Parmas's Greed Causes an Incident #3
Boom, ba-boom, boom—.
The racket of drums. And the clang of metal plates beaten into gongs, weaving an oriental sound through the air.
Flutter—.
Birds took flight from far off as a matter of course, and the larger beasts did not show themselves at all.
"You damned bastard! Do you want to get in my way that badly?!"
Knight Parmas finally snapped and roared at me.
It had been only two hours since the hunt began.
The only game he had managed to take was the single rabbit he had caught at the start. Compared to me—who had already brought down twenty wild boars and piled up two tons of weight—it was a pitifully meager haul.
"Giving up already?"
I had expected Parmas to put up a more meaningful fight than this.
He flung his bow to the ground, stomped on it hard, and bellowed in rage.
"You little shit! There's not a shred of seriousness in anything you do!!! You wet-behind-the-ears brat!!!"
Not a shred of seriousness?
Who in the world lived every single moment as seriously as I did?
I was ready to set fire to this entire forest of stars if it came to that. If Parmas somehow succeeded in the hunt despite my interference, that had been the plan—but thankfully, there was no need.
"Did you all see that? Hyde here, who had never so much as touched a bow or a sword in his life, has thoroughly defeated Sir Parmas, once called the Beheader! Precisely because I am a man with whom the Lord walks!"
Whoosh—.
I flung both arms wide like a stage actor pouring everything into his performance and shouted.
The Agarpe soldiers watching the spectacle muttered under their breath—"How can he be that shameless—" or "Shh, keep it down. If that son-in-law marks you, you're finished! Remember Loras and Selim!"—then clamped their mouths shut.
They must have recalled how the Agarpe retainers who had been marked by me, like Loras and Selim, had died like dogs.
Though if you thought about it, I was innocent of both their deaths.
Loras. Las had been the one who killed that bastard.
And Selim had been executed by Agarpe's own headsman.
Not a single scrap of fault was mine.
"There are still four hours left, but in that time Sir Parmas catching twenty wild boars is utterly impossible. Isn't that so? Therefore, give it up already."
I drove the nail in as I spoke to Parmas.
Hyde's perfect victory. All that remained was to fulfill the terms of the wager.
I briefly imagined a deranged Parmas declaring, "It's not over yet! I'll hunt the humans instead!" and swinging his sword at everyone around him. With the rejuvenated Parmas of now, it seemed entirely possible—but very fortunately, nothing of the sort happened.
He merely rubbed the corner of his mouth with a gloved hand and said,
"There are still four hours left, are there not? One never knows anything until the end."
I did not miss the way the corner of his mouth twisted into something mean.
Planning some trick, was he?
But those four hours passed, and under my relentless interference he failed to take a single piece of game and had to face the evening empty-handed.
"I won! The wager is over!"
Now it was truly my flawless victory.
I held out my hand toward Parmas.
"Well then, the time has come to fulfill the wager. Sir Parmas, did we not agree that the loser would grant the winner any wish whatsoever? Everyone will remember!"
I spoke to the crowd around us.
Men like Parmas fretted enormously over public opinion. They staked their lives on others' gazes, on their own honor and reputation—that was the type. So if I made public opinion my ally, there was nothing to lose.
And fortunately, public opinion was two hundred percent on my side.
This Agarpe domain was my second hometown, after all!
I was the live-in son-in-law of House Agarpe!
And I was a priest more devout, more pious, more reliable and lovable than anyone.
Compared to that, Parmas was a filthy old man.
Of course people would take my side!
"Sir Parmas, don't you feel a little sorry for him?"
"Right? Lord Hyde might have gone a bit far."
"Even for a wager, interfering like that…"
What the hell were these bastards saying?
These bastards couldn't even tell shit from soybean paste!
Me, go too far? The one who went too far was Parmas!
So I deliberately raised my voice.
"Sir Parmas! Because you dared to name the divorce of myself and my wife Psyche as your wish, I too resorted to a scheme that might look underhanded! You blasphemed the love the Lord Himself joined together! This is blasphemy against the Lord! I have delivered divine punishment upon you, arrogant and greedy man, in Elohim's stead!"
I was more magnanimous than anyone, and so I understood the hearts of petty men better than anyone in the world.
If Parmas had won this wager, he truly would have demanded Psyche from me!
Absolutely he would have!
Two hundred and fifty percent certain!
Therefore I had to win this wager no matter what—and I had won!
What I would demand of Parmas was only one thing.
"Sir Parmas, then what I demand is one thing. Hand over the royal treasure you stole and swallowed into your belly. It is not an object an old man like you can handle."
Parmas, you bastard.
You swallowed the Orb of Greed into your gut right now.
That's why you turned young overnight.
When you were old and waiting only to die, life must have been whatever. But once your body suddenly grew young, things you had never possessed in your entire life until now must have started looking tempting.
A beautiful domain, or a wife prettier and kinder than anyone—things like that.
At once the surroundings stirred.
"He swallowed a royal treasure? What does that mean?"
"Sir Parmas stole something?"
"Could it be connected to how he suddenly rejuvenated this time?"
There—.
Hand it over already.
People now seemed not to care about the wager's outcome at all; they were curious about whatever Parmas had swallowed. Since it was the thing I was demanding, of course everyone wanted to see it.
But Parmas only shrugged his shoulders.
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
Look at this bastard?
Not even wetting his lips, lying straight to my face?
