The Hero Family's Delinquent (2)
Kang—
In the mansion's training yard, the clash of steel on steel rang out.
Blades locked, strained, then broke apart; sparks leapt free and the air filled with a bone-chilling ring.
The owners of those flashing edges were two little girls whose baby fat had yet to fully melt away.
Some would say they were still far too young to grip live steel—especially in the middle of a spar.
But if those children could already handle mana and wrap their bodies in protective Aura, the story changed entirely.
"Oppa’s been weird lately!"
Siriel spoke as she battered down a cascade of incoming cuts. Ever since she had learned protective Aura, she and Lucia had begun sparring with real swords.
Siriel swung well enough, and she could hold her own in a spar of respectable quality. So long as no killing blow aimed at a vital point, she could dodge and block without trouble.
"Looks like you’ve got enough breath left to talk. I’m stepping it up one more level."
Of course, that was only true because Lucia was holding back. Lucia’s voice turned fierce as she wrenched the speed of her strikes higher still.
The tip of her sword, which had only whistled through the air before, now tore it open with a terrifying howl.
Kwang—
Kwang— Kwang-kwang—
Siriel twisted, trying to deflect the successive cleaving blows, but Lucia only snapped her force at a right angle to the direction Siriel tried to let them slide away.
"Ugh."
Kkeudeudeuk—
Siriel poured inner strength into her grip so she wouldn’t drop the sword. That very effort became the cause of her defeat.
The ground under Siriel’s feet sank into a crater. The crushing strike raining down from overhead was simply too heavy. Her body could endure the attack, but the earth she stood on was not solid enough.
Siriel’s stance reeled.
"Brace your core."
Jjeong!
Lucia did not miss the opening. She smashed Siriel’s blade upward.
Siriel’s eyes flew wide. She braced for the follow-up. Mana concentrated into a single point.
Faster than recovering a broken line, this was the way.
Ppeong—!
A thrust too swift to see cleanly slammed into the girl’s abdomen.
It was not a sound human flesh should make.
Siriel lost her sword and went flying backward.
She tumbled across the dirt, kicking up a cloud of dust, then coughed and spat the grit from her mouth.
"Ah! I lost again!"
Siriel wailed without even brushing the mess from her silver hair, that was how bitter she felt.
No matter how many times she had sparred with Lucia, Siriel had never once landed a proper blow on her.
Hwoong—
Lucia swept her sword through the air and drove the dust away. Compared to Siriel, who was a wreck of dirt and sweat, Lucia’s figure emerged relatively clean.
She settled the blade on her shoulder, dusted off Siriel’s clothes, and spoke.
"That’s why you don’t let your mind wander. I told you—when we spar, you stay focused until a winner is decided."
At her friend’s sharp advice, Siriel puffed out her cheeks in a sulk.
"…When you’re like this, Lucia, you’re seriously merciless. The second I get a little breathing room, you just slam me straight into the ground."
Siriel wiped her mouth on her sleeve and bounced back to her feet.
Despite a sound that had made one wonder whether her stomach had split open, she looked completely unbothered.
She picked up her sword and leaned on it like a walking stick.
"So? What do you think?"
"…About what."
"About Oppa. You live with him, Lucia—you’ve got to know. He’s been weird lately."
"Hmm… He seemed the same as always to me."
Lucia furrowed her brow and thought hard. Shiron’s behavior had been strange recently…? Yet no matter how she turned it over, nothing particular came to mind.
As always, Shiron never skipped a single meal with her.
If I had to pick something, maybe a month ago.
The day he had been judged to have no talent for the martial path.
But Shiron hadn’t despaired, nor had he shown any jealousy toward Lucia.
If anything, he took even better care of me…
Then a certain memory surfaced—herself standing before Shiron, eyes brimming like a child’s.
Remembering it now was so mortifying that the tips of Lucia’s ears flushed faintly pink.
Do I… have to tell her about this?
"Hm? Did you think of something?"
"Ah—no! Nothing!"
Lucia shook her head hard, trying to fling the heat from her face. Pride made it impossible to say aloud.
"B-but why? Shiron being weird is just him being normal, isn’t it?"
"No. Lately, strange rumors have started going around the main house."
Siriel wiped her face with a towel as she spoke.
"What kind of rumors?"
"The other day I overheard some maids whispering—that Oppa Shiron has been mean to the people in the mansion."
"…How?"
"I don’t know the details either. I scolded them before the gossip could go any further. Smacked their butts good and hard."
"……Huh? What did you just say?"
Lucia’s shoulders gave a startled twitch.
The Siriel who always grinned like an idiot was genuinely angry right now. It was the first time Lucia had seen her like this since they’d met, and she was more than a little thrown.
"You hit them?"
"Yeah. The nerve of them, right? Badmouthing their master to his face. If they’re going to do it, they should at least do it somewhere he can’t hear."
"…"
"It’s obvious the rumor that Oppa’s a dead end as a martial artist has gotten out. Or maybe people have started looking down on him just because he lives in the annex."
