The Third Refusal
The outstretched hand showed no tremor.
It belonged to the crown prince. The hand that had been frantic for half the empire.
Seize it and three sheets of paper would turn to ash. A hundred-year endowment would attach to the orphanage. The mercenary contract would gain a signature. A net of the imperial palace would descend upon the gray-haired swordsman.
Kyle stared at that hand. He needed no answer.
The answer had arrived three weeks ago. Perhaps even three months ago. Or ten years ago.
“Your Highness.”
“Yes. Speak.”
“What Your Highness wishes to purchase is not a sword.”
The hand tilted half a span in midair. The smile remained unchanged.
“Oh? Then what is it?”
“A leash.”
“Three sheets of paper are that hide. The fourth is the ring.”
“The price of the leash—I know it well. Ten years of payment.”
“……”
“I humbly decline.”
The steam in the room had already grown cold. Two untouched cups of tea served as the silent clock.
Leonard withdrew his hand. He did not grow angry. Instead he crossed his legs, settling into the posture of one who had concluded a transaction and now observed.
“You have refused the princess, refused the lord of Valk, and now me. You have collected three.”
“Collecting is another man’s hobby.”
“Hah. As the child said. I want it, but it is better not to have it because you found something rarer—”
The crown prince picked up three sheets of document from the table and slowly fanned them one by one.
“Yet, Sir Knight. Refusals carry a price. You know that. These documents will begin their work today. Legally. From every direction. I have no taste for staining my hands with blood. Ink is the only thing that stains paper.”
“I have read them all.”
“Indeed. Well done. One of Chasen’s conjectures proved particularly interesting.”
The crown prince lifted his teacup for the first time and took a sip. Only when his hand was sufficiently stacked did he drink tea.
“Twelve years ago, in the snowstorm of Trent. A wandering swordsman and one child. The gray border of that era. And now— the word gray appears only around you. Gray swordsman, gray fang, the beast of gray eyes… If they overlap five times, what does the intelligence department call it?”
“Weather, Your Highness,” Kyle said.
“Hah. That is how the vice chieftain described the day he lost.”
Leonard set the cup down. No sound accompanied it.
“I call it blood. The blood of the blade. What kind of blood it is— you will say for yourself in the tournament. Before one hundred thousand spectators. I await it.”
The word “tournament” never left the crown prince’s lips. Not uttering it was how he displayed his hand.
“And I will not finish the story of fate. The fate of the tournament.”
The fourth sheet.
Before the word left his mouth, Kyle moved first. For the first time in his life, his lips spoke before he had finished reading.
“Your Highness. Allow me one conjecture before that.”
“……”
“You struck my vital point with three sheets of paper today. Precisely. The orphanage, the dagger, and the gray are all my vital points. Cut me and I bleed.”
Kyle took one step forward. Not a bodyguard’s distance. A swordsman’s.
“Yet the fourth sheet is not a vital point.”
“Oh?”
“A vital point is a place I die. The fourth sheet— if touched, it is the place Your Highness suffers.”
Leonard’s smile froze by one beat. The hammer of the tournament stage outside the window rang out with unnatural force.
“……Is that, then, blackmail?”
“I merely look one move ahead. I have never learned blackmail. The only thing I have learned in ten years is one thing— to protect. Recently I learned that protection requires no license and no salary.”
Kyle continued without retreating. Chest open from within, no pressure applied.
“Do not use that person as your blade. At that moment I become not your trading partner but your enemy. And you— the documents in your hand may defeat me, but my sword cannot be stopped by those documents.”
Leonard stared at Kyle for a long time.
Then he laughed. This time not with a smile but with sound— heartily, genuinely amused.
“Haha! This is it. Forty pages of Chasen’s report, and one sentence from you is more accurate than all of them. Your vital point is not three sheets of paper— it was one from the very beginning.”
“……”
“Wonderful, Sir Knight. Today we end here. Enjoy the tournament. How fate is managed— no.”
The crown prince rose, the first smile he had worn that could not be read.
“I shall watch you cut the managed fate.”
* * *
Leaving the guest hall, a purple figure waited at the corridor’s end.
“You came back alive. All limbs intact.”
“……How did you know?”
“I know my brother’s schedule better than anyone. So you refused, then?”
“Yes.”
“What did you say?”
Elysee’s fan slipped from her hand. She forgot to pick it up and simply stared at Kyle.
“……Wait. You told my brother, in front of him, that you have become his enemy. With your own mouth?”
“I said only what I meant.”
“If that is what you meant— hey, Kyle. I have lived twenty-two years inside the palace, and today is the first time I have seen someone walk out of my brother’s presence after saying such a thing and remain perfectly whole.”
Elysee picked up the fan and, after a long moment, smiled at Kyle with a strange expression.
“But do you know what is the scariest thing? That my brother did not grow angry. He was actually enjoying himself. My brother’s toys that make him happy are—”
“No. Let us stop this. I will give you a talisman.”
“I refuse the talisman—”
“It is not to be eaten. It is information. — The lottery cannot be trusted, but the order of drawing can. The tournament bracket is drawn in order of number. Seven twelve was drawn and then, after a long while, nine ninety-nine was drawn. You will understand the meaning tomorrow.”