Could a man fall this far even when he fell?
"Great Sin Seat Greed. Among the treasures he left behind when he fell, there would have been a round orb. An object called the Orb of Greed. It holds a mysterious power."
In this uncivilized world there were a few mysterious objects. Things one might call "treasures"—not merely glittering gold or jewels, but things that produced wondrous effects.
For example, the Holy Grail I had once touched.
Or the greatsword Agarpe owned by House Agarpe.
In truth all such treasures had once been kept in the Unizer royal family's treasure vault. The hunchbacked blind man who guarded that vault had stolen several of them during the war twenty years ago and fled.
The Orb of Greed was one of them.
"You suppressed Great Sin Seat Greed and returned all the remaining treasures to Pope Gregory—but you hid one and kept it in your pocket. The moment you saw it, greed must have taken hold."
"I truly have no idea what you mean."
He was playing dumb, but inside Parmas had to be panicking.
This bastard—how the hell does he know so much?—he would be tensing up inside.
The reason I knew so well was obvious.
Parmas. This was not the first time he had rejuvenated like this.
Roughly two years ago from now.
I had heard the rumors about the rejuvenated Parmas.
The fact that Parmas, who had been clashing with the cultist group of mad serial killers known as Psychos, had suddenly grown young overnight.
Not long after that he thoroughly crushed Psychos and earned great merit—but that was a short story.
"Sir Parmas. You seemed well-versed in foreign rumors and proverbs. Then do you also know the saying about the last flare of a dying candle?"
"It means a candle burns brightest for a moment just before it is snuffed out."
"Exactly so. Parmas, if you do not hand over the treasure you stole right now, you will be stripped of everything you possess. Now, hand it over!"
Swoosh—.
I stretched out my arm.
But Parmas looked around at the crowd and instead raised his voice loudly.
"Hyde, what a friend with a vivid imagination. If you keep telling me to hand over something that doesn't exist, what am I supposed to do? I can't exactly make one and give it to you. This is quite awkward."
Yes.
I had known he would come out like this.
And so I felt deeply disappointed.
"Parmas, I spoke truly for your sake. The old you may have been cantankerous, but you might still have been an elder worthy of respect."
"……."
"I say this one last time. Hand it over. Even if you grow young overnight and live a second life, a person cannot change so easily. Do not end your life as a botched work."
Swoosh—.
I opened my palm again.
Parmas's gaze began to waver badly; he grew restless.
At last he shouted,
"I am not feeling well. I shall take my leave first!"
Hyde, that son of a bitch!
Back at the mansion, Parmas felt the humiliation and smashed his fist into the bed with all his strength.
The bedding tore and the mattress shattered, but his rage did not ease.
That bastard—how did he know I swallowed the treasure of greed? Does he really possess some divine power granted by the Lord? No, impossible! That brat couldn't possibly—!
Yet Parmas's heart was still trembling.
When that brat Hyde had looked him in the eye, held out his palm, and said, "Hand it over"—
Parmas had felt a compulsion that he ought to hand over everything he owned to the boy.
"The last flare of a dying candle, is it? How dare you spout such words in front of me?"
Parmas's life was only just beginning.
The youth he had newly obtained.
Hyde had called it a second life—an expression not bad for a brat.
There were many things Parmas wanted to do in this second life he had gained.
Above all, what he wanted most was to obtain a family.
His life, in which everyone had grown old and died, had been nothing but lonely in his later years.
The reason he had clung so hard to honor and reputation was that those were the only things he would leave behind when he grew old and died.
If he had had a family who would remember him even after death, if he had had grandsons and granddaughters, it might never have come to this—
I must make a wife!
Parmas wanted to create a family.
And Psyche, the young lady of Agarpe, was an outstanding woman even in Parmas's eyes.
The courage to stand against that monster Rust!
A character fine enough to preserve her purity even after marriage!
Among all the women Parmas had seen throughout his previous life, she would stand at the very top.
Of course the age gap between Psyche and Parmas was nearly half a century—
But now my body has returned to its youth. No—rather, the blood boils even hotter than back then…
Cough—.
That was when it happened.
Parmas felt a piercing cold and a surge of nausea.
He vomited something up in a violent rush.
"Ugh! Guaaagh!"
From his belly, together with a tremendous quantity of blood, a round something was expelled from his mouth.
Plop, roll-roll-roll—.
"M-my treasure!"
He stared in great alarm at the orb that still shone brilliantly even though it was smeared with blood.
The face reflected in the orb began to lose its youth and age in an instant.
The backs of his hands grew rougher than before, like tree bark, and the muscles that had remained firm even in old age all drained away until he looked like the withered branches of a dead tree.
His body trembled violently.
Parmas looked at the body reflected in the mirror and was horrified.
His sunken, hollow eyes filled with fear.
"N… no…!"
A physical condition worse than before he had obtained the orb!
Because Parmas was a wise man, he realized at once that this was clearly a side effect produced by the Orb of Greed.
And that his body was too old and his vital energy too depleted to accept this orb!
"…I-it's mine. If it's me, I might still be able to do it. I cannot die like this!"
But—
Even so, Parmas could no longer stop.
The orb seemed to call to him.
—Receive me into your body—it said.
In a dark and wicked voice that seemed to scramble his mind.
Knowing full well that this was the temptation of death, Parmas finally picked up the orb and swallowed it once more.