Tell Me (13)
“Rooftop access is forbidden as a rule.”
The words, delivered in a low voice that managed to sound faintly mocking yet still soft, landed on Gunter’s shoulder without turning unpleasant.
“Surely you’re not going to claim you didn’t know, Tia?”
“Damn it, I told you not to call me that.”
“Cheer up. You’ll get wrinkles.”
“You’re the one who started it…!”
The same face that was now pretending the fault was not his own accompanied the remark, sly as ever.
Gunter jerked his head away from the green eyes that peered out from under brown hair. A lazy, giggling laugh drifted closer from the side.
“So, got another earful, did you?”
“…None of your business.”
“Looks like you really did see the Lord after all. I was only half-sure.”
“…Damn it.”
He had walked straight into the probe. Gunter slapped his own forehead.
“From where I stood the marks didn’t look bad enough to cause trouble… but the Lord really is strict.”
“…That man always is. Anything below third place doesn’t even register as existing… Wait, did I just get played again?”
“Yes.”
Another slap. That bastard. Both the way he acted as if he already knew everything and the skill with which he pried information out of him were truly second to none in the world.
“But I’m not lying. Keeping up with knight training while handling the duties of Young Lord at the same time—that’s no small feat.”
“…The Lord managed it.”
“And you are not the Lord. Just as I am not the same man as my father.”
And yet, even so—
“If sharing a little blood meant inheriting talent as well, the world wouldn’t look the way it does… So stop fretting over it. The Lord is simply outside the standard; you are not lacking. Honestly, even your cousins are floundering because they can’t manage that one thing.”
That guy was on his side. That fact made Gunter glad.
“…You’re every bit as good as your father.”
“Me? When?”
Of course, there were moments when he prodded at a certain… inferiority complex. The fellow was an unavoidable genius, proving that a dog is never born under a tiger by matching his father step for step.
“I know I’m on the talented side myself, but if you’re asking whether that means I can catch up to my father—well, not quite.”
“You’re first in class.”
“Did you know that the person who scores a perfect thousand out of a thousand and the person who scores a perfect hundred out of a hundred are both listed simply as ‘perfect scorers’?”
“So you’re saying you can ace a hundred questions but not a thousand?”
“Pretty much.”
I doubt that. I think you could.
Gunter thought as much, yet deliberately chose not to argue. Praising him would only have supplied further proof that the son could do everything the father could, so of course he held his tongue.
He refused to agree with the word “failure” that his father used.
“Enough. Let’s go home. Brooding up here will only make the mood worse; it won’t improve a thing.”
“…I don’t want to go home.”
“Oh… I’ll be sure to pass the message along to Pasha and Rinya. Big Brother Tia says he’s never coming back.”
“Ah, damn it. I said I don’t want to go to the castle! The castle! Not your house!”
“Since when has the castle been your house?”
It had been ever since he was born. Gunter swallowed the words that rose to his lips.
“Let’s go home.”
Instead he received a kindness so sweet it almost hurt. Yes—his home was not that castle. The place he truly considered home was, in fact…
“Ah, Tia. For reference, dinner tonight is—”
“Tomato stew and roast rabbit. And both of you have broken regulations. I will report this to the instructor.”
“That’s awkward. I only slipped in for a moment to comfort a fellow student who was wallowing in misery, Alya. If someone’s getting docked points it should be Tia alone.”
“The sight of you selling out a classmate has been duly noted. I’ll report that remark as well.”
“Oh…”
“In addition, I distinctly remember Senior Gunya publicly stating that no one is to call him Tia.”
“This is just teasing between friends.”
“Given that incidents of violence and bullying disguised as ‘teasing’ erupt at least once every year, that claim sounds highly suspicious.”
“Nooo…”
In truth these people were his real home. “Pfft.” A laugh escaped from the corner of his eyes.
“Tia… do you find my predicament that amusing? This is betrayal—gurk.”
“Senior, I apologize on behalf of this idiot for the rudeness. Or shall I hit him again for you?”
“…Yeah! One more time!”
“Wait, Gunya. I only teased him a little, so don’t actually—aaagh! Alya, my bones! My bones are breaking!”
“Grit your teeth, you moron.”
“We’re still at school—aaagh!!”
Gunter watched as the person who had been maintaining a strict demeanor out of consideration for the special nature of the school grounds and the difference in year groups instantly reverted into a younger sister only a year apart.
“If this bastard ever teases you again, just say the word, Senior. I’ll give him a thorough lesson in manners.”
“A-Alya. I’m your big brother…”
“So what. Die.”
“So mean…”
He loved it. Standing between the ferocious siblings, Gunter slung an arm over each of their shoulders. It felt as though he were melting into the circle of family.
“That’s enough, Alya. You can stop.”
“…There’s no need to go easy on him.”
“It’s fine. You know he never crosses the line.”
“True enough… but keep calling someone by a nickname they hate is unpleasant too. I feel like a few more hits would make him stop.”
“…I think I’m getting bruises.”
