The Weight of Inferiority
This heavy, chilling inferiority—
"Th-the young master?"
"And behind him... is that the young miss?"
Shattering the window and making it outside was all well and good — but it also drew every single gaze of the servants tidying the garden straight onto us.
"Th-the young miss is outside?!"
"We have to stop them, or the Duke will—!"
"S-surround them, everyone!!"
The moment someone quick on the uptake barked the order, the servants nearby began to close in around us, slow and steady, each one gripping a weapon of sorts — a shovel, a weeding knife.
"Young master... I'm so sorry..."
"P-please, leave the young miss behind, we beg you..."
"That's right!! Otherwise who knows what will become of us..."
They must have come running straight from their work, because soil still clung to the shovels, and the weeding knives — far from ever having tasted red blood — looked as though they'd been soaked in nothing but the sap of flowers and grass. Those were the weapons pointed at me. Held by people I knew, if only a little.
"Kern."
"...Yes, young master."
"And... Jenny, was it?"
"...."
I'd seen them both in the garden, a long time ago. Old Kern, back then as now, tending the grounds with that hearty laugh of his. And Jenny — the girl who'd once told me that flowers seemed to hold a charm almost too beautiful to bear, and who'd passed an afternoon trading stories with me about blossoms and plants. At some point she'd vanished from sight, and I'd been worried about her.
"So you've all been working here this whole time."
"...Yes, young master."
"...."
"Step aside. We haven't much time."
"We can't do that..."
Kern's great hands began to tremble — still wrapped around that enormous shovel.
"We were ordered not to let the young miss out..."
"And who gave that order, exactly?"
"...Haha, you know perfectly well... young master."
"Ah. Fair enough."
There was nothing to be disappointed over. I had my circumstances, and they had their lives to protect. However warmly they'd once treated me, steeling oneself to earn the Duke's hatred was never an easy thing.
"I understand."
"...."
"Only — we are short on time. Let's finish this quickly."
"...Forgive me, young master."
"You've nothing to apologize for."
If anything, I was the one who should apologize. No matter what they did, they would never be able to stop me from taking Aria out of this mansion.
"Y-young Lord Allen... look, there, the young miss!"
"I see her."
Meanwhile, through the very window Jenison had shattered, countless eyes were fixed on them, watching.
The cook who had prepared Aria's meals only that morning. The maid who carried them to her door, begging and begging her to eat just one more bite. Even the head butler, who oversaw every chore in the household. Nearly everyone with even the faintest tie to Aria had packed into that cramped room, all of them staring at the same spot.
At the sight of their young miss — haggard beyond words only that very morning — standing beside the young master who could no longer even be called a member of the family.
"How is the young master... even in here...?"
"No idea... nobody even saw him come in...?"
"You two over there. Watch your mouths."
"Y-young Lord Allen...!"
The maids had begun to whisper quietly among themselves. And Allen came toward them, slow and unhurried, stoking his mana until even a total layman could feel it simmering in the air.
"D-did we do something wro— KYAAH!!"
"Who are you calling 'young master'?"
"Y-young master, why are you— GHK...!"
His hand, wreathed in blue mana, clamped down brutally — on the hair of a maid who had been chattering away mere moments before.
Her piercing scream rang through the room, but he paid it no more mind than the weather and began dragging her across the floor. Toward the black-haired boy ringed by servants in the distance.
"Look properly. Where, exactly, is the master you're all supposed to be serving, hmm?"
"Y-young master...? What do you— KYAAAAH!!"
Having dragged her all the way to the window, Allen hauled her up by the hair. As if commanding those two eyes of hers to look, and look well.
"Wasn't I the only master in this family you all ought to serve?"
"Y-yes... a slip of the tongue!! I-I'm sorryyy... hic... sob..."
"...Get lost."
"Y-yes sir!!"
Clutching her hair — hanging in wild tangles by then — the maid bolted from the room. Stay any longer, and there was no telling what further violence he might visit upon her.
The instant she was gone, every gaze in the room swung to him — fear and bewilderment in equal measure.
Young Lord Allen... why would he suddenly act like this?
No matter how foul his mood was today... he was never the sort to do something like that... has he changed?
