Leo's Break
Slap!
The Duke of Epsilt struck Leo across the cheek.
He put his full strength into the blow without a shred of mercy, and Leo’s body staggered under the force of it.
“Ugh… I’m sorry.”
Leo said it, but it changed nothing.
Slap. Slap!
“You… you damned little—!”
The duke’s voice shook with rage.
He kept hitting him for a long while after that. Only when Leo finally collapsed to the floor did the duke’s hands stop.
“I—I’m sorry! Please, just stop!”
“Get up, you idiot.”
The duke’s voice was ice-cold. At the order, Leo scrambled back to his feet and stood straight.
“Hah… Do you even understand what you’ve done?”
When Leo only fumbled for words, the duke ground his teeth. Startled, Leo blurted out in a rush,
“I—I lost the duel and the family’s treasured sword—”
“And do you know what sword that was?”
“It’s… the one handed down through the family for generations…”
“You knew that and you still put it up as a stake in a duel!”
Thud. Unable to contain his fury any longer, the duke drove a fist into Leo’s face.
“You absolute fool! It’s not as if you didn’t know what that sword was! That was the blade used by the first head of the house, you—ugh…”
After beating Leo for some time, the duke suddenly clutched the back of his neck.
“Y-Your Grace!”
The family butler standing behind him rushed forward at once.
“Hah… hah… What in the world were you thinking when you pulled a stunt like that?”
When the duke had finally managed to compose himself, Leo answered in a voice that had all but shrunk into his throat.
“I… I naturally thought I would win the duel, but Louis Wallenstein used underhanded tricks during the match and—”
“Those underhanded tricks were yours, weren’t they? Did you really think I wouldn’t know what the items you requested from the family were for?”
“I’m sorry!”
Leo bowed his head at once. Angering the duke any further here would be genuinely dangerous.
“You used potions and even scrolls and still lost? What a worthless piece of—”
The problem was not that he had resorted to such underhanded methods in a sacred duel. The problem was that he had done all of that and still lost in the end.
Leo watched the duke’s face carefully and spoke with caution.
“My lord, we are still the Epsilt family, are we not? Could we not simply pressure the Wallensteins, or send people to take the sword back by force?”
In Leo’s mind, he was offering a solution to soothe the duke’s temper. The duke only laughed coldly.
“Hah. Take it back by force, you say…”
Slap.
The duke’s hand cracked across Leo’s cheek once more.
“Thanks to you, the Imperial Princess is watching us with her eyes wide open. As if that would be possible.”
That was the real problem.
In theory, they could pressure the Wallenstein count family, or even send men to seize the sword outright. But the Epsilt ducal house was currently supporting the Imperial Prince in the struggle for the throne. If the Wallensteins formally raised the matter after such an incident, the duke could ignore a mere Wallenstein—but the Imperial Princess would seize on it as a pretext to attack.
The duke himself had already seen the recording of his son’s disgraceful conduct. There had been a formal warning and reprimand from the Imperial Family, and under the name of “reconstruction support funds,” they had been forced to pay out a considerable sum. That, too, had been the princess’s doing. Not content with slashing the support funds that were supposed to go to the Ansberg count family, she had insisted that the Epsilt ducal house also bear responsibility—and that the remaining support funds should be paid not from the imperial treasury but by the Epsilts themselves. The Imperial Prince had objected, but the Emperor, thinking of saving imperial property, had approved the proposal. In the end, the Epsilt house had been bled of a substantial amount of money, and the Imperial Family had handed that same money to the Ansberg count family under the name of support funds, making a great show of generosity.
In short, the Epsilt ducal house now had to tread carefully around the warning and reprimand they had received from the Imperial Family. The princess alone would have been one thing. Leo Epsilt clearly bore some responsibility for the Ansberg family’s downfall as well—and the problem was that both the Ansberg count house and the Epsilt ducal house were on the Imperial Prince’s side. Because of that, the prince’s mood was far from pleasant at the moment. A house of the Epsilt’s stature could normally stand up to the Imperial Family to some degree, but the situation right now was simply too unfavorable.
In other words, if they tried to reclaim the sword while they were supposed to be lying low, and the Wallenstein side made a major issue of it, and the princess used that as a pretext to attack—that would be dangerous. And so even the Epsilt ducal house found it difficult to simply take the sword back by force. All because of the Leo Epsilt standing in front of him.