"……If they looked down on him, then they deserved it."
Lucia nodded in agreement. Ordinarily she might have found Siriel’s high-handed noble-lady attitude toward subordinates distasteful—but the moment she heard they had spoken ill of Shiron, a quiet heat rose in her chest.
"Kids like that need a little discipline."
"Right? See, this is why I can talk to you."
Siriel upended her waterskin over her face. Even the cool water soaking her hair couldn’t quite settle the heat still burning there.
"Later… I should tell Mother about this."
The Ministry of Public Security was a central administrative organ of the Empire, the peacekeeping body charged with maintaining law and order.
And among its branches, the Special Task Force was something else entirely.
Unlike the Ministry’s other departments, which handled ordinary public-security duties, the Special Task Force demanded a level of excellence that matched its grand name.
One of the basic entry requirements alone—being a healthy individual under thirty who could already wield sword Aura—made it plain that these were hand-picked elites.
And the higher the combat power, the more unusual the missions they were given.
Assassinating or escorting key figures, fighting inside cramped, lightless buildings, sometimes even handling hostage situations…
Every assignment sounded flashy and cool. That had been the single biggest reason Berta had applied to the Special Task Force in the first place.
Reality, however, was nothing like the brochure.
No matter how specially treated the Task Force might be, they were still retainers who served the Imperial House, and an imperial order was absolute.
"Haa…"
Berta exhaled a sigh so deep it seemed to hollow out the ground. The mood in the office plummeted as if the temperature itself had dropped, yet no one called her out on the lament.
Word that she had been holding private audiences with the Third Prince had already spread like wildfire.
Berta gathered the documents sprawled across her desk and stuffed them into her briefcase.
The materials the prince had ordered her to investigate were a collection of footprints left by a rather old family line.
She took up her beloved weapon in one hand and the briefcase in the other, then rose from her seat.
"I’ll, uh… be heading out on field work for a bit."
"R-right. Go on, then. Don’t worry about clocking out—just finish whenever you’re done."
"Senior, hang in there…!"
Even her direct superior, who normally needled her every day, and the deputy sitting beside her could only offer awkward, burdened looks.
Berta walked straight out of the building.
Warm sunlight fell across her gloomy face.
How did I end up like this.
She turned her gaze aside and trudged onward.
Is this why I signed up?
She had originally joined the Special Task Force for thrilling, stylish combat.
Instead of thrilling combat, she was currently walking a high-wire between two rotten little brats.
Last time she had been crouching through a castle crawling with demons; the moment she thought she was free of that, she found herself shut in a library day after day, sorting ancient documents about the Prien family.
At least the pay is good. Small mercies.
Today was the third Thursday of the month—payday.
Hazard pay and travel expenses from being dispatched off-site, plus a separate incentive the Imperial House itself tucked into her pocket… Without those, Berta might already have slammed a resignation letter on the desk and bolted for somewhere far away.
She forced a little energy into her step and stopped by the bank.
There was no need to worry about being barred for carrying a weapon.
A security officer who recognized her public-security uniform snapped a salute. In the brief instant her shoulders squared of their own accord, a faint curve touched Berta’s lips.
Savoring that small pride, she pulled a ticket at the counter.
Number 77. Must be because it’s payday. Lucky me.
And that was the moment she sat on the bench waiting for her turn in line.
Wuuung—
A mana barrier slammed down over the entire bank, and a pack of brutish-looking thugs came pouring in.
"Everyone on the floor!"
"You there! Get down already!"
"Kyaaaak!"
Bank robbers.
Cancel the luck…
Roughly ten of them, she guessed. Six with swords, three with staves, one with a grimoire.
"Urgh!"
The instant they seized the bank, they killed the very security officer Berta had just exchanged greetings with. Terror swept the crowd; everyone dropped flat.
Their slick efficiency made Berta click her tongue inwardly.
These aren’t amateurs. They’ve hit places before.
Having secured two hostages in the blink of an eye, the robbers leveled blade-tips at Berta—who was still on her feet—and bellowed.
"You! Hands off the sword!"
"…"
Ten of them. Can I drop them all without any civilian casualties?
Berta fretted at the hilt of her Phantom Returning Sword, weighing the odds—
Kung—
"Guhk!"
"You lot! Are you even watching properly?!" Slap—
"Wh-what the—!" Slap—
A commotion broke out among the robbers guarding the entrance so no one could escape.
"You sons of bitches, do you even know who I am? Huh?! I just want to walk into a bank and you’re blocking the damn road for what?!"
"Young Master! These scum don’t even know who the Young Master is! We ought to teach them a lesson!"
"Y-you brutes! Bow your heads this instant!"
"……But seriously, why is everyone coming to the bank carrying swords? This place is scary as hell."
One foul-mouthed little brat and two women came barging in, already slapping the cheeks of the robbers who had arrived first.
"Anyway. Talk back like an idiot and you get hit."
A day of bad luck? Or maybe, just maybe, a day of good luck.
A Young Master more terrifying than the robbers themselves had made his entrance.