Song of the Knight (2)
"Come out, mercenary who mocks the knight order with lies! My sword shall not forgive you!"
I was perched on the edge of the bed, slowly rolling the stiffness from my shoulders, when a racket started up outside.
"Come out this instant! Can you not hear me?!"
Whether he was showing off those lungs of his or not, the shouting was loud enough to make my brow furrow. I glanced outside. A plump, well-fed middle-aged man was glaring daggers at the tent I'd been occupying.
"And what the hell is that?"
The star of this little shouting match was a pig with a goat's beard. If it weren't for the clothes on his back and the sword in his hand, I wouldn't have guessed he was a knight.
I took the sword I'd left standing beside the bed, stepped out of the tent, and addressed the red-faced, snorting man.
"You talking about me?"
"Oho. So it's you? You're the one from the rumors?"
"Rumors?"
"That's right! The preposterous rumor that you killed hundreds of orcs all by yourself!"
"...Do I owe you an answer?"
The sudden hostility soured my mood. Why was this wild boar even grilling me about it? And it wasn't a rumor — it was the truth. With that thought, I glanced around.
Just as Lancelot had said, this was a knight order encampment — right in the heart of their camp, in fact. And thanks to the middle-aged man's booming voice, spectators had already crowded in from every direction.
Knights here, knights there. Looks like the rumor spread among them.
The occupation of Knight was a rare one. This was the first time I had seen so many of them with my own eyes, so I couldn't help but be interested. Power naturally begets authority. Unlike medieval Europe, a knight in this world was a tactical weapon in his own right — which meant most of the men around me were nobles.
"Whoa! He still looks like a kid!"
"Huh. Doesn't even flinch looking at us. The boy's the real deal, I'll give him that."
They watched the standoff between me and the middle-aged man with eager faces, tossing out the occasional murmur of interest as if this were the evening's entertainment.
"Haa."
I let out a sigh thick with irritation, feeling like a monkey in a zoo. The middle-aged man clearly had business with me. If he didn't, there was no reason to put on a show with this many eyes watching.
"I-I'll personally make known the honor of the knight order and the dignity of His Imperial Majesty!"
The middle-aged man growled the words as he rummaged through his coat. And what he pulled out was a pure white handkerchief, which he flung through the air.
"A duel! Gueller von Dupont, 8th Squad Leader of the Golden Lion Knights, hereby challenges you!"
"A duel? Is he serious? You can't wash stained honor with a stunt like that!"
"He's lost it! Is he trying to save himself from getting sacked when we get back?"
The knights gathered around gawked at the middle-aged man — at Gueller the wild boar — and his little performance. Whatever he had just done, it was clearly beyond the pale. The jeers pouring in were enough to tell me exactly where he stood in the order.
"Heh heh! If you're scared of a duel, crawl between my legs right now. Did you know? Plenty of people die in the middle of a duel."
"...A duel."
I let Gueller's sneering fade into the background, slowly taking in the scene around me, and closed my eyes. It felt as though countless blessings were whispering to me. That man is no match for you. In the end, he will kneel beneath your blade...
"Fine."
I opened my eyes. At the same time, steel whispered from its sheath.
I wasn't a knight to begin with, and I barely knew this world's dueling rules. The one thing I had learned, coming back from the jaws of death, was that my life would walk hand in hand with war. So I cut. Anyone who challenged me, I cut down. That was the way I had chosen to survive.
"Th-this lunatic!"
"Everyone back! It's a duel!"
"Good God! Is that kid serious?"
"Hahaha! Now that's a fresh attitude!"
The knights ringing us receded like the tide. Had they not expected things to go this far?
"Y-you little—?!"
The moment Gueller opened his mouth, his face a picture of panic, I didn't give him the chance to say it twice. I became a streak of light and lunged. A supple, flowing barrage of sword strikes crashed down on him, pinning him to his line of death.
"Guooooh!"
Ridiculous as he looked with all that jiggling fat, Gueller was still a knight. He raised the sword in his hand and met me in a desperate parry. Steel rang on steel, striking sparks.
I can see it.
I peered into the gaps between those clashes. Compared to an orc, Gueller's swordsmanship was far more refined. But stacked against the limits I possessed, it was as pathetic as a firefly before the sun.
In an instant I pulled back the blade that had been hammering him. At a glance it looked like a defensive recovery, wary of a counter. But the intent wasn't defense — it was attack. I had no intention of letting the gap already burned into my eyes slip away.
"D-damn it! Shit!"
Gueller, his face gone pale, bellowed as if something were stuck in his chest. I didn't answer with words. I answered with action. My hand guided the jet-black blade along a path no ordinary human could ever trace.
And then the sword that had been driving forward as if it would cut through everything in this world stopped dead.
"Mana!"
"Dodge! Kid mercenary!"
"Gueller, you crazy bastard!"
