Hero, Commoner, Nation (2)
The color that symbolized Rondinel was blue.
A deep blue that called to mind the sea more than any lake—that was the true emblem of Rondinel. And so the gardens of Rondinel were filled with blue flowers.
Blue hydrangeas, blue roses, blue peonies… No matter what was planted, every bloom in the gardens of Rondinel dyed itself azure. It was one of the few gifts the late king had left to the young princess who had loved blue flowers since childhood.
Even after she ascended the throne, the young princess would often steal whatever free moments she could to stroll alone through this garden. It was one of her few hobbies—and one of her few escapes.
“It’s been a long time, Kirchhoff.”
Three hundred years had passed, and still—
“What’s with that face? Did you not want to see me?”
“······There’s no way that could be true.”
“I’m joking. I can tell just by looking at you.”
She was still there.
Walking among the blue flowers, unchanged in the slightest from three hundred years before. The sight of her made Kirchhoff’s throat tighten. There was so much he wanted to say, yet not a single word would leave his lips.
“You’re making a face like you’re about to cry, Kirchhoff.”
The last queen of Rondinel, Yuria.
She let out a short laugh and walked toward him. Her steps were light, almost buoyant. She came skipping up and stopped right in front of Kirchhoff.
His head dropped of its own accord. He had just barely remembered that staring straight at Her Highness was improper. Yuria, however, seemed displeased. “You’re still the same, my knight,” she muttered, and bent at the waist.
She lowered herself, tilted her face up from below, and peered into Kirchhoff’s.
“Hmm. I distinctly told you to hold your head high and live proudly. Bowing now would mean ignoring my command… You’ve grown rather delinquent while I wasn’t watching.”
Kirchhoff gave a bitter smile.
“It has been three hundred years.”
“Three hundred years!”
Yuria clapped her hands with a sharp crack.
“You’ll have plenty of stories for me, won’t you?”
Wearing the smile of a mischievous child, she seized Kirchhoff’s sleeve, dragged him to a quiet corner of the garden, and sat him opposite her at a tea table.
“Go on then—talk as much as you like, Kirchhoff.”
“······.”
“Where did that silver-tongued chatterbox who used to prattle endlessly in front of me go? Strange. Don’t tell me you have nothing to say? I asked you to forge heroic legends the bards would sing with one voice.”
“You did so order me.”
“Not an order—a request.”
Resting her chin in both hands, Yuria smiled at him.
“So hurry up.”
She pressed him gently.
“I’d like to hear your stories. Just like the old days, when you’d barge into the garden and regale me with your exploits.”
“···Those were days without fear or manners.”
“Were they? I rather liked you then. Especially the boldness of the boy who stole a knight’s armor and introduced himself to me as the greatest knight in all Rondinel.”
“Please forget it. That was an embarrassing time.”
“I refuse.”
Yuria grinned.
“If you want me to forget that story, you’ll have to tell me one far more splendid. Well? Can you make me forget?”
“Ah.”
Kirchhoff dragged a hand down his face and steadied his breath.
“Of course. Who do you think I am? The knight who promised heroic tales to the most beautiful person in Rondinel.”
He swept back his hair, put on his usual swagger, and dropped his voice low. Like an actor stepping onto the stage, Kirchhoff opened his mouth with exaggerated flourishes of hand and shoulder.
I have so many stories to tell you.
So many I’ll tire myself out before I’m done.
With a face that still looked ready to break into tears, Kirchhoff began. Watching him, Yuria wore a gentle smile. She listened to the heroic tales her knight spun—
exactly as she had three hundred years ago.
Kirchhoff was the son of a prostitute.
He never knew who his father was. He never even truly knew his mother. By the time he was old enough to understand the world, she had already left his side.
His childhood was, of course, wretched. Born and raised in a tavern, the only lessons he learned were how to cheat people and how to rig a gambling match. From the earliest age, Kirchhoff studied the art of deception.
Because that was the only way to survive.
A merciless world does not let a child remain a child. Forced to live alone, Kirchhoff taught himself how to inflate his own importance, how to bluff, how to lie.
