Chapter 20
Chapter 20
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 20
Chapter Title: #4 Guest (3)
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Anyone has a foolish youth, and there were times when they suffered the consequences of impulsive actions from that period.
Polo was no exception.
He too had a past that was embarrassing, humiliating, and so frightening that he dreaded even recalling it.
It had happened five years ago.
It was a time when the battlefield had stagnated, and the continent's six strongest had expanded to seven—a period of change. Regardless of those external circumstances, it was when Polo viewed the capital as the entirety of the world, a small bubble.
He was at a banquet hall.
“Young Master Notem!”
“Ah, Young Master Bold! Good to see you again this year.”
“With banquets only once a year, when else can we let loose like this?”
“You're right!”
There was a secretive, closed-off gathering in the empire that only the heirs of count families and higher nobility could attend.
Once a year, at the start of the year, heirs and ladies would gather to mingle and have clandestine encounters... Looking back, it was quite a debauched affair.
Of course, not everyone indulged so wildly.
There were oddballs like Graham's Roving Blade or the imperial reverse scale.
But since they were different from him, and back then he thought he was in the right, Polo was frantic that day to find a lady to spend the night with.
That was when he met Sword Ghost Kasha.
“He's arrived. Graham's Roving Blade.”
“Who's the man beside him? Does anyone know this guy?”
“I hear he's someone the Graham heir brought along due to personal ties. A foreigner, apparently.”
Elbus Graham.
A hero who had gone to the battlefield before adulthood and racked up merits, now half-crippled from an indelible war wound, wheeling around in a chair.
The man even more famous as “Graham's Roving Blade,” whose purpose in attending the banquet was suspiciously unclear, had brought a guest.
“What an unlucky-looking bastard.”
Beside him in the wheelchair was a handsome man with a neat appearance.
His vibe was unique. Despite a seemingly mild impression, his cold expression and the muscles bulging under his clothes gave off the feel of a knight straight from the battlefield—that was Polo's assessment at the time.
“A guy who hasn't escaped puberty. I know his type. Thinks the world's only hard on him and that brooding makes him cool—the immature sort. Look at him striking that pose. Totally drunk on himself, right?”
“Keuhehe! Young Master Notem, you're too much.”
“What about it? It's the truth.”
“That it is.”
Looking back now, it might have been jealousy.
Or perhaps wariness.
From the moment he appeared, this stranger had stolen the gazes of all the ladies Polo had marked—how could he not resent that?
It wasn't just Polo, either.
The other heirs who wanted to get close to Elbus Graham, and those whose ladies' attention had been snatched away, all eyed him warily.
To young men in their prime, crazed with lust, this invasive species disrupting their ecosystem was that much of a threat.
In the tense, hostile atmosphere, only that man and Elbus Graham remained at ease.
That composure soon drew the ladies forming a circular wall around the two men.
That was the moment.
“Hey, Young Master Notem, I've got some shocking news for you.”
It was the second son of the Bold count family, who had been with him that day, speaking up.
“That guy's a mercenary, apparently. Someone the Graham heir befriended on the battlefield.”
“He's... not nobility?”
“Word is, he's stateless.”
“Hah...!”
The jealousy of youths is one-dimensional and aggressive.
Polo had been like that that day.
Wasn't this a weakness exposed in the stranger who seemed untouchable?
His immature heart seized upon the revealed flaw with greed.
He wanted to drag out that man's blemish and force him to his knees.
Prove his own superiority.
And claim the rightful reward.
His actions were swift.
Polo led his group toward the man buried among the ladies.
“A new face!”
He spread his arms wide with a bright smile, feigning friendliness.
“Oh, Young Master Notem, good to see you.”
“Greetings to a blood of Graham. Mind if I get an introduction to the gentleman beside you?”
“Mm...”
Seeing Elbus Graham's troubled smile, Polo felt his confidence swell.
Back then, he mistook it for intimidation, but in hindsight, Graham's unease had been worry over Kasha's fiery temper.
No way he could have known.
He was too busy judging the hesitation as weakness and sinking his teeth in.
