The Desire I Wanted to Smash First Was Yuno's
Ha....
“Hang in there, Lassen....”
Yuno pressed down hard on my hand.
She caught the fist I’d used to smash the assassin’s face in.
“How was I supposed to know those bastard assassins wouldn’t come dropping out of the ceiling again? I’m just making the rounds as part of my special duty as a guard. Oho, I nearly interrupted the two of you in the middle of a hot night, didn’t I? Hahaha!”
Botis snickered as he casually swung the sword in his hand around.
Calling it patrol was generous. The man had clearly shown up to catch us in the act, gloat over the disgraced queen of a defeated kingdom, and rub salt in the wound.
I could feel Yuno’s body stiffen in my arms.
Even by the standards of a married couple that never exactly engaged in physical intimacy, it was a grotesque night already, but with this rude interruption barging in and flinging the door open whenever he pleased, I could feel the edge of my reason beginning to simmer.
“Get out now. As you can see, there’s no assassin here.”
At my low command, Botis clicked his tongue and sauntered out of the room.
“You think I do this because I want to? I’m just obeying His Majesty’s orders.”
The next morning, I sat across from Yuno at the table and made a serious suggestion.
“Yuno. Why don’t you just move into Lady Erpe’s room instead?”
“What?”
“Having to put up with that trash showing up for surprise inspections every night is exhausting, isn’t it? If you’re in Lady Erpe’s room, he won’t dare barge in so carelessly, not with his precious pride on the line. Besides, I heard Lady Celine’s having a hard time too, so it’d be better if you stayed with them and helped out.”
Yuno quietly nodded at my suggestion.
That night, she moved into the inner quarters where Lady Erpe and Celine were staying, and I once again reclaimed the bed for myself, beginning a lonely but strangely peaceful stretch of solitary living.
Several days passed after Yuno moved.
Surprisingly, her presence had become a great comfort to the injured women of the Calista family.
Because Yuno had once lived through despair as the ruler of a defeated kingdom, she knew better than anyone how to soothe the heart of a terrified little girl.
With Yuno holding her hand through the night and singing her a soft lullaby, Celine’s fragile mental state, which had sent her into panic attacks every evening, began to recover in a way that was plainly visible.
Lady Erpe, too, expressed deep gratitude to Yuno, and the tightly shut atmosphere of the inner quarters slowly began to warm again.
Then, one afternoon.
Yuno came to see me while I was sitting alone in the guest room, blankly sharpening a sword.
“Lassen.”
“What is it? Is Lady Celine doing better?”
“She has recovered quite a bit.”
Yuno sat down across from me and spoke in a gentle voice.
“I came to convey Lady Celine’s feelings in her stead.”
“Lady Celine’s?”
“Yes. For several days now, she’s been telling me tearfully that the night she was saved by Sir Lassen—when you blocked the assassin’s blade with your back—she felt so sorry for only ever showing fear and backing away from you. She said she wanted to meet you in person and apologize, and thank you properly.”
The moment I heard that, something tight and sharp throbbed in one corner of my chest.
I remembered that tiny white face, screaming in terror at the sight of my blood-soaked, monstrous self.
That little thing had been so frightened, and yet even through all that fear, she hadn’t forgotten her guilt toward the person who had saved her. She’d been carrying that burden all this time.
“Then why didn’t she come herself, and instead sent you....”
“She wanted to come.”
Yuno sighed and shook her head.
“But to come all the way to your room herself... there are grim-looking royal guards in black armor stationed all through the mansion’s corridors, so she’s too frightened to take even one step outside the room. She still starts panting if she just hears the clatter of armor.”
Ah.
The intimidating presence of the imperial guards had effectively locked the child in her room.
I set the sword I’d been holding back on its stand and rose to my feet.
“...Then I’ll go to Lady Celine’s room myself.”
“Yes. Lady Celine will be happy if you come.”
I followed Yuno and walked toward the inner quarters where Lady Erpe and Celine were staying.
The wound in my back still hadn’t fully healed, so every step sent a dull ache through me, but for some reason my feet felt light.
Maybe it was because, for once, outside a battlefield, I might be able to receive a sincere word of thanks from someone. A tiny, ordinary hope, nothing more.
But then—
“Let go of me! Get out of my daughter’s room this instant!!”
At the far end of the inner quarters, Celine’s door stood wide open, and from inside came Lady Erpe’s shriek.
I startled and rushed into the room with Yuno right behind me.
And there he was.
“Let go of me, madam! I’m merely carrying out His Majesty’s orders!”
