Chapter 87
Chapter 87
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: The Imperials Could Use a Little Joke (1)
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The first to react were the generals at headquarters and along the front lines.
Seeing Yannick in a stance more suited to hunting than knight-against-knight combat, they leaped to their feet without thinking.
And in that instant, the lance was sucked straight into the black helmet.
BOOM!
The Archduke's upper body snapped back as if violently repelled.
The sheer brutality of the sight left the spectators too stunned to even cheer. They simply stared blankly at the Archduke, half-raised and slumped across his horse.
Clop clop.
Soon, both mounts came to a halt.
The Archduke hadn't so much as twitched.
-...!
-...!
Zikjail's attendants belatedly screamed and rushed toward the Archduke.
Just as they moved to pull their lord from the saddle...
A twitch.
The utterly motionless Archduke stirred.
Creak creak.
Like a broken doll, he raised his upper body and resumed his stance.
-...?
-...!
His attendants, who had thought him dead on the spot, now stomped their feet in a mix of relief and dread as he signaled to continue the match.
Whoosh.
Something poured from beneath the Archduke's helmet.
His black breastplate gleamed with unnatural sheen.
Drip. Drip.
Dark crimson liquid trickled down from the tips of his sabatons, fixed firmly in the stirrups.
-...?
One attendant cautiously shone a torch on it.
The dirt and sand beneath were stained pitch black.
-...!
The horrified attendant cried out something, but...
"Charge!"
The charge signal rang out.
The Archduke bolted forward as if he'd been waiting for it.
Except...
Clop clop.
His speed was agonizingly slow.
The black warhorse plodded along as if utterly unmotivated, barely reaching a trot.
Thud thud thud.
His opponent's mount had already reached the center of the arena.
Raising his lance high just like before, he looked ready to finish it this time.
-...!
Zikjail's attendants and the Shredder Knights stomped their feet in panic.
But with the knight already past the starting line, no one could intervene unless he himself signaled forfeit.
A wobble.
The Archduke's body suddenly tilted to one side.
Thud.
He toppled fully from the saddle.
The opposing knight, charging in with terrifying momentum, slowed to a stop.
Clop clop.
He halted before the fallen form, lance still held high, staring down silently.
Beyond the central barrier, his eyes still flickered blue.
"M-Match suspended! Zikjail knight dismounted!"
The herald urgently declared the halt.
Flicker.
Only then did the blue flame in the helmet wink out.
"Th-Thracia side! Victory to Lieutenant Yannick of Schrelgrad—Molniya!"
The herald's sharp proclamation of victory finally unleashed the spectators' delayed roar.
-Yannick! Yannick! Yannick!
-Bluecoats rule! Stalnoi Grom forever!
-Perun! Perun! Perun!
The victor lingered atop his horse, gazing down at the Archduke for a good while longer before wheeling away with a sharp turn.
-...!
As everyone else cheered wildly, only the Zikjail contingent remained limp and wailing over their motionless lord.
The banquet dragged on for some time after that.
"I hear the Black Knight is one of the Seven Great Knights of the continent."
"No doubt that spot belongs to him now."
"To think one of the Seven Great Knights has emerged from this backwater east... Hasn't it been ten years since that unnamed group disbanded?"
The nobles chattering about the match wore no trace of their former hostility toward the young commander.
The cheers that had erupted at the end still echoed in their ears like an illusion.
"Perun, eh..."
The god of war who commanded lightning and thunder.
An overly grandiose name for a mere commander.
Yet it felt strangely fitting.
The commander who had earned Lightning Castle through unbelievable feats of valor, and his cavalry known as the Iron Thunder.
Everything aligned perfectly with the name of the war god Perun.
The excited buzz refused to die down.
"Ahh, General Yannick...!"
"You'll be heading back to the front soon, won't you, General? When will we see you again?"
"If he'd just look my way, I'd do anything."
The young ladies, each in their own way.
"No wonder the Astorians folded so easily."
"With a man like that backed by the king's favor, Thracia's momentum won't falter anytime soon."
"Why doesn't our kingdom produce talents like him?"
The envoys, too, deep in thought.
No one mentioned the Zikjail folk.
No one imagined they'd hold a grudge over an accident mid-match and start trouble.
Even if they did, they were too far away to scheme anything.
And indeed, the Zikjail contingent never reappeared at the banquet.
I was summoned to the Glass Garden.
King Igor stood amid the now-familiar, almost comforting scenery.
But for some reason, he looked far from pleased.
Worried about the aftermath now, after the fact?
"I've always wondered. I thought it was just the urgent situation and vivid impression layering over my memory. How could human eyes glow that fiercely blue? He's no beast, after all."
No.
"But seeing it today, my memory was spot-on, not a single distortion."
He seemed to be dredging up some unpleasant recollection.
Something I couldn't know, a ramble I couldn't comprehend.
"You spared him on purpose again, didn't you?"
After grumbling for a while longer, Igor belatedly got to the point.
I shook my head.
