Proof of Innocence (5)
It was the sort of fight that could never, in any honest sense, be called a duel.
Thwack!
"Guh-urk!"
Everyone who watched Berdel fly backward again from one of Sian’s careless punches thought the same thing in silence.
This was not a fight.
This was nothing more than one-sided violence on Sian’s part.
Sian wasn’t even using a sword. He was fighting barehanded.
Against him, Deall and Berdel were clearly fighting with everything they had, at least to anyone with eyes.
Deall was swinging his twin swords, while Berdel stood behind him and bombarded Sian with magic.
A swordsman and a mage. If you assumed they were working as a pair, it was the most orthodox and efficient formation imaginable.
Besides, those two aren’t actually that bad for cadets.
The duke had just let slip a sharp remark about the brat from the Onstein family because he disliked him, but objectively speaking, both of them were clearly above average for cadets their age.
Now that I think about it, Her Highness Cartesia said the same thing. Those two were the ones His Highness the Crown Prince allowed to follow at his side.
Duke Orphega knew very well exactly what sort of man Ricardo was, and what kind of personality he had.
Ricardo was capricious, impatient, and even arrogant, but at the same time, he was a man who could at least recognize talent when he saw it.
That was why Ricardo was famous for being rather picky about the people he allowed near him.
The fact that such a Ricardo had acknowledged those two as something close to “friends,” even if only within the limited confines of Rutra, was proof enough that they were exceptionally skilled.
But in front of Sian, all of that was useless.
"Too slow. And your sword is too simple."
Sian easily avoided the path of Deall’s twin blades with nothing more than a single backward step, then drove his fist straight into the man’s solar plexus.
Thud!
"Ghk!"
At a glance it looked like nothing more than a random punch, but the moment it landed, Deall could no longer endure it and collapsed onto the ground.
"I don’t know who taught you swordsmanship, but your whole foundation is a mess. Your footwork, your swings, everything about you is a complete disaster."
"Shut up! What the hell do you know!"
"I’m trying to give you advice, and you’re still being rude. That’s why you’re still like this. Do you really think you’d get strong just because you stacked up a bunch of mana inside your body with a cultivation method and wrapped yourself in sword aura? Your mana and swordsmanship don’t fit together at all, so of course you’re getting beaten senseless by me."
Muttering that as he kicked Deall in the stomach, Sian suddenly snatched one of the swords from his hand. In the next instant, he spun his body like lightning and slashed diagonally.
Thwack!
With a single strike from Sian that never even bothered to look back, the fireball hurtling silently toward him was cleaved cleanly in two and vanished.
"Cough!"
When the spell he had cast suddenly shattered, Berdel coughed up blood.
It was feedback—the phenomenon in which magic rebounded and damaged the caster’s own body.
"H-how did you cut down my magic? And I was sure I erased all traces of my presence...!"
"Well, if you want to survive a few years on a battlefield and keep earning your bread, that sort of thing is just basic know-how."
At Sian’s offhand reply, Berdel wiped the blood from his mouth and muttered,
"...You keep treating me like an idiot until the very end. I know very well the level of mercenaries crawling around battlefields. Mercenaries are nothing but disposable tools blinded by scraps of money, men who gamble their lives away. Even if they survive a few years in war, compared to a true powerhouse they’re nothing more than vermin."
"And right now, you’re getting your ass kicked by that vermin like a dog. I guess losing the girl you liked is just a little bonus, too."
"You... you bastard!"
The instant Cartesia was mentioned from Sian’s mouth, sparks seemed to flash again in Berdel’s eyes.
"Come to think of it, it wasn’t just a case of her being taken, was it? You must’ve heard rumors about what happened between me and Cartesia when I came back to Rutra, right? It would’ve been even better if you’d been there to watch the two of us kiss."
"Y-you...!"
As Sian grinned and said that, Berdel’s face turned red in an instant.
But his body apparently could not keep up with that rage, because blood began to spill from his mouth again.
Berdel’s body had already lost even the strength required to vent its fury at Sian.
"Cough, cough! You damned bastard, why are you provoking and toying with me like this? If that was your plan, you could’ve finished us off whenever you wanted...!"
At those words, Sian answered in a bored voice.
"I think you’ve got something mixed up. The one who picked a fight with me first was you. Not just today, either—you’ve been doing it for a long time. And after all that, pretending to be the victim now? Even you must know that’s pretty ridiculous."
"I... was only stating my opinion. Objectively speaking, you were the most likely suspect in this incident."
"But you can’t deny there was a fair bit of personal bias mixed in there. At the very least, you should’ve avoided whipping people up and stirring the mob into a frenzy. Right?"
"....."
At last, with nothing left to say, Berdel clamped his mouth shut, and Sian clicked his tongue softly as if he found the man pathetic.
"And I’m not trampling you just because you get on my nerves, either. I’m using you as an example. A very clear example for the women who’ve been tugging on your strings from behind to see what’s going to happen to them next."
It just so happened that the shadowy masterminds were gathered over there, quietly watching the whole thing unfold, so it was a rather convenient arrangement.
"So don’t feel too wronged. There are still four of your lot lined up behind you. You just got unlucky and won number one. Although, I suppose if you think about it another way, being number one might count as good luck."
"Wh-what did you say?"
"No need for a guy like you to know." Sian’s tone remained utterly flat. "So go on. And from now on, don’t go after other men’s women like some filthy cretin."
"Y-you—"
Unfortunately for Berdel, his words never made it to the end.
Kwaaang!
The moment Sian lifted his foot and brought it down on Berdel’s face, everything was over.
****
"...Your disciple greets you after a long time, Master."
After the duel with Berdel and Deall ended, Eli approached Duke Orphega, who was standing before me, and offered a deeply respectful greeting.
"It’s only been a few days since we last saw each other, yet your greeting is rather stiff. I told you there was no need to be so formal with me."
"...Even so, how could I possibly be rude to my master—"
"Enough. We can talk about such rigid matters of etiquette later. There’s something far more important to discuss right now."
At the duke’s words, Eli’s face stiffened.
It was almost as if she had been shocked by the fact that the duke valued me more than he valued her.
"Then perhaps I should start with an introduction. My name is Kaiserlik von Orphega. I am the current head of the House of Orphega, and also Eli’s master."
For someone of his renown, the duke’s introduction was almost absurdly plain and modest.
"My name is Sian. First of all, I’d like to thank Your Grace for showing me such kindness."
"Kindness? What kindness are you talking about?"
"Just now, when I was backed into a corner, you openly took my side."
At my words, which were laced with a little blood and bone, the duke gave a wry smile.
"Kindness, you say... If that’s how you put it, then I suppose I feel a little embarrassed. In a way, I was partly responsible for pushing that situation as far as it went."
To be honest, I was well aware of that myself.
And I could also guess, more or less, why Duke Orphega had gone to such lengths to make this such a grand affair in the first place.
"Setting the rest aside for now... I have one proposal for you, Sian."
"A proposal? What kind of proposal are you talking about?"
"I’ll be blunt. I want you to become my disciple. Would you happen to have any interest in that?"
At that moment, Cartesia and Eli, standing nearby, both widened their eyes.
To them, it was a proposal so outrageous it bordered on the absurd.
And I nodded at Duke Orphega’s offer and answered like this.
"Yes, I don’t intend to."