Watchful Eyes in the Morning
Rain or shine, clear skies or gray clouds, Duke Randert's day always began before dawn. He would train alone on the empty sparring grounds, wash the sweat away with cold water, take a simple breakfast, and then shut himself in his office to review and sign the towering stacks of documents — such was the rhythm of his daily life.
Throughout the morning, a steady stream of people came and went from his office to deliver reports, and today's first visitor was Sir Ian. He arrived in impeccable formal dress to pay his respects to the Duke.
"And here I told you to take a few days off……"
The Duke shook his head helplessly as Ian bowed with precise courtesy.
"Your impatience is likely what sharpened your swordsmanship, I'd wager."
Thorough to the bone, Ian never put off a single task, and he possessed the drive to see every goal through. Tolerating no idleness whatsoever and devoting himself entirely to training, he had earned his knighthood at a far younger age than most. It was the fruit of innate talent wedded to relentless effort — but the Duke, on occasion, liked to toss out jibes like that just to needle him.
"I'll take it as a compliment."
"Sit."
Wishing to face Ian properly, the Duke rose from his desk and moved to the sofa as well.
"What was your impression upon meeting them?"
"Was that why you came so early — because you were curious?"
Part of him had wanted to ask yesterday, right away, but Ian hadn't wished to intrude on the rare time between father and son. And so he had waited for morning to come.
"The truth is, I had no intention of bringing those brothers to Hamilton. Inviting outsiders into the castle was something I couldn't quite bring myself to allow."
"And yet?"
"My plan was simply to have them manage the townhouse while it stood empty — two or three times a week. But then they suddenly asked to come along, saying they'd never once seen Hamilton. Hearing that, I thought it might be better to present them to you while I had the chance, so I brought them here on my own authority."
"So you decided it was best for me to see them with my own eyes?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Did you turn up anything else about those brothers?"
It was an order to speak up if there was anything beyond what had been written in the letter.
"Nothing worth reporting."
He had commissioned the information guild to investigate, and the results matched what Death had said at the interview: a young head of household, poor as dirt, dragging his younger siblings along behind him in a rundown slum village.
"And yet you still can't place them."
The Duke's eyes sank deep. Ian, who had been waiting for some answer, only then sensed that something was wrong.
"…Don't tell me you can't see it either, my lord?"
"Strange, isn't it?"
The Duke's rhetorical question was an affirmation. Ian, who had assumed the matter would resolve itself the moment they reached Hamilton, could hardly hide his shock.
"If the problem was that our encounter yesterday was too brief, I can summon them at once. If you were to see them again, surely you'd be able to discern something."
"No, there's no need."
The moment they'd crossed paths yesterday had been more than enough time to sift out the man's true nature. Just before he and Bayul had headed to the dining hall — the instant their paths had crossed — Duke Randert had felt the hair on his neck stand on end without warning.
That prickling, skin-crawling sensation. It had been eerily similar to what he'd felt recently at the imperial palace, when he'd met a boy named Eli, one of Bayul's friends.
Twice now, and both times recently — something he'd almost never experienced in all his years. And stranger still, both times it had involved people close to his son.
Am I being overprotective of Bayul?
He even caught himself worrying whether this unease — this reluctance to let his son go out into the world — was the real cause of these feelings.
"My lord, do you mean that sincerely?"
To Ian, Duke Randert was an absolute being — one who could only be described as a god.
The absolute one who overwhelmed the world itself. The singular knight who inspired the unwavering belief that even against a dragon, he would emerge victorious.
It was precisely because it was this Duke speaking that Ian found his lord's words so impossible to accept.
"Keep watching them a while longer. As you said, they don't seem like bad sorts."
"But if even you can't place them, my lord……"
"If they meant to harm Bayul, they'd have done it already. If that were their aim, there'd be nothing to worry about. It's just……"
As the Duke trailed off, Ian watched him with tense eyes.
"I'm curious."
"…My lord?"
"Why such people have attached themselves to Bayul's side, of all places. Find the answer to that, and surely their true identities will follow, won't they?"
Not remotely suspecting that the day he learned that reason must never, ever arrive, the Duke left it at that.
They might not even be human……
The continent was home to countless near-human races, and there certainly existed mysterious lifeforms that mankind had yet to uncover even now.
But that was only conjecture for the moment. Unwilling to unsettle Ian over nothing, the Duke swallowed his last words and kept them to himself.
Knock, knock.
"My lord, it's Sadad."
Just then, the second visitor opened the door and stepped inside.
"Oh, Sir Ian, you were here too?"
Sadad plopped down beside Ian and offered a breezy show of familiarity. As fellow members of the Full Moon Knights, the two were quite close.
"I had matters to report to the Duke."
"You only just got back yesterday, so of course you would. Shall I step out and come back later?"
"Isn't that something people normally ask before sitting down?"
"Poking at me when you're not even serious about leaving — you haven't changed a bit."
"Was my inner heart showing that plainly?"
Undeterred by the rebukes from both the Duke and Ian, Sadad weathered the storm with an easy grin and smoothly changed the subject.
"Hah. Now I'm wondering if my mood might've been a little better today, had I actually left."
"Goodness. Did you lose?"
"Three matches, three losses. I concede with dignity."
"It seems young Master Bayul truly is skilled at chess."
The words came out of him merely as a formality.
