If They Exist (5)
“Uh… so you’re asking if there was ever a time three knights died overnight?”
“To be precise — three knights and their families.”
“Hmm. Can’t say I’ve heard a story quite like that.”
“…Is that so?”
“Or are you talking about the Battle of Baterlo? Or maybe Brusada?”
“Brusada… probably not. But Baterlo…?”
“About twelve years back, demons came pouring in hard. Knights who usually die one or two at most if things go badly — seven of them went down in that fight alone. It was that brutal.”
I see… Twelve years ago, though. Does the timeline fit?
I gave him a look that asked for more, turning the years over in my head. The stall owner shrugged and obliged.
“Because of that mess, a knight family that used to carry some real weight in this city went under. Sir Ripenstein — he was a serving knight and the head of the house — went down with his heir… well. You know how it goes.”
It wasn’t the kind of story you shouted across a counter. After giving me a seat, he spoke in a low murmur, just loud enough for me alone. What he said made something in me sit up and take notice.
“…A knight family?”
“When a household regularly turns out knights, one after another, people just call the whole line a knight family. You didn’t know that?”
“Ah… so that’s what it means.”
A family that produces knights generation after generation.
Then was the real Demon Knight from one of those houses? His father, his older brother, his older sister — all knights. The odds felt high enough…
“Would you happen to know what they looked like?”
I took out the tea water I’d prepared earlier and offered it to the owner who’d shared his chair. It was in a leather pouch, but it had been sitting in my inventory — no chance of it picking up a leather smell.
“You carry a cup around with you?”
Well… I’d poured it in while it was still hot. You can’t exactly chug boiling tea through a tiny pouch opening.
“Anyway, I can tell you what I know… but I only ever saw them from a distance.”
“Hair color, any small detail — that would be enough.”
“Lucky for you, then. Wait — why is this still warm?”
“I boiled it right as I was leaving the inn.”
“Still… how is it this hot after all this time…?”
The stall owner cocked his head, then let it go and returned to the story. I was grateful for that.
“Anyway, those people didn’t really have a hair color to speak of.”
“……?”
“They were scaled Shagi.”
“Ah……”
That settled it. Scaled Shagi were like that — scales instead of hair.
“And they were enormous. Probably a full two heads taller than you.”
“Even… the children?”
“That’s right. The kids took after him completely — all of them had those fine black scales… It’s a shame what happened.”
Whatever hope I’d been holding quietly died. They weren’t the people I was looking for.
“So? Was that the story you wanted?”
“No… I don’t think those are the ones.”
I parted my lips, then simply lowered my eyes.
“The people I’m looking for were all Middle.”
The opening cinematic had faded a great deal in my memory, but a few things still held. The Demon Knight’s father, older brother, and older sister had all been Middle knights.
“There isn’t a Middle knight family like that in this city……”
“I see.”
And all three of them had brown hair. The mother and the youngest had gray. Eye color was beyond me — too little surface area, too much lighting reflection in the cutscene, always shifting.
“Sorry I couldn’t be more help.”
“It’s fine. It simply… wasn’t here, that’s all.”
If there was no one in this city who might have been the Demon Knight, that was enough. I stood from the little stool with something almost like relief. Never mind the lack of a backrest — the real problem was having to fold my legs just to sit at all.
“Heading out?”
“Yes. Thank you for the story.”
Of course I wasn’t about to leave the city over one conversation. Relying on a single person’s word was a good way to miss something.
So I would dig a little more. Even if it meant tracking down people connected to the knight academy, or anyone else who might know.
And if I still found nothing, I could simply move on to another city. The eastern front didn’t have only one knight academy, after all — Chechebator wasn’t the only one.
There was always Belgart, the city I’d been putting off because of the distance. The place with that lord who’d given me a few hints once before.
Between the road and my current circumstances, I was saving Belgart as a last resort… but at least there were still places left to search beyond this one.
