2. The Pledge
2. The Pledge
"...Hhgh... hhghh...."
My mother, who had been clutching her stomach and laughing, wiped away her tears and barely managed to stop laughing.
"Snrk...."
...She hadn't stopped yet.
Apparently finding her son's outlandish conclusion adorable, Mother rubbed my cheek around like a toy.
"Abwuh, haow did ou do it? (How did Father do it?)"
"Hmm... how am I supposed to explain this...."
Scratching his chin, my father restrained my mother.
Only then did she let go of my cheek.
"Just tell him that people can be resurrected any number of times in a blessed Sanctuary. Allen is old enough to understand that much."
"I know. Our son is very bright. The problem is that if we tell him only that, there is no telling what he might try out of curiosity in a Sanctuary."
"Ah. That's true."
My mother looked troubled too.
From my parents' conversation, I inferred that a Sanctuary was a place where people resurrected after death and was therefore widely used to film realistic action scenes.
They seemed reluctant to explain it to me because something serious could happen if a child who had not yet reached maturity entered one.
Fortunately, I, Allen Price—
as a dutiful son from the Land of Eastern Courtesy, had no intention of causing my parents worry.
"Dad! Can I do that too?"
"Say, 'Can I do that too, please?'"
"Please?"
"Allen, you'll be able to do it when you grow up."
"Really?"
"Really. But you have to eat plenty, sleep plenty, and listen to your mother if you want to grow up quickly, right? Now, let us go to bed."
"Yes~"
My parents switched the subject so they wouldn't have to explain. Playing along with their lead, I accepted it for the time being and moved on.
With a concrete plan for becoming a movie actor forming in my heart, I closed my eyes to my mother's lullaby.
*
After that came days of training.
I didn't know yet if I'd become an actor or a director, but I figured that rather than eating and lazing around, doing whatever I could already do would bring me one step closer to my dream.
Of course, as in any world, my parents wanted me to study, but...
- I'm sorry, Tower Master. Your second son is... well... his learning is a bit...
- You don't need to beat around the bush. I already know full well.
Seeing as my older brother was smart enough to become the direct disciple of the Destruction School's Tower Master before even reaching adulthood, it seemed my genes were definitely my father's.
My mother, as befitted a former Tower Master, was a rational person.
The moment Mother became convinced that academics were not my path, she introduced me to Father's acquaintances.
My father's comrades fell all over themselves praising my fighting sense.
- Allen is a genius! He is putting people in joint locks on instinct without anyone teaching him!
Well, that was because in my previous life I'd rolled in the mud with my comrades day after day.
I hadn't formally studied a martial art like wrestling, but since I'd kept being sent to battlefields where you died if you couldn't fight in close combat, it had become ingrained in my body.
Now and then, when I grabbed a knight by the waist and executed a German Suplex for showmanship, my father would clap with satisfaction.
Naturally, given my age, there was no way being praised like that could make me happy...
- Heehee! Mother, I came back having won again!
Seeing my parents so delighted, I couldn't help but get excited too.
Drunk on my parents' praise, I'd run wild and push even harder in training, and then my parents would praise me even more.
By the time I came to my senses, I had somehow become the knight order's unofficial youngest member—and a minor.
'What the fuck...?'
I'd dreamed of becoming an actor with the single-minded resolve never to become a soldier, yet before I knew it, I was back on a soldier's course.
I hadn't been officially registered with the Imperial Knights since I was still a minor, but at this rate, I was poised to join naturally the moment I came of age.
'No, this isn't right.'
Honestly, wouldn't re-enlisting as an NCO for a second time be a bit much?
Before my life could go any further off the rails, I headed to the Imperial Palace to devise a solution.
*
Bang!
"This is absolutely unacceptable!!!!"
"Quiet! Do not slam the door!"
When I kicked open a door somewhere in the palace and burst in, Leon was there, doing official work.
