A Lingering Concern
Jinhyuk rubbed his chin as he looked over Sophia and her companions.
Olivia swallowed. A few hours ago she would have snapped at him, her face bristling with suspicion—get away from Sophia this instant. She couldn't do that anymore. If she did, she'd become the most wretched ingrate alive, repaying a life-saving debt with hostility.
"Hmm!"
Jinhyuk nodded, looking satisfied. Charles had taken some damage, but nothing life-threatening. He'd gotten them all out in time.
"Charles, try putting some of this on the wound."
He pulled a small lotion tub from his inventory.
"Vaseline...?"
The three of them stared at him, bewildered. They knew Vaseline was a decent ointment, but you didn't typically smear it on a stab wound.
"Ah—only the tub is Vaseline. What's inside is different. It should work well."
Elia spent every spare moment crafting all sorts of items in the Workshop of the Stars. This was her newly developed all-purpose ointment.
"Thank you."
"Hold on a second."
Jinhyuk pulled out a towel and handed it to Charles.
"Bite down on this."
"Pardon?"
"Just chomp. Like that."
Charles did as he was told, though he found it a little odd. Did you really need a gag just to apply ointment?
Olivia, having washed her hands thoroughly, scooped a little of the lotion and spread it over Charles's wound.
In that instant—
"Mmph!!!"
Charles's eyes went bloodshot, as if they might burst from his skull.
"Ch-Charles?!"
Olivia stumbled back in shock. This was Charles, of all people. A superhuman who wouldn't so much as grunt even when run through with a blade. For him to be in this much pain...
Olivia and Sophia both looked at Jinhyuk. Was this really all right?
"Don't worry. That's a perfectly normal reaction."
Whenever Elia developed something new, there was a procedure she never skipped: running it by Jinhyuk—her unkillable royal taster—to check for any unforeseen side effects. He'd applied it himself. There were no side effects. None at all. It just hurt like hell. Even on a shallow scratch, he'd foamed at the mouth.
Ah. I forgot to mention it hurts.
He'd given the man a gag and neglected to pass along the most important information. Resolving to warn people in advance next time, he watched the treated area.
The torn flesh knit together at a startling pace, and the bleeding stopped.
"......!!"
Sophia and Olivia's eyes went wide. A trauma ointment that took effect this instantly? The performance was so far beyond anything they'd ever heard of that they almost doubted their own eyes.
"Hah. Hah."
Charles, wracked with pain, gradually settled. Jinhyuk smiled. As expected of a medicine made by Elia Possen, the Star Alchemist.
"Try drinking this."
He handed them tea he'd had Momo steep ahead of time. Sophia took a sip and let out a quiet breath. Perhaps it was the warm liquid loosening her body. Little by little, the reality of the situation began to sink in.
"I don't even know how to thank you."
Death had come right up to her door. More precisely, she should have died. A hopeless situation from which no amount of struggling would have saved her. For the briefest instant, Sophia had even seen what people called her life flashing before her eyes.
And yet she was alive. The appearance of the person in front of her—Yu Jinhyuk—had overturned in a single stroke a situation she'd taken for fate.
"How did you know we were in danger?"
Sophia's party hadn't realized it themselves when they got off the train. That the man who'd come to meet them wasn't the real Edward. So how had Jinhyuk, who'd been inside the train, grasped the crisis?
"Hmm. How should I put this."
Jinhyuk pointed a finger at his head.
"Let's call it instinct. Something like sensing killing intent?"
The three of them nodded, looking dazed. If anyone else had said it, they might have tilted their heads. But this was Runner. If Runner said so, they had no choice but to believe it.
Jinhyuk, the one who'd actually said it, swallowed and broke out in a cold sweat.
It was a lie. Killing intent had to be reasonably close before you could sense it, and he hadn't felt a thing. The reason he'd gotten off the train was Seira.
There's something that's been bothering me.
Saying that, Seira had repeated the name Sophia Marcia Windsor once more. Even then, Jinhyuk had only tilted his head. He hadn't known that Windsor was the surname used by the British royal family. Anyone with an interest in the British monarchy would have recognized it immediately, but Jinhyuk was not that person. He was busy enough just making a living. How was he supposed to know what surname some other country's king used?
He'd later learned that Seira hadn't known that fact either. She'd simply said there had been a knight in the order. A knight who used the name Windsor.
I have a request. I want to help that child.
When Seira put it like that, what else could he do? He had to go help. And so he'd jumped straight off the train—to help Sophia, who might have been in danger.
And now, with Sophia's safety secured, he understood that Seira's instinct had not been wrong.
A chime rang out. Light spilled from the quest window.
The British royal line, handed down through long ages. The man who founded this dynasty was named Aman Leonhardt. Aman, who would later be called the Conqueror King, nearly lost his life as a child when barbarians stormed his castle.
The one who saved him was Berid Windsor.
