Tell Me (12)
“Where should I even begin…?”
After driving the soldier out, Gunter dragged a chair over and sat down. The mage flinched and tried to rise, but Gunter waved him off with a rough hand. He had no particular desire to work someone who was already coughing blood and collapsing from pain.
“Munmunt has a tradition of bestowing the names of gemstones upon its Chief Knights. Did you know that?”
“…No, I didn’t.”
“I see.”
He had always thought that mages shared a common trait—showing off when they knew something, and pretending they knew when they didn’t. Apparently that only applied to the ones affiliated with the Magic Towers.
Gunter scratched his head, green eyes bright with something like curiosity.
“For Chief Knights alone, we have a tradition of granting a gemstone’s name that reflects the knight’s nature. The Jade Knight, the Sapphire Knight, the Emerald Knight, the Ruby Knight, and so on.”
Of course, the Chief Knights he meant were not the top-ranking (apprentice) knights from the academy. He meant those among the Regular Knights serving Munmunt who had earned command authority or proven overwhelming skill and risen in rank.
“It’s an honor reserved for Chief Knights alone, and not many ever get to enjoy it. At most five in a generation—sometimes as few as two.”
“I see…….”
“And Atya was a promising knight expected to claim one of those seats within five years.”
“…….”
“It was only natural, really. He never once lost the top rank throughout his entire time at the knight academy, and after graduation he even slew a Dullahan alone.”
A Dullahan’s difficulty depended on what kind of knight its original body had been in life. Even the lowest-grade ones usually required three active knights—two at the absolute minimum—to handle. In the process of the flesh’s corruption the skin hardened like stone and raw strength swelled three or four times over.
“The only reason he hadn’t received a name yet was simple lack of experience—the unavoidable shortcoming of any freshly graduated knight. There was no other disqualifying mark against him.”
And yet a knight barely out of the academy had killed a Dullahan. That it had been an extremely weak one built from an apprentice knight’s remains hardly mattered. A Dullahan was still a Dullahan, and Atya at the time had still been an inexperienced greenhorn.
“Yes. The boy had more than enough right to become a gem. The only question was whether he would be chrysoberyl or peridot.”
Chrysoberyl, peridot—either would have suited the green-brown of Atya’s eyes. Gunter had never once doubted the boy would receive a gemstone’s name.
“…I just never imagined he would die before he got one.”
Until the day the boy died, that was how things had been.
“That’s…….”
Gunter closed his eyes for a moment before the man who was still searching for words, lips moving soundlessly. Memories brushed past him.
“…For the record, Atya’s family was a knight house. His father already held the name of Amber as a Chief Knight, and Atya himself, as I said, was next in line. There was even a second child who had just become a Regular Knight upon graduating, and a third still attending the academy to become one.”
The second, Alya, had never matched Atya’s exploits. The year she graduated and took up her post, the demons had been quiet and there had been no chance to take the field. Yet she, too, had never once surrendered the top rank throughout her schooling. Perhaps she would have become a Chief Knight candidate as well. The third, Pasha, had proven the same blood by passing the entrance exam with the highest score—not the highest in history, but still.
“The youngest was still too small for talent to matter; growing up came first… but in any case, the whole family possessed gifts brilliant enough to earn the Lord’s favor.”
Even if the third failed to graduate and the youngest never walked the knight’s path, that was still three knights from a single house. How could anyone not cherish such a family?
“And that is exactly why… because they were favored, they died. They went to the villa the Lord lent them to celebrate the youngest daughter’s birthday, and simply vanished.”
Lord Amber had doted on his late-born youngest, and even his grown children had adored their tiny little sister. So they requested leave to celebrate her seventh birthday… and the Lord answered by lending them his villa—a place only two days’ travel from Munmunt.
“The cause of the disappearance has never been uncovered. The entire villa vanished without a trace; there was nothing left that could serve as a clue.”
“…….”
“But it couldn’t have been demons. That place… the villa wasn’t in a position where demons would attack.”
They had cleared the relatively open plain near Munmunt into farmland, built a village for the people who would work it, raised walls and watch posts and stationed messenger mages to protect the fields. The scenery that resulted was rather fine, so they built a cottage on a hill at the village’s edge and made it a villa. Since the Lord himself had meant to use it, its safety was considerable. It was a location where Munmunt would notice a demonic presence and respond faster than any demon could ever hope to invade.