Given the Allen they knew, this was nothing like him. Young Lord Allen, who carried the word chivalry on his lips from morning to night — why would he suddenly behave this way? They had no way of knowing. The hearts of others are things you can yearn to read and never truly can.
All they could do was tell themselves he must be in a terrible mood, and let the moment slide past.
...Damn it all, why does it always have to be you?!
Not one of them had the faintest idea what he was thinking in that moment.
When we were boys, he was never someone I paid much mind. I was certain in my heart, after all — certain that I would be the one to succeed as heir.
Anyone who'd overheard might have called it arrogance, but to me, back then, it was simple conviction.
His mother, Lady Sariel, was a commoner. And he was forever slacking off from his sword training. Naturally, I assumed he could never surpass me — until I saw that sword dance, and everything changed.
That maddeningly beautiful swordplay, which lingers in my memory to this very day.
...Was it strength that I lacked?
Convinced that this couldn't go on, I threw myself into training like a man possessed, over and over. Only after my growth suddenly skyrocketed and confidence finally took root could I stop measuring myself against him. Wherever I looked, I could see that I was the better of us two.
Yes. I truly believed that. Right up until I watched his blade again just now.
"...Why"
Why is it, I wonder — that those blades, the ones I still cannot begin to imitate, look so achingly beautiful in your hands?
"G-grab him...!"
"If you can't manage it, secure the young miss at least!!"
"We've got them outnumbered anywa— UGH...!"
Servants or not, they were still ordinary people holding very real weapons. So what was that display, then? Did all of it look like a child's game to him?
He hadn't even drawn his sword. He wasn't using magic. He was simply striking vital points with the edge of his hand and dropping them where they stood.
...Ha. So we're not even a threat to him?
Could I have done the same? Kept someone safe from more than a few dozen servants? Armed servants, at that?
It wouldn't have been impossible. It would have been easy, even. However you looked at it, the gap between commoners and a knight was the difference between heaven and earth.
So let me put the question differently. Could I face down several dozen armed servants — no sword, no magic, my body alone — without conceding a single blow?
...Impossible. Not for me.
The moment that truth landed, my head went strangely, refreshingly clear. Because at last, I had a name for the feeling coiled inside my chest.
So this is inferiority.
This thing I had hidden away and left to fester in my heart for so long — only now had it crawled out into the open.
"...That can't be true."
I refused to accept it. Me — eldest son of a ducal house, hailed far and wide as a genius of the sword. Harboring an inferiority complex toward the boy who had walked out of that family on his own two feet. Truly, I refused to accept it.
"...Then I'll simply have to prove it."
"Y-yes? My lord, what do you mea—"
"That I am superior to that man."
With that, he kicked off the floor and hurled himself through the window. Glass burst—
He couldn't have cared less whether it shattered. The window had already broken once — there was nothing to stop it breaking twice.
I will win... I will...!!
Because at that moment, my head held room for one thought and one thought only. That I would beat him. No matter what.
"Young master, if you'd only spare a thought for our situation— UGH!"
"I'm sorry. Truly."
"...Doesn't it feel like we've become the bad guys here?"
With nearly every servant blocking our path laid out cold, the Saintess's voice drifted over — somehow sounding like a rebuke aimed squarely at me.
Not that my own conscience was entirely clean. Their livelihoods were on the line here too, in their own way. But what was I supposed to do? My sister simply mattered more to me than any of them.
"Aria comes first for me."
"...Siscon. Don't come near me."
"...No, that's not—"
Before I could answer the Saintess — her face twisted in genuine disgust — something shattered behind us with an almighty crash. The very sound of the window I'd broken moments ago...
"JENISOOOON!!!"
A bellow I'd heard somewhere before — and something whipped past my side. Something very, very sharp.
"...!"
KWA-KWA-KWAAANG—
An explosion tore through the air in an instant, dirt and dust billowing up in a thick haze — and out of that haze, something carved through the smoke once again.
A slash I'd dodged by the breadth of a hair. It sent ice flooding down my spine, and my sword was in my hand before I knew I'd drawn it.
"...So you finally drew your sword."
"...Allen? Big Brother?"
"Allen... brother dear?"
With that all-too-familiar voice, the acrid dust drifted apart — and there stood a single sword. His sword, one blade alone, leveled at me and no one else.