A peerless knight, Berid took in the orphaned Aman, taught him the sword, and on that foundation Aman became the Conqueror King—the first sovereign to unify Britain.
His work done, Berid Windsor departed in silence. Watching the place his savior had left behind, Aman swore an oath. That the name would never be forgotten.
And so Aman took the surname of Berid, the man who had been both father and master to him. Thus began the House of Windsor.
A faint hologram unfurled alongside the message as it wrote the tale. Scene after scene, from eras he couldn't begin to place.
Huh?
Even as he watched, Jinhyuk couldn't keep the question marks from stacking up. The surname of the British royal family had been created because of a knight of the Black Knights? He'd read it properly and his head still went blank.
He lowered his gaze to Sophia, sitting there before him. It wasn't as if Berid's blood actually ran in her veins. But it was a bloodline that had endured to this day because Berid had existed.
Hmm... I don't get it.
Jinhyuk's face went slack. Where this world connected to what, and how any of it was even possible if it did—he couldn't begin to measure it.
Another chime.
◈ In the deepest depths of the ancient castle, the sword once wielded by Berid Windsor lies hidden.
Berid Windsor, who was called the Iron Knight, could freely wield the weapons of those he had slain.
A sword in which its master's power dwells in full.
Holy—
Jinhyuk clapped a hand over his mouth. How the world had come to be this way was a question he could sort out later, piece by piece. What mattered was that something capable of raising his combat power actually existed. He now had a reason to go to Windsor Castle.
Of course, having come this far, he'd stop by Snowdonia Park first.
"Jinhyuk? Are you all right?"
Sophia asked, her face full of worry. Jinhyuk had gone rigid, as if something had seized him.
"I'm fine. Just got lost in thought for a second. Charles, how are you feeling?"
"Far better than before. Thank you."
"That's a relief. Shall we get moving, then? You said you were headed to Conwy Castle, didn't you?"
Jinhyuk smiled at the three still-stunned faces.
"I'll escort you. All the way to Conwy Castle."
He'd heard Sophia's faction was gathered at Conwy Castle. Get them there, and they'd be safe. After that, he'd slip off on his own and head for Snowdonia.
"Shall we? To Conwy Castle!"
He set off at an easy pace. The unexpected chance of securing a sword. A grin was already spreading across his face.
Crash!
Everything on the table went spilling to the floor. As if that weren't enough to vent his rage, Widrik snatched up a sword and started swinging it wildly. After a long stretch of taking it out on the furniture, he sucked in a ragged breath and his eyes snapped up.
"What did you just say?"
"I-I'm sorry!"
The man, his face gone paper-white, dropped at once.
"Did I ask you to apologize? I asked what you just said."
"W-we found Joypin's unit wiped out near Roze Station. All of them are dead, including Commander Joypin."
"Does that make any sense?"
"Pardon...?"
"I said, does that make any sense. All Sophia has with her is one old geezer of a bodyguard and some girl who isn't even a combat-type Awakened."
The man swallowed his words. There was no answering that question. He was just as ready to lose his mind over it. Joypin's unit had been operating in the shadows for Widrik for a long time. They were people whose skill was beyond question—and they'd been slaughtered. No matter how he turned it over, it was a thing that should not have been possible.
And yet it had happened. Sophia had reached Conwy Castle, where her supporting faction was entrenched.
"Wipe that look off your face."
"Pardon...?"
"I said wipe it off. Nothing's changed."
At the killing edge in his voice, the man forced his frozen expression to ease. Widrik Pallam Windsor was a madman. Touch him the wrong way right now and there was no telling what he'd do.
"Haaah..."
Widrik let out a long breath and closed his eyes.
"Listen, Rugar. I want to be king. I want it very, very much."
"Y-yes!"
"That's why I killed Mom, and Dad, and my older brother. I even took the risk of putting Grandmother in a coma. And I had all of Grandmother's aides who got in the way have their throats cut. You know that, don't you, Rugar?"
"Yes!"
"So tell me—does it make any sense that I wouldn't become king?"
"No! How could it possibly make sense!"
"Right?"
Widrik opened his eyes and swept his hair back. For a proper succession to the throne, Sophia would have to come to Windsor Castle, where the reigning queen, Elysia, was. Which meant that if Sophia simply vanished before then, the crown would pass to Widrik, the only remaining blood. Even if Elysia woke later and grasped the situation, it wouldn't matter. By then, everything would already be over.
"Get in touch with every last person in the ledger. If they don't want all the money they've poured in so far to go to waste..."
A chilling madness gathered at the corners of Widrik's eyes as his words trailed off.
"they'd better do everything in their power to make me king."
"Yes! I'll contact them at once!"
Rugar, having received his orders, fled the room. Widrik steadied his breathing and drew a thin, ugly smile.
Foolish little sister. Did you really think hiding there would change anything?
If that was what she thought, she was badly mistaken. Conwy—the ancient castle that stood as a symbol of Wales. From this moment on, he would burn that name black and reduce it to ash.