Even a Fight Between the Rich Can Be Stopped
One single sentence.
That one careless remark sent every gaze in the hall crashing down on me.
Someone spilled the wine still at their lips. Someone wore an expression of sheer disbelief. And someone else, eyes long and narrow until now, went round with shock.
If these were people who knew nothing, they wouldn't have reacted like this. It was only a curse, after all—and from the mouth of a child, at that.
"Ah... khem... hem... My, the wine is rather strong today..."
"Y-yes, quite. I believe I should rest a while myself."
"Oh my, oh my—now that you mention it, Lady Jenny, didn't you say you had someone to introduce to me?"
But they did not leave. They didn't want to.
Once, they had thought it might be worthwhile to build ties with that boy. Not anymore.
'Madness... even if that boy did chase him out, he's still his father... is the Duke out of his mind?'
'...Far too impatient to bring over to our side, it seems.'
'If we court that boy now, we'll earn the Duke's hatred. There's no choice but to aim for what comes next...'
People wanting nothing to do with him had only multiplied. And yet moments ago, these same men had been burning with desire—so why the sudden retreat?
Was it not obvious? They all knew exactly whom that boy's words had been aimed at—a curse spat from the mouth of a boy barely grown.
"...Say that again."
The man looked ready to grip his scabbard then and there. Duke Reinhardt—one of the Empire's handful of dukes, called the Guardian of the North. His expression had warped, minutely.
The face that always held its perfect blankness had cracked—faintly, but unmistakably.
'This is bad. I should slip away now, before something breaks out...'
'Surely... there isn't about to be a swordfight here?'
"Say it again, Jenison."
Ignoring the surrounding nobles who were already bracing for the fallout, he took one heavy step forward. Precisely, in the boy's direction.
"...Living outside the family so long, have your manners grown common as well?"
"...."
"Or is it that you believe you're beyond such things now?"
Footstep by dragging footstep he advanced, his hand drifting closer and closer to his scabbard, his stride utterly without hesitation.
"I don't know how strong you've become."
"...."
"It seems you've gained some confidence in your abilities."
In the end he never drew his blade—yet a sword rested in his hand all the same. A longsword of mana, gleaming blue.
It was smaller than the one he'd formed when he'd moved to strike Melissa, but no less threatening for it. The Duke's mana was of a different quality from other men's entirely.
"If you return to the house, we'll have to assign you an etiquette tutor."
"...."
"Whatever else, to use such vulgar words to your own father—"
Then it happened. The boy's expression changed.
Until that moment he had listened to everything the Duke said in silence—the face of a son who might have been carved in his father's image, blank from beginning to end. Now, a crease formed between his brows.
As though he were thoroughly, deeply irritated.
"...Bastard son of a bitch."
"...."
"Ah."
For some reason, it felt like déjà vu.
***
Ah. I'm done for.
My mouth ran off again, all on its own. But what could I do? I simply couldn't hold it back. Not from the moment that man put the word 'father' into my mouth.
"...I don't think my ears deceive me."
How can you speak to me so freely, so shamelessly?
I never expected guilt from you. You were always that kind of man—the kind who could have cut off my own arm if it served the honor of that damned house.
I hadn't expected remorse either. A man without guilt doesn't lament.
"Say it once more, clearly, with your own mouth."
And yet—just a little, I had hoped. I had hoped.
Does not even the smallest discomfort exist in you? Do you not feel even a flicker of regret? So this is what you are: a man who stands before the son he discarded, who never once offered a proper apology, and speaks of living together as family again.
"...I said you were a bastard son of a bitch."
"Heugh...!"
"H-he's... he's insane!"
The moment that thought finished forming, my mouth was moving on its own, spilling everything straight out to that machine of a man.
The nobles around us shrieked and fled elsewhere; I ignored them. Their horrified stares I met with the same blanket indifference. Every scrap of my attention was fixed on the Duke.
"...You've grown bold. To curse at me with your wits fully about you."
His blade-cold eyes turned on me, and the faintest thread of blue mana leaked from his hand. As if he might strike me down at any moment.
"As you say, Duke, living outside the house seems to have coarsened my tongue."
I answered that with a smile alone—carrying the will to end this conversation, and the message that everything I'd become was his doing. Besides, no expression works better on a sneering tone than a smile.
"...I suppose I'll have to bring you back into the family. Quickly."
