Restoring Order
Thud—
The bespectacled man crumpled lifelessly to the ground from a single slap.
One hit to the cheek and his legs gave out completely. Were all the mages around here like this?
"Y-you bastard...!"
"What, you piece of shit."
Shiron looked down toward the voice. The man, his glasses knocked off by the slap, was glaring up at him. The bloodshot, bulging eyes almost made Shiron flinch.
"How—how did you break through my Mana Barrier?"
"...Mana Barrier? What's that."
"...What?"
The man whose glasses had been slapped clean off his face went wide-eyed. The shock of being hit was nothing compared to the fact that the brat in front of him didn't know what a Mana Barrier was. How could anyone not know Mana Barrier, the most basic of basic spells? And yet, judging by the face swimming before him, the boy didn't seem to be lying.
The man staggered back to his feet.
"You ignorant little— How can you not know something so fundamental?"
"...I don't know, asshole. Why the hell would I need to?"
Mana Barrier.
Anyone who picked the magic-specialization route learned Mana Barrier and Ignition first. Shiron had played Reincarnation Sword God more times than he could count, so of course he knew—but he pretended otherwise just to piss the guy off even more.
Crack—!
Shiron cracked him across the face again. The man went down face-first into the dirt. He fell far too easily. Mana Barrier or whatever—all Shiron felt against his palm was bare skin.
"Mana Barrier, my ass. I don't feel a damn thing."
"W-what did you say!"
"Not so fast."
Every time the bespectacled man tried to push himself up off the ground, Shiron casually kicked his wrist out from under him and sent his face kissing the floor again.
Thud— flop—
"Honestly,"
Thud— flop—
"this is why you magic-geek losers are hopeless."
Thud— flop—
"You sit in your rooms reading grimoires all day and end up this pathetic."
Shiron looked down at the man sprawled on the ground and spoke in a low voice. After making out with the dirt over and over, the man trembled from head to toe with pure humiliation.
But the fact remained—he really was that weak.
Even Sticky-Fingered Jackson and Drunkard Charlie hadn't gone down from a single slap to the face. Only this bespectacled softie had dropped to his knees from one backhand.
"Next time, try going outside and getting some exercise, will you."
Grab— whoosh—
Shiron seized the softie by the collar and hurled him backward.
Court mages from the Second Prince's faction. Judging by the feel of the hits, the one he'd just worked over was a nobody even among them.
Shiron chuckled under his breath, entertained.
The First Prince had at least lent Viktor someone like Igir—actual elite personnel. The Second Prince, on the other hand, had sent along a worthless, pride-swollen weakling of a bookworm.
Figures the Second Prince is the shady one. Guess people don't really change. Even ten years earlier, the personality's the same.
Shiron took a breath and looked straight ahead.
The whole time he'd been thrashing the magic geek, no one had interfered.
He dusted off his hands with a dry laugh.
For some reason, every last person holding a staff was already on the ground. It didn't look like Encia's handiwork, no matter how he sliced it.
"Encia."
"Yes, Young Master."
"How many did you kill."
"...I'm sorry. I didn't get to kill a single one."
Encia answered, looking a little dejected.
It had been a rare chance to show what she could do, and there hadn't been any room for her to step in.
No one—not a single person—had so much as touched the sword at their hip, let alone drawn it. The mages were no different.
"...We handled it on our end."
Igir, standing at attention behind Viktor, spoke up.
The moment Shiron had cracked the bespectacled mage across the face, the other mages hadn't simply stood there.
Given the location, they hadn't raised their staves and started chanting—but they had tried to surge forward to mediate the situation.
However—
the knights Igir had brought with him subdued them first.
The knights drove internal energy into their strikes and hammered the mages in the ribs and solar plexus. Even mages wrapped in Mana Barriers couldn't mount a proper defense when people they'd believed were on their side blindsided them. They were neutralized in moments.
Igir felt sweat gather in his fists, and relief at the same time.
This was Hugo Prien's domain. Implicitly threatening some wet-behind-the-ears brat and actually laying hands on him were problems of an entirely different order.
Good thing I got our stories straight beforehand.
Igir recalled telling his men under no circumstances to step forward.
Every so often there were hot-blooded young fools who ruined everything by acting out. Fortunately, none of the men Igir had selected were that kind of idiot.
"Good call. I like it."
Settling back into his seat, Shiron looked at Viktor.
