VIII. A Knight Craves Battle (6)
VIII. A Knight Craves Battle (6)
Keldric waited awkwardly for Alisa.
Strained noises came from inside the room, accompanied by Alisa's trembling breaths.
After he waited in silence, the door suddenly flew open. Keldric stepped back and found Alisa standing there with her head bowed.
"..."
"Uh, um..."
Tearful blue eyes glared at Keldric through her disheveled blond hair.
Keldric could not bring himself to criticize her. He could scarcely imagine the humiliation she felt.
Without a word, Alisa thrust something toward him. Keldric accepted the small pewter chamber pot.
Warmth seeped into his hands as he held it and cautiously watched Alisa.
"Th-then..."
"...Go."
Alisa’s face was so red that even a beet would have admitted defeat. Clear tears gathered at the corners of her eyes.
"Um... Alisa. I'm sorry."
"..."
"I'll repay you for this someday. I swear it on my honor."
Alisa did not answer.
Keldric walked on without another word. Alisa followed with her head still lowered.
Alisa probably hated him at that moment, but Keldric hated the world. More precisely, he hated the demon’s whisper that had led to this situation.
'Beware the captured apostate. He will surely cause harm. To avoid it, sprinkle him with the fresh urine of a young virgin.'
Fresh urine from a young virgin. In other words, warm piss.
Among the people around Keldric, Alisa was the only one who qualified.
Asking an unfamiliar woman to “piss me a potful” would drag Keldric’s honor through the mud.
He could not explain that he had met a demon in a dream, which made the whole situation maddening.
Yet if he ignored the warning, the fact that demons could not lie in human form continued to bother him.
It might have been an inappropriate feeling toward a demon, but Keldric had come to trust her considerably.
At least while she wore human form, her words could be trusted. Rather than rejecting useful help on principle, it was wiser to exploit every advantage she offered.
Others might refuse on religious grounds, but Keldric felt little fear of demons and little guilt concerning his faith.
Thus, the demon’s final advice forced him into an extreme choice.
He could ask Alisa whether she was a virgin, or leave the old man entirely to Count Bogenberg and risk the warning coming true.
Keldric chose the former, accepting social suicide.
Fortunately, Alisa had no experience with men and was indeed a virgin.
After Keldric struggled to request a bowl of urine and Alisa repeatedly questioned whether she had heard correctly, she completed the humiliating task in the privy.
'Fuck.'
Keldric swallowed the curse. The warmth of the pewter chamber pot in his hand felt absurdly fresh.
He was long past the age of laughing at piss and shit, but being ordered to collect and sprinkle a virgin’s urine was still unbelievable.
Alisa, however, had even more reason to find the situation absurd.
From her perspective, Keldric had demanded a virgin’s urine without explaining the dream, making him look like the most depraved pervert alive.
He had substituted the Holy Spirit for the demon in his explanation, but if words solved every such situation, crime would not exist.
He could practically see her trust in him plummeting. Keldric studied her mood before speaking cautiously.
"By the way... how is the search for the wizard you're looking for going?"
"...I'm still searching."
"I see."
That ended the conversation. Feeling even more awkward, Keldric focused on walking.
'I should've kept my mouth shut.'
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
The old man was imprisoned in the inner castle's underground dungeon.
Keldric headed directly there. Alisa followed, her face no longer crimson but still cold enough to sting.
The door in the inner castle’s front courtyard led down to the dungeon, where two soldiers stood guard.
Keldric passed the soldiers and stopped before the room at the very back of the underground prison.
A clattering sound came from behind the locked door. When Keldric entered, a broad-shouldered man bowed respectfully.
"Sir Keldric of House Bellaf. His Excellency informed me that you would come."
"Mm."
The man was Count Bogenberg’s torturer.
The smell of blood made immediate sense. Instruments for pulling teeth had been laid out before the tightly bound old man.
Two bloody molars rolled on the floor. Keldric regarded them with mild discomfort.
Keldric had forced information from prisoners several times himself. He had even left his half brother Fritz half crippled.
But he could not match a professional torturer’s ability to inflict precise pain without killing the subject or destroying his mind.
"Have you learned anything?"
"Not a great deal, Sir Keldric."
The torturer had managed to extract two broad facts.
First, the old man was a wizard. Second, he came from the Kingdom of the Franks.
That made sense. Keldric nodded slowly.
The old man’s accent did resemble Sir Henri’s.
Learning that the old man was a wizard was new, though Keldric had suspected as much.
He had attacked by hurling suspicious concoctions. No ordinary person fought that way.
When someone behaved in a way Keldric had never seen before, there were usually two possibilities.
They were either a wizard or completely insane. The old man appeared to be the former.
Perhaps both.
"I’ll need more information."
"I’ll do everything I can. It has only been a day. Give me a little more time, and he’ll tell us everything."
In plain terms, the torturer was asking him to wait.
Keldric was impatient, but the demon’s warning made him especially wary of the old man.
"Did you find any unusual brand on his body? Something shaped like a burning flame?"
"No. His body was clean."
Jamash had given off a golden light from his eyes and brand, and immediately afterward had burst into a massive explosion, vanishing in a blaze.
Whether a Flame Brand was absolutely necessary for that act, he could not know. But it was prudent to start by identifying commonalities in unusual features.