I pressed down the restlessness climbing up my throat.
A rising clamor.
As if to help me along, the school grounds started to grow loud right about then. Footsteps and voices tangled together and drew closer to the wall gate — everyone was coming out.
“Oh no, look at me. I’ve been talking so much I didn’t get ready.”
“Ah… is that because of me?”
“Not only because of you……”
The stall owner fell into a flurry of motion to match the noise, hurriedly stuffing fillings into the bread he’d prepared.
“What’s with them finishing early? Normally those kids don’t come out for another half hour at least.”
He wasn’t lying. He wasn’t the only one scrambling. The other stall keepers had all started moving faster too, clearly rattled by the unexpected rush.
“Shall I help?”
“I’d be grateful, but — you sure you can manage?”
“As long as it doesn’t involve actual cooking, I can handle it.”
I rolled up my sleeves. He’d been kind to me; I wasn’t about to let that go unanswered.
While he lit a fire to grill the meat, I swapped out the emptied pickle barrel for a fresh one and laid out the bread.
Soon the training-starved gluttons came flooding in.
“Ugh, I’m starving!”
“Two, please!”
“Meat. Pile it on!”
The soldiers tilted their heads at the unfamiliar face behind the counter, but hunger won out and the orders kept coming.
Thanks to that, I was able to assist the owner without drawing any real attention. All I did was load pickled vegetables onto bread and take money and make change — nothing that would get in his way.
“It’s incredibly busy.”
“After this wave, it eases up.”
And there was another mercy: a limited number of customers spread across several stalls meant we only had to handle a portion of them.
Once we’d weathered that first tidal wave of orders, breathing room returned. My hands, which had been flying, paused to shake out the tension in the empty air.
“Do you do this every day?”
“That’s right.”
“That must be exhausting……”
“That’s just how living goes.”
He chuckled and offered me a proper thanks — gratitude for the help that had made today a little less brutal than usual.
“Want me to refund the bread you ate earlier? Call it payment for the help.”
“No, that’s all right.”
“Huh? Really?”
“If it weren’t for you, I’d have worn out my feet chasing the same story from door to door.”
“Well, if you put it that way……”
He scratched his head, a little awkward, then floated an invitation to dinner. His son had recently moved out, he added, and his wife was feeling lonely — she’d be glad of the company.
“I’d be grateful for the invitation, but……”
“Shopkeep, if you haven’t closed yet, I’ll take one of those— wait. Isn’t that the young man from earlier?”
The invitation dissolved under something unexpected.
“What are you doing here?”
The knight I’d seen at the checkpoint had come as a customer.
“You two… know each other?”
Even a merchant with a thick hide seemed to lose his easy banter in front of a knight in full plate. Honorifics slipped out of the owner’s mouth on reflex, and his eyes kept darting between me and the knight. He was clearly starting to wonder whether I was someone important.
“We met at the checkpoint earlier.”
“Ah……”
No point leaving the man who’d helped me standing there uneasy. I smoothed the misunderstanding away gently, then faced the knight again.
“I can’t go inside, so I was hearing what I could from this gentleman instead. Lending a hand while I was at it.”
“Ah.”
What I’d actually heard had nothing to do with the school, but the knight had no way of knowing that. And a stall owner already rattled by a knight’s appearance wasn’t about to correct me.
Besides, it wasn’t a complete lie.
“I’d love to show you around once, but the grounds beyond that gate are closed to civilians.”
“I understand.”
Honestly, a knight who would say even that much after a single brief meeting was the stranger part of this.
Wondering if my excuse had gone over a little too well, I turned and said my goodbyes to the stall owner. Dinner was clearly off the table; better to leave on a clean note at least.
“Ah— take care.”
As expected, the owner didn’t try to stop me, though his expression was complicated. He did murmur something oddly encouraging — “Hope you catch their eye” — that I didn’t quite know what to do with.