That bastard Botis had come marching into Celine’s room with two subordinates in black armor in tow, claiming he was there to conduct an impromptu guard inspection.
“Waaahhh! No! Don’t come near me!!”
Celine, who was just barely beginning to pull herself free from the trauma of that horrible incident, had panicked at the sight of the black-armored intruders as they entered with a terrible metallic clatter.
The child, face deathly pale, was pouring out tears and had thrown herself into a corner of the bed under the blanket, screaming in a near frenzy.
Lady Erpe’s eyes were practically spinning with fury as she shoved at Botis’s chest with both hands and protested violently.
“This is my daughter’s private room! No matter that it’s the emperor’s order, how can armed men trample through a young girl’s chambers without even announcing themselves? Get out at once!”
But Botis ignored her anguished cries and snorted dismissively.
“Honestly, these noble ladies really do make a fuss over everything. Do you think an assassin checks whether he’s entering a private room or a lavatory? His Majesty’s order is for this entire mansion to be guarded without a single gap. I won’t be satisfied until I’ve checked the private quarters with my own eyes, so move aside.”
Botis answered with all the shamelessness of a parrot and shoved Lady Erpe roughly by the shoulder.
She staggered and collapsed onto the floor.
“Waaah! M-Mommyyy!”
Celine’s suffocating sobs burst out from beneath the blanket.
Damn it.... We’re screwed....
I had wanted a peaceful old age.
To avoid falling out of favor with the imperial family, I had swallowed every humiliation and kept my head down. I’d chosen caution over pride and flattened myself against the ground.
To survive, I’d sold out my homeland, cut down my comrades, and even obediently accepted the rotten leash the emperor had tossed around my neck.
But even if I was a traitorous piece of trash—
Even if I am... if a child who had only just gathered the courage to step back into the world....
The bare minimum of human decency was being trampled right in front of me.
“Lassen...?”
Step, step.
I shook off Yuno’s hand as she tried to stop me and walked silently into the room.
Botis, who had been basking in a smug sense of victory as he glanced down at Lady Erpe collapsed on the floor, noticed my approaching presence and turned his head.
“Oh, the traitorous general. Are you here to join the guar—”
Before the sneer had even finished forming on Botis’s lips—
Crack!
Without the slightest hesitation, I reached out and seized the collar of his armor-covered throat.
“Guh?!
Botis’s eyes bulged.
The strength of some pampered guard captain who’d spent his whole life playing soldier in the comfortable capital simply couldn’t be compared to the monstrous force of the Holy Spear who had cut down thousands on blood-soaked battlefields.
With the unnatural strength in my grip, his armored body was hauled upward like a paper doll.
“You, you crazy bastard! What the hell are you doing! Let go, let go of me! You dare lay hands on a knight of His Majesty—!”
Botis flailed in midair and clawed at my wrist, but I didn’t even blink.
“Captain Botis!”
The two subordinates who had been glaring at me and were just about to draw their spears—
“Get lost.”
The moment they met my eyes, they froze, then backed up a step in silence.
Holding Botis aloft, I glared into his flailing eyes and growled, “You said you were carrying out His Majesty’s orders.”
Still gripping him by the collar, I dragged him out of the room and stormed down the mansion corridor.
“K-Khrrk! Put me down!”
“I am carrying out His Majesty’s orders too.”
If you were a king—
If you were a king trying to become emperor—
Then you should order the punishment of the man who made a child cry.
And if you weren’t that kind of emperor—
Then I couldn’t recognize you as one.
I don’t know about the current emperor.
But if Michael, the male lead of this romance fantasy world, became emperor—
He would never recognize a man who terrorized a child as a knight.
Drag-drag-drag—
Botis’s feet scraped across the mansion corridor floor with an ugly, grating sound.
One hand still holding the massive man in check, I kicked open the front doors of the Calista mansion and stepped outside.
Dozens of imperial guards lined up in the garden before the mansion stared in shock as their captain was dragged out by the hand of an enemy kingdom’s hostage general, and they rushed to draw their weapons.
“Captain!!”
“Lassen! Let go of the captain now!”
Dozens of spear points aimed at me.
Not many. Less than on the battlefield.
“Catch, you bastard.”
I stopped in the middle of the garden and hurled Botis’s body downward as though I were smashing a sack into the ground.
Kwaaaang—!!
“Kraaahhh!!”
Botis’s armor caved in and drove deep into the earth, his body rolling across the ground.
My desire for peace—
Along with Botis, who had been sent sprawling into the dirt in spectacular fashion before a single tear from a child.
“Gh.... Gaaah....!”
