The Remedy
The morning of registration day.
Shiron made his way toward the building where applications were being processed, Lucia at his side.
Of course, the two children were not walking alone. After the attack the night before, an iron ring of escorts hemmed them in on every side.
Inside that wall of armor, Shiron yawned long and hard and kneaded the back of his neck.
Even allowing for what happened yesterday, isn't this a little much?
The confinement was starting to get to him. Front, back—his entire field of vision was blocked. For several minutes now he had been staring at nothing but the back of Yohan's head.
"Sir Knight. When do we reach the registration hall?"
Lucia was just as restless. She narrowed her eyes and looked up at Yohan's back as he led the way.
"...Not far now, my lady. Only a little farther."
Yohan answered without turning around. He had been walking in silence for some time, and the voice that finally left his mouth carried nothing but gravity.
Ordinarily he would have been cracking pointless jokes by now, pointing things out and explaining them. His present manner was cold to a degree that felt wrong.
And before long, Lucia understood exactly why he had no choice.
Clank—
Up ahead, the sound of armored joints striking together began to rise.
Not one or two, either. The overlapping racket was loud enough to announce that a whole company in plate was coming their way.
"Sir Yohan? Well, if it isn't Sir Yohan himself!"
Lucia peered through the gaps between the hulking bodies around her.
The voice belonged to a man in crimson heavy plate. He wore no helm, and the face it revealed was every bit as scarred as Yohan's. These were not clean blade cuts. His features were lumpy and uneven, as though they had been crushed and reset more times than once.
"Hahaha! So it really is you, Sir Yohan. I came running on the off chance, and damn if it hasn't been a long time."
He threw his head back with a booming laugh and addressed Yohan directly.
"It has been a long while, Dexter Dras. Word was you'd gone on expedition to the Red Dragon Gorge. The reports that reached me had you dead. Glad to see you're still in one piece."
On the surface it was the sort of formal exchange of greetings old acquaintances traded. But the tone Yohan turned on Dexter was ice-cold.
"Thing is, I'm rather busy. I'd be grateful if you'd clear the road."
"...My apologies."
Dexter gestured to the hulks he had brought with him.
A passage opened—just wide enough for one or two people to squeeze through.
A strange current began to run between the two men, the kind that promised something was about to happen.
"Heh heh."
Yohan gave a dry, hollow laugh. Gone was the heavy, solemn bearing of a moment before. He fixed Dexter with a look of pure exasperation.
Yohan knew perfectly well what Dexter was doing. So did Lucia. So did Shiron.
...What the hell is this bastard's problem?
Oh. Finally...
Lucia's eyes went round at the sudden provocation. Shiron clapped both hands over his mouth.
"Dexter. What exactly are you playing at?"
"I cleared the road for you, didn't I?"
"Heh heh. Honestly. A man your age, pulling a childish stunt like this."
"Just turned forty this year."
Dexter rolled his neck this way and that, as if warming up.
"Funny thing, though. Sir Hugo doesn't seem to be at this year's Subjugation Festival."
"So. Feeling bold enough, are you?"
"Yes."
Yohan covered his mouth with one hand and chuckled low in his throat.
Spectators were already crowding in around the two groups.
—A brawl? Who's fighting?
—Azure Heaven and the Red Lions.
—No sign of Sir Hugo.
—Then I'll put five hundred shillings on the Red Lions.
The onlookers stroked calloused fingers through their beards or folded their arms. Every last one of them looked like someone who knew his way around a fist. Before long, small wagers were changing hands among them.
And then—
In front of Dexter.
In front of Yohan.
Armored hulks stomped forward in heavy strides.
Yohan took Shiron and Lucia by the hands and eased them a few paces back.
"Charge!"
"Die already!"
Men in blue-silver plate and men in crimson plate hurled themselves at one another.
KRAANG— CRACK— THUD-THUD-THUD—
A brawl erupted in a riot of noise. Not a single mage among them, yet the collision of fists alone threw yellow sparks and sent thunder rolling through the air.
There was not a warrior present who could not wield protective Aura. Blue Aura condensed around knuckles; white teeth and red blood went spinning through the air.
"Just wait a few minutes. This won't take long."
"Ah—yes..."
Thoroughly relegated to the role of spectator, Lucia nodded toward Yohan. Somehow the festivals five hundred years on seemed to have grown a good deal more primitive than the ones she remembered.
