Subjugation Festival (3)
Knock, knock—knock-knock.
"Hm?"
It was early afternoon at the annex. Encia heard the cheerful rapping at the front door.
With Young Master and Young Miss away, only one person would ever come calling here. Without a trace of wariness she went downstairs and threw the door wide open.
"Hello, pretty maid sister."
"Oh my."
Encia covered her mouth with both hands. Just as expected, Siriel Prien stood on the threshold. She had never disliked this girl who looked nothing like Hugo.
"What brings you to the annex?"
Siriel's frank, matter-of-fact use of the word pretty made Encia's expression soften; she bent her knees in a little curtsy. Siriel, dressed in white martial-arts robes, beamed up at her.
"I came to see Shiron Oppa... and Lucia!"
"Ah..."
Encia offered a lukewarm smile.
"Young Master and Young Miss aren't at the mansion right now."
"What?"
"They've gone on a rather long journey."
"A journey? Where to?"
"Well... even I don't know exactly, but I heard they're headed somewhere quite far away."
While Siriel took a moment to process that, Encia's eyes curved in a sly, knowing smile.
"Young Master said he won't be able to come back here for the next few weeks... Ah!"
As if struck by sudden inspiration she clapped her hands and hurried inside. A moment later she reappeared slightly out of breath, a red bundle clutched in her hands.
"Young Master asked me to give this to Lady Siriel."
"...Candy?"
"Yes. He said to eat one a day... huff... and wait for him. Pfft—pwahaha!"
Unable to hold it in any longer, Encia clutched her stomach and burst out laughing. Siriel, who had no idea why the maid sister found it so funny, quietly peered into the bundle.
There's a lot of candy.
She picked out a yellow piece and popped it into her mouth. With this many sweets, it looked like she would have to wait for Oppa a very long time.
At the capital's central station, Yohan finished processing the paperwork for the knight order and the rest of the party. The sight of hulking men in full armor filing onto the train became free entertainment for every citizen using the station.
The train Shiron and his companions were to board was car number two of the Arwen-bound express. Its interior rivaled Hugo's mansion for luxury. Furniture that richly deserved the word lavish filled the car, and from floor to ceiling everything was draped in red carpeting that looked nightmarish to maintain.
"...Nice."
Lucia, settled on a sofa as red as her own hair, murmured the word blankly. She was not, however, appraising the décor.
The black iron sword.
From the moment they left the forge until they stepped onto the train, she had never once let it out of her hands. Only now, after riding sheathed the entire way, was the blade allowed to see daylight again.
Moments earlier it had sliced clean through a steel sword without taking so much as a hairline nick. Lucia's sword path had been impeccably clean, of course—but the blade itself was simply that good.
She took out the camellia oil and polishing cloth the blacksmith had given her and laid them carefully on the seat. With a soft click she uncorked the little glass bottle; a faint, refined fragrance drifted through the car.
He said it would be hard to maintain, didn't he?
"Perfect."
Lucia dabbed a little oil onto the cloth, then began tapping and spreading it along the edge with meticulous care. Swish, swish—throughout the entire journey she never once looked out the window, wholly absorbed in the care of her new gear.
"Haa..."
He had dozed off without meaning to. Shiron wiped the corner of his mouth with his sleeve and cracked his eyes open.
What the—she's still at it?
His eyes snapped fully open. Across from him Lucia still had not released the sword. He glanced at the wall clock. Four-thirty. They had boarded at one-twenty. For more than three hours she had done nothing else—no scenery, no conversation—only continuous, loving maintenance of that blade.
Propping his chin on his hand, Shiron watched her. Whether he stared or not made no difference; Lucia's face was faintly flushed and the corners of her mouth were curved in a grin that was almost unpleasantly smug. If he listened carefully, she was even humming under her breath.
"Haa..."
Shiron ran his tongue over dry lips. Watching her beam like a child who had just received her favorite toy felt good, yet something about it left him vaguely dissatisfied.
I knew it. I should have bought it with my own money.
He had suggested the blacksmith visit both for Subjugation Festival preparations and to raise Lucia's affection. Then she had cut through solid steel without even using sword aura, and Yohan—as if seized by a doting grandfather's impulse after watching a granddaughter's cute trick—had cheerfully opened his wallet and paid for the gift himself.