The knights watching the duel cried out, their voices thick with dismay.
...Mana?
Before their voices even registered, a sharp sense of wrongness had already seized me. He raised a barrier with mana. Amateurish.
I didn't twist the path of my blade. For some reason, I was certain I could punch through his mana and land the strike. I poured more force into force. Power and skill. Weight and softness. Before the sword forms born of the simple yet brilliant [Sword God] trait, no shield was unbreakable. Once I understood that, there was nothing left to fear.
"That's... a mercenary?"
"There's no 'form' to speak of — he doesn't even have ki. And yet, strangely, his sword looks complete."
"Oh! Good God! The rumors were true! That man is the one who slaughtered hundreds of orcs!"
The knights' cries of astonishment rang clearly in my ears. I didn't lose focus, of course. The blade invaded the dense wall of mana. A moment later, the mana that had stretched like a balloon shattered like glass.
"M-mana. He... 'cut' the mana."
In the sudden hush that fell over the grounds, someone's dazed voice rang out. Gueller collapsed onto the dirt, his mouth hanging open.
"Th-this... how is this possible?"
The mana he had gathered to its peak lost its flow and scattered. At the same time, his cherished sword lay in fragments, strewn across the ground.
But I had not the slightest intention of stopping there. He had already lost the will to fight — yet it was an undeniable fact that Gueller had used this duel as a pretext to come after me.
"Frey! Stop!"
As I slowly, unhurriedly raised my sword, Lancelot's shout tore through the air, almost a scream. I froze and turned my head. There was the owner of that voice.
Lancelot had shoved his way through the crowd in a rush. I looked at him with a gaze that demanded an explanation. His face, so unlike him, was filled with something like pity.
"Hold back. He is a noble. Gueller is a direct descendant of Count Dupont."
This was the bastard who had looked down on me and even gone after my life. And I was supposed to swallow this humiliation just because he was a noble?
I looked down at Gueller in his pathetic state. His face was twisted with terror, and the space between his legs was soaked. He had pissed himself — after being the one to call the duel.
"...Hold back?"
Seeing that, I was certain. I didn't even need to do the math. The path I should take was already clear.
The blade came down.
The duel was over.
By now the sun was sinking toward the horizon, and the knights had gathered in twos and threes to start their evening meal. Lucky me, I supposed — the knight order had served me dinner as well.
"...It's good."
The moment I put the food in my mouth, I nearly teared up. This wasn't what ordinary soldiers ate. This was knight fare, and the menu was genuinely high-class.
First, the potatoes. White steam was still rising off them, and they were no ordinary potatoes. Boiled until the pale flesh showed, then baked with cheese on top — they were exquisite. And the meat? Even for someone like me, picky by modern standards, the quality was staggering. The juices from the thick cuts burst in my mouth so freely I could have sworn I was drinking them.
Compared to the rice balls those orcs used to toss around, this is heaven.
Of course, I wasn't monopolizing this lavish meal. Lancelot, who had a tent to himself, sat across from me. He looked like he had no appetite. Watching him pick at a feast like this made me want to nag him, for no good reason.
"...Aren't you afraid?"
Lancelot had been rolling a potato around on his tray for a long while. He finally spoke just as I was finishing my meal.
"Am I afraid?"
It was a disjointed, out-of-nowhere question. Even so, I could guess what he meant.
"Well, is there something to be afraid of? Accidents happen in a duel. That's only natural, isn't it?"
"Is that so. I suppose it is."
Lancelot answered briefly and smiled a bitter smile. To me, who had only ever known the image of the honorable Swordmaster Lancelot, that smile sat strangely on his face.
"They won't come after you just for cutting off an arm. But there's no telling what dirty tricks they might try. That's the kind of house the Duponts are."
"That so?"
I shrugged at Lancelot's worry that wasn't quite a worry. At the end of the duel with Gueller, I had cut off his left arm. Medicine in the world of Silvering was primitive, but given that holy water and healing magic could even reattach severed organs, it had been a remarkably generous sentence.
"Frey."
"What?"
"I'm asking just in case. Do you remember my name?"
"Of course I do. Lancelot du Armand. Squad leader of the Golden Lion Knights."
"Haha."
What's with him now?
The corners of Lancelot's mouth curved up. That was twice today I had seen this guy smile. Given his usual temperament, it was a rare sight.
"Interesting."
And what was so interesting this time? I looked at Lancelot with an expression that asked for an explanation. He took a big bite of potato and spoke, deadpan.
"I never told you my name was Lancelot du Armand. Lancelot du Almans. That's the name I gave you."
...Damn it. Did he set a trap without me even noticing?
Lancelot's gaze, indifferent and dry, settled on me.
"I think I'm starting to get a sense of who you are."
In the quiet tent, the crackle of wood in the stove rang out like thunder.
"You..."
Lancelot's voice continued. Listening to it, my eyes couldn't help but go wide.