He's So Insane I Can't Predict Him at All
He had defeated an Owl Knight. And not merely defeated him — he had done so with an overwhelming gulf in skill.
Everyone now knew that Leon had ascended to the upper ranks of Expert. With the Floating Eyes present, it was inevitable. Leon had fought by scattering Sword Threads exactly as Parsus had.
Further proof was meaningless. The Emperor declared the sparring match over.
— ······.
Leon returned to his seat amid a round of static applause.
One might question how applause could be static, but there was no better word for that peculiar atmosphere.
Priests came to collect Parsus, and court mages restored the wrecked banquet hall. With several of them working at once, the repairs were finished in an instant.
As if nothing had happened, the Emperor moved on to the next item on the program.
The performances originally scheduled for the banquet began. Music, theater, dance, circus acts, magic shows — troupes from every corner of the Empire took the floor of the very hall where the sparring match had just taken place.
Their skill and polish were uniformly high, and the entertainment was genuine. Leon felt time simply vanish. The illusion magic show from the Violet Magic Tower left a particularly deep impression.
Glances kept flicking his way throughout, but Leon paid them no mind.
By the time he came back to himself, four hours had disappeared. The Emperor relocated the gathering and invited everyone to dine.
When Leon arrived at the banquet hall, his eyes went wide.
The space was roughly the same size as the previous hall, but dozens of round tables — each seating about six — were scattered throughout. And down the center stretched a long table covered in trays of food.
In other words, it was a buffet.
What in the world.
He was astonished. He had never expected to see this kind of setup here.
Of course, Leon was familiar with it from his previous life, and even in this world there were restaurants with a similar format — uncommon, but they existed. Those, however, were strictly for commoners. They had nothing to do with the nobility.
After all, at a noble's meal, being waited on was a given. The very idea of moving one's own body and hands to fetch food was something bizarre and incomprehensible.
And this was the Emperor's grand banquet, packed with nobles and royalty of every stripe.
That made it radical. Shocking.
Yet when he looked around, no one seemed particularly surprised.
— Hmm? You've been here before. Why the reaction?
When Leon asked Lyman beside him about it, the man looked mildly puzzled but explained. The current Emperor had introduced the system himself, and it had been running for several years now. Everyone was used to it.
Ah.
Hearing that the Emperor had instituted it, Leon understood at once.
There was one more problem with the banquet hall's arrangement.
No seats had been assigned. You simply sat wherever you liked. And since it was a buffet, people would be free to wander as they pleased.
"······."
Leon frowned. He could already sense the monumental hassle heading his way.
How many of the people here would come swarming toward him? Especially after the scene he had just caused.
He was not looking forward to it. Dealing with them one by one would be an enormous nuisance. Being popular was fine; fame was another matter entirely.
— Well then, see you later.
— Enjoy your meal.
— ······.
The Crusif family dispersed. The ducal couple, Lyman, and Raul all went their separate ways.
Damn it all.
Leon quickly gathered Celia, Carotin, and Liana. With the four of them together, the riffraff would at least be filtered out naturally.
"Stick with me for a bit."
— Sure.
Once he explained the situation, they all agreed readily.
They claimed a table, picked up plates, and loaded them with a reasonable selection of food. Lobster baked with cheese, salad, and pasta filled the dishes.
Looks good.
He set his plate on the table and sat down.
Clack.
Almost simultaneously, a man sat directly across from Leon with a plate holding only a modest portion of salad.
"······."
Leon stared at him. Silver hair. Red eyes. A face that seemed to glow.
Screeech!
Leon's party shot up from their chairs.
"Your Highness, we gre—"
— Ah, no need for any of that. Haha. We agreed to drop the empty formalities during these hours, didn't we?
The First Prince waved them back into their seats.
And so Leon's group and the First Prince began to eat.
The reason the First Prince had sought them out from the start was, of course, Leon. He chewed slowly on his greens and kept striking up conversation.
None of it was particularly grand or special.
Nice to meet you. That earlier match was entertaining. Let's get along from now on.
Greetings, compliments, pleasant words — ordinary conversation, nothing more. Relationship-building.
The First Prince wrapped up the talk with uncanny timing the moment he finished his salad. His conversational skill was excellent. He collected his empty plate and moved on elsewhere.
The reason he had only taken a little salad was probably that he had many tables to visit. One plate per table. Fill up, and you couldn't make the rounds.
Leon rose to get his next plate. Going alone would draw aggro, so the whole group went together.
Seafood seemed to be the main theme of the evening. This time he piled his plate high with shrimp dishes. All that earlier exertion had left him hungry.
Clack.
When he returned to the table, a man sat down on Leon's left as if he had been waiting. A situation much like before.
"······Your Highness."
— A pleasure.