Things had turned out oddly. Feeling strangely restless, Shiron spoke to her with casual nonchalance.
"Is it that good?"
"Huh?"
Lucia's shoulders gave a startled little jerk.
"W-what is?"
"You've been fussing with that sword this whole time. Figured it must've really taken your fancy."
"..."
She stopped moving and hung her head. An inexplicable embarrassment washed over her. She had done nothing wrong, yet the shame rose anyway, and even she could not name its source.
Watching her, Shiron snorted a quiet laugh and held out his hand.
"Hey. Can I try that just once?"
"......Why?"
Lucia edged her body back a fraction and eyed him. She looked exactly like a child about to have her toy taken away.
"You've got plenty of good swords already."
"..."
"There's the dagger Uncle gave you, and that weirdly sharp one too..."
"..."
"Ah—okay, okay. Stop glaring."
With obvious reluctance Lucia held the sword out as if surrendering it. Shiron snatched the black iron hilt at once.
"Oh."
Black. Large. Heavy. In a word: solid. He could feel in his bones the claim that it weighed five times more than an ordinary sword. Compared with the Holy Sword stored inside him, this one would probably be far more satisfying to swing.
"It's nice and heavy, huh?"
"Right?"
Lucia lit up as if she herself had been the one praised.
Two days later they arrived at the Arwen Highlands.
"Nngh—"
Shiron stretched hard as he stepped off the train. It was the first time he had ever ridden one for so long. The car had included a shower and every other convenience, so the journey itself had not been uncomfortable—but staring at endless farmland for hours on end had been crushingly dull.
The carriage ride last time was better.
Traveling from Dawn Castle to Rihnn had at least offered fantasy-worthy sights: house-sized monsters roaming free and corpses Hugo had casually mowed down littering the road. The vista now spreading before him, however, made that boring journey fade into nothing.
The cool highland wind teased his hair, and the grassland that stretched beyond it danced like ocean waves. So far, so good.
If only one ignored the hulks scattered across every part of the landscape.
There were no high-pitched giggles in this noisy place. From the moment they disembarked, nearly every person who caught the eye was male. Few faces were free of scars; almost none looked as weathered as Yohan, but the overall impression was still brutal.
Ugh. Total sausage fest.
Shiron fought down a wave of nausea and forced the bile back. Everywhere he looked, muscle-bound slabs that practically reeked of body odor stood packed shoulder to shoulder.
"......Maybe I shouldn't have come."
He felt a flicker of resentment toward the emperor who had invited him.
Lucia shared the same uneasy feeling. The "festival" Shiron had brought her to looked more like a battlefield occupied by an all-male army. There were no serfs or citizens being endlessly sucked into a clash of fire and cold steel, yet the faint iron tang and foul odors drifting on the air were the same.
Turning her eyes away from the men flaunting massively swollen muscles, she fixed her gaze on Shiron.
"Shiron. What kind of festival is this? Is it even a festival? What the hell is this place?"
"Hell if I know. I got scammed too."
The Subjugation Festival Shiron remembered had never been this much of a men's bathhouse. In the game he had lived through, reasonably attractive women had dotted the field here and there—Orca Siriel, Sword God Lucia, even Yoru the warrior of the Sillyeia tribe.
Come to think of it... that was ten years later.
His face crumpled. Lucia, still scanning the crowd, could not hide her growing panic.
"...What kind of festival only has men? Where are the women? Don't tell me I'm the only one?"
"Haha. Looking for women? They're right over there."
Yohan's hearty laugh rolled out as he pointed toward a group whose entire bodies were sealed inside full plate armor.
"Sir Yohan, how can you be so certain those are women?"
"The smell is different."
Narrowing his eyes, Yohan crossed his arms and regarded them as if grading livestock. Lucia obediently drew a deep breath and tried to catch the scent, but all she got was the nauseating sweat of the surrounding brutes.
At the mere mention of women, Shiron's eyes flew open.
"The smell?"
"Yes. That deep, wild musk a well-trained man gives off—they don't have it."
"..."
Lucia shot Yohan a thoroughly sour look. Whatever pleasure he was taking from the situation, he alone looked like a fish that had finally found water.