knight!!"

"Gah! Who are you?"

"Receive this knight!"

"......"

The middle-aged man had nothing to say. A self-proclaimed knight had launched straight into foolishness, and even if words had existed, they would not have come. With a soft slide and a clack, the door shut. A hatch barely the size of a face closed, coldly, and that was that.

"To slight a knight—a truly lamentable state of affairs."

Laurent condemned reality and turned his back. A broker who could not recognize a knight was a man with whom he, likewise, had no business.

Only after he had walked a good long while did he meet another.

"Receive this knight!"

"A knight? What's your business?"

"Present me a serviceable Armor Frame!"

"You got the money?"

"I have none!"

"Get lost!"

Slighted once again. The goal ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was drifting ever farther off.

"A pity. Among so many brokers, not one who recognizes a knight."

Laurent wandered the alleys, picking his way along lanes cluttered with trash and junk. The road toward the prize money ran straight through the middle of hardship and adversity.

Then his steps stopped. He could not have said why, only that the place felt right. In truth it was only that the surroundings were tidy, but that hardly mattered. What he needed, right now, was someone who would lend him an Armor Frame.

He stepped into the cleanest office. Unlike the others, the door there was wide, and the place did not look as though it picked and chose its customers.

"Receive this knight!"

"......"

He declared it with pride, but no answer came back. Neither, however, did he hear a voice turning him away. The broker only looked at Laurent with a gaze full of sympathy and pity.

"If you're unwell, I can refer you to a hospital."

"I am not ill! Do not make light of a knight!"

"You do seem ill, though..."

"Enough!!"

At that single bark the broker pressed a hand to his brow. He had lent out Armor Frames long enough to have seen every sort of peculiar human being, and even he found a man afflicted with knight-sickness no easy case.

"Ho ho ho. Seems it's my turn to step in."

With an easy, genial laugh, someone appeared: an old man walking out from the inner office.

"Father! Don't come out!"

The old man shoved aside the broker who tried to stop him. His hair was white as could be, but his eyes held a strength no lesser than a young man's.

"So a junior has come."

"And you are?"

Laurent was struck dumb. To think he would lay eyes on a knight in this peaceful colony—and a knight who looked as though he amounted to something, no less.

"So you were my senior. This junior offers his greetings."

"Enough of that. I'm nothing but an old man the times have left behind."

The old man—no, the old knight—gazed into the distance. Exploits and regrets of days gone by flickered through his mind. But all his eyes actually held was a grime-stained ceiling.

"A fine view."

The stained ceiling became a fine view. Yes. A better sight than an unfamiliar ceiling.

"Son. Lend it to him."

"Father! But...!"

"Enough! A knight knows a knight!"

The old knight rebuked his son sternly. To the son who, though born a knight's son, had failed to become a knight himself, he gave the order to aid the knight who had turned up out of nowhere.

"...Understood."

The broker hung his head. The old knight's stubbornness could not be beaten.

"My thanks, Senior."

"Do not lose. Not under any circumstances."

"Yes!"

The old knight went back inside. He shuffled away like a man who had burned everything he owned.

In the meantime Laurent drew up the contract. If one meant to borrow an Armor Frame, it was a process one absolutely had to pass through.

"Then please deposit the sum."

"How much."

"About this much?"

The broker lifted his device. The figure that rose on the screen was enough to drop a jaw.

"......"

"What's the matter?"

Laurent hesitated a moment.

"Win it, then pay."

"Hm?"

"I shall win the money, and then repay."

This time it was the broker who hesitated. Win it, then pay seemed not to sit well with him. Even so, he could not defy the old knight's order. Perhaps it was regret at having failed to take up his father's trade. In the end he agreed to lend the Armor Frame on credit.

"Repair costs will be included, you know."

"There will be no need for that."

"And why is that?"

"Because I am strong."

Laurent said it with perfect confidence and stepped out of the office. At the same moment a great voice began to ring out behind him.

"Father! You skipped your medicine again, didn't you?!"

"You brat! What kind of outrageous talk is that! I am a knight!"

"Aigo, Father! Is a knight a pile of dog crap?! You read a couple of knight novels and that makes you a knight?!"

The old man was, in fact, a sick man.

"An unfamiliar ceiling."

He had scorned unfamiliar ceilings so thoroughly, and yet here he was, looking at one again. Laurent did not care for that fact.

"Morning, is it."

A nameless inn in the back alleys. The unfamiliar ceiling was the inn's.

He had managed, barely, to borrow an Armor Frame, but Laurent's assets had not grown by so much as a coin. For a man in his position, a grand hotel out on the main street was a luxury.

He shot upright and began his calisthenics, a daily routine he had not skipped even once since becoming a knight.

"One, two, three, four!"

Precise posture. Precise motion. Laurent was the very model of a knight at his training.

"Mental victory! Mental victory! Mental victory!"

The cadence was booming beyond belief. An Imperial Knight was a breed that stood proud anywhere.

And then—

"Damn it! What psycho bastard is yelling first thing in the morning!"

The voice traveled through the wall. The guest in the next room, woken by Laurent, was pouring out complaints. Curses alone did not cool his rage; he threw himself against the wall besides, thud after thud.

"......"

Laurent was irritated. The Chivalry trait was already testing his patience, and the man next door was carrying on in much the same spirit.

With a crash he burst through his own door and planted himself before the next room. That door was locked, but a knight's strength solved the problem. Iron crumpled, the lock gave, and into Laurent's eyes came the sight of a naked man and woman lying side by side.

"Aaaah!"

"Wh-what the—!"

"A woman in your arms, I see. Was last night a heated one?"

Sparks jumped in Laurent's eyes.

I'll kill him!

The Chivalry trait did not permit romantic fooling around. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠He had possessed a game character and gained a face handsome in the proper manner of a knight, yet because of the trait he had never managed a meaningful bond with any woman.

I will kill him. Without fail!

Of course, he could not actually kill a man over a thing like this. That, too, lay outside what the Chivalry trait allowed.

"Hear me, wretch! You have insulted a knight!"

What he chose was the next-best course: punishment for the crime of insulting ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠a knight. The man had called an honorable knight a psycho, so reasons to chastise him overflowed. This much, at least, the trait did not forbid.

"You have insulted a knight, and so you shall pay the price!"

"The fuck?! What are you even saying!"

"Words are useless!"

Laurent flung the man onto the floor. The woman screamed and tried to save him, but there was no stopping Laurent once he had entered dead-serious mode.

"Ghk! What in the world is this...?!"

The man's legs were spread wide. Both ankles were gripped fast in Laurent's hands, and his groin was crushed beneath a combat boot.

"Have at you!"

"Gyaaaaaah!!"

Laurent's leg began a repetitive motion. Like a piston on a steam engine, it trampled that groin without mercy.

"Justice is served!"

The Laurent who stepped out of the room wore a thoroughly refreshed face.

Some time later, he stood before a large building. In a district where three- and four-story structures were the rule, it was the only one to rise past ten floors.

"At last I shall behold it. My Armor Frame."

The building was a private hangar.