House Aiperos (13)
──!
The heavy exchange of blades continued.
Already several rounds. No—several dozen clashes had battered against each other.
Karsein had never once considered that Pollux might be holding back, but now it was Pollux himself who had turned serious.
Harder. Rougher.
And deeper.
Because he was reading the blade of a man whose inner world was so strange it bordered on broken.
The gap in physique was obvious at a glance—this side held every advantage. Height, weight, muscle mass, stride—not a single physical factor favored Karsein.
And yet his opponent moved without a shred of wasted motion.
His body's balance was superbly calibrated, his reflexes sharp enough to respond not only to fundamentals but to unorthodox tricks as well.
The gap in combat experience was beyond comparison. How could a boy who had trained for mere months possibly drive back a man who, seasoned by years, fought demonic beasts on the active front lines?
More than that, he had only recently taken up a sword at all. The blisters and calluses carved into Karsein's palms had formed twice over—the traces of a past when the sword had been torn from his hands, and the traces of the present, as he rebuilt his strength over these past months.
No matter how hard he tried, he was bound to fall drastically short in experience.
And yet, again and again, he pulled off the unexpected rather than the textbook. Deflecting with the flat of the blade instead of the edge to spy out an opening, feinting to turn a slash aside and then pouring his weight into the push. That fluid movement rested on foundations that had, from the very root, been built differently from this country's.
Yes. It was fair to call it truly excellent. He had confirmed beyond doubt that this was no boy playing at swordsmanship for show, and that he possessed the grit and unshakable composure to match.
Karsein could honestly be called a young man growing so remarkably that one couldn't help but wonder what his future would hold.
However.
Through these exchanges, what Pollux glimpsed of the boy's interior left him, frankly, gasping for breath.
What in the world was that breath, steeped in such a frigid chill? Where did that restrained movement come from—neither excessive nor lacking? What was that sword path, so precise it seemed measured with a ruler, without even the faintest error? And what had settled over that face, which never so much as shifted an expression?
On its own, this was astonishing enough. It would have been fine even if his sword carried no fighting spirit, no heat. It would have been fine if he occasionally crossed the line in yearning for something. It wouldn't have been strange if he sometimes reacted emotionally, responding to a bit of banter.
But Karsein had none of it.
His was a sword Pollux had never seen once in more than thirty years of life.
A cold sword. An exacting sword. A withered sword.
A frost-bound blade forged under relentless calculation, into which neither ideals nor desires had been poured.
And...
It was covered, everywhere, in gouges and scrapes. The marks of countless frantic scribbles remained vividly etched across it.
That wounded sword was Karsein's inner world itself.
'Damn it all...! Good heavens, how can a person like this even exist...!'
At such a young age—a soul that had already weathered every storm imaginable and gone utterly numb? The curse slipped out before he could stop it.
He had to understand what this was. He had to know what could have made the boy this way.
Deeper.
He began meeting the sword head-on.
And at once, a wave of loneliness came crashing in.
This solitude must have been borne alone, in a place where no hand—not anyone's—could ever reach. The curse of one who had turned away from everything fell like rain. Cold, as if expecting nothing from anyone, without a trace of warmth left in one whose heart had gone stone-cold.
The wind of pain howled through. Just as calluses wore away and pain was forgotten, all that remained within those dulling emotions was reason alone. Swimming not even within the loneliness, merely taking wound after wound, turning his back on everything and suffering until every last feeling bled away—was this what remained? Nothing but flawless calculation and results without even a margin of error?
What was left, living like that?
That wasn't a person. That was a doll!
-Teeeng!
Unable to bear it any longer, Pollux channeled mana into his bare hand and seized Karsein's blade.
"...Let's end it here."
The back-and-forth that had raged through dozens of exchanges came to an end in a single motion, made in an instant.
Harnie grew more and more anxious.
She was no warrior who fought with a weapon in hand, but even from where she watched, she could feel the atmosphere steadily rising. No—it wasn't rising. It was turning vicious.
-Kang! KAANG!!
'He said this was just for show, didn't he...?'
The very sound of the blades had changed from before. The force behind each strike aimed at Karsein had grown stronger too, and that was no trick of her imagination.
-For what it's worth, you'd best not interfere when I'm sparring with Karsein, Head of the Flessia Merchant Guild.
-Pardon?
-I wish to learn what dwells within that boy's sword. So I'd rather you not get in the way.
Pollux had said exactly that, but...
Isn't this a bit much, though? she couldn't help thinking.
Amid the brutal exchange, watching it all, Harnie's unease deepened—and before long, the judgment that enough was enough had firmly taken root.
Right at that moment.
-Teeeng!
Mana coiling around his bare hand, Pollux stopped Karsein's sword.
"...Let's end it here."
Harnie, fearing it had devolved into a real fight, had come sprinting breathlessly—but Pollux said it quietly.
"Karsein. I'd like to sign the trade contract a little later, if that's agreeable."
"As long as it's within today, it doesn't matter either way."
"Good. My thanks for your understanding."
In the space of a heartbeat, the duel between the two men was over.
Harnie simply stood there blinking, at a loss for what had just happened. And toward her, Pollux turned.
"I'd like a word. Head of the Flessia Merchant Guild."
"With... with me? Not Lord Karsein?"
"That's right. It must be you."
She found it somewhat curious that he wanted to speak with her instead, but reading the signal in Pollux's gaze, Harnie nodded and agreed to the conversation. The two of them moved elsewhere, though it had been mere moments since the duel ended.