The price arrived in the manner of the intelligence department— silently.
Two days later a dispatch reached Valk. Vargas’s handwriting was like an axe cut.
Lordship Direct Contract Renewal Examination: indefinitely suspended. All official requests frozen. No reason given. No disturbance among the members— a lie, they are all thinking only of your safety. The group endures. You handle your own business.
Chief. The crown prince. It is fine even if the seat grows cold, so come slowly. A lie. Come quickly.
Hugo, having read the letter first, punched the wall.
“You bastards… when the sword does not work, you tighten the purse strings? What crime have the members committed! Brother Darren, the newcomers—”
“Hugo.”
“Why!”
“Look at the chief’s handwriting again. The cut is deeper than usual. It is not anger— it is joy. The gray fang grew without an official request. When the lordship direct contract is cut, we return to the old business and that is enough, and the chief has always been the one who loved that old business the most.”
“……That is true. But still!”
“Even so, debt is debt.”
Kyle folded the letter and placed it inside his coat. One more person now owed him, and there was only one path to repayment.
That same day Dorte’s merchant group received two inspections. After stripping every transaction record and finding nothing, the third inspector invoked an ancient clause for tax evasion.
“What kind of tax evasion talk is that! That clause was abolished by the previous emperor— no, wait. Was it not an extension?”
Dorte spent the night searching legal texts, paid the fine in the morning, and summoned Kyle to a seat at noon.
“It is because of you.”
“……Yes.”
“You struck the crown prince. Hugo set the whole thing ablaze.”
“I am sorry. I did not think the group would be dragged in—”
“Who asked you to apologize.”
Dorte closed her account book with a loud clap.
“In twenty years I have endured the crown prince’s whims a hundred times over. A fine? It is nothing. What I called you for is not an apology— but to balance the accounts. The loss on our side we will bear. You, however, do one thing.”
“……Speak.”
“Win. To the end. Against those who tighten with documents, that is the most painful strike. The sight of you standing on the dais before one hundred thousand— even if the crown prince claps, it is the place he cannot avoid.”
In the evening Geralt, who had finished the security roster meeting, visited the base. He listened to the full story and laughed for a long time.
“You struck the crown prince. The princess, the lord… you are winning by refusal.”
“You would not find it funny. The sparks are flying toward you as well—”
“Go on. Sparks do not frighten steel.”
Geralt set the laughter aside and added one more thing with the face of a warrior.
“I have heard the bracket. One piece of advice. There are two kinds of brackets— one that seeks to break you early and one that seeks to break you at the place that pains you most after you have risen to the top. The crown prince is the latter. He said he was enjoying it. Then your first match should be surprisingly easy. The real blade is hidden in the upper bracket.”
“……The upper bracket.”
“Yes. So do not hold back at the beginning. And— that gray-haired man is my concern. I have added two aura mages to the security list and formed a watching squad for the spectator seats. You watch only the stage.”
* * *
That night Kyle applied oil to his new sword on the rooftop of the base.
Valk’s group was tightening, the merchant group receiving inspections, the orphanage’s hundred-year endowment shaking. The crown prince’s documents wounded late, so the more time passed, the more places that hurt grew.
And above all that— the fourth sheet.
The letter in his coat brushed against his collar. The man who had said he would call his name when they met again. That man was now sleeping somewhere in this city, within the jurisdiction of the same documents.
You said it was not a vital point. A lie. It was a vital point. Only it was not a place where bleeding occurred. It was a place where one could not be cut. The crown prince had seen that difference in one sentence, yet Kyle, with that person at his side for ten years, had not noticed it.
The hand that had been about to close stopped. This time it did not close. It remained half-open. The strength lately spent to close what should not close felt precious.
Fate can be managed.
The bracket will tell how it is drawn. Whether the crown prince’s hand has gone deep into that urn. The first match may place the seven swords inside it, or the more vicious move. The face of the vicious move Kyle had no desire to summon. Trying not to summon it at all was already the answer.
Footsteps rose. Hugo arrived carrying two wine bottles and sat beside him. Finn followed, carrying a bag of chestnuts, and silently took the seat on the opposite side. The face that had already missed curfew looked tired, yet no one told him to go down.
“Lord, from tomorrow even if inspections come, I will write two account books. One to show, one to keep.”
“……That is a book you should not know.”
“But I am the porter. What do I know if the porter does not know that?”
Chestnuts cracked one by one. They were cold yet sweet. Even cold, the sweetness kept coming. The crown prince’s documents had not reached that far.
“I read Chief’s letter. ……Hey, is this fight one we can win? The opponent is the crown prince. Half the empire.”
“We cannot win with documents.”
“Then?”
“Winning against documents is not thicker documents.”
Kyle lifted the sword and held it up to the moonlight to check the edge. The nameless sword that had waited ten years shone quietly while waiting for its first true task.
“The dais. The place seen by one hundred thousand. There is exactly one place in the empire where the intelligence department’s documents cannot reach— and the tournament has paved the way all the way there. The crown prince himself.”
“……So your answer is.”
“I will ascend.”
The sword returned to its scabbard. A clear sound traced a line across the night sky.
“I will cut everything and ascend.”