In the decisive moment, the Archduke had twisted his head and arched his back, causing my lance to snap without achieving its goal.
I hadn't given up until the very last second.
Even knowing he was in no state to continue, I'd charged at full speed.
Hoping to finish him before he tumbled from the horse.
I'd just run out of time.
After he fell, I'd agonized over it endlessly.
Pretend it was an accident and trample him? Drive the lance home as is?
Had that oblivious herald not called the match, I'd have surely ended him.
It left a lingering regret.
Even as half his face was torn away, he'd managed to thrust his lance into me.
It lacked power and balance, leaving just a dull ache in my armpit, but I had to respect that willpower and lancework.
"I don't know the extent of imperial medicine, but it must far surpass Thracia's."
"They can even craft and attach limbs that don't exist, so yes."
"That's what I think too. If he clings to life until the Empire's heartland, the Archduke will shake it off and rise again."
He seemed deeply frustrated at not finishing him completely.
"Even they can't make a new eye from nothing."
There was no blame in his tone, but I couldn't help defending myself.
"Even if he recovers, he'll never ride like before."
One-eyed knights and cyclops swordsmen were all fantasies spun by hack writers.
Fighting with half your field of vision was as good as begging for death.
Wearing a helmet that already narrowed your sight, scanning the battlefield with one eye—you couldn't block every blind-spot attack.
How do you judge distance? What about the eye strain from compensating with one for two?
For a knight wielding a four-meter lance, losing depth perception was fatal.
Besides, the Archduke led a knight order.
He couldn't command from the vanguard without properly surveying the field.
"Knight Zikjail's career is over."
Even after such results, Igor and I kept making excuses because we knew the Archduke's true terror didn't stem from his lance tip.
Small consolation: it ended before any 'proposal' from the Empire could spill from his lips.
Their sense of duty wasn't that strong; they wouldn't stick around to fulfill it while their king hovered near death.
Judging by how they'd wailed around him like they'd lost their nation, they'd likely bolt with the first open port.
I hadn't eliminated him entirely, but the goal was achieved.
A happy day, all things considered.
"I'll have nightmares tonight."
Had Igor not endlessly complained about his aching legs or throbbing face today of all days, I might have felt a bit happier.
It played out as expected.
The principality's folk departed the palace overnight.
Even as envoys, they committed the breach of leaving without notice, but no one blamed them.
The Archduke's condition had worsened through the night, they said.
"His servant who tended him was horrified, apparently. One side of his face completely caved in."
"Arrogant bastard, but that handsome face was his one redeeming feature."
From the gossip, his left cheekbone had collapsed entirely, and the eye area torn away.
Just hearing it made my own cheekbone throb.
Should've just kept his head still.
Why yank it away and invite the pain?
We could've ended it cleanly, both happy.
I smacked my lips and glanced at the table.
A palace servant must have stopped by; newspapers lay scattered across it.
The sensational headlines made my face twist involuntarily.
These were plastered all over the capital.
I skimmed the contents.
Similar stories, but tones worlds apart.
The royal papers praised the Bluecoats while somewhat sparing the opponent's honor.
The noble-backed ones blatantly exaggerated the Archduke's repeated breaches of etiquette and his gruesome defeat.
Both lavished such embarrassing overpraise that the subjects themselves would cringe.
Especially that illustration of the winged-horse knight—likely me on the royal gift horse—trampling a horned, tailed black knight. What were they thinking?
A few subtly criticized me, but tucked away in corners where they'd hardly be seen—guilt on their part, it seemed.
Thud.
I closed the paper.
"The Seven Great Knights, huh..."
Staring at the bold headline summoned a face I hadn't thought of in ages.
'Throwing good meat to the dogs. I raise you up, and you ditch your tuberculosis-ridden master for some petty family squabble?'
'Those chatty bastards ruined the kid. Hey, my head's throbbing 'cause of you.'
'If you're leaving, kid, settle up first. Settle what? I fed you, raised you, taught you the blade. Why so little? Monks got no money? Rich kids give more, they say.'
'Remember. Our accounts ain't square. Send me ten percent of everything you earn from now on. Till when? Till you die or I do.'
Come to think of it, not that nostalgic after all.
Knock knock.
As I grumbled to myself, someone rapped on the door.
"Ransom for the Archduke, sir."
A palace page handed me a long box.
"Oh."
Ransom was a form of body price.
In tournaments, a dismounted knight was treated as a captive.
Not truly, of course—just custom granting the victor limited rights, usually settled with armor, horse, or equivalent goods from the loser.
I'd figured they'd ghost without a word.
Guess they had some conscience.
Had they ignored it, I'd have spread tales far and wide of the Archduke's shamelessness and Zikjail's honorlessness.
"Looks like their lord's honor matters to them."
This time, I'd let it slide.
"Wonder what's inside."
Box size screamed "one sword."
Not empty again, I hoped.
Click.
Heart pounding, I opened it.
Thankfully, it wasn't empty.
Just one problem.
"...?"
I had no clue what the hell it was.