Chapter 35: The Emperor's Strongest Sword (2)
Chapter 35: The Emperor's Strongest Sword (2)
When I came to my senses again, I was having a private audience with the Emperor.
No, fortunately, it seemed it was already over. The Emperor was setting down his empty teacup and rising from his seat.
I couldn't very well remain seated when the Emperor was standing. As I pushed my chair back and stood up as well, he paused for a moment to look at me.
"You must have had a great deal to concern yourself with over there. How about attending the banquet to relieve some stress? Of course, I have no intention of forcing you, so you need not attend if you'd rather not."
I didn't know what this was about, but fortunately, it seemed the crisis had passed.
If it hadn't, there was no way I'd be standing here, perfectly alive, having a private audience with the Emperor.
He was even making what sounded like a considerate suggestion! He said he had no intention of forcing me, but since I had no idea how things had been resolved, whether any resentment lingered, or if everything had been smoothed over, I had no choice in the matter.
"No, I will attend."
As a rule, when a superior says 'you don't have to if you don't want to,' it means 'you absolutely must do it even if you don't want to.' If I cluelessly refused here, what would happen to my life was obvious without needing to see it.
And sure enough, as if confirming I had made the right choice, the Emperor's lips curled upward, almost imperceptibly.
He openly looked me up and down, then spoke in a voice tinged with faint amusement.
"Looking like that?"
"......Ah."
"It can't be helped. I'll have clothes prepared for you, so wash up and attend the banquet. I'll inform the head maid."
"Thank you for your consideration."
He gave a brief nod at my thanks, then turned away as if he had no further business with me.
But before he could take more than a few steps, he turned back around as if something had just occurred to him.
"By any chance, those clothes. Are they important?"
"......Pardon?"
Ah, damn. Asking a question back to the Emperor was a tremendous breach of etiquette.
I hurriedly shut my mouth and lowered my head.
Fortunately, he didn't seem offended. His voice, in the same unchanging tone, kindly followed up to clarify.
"What I mean is, are they clothes you'd regret discarding?"
"Ah......."
Hmm, well, I knew nothing about clothes, so.......
I didn't even know how much these were worth, so I couldn't just say anything carelessly.
So instead, I thought back to the maids who had diligently helped me pick out the outfit before I came here.
The way they had held up different garments in heated debate, and the way they had focused so intensely on dressing me that their eyes had become bloodshot.
And yet I'd ruined it all before even arriving at the banquet hall.
'They'd probably resent me, wouldn't they?'
Even if they didn't resent me, they would be quite crestfallen.
So at the very least, it would be better not to throw the clothes away. Though, judging by the state they were in now, I probably wouldn't be able to avoid discarding them.......
Still, since the Emperor had only asked whether they were 'clothes I'd regret discarding,' I hesitated for a moment before slowly opening my mouth.
"I think...... it would be a slight waste to throw them away."
"Ambiguous. In any case, I understand."
"Yes."
......Wait a moment. He understood? Understood what?
The Emperor turned without hesitation and exited the reception room. Suddenly left alone, I sat back down on the chair in front of the table, partly to gather my thoughts.
But I was given no time to think.
"It is a pleasure to meet you, Count."
Because the maids came flooding into the reception room all at once.
Their momentum was practically that of a well-trained legion.
I flinched inwardly and looked at them with a 'what the hell' expression, and one maid stepped forward.
"I am called Bella, the head maid. I heard that you will be attending the banquet."
"Yes, that's correct."
The eyes scanning me were terrifying. Maybe it was just my imagination, but the way they glanced at the chair I'd been sitting on seemed to turn cold, if only for an instant.
Surely they wouldn't do anything to me, but.......
"First...... we must begin with a bath. This way, please."
"Yes."
Terrifying......!
Their words were polite, but their actions were resolute. Surrounded by the maids, I had no choice but to match their pace and shuffle along nervously.
And the series of events that followed was so staggering that the servants at the Count's residence I had experienced before seemed adorable by comparison.
The moment we arrived at the bath, the attendants who had been standing by stripped off my clothes and forced me to wash...... or rather, before they could, a physician came rushing in.
The thing was, my entire body was covered in wounds. Bruises, scabs, and all sorts of injuries I hadn't even known about.
After examining me, they even said I had internal injuries.
"The internal injuries are the most urgent. This is almost at the level of colliding with a carriage. Did you happen to fall off a cliff somewhere?"
I had definitely never fallen off a cliff, and as for colliding with a carriage.......
I clearly had no memory of it, but for some reason, it left an uneasy feeling.
What the hell. Did I throw myself at a carriage? Or did someone throw me at a carriage?
At any rate, the servants, for whom every minute and second was precious, gave me no time to think. The moment the treatment was finished, they began washing me again.
Just to give you an idea of how rushed they were, they didn't even give me time to soak, saying there was no time.
They immediately poured water over me to wash off the blood, then scrubbed every inch of my body thoroughly.......
'That was an experience I never want to go through twice.......'
The next time the Emperor asked, I would refuse immediately, unspoken pressure be damned!
Making that vow to myself, half out of my mind, I was dragged along by their hands and led into a room.
What I saw there was none other than my clothes, which I had judged would inevitably have to be thrown away.
The moment I saw them, neatly folded in a perfectly clean state, I couldn't help but be bewildered.
'That's impossible. How?'
They had been absolutely drenched in blood. To the point where throwing them away had seemed like the only option.
Even if they had somehow managed to wash them clean, drying them would have taken time.
'Magic? Was it magic? No. Humans can't use magic....... Sorcery, then?'
Was it possible to dry clothes quickly using sorcery?
Sorcery is the exclusive domain of humans, created to counter the magic of the demon race.
If magic violated the world's laws, sorcery was about offering a price to subtly bend the world's laws and use them to one's advantage.