I wanted to ask what they were making a sixteen-year-old do, but the ruler of a country was meant to start preparing at this age.
A great power like the Parma Empire had so much to learn that even someone who began studying in childhood would probably only become reasonably proficient in their thirties.
But that wasn't the point.
The point was that at this rate, I was going to end up a soldier!
Leaving out my past life, I told Leon about my current situation. Without lifting his eyes from his documents, he answered coolly.
"Doesn't change the fact that there's nothing you can do. Before you turn twenty, if you go into a Sanctuary, your soul will twist."
Souls had something like a growth plate—called a Soul Core—and if you resurrected through a Sanctuary's power before it fully matured, an accident could occur where your soul would no longer be capable of growing.
But that didn't apply to me.
Past life plus present life, fifty-six years total.
My soul was so mature it was practically rotting; if any growth plate to worry about remained, I'd be lucky.
And above all...
"So I just need to not die, right?"
Leon's eyebrow twitched.
He looked ready to object that this was easier said than done, but held it in.
"So, first, help me out a little."
"With what?"
"Just sign this for me."
A Sanctuary entry permit and a forged identity.
With these, I could work as an actor!
Crunch.
A vein bulged on Leon's forehead as his pen snapped.
"Do you think it's normal to stand in front of the heir to this nation and brazenly ask him to help you break the law?!"
"A real man never backs down from his convictions, even if it means adding a criminal record to his name!"
"You already have one!"
"Then I will add another!"
I'd been thrown in jail once before for electric fishing in the palace pond, but wasn't that a misdemeanor?
At my shamelessness, Leon seemed to lose the will to argue; clutching his forehead, he grudgingly helped me with the permit and the identity forgery.
If he hadn't, things would've gotten a bit troublesome. It was a relief I didn't have to go that far.
He pressed his seal down one last time and handed the documents to me.
"If I didn't give you this, you were planning to head to the slums, weren't you?"
"Hey. Forged identity papers, maybe, but you can't get a Sanctuary permit in the slums."
"Then were you going to buy from an excommunicated priest? On the black market?"
"Oh. Correct."
Fortunately, thanks to Leon's cooperation, things were going to work out smoothly.
Leon shook his head from side to side.
"By the way, do your mother and father know?"
"Want me to tell you one truth?"
"?"
"Forgiveness is always easier than permission."
"...."
I had learned that truth at age eight, when I fired a water rocket in the palace courtyard immediately after being warned not to and shattered the window of the Emperor's office.
Of course you did.
Muttering that, Leon slumped crookedly into his chair.
He took a sip of the coffee sitting on the edge of his desk and gestured as if offering me a cup too.
"The usual."
When Leon summoned a servant, the lemonade I had requested was brought out.
And only after the servant set down the lemonade and exited the office did Leon open his mouth again.
"I am curious about one thing. Could you tell me the concept for your Hero persona in advance?"
"Of course I can tell you that much."
Hero.
In this world, that meant an actor who worked in a Sanctuary.
I carefully handed him the concept and script for my debut.
When he first saw the script, Leon's reaction was decent enough, but after reading to the end, his response was completely lukewarm.
It was closer to negative, really.
"No theological reflection, and no romance? Pure action? As a debut work, that kind of venture... no, reading the script alone, it seems interesting enough, but I'm not sure the priests will see it that way."
"Unless the priests are blind, will they not pick it up for how original it is?"
"I only read it to the end because I know you are a creative bastard. Those men would read the preface and use the rest as kindling."
If the Sanctuary was this world's Hollywood, the priests stationed there were its producers.
But there was one difference from the PDs of my past life.
In my previous life, producers decided a film's concept in advance, then assembled a production team by casting actors and directors. Here, priests browsed the concepts actors—Heroes—submitted to Sanctuary recruitment notices and selected whichever caught their eye.
This was a tradition originating from ancient times, when priests would receive oracles and assemble Heroes and their companions to form Hero parties.