She had caught the signal that this was an important matter—but Karsein was not present. Just as she had suspected, this was to be a talk for the two of them alone, without him.
"Whew. I still haven't settled down."
Pollux sighed, pressing a hand to his forehead.
"Apologies first, I suppose. I got far too worked up, and the duel turned brutal. Though I hardly know if 'duel' is even the right word for it... I must have worried you."
"Worried me?"
"I did all but beat your betrothed black and blue. That's on me."
"Ah... w-well, yes, that's true..."
Only now catching on to that fact, Harnie stammered. She had wondered why he was apologizing, but of course he was right. Weren't they engaged? If your own fiancé took a merciless beating right before your eyes and you didn't worry, there'd be something wrong with you.
"I-I'm fine. Karsein will probably... take it as experience, anyway."
Probably nothing—he absolutely would.
She couldn't exactly reveal that theirs was a contract engagement, so she had to gloss over her odd reaction with an excuse. Then, clearing her throat and looking away, she hastily changed the subject.
"More importantly—what is it you need to discuss with me alone, leaving Karsein out of it?"
At that, Pollux let out a long, heavy sigh.
"Head of the Flessia Merchant Guild. How much do you actually know about Karsein?"
"If you mean 'know'... to what degree do you mean, exactly...?"
"Setting aside the fact that you came to be engaged—I mean things like that boy's secrets."
At Pollux's suddenly grave answer, Harnie was able to sweep away every stray thought at once. Wondering where to begin, she had already decided to start with what she knew Pollux would understand.
"...He sleeps only two hours a night. He carves up even the time he should be sleeping to get his own work done—falls asleep uncomfortably, sitting upright in a chair, no less."
"Good grief. He does that? I gathered something of his exhaustion when I laid a hand on his shoulder, but..."
"And even that is just a nap. He gave the bed to me."
"A fool's bargain. Drive yourself that hard for the sake of work, and your body is bound to break down."
Pollux clicked his tongue at once.
"...Karsein may simply not care whether his body breaks or not."
"What do you mean by that?"
"There's something he wants to achieve that matters more to him than his own body falling apart."
Paradoxically, it was precisely because she knew his purpose that Harnie could say this so easily.
"He'd toss away something as trivial as sleep for it without a second thought. That's just how cold and dispassionate Karsein is."
For the briefest moment, she had seen herself reflected in the figure of Karsein. And so, even as sympathy stirred in her, she had belatedly realized how foolish it was.
But that wasn't the end of it.
"Still, you could call him relentless, but never wicked. He is not some cruel man who piles misfortune and guilt onto others for his own gain."
Karsein's priority, above all else, was getting out of the ducal house by any means. But he never tried to use other people toward that end.
That was the single greatest reason Harnie continued her contract engagement with him while still reaching into each other's lives.
Pollux nodded as if in agreement.
"I know. I glimpsed it in the boy's sword myself. That was no blade meant for harming people. But one thing does make sense now—that what's broken isn't only his body, is it."
"...You're right."
Not just his body. Knowing the reason it had been ruined to that degree, it was obvious his mind had broken alongside it.
"And the reason for that is—"
Harnie slowly recounted Karsein's past. From being a child fished out of the slums, to how the nobles had treated him, to what had happened within the Vagrand Ducal Estate—she told him everything she knew.
Pollux's expression grew complicated as he dragged a hand down his face.
'Then all the more dangerous. Head of the Flessia Merchant Guild. He's already...!'
The inner world of Karsein that Pollux had witnessed was cruelly cold, dark, and bitter. The wounds carved into it were smothered beneath scars he had never seen the like of.
And if the boy was showing such a mechanical demeanor on top of that...
'Could even this engagement be nothing more than a transaction of some kind?'
He understood now why Harnie's words had trailed off. It had struck him as decidedly strange that her reaction was so lukewarm even after her fiancé had been beaten half to death—but Pollux could accept the reason well enough now.
And yet, precisely because of that, there was a method worth attempting.
And that method was already underway.
"Wh-why would you see it that way?"
"Are you not the least bit worried about your own fiancé? I seem to have left quite a few marks on him."
"Huh? No, that's... he's p-probably treating himself just fine, and... besides...!"
Yes. This pair suits each other remarkably well.
If their hearts weren't open, then all that remained was to pry them open.
"Let me ask you one thing, Head of the Flessia Merchant Guild. Karsein could break even further, here in this place. Is that what you want?"
"Of course it isn't!"
The answer came without a breath of hesitation, without a single thing hidden—guilelessly honest.
"Karsein is my...! He's my fiancé! It's only natural!"
Whenever the words fiancée and fiancé came out, a pure young girl's reaction bled through—but that, if anything, made it all the better.
"If there were one and only way to prevent that, would you try it?"
"And... what would that be?"
That part was fairly simple.
"You need only stay by his side."
Karsein was already being devoured by that monster called reason.
Before it consumed him whole and reduced everything he was to nothing—if even a sliver of emotion could be coaxed into bloom, that would be enough.
Naturally, even that might prove meaningless, so the emotion would have to take root intensely, fiercely...
But the most intense one of all—the one the boy had never once experienced in his life—was still waiting.
"Me...?"
"That's right. You need only stay by his side."
To Harnie, pointing at herself with her index finger, Pollux answered with a smile of affirmation.
She need only stay close to him, for days and days on end.
The longer she stayed, the better.
And then, when the seed of emotion finally sprouted—
the monster living inside Karsein would simply vanish.