“From which family do you hail?”
“...None.”
“Hm? What's that?”
“No family. Just a mercenary rolling around battlefields.”
His tone as he answered seemed uncomfortable.
Polo felt a sharp thrill of pleasure.
“Hah... A family-less attendee at this banquet? This is...”
The heirs of his group chimed in supportively, bolstering Polo's confidence.
That might be why he misspoke.
“Everyone, calm down. Parents could be gone. He's a mercenary, right? Or... perhaps not.”
He shouldn't have said it.
“...maybe he ran from worthless parents and that's why he has none.”
He didn't remember much after that.
Or rather, he didn't want to remember.
What Polo vividly recalled was one thing.
Craaaaaack—!
The sound of a tree splitting vertically, and the pain of his entire neck being torn away.
“Kyaaaaak!”
The ladies' screams rang out.
He heard the other heirs gasp.
Amid it all, Polo was utterly dumbfounded.
“Guh, guhuh...!”
He didn't even know when he'd collapsed to the floor, flailing his arms desperately, but nothing was in reach.
He only realized later, after the banquet ended, that he'd been slapped.
It had to be—getting hit with a palm hard enough to make a 'crack!' wasn't normal.
Anyway, one phrase still haunted Polo's mind.
“Your mouth runs awfully light. Shame. If we'd met on the battlefield, I'd have twisted your head clean off.”
Even in that hazy state, the man's voice had been crystal clear.
That cold, viscous tone lingered sharply in his mind even now, five years later.
He learned a week later that the man's name was Kasha, and he was the monster newly ascended to the continent's strongest.
And that he'd holed up in his room for a month, terrified the man might sneak in and maim him—that was another story.
In short, Polo had lived forgetting that day.
His voice had been too terrifying, and he'd thought he'd never cross paths with him again.
But he couldn't quite escape the man's influence.
Being born into a military family and starting as a supply officer stemmed from that reason.
'And I thought that was all behind me...!'
Finishing his reminiscence, Polo shuddered and stole a glance at Kasha... Elric Portman's back, seated in the front compartment of the carriage.
Once he became an officer, he could leave the front lines.
He'd figured he'd never meet the man who'd rolled through battlefields his whole life.
But what was this?
Why had he shown up as the prodigal young master returned to this insignificant rural baron's house!
“Phew, fertilizer stench.”
“It's the countryside; can't be helped.”
'You mad bastards!'
Armin's and Disa's supply officers were arrogantly complaining without knowing their place.
Polo felt chills creep up his spine.
The sudden thought was that he had to stop them.
For this moment, he forgot they were enemy soldiers or rivals in today's deal.
Call it humanity.
Polo was on the verge of a heroic resolve to pull them from that horrific monster's jaws.
Of course,
“Haha...”
The moment that laughter echoed, Polo's resolve snapped like dry wood.
His head drooped.
Cold sweat poured down his body like rain.
“Sir Polo, you alright?”
Armin's supply officer asked, and Polo nodded frantically.
“I-I'm f-f-fine!”
He had to be fine.
The man hadn't acknowledged him yet, so maybe he hadn't recognized him?
He prayed it was so.
'Please...'
Polo prayed to the heavens.
But that's how the world works.
If prayers always granted wishes, why would there be wars or conflicts on this land?
Elric knew him.
And remembered him quite clearly.
The fortunate part was that he wasn't as sharp-edged as five years ago.
If anything, it was the exact opposite.
*
'Goddamn gods, why are you doing this to me?'
Elric, seated in the frontmost compartment of the carriage gazing at the scenery, felt his heart pounding wildly.
The heavens were heartless—out of all the continent's people, why send his nemesis here? So cruel.
A sense of crisis and urgency settled in his gut.
What if the man exposed his identity? What if he reported Sword Ghost Kasha's movements back to the capital?
Those thoughts wouldn't fade.
Elric squeezed his eyes shut and thought.
'...Where'd I put my sword?'
No choice now but blackmail.
If that failed... well...
'...Gotta erase the evidence.'
It'd been ages since he'd buried a body.
Elric's hands clenched tight.