Knight Brother (Not a Taxi Driver)
In the venerated Eastern classic known as Mencius, there is a passage that reads: there is no difference between killing a man with a blade and killing a man through politics. The line is famous enough to have been used in drama soundtracks, so it ranks among the important teachings I’ve carved into the top 1000 life lessons monument deep in my heart. I won’t reveal the exact placement, but I will say it lost—regrettably—to the maxim Eating more than three shrimp burgers will leave your stomach bloated. It was a painfully close defeat. The clash between those two teachings was the very definition of dragon versus tiger, perfectly matched, an impossible dilemma, a battle of equals.
The reason I’m even mentioning this duel of geniuses is the situation I currently face. If some bastard comes at me with a sword, I can simply blast him with magic. If a half-baked noble whelp makes a clumsy attempt on my life, I can either magic him to death or crush him beneath the weight of greater power and connections. The imperial family, however, is different. Murderers who have perfected the art of killing with blades serve as the empire’s hounds under the title of knight, while those who have mastered killing through politics command ministers who have reached that same terrifying pinnacle. In short, they are not easy opponents.
I wanted to hammer the Buddha’s teaching into their skulls: revenge is meaningless, resentment cannot be resolved with resentment, and only by abandoning it can one find release. While I was at it, I might as well drive home Jesus’s teaching—if someone strikes your right cheek, offer them the left as well. And since I was already delivering the words of two sages, why not add Confucius’s wisdom: repay enmity with justice and virtue with virtue? If the three great sages reject revenge, what right does a mere imperial family have to endorse it? Should they dare defy the will of the three saints, heavenly punishment would surely descend.
“Master.”
While I was contemplating the will of heaven, Airi suddenly spoke up.
“Where are we headed this time?”
Rorsha had only arranged a carriage as far as her magic tower. After that, she told us to manage on our own—that damn woman. In the end we had to meet someone Melchior hyung had contacted beforehand and switch carriages. What a ridiculous hassle. It wasn’t even a bus; why the hell did I have to transfer?
“We’re going to see a hyung I know.”
“But my legs hurt…”
Airi puffed out her cheeks in open complaint. I snapped my fingers, popping the air trapped in them, then gave her soft cheek a firm pinch.
“Ow ow ow ow!”
“Do you not know how much this master hates aegyo?”
“But isn’t my aegyo special?”
“Nope.”
Truthfully, I didn’t want to walk either. It wasn’t that my feet hurt—when I was raised in the facility, walking dozens of kilometers without water was routine. No, walking was miserable because of the stares.
The women I traveled with were stunning regardless of personality or intellect. As a result, countless men—especially the uneducated adventurer scum—were leering at them with sticky, unpleasant gazes. In my head I wanted to crush them with a Confucian punch, a Bible suplex, or a Buddhist scripture rider kick. I even considered wide-area lightning magic for convenience, but ultimately decided against it. The stares were disgusting, but I couldn’t justify violence over mere looks. If any of them tried something clumsy like hitting on us or touching, then I would unleash a full-powered Confucian punch alongside the constellation gentleman.
Plenty of eyes were on me as well. The shopkeeper lady staring with sticky intensity, the girl carrying water, the muscular man with tanned skin, the gossiping grandmothers, the black-haired male adventurer with the long beard, the plump auntie, even the rather pretty female priest—they were all gazing at me with uncomfortable persistence. Something foul seemed mixed into those looks, but I chose to ignore it.
Maybe it was my imagination, but I could have sworn Airi and Glacia were glaring at everyone who looked our way, issuing silent threats. In any case, we pressed forward while disregarding the majority of the sticky stares and the minority of truly repulsive ones. Soon the target carriage and its owner came into view.
The crest of a shield and spear painted on the carriage belonged to the Carven family, who had served the imperial household for generations. Standing before it was a silver-haired knight—Ricardo Carven, current head of the Carven house and one of the Eight Heroes. He was also one of the hyung-nims who cherished Werner.
