Chapter 22
Chapter 22
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 22
Chapter Title: Lord Ald Sorren
-----------------------------------------------------------------
—Ald?
"It's Ald."
—Ald... Never heard that name before. Well, doesn't matter.
Beyond the communication stone.
Eve concluded lightly without ever taking her eyes off the documents.
—Do it that way.
"Yes! Thank you, Lady!"
With the communication cut off and Enri grinning from ear to ear, Ald—who still hadn't grasped the situation—kept tilting his head in confusion.
Ignoring Ald entirely, Enri began packing his luggage one item at a time.
Ald only pieced it together when Enri, having packed everything, slung a bag over his shoulder and prepared to leave the lord's castle.
"Then I'm off? Handover's done, so figure out anything you don't know on your own..."
"Wa-wait a second! What the hell is..."
"What. Still don't get it?"
Enri eyed the persistently clinging Ald with the gaze one might give an obsessive lover, then clicked his tongue and gave a brief rundown of the situation.
"You became the lord, dude."
"......Lord? Does that just happen so easily?"
"The opposite. Why make it hard? When someone important says 'be the lord,' you just say 'yes sir' and work hard."
As the flustered Ald stared blankly at him, speechless, Enri lifted his bag as if he had nothing more to say.
"Then I'm really going. Ask the maids or butlers if you don't know something. They'll take care of it."
The former Sorren Baron was dead, but his servants had been kept on. There was no further need for Enri to supervise things here. He had zero interest in tedious, headache-inducing work anyway.
Watching the green-haired knight who had so casually dumped the territory on him and left, Ald finally realized his situation after a long moment.
A back-alley bastard who'd spent his life wiping the lord's ass had truly become the lord. The duke's house guaranteed that he was the master of Sorren Barony—the legitimate heir to the baron.
If asked what that meant...
"......Really, me."
A bastard who could never call his father "father" in his lifetime.
Now he could call his father "father" even in front of others.
Ald, who knew all too well the pain countless bastards endured without this basic right, cautiously headed to the lord's office.
It was the seat used by the previous Sorren Baron, now dead. A place still holding the warmth of his father.
He himself was now sitting in the spot he'd thought forever out of reach.
"This is something."
And the sole reason he could sit there was entirely...
The grace of the duke's lady.
In other words, Lady Eve Claudia.
Ald Sorren offered a prayer to her before beginning his duties.
What choice did he have? He couldn't disappoint the one who had trusted him enough to grant him this territory. Whether to hold onto the position he'd somehow obtained or to repay an undeserved favor, he had to do this right.
Black Rose Knights' training ground.
A knight gripping a gun asked with a worried expression.
"Uh, really do it?"
"Do it."
"Uh, really?"
"Shoot, I said?"
"Tr, truly...?"
"Fuck. How many times do I have to─."
Bang-!
At the exact moment Enri was speaking—exploiting a gap in his awareness—the knight pulled the trigger. As the black powder fiercely propelled the bullet, Enri swung his sword instantly.
Surprisingly, the spherical bullet fell behind Enri, sliced clean in half. Bullet-cutting. A sword path so precise it was almost mechanical had cleaved the bullet.
"O-oh."
"Amazing as always, Captain!"
"Whoa... that's not human."
Enri took a casual deep breath, sheathed his sword lightly, and spat curses at the knight who'd shot at him.
"Wanna die?"
"Y-yes? What the─."
"This fucker ignores me when I say shoot and picks the shittiest timing... Hey, you trying to kill me or what? Wanna spar?"
As the scolded knight pouted innocently, Enri—the one who'd performed the bullet-cutting feat—held out his sword to his subordinates.
"See? Bullets aren't unavoidable. You can cut them just fine. So train, all of you."
"Eh? No, that's a feat only the captain can─."
"Who said only I can? I'm not even seeing the bullet to cut it."
"......Not seeing it?"
"You think I'm a monster? That I can spot and cut a supersonic bullet?"
Of course, no matter how skilled Enri was, visually tracking and reacting to something supersonic was impossible. He could cut bullets not by seeing them, but by watching the shooter.
His breathing. His stance. The tension in the finger on the trigger. The eyes glaring at the target, the contraction and expansion of pores.
All sorts of cues told him exactly when the bullet would fire. Based on that, Enri could predict when it would reach him. And if you could predict it, that was it. No knight worth his salt would just take a known incoming attack.
"In other words, if you can read the shooter's reactions, anyone can cut a bullet."
"......Hold on, Captain."
"What?"
"Multiple shooters, just roll on the ground. Easier that way."
"No, not that... From what you're saying─doesn't that mean you can't dodge snipers?"
"Right."
"But back on that op... Captain, didn't you dodge a sniper shot?"
Luca said that, recalling an incident from a few years back. A chaotic melee against dozens of soldiers. Amid it all, Enri had dodged a sniper shot from far away.
Back then, she'd chalked it up to luck in the chaos, but hearing Enri now... it seemed "coincidence" wasn't in his vocabulary.
At the question, Enri scratched his cheek for a moment, then tilted his head as if he couldn't recall.
"When was that? Don't remember..."
"......No, you know, that time. When there was a revolt in that territory─."
"Ah─that one? That was even simpler."
Recalling late, Enri chuckled lightly and answered.
"Sniper spots are predictable anyway. Windy places. Spots with bad sightlines. Places that feel like something's hiding. You look there and bam, you sense it. 'Ah, sniper incoming.'"
"Then dodging is...?"
"Whenever it feels like prime sniper timing, just casually shift position. Bullets are fast, but even at hundreds of meters, it takes over a second."
Even supersonic rounds topped out at 330 m/s. At longer ranges, dodging after the shot was fired was easy. Of course, if the gun had magic enhancements, that changed things...
But Enri had never seen such a thing. Everyone knew guns were powerful weapons, but maybe the perception that they were "commoner tools" kept the blue-bloods from bothering.
Highborn pride meant they didn't touch lowly weapons—and their own power was plenty strong without enhancements anyway.
"Alright, enough chatter. Train. Yours are slow-as-hell rubber balls anyway. Take a few hits, then run to the priest."
Enri ran the special training like that.
His knights looked reluctant but recognized the necessity, gradually shooting at each other and practicing cuts.
The sharp crack of gunfire filled the training grounds.
Dong-!
At the moment the massive bell tolled through the city.
The fleeing man let out a shriek and flopped flat on the ground.
But his effort was in vain—a huge hole appeared in the head of a servant beside him. Seeing his servant roll on the ground, the man crawled away on all fours.
"Wh-what is this! What the hell is going on?!"
Deep inside the curtained-off office. The noble with the cane deployed a mana barrier to block others' magic. He didn't know who the foe was, but it was definitely a mage.
And magic naturally weakened the farther the distance. He wasn't some master mage, but he wasn't green enough to die to unseen spells.
"Come at me! Anytime!"
As the terrified man bellowed that, the bell tolled across the city once more.
Dong-!
With the huge peal, the man clamped his mouth shut.
"─Master. I'm coming in."
A long while later.
The maid who entered the office covered her mouth at the sight of the sprawled servants and noble on the floor.
"Kyaa, kyaahhh─!"
It was the beginning of the noble assassination incident.