If the old man had no Flame Brand, Keldric could be at ease. Keldric glanced at the old man.
Unlike yesterday, when he had been draped in a generously cut robe, the old man—whose body, in the space of a single day, had been reduced to covering only his lower half—was a shabby, emaciated figure.
Not that it was unusual for an old man to be thin, but this one was exceptionally gaunt.
The old man’s ribs stood out so sharply that the sight spoiled Keldric’s appetite.
"Could you wake him for a moment?"
"Ah, yes. Of course."
The torturer smiled cheerfully, disappeared briefly, and returned with a bucket of water.
Thin ice floated on the surface. It had clearly been left outside in the cold.
SPLASH!
The bone-chilling water struck the old man. He jerked awake, shaking his head.
"Gah! What... Hah!"
His eyes immediately met Keldric’s. The old man began trembling like a leaf.
Keldric could not tell whether it was the cold or fear. Perhaps both.
"Focus. How many fingers do you see?"
Keldric held up two fingers. The old man swallowed and forced out an answer.
"T-two..."
"Your mind is clear enough."
His speech was slightly slurred because his molars had been pulled.
Keldric ignored that and asked his first question.
"What is your name?"
"..."
"This won’t be very entertaining if you refuse."
Keldric extended his hand. As though they had rehearsed it many times, the torturer naturally placed a small single-edged saw into it.
"Every time you don't answer, you'll lose one finger."
"...J-Jacober."
Jacober. It sounded like an ordinary name from the Kingdom of the Franks.
If the old man, Jacober, had given a false name, it would be completely useless, but to Keldric, a name was not particularly important anyway.
What mattered was that Jacober's mouth had opened at all.
Once the man had begun talking, they could negotiate the rest and extract information gradually.
"I hear you're a wizard. Alisa?"
"Yes. Mr. Jacober, which academia and school did you study under?"
When questioned by another wizard, Jacober’s lips twitched before closing tightly.
The torturer watched him and approached carrying something. The smell of blood grew stronger.
"Sir Keldric, shall I assist?"
The torturer held a large, rusted pair of shears. Keldric shook his head uneasily.
"Not yet."
"Understood."
"So then... Jacober. At which Academia did you study, and which school are you from?"
"...I studied magic and alchemy at Belmond Academia."
Keldric had heard of Belmond Academia. It was one of the two famous academies in the Kingdom of the Franks.
"Jacober, I also asked which school trained you."
"That is..."
But Jacober, as if he had nothing more to say, kept his mouth firmly shut and held his silence.
Keldric did not understand why Jacober would name his academia but conceal his school. Alisa whispered the reason.
"Wizards take pride in their school. He may be protecting the others who trained beside him."
"Oh..."
'So he has some loyalty after all.'
Keldric nodded. But that was one thing, and this was another.
Seniors and juniors be damned; having thrown a riot in Count Bogenberg's territory, he was in a position where even spilling the color of the shit he'd taken yesterday wouldn't be enough.
Yet Jacober would not open his mouth to the very end.
Whether he had once belonged to the school or still did, he seemed to hold a deep affection for it.
Keldric’s instincts told him that polite questioning had reached its limit.
"It seems it's your turn."
"I’ve been waiting for those words."
The torturer stepped forward with a grin. Keldric moved back while Alisa watched uneasily.
"Now then, let us enjoy ourselves, Mr. Jacober."
"Guh... w-wait..."
Jacober retched and grimaced.
Keldric assumed he feared the torture ahead and thought nothing of it.
"Ghh... guh...!"
Then Jacober’s cheeks began to swell.
Keldric noticed the change and rushed forward.
He forced Jacober’s mouth open with one rough hand.
"Damn it!"
A flame-shaped brand had been carved into Jacober’s tongue.
Its golden light slowly intensified. Unlike Jamash, Jacober did not explode immediately.
"Sir Keldric? What is—"
"Get out immediately! Right now!"
"What?"
Keldric seized the torturer by the nape and pulled him close.
The demon’s words about requiring a virgin’s urine flashed through his mind.
"Ghk...! Khk!"
Jacober made a sound as though his breath were about to stop. The golden light began to fill the room.
Nothing to lose. Keldric hurled the torturer he had grabbed outside the room, and picked up the pewter chamber pot he had brought earlier.
Seeing that, Alisa shouted something, but there was no time.
Keldric immediately opened the lid. Then he vigorously splashed the contents of the pot over Jacober.
SPLASH!
Then, something astonishing happened.
The golden light of Jacober’s brand faded at once. Jacober’s bulging eyes also settled.
'That actually worked?'
Keldric was genuinely astonished. He had never imagined such a ridiculous remedy could work.
Keldric did not know the exact principle either, but Jacober had gone quiet as if nothing had ever happened. The brand, too, had subsided.
The problem was something else.
Thud!
A faint smell of urine spread through the room, followed by the sound of someone sinking to the floor.
"Ah... ahh..."
Alisa sat collapsed on the floor, close to tears and wearing the expression of someone whose dignity had been destroyed.
Keldric averted his gaze. The best course was to brazen it out.
Whatever the case, they had avoided the calamity of being buried underground or blown to pieces, so it was a fortunate thing for Alisa as well.
...Probably.