“At worst they might have faced one or two demons that wandered off-course… but a Chief Knight, a future Chief Knight, a Regular Knight, and an apprentice knight couldn’t handle that? So… so it couldn’t have been demons. It couldn’t have been.”
But if not demons? If the culprit wasn’t a demon, then who?
Had they somehow demolished the cottage themselves and vanished?
“…It shouldn’t have been demons.”
A cottage that vanished without leaving a single trace, villagers who hadn’t suffered so much as a scratch, witnesses who claimed to have heard a great roar yet seen no unusual shadow. Standing before the past he had blurted out on impulse, Gunter suffered all over again. No matter what he assumed, the contradictions that appeared felt like daggers driving into his chest.
He did not want to forget, yet every time he remembered it tore him open just like this—exactly the way he used to chase after passersby who merely resembled a half-glimpsed profile, only to lose them in the end and despair.
“…Were you close to them?”
“…Close?”
And even in a moment like this, his stomach growled. As if it were shouting that he was still alive, that he was still living, the hunger clawed at him.
“They were my family. People who might as well have been my own family.”
“…….”
“Atya, Alya, Pasha, Rinya… Lord Amber and his wife. All of them were my family…….”
Gunter laced his fingers as if in prayer and buried his face in them. The mage’s face, only faintly visible, was twisted slightly—perhaps from the pain rising through his body.
“…Has that satisfied your curiosity?”
But he was the last person who could afford to worry about someone else when he could barely look after himself. Gunter did not ask the mage if he was all right. No one here was all right.
“If it has, then stop going around asking people who Atya was. Most will answer the way that soldier did earlier… but some will suffer the way I just did.”
Ah. He was so hungry.
Clutching his empty stomach, Gunter returned to the castle.
“I asked you not to go ahead of me, my lord.”
The escort knight who had chased after him scolded, but Gunter only flicked him a glance and said nothing. He lacked even the strength to apologize. His throat was dry; he was simply starving.
“…Young Lord.”
“What new pile of work has brought you all the way here? Come in first.”
Gunter gestured instead to the soldiers waiting on standby. His listless legs carried him into the reception room that doubled as his office.
“During distribution, a soldier tried to pocket food instead of following orders…….”
“Some of the villagers started a riot…….”
Waiting until he was fully inside to take reports would only waste time. He lined the messengers up beside him in turn. The torrent of stories was exactly what he had already expected.
“Curse or no curse, we cannot keep men with so little patience as soldiers. They will receive strict punishment according to regulations. As for the villagers, find the ones who led the riot and…….”
He broke off mid-sentence and licked his lips with his tongue. He could not tell whether his throat was so dry that even saliva had dried up, or whether he had simply talked too much today and his mouth was parched.
“How much water have I drunk today?”
“Less than the ration, my lord. Shall I have some brought?”
“…No. Never mind.”
After a brief hesitation Gunter refused. Not because his thirst was still bearable, but simply because he could not trust a messenger.
“If even soldiers are trying to steal food and water, there’s no law that says the servants won’t do the same. Rather than risk them pocketing it on the way, it would be better to send a soldier later or fetch it myself.”
Besides, the people around him were already weak with hunger; if he sent them on an errand and the frenzy swallowed them into another riot, it would be a disaster.
Gunter calculated the personnel who absolutely had to remain inside the castle and resolved to grant leave to everyone else. Even if they were equally hungry, simply resting quietly at home would make endurance easier.
“Mmm… then at least let me bring you some water…….”
“Have you lost your mind? Get back to work.”
“You need to eat as well, my lord.”
“Later is fine. Drop it.”
Even using a soldier felt excessive; he could not waste a Chief Knight on errands. Gunter refused outright.
“We should reduce the internal garrison as well. If everyone stays clustered in a smaller area, the manpower spent on watch will drop.”
Instead he issued new orders to match the thought that had just occurred to him. The knight listening beside him let out a soft “Ah.”
“The Lord already ordered that, my lord.”
“Ah, is that so? Leave for the working staff as well?”
“Yes.”
“No wonder the castle has felt emptier…….”
“His Lordship’s insight is exceptional, after all.”
“…True.”
The old man was good at his job, at least. Facing Erysichthon was as new to him as it was to the Young Lord, yet the speed with which he prepared matching countermeasures was truly remarkable.