Unable to withstand the impact, Botis rolled through the dust, groaning pitifully as he struggled to rise.
The sight of him failing to get back on his feet in one go was almost laughable.
“Stand up.”
I looked down at him coldly and brushed my hands off.
“If you want your sword, then pick it up.”
The imperial guards, finally coming to their senses at my words, gasped and surged toward me.
Click, clang—!
The tips of their spears closed around me in a ring and leveled themselves at my body.
I turned my head and slowly, almost leisurely, took in the spearheads surrounding me.
Ten, twenty, thirty...
At most forty.
Compared to the spearheads of Europia that used to blacken the horizon every morning when I opened my eyes, all driven by the intent to take my life...
This isn’t even playacting....
And more importantly—
The spearheads in those guards’ hands were trembling.
Amateurs.
On a battlefield—
Whether the enemy was the army of Europia or our own Valerian forces—
A spear held by someone with the killing intent to follow through would already have been buried in flesh and poking out through someone’s back.
That was the speed of war. That was the breath of those who staked their lives.
Spears that only aimed and hesitated.
Hands trembling just a little from fear, after having seen my strength with their own eyes.
A spear that had failed to strike once would never reach my heart, no matter how much time passed.
So I didn’t even bother ordering them to lower their weapons.
There was no need to throw food to a dog that couldn’t even bark.
“Huff... huff... you traitorous bastard...”
In the meantime, Botis, who had been rolling on the ground, finally managed to force himself back up, staggering.
His face was covered in dirt as he glared at me and drew the sword from his waist.
Shrring.
My hands were empty.
I had been sharpening my sword in the guest room earlier, then left it on the stand and ran out.
Botis, sword in hand, checked my empty palms and shouted as though trying to rally the tattered remnants of his pride.
“So what if you’re puffing yourself up as the man who brought the war to an end? Don’t get cocky! You’re nothing but Europia’s hostage general! And Grand Duke Sabre—the only one backing you—isn’t even here right now, is he!!”
Botis screamed and raised his sword overhead before charging at me.
But even the charge was clumsy as hell.
He’d lost his temper and his reason, and the knee armor I’d crushed when I slammed him into the ground was pressing hard against his kneecap.
The way he limped toward me in that awkward rush looked no different from a dog with its balls cut off.
“Die!!”
Botis’s sword came down viciously toward my left shoulder.
I didn’t dodge.
Instead, I stepped half a pace forward, drove my shoulder into the falling blade’s path, and at the same time shot out my right hand to seize the wrist that held the sword.
Thud.
...Ugh.
Botis’s blade sliced through the skin of my shoulder and bit in shallowly.
Blood spattered my cheek.
But because I’d twisted his wrist and clamped it down with brute force, I managed to avoid a fatal wound that would have shattered bone or severed nerves.
The pain of my shoulder being torn open struck my brain, but I didn’t even blink.
Compared to the wound in my back, which still burned like fire from where the assassin had stabbed me days ago, this barely counted as pain at all.
In war—
I had endured days hundreds, thousands of times more horrific and hopeless than this.
Every breath had stank of blood, and when I opened my eyes in the morning, it was ordinary to see someone’s torn intestines trampled beneath my boots.
As a transmigrated soul from the modern world—
The reason my spirit hadn’t completely dried out and cracked apart in that hellish battlefield, the reason I had been able to cling to reason at all, was simple.
The only pillar holding me up was—
The peace that might come tomorrow.
That cheap, desperate hope that once this disgusting war ended, I would somehow survive, bury myself in the capital, keep my head down, and enjoy a comfortable old age without a care in the world.
That was the only reason I hadn’t gone mad while cutting down countless enemies.
And yet that hope of mine—
That modest dream of mine—
The desire I’d wanted to smash first with Yuno’s hands—
I had shattered it myself because of this damned captain of the imperial guard.
“W-What...?”
Even though his sword was buried in my shoulder, when I showed no sign of pain and instead clenched his wrist hard enough to crush it while glaring at him, a look of sheer panic flashed in Botis’s eyes.
“Let go! Let go of me—!”
Still gripping Botis’s wrist, I clenched my empty left fist and drove it straight into his solar plexus.
Thwack—!!
“Guhhh—!!”
Botis’s eyes rolled back as if they were about to pop out from the blow to his solar plexus.
With a breathy, collapsing sound, he went light in the air and then slammed to the ground.
Thud!
The moment Botis hit the floor, I climbed on top of his chest.
Then I began hammering both fists down onto the armored chest beneath me like a madman.
Bang!
Crunch!
Bang!
Bang!!