Sorcerers were rare, and very little was known about sorcery, so I inwardly tilted my head.
But the maids, oblivious to my thoughts, just handed me the clothes and pushed me to hurry up and get dressed.......
'......Fine, whatever. My own clothes are way better than whatever the Emperor would provide.'
At least they weren't burdensome.
What I didn't know at the time was this: while I had been washing up, the designers from every clothing shop in the capital, along with their apprentices, had been dragged to the imperial palace.
And that when they left, they all trudged out looking haggard, like people who had been up all night for a week.
Nor did I hear at the time the anecdote that someone who saw over a hundred people, all looking hollow-eyed and staggering out of the imperial palace, had screamed.
[30 minutes. Reproduce this exactly within 30 minutes.]
[Did you just say it's impossible? With this many people, is it truly impossible?]
Make the impossible possible.
For a moment, I had forgotten that this was the Emperor's favorite saying.
Despite the commotion that had clearly taken place, the banquet hall quickly regained its peace, as if nothing had happened.
The vivid red footprints and droplets of blood that had marked the floor were swiftly cleaned by the attendants, the music began playing again, and people gathered in groups of two or three and began to chatter.
A scene no different from before the disturbance.
There was, however, one difference. The gazes of the chatting guests were all uniformly directed toward a single spot.
At the end of their collective gaze, a man with stark white hair, dressed in a crisp white uniform, sat in a chair nearby, resting his chin on his hand and lazily lowering his eyes as if bored.
On the surface, he seemed merely a noble scion of some family, but those who knew his true nature could not bring themselves to approach him and could only steal furtive glances.
"His dark circles are gone. I recall that the last time I saw him, the shadows under his eyes were quite pronounced."
"I heard he just returned from a monster subjugation. Perhaps it's because he saw blood?"
"If so, then could the rumors that he's a vampire be true?"
"Seeing how adamantly His Majesty defends him, I suspect they may be. Otherwise, there would be no need to so tightly conceal all information about him......."
Deon Hart, Honorary Count.
A peerless man who had distinguished himself as a vanguard commander during the Eight-Year War, and who had, as a comrade of the Hero, recovered his remains—a feat no one before or since could claim.
Starting with the story that the Emperor had actually tried to bestow upon him a status higher than the single-generation title of 'Honorary Count' but that he himself had refused, all manner of rumors swirled around him, making him a favored topic of conversation in the social world.
And one particularly recurring subject among them was.......
"If that's the case, then the extermination of the Hart family must also be his doing......."
"Shh, lower your voice."
The extermination of House Hart, the full details of which no one knew.
The incident in which House Hart, a family that had served the imperial family loyally for generations, vanished one day without a trace had sent great shockwaves through noble society.
No one knew the full account of the incident, but that didn't mean they couldn't speculate. The nobles, piecing together all the information that had surfaced, were advancing a rather plausible hypothesis.
Something along the lines of 'there was some kind of deal between Deon Hart and the Emperor.'
The grounds were sufficient.
Because even though a dog that had faithfully followed the blood of 'Desert' for generations had died, the Emperor had remained silent.
House Hart was a loyal family. Moreover, it was not a barony or a viscounty, but a full-fledged county.
And yet such a house vanished overnight, and the Emperor remained silent? No matter how you looked at it, that was suspicious.
"From the very beginning, His Majesty, who treasures talent, granting him only the position of Honorary Count was......."
"Yes, suspicious. He even delayed recognizing him as an official Hero."
When Deon Hart returned after the Eight-Year War, his achievements were recognized and he had a private audience with the Emperor.
No one knew what conversation had taken place there, but the result was that, unlike the other Heroes who had received the title of Marquis, he was granted merely the title of 'Honorary Count.' This was inconsistent with the Emperor's characteristic habit of treasuring talent.
In fact, on top of the 'Honorary Count' title, he had reportedly received an enormous monetary reward, and on top of that, because he had been steadily receiving territory bit by bit from then until now, he currently held lands rivaling those of a marquis. But hadn't the result in the most crucial 'title' category been this lackluster?
And so this conjecture emerged.
[In exchange for refusing the high title the Emperor offered, Deon Hart desired the extermination of House Hart.]
Deon Hart was a mutation within the family.
Stark white hair, red eyes, and on top of that, pale skin. Perhaps they really had picked up and raised a young vampire from somewhere.
The truth was unknowable, but whether a mutant or a vampire, both were equally repulsive, so the family would have shunned him.
And so they might have abused him.
Until he joined the Eight-Year War, he had never taken a single step outside the manor, so this speculation wasn't entirely groundless.
"So, in order to take revenge, he brought down House Hart......."
"To be discussing such things knowing full well who the guest of honor of this banquet is, my, you are quite impressive."
"Y-your Grace!"
Waving his hand at those who turned and bowed in startled surprise, Stave Illustar put on a gentle smile.
The person standing behind him was none other than the banquet's guest of honor, Cruel Hart.
To those looking at him with expressions of utter mortification, Cruel merely bowed his head in silence and withdrew without the slightest change in expression, as if it didn't bother him.
Just as an awkward silence was about to descend, Duke Stave Illustar clapped his hands together a couple of times, as if to redirect attention from Cruel, and spoke with a grin.
"I jest. In truth, it's a famous story that everyone knows, isn't it? So there's no need to be so startled. Lord Cruel surely knows all about it already."
"......."
Yes, he would know it very well. After all, the one who had assisted in investigating those rumors was none other than Cruel himself.
A story that anyone who had frequented the social world a few times would know.
To the Duke, who had grasped the general situation, it was an uninteresting rumor. But because Cruel, his subordinate and a person directly connected to the incident, had questions, he had used him to dig deep into the case.