The trouble was, since filming a movie required catching a priest's eye, the subjects of this world's movies had always been solely religion and love.
In that sense, Leon's worry was valid.
Whether they would ever pick up an adventurous genre like this.
If anything, the odds were high they would not even look at it.
"Then what do I do?"
"First, if you can get a priest to read your concept and script, I think the rest will work itself out. This, I can help you with a bit. Want me to write you a recommendation letter?"
"Yeah."
"Hold on. I'll get the form."
The position of priest was, surprisingly, not politically neutral.
Unlike a cleric, which was a purely religious office, a priest was a state-appointed position.
Naturally, a priest in service to the Empire could not refuse a recommendation from a prince, and out of courtesy he would have to read my entire script.
All because I happened to have one good friend.
Leon handed me the recommendation stamped with his personal seal and gave me his encouragement.
"Do your best."
"I'll definitely put your name in the ending credits."
"Skip that, just invite me to the premiere."
"Got it."
============================
<John Armstrong> burst onto the scene like a comet in a market dominated by themes of religion and romance.
When the film first opened—a film with no message, no moral—the public response was cynical.
- A revenge story about a man who lost his wife? It sounds suitable as something to kill time with.
It began with critics, particularly nobles with time to spare.
Having devoured nearly every film in theaters, they eventually reached for <John Armstrong>, which had been pushed into a corner.
Every noble who left the theater wrote the same thing in the newspaper review columns:
'It opened a new horizon in direction.' Nothing else.
- What about the story?
- The direction was incredible.
- How was the acting?
- The direction was outstanding.
- What was the moral of the film?
- That superb direction cancels out every flaw?
- Any moral besides the direction?
- Don't mess with a retired knight.
With nothing but this same exchange repeated over and over, people began heading to theaters, thinking they might as well see for themselves.
Nobles and commoners alike.
Without exception, all they talked about was the direction.
The phenomenon came to be called <John Syndrome>.
People were living in the era of John.
*
John Armstrong was a retired knight.
He lived a peaceful life in a mountain cabin with his wife, Matilda, and his dog, Buddy.
But his peaceful life was shattered in an instant.
While he was away, organized thugs who lusted after his wife took both his wife and his dog from him.
When he arrived home, the bodies that greeted him at the door were his dog, who had died defending his wife, and his wife, who had died shielding the dog.
Ring-ring!
The crystal chimed at that moment.
As he answered it, a man's voice came from the other side.
- John. It was an accident.
"...."
- My nephew didn't know what he was doing. I know it's unforgivable, but I'm shameless enough to beg you.
"..."
- I'll give you anything you want. If it's money you need, I can give you half my fortune—no, eighty percent. Please, let's settle this with words—
Crash.
John smashed the crystal and headed for the shed behind the cabin.
He opened the shed, pulled back the carpet, and opened a trapdoor, revealing a safe inside.
The safe held three pistols.
John tucked them all into his waistband and walked out of the shed.
*
"Uncle. Why are you so scared of some washed-up old man!"
"That old man you're talking about—that's John."
The organization's boss—the man the young man called Uncle—soothed his burning stomach with liquor before calling for his nephew.
Then John's past was revealed through his account.
A massive rebellion that had nearly toppled a kingdom.
John, a knight dispatched from the Empire, was the legendary knight who had single-handedly crushed that rebellion.
"Five Heroes. Twenty-seven knights. Thirty Nobles. One hundred thirty mercenaries. That's the body count from that night."
Only then did the nephew begin to grasp what he had brought down on himself.
"Uncle. I—"
"You! You destroyed our organization! You bastard!!"
The moment he hurled his glass at his nephew, the screen cut back to John.
*
What followed was battle, battle, battle.
In a mercenary dormitory he tracked down following his enemy's trail, he killed five mercenaries with a ballpoint pen.
In an alleyway, he took out the organization's assassins tailing him with his pistol, piling up bodies across the city.
