Proof of Innocence (3)
“...A disciple candidate?”
The words that came out of the mouth of the man I was speaking to for the first time were so completely out of left field that I could only stare.
A disciple candidate? Whose disciple, and whose candidate? Was he talking about Eli?
At Duke Orphega’s words, I reflexively looked over at Eli standing on the other side, but all she did was stand there, watching the whole scene with a face drained white as paper. She didn’t even greet the duke.
And the duke, in turn, made no effort to acknowledge her either.
Because Duke Orphega’s gaze was fixed solely on me.
“Well now... Every time I see a sight this absurd, I do wonder whether I’ve lived too long. To think you’d corner someone like this simply because he got stronger than before. Or is this the latest fad among the academy’s students?”
“N-no, Your Grace.”
“Then what, exactly, was that performance I just saw? Was it some secret play staged to surprise me?”
Even though Duke Orphega spoke in a tone that was plainly mocking, the student council president could only break out in a cold sweat and fail to give a proper answer.
No, even if he had prepared a perfect excuse for this situation, he wouldn’t have dared to say it aloud.
The Orphega Duchy.
Once the most insignificant of the empire’s four great ducal houses, it had now become the most powerful of them all.
And Duke Orphega was the one who had raised that house’s standing with nothing but a single sword.
The student council president might be the son of the Ohnstein Count House, but this was not a level he could hope to challenge.
So while the student council president stammered helplessly, unable to move forward or back, Verdel quickly stepped in beside him.
“That isn’t it, Your Grace! That bastard Sian was clearly inferior just a few months ago—!”
“Be quiet. What an ill-mannered whelp. Did your father teach you to interrupt when other people are speaking?”
At Duke Orphega’s low, icy voice, Verdel flinched and shrank back.
“But... you look strangely familiar. What was your father’s name again?”
“I-I’m Verdel Ohnstein! And my father is Gerard Ohnstein, the current head of the Ohnstein Count House—”
“Ah, so you’re a blood descendant of the Ohnstein Count House. It seems I’ve got quite the connection with Count Ohnstein. First the father, and now the son—I keep ending up tied to your family one way or another.”
Duke Orphega let out a low chuckle, as if he found it genuinely amusing, and Verdel’s face brightened at once.
“Th-there is? T-then, if I may be so bold, could I ask what kind of relationship you have with my father?”
“It’s not difficult to tell you. Your father and I were, in our youth, something like classmates at Rutra.”
“Ah, I see! Then Your Grace would be a friend of my father’s—”
“And Gerard was also the sort of fellow who went around spewing nonsense about me, just like you do now. He was the one who once spread the stupid rumor that I had sold my soul to the devil to gain my talent.”
“.....”
In an instant, Verdel’s face went deathly pale. Watching that, I felt a little better inside.
“Father and son, you really are exactly the same. It’s almost funny at this point. Vile insects always see something they can’t understand and start babbling about black magic or sorcery. Just like all of you now.”
At Duke Orphega’s words, the student council president spoke up through the sweat streaming down his face.
“I do admit I was far too hasty with my junior, Sian. But I was only doing what I believed I had to do.”
“What you believed you had to do? And what would that be?”
When Duke Orphega asked, he answered,
“An explanation.”
“An explanation?”
“Whatever the circumstances, Rutra granted me part of the authority to investigate this incident. Even if I hadn’t had that authority, I still had a duty as student council president to reassure the other students. I was simply demanding an explanation for the suspicious parts of Sian’s case.”
At that, Duke Orphega looked at the student council president as though he were truly ridiculous.
“An explanation... How amusing. To me, that looked less like an explanation and more like you were trying to pressure that little brat, Sian, and drive him somewhere.”
“T-that...”
The student council president, who had been answering without hesitation, clamped his mouth shut.
Even he must have realized there was nothing to say to that.
“Well, even if the boy told you the whole truth, I doubt you would have believed his explanation anyway.”
“What do you mean by that?”
“That Sian is, at his core, the same kind of man I am. Didn’t I say so earlier? He’s of my kind.”
At those words, everyone in the room, including the student council president, blinked in confusion.
They couldn’t understand what the duke meant by saying something like that.
