Devoted to Nation and Sovereign
When he came to, he was still right there.
In his left hand, Diana's hand; in his right, a sword someone had abandoned on the ground. And amid the blown-apart wreckage of the village stood the knights who had wiped out every last bandit.
A man with a vicious face — the one they called Captain — ambled over toward Ian.
"Well, well. You actually survived. The girl next to you your sister?"
"...Don't know her."
They had lived in the same village, yet that was the first time Ian had ever laid eyes on Diana. She'd been sobbing all alone in front of her dead mother, so he'd simply taken her hand. No special reason to it.
At that answer, the man threw his head back and let out a booming "Wah-hah!"
"Looking after somebody else in the middle of all this? Not bad, little runt."
When the man came closer still, Ian swung his sword on pure reflex.
A blade and armor lacquered in blood. The very expression the man had worn while butchering bandits. Any child in his right mind would have felt fear first when a murderous-looking man came bearing down on him.
Thwack!
"...!?"
"Fighting instead of running, huh? Kid's got guts!"
A shadow draped over his head, and he went rigid.
I'm dead! — but the instant he squeezed his eyes shut, a heavy hand ruffled his hair instead.
"I like you, kid. Nowhere to go? Then come with us."
"...You're not supposed to follow strangers."
"Just asking out of courtesy."
"...!"
And that was Ian's first meeting with the Oswald Knights.
To put it kindly, they were nothing like the dignified knights Ian would come to know. They talked down to everyone, no matter who they faced, and their conduct was rough as gravel. Absolute obedience to the Captain's orders, certainly — but set them off over something trivial and they'd come to blows. A pack of thugs in armor, every last one of them.
"Well, what do you expect? We're commoners! Men who clawed their way into the Lawrence Knights on nothing but skill, that's us!"
No wonder, then, that they'd seemed no different from the old men guzzling booze at the tavern every night... Looking back on it now, Ian mused, he might have simply found the wrong guardians back then. He'd done his honest best to whip their manners into shape, but the harder he tried, the stranger their speech became, until everyone gave up together.
And yet, coarse as they were, Ian loved the Oswald Knights.
He couldn't help but admire them. Powerful, overwhelming — and still they would reach out a hand to the weak, laugh with them, live alongside them.
They were like heroes out of a story.
Right up to this point, it's honestly a rather heartwarming tale.
The problem was what came after.
The Great Monster Upheaval that erupted across the world. Time and again, the Oswald Knights were thrown onto Lugnica's front lines. Strong and skilled, yet with no noble house standing behind them — to the court, they were the perfect blade to grind down and cast away.
Oswald knew it full well. Even so, they fought on in silence, following orders, again and again. Leaving their comrades' corpses behind them — over and over and over. Tossing out small jokes about the hero's welcome surely waiting for them when they came home.
But for Oswald, who had executed every last mission flawlessly to the very end, the answer that came back was one more order: keep exterminating monsters.
The reason was simple. More than three years of the Upheaval had worn the populace down to the bone, and they had begun blaming the nobility for all of it. If Lugnica was to be bound into one again, the empire needed its tearjerker — the stirring tale of how Oswald, heroes of a hundred battles, 'voluntarily' fought to the last and 'died.'
And the man who gave that order was none other than my father. Curiant de Lawrence.
A man I've never laid eyes on in person. Well — I have seen photographs, so perhaps "seen" isn't entirely a lie.
But I digress.
Astonishingly, it's said that Oswald bore House Lawrence no grudge. As knights devoted to nation and sovereign, they accepted it all with calm. They had received the Emperor's command, they said. They called it a fitting end for a soldier, and smiled to the very last moment — even as they were being shoved through that secret passage.
"That's what happened."
"'That's what happened,' he says."
With that, the story — long if you call it long, short if you call it short — was over. So I ask Ian once more.
"All that, and you just threw your revenge away? Cleanly?"
"You don't believe me?"
How the hell am I supposed to believe that, you lunatic? This guy is a complete nutjob. Any fool can see this is the prologue to a revenge story, and he's asking me to buy it?
His face looks perfectly normal — is he drunk? The moment I wonder it, Ian chuckles again.
"You're right, of course, Your Majesty. In the beginning I burned with it. It's the reason I became a knight at all."
"And then?"
"Then I kept living as a knight... and found I simply couldn't bring myself to do it."
"..."