So nobles really do have family crests like that. Come to think of it, wasn’t the Winterhart family crest a white lion? Still, there was no reason to be intimidated. Though I wasn’t born a noble with a crest, I was a chosen one who possessed multiple crests. The chosen one who had inherited the crests of courage, friendship, love, knowledge, purity, diligence, hope, and light had no need to fear some mere family emblem.
I had expected Ricardo to be wearing armor like he did in the game, but he was dressed comfortably in a white shirt and black pants. Speaking of clothes, the bastards who bought DLC swimsuits for the original male party members, took screenshots, and uploaded them were absolute scum. Back in the gallery days, people who posted those images occupied a strange gray area. Ultimate weapons like grandma or grandpa level could simply be cut, but game images were awkward to censor, and while disgusting they never quite crossed the final line. At the time I hated them enough to want to hunt them down and kill them; now that I think about it… they really were fucking bastards. Meeting the actual owners of those swimsuits made the disgust five hundred times worse.
The owner of that repulsive image approached me and offered a handshake.
“You’ve grown a lot, Werner.”
“Haha… I’m not really at the age where people should be saying I’ve grown.”
“It’s surprising that the boy who still acted like a child at seventeen has become a proper adult.”
“I always acted like an adult, though?”
“…At what age was it when you beat five adult men for cutting in line at the festival and sent them to the hospital for thirty-two weeks?”
“…Seventeen. But that was because those bastards cut in line and then provoked me by saying if I had a problem I should come at them—”
“You understand why hyung is bringing this up, right?”
“Yeah.”
Fuck. He never loses a single exchange. Maybe Ricardo wasn’t a knight but a civil official? Or perhaps a hybrid weapon—civil official by trade yet possessing outstanding martial prowess.
Camelia gave a small chuckle and greeted him.
“It’s been a while, Ricardo.”
“Indeed. Good to see you, Camelia. I thought you would follow the others, so I was a little surprised you chose to look after Werner instead.”
“No matter how surprising that may be, could it possibly match the shock of your marriage news?”
“Everyone nearly fainted when they learned that the man who stakes his life on principles had ignored political marriage and chosen a love match instead.”
Ah, Ricardo’s marriage really had been shocking. The man who valued law, the imperial family, and family regulations above all else—choosing a love marriage. And the other party wasn’t even a noble, just an ordinary flower shop girl. The story really did read like something out of a third-rate knight novel, and everyone had been stunned.
“My loyalty and my commitment to order and principle remain unchanged. However, I believe I have the right to decide my own marriage.”
“Yes, you’ve always been that kind of man.”
Ricardo turned his gaze to Airi and offered her a greeting.
“So you’re Airi. The last time I saw you, you were a tiny thing who couldn’t even reach my knee, so this feels rather awkward. I am Ricardo Carven, Commander of the Imperial Knights, friend to your father, and… older brother to your master.”
Airi answered with her usual cheerful smile.
“Yes, hello! I’m Airi Les! Wow, so you’re the incarnation of chivalry Master always talked about? It’s so nice to finally meet the person Master praises all the time!”
In truth I had never said anything of the sort, but Airi had deliberately invented the story. Ricardo, upon hearing the praise, gave me a thumbs-up. As expected of Airi—she knew exactly how to protect her master’s dignity. She wasn’t stupid at all. By reading the room and fabricating compliments, she had raised Ricardo’s favorability toward me. Disciple really was the best, whether son or not.
When Ricardo looked at Glacia, he sucked in a breath, then greeted her carefully.
“You must be Glacia… I assume you’ve already heard plenty about me.”
“Yes. Since I’ve heard more than enough from my father, there’s no need for self-introductions.”
The Carven family to which Ricardo belonged and the Winterhart family to which Glacia, Melissa, and Melchior belonged were now mortal enemies. Ricardo’s father was the man who had killed Glacia’s grandparents. It was closer to perpetrator and victims than simple enmity… but in noble society, the one who committed the wrong always spoke the loudest.
It was common everywhere for grandmothers to feed their grandchildren while saying they looked thin, yet because of Ricardo’s family, Glacia had never experienced that. How truly pitiful.