“It’s not certain yet, but... that Sian boy may be a genius. Perhaps a genius with talent enough to be compared to me.”
Duke Orphega turned his head and looked at me.
It was a gaze that seemed to see straight through the inside of a person.
“Geniuses are beings who stand outside the understanding of ordinary men. People who can’t be judged by the yardstick the world calls common sense. And ordinary men can’t understand such geniuses, so they fear them, and in the end, they begin to persecute them. Just like that Ohnstein brat did a moment ago.”
Once again, as Duke Orphega brought him up, Verdel’s face turned blue.
“The fact that someone’s skill can rise dramatically in little more than a month? Possible. The fact that their ability can grow to an entirely different level? Also perfectly possible. That’s because not only I, but even Eli over there, have experienced that sort of thing countless times. A true genius is a monster who can improve by leaps and bounds in a single day.”
Apparently finding the whole thing amusing, Duke Orphega chuckled to himself and looked at me.
“Hah, but Sian suddenly got much stronger in a single day! If he were really a genius like you say, he would have shown it long ago!”
“Perhaps he had simply been hiding his true strength. Or perhaps he has only now decided there’s reason to show his full effort.”
“Th-that’s nonsense! Your words are nothing but speculation—there isn’t a shred of proof anywhere!”
Desperately, Verdel kept nitpicking Duke Orphega’s words, doing everything he could to object.
Has this bastard completely lost his mind?
To me, he looked like nothing more than a suicide seeker desperate to die as soon as possible.
There are people you can provoke and people you can’t. No matter how empty his skull was, why was he insisting on challenging Duke Orphega to the very end?
Ah. Come to think of it, from his point of view, I guess it makes sense.
Verdel was already more or less a man who had fallen out of Duke Orphega’s favor.
And if, on top of that, he ended up being accused of slandering and framing me in front of the duke himself, then his life would be finished. Absolutely finished.
In other words, the only way for him to survive here was one thing.
He had no choice but to prove that Duke Orphega, who was defending me, was wrong.
“Nonsense, huh? That’s not entirely wrong. Just as you were spewing nonsense at Sian a moment ago, I’m saying whatever comes to mind as well. There’s no proof backing up my words either, so I can’t exactly complain if you call it nonsense.”
I had expected Duke Orphega to crush Verdel instantly, but unexpectedly, the duke only nodded as if agreeing with him.
“But since neither side has proof, there seems to be only one way to determine whose words are right and whose are wrong. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“...May I ask what that method is, Your Grace?”
Perhaps sensing something strange, the student council president asked cautiously, and Duke Orphega answered at once, as though he’d been waiting for exactly that question.
“A duel.”
“...Pardon?”
“I’ll have Sian and that Ohnstein brat throw down. Then, based on the result of the duel, the loser will have to follow the winner’s words. A very simple rule. What do you think? Quite fair, wouldn’t you say?”
At Duke Orphega’s shameless words, I let out a short laugh.
What a slippery bastard. So this was your plan from the beginning?
I’d thought it odd that he was going so far out of his way to back my side despite not even knowing me, let alone praising me as a genius, but it seemed the real purpose was to test my ability in exactly this way.
“Do you perhaps have some objection to my proposal, Sian? If you’re dissatisfied with it, feel free to voice your concerns. I’ll accommodate the proposal as much as possible.”
He was putting on a grand act of generosity, yet he still never once said he would withdraw the proposal.
Still, from my point of view, the duke’s suggestion wasn’t all that bad, so I shrugged.
“No, I don’t have any particular objection to Your Grace’s proposal... but I’d like to add one condition.”
“A condition? What is it?”
I tilted my chin toward Verdel, who looked rather stunned, and curled one corner of my mouth.
“Taking down a pathetic idiot like that doesn’t seem like enough to fully prove my ability. So if we’re dueling anyway, wouldn’t it be fine to add one more?”
As I said that, I crooked a finger at Verdel’s sidekick—the bastard who, along with that piece of trash, had been spreading rumors about me with such enthusiasm, Marcus Deall.
“You heard me. It’s a pain to deal with two little fry separately, so come at me together. And if you’re scared, go ahead and call a few more friends. All right?”
If I was going to fight anyway, I figured I might as well make it economical.