"Speaking of Bayul — I hear he's developed an affinity for the God of Despair."
"…Excuse me? The God of Despair?"
Not the God of War?
An affinity was one thing, but the object of it being the God of Despair had both Ian and Sadad looking utterly unable to comprehend.
"Did you hear that from Master Bayul directly?"
At Ian's question, the Duke nodded and answered.
"I'm told he learned of it while receiving treatment from a priest of the God of Despair at the Academy. Apparently this 'affinity' even strengthens his body. That's supposedly why his health has improved of late. What do you two make of that?"
Before Bayul, the Duke had rejoiced, calling it a blessing. But from his own position, he couldn't afford to simply celebrate. As he had told Bayul himself, everything happens for a reason — and until that reason was known, a certain measure of vigilance was only prudent.
"Hmm. It does seem like a promising sign, but…… out of nowhere, the God of Despair? It's rather absurd, frankly."
"Master Bayul only went to the Temple of Despair for treatment, after all."
"Then look into this God of Despair. His history as it's been passed down, everything he's ever done — all of it, thoroughly."
"Yes, my lord."
Regarding the God of War, they could recite his lineage on command; concerning the God of Despair, however, not only the Duke but Ian and Sadad alike knew nothing.
Ian hailed from Carrington, to be sure, but Carrington and Hamilton differed in many respects. A great metropolis where people from every corner of the world gathered, it boasted well over a few dozen temples scattered across the city — and among them, the Temple of Despair had a relatively small congregation. As it happened, Ian had never once set foot inside it.
"Well, since the Temple of Despair came up — I'm fairly certain Duke Hector has lost his mind."
"What did he do to earn language that colorful from you?"
At Sadad's coarse remark, Duke Randert's brow furrowed.
"You'll know this already, my lord: every Academy in the empire receives state funding."
"…And?"
"Don't tell me……"
He was still asking, but somehow the Duke and Ian both already sensed what Sadad was about to say.
"Duke Hector has cut off Carrington Academy's state funding."
He'd hoped otherwise, but it figured.
"Disbursements from the royal treasury are the Chancellor's office's to manage. How does the chairman of the noble faction, Duke Hector, have any business meddling in it?"
"Some backroom arrangement, obviously. Even after strong-arming the nobility into choking off most of their donations, the Academy stayed perfectly calm — and that seems to have gotten under his skin."
"And why would the Academy be so calm?"
"There's word that the chairman put forward a staggering sum of his own."
"So that's why they're not hung up on donations."
"Yes, my lord."
"Petty to the very last drop, that one."
Ian let out a bitter, hollow laugh. The exact father for the exact son. The two of them spiraling ever further downward — at this point it was almost pitiable.
They truly have no idea whatsoever.
They plainly did not understand what price would be exacted should Duke Randert ever genuinely lose his temper.
"What will you do, my lord? Simply stand by and watch? Or pursue formal proceedings?"
"Not now. You know perfectly well how delicate things are with the wedding approaching."
"That's precisely what's stayed my hand as well."
The Emperor's wedding would soon be held. Guilt and blame aside, no one could stir up a ruckus and ruffle the Emperor's mood ahead of such a momentous occasion.
"Then let us table the matter for the time being. Fortunately, with the chairman's contribution, the Academy won't be in dire straits just yet."
He would by no means let it slide. This was merely a deferral.
"Oh, come to think of it — I heard from the others last night. Apparently a delegation is coming from the Dwyer Empire to celebrate His Majesty's wedding. Is that true?"
Ian was a knight who had lived through the Ten-Year War firsthand. The peerlessly ferocious warriors of the Dwyer Empire — mercenary soldiers that surged on without end no matter how many were cut down — he still remembered them vividly.
A ceasefire it may be, but for a delegation from the enemy nation to come all this way to celebrate the Emperor's wedding — somehow, it filled him with a sense of foreboding.
"It's not just a delegation. If you knew who's coming as their representative, Sir Ian, you'd faint dead away."
"I've already been shocked once. How much worse can it get?"
"Which is exactly why the capital — no, the entire empire — is on high alert."
The entire empire on high alert?
"Who in the world is coming……?"
"Royan is coming."
"Royan?"
The name rang familiar somewhere in the back of his mind. Echoing it absently after Sadad, Ian's eyes slowly widened.
"You can't possibly mean Emperor Royan himself?"
"Yep. That's the word."
The impossible had become reality. Days earlier, when a letter from Liam had brought him the news, Duke Randert had been unable to speak for a long while.
The awkwardness of meeting Emperor Royan face-to-face was a problem for later. What concerned him was, first, safety; second, safety; and third, safety.
The Dwyer Empire, once called a nation of mercenaries, possessed countless great swordmasters and was breeding more to this day. Under the guise of a delegation, who knew what masters might slip in unnoticed.
Men and women, young and old, without exception — even small children, if they came with the Dwyer delegation, would all have to be placed under the strictest surveillance.
There was no way to know at present what sort of people Royan would bring. Preparing against all contingencies and shouldering the safety of the nation — that was the duty of Duke Randert, supreme commander and guardian.
"The Emperor's guard, naturally — and the protection of Crown Prince Lindemann must be redoubled with the utmost care."
So long as he drew breath, not the slightest mischief would be tolerated. Ensuring that not a single drop of blood was shed — that was the task Duke Randert must accomplish at this wedding.