Glacia vs. Kay
Swords collided with a clear, ringing cry. The only things littering the ground around them were corpses—some frozen solid, others burned pitch black. Glacia Winterhart, the North’s next Grand Duke, swung her Demonic Sword, while Kay of the Black Round Table deflected every strike with her rapier. At first glance the fight might have looked even, but the one truly holding the advantage was Kay.
“Hey, little missy. I don’t actually want to kill you, so why don’t you just turn around and leave? I’ve never liked murder in the first place…”
“Be silent. Are you not people who are targeting Lord Werner’s life?”
“Let’s get the words straight. I couldn’t care less what happens to that bastard. It’s just that my friend wants him dead no matter what it takes.”
“Your… friend?”
“Ah, you people probably wouldn’t understand… but the wretched ones always flock together. Isn’t it the duty of a pathetic friend to help another pathetic friend achieve what they desire?”
With features so beautiful they stole the breath from one’s lungs, brilliant golden hair, and black tights that clung to every curve of her body, the woman before her was someone Glacia simply could not comprehend. Why was someone like this in the Black Round Table? A woman’s beauty was a weapon all on its own. With looks like hers, she could have lived however she wished without ever needing to join such an organization.
“Why would you associate with an organization like the Black Round Table? With your beauty and skill, you could surely have lived exactly as you desired beneath the sun’s light.”
“Hah…? The sun’s light…”
Kay let out a cold laugh. The tip of her rapier flicked upward and tore a small slit in the tights covering her arm. Electricity crackled and burst forth in a blinding flash. A current thousands—tens of thousands—of times stronger than any ordinary human’s coursed through her body.
“Do you think someone with a body like this could live under the sun? A body that was abandoned even by her own parents… do you honestly think I could live basking in that light?”
“Yet there are many people in this world who would accept even someone like you without discrimination.”
Glacia thought of her parents, of Camellia, of the occasionally irritating Airi Les, and of Werner—the first person who had ever met her eyes and affirmed her existence.
“There are also those who live upright and righteously despite enduring far more arduous and painful lives than yours.”
“…Hah…”
“There are far more people in this world who would embrace your flaws rather than attack them for them. I can say this because I was born a half-vampire, the child of both vampire and human.”
Having been born belonging to neither race, she understood the suffering of an unusual body better than most. She had despaired over that fact since childhood and lived with her heart closed off. But because Werner had been the first to affirm her, she had been able to keep walking until now. She had learned that many humans and vampires would accept her as she was.
Though she pretended otherwise, among all the women connected to Werner, Glacia was the most tender-hearted. That was why she had tried to reach out.
“Shut the hell up!!!”
But Kay slapped that hand away. Even though she could have stepped into the light, she refused the path. Her voice boiled with rage.
“You’re saying there are bastards who lived even harder lives than me but still stand tall? I couldn’t do that! No matter how much those fuckers suffered, does that erase my pain? They were just lucky enough that their minds never broke! They just had people who kept them from falling apart!”
Her voice was thick with pain, fury, and hatred.
“You say there are more people who embrace flaws than attack them? I never met any! That’s something only the lucky ones get to experience! You probably did! Truly unfortunate people don’t get bread even when their stomachs are screaming! Even if every bone in their body is shattered, no one comes to nurse them!”
She ripped the tights from her body. Had the thin undergarment beneath not covered her, she would have been completely naked. The countless scars and surgical marks that covered her skin told the story of the life she had survived.
“You think you can say that because you’re a half-breed? Stop spouting that fucking bullshit! You’re a noble! Have you ever been dragged to a brothel by parents who sold you for money?! Have you ever been thrown in prison for killing people with a body you never asked for?! Have you ever been gang-raped by prison guards?! Have you ever… been dragged to the execution ground like a dog…? I don’t want to hear sermons or moral lectures from lucky bitches like you!”
Glacia found herself unable to speak. She had certainly received discriminatory looks, but she had always known her parents’ love. She knew nothing of the pain of someone trapped in total darkness from the moment they were born.
“I only hesitate to kill. It’s not that I can’t. If you abandon that Werner or whoever and run, I’ll let you live…”
“Unfortunately, that is not possible.”
The Werner she had longed for since childhood was finally by her side. Even when he had left her, she had waited with tears in her eyes. Leaving him of her own free will was utterly impossible.
“Oh, is that how it is? Then I’ll just shock you enough that you won’t die.”
It happened in a single instant.
Glacia couldn’t even register what had occurred. By the time she realized anything, a gash burned across her side and excruciating electric current tore through every nerve in her body.
“Hah. You avoided a fatal wound in that split second. Truly admirable.”
Kay, electricity crackling across her entire form, offered the praise in a tone that sounded almost disappointed.
“At this point you understand the difference in skill, right? I really, really hate killing people. If I kill someone, I have nightmares that night. That’s why I hate murder so much.”
Of course, that statement was contradictory. Roughly half the bandit corpses scattered around them had died after being caught in her attacks.
Glacia rose to her feet, using the Demonic Sword as a cane.
“That is not possible.”
“Aigoo, how stubborn. Is that iron will of yours the reason you refuse to draw the sword at your waist?”
Glacia swallowed dryly. The sword at her waist that radiated cold was the one Werner had given her. Just from the aura it emitted and the quality of its scabbard and hilt, anyone could tell it was a masterpiece. Yet… for some reason she could not draw it. The scabbard remained frozen, refusing to release the blade.
“Incidentally, there is a massive contradiction in what you have said.”
“Contradiction? Sorry, I’m not good with fancy words…”
“You claimed you joined the Black Round Table because of your suffering. That you were born with a cursed body, that no one saved you, that you had tasted every misfortune the world could offer.”
“…And?”
“Yet the Tower Master of the Earth Magic Tower who bears the title of Tristan is different, is he not? He lived as a bandit, yet met a master who guided him onto the path of magic. Far from being cursed, he was granted talent for magic, and wealth and honor followed him wherever he went. So why… did that man join the Black Round Table? Why do you call him your friend?”
She had believed it a colossal bundle of contradictions. She could not understand why Kay would hate her while regarding someone who had been born with what could only be called the greatest luck in the world as a friend.
Contrary to Glacia’s expectations, however, Kay fell silent. That silence swirled with countless emotions. And from within that storm, one feeling emerged with unmistakable clarity.
Killing intent.
“Without knowing how harsh the world was to him, without knowing how cruel the laws of this world were to him… you ran your mouth. So you’ll die here.”
Kay did not usually harbor killing intent strong enough to beat someone to death over mere insults. There was only one exception—when it concerned her friends. For Tristan and Pellinore, she would unleash that intent without hesitation. She was famous even inside the Black Round Table for refusing to kill the innocent, yet she had still joined the plot to assassinate Werner because of what had happened to Pellinore.
And now that someone had insulted her other friend Tristan as well, the killing intent and rage she had suppressed burst free.
“You even know how to feel anger for another’s sake. Then why do you not use that heart for other people?”
Glacia recalled the incident in Halstead Territory. She remembered clearly how those who had lost everything to the Black Round Table had thrown away even their lives for revenge. She knew how deeply saddened Werner had been upon hearing of Count Halstead’s end, and so she too felt anger. She did not want to see Werner sad.
“I’m not soft enough to waste anger on bastards who don’t even understand the world’s unfairness.”
“Allow me to correct you. That is simply called being selfish.”
Glacia gripped the hilt of the cold-emitting sword. It was a gift from Werner; she moved with the vague hope that if she wielded it for his sake, the blade might finally come free.
And then, with a pure, crystalline ring, the sword began to slide from its scabbard.
In that brief instant, her consciousness was dragged somewhere far away.