The Duke of Epsilt looked down at Leo with cold eyes.
“I think… I trusted you with too much.”
Leo Epsilt swallowed hard. Tense, he waited for the duke’s next words.
“If you pull another stunt like this even once more, I will not let it go. Build connections in moderation and graduate quietly.”
“Yes, I understand.”
Leo answered at once. Of course, he did not mean a word of it. How could he possibly leave Louis Wallenstein alone after the humiliation that man had inflicted on him? But the duke knew exactly what kind of person Leo Epsilt was. And so he continued,
“I will continue to send you money, but do not expect any other form of support from the family from now on.”
“What?”
“I also forbid you from using the family’s people however you please.”
“F-Father!”
Leo called out urgently, but the duke was unmoved.
“This conversation is over. Get out of my sight at once.”
“Father! Please, just a moment!”
Leo cried out desperately. Nothing changed.
Leo Epsilt walked down the corridor of the mansion. His face looked like that of a demon.
The words the Duke of Epsilt had just spoken still rang in his ears. Build connections in moderation, do not cause trouble, and graduate quietly. Cut off every form of support except for money. In the end, it meant he was to live like any other ordinary academy student and simply graduate. He could no longer demand items from the family the way he had last time. He could no longer make use of professors who took the family’s money.
“Damn it!”
Bang!
Leo slammed his fist into the wall of the mansion. That was not an option. The revenge he had been plotting against Louis Wallenstein—manipulating an academy professor to threaten him with expulsion, or using the family’s people to cripple him, or taking back the treasured sword and forcing the man to kneel and beg at his feet—every one of those plans required the family’s power. After all, Leo Epsilt himself had learned all too clearly that he could not defeat Louis Wallenstein. So he had meant to show him the gap between their houses. No matter how outstanding the man was as an individual, he would make him understand that he was nothing before the Epsilt ducal house. And now that had become impossible.
Still seething with anger, Leo Epsilt began to chew at his nails in agitation.
Wh-what am I supposed to do…?
“Should I just kill him?”
I muttered under my breath. Of course, I knew that would be a disaster. The problem was not only that I would be killing the heir of one of the empire’s three great ducal houses and a Hero candidate. Even if I somehow managed to assassinate him without anyone ever finding out, what came after that would still be the issue.
It would be nice if Leo Epsilt died and the Holy Sword immediately chose the next Hero candidate. But life never goes according to plan—that was a self-evident truth. I myself was living proof of that, having been living a perfectly ordinary life before being dragged into a world I had only ever known as a game.
Anyway, what if I killed Leo and the Holy Sword simply refused to choose a new Hero candidate? Or what if it did choose one, but far too late? Imagine the Demon King appearing and reducing the entire capital to rubble, and only then did the Holy Sword finally decide on the next Hero candidate. We would be completely and utterly screwed.
That was why I was looking for a more reliable way to change the Hero. The problem was that the original game knowledge I possessed was not much help here. In the game, the Hero Leo Epsilt had been the playable character. If Leo died, it was simply game over. What happened to the world after that was none of the player’s concern—whether the Demon King conquered everything, or a new Hero appeared and saved the world. Even if you were curious, there was no way to find out.
So one of the things I had been focusing on lately was finding a way to change the Hero. It was a dangerous subject to ask just anyone about. When I had asked the Count of Wallenstein before, he had simply said he knew nothing about such things. I had also torn through the absurdly massive library in the Wallenstein mansion. A significant portion of my precious break had been deleted by that work. But no matter how thoroughly I searched the library, the information I wanted was nowhere to be found.
Of course, I was not clinging to an impossible task. I had my own theory. In the game’s setting, it was clearly stated that Heroes were selected periodically in preparation for the Demon King. So even if something happened to the current Hero candidate Leo, a Hero for this generation still had to be chosen—which meant a new Hero candidate would be selected. It was a reasonably logical guess, but this was reality, not a game. If my conjecture turned out to be wrong, any method of killing the Demon King would vanish entirely. That was why I had been searching the library for a sure method.
I had now finished checking the family’s entire library. There was nothing useful there, but I did not despair. The academy had a library several times larger than even the massive one in the mansion.
And there was something else I was focusing on as well. The treasured sword I had gained by winning the duel. Awakening the power of this blade. Here, the original game knowledge I possessed was an enormous help.