The reactions of John's enemies were always one of two kinds.
Those who knew John showed fear or respect and got out of his way.
Those who didn't know John laughed at the pistol he drew and mocked him.
- You really think you can kill a man with that antique?
In a world where body enhancement was basic, guns were obsolete weapons.
Compared to mana-infused arrows, bullets were too slow and could carry too little mana.
Moreover, after the magic crossbow appeared, even in convenience and portability it fell behind, becoming a weapon no one used anymore.
But every time enemies mocked his pistol, John overpowered them with fluid hand-to-hand combat and joint locks, then pulled the trigger at point-blank range where dodging was impossible.
And so, those who mocked him never wore a smile on their faces again.
After soaking the city's night in screams and blood, he finally reached the boss.
The boss struggled as best he could, but in the end, he met his death at John's hands.
His revenge complete, he dragged his battered body back to his cabin, and the film came to a close.
============================
[Imperial Counterintelligence Department Urgent Report]
Hero Name : John Armstrong
Combat Power Rating : A
Appearing Works : [John Armstrong], [John Armstrong 2 : Locked and Loaded (In Production)]
Legal Name : Allen Price
Age : 16
Affiliated Faith : God of Entertainment and Amusement
John Armstrong appeared suddenly and has revolutionized modern combat doctrine.
His methods are drawing the military's attention because they can perfectly compensate for the close-quarters weaknesses of crossbowmen and wizards.
However, the impact of his combat techniques does not stop there.
Conversely, they can also arm hand-to-hand fighters with a ranged weapon or magic.
In the film, he named this system CQC—a military hand-to-hand combat system.
True to the setting that it is a hand-to-hand combat system developed by the Imperial Counterintelligence Department in partnership with the knight orders, the basic framework appears to be drawn from Imperial-style wrestling, but the details seem to reference many other martial arts.
Accordingly, the techniques are structured so soundly that opinions within the military seriously propose training knights in this combat style—it is far too well-designed to dismiss as mere fantasy.
Up to this point, one might simply think that a new, talented Hero has emerged from the Empire.
There were two problems. First, the performer was the young lord of House Price. Second, other kingdoms were already moving behind the scenes to identify him.
First and foremost, the issue is that since the film's release, the number of spies infiltrating the Empire has increased exponentially.
Now that Sanctuaries have been established and even localized wars have been rendered impossible by treaty, the importance of intelligence operations in the international community cannot be overstated.
Under these circumstances, the combat Allen Price showcased happened to be so groundbreaking that it could upend the landscape of both intelligence operations and urban warfare.
Other nations are aware of this, which is why they are willing to bear the political burden of tracking down the man who played John Armstrong.
Therefore, this Department proposes the formation of a team to simultaneously protect and monitor Allen Price.
- Counterintelligence Department, Section 3, Team 1.
==================================================
"..."
"..."
"Allen."
"Yes, Father."
"Are you aware that your maternal uncle is the Deputy Director of Counterintelligence Command?"
"That is news to me too."
"I had forgotten, myself."
I'd been summoned out of the blue one day, and when I came to his office, Mother was seated on the sofa and Father handed me this report, which he'd been reading at his desk.
'They caught me sooner than I expected.'
There were many ways to hide one's appearance while acting inside a Sanctuary.
After all, when generating your avatar before filming began, you could alter your looks however you liked except for gender and height.
But the fact that my uncle was Deputy Director of Counterintelligence Command, and that Counterintelligence Command would, of all things, take an interest in me as a surveillance target—that was outside my calculations.
"Explain yourself."
I had gone ahead and thrown it out there with every intention of begging forgiveness later, but I still needed time to think up an excuse.
Naturally, I had never prepared an excuse for a situation like this, and my vocabulary was not fluent enough to produce one on such short notice.
So I decided to go with shamelessness.
"But it was awesome, wasn't it?"
Crunch.
Father's uppercut sent my body tracing a beautiful parabolic arc.