A Beating Is the Cure for a Mad Dog
Once the magic lecture had fully ended, the classroom filled with the chatter of students packing up their things.
Beside me, Elysia still clung pitifully to my arm, her face pale with lingering fear — but I ignored her and prepared for the next class.
As I gathered my belongings, I glanced aside and caught Uriel already packed and rising from her seat. She gave a light tap with her fingertips to the pouch holding the magic tool I had given her, then her eyes curved in a gentle smile.
"Then I'll take my leave first, Your Grace."
A thrill of shared secrecy and quiet anticipation colored that brief farewell. I answered her with a silent nod.
As Uriel melted naturally into the stream of students leaving the classroom, Renee, who had been sitting at the very back, began to make her way slowly toward my desk. The moment she passed my seat, she deliberately slowed her stride and gave the corner of the desk a light tap with her fingertip as she went by.
It was a brief gesture, but the message was unmistakable. I'll be watching.
Whether Renee's icy gaze had grazed Elysia as well, I couldn't say — but Elysia immediately started fussing again, clutching at my arm.
"Lord Caelus… that woman just now, she looked at me like she wanted to devour me… I was so scared…"
If I lingered any longer I would be stuck listening to Elysia whine, so I quickly manufactured an excuse, peeled her off, and slipped out of the classroom.
Pushing through the crowd into the corridor, I found Bella waiting for the lecture to end. She'd even rearranged her primary schedule in the Administration Department to match mine, just to keep an eye on me. And she'd enrolled in Swordsmanship as a minor, too… Being an aide was apparently a more tedious job than I'd given it credit for.
The moment she spotted me, Bella offered a brief bow, and we set off toward the training grounds for the next lecture — Swordsmanship.
Once we had left the Magic Department building and entered a quieter stretch of corridor, Bella, who had kept silent the entire time, finally spoke.
"I've been turning over what you said in the carriage the entire lecture, Your Grace. I am a Northerner myself. That the Grand Duchy's sole remaining heir should be discussing marriage with House Florence fills me with the same fury."
A flicker of anger passed through Bella's eyes, only to be overtaken by resignation.
"…But the damage the North suffered in the monster wave two years ago was catastrophic. An unprecedented number of lives were lost, so of course we're short of hands to work the fields. And grain from the East and West is nowhere near enough to make up the difference."
She paused to catch her breath, then added:
"His Grace the Grand Duke and the elders must have been eating themselves alive to reach this decision. But what other choice is there? Without Southern grain, the people of the territory starve. That's the reality."
Bella glanced at me, then spoke one last time.
"…If it's the matter of succession that troubles you, you needn't worry. In the North's savage winds and killing cold, what chance does a hothouse flower from the South have of surviving? That young lady and any blood she bears will be nothing before the North's beasts."
She was saying she shared my anger, but with no way to solve the food shortage, we should swallow our pride for now and bide our time. If the other party hadn't been the South — and House Florence in particular — it would have been an eminently reasonable argument.
…You don't know, Bella. You don't know how that count's house, after the marriage, will sink a straw into the Grand Duchy's coffers and parasitize the North. That's why you can say such things so easily.
I looked down at her, my voice gone low and still.
"If she withered and died on her own, that would of course be a blessing. But what if that hothouse flower clings on through the killing frost, parasitizes the great tree that is the North, and dries it out from the inside? What then, Bella?"
"…!"
She sucked in a sharp breath and stared at me, stunned. This went beyond simple emotional hostility toward the South. This was the possibility that the political marriage itself could become a threat to the Grand Duchy's very survival. Bella, who had never once considered such a future, could only work her lips. In the end, she found no answer.
I didn't press her for one. I simply turned my head away.
I walked past the frozen Bella and started toward the training grounds once more.
By the time we entered the training grounds, the air was already thick with the crack of wooden swords and ragged breathing.
"Caelus Hartelion!"
At the loud voice behind me, I turned. A blond man was striding toward me, seething with rage. It was him, all right.
The original story's second male lead. Second son of Marquis Leonel, one of the South's foremost great houses — and the man destined to become Commander of the Imperial 2nd Knight Order. Theodore Leonel.
His swordsmanship was impressive enough for a future knight commander. The problem was his personality. Or rather, his intelligence. Overflowing with a sense of justice, blood running hot — that much was fine. But his head was simple to the point of stupidity, and his fists always left the gate before his thoughts. An emotional brute. Even the original Caelus had spent a fair amount of effort cleaning up after the messes this idiot caused.
And sure enough. The moment he planted himself in front of me, Theodore started jabbing a finger and shouting, fury written all over him.
"You're engaged to Lady Florence, and you still have the gall to crawl all over the Saintess?! You think being the Grand Duchy's heir makes you untouchable? You Northern dogs don't know your place — don't try to talk your way out of this. Draw your sword, right now! I'll beat that habit out of you myself!"