“A real knight, see! He’s gotta have honor and pride. Huh? Get that weight just right and the ladies fall over themselves. They go crazy for it.”
Listening to the ramblings of a retired knight who was a regular at the tavern, the youth who had grown from that boy thought: Knights, honor, pride—what a joke.
What good were any of those things?
Even the loudest champions of honor and pride would crawl on all fours like dogs after a few days of starvation. Before hunger and poverty they were nothing but illusions. Kirchhoff knew, better than most, just how low a man could sink for a single crust of bread.
And so he reached a conclusion.
Honor. Pride. Knighthood.
Was there anything else that could be sold at so high a price? They were empty illusions—yet he could peddle those illusions for a fortune. It was the perfect racket.
“Knight.”
From that day Kirchhoff began to play the part.
He wore the armor he had won from the retired knight in a wager. He learned a knight’s speech and manners from the same man. He dropped his voice, jammed a helmet down over his face, and hid who he was.
“Wandering knight, Hoff.”
That was how he introduced himself. His name was Hoff; he had been adventuring across the Continent and was now pausing a while in Rondinel. Like an actor taking the stage, Kirchhoff began his performance.
And something remarkable happened.
The reek of the slums that clung to a boy born and raised in the mud became, instead, the sweat of a wandering knight weary from the road.
The rusted, battered armor and the countless scratches covering it became living proof of a wandering knight’s adventures.
The empty boasts he used to throw out to make himself seem larger, the lies no one in the slums had ever believed—when they left the mouth of “Wandering Knight Hoff,” they sounded almost plausible.
Even the menial jobs he took simply to eat that night, performed under a knight’s identity, were suddenly seen as the thrift and diligence of a model knight who scorned luxury.
“If it isn’t Sir Hoff! Come have a drink. Ah, don’t refuse—I’m buying!”
“Sir Knight, eat this while you talk!”
The youth no one in the slums had ever glanced at twice was now welcomed wherever he went. To the people of the alleys, Kirchhoff was a flower that had somehow bloomed in the muck, a bard who brought them tales of a world they would never see.
“Sir Knight.”
“Sir Hoff.”
“Lord Hoff!”
“Isn’t this Teacher Hoff?”
“Young master.”
Respect. Envy. Admiration. Expectation. Receiving gazes he had never known in his life, Kirchhoff felt his heart stir. At first he had meant only to run a modest scam and vanish, but somewhere along the way he lost himself in the act.
He became obsessed with the role of Wandering Knight Hoff.
To play the part more perfectly, Kirchhoff began to study. He read heroic epics. He learned rhetoric. He went to the theater and cultivated refinement. Under the pretext of correcting the stances of mercenaries, he examined their swords; every night while others slept he drenched himself in sweat, training alone.
Because he did not want to disappoint them.
Because the expectations they placed on him felt good.
Because he did not want this performance—this life—to end.
And so Kirchhoff began to forge himself.
······Kirchhoff had talent.
It was a talent even he had never suspected. Once it locked into place, he grew with startling speed. The moment he could truly wield a sword, the things he could do multiplied.
“Young master, the Vincen gang’s causing trouble outside the tavern again—can’t you do something? Business is dying because of those bastards. Business!”
“That won’t do. Interfering with a tavern where I, Wandering Knight Hoff, am a regular? They’ve lost their fear.”
“You’re… really going to help?”
“Of course. Still, I should take a fee, shouldn’t I?”
“A fee?”
“One drink will do.”
“Hahaha! One drink? Two, three—as many as you want, young master!”
And then—
“Sir Knight, our child—our child······.”
“Don’t cry. Tell me what happened.”
“The Vincen gang took him. They say they’re going to sell him to the nobles—what are we supposed to do······.”
“Don’t worry. I’ll bring him back.”
Wandering Knight Hoff.
“The Vincen gang’s hired a real knight! They’re planning to wipe this whole place out. What do we do? If they take over this district······.”
“Damn it, Uncle Hans too······.”
“The mercenaries have already pulled out. There’s nothing we can do against that.”
“Those bastards run human trafficking, tolls, every filthy racket there is. We can’t let this quarter fall to them! We have to fight!”