“Since we’ve crossed paths again, ask me anything you’re curious about. As long as it doesn’t touch on security, I’ll answer.”
In the meantime, the knight had taken a loaf from the owner and turned the offer toward me. It was a welcome one. A knight would know more about other knights than anyone else.
“Do you know of a Middle knight who raised both his eldest son and eldest daughter as knights — himself included? I’ve heard the second son was a Knight Candidate as well.”
“Hmm… do you have a name?”
“I don’t.”
“Appearance?”
“Ah — I know he had brown hair.”
“Brown hair… that’s common as dirt.”
“…For what it’s worth, he would be dead by now. Along with his family. All at once.”
“Hm?”
The knight, who had been stroking his mustache, stopped walking.
“So that’s who you’re after. The Ember of Munmunt.”
A sharp jolt. My right arm began to burn as if it were on fire.
“…You know him?”
“I can’t say whether he matches the person you’re looking for, but I know of the man himself. He was the most famous knight in Munmunt.”
The pain couldn’t hold me. I’d found him. The hand gripping my right shoulder scraped across the fabric with callused fingertips.
“Why are you looking for him, though?”
“…Someone who taught me the sword for a short while once said he wished he’d been able to learn properly from that man. I never heard more than that, but once I started traveling, I found myself curious.”
The conversation had kept moving while my arm burned, so I scrambled a cover story into place. I hadn’t expected to find anything this fast, and it showed — the excuse was rough around the edges — but it was the best I had.
“I didn’t realize he was from Munmunt. I assumed he must have been a Chechebator knight.”
“Why would you think that?”
“Well… anyone worth recommending that highly would have to be an extraordinary knight. And when you think of a place that produces knights like that, Chechebator is the first name that comes to mind.”
I couldn’t leave it there and risk him asking questions I couldn’t answer, so I steered the topic hard.
Chechebator is the best. Number one. The finest school, ahead of even Munmunt! I wrapped that sentiment in enough polite layers to pass, and the knight’s face twisted — not in offense, but in deep, unmistakable satisfaction.
The diversion had landed perfectly.
“Ahem. Fair enough. Yes, perfectly fair.”
His mouth twitched as he thumped my shoulder. Once. Twice. Three times. My HP plummeted, and a hot red liquid flooded the back of my throat.
“Hrgk—”
“Good heavens— are you all right?!”
“I— I’m fine.”
What was this, a sitcom?
I waved him off with a bloodless face, wiping the blood as it ran. Calming the knight down took a little longer.
.
.
.
“So what will you do now?”
Much later, once the bleeding had finally stopped, the knight asked me. It was a hard question to answer.
“I’m not sure……”
Honestly, I wanted to leave for Munmunt that very moment… but looking at it practically, that wasn’t realistic. I needed to restock what I’d burned through getting here, and I wanted at least a few nights in an actual soft bed.
“I don’t really know. Maybe that’s what comes of charging in knowing full well it might not work.”
More than that — if I announced I was bolting for Munmunt right away, the goodwill I’d just barely built with this knight would drop straight to zero. Even if he was only a brief encounter on the road, I preferred not to burn that.
“Hmm……”
“I don’t have much travel money left either……”
Still, with the Disguise skill to consider, I’d have to move on within two or three days at most. I converted my ruined HP into the polite fiction of “travel funds” and managed a clumsy smile.
“But at least I’ve seen the place I came looking for with my own eyes. So even this much is enough—”
“You there!”
“Yes?”
And then the knight’s hand shot toward mine. The only reason I didn’t flinch away on instinct was pure, grinding effort.
Dodging a knight’s handshake would look strange. Just take it. Take it. Even if his hand is covered in bread crumbs — take it…!
“Then how about staying at my house for a few days?”
That effort promptly collapsed into a question mark of its own.
“I can’t get you a tour of the school itself, but I can give you a taste of what goes on there.”
…Was taking his hand really the right call after all?