“…His field of vision is so wide I can’t even imagine keeping up.”
It was fortunate such a man was the Lord. Truly fortunate, and yet…….
Listening to the things the old man had done, Gunter absently thumped his own chest. It was clearly good for the city, yet somehow his insides felt tight and his appetite withered.
“Not bad.”
“Pardon?”
If his appetite fell he would eat less. Ignoring the growl that had begun to rise from his belly, Gunter received and settled several more matters. The hour hand on the clock finally crawled past twelve.
“I’m hungry.”
Even so, a lost appetite did not stop the hunger. In the end Gunter surrendered to human limits.
“Shall I have a soldier bring something to eat?”
“No. I’ll go myself.”
The soldiers’ evening ration was at seven. It was now past midnight—an hour when a stomach would begin to growl even without a curse. And he was supposed to order someone to fetch food that wasn’t even meant to be distributed at this hour? Few acts could be more vicious. Preferring to spare a pitiful soldier, Gunter chose to go himself.
“You stay here. Moving around burns stamina.”
“But your safety——”
“Anyone who broke through this perimeter would kill the Lord, not me. Stay put. You need to conserve your strength too, don’t you?”
“…Please return quickly.”
It wasn’t even far; there should have been nothing wrong with the choice.
“What do you think you’re doing?”
“…My Lord.”
“I asked what you think you’re doing.”
If not for the unexpected variable, that would have been true.
The moment he ran into the Lord making his night rounds, Gunter’s face hardened like a cloudy sky.
“Do you have any sense or none at all? In a situation where you should be setting an example, you try to sneak food for yourself? Is that why I put you in that position?”
“…I wasn’t trying to steal it——”
“I don’t need your pathetic excuses. Shut your mouth and return to your room at once. Before I strip the title from in front of your name and make you an example to the rest.”
Under the torrent of words Gunter’s fist clenched on pure reflex.
“It isn’t that you hate excuses—you simply don’t want to hear anything I say. Because I’m an incompetent heir. Because I’m a half-wit who can’t even manage half of what you do.”
The emotion surging up refined itself into clear language and became a single blade.
“…You!”
“But the one who put that idiot in this seat was you. The one who refused a hundred times when I told you to leave it to someone else was you.”
Yet no matter how many times he hurled the blade, it never improved his mood. I told you not to be ruled by emotion! How do you expect to become Lord like that…! With the memory and the feeling churning through his brain, he pressed a hand over his face. That’s why I keep saying I won’t do it! I’ll just be a knight—! The cheek that had once been struck still felt stinging.
“You little—I’ve put up with you long enough…!”
“Forget it. What’s the point of talking to someone who has no intention of listening?”
“You, you…….”
“So just——”
With a wave of exhaustion his fist unclenched. The stomach that had received neither water nor a proper meal since lunch ached as though it had shriveled.
“Just make me the example that teaches the rest.”
He was hungry.
He was truly, desperately hungry.
“You think I won’t if you say that?”
“No.”
He was so hungry.
“I just… feel like only at this point would you finally cast Mother aside.”
His chest felt hollow.
Gunter’s head dropped.
“…To the very end you give me nothing but disappointment.”
Well. Shouldn’t that line be his to speak? Facing the words of a man who would not even listen to an excuse, Gunter laid his left hand across the back of his own neck and skull.
Things like “You’re too harsh on someone who hasn’t eaten since lunch,” or “How can you know everything about the city yet somehow not know what your own son has been doing…”—those words simply scattered somewhere inside him. The man would not listen anyway; speaking would only make him look pathetic.
“Let’s go to the dungeon.”
Instead he tapped the soldier standing beside the enraged Lord, avoiding the man’s face.
The soldier’s complexion turned blue, but Gunter did not take it back. Under Munmunt military law, anyone caught trying to divert food was imprisoned at once and faced a trial that could—and usually did—end in execution.
“M-My Lord…….”
“Take him to the dungeon.”
“But he’s the Young Lord…….”
“Before he is the Young Lord he is a soldier who broke military law. Or do you intend to disobey as well?”
And so he would go to the dungeon. Of his own will Gunter was locked in the cold, subterranean prison beneath the castle.
Ah. He should have asked the mage whether he would hire him or not.
Only belatedly did the undone task surface in his mind. It was already too late.