Look at that. The Duke's face, crumpled just a fraction—proof my smile was working. Though whether he caught what it meant, I couldn't say.
"The sooner your manners are corrected, the better. For the world's sake, if nothing else."
"Why should that concern you, Duke? I am not of House Reinhardt."
"...."
"And I never will be. Forever."
Wiping the smile clean away, I told him the truth—like a declaration, like a verdict on something that would never, in any lifetime, come to pass.
Just as you cast me aside, I do not want you.
The instant my words ended, a faint killing intent bled out of the Duke. Faint, truly—like the malice of a mosquito whining in the dead of night. But from a man of the Duke's caliber, even that was another matter entirely.
"...Khem. Hem."
"F-forgive me—if it's no imposition, may I step away for a moment?"
One elderly noble coughed furiously, unable to hide his trembling hands. A young daughter clutched her arms as if her whole body had crawled with chills and hurried away. Countless people faced that thin, thin killing intent—and I was among them.
The feeling of every hair on my body standing on end. I'd known it a hundred times over, and it was never once welcome.
At the same moment, I drew my dagger—matched to his mana.
He glanced at the dagger, arched a single brow in derision, and funneled all of it—every drop of killing intent—onto me alone.
Guuuuoong─
My body was crushed beneath something formless, and in answer I steadied my blade. To shake off the thing pressing down on me.
"...You mean to try?"
"...."
"Fine. Let me correct your insolence—"
"What is the meaning of this behavior!!"
To say it again: the killing intent that had billowed out struck not only me but everyone nearby—and among them was the Emperor.
He strode toward us with a furious roar, his face warped far worse than Duke Reinhardt's had been moments before.
"Reinhardt. Withdraw that killing intent at once. This is not a request. It is an order."
"...I—obey."
The moment the exchange ended, the pressure around us vanished—and vanished fast. The one who had emitted it looked faintly unsatisfied at having failed to crush me, but the rest were too busy exhaling in relief to notice.
"...Now explain yourself. Why you did such a thing."
"...."
"Every last word. Completely."
And still, the Emperor's fury had not cooled. His interrogation had only begun.
***
"Haaah..."
A sigh drifted down the Academy corridor. Neither long nor short—precisely moderate in size. But the worry packed inside it was anything but moderate.
"When is he coming... to the Academy."
The girl who murmured this still gleamed with beautiful water-colored hair and emerald eyes.
"Whoa... hey, who's that? She's gorgeous."
"Commoner or not... at that level, I could overlook it?"
"Her name? What was it... Lianna, was it?"
"Ooh... khehe, not a bad name either."
The whispering of boys drifted from behind her, but she didn't so much as blink. She'd heard it all countless times before—besides, she really was a commoner. What shocked her was that they were only just figuring it out now. A little embarrassing to say herself, but... she was something of a school celebrity.
Though for the wrong reasons, not the right ones.
'My, my... so you're that person? The one who scraped through mid-tier monster subjugation on a lucky team assignment!'
'Hah, pathetic... riding on someone else's power instead of her own.'
'Really, commoner roots never wash out, do they?'
Well—the cadets who used to say such things no longer exist anymore. Thanks to someone's help.
'Hey, you lot... what do you think you're doing?'
'Ah—Albert? That lucky bitch who passed the exam thanks to you, the nerve to—'
'...How ugly.'
'Kyaa—kyaaak! What is the meaning of this?!'
'You all were so distasteful my hand moved on its own. Restrain yourselves.'
The cadets who tormented her came from families of some standing, but none of them had anything they could lean against the Iris Ducal House. All they could manage was spitting third-rate villain lines and fleeing for their lives.
'Th-thank you, Lord Albert!'
'No need for the honorifics.'
'N-no, I couldn't possibly—'
'I merely helped a friend's friend. You needn't bow your head. Stand up straight.'
A friend's friend. It was all too easy to guess whom that meant.
Even now, she was thinking of him. The boy with the dead-eyed stare and black hair—blunt, perhaps, at times, but kind in his own moments.
'What could he be doing right now...? I have something I want to show him too...'
What was he doing? She genuinely wanted to know. He'd said he'd arrived in the Empire—so why wouldn't he come to the Academy? Where was he, doing what, to be like this?
"Do you intend to keep your mouth shut forever, Duke Reinhardt?!"
"...."
'...Am I allowed to go now?'
All without any idea what worries its subject was wrestling with at that very moment.