Apparently he had taken the banquet hall incident as an insult to Elysia and the South. He was burning with self-righteousness all on his own, bellowing as if he had taken some great righteous cause upon his shoulders. He had surely heard about the freeze on my assets, but nothing seemed to register in that simple brain of his.
If you wanted to get something through a thick skull like that, a beating really was the only medicine. Perfect timing.
I picked up a wooden practice sword from the rack in the corner of the training grounds, utterly unhurried.
"Shut up, Theodore. Stop flapping that loud mouth of yours and pick up a sword."
"Y-you bastard…!"
My cold dismissal sent Theodore's rage shooting straight to the top of his skull. He looked ready to charge me then and there. As the atmosphere turned ugly, the students who had been watching began to edge away. Bella rushed forward and planted herself in front of me.
"Your Grace, please restrain yourself! Even if the other party is the second son of Marquis Leonel, if you resort to force, the friction between our houses—!"
She tried desperately to stop the fight, but I had no intention of listening. I cut her off cold.
"Step aside, Bella. …Theodore. You started this. I assume you won't make an issue of it afterward?"
"Of course not, Hartelion! Today I'm going to snap that arrogant nose of yours clean off!"
"Your Grace…!"
Bella went pale, but sensing she couldn't stop us, she bit down on her lip and stepped back.
"Now that the busybody's out of the way, we can start, can't we, Hartelion?"
Theodore raised his wooden sword, and the fierce, explosive blazing golden aura unique to House Leonel bloomed along the blade. Simple but savage sword pressure raked across the training ground floor, leaving gouges in its wake.
If you're stupid, your body pays the price. I have no intention of cleaning up after this idiot the way the original story went. Crushing this rampaging brute's momentum right here and now didn't seem like a bad idea at all.
"Take this, Hartelion…!"
The sword he drove through the air carried a flashy, destructive force. If this had been the original Caelus, that strike would have given him real trouble. But that was a story of the past.
The instant Theodore's blade dove for an opening, the line of his sword rushing toward me suddenly seemed to slow. The angle of his wrist, the density of his aura, even the flaw in a footstep that carried too much weight — every last fragment of information poured into my mind.
The pressure was less than a monster's forepaw I had taken two years ago, and the movement itself was sloppier and cruder than even the North's ordinary knights. In short: a simple, hole-riddled attack with nothing behind it but brute force. He had probably solved everything by shoving with raw power until now. To someone who had been cutting down monsters that were both stronger and faster, it was child's play.
I shifted my body half a beat early, and his attack carved through empty air. A thunderous crash rang out as Theodore's wooden sword, robbed of its target, slammed into the training ground floor; a violent shockwave kicked sand into the air in every direction. He scrambled to recover his stance, startled that the blow had missed — but it was already too late.
Without a shred of hesitation, I loaded aura into the hilt and drove a sharp blow into his exposed side, his balance already gone. The impact landed with a dull, brutal thud.
"Ghk…!"
He couldn't even swallow the strangled scream properly. He rolled across the training ground floor in an undignified heap.
I planted my boot on Theodore's chest as he lay there and leveled the tip of the wooden sword at his throat.
The surroundings went deathly still in an instant. The watching students, of course — and even Bella, who had been trying to stop me moments ago — stood with their mouths shut, faces locked in shock. In the hush of the training grounds, only Theodore made a sound: a stupid groan, his brow furrowed in pain, as if he couldn't process what had just happened.
"Wh…? How did that bastard take me down in one hit…? That's impossible…"
Typical of a man who had always run wild on nothing but faith in his own talent. A hothouse young master who had never seen a real fight, now thoroughly crushed in a single exchange — and his dull brain simply couldn't digest the fact.
I withdrew the wooden sword from his throat and took my foot off his chest, then looked down coldly at the unsightly figure sprawled on the floor.
In the eyes of a man who had lived on nothing but his own inflated self-regard, despair at an overwhelming power he could never hope to match began, for the first time, to take root.
The second son of Marquis Leonel, slammed into the dirt, his mind gone blank. And the back of His Grace, looking down at him.
I stood there, dazed, unable to look away.
I'd heard he was the only one to survive that hellish monster wave two years ago… but I never imagined his skill would be this overwhelming.
When I had first been appointed his aide by His Grace the Grand Duke, I had thought of him as nothing more than a pitiful young lord, forced to sacrifice himself in a political marriage with the South for the sake of the Northern people.
How arrogant — and how foolish — that assumption had been.
Perhaps… it really was possible.
Something hot surged up from deep in my chest. The immature, clumsy boy I had last seen five years ago was nowhere to be found. In that brief span of time, amid the claws of beasts and the killing cold of the North, he had forged himself into a blade this sharp.
If he possessed the cold, ruthless decisiveness he was showing now — perhaps His Grace truly did hold the means to cut away this humiliating engagement and the parasites clinging to the Grand Duchy.
Even in the fear-tinged air of the training grounds, I saw a faint light of hope.
I no longer had any doubt.
His Grace would save the North.