Getting hit by someone who swung a mace one-handed and occasionally raised a morning star in the other made bruises inevitable. Considering the accumulated irritation from Arthur’s usual behavior, Gunter did not feel particularly sorry for him.
So he ignored the fellow and turned to the other one.
“Let’s go home, Alice.”
“Yes. Let’s go home, Big Brother Gunter.”
“You two are the worst…”
“Shut up, stupid Arthur.”
“Aliiice.”
It was time to go home.
“Pasha, Rinya… I’m ho…”
Gunter mumbled in his sleep, then snapped his eyes open at the chill and the hunger. Nothing but darkness greeted him; not a single light burned.
“Ah…”
This was his reality. Every scrap of warmth he had felt in the dream vanished against the cold seeping up from the stone floor.
“…Damn it.”
He curled up against the shivers racing over his skin and buried his face against his knees. The little ones who used to come running, calling him Big Brother, flickered across the darkness.
“Couldn’t you have woken me a little later?”
If he had, he would have ruffled the hair of the boy who had just dashed over. He would have scooped up the toddler whose tiny feet went toddling toward him and spun her around once.
Instead he had woken before he could even hear their bright laughter.
“No sense of timing at all…”
Tap, tap.
“…?”
Yet his irritation did not last long. Gunter squinted at the faint light that had begun to lap along the corridor.
“Is it already time for the execution?”
“…Hardly.”
It had not felt as though he had slept long, but the fact that someone had come meant dawn must have broken at the very least. And if dawn had broken, it meant either an execution or a trial was about to proceed.
“Then what? A trial because I was once Young Lord?”
“…Young Lord.”
“If that’s the case, tell them I don’t need one. The manpower spent gathering people would be more of a waste.”
“…It is neither execution nor trial. I have come on the Lord’s orders to release you, Young Lord.”
He had offered the most reasonable guesses, and every one of them had been wrong. The reason the knight had come was a possibility Gunter had never even considered: release.
“Why?”
But why, of all things?
“He’s not the sort of man who would free me just because I’m his son.”
“Young Lord…”
“Or are you planning to betray the Lord? Or has the Lord suddenly fallen into mortal danger? Ah, right—did the old man dream of Mother last night? ‘This is your son; raise him well,’ or some nonsense like that?”
No matter how hard he thought, he could not understand why the decision had been made to free him. Gunter genuinely baffled, fired off question after question.
Each time, the face of the Sapphire Knight, caught in the lantern light, twisted.
“…Have you never considered that you might be released because your innocence was proven?”
“That man would never care enough about me to investigate something like that.”
If he had been the type to look into such things, Gunter would never have been locked in here in the first place. Therefore it could not be an acquittal. It simply could not.
“…I went to the Lord and reported the matter myself.”
“You meddled needlessly. I wouldn’t have minded dying.”
“Young Lord.”
“Still, thank you. I never expected you to go to such lengths for me.”
Just as he thought—the man had not looked into it of his own accord and acted. Well, to that man Gunter was the sort of disposable existence that could be discarded over a mere misunderstanding, something present or absent made no difference, so of course it would be so.
“So what am I supposed to do now?”
“…He ordered you to come to the walls.”
“I see.”
Even so, he had received a higher education for all twenty-eight years of his life. If they had gone to the trouble of keeping him alive, they would intend to make use of him somehow.
In that sense Gunter felt no suspicion at the command to come to the walls. That man was perfectly capable of it.
“And… please eat this. You haven’t had anything, have you?”
“Where did you get it?”
The man who ruthlessly piled work on him even after all-nighters spent on stacked assignments would never suddenly start caring for him. Therefore this had clearly been taken from someone else’s share…
“Surely not yours?”
“…Please eat.”
“Ha, you eat it. A Chief Knight is the one who most needs to take care of his meals, so what—”
“I’m fine. So please eat.”
Gunter thought the Sapphire Knight was doing something foolish. Yet he did not refuse a second time in the face of that stiffly spoken insistence.
Truth be told, though he was holding himself in check, he was truly starving. He wanted to bite into the pouch itself simply because it smelled of food.
“What a waste.”
He wet his throat with wine that was barely more than water, then put the hard bread into his mouth. Because only things that could fit into a pouch had been brought, there was no soup to soften the bread. Even so it tasted good. Hunger was the best sauce.
“Is that also why you came in person?”
“…I am the Young Lord’s escort knight.”
“Before that you are the Lord’s knight. Why do something that will only get you blacklisted when you already know it?”
Yet even that sweetness did not last long. The black bread that had been larger than his palm vanished in an instant, leaving only crumbs. His stomach was still empty.
“The curse of Erysichthon really is vicious.”
To feel full for a moment and then have the thought of wanting more fill his head first—it was a negatively astonishing curse.
With that thought Gunter licked every last crumb from his fingers one by one. For an instant the absurd notion that he might feel full if he simply tore off and ate his own hand crossed his mind.
“…Somehow I feel as though people with strange ideas will start appearing.”