“But how······.”
“I see.”
They began to call him the knight of the slums.
“I understand the situation.”
He helped people for almost nothing in return.
“Don’t worry.”
Crying out honor and pride, he protected the weak; for ladies in distress he willingly drew his sword.
“I’ll handle it.”
And he stood without fear against the strong as well.
Against the knight the Vincen gang had summoned, Kirchhoff fought with everything he had. His armor was smashed to pieces, yet to the very end he kept his helmet on and clawed for victory.
“I am Hoff.”
And on that day, in that moment—
“The knight who protects the weak—Hoff.”
Kirchhoff drew forth sword aura and defeated the knight. The fake knight had broken the real one. From that day forward, Kirchhoff began to change.
He set his sights on a larger stage.
Leaving the slums behind, he wandered the cities of Rondinel and built his fame. The more intoxicated he became with that renown, the deeper he sank into the role, the more hollow he felt. In the end, all of it was still only acting; he knew he was a fraud.
······And then.
Kirchhoff found himself infiltrating the garden that lay on the outer edge of the royal castle. He had heard there was a lady of surpassing beauty there. Slipping into the garden in secret, he came face to face with her.
“Who are you? To trespass in the royal castle—you seem to have lost all sense of fear.”
“Hoff. Wandering Knight Hoff. Having heard of a beautiful lady, how could I stay away? Even if it costs me my life, I must see her face once before I die.”
Yuria.
“Puhahaha! Is that so? Is that right… In your eyes, is my face worth staking a life on?”
“Ah—of course.”
That was Kirchhoff and Yuria’s first meeting.
“In light of that tongue of yours, I’ll overlook the rudeness this once. Hmm… but this is still a little lacking.”
“When meeting the most beautiful lady in Rondinel, I could hardly arrive empty-handed.”
“Yet your hands appear empty.”
Kirchhoff snapped his fingers. A red rose bloomed suddenly in his palm; Yuria’s eyes went wide.
“How—?”
“I know a few parlor tricks.”
“Well now.”
Yuria laughed as if she couldn’t quite believe it and gestured for him to sit across from her.
“I’m growing curious about you. I believe I’ve heard rumors over the wall—stories of the wandering knight who set all Rondinel talking.”
“I’m honored.”
“Might I hear those stories in full? Interesting tales are rare in this place.”
Kirchhoff answered with a magnificent smile.
“Of course.”
Who do you think I am? Wandering Knight Hoff, the man who set Rondinel alight. Stories? I have them to spare.
“Yes… that was our first meeting.”
At the sudden plunge into the past, Yuria burst out laughing. Kirchhoff scratched the back of his neck, sheepish. Yuria exhaled a short breath and wiped the tears that had gathered at the corners of her eyes from laughing so hard.
Not a single thing had changed from that day three hundred years ago.
Yuria still laughed and wept at Kirchhoff’s stories, laughed with pure delight, and the garden she inhabited looked exactly as it had three hundred years before.
Everything.
Truly everything remained precisely as Kirchhoff remembered it. The blue hydrangeas in full bloom were beautiful, and she who outshone every flower in the garden was beautiful still.
······Kirchhoff thought of everything he had seen on the way here.
Laughing, chatting passersby. Children racing through the streets. The knights of Rondinel. People who had met wretched deaths elsewhere were here alive and breathing. And above all, Her Highness sat before him now, smiling.
“······.”
Everything he had tried to protect was here.
Here, Rondinel lived and breathed.
Yet to fulfill his lord’s wish, Kirchhoff would have to destroy this place. Caught in that contradiction, he made a low sound of pain. Was it truly the right thing? Was Rondinel not alive and breathing right here?
“My knight.”
Kirchhoff’s face was a knot of conflict.
“Wandering Knight… Sir Hoff?”
He lifted his head at Yuria’s voice.
She was looking straight at him.
“What are you thinking about right now?”
“······I’m deliberating.”
“Deliberating on what?”
Kirchhoff could not answer.
I’m deliberating on destroying this Rondinel—on destroying you along with it.
He could not bring himself to speak the words aloud.