He says he still remembers the first person he ever saved as a knight. The way she clutched his hand, tears streaming down her face, thanking him — calling him the savior of her life. And beyond that: the people pouring everything they had into living each day. The knights who had once sneered at him for being a commoner, with whom he'd somehow, without noticing, come to share drinks. The little children whose eyes shone as they declared their dream of becoming knights just like him. Watching them, Ian understood at last.
Ah. So this is what those men gave their lives for.
"Their last request was that we, the survivors, at least remember them. If I ever went and committed treason, it would be as good as forgetting."
"..."
"So I let it go. I didn't want to throw Lugnica into chaos, great or small. I wanted to remain a knight of Oswald."
"And the reason you were so desperate to meet me?"
Ian slipped a hand into his breast pocket and laid something on the table. A badge — the emblem of the order, its colors worn almost entirely away.
"I just wanted someone from House Lawrence to recognize it. That's all."
"..."
"That Oswald existed. That today's Lugnica stands because the Oswald Knights did."
"..."
"I only... wanted you to know. That's all it was."
As if he truly wanted nothing more, Ian simply tipped back his cup. Dragging the truth into the light now, or claiming any manner of compensation — that wasn't what they would have wanted, he said. All he had purely wanted, he added, was to carry the name of Oswald to me.
"..."
I gazed in silence at the badge resting on the table.
Unfortunately, I am not a sentimental man. Romantic, even less so. All that matters to me at this moment is a single question: is Ian my ally, or my enemy? I weigh it against everything I've observed so far.
Ian has executed every order I've given, faithfully — and is executing them still. The charge of rebellion was that damned old man's bluff. It's true that he once nursed a grudge; it's equally true that he is the last of the Oswald Knights.
...
...
...
I rise from my seat.
"...What are you sitting there staring for? Up. Quickly."
"...Huh?"
"'Huh?' is right. You think I let you talk down to me because we're equals? I stand a good deal higher than you, so on your feet. Before I change my mind."
Ian blinked a few times, then heaved himself up with a groan. Perhaps he wasn't entirely sober after all — he swayed a little.
And to him — snap! — I brought my heels together. Right hand raised to my brow, I saluted.
"...Huh?"
"In the name of Dante de Lawrence, master of Lugnica and greatest Emperor of the Lawrence Imperial House."
"..."
"To the Oswald Knights, who saved Lugnica — my gratitude."
I have no intention of answering for everything House Lawrence cast away. They made that mess, not I, and I'm busy enough just keeping myself alive. But if something has been abandoned right in front of my eyes, I'm willing to pick it up. I am the Emperor, after all. I have the power, I hold the position, and I sit upon that seat.
"Wh... what..."
Ian's face filled with pure bewilderment. It began with a crease between his brows; then, little by little, his face crumpled and warped. He tried to bluff his way into a grin and failed. Just as his head began to sink—
he brought his own heels together, and lifted bloodshot eyes.
And with his face an utter wreck, he returned the salute.
A snort of laughter slipped out of me. Knew it. All that showing off he does on his own, and the man hasn't a single knot left anywhere inside him. A man truly without burdens. A man who has shaken them all off—
"Hkk... hnngh...!"
—does not weep with a face that redeemed. Not over a scrap of thanks like this.
After that, we simply kept tipping our cups until Ian steadied himself.
Comfort him? Don't make me laugh. My consolations are reserved exclusively for pretty women. Average or homely need not apply, and men aren't worth the discussion.
Before long he seemed to have settled on his own, so I spoke.
"There's more you'll be doing for me, Ian, beyond all this."
"Piling on more work, are we?"
"Objecting?"
"Hardly — I'm honored. It's Your Majesty's command, after all. Just say the word."
He laughed his usual booming Wah-hah, and I delivered the news flatly.
"From tomorrow, you're Supreme Commander. Run it well, at your own discretion — and see to it there's not one thing I ever have to touch."
".........Hah?"
"And you'll teach me the sword. Let's set the bar at a level where I can beat even Elise."
Elise is a genius, which makes her hopeless at teaching. A man like Ian, though — one who faced two trolls alone and walked away without a scratch — should make a decent instructor.
And one thing after that — it will be the Ministry of Justice's turn to be cleaned out.
Ian, now confirmed as mine. The administration's officials feel like decent picks. The Ministry of Justice's aide, by comparison—
that bastard is a dead man walking.