“Pardon?”
“We’ll have to be careful that no one starts trying to eat their own body—or someone else’s.”
Even he, whose patience had increased through knight training, was like this; how much worse must it be for civilians? And how tough must the people of the North be, to have endured this for hundreds of years?
Frowning, Gunter set his foot on the stairs that climbed the wall.
Dong— dong— dong—
At the same moment the bells began to ring, announcing the suspicious movements of demons. Startled, both Gunter and the Chief Knight took the stairs two at a time.
“Where is the Lord—”
And the instant they reached the top of the wall, when the western sky dyed a pale violet by the rising sun filled most of his vision,
he found the Lord—his father.
“I knew I could never become the foundation. I never expected to be treated as a discarded card because of it, though.”
Beside him stood Sir Emerald.
“How unpleasant. Truly.”
Shhk!
The amber blade struck the Lord’s neck.
“Mm…”
“You’re awake?”
“…Ah, yes.”
After the one who claimed to have been friends with Atya—and who, according to the soldiers, was the current Young Lord of Munmunt—had left, I continued my contemplation through the night.
“You’re up early.”
“I’m not much of a sleeper…”
Of course, just because I was awake did not mean I had truly kept my eyes open the entire time while thinking. There was no telling how the watchman would interpret prolonged wakefulness.
Moreover the watchman with whom I had barely managed to build a rapport had left at midnight for the shift change. Unfamiliar with the temperament of the new guard, I chose not to take unnecessary risks.
“May I open the window?”
Instead I tested the waters by pretending I had simply woken early. The faint light filtering through the window bars illuminated the soldier’s rigid face.
He seemed stricter than his predecessor.
“I’ll open it for you.”
Separately, permission to open the window itself was granted. Because they were so wary of me as a mage I had ended up receiving the luxury of having everything done for me from start to finish, but at least I got what I wanted.
Dawn air flowed in through the opened window. The sky before sunrise was a dark blue that was neither bright nor dark.
“Refreshing…”
The temperature of the air was exactly the same. Not cold, yet enough to drive away the remaining drowsiness. My head, which had been cycling through dozing and thinking, cleared.
“What time is it, roughly?”
I remained on the bed but sat fully upright and asked quietly. The soldier who had been returning to his post after opening the window fell silent for a moment.
“Dawn will break soon.”
That wasn’t what I asked… I tidied any bangs or side hair that might have flattened and rephrased the question.
“When will breakfast be distributed…?”
I was not especially gluttonous, but after staying up all night my stomach was empty and my throat was dry.
The former could be managed with the inventory if necessary, but the latter left me with no leftover stock at all; without the ration here there was no way to quench it. Therefore the timing of morning distribution mattered.
“For soldiers, meals are provided after sunrise. You should be able to receive yours then as well, Mage.”
That was a relief. Comforted by the news that I would soon receive food, I wriggled under the blanket. Stretching fully felt awkward, yet remaining completely still made my body stiff, so I settled for that.
The wary soldier noticed my intent and relaxed again.
“Um…”
Around then I decided to probe once more. The words I spoke while feigning a mild tone and peaceful expression were, for me, rather important.
“Would it be possible to hear any news of Mr. Licha?”
The reason was simple: after conversing with the Young Lord yesterday I had concluded there was no further information worth obtaining from him.
Partly because what the Young Lord knew was limited to the past before the disappearance, but mainly because the hurdle of the Young Lord as a person was simply too high.
“I heard he was receiving treatment, but I haven’t heard anything about his condition since…”
More precisely, the man himself seemed the type who would happily reminisce if asked, yet creating an environment in which I could hear those stories looked far too difficult. Given his position as Young Lord and the current situation, that was only natural.
“…I also have something I need to return to him. I suppose it’s impossible after all?”
“…Yes. Delivering an item would be difficult. If the situation allows after the next shift change I will pass along any news.”
So I had considered targeting Mr. Licha, whom Atya had called uncle, as a second option… but seeing that even news might be possible while item delivery was not, a meeting seemed even less likely. I was in a bind.
“I see… Thank you for answering.”
Yet this inconvenience would not block my path. Judging from what I had heard yesterday, any information obtainable in Munmunt was the sort that would be nice to have but did not matter if I did not.
“…Is it all right if I stand looking toward the window?”
“I would prefer you not approach too closely.”
“Understood.”
In any case, what good would it do to obtain information about the real Demon Knight’s family? If they were all truly dead, then in the end I would have nothing worth trading with the real Demon Knight.
Even if I dredged up the happy past of the real Demon Knight, there would likely be no clue as to what sort of bargain he had struck with a demon or how he had summoned me.
So if I had to pick something useful here…
Dong— dong— dong—
…would it not be the very fact that this place itself was under threat?
I quietly observed the bells ringing throughout the city, the watchman’s face hardening, the walls beyond the window growing busy, and the heat that had begun to flare once more inside my body.
What will you do now?
Even before the crisis of your hometown, will you still be able to remain silent?