Unlike before, the man looked a little cowed. A very pleasing sight. Shiron propped his legs up on the crumpled table. Half-wrecked as it was, it was now the perfect height for putting his feet up.
"Viktor."
"Y-yes? Wh-what is it?"
"...Haa."
Shiron let out a long sigh at Viktor. That completely mismatched, godawful way of speaking was giving him a headache.
"Hey. You gonna talk normal or what? Think I won't hit you just because you're royalty? You're not above getting your face rearranged either."
"I-I'll fix the way I talk!"
The second Shiron raised a fist in warning, Viktor scrambled to change his tone.
"Hey. Who told you to use formal speech. Didn't you want to be friends with me?"
"..."
Viktor's face went blank.
After all that chaos, friends? But instead of answering, he just nodded. Refuse here, and he had a feeling that lunatic's fist would bury itself in his face.
Shiron wiped his hands on the handkerchief Ophelia handed him.
"Friends! Don't talk up to each other."
"R-right..."
Answering reluctantly, Viktor shot Igir a desperate save-me look. But Igir couldn't offer him any help.
Shiron still hadn't laid a hand on Viktor—and even if he did start hitting him, Igir had no confidence he could resolve the situation.
A demonkin...
Why had he only just noticed? Igir finally sensed the demonic energy slowly seeping out from behind Shiron. Every hair on his body stood on end, and cold sweat ran down his back.
His instincts had registered that this was not an opponent he could handle.
Igir had spent half his life serving in the capital. Never having set foot near the Demon Realm was only natural, in a way. A man of such limited experience would never have faced a demonkin before.
And Igir had not forgotten Shiron's words—that anyone who drew a blade was free to kill. Shiron's voice had been utterly level, as if stating the most obvious fact in the world.
In the end, there was nothing Igir could do. He could have drawn his sword to prove his loyalty to the Imperial House—but the loyalty he had sworn was not to Viktor.
"Now we can finally have a proper conversation."
Shiron swept back his slightly mussed hair and grinned.
Igir was no longer putting on airs, and Viktor had stopped using that grating speech pattern.
"I'm someone you can talk to, so don't get the wrong idea—just answer what I ask."
"...Okay."
Shiron fixed Viktor with an utterly serious look. There was something he absolutely had to clear up right now. Depending on the answer, he might have to kill Viktor.
But Viktor was still a prince, rotten or not. Killing a prince over a little irritation here would cause enormous trouble for Hugo—and Shiron himself wouldn't walk away unscathed either.
With grim resolve, Shiron opened his mouth.
"You. Are you gay?"
"...Huh?"
"I mean, do you... prefer men. Guys."
Shiron pressed his temples and looked over the faces in front of him.
Viktor wore a bewildered expression, and Igir behind him didn't look any happier.
"W-what kind of nonsense is that!"
After a beat, Viktor bristled and shot to his feet.
"I—I already have a fiancée I'm betrothed to marry! Something so vile as—!"
"Then why the hell did you approach me specifically. And hey—talk normal, will you?"
"S-sorry."
The second that piercing look hit him, Viktor's bluster collapsed. He shoved aside the embarrassment of hearing such an indecent accusation and pressed on.
"Because you were... the weakest one... that's all."
"Don't hold back. Keep going."
"In that report, it was nothing but praise for your younger siblings, and you came out looking completely insignificant, so I figured you'd be jealous of them... resentful."
Viktor kept stealing glances at Shiron's face as he spoke. Even with such blatantly insulting assessments pouring out, Shiron's expression stayed blank.
Viktor worked his lips, then let out a heavy sigh.
"So I thought if I offered good enough terms, you'd be easy to win over."
There. He'd said it. Viktor rubbed his chest, feeling a little lighter. Shiron, for his part, crossed his arms and closed his eyes.
"Mm... yeah, I can't take it."
"C-can't take what?!"
Shiron stood up from his seat, and Viktor flinched.
As Viktor's face drained white, Shiron's remained as flat as ever, closing the distance step by step.
"Take one hit. Listening to all that, I'm getting pissed."
"Wh-why! You told me to keep talking!"
"That's one thing. Doesn't change the fact that you treated me like complete garbage, does it?"
The moment Shiron smiled with his eyes, Igir and the other knights squeezed theirs shut.
"So you're getting hit."
Crack!
A sharp sound cracked through the garden.
I'll have to report this to His Majesty.
Unable to stop Shiron, that was all Igir could think.