Confirmation
News that Kenneth Rumore, the head of the Rumore barony, had been attacked by a demon beast on his way back home swept through the manor like wildfire.
Of all times, it happened just as the escort company was being reorganized, and the fact that he had set out with only a token guard had turned out to be the fatal mistake.
They had faced a monster-grade beast, the carriage had been half wrecked, and the escort had supposedly been wiped out to the last man.
Naturally, everyone in the manor braced for the worst.
They had steeled themselves for the deaths of both the baron and the baroness, who had been riding in that carriage...
"The lord has returned!"
Contrary to every expectation, all of them had survived.
What was even more shocking was that they had come back without a single injury.
In fact, even the petty ailments they usually suffered from had vanished as if they had never existed.
After the baron and baroness returned to the manor, they tried to make sense of what had happened that day.
"Who on earth were they?"
"I have no idea. I asked around, and it doesn't seem like they were even with the Holy Order."
"And one of them was a beastfolk, wasn't she?"
"Before they left, I’m sure they said something..."
"It was something like, 'By the will of the Great Moon,' I think."
They replayed the memory in their minds.
Two girls had suddenly appeared, saved them, and then drifted away as if they had merely passed through.
The unfathomable magic that had killed a monster-grade beast in a single blow, and the overwhelming divine power that had restored severed arms and legs in an instant.
It was the sort of story that would be hard to believe unless you had experienced it yourself.
"...We owe them our lives."
"Indeed."
A debt of gratitude for being pulled back from the brink of life and death.
There is a desperate kind of earnestness that only those who have stood before death can understand.
That was why no debt was heavier than the debt owed to a lifesaver.
They had not had the presence of mind to stop them then, and had simply let them go, but if they ever met those girls again, they would have to offer a proper reward.
That was why...
"Send people out to find them. If we put up a large bounty, we should get at least a lead."
"A girl traveling with a fox beastfolk... That's not exactly a common combination. It shouldn't be too hard to track them down."
At the same time.
Leaning back on the sofa, I scratched the top of my head and let time slip by.
This is the life.
The office was always noisy, thanks to the fact that it was packed with nothing but people with rotten luck and worse habits.
Especially ever since I’d been assigned manpower from the Overlord, it hadn’t had a single quiet moment.
With as many as thirty people crammed into such a cramped office, there was nothing to be done about it.
We really do need to expand the office...
Having a lot of people meant having too little space.
It was more than just cramped, either; some of them didn’t even have a place to sleep and were taking turns camping out like drifters.
As a modern man, I couldn’t let that slide.
I was starting to think I ought to give them at least proper lodging if I wanted to work them without feeling guilty about it.
"Valkan."
"Yes, sir."
"What do you think about expanding the office?"
He glanced at me sideways and asked,
"Does this office belong to the imperial family as well?"
"Yes. For the five years I’m here, it’s basically being rented out as an office."
"In that case, wouldn't it be better to make a separate office rather than expand this one?"
...Was that so?
I hadn’t really thought that far ahead.
But now that I listened to it, building a new place instead of tampering with the existing office did seem a lot cleaner.
"Would that be possible?"
"If you make a request to the headquarters committee, it should be fine."
"...You mean the cost too?"
"Of course."
At this point, he's basically a tree that just keeps on giving.
It was enough to make me wonder if the best thing I’d done since coming here was tying myself to the Overlord.
Once I stepped outside and looked around, there was more than enough space.
I could build the thing wherever I liked.
Blackmore was under my jurisdiction, after all, and how I used this land was entirely up to me.
That was when it happened.
"...?"
Step, step.
Footsteps came from far away.
And they were getting closer.
Which meant whoever they belonged to was heading this way.
The imperial family?
But why?
They did come by once a month to check in, but it wasn’t time for that yet.
“……”
Frowning, I strained my ears toward the sound.
The footsteps became clearer.
A moment later, beyond the overgrown brush, a dark silhouette appeared.
"Hey, Valkan."
The one who called for Valkan in a voice like iron scraping against iron was a man with jet-black hair.
A muscular man, his entire body marked with old scars.
His eyes were so vicious that merely meeting his gaze made a chill of tension run down your spine.
The moment Valkan confirmed who he was, he bowed his head sharply at the waist.
"...Third Lord."
That alone told me I didn’t need to ask who he was.
The Third Lord, Kalen the Fist King.
The lord of the Shadow Society who died because of me.
"Hmm."
He stroked his chin and looked me up and down.
Even from a simple stare, I could feel an indescribable pressure bearing down on my body.
I had no way of knowing whether he was killing me with his aura or simply letting his presence spill out, since I had no mana to speak of.