But this time it was the Third Prince.
Same silver hair and red eyes, yet unlike the First Prince, he was a man with a rough, hard-edged presence. The two were likely half-brothers.
They exchanged conversation much as before.
By this point Leon was growing mildly irritated. He just wanted to eat in peace, and people kept talking at him.
Still, he couldn't slight the man. He was an Imperial Prince, after all. Leon chose his words carefully and answered appropriately.
During the conversation, the Third Prince occasionally showed an unreadable look in his eyes. There was something slightly sly about him.
Like the First Prince, he left the table the moment his plate was empty.
The meal continued in that fashion. Leon, with his healthy appetite, went through seven more plates, and roughly a dozen visitors came by.
Carotin's and Liana's siblings, a few marquises, high-ranking officials — people of elevated status and position.
All things considered, it was manageable. Without Celia, Carotin, and Liana present, far more people would have come just to get a word in.
After the meal, nothing particular was scheduled. Free time. They simply needed to remain in the Imperial Palace until the ball tomorrow afternoon.
Leon decided to leave the banquet hall. Carotin was still with him; Celia and Liana, who didn't eat as much as the men, had already gone ahead.
— Leon, what are we doing now?
"Hell if I know."
He was picking his teeth as he walked out with Carotin when—
Thud. Thud.
From the corridor near the entrance, someone approached with a staggering gait.
It was a man whose face was badly swollen. Looking closer, Leon recognized him as the Owl Knight — Parsus Montbel.
— Young master.
Parsus bowed at the waist without preamble.
He said the duel earlier had been an honor, and added that he respected Leon. There seemed to be no lingering resentment.
"······Is that so?"
Leon had no idea where the honor and respect had come from when all the man had done was get beaten, but he acknowledged it and sent him on his way.
— Haha. That's a northern man for you.
Carotin watched Parsus's departing back with a strangely proud look, then kept glancing at Leon with a suggestive eye.
"······? What the hell is with you?"
Leon was so baffled he just swore at him.
The rear garden of the Imperial Palace's western wing. The Silver Moon Garden.
Step. Step.
A man walked the path alone.
Dusk had settled over the beautifully landscaped garden. Pale moonlight washed down across the evening primroses.
"······."
Seeing it, the man tilted his head back at an angle.
The full moon had passed; a hazy last-quarter moon hung in the sky.
A moon once full, now waning again.
Something about that association made the man snort.
"Naming something after a glory that doesn't even last a day······. As a trade name, it's rather poor, don't you think?"
His muttered words sounded almost like the brushing away of some small lingering attachment.
For a while, only the quiet sound of his footsteps filled the air. Insects chirped among the greenery; frogs croaked from the pond.
The night was fine. The Silver Moon Garden lived up to its name, wrapped in moonlight — moonlight that matched the color of the man's hair almost exactly.
At last he arrived before the garden pond and settled onto a bench set there for a time.
By the water's edge.
A mild breeze stirred, and the surface of the pond rippled in answer. Small lanterns cast a gentle light over the surroundings. It was a tranquil scene that invited quiet appreciation all on its own.
"······."
And yet, to the man's eyes, it did not look entirely peaceful.
A carp swallowed water fleas. A frog snatched a dragonfly. A warbler pecked at a beetle.
Flee and hunt. Be eaten and eat. Kill and die.
Look closely, and it was nothing more than a fierce battlefield where lives hung in the balance. Humans only found it picturesque because they observed from a distance — and from high above.
To stand in a high place meant precisely that.
To hold everything beneath your feet and direct it with a gesture. To regard even someone else's blood-soaked struggle for survival as mere amusement.
That was why the man coveted the heights. He hungered for a place still higher.
Until the struggles he himself endured now could one day be dismissed as trivial.
His faint gaze reflected on the clear surface of the pond. Two vivid red circles rose upon the water.
Absently, the man touched the corner of his eye.
In the water-mirror, his eyes were red. Just like those of the man he had seen today.
But the only thing he could approximate was the color.
"How can a person be like that?"
He would swear that even with bright blue eyes, that man could produce the exact same look.
"······."
The human world, too, did not escape the laws of nature. Kill and be killed. Eat and be eaten.
The difference from the world of beasts was that humans employed somewhat more sophisticated methods.
Persuasion. Threats. Indoctrination.
At the very least, one had to pass through stages like these before the option of "disposal" even took shape.
Disposal. Unexpectedly, that option was fickle and delicate; unless various conditions aligned, it could not be taken off the table.
Only crude, simple-minded vermin pulled it out without thinking. Which was why they kept failing.
For now, the matter had fallen under his jurisdiction. There was still plenty of time.
"Hmm······. I wonder if a honey trap would work. He's so insane I can't predict him at all."
The man's deliberations deepened with the night.