Even the Silleyia people, back when everyone called them barbarians, never went quite this far.
Lucia accepted a strip of jerky from Shiron and chewed on it thoughtfully.
It was hardly a new observation, but being young meant being underestimated wherever you went. There was a reason tournaments bothered to hang the "youngest ever" title on a champion.
Outside pressure. Excessive attention. A shortage of experience. Anyone who overcame all of that, brought their full ability to bear, and still walked away with the win made that title shine all the brighter.
Shiron had a fairly clear idea of what the Emperor wanted from him.
He's probably hoping I'll put on a display of the extraordinary.
He'd already shown plenty of extraordinary, as far as he was concerned... but the stage the Emperor had set here on the Arwen Highlands called for a different kind of extraordinary altogether.
At this time of year, the Arwen Highlands became the arena where the new faces of every house and order came to show what they could do.
A dense fog settled over the far corners of the vast grasslands, and until that fog lifted, waves of magical beasts poured endlessly from within it.
Unlike the beasts that haunted the borders of the Demon Realm, however, the ones that spilled from the fog were numerous rather than formidable. Individually, they were nothing particularly difficult to handle.
But beasts they remained.
If the flood of magical beasts leaked into other territories of the Empire, the damage would pose a genuine threat to imperial security.
In the end, dealing with them required people and money. And so a festival was the most efficient remedy available.
Pit the great houses and orders against one another. Let them compete for supremacy. The Empire spent next to nothing, and the mere act of competing in the Subjugation Festival gave the rising generation invaluable combat experience.
Lucia, of course, knew nothing whatsoever of that background.
What kind of place is this supposed to be? Is this even a festival?
She rubbed her throbbing temples and wondered.
Once the scuffle had burned itself out and they reached the temporary building where applications were being taken, Lucia began to notice something odd.
It's a festival... and it's packed with hot-blooded people... so I can just about accept a brawl breaking out. But...
She looked at Yohan, who was striding ahead with his armor stained dark red.
She had thought he was only going to watch from a distance. Then Dexter had charged in calling him a coward for hanging back like a little girl, and Yohan had not held his fists.
They're not some third-rate street thugs. Why are knights in full plate brawling in the open? And why isn't anyone around here even trying to stop them?
Plenty of other questions were stacking up in her head. She shot a sidelong glance at Shiron, who was strolling along beside her as if he had all the time in the world.
"Shiron."
"Hm?"
"Why are we the only children here?"
It was not that Lucia had failed to spot anyone her age on the journey from Arwen Highlands Station to this place. There had been a full day of travel.
But here, in the line waiting to fill out applications for the Subjugation Festival, the only children were Lucia and Shiron.
Now and then a boy who looked four or five years older than Shiron turned up—and that was it. Everyone else filing into the queue looked about twenty, well past the age of their coming-of-age rites.
"And I feel like people keep staring at us."
"There's a pack of blood-soaked knights bunched together. Of course people are going to look. Don't worry about it."
"I-is that it?"
"That's it. Besides, kids draw attention wherever they go."
"...Right."
Lucia gave a small nod and took her place at the end of the line.
The queue shortened person by person, and before long Lucia found herself face to face with the young woman at the registration table.
"?"
The clerk's eyes went wide the moment she saw Lucia.
Only for a moment. She quickly composed her expression and bowed her head.
"Here, please. Here, and here. Write your name, age, and affiliation."
"Yes."
Name:Lucia Prien
Age:10
Affiliation:House Prien
Lucia filled in each field as instructed. Then she looked over at Shiron, who was standing there blankly.
"Shiron. Why aren't you writing anything? Aren't you entering?"
"...I forgot. Completely slipped my mind."
Shiron drew a fountain pen from his coat and began scratching letters onto the paper.
Sorry, Lucia. Dangerous stuff is really not my thing.
Name:Friend of the Third Prince
Age:Same as the Third Prince
Affiliation:Eternal and Undying Friend of Third Prince Viktor
"..."
What is this?
The clerk frowned as she checked Shiron's form.
Even as a joke, to toss around a member of the imperial family's name so casually...
But she did not bother to press the point.
The smiling boy's face was openly mischievous. Reacting to some noble young master's prank would only make her life harder.
The clerk knew the manual for situations exactly like this.
"...Confirmed."
She bowed politely to both of them.
Naturally, Shiron's name never made it onto the entrants' roster.