But judging by Valkan’s darkening expression beside me, whatever it was, it wasn’t heading in a good direction.
"So you're the one? The human the Overlord mentioned."
The man let out a small snort and pointed at me with the tip of his finger.
"Weird."
He tilted his head as if he couldn’t make sense of it.
Once again, his gaze swept over me.
If those eyes had been physical, they would have pierced straight through me already.
His presence was that ferocious.
Then—
"He's just an ordinary human, isn't he?"
Whoosh!
A burst of displaced air whipped around us, making my hair flare to the side.
By the time I registered what had happened, his fist had stopped right in front of my face.
"..."
Damn.
He'd been so fast I couldn't even react.
I'd absorbed runes, sure, but my body was still that of an ordinary human.
A monster who sat among the lords had thrown a full-power punch at me, and there was nothing I could do about it.
"You didn't dodge this?"
He bared his teeth in a grin.
"Did you see it coming and choose not to move, or did you fail to notice it at all?"
"..."
"Want me to check one more time?"
Again?
I had to stop this.
If he seriously swung at me again, my head would burst like a rotten melon and I'd die on the spot.
But how was I supposed to stop him?
Should I just kill him?
I wasn't confident I could subdue him cleanly, though.
...Or should I just freeze him outright?
No, that didn't seem like a good idea either.
If I did that, I'd probably only feed his fighting spirit.
Given his personality, he’d charge in demanding a proper fight the second he was able.
I needed to subdue him.
So thoroughly that he wouldn't even think of any nonsense.
"..."
With that thought in mind, I extended my right hand.
Then I muttered in the lowest voice I could manage,
"You're the one checking me?"
I stretched out my right hand and closed it around the fist frozen in front of me.
Like swallowing it whole, I gripped his fist so tightly that not even a sliver of space remained, then quietly murmured the activation word.
Acceleration.
Reverse.
And then...
"Who’s checking who?"
Reverse.
The moment the activation words overlapped—
"!!!"
Kalen’s easygoing expression twisted.
And beautifully, too.
Third Lord Kalen, the Fist King.
He was a monster who had risen to his station with nothing but his fists.
And then word reached his ears of something interesting.
The master of the Shadow Society had been killed by some human.
The moment he heard that story, Kalen was seized by the urge to find that human at once, tear him limb from limb, and kill him.
But then the Overlord suddenly started sheltering the fellow.
She even went so far as to beg him not to hold the human accountable for anything.
That piqued his curiosity.
What kind of human was he, anyway, for that monster of a woman to take such a special interest in him?
So he went to see for himself.
The first time he faced that human, something about him felt off.
He didn’t seem to have mana, or even a trained body worth speaking of, and yet Kalen had felt a strange, unpleasant prickle of discomfort.
That was why he checked.
He had thrown a punch with everything he had.
And yet...
"..."
The human hadn't moved a muscle.
Whether he had noticed there was no killing intent in the punch and decided not to react, or whether he simply lacked the ability to sense it, Kalen couldn't tell.
He needed to confirm it one more time.
So this time, he intended to add killing intent and strike again.
"You're checking me?"
The human muttered something under his breath, then reached out and seized Kalen’s fist.
Then he gave a small smile.
"Who’s checking who?"
...That was it.
There was no reaction.
The hand wrapped around his fist remained exactly as it was.
The human only kept looking at him with the corners of his mouth lifted.
By then, irritation was starting to boil up inside him.
So he tried to pull his fist back—and couldn't.
No matter how much mana he poured into himself or how much strength he forced into his arm, the fist trapped in that human's right hand refused to budge.
All he could hear was the creak of his own grip straining, while the human still didn't move an inch.
"!!!"
The harder he pushed, the worse the pain became.
If he forced any more strength into it now, it felt like his shoulder would be ripped clean out of its socket.
"You bastard!"
Bang! Bang! Bang!
He yanked up his other fist and slammed it toward the man's face again and again.
Just from the force of those blows, a bone-chilling crack of displaced air exploded outward, the ground shook, and the flat earth beneath them caved in like a sinkhole.
They were unquestionably punches thrown with everything he had, and yet, for some reason, they landed with no effect whatsoever.
It felt almost like striking mithril.
No, even mithril would at least bear the mark of a full-power hit from him.
Then what, in the world, was this human?
Without moving, without so much as flinching, he simply stood there in the same posture, looking back at Kalen.
Still wearing that strange smile.
"Ghh! Ngh! You insane bastard!"
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
He thrashed like a madman, straining with all his might to wrench free the fist that had been seized.
Skin tore, bones cracked and shifted, but he didn't care.
He had forgotten about dignity long ago.
But even so—
"!!!"
Still.
The human's eyes, dark as pitch, remained fixed on him.