Royal Knight Commander (3)
Royal Knight Commander (3)
When I first heard from the Duke where the Knight Commander was staying, I thought I'd misheard.
He was staying somewhere so unexpected.
I knew he was unmarried and had no family, but I'd never expected someone of his stature—the Royal Knight Commander—to live in a place like that.
The Royal Knight Commander had secluded himself beyond the capital's outer wall.
He was staying in a hunter's cabin in the Royal Forest, a dense woodland near the capital.
It was no wonder people couldn't find him.
The Royal Forest was where the King and royal family went hunting.
As royal property, it was off-limits to anyone who wasn't royalty unless they had permission.
Since the two princes had no interest in hunting, no one had visited the forest since the King fell ill.
The princes had already been turned away several times, and they couldn't send their subordinates there, so it was the one place where he could avoid being pestered.
"Only a few people know, and none of them are talking. That's why all those bizarre rumors are running rampant."
The Duke of Ceuta spoke as he watched the forest draw closer in the distance.
The Duke of Ceuta and I were riding in a carriage toward the forest where the Royal Knight Commander had secluded himself.
Although it was a forest no one could visit unless they were royalty, the old man sitting across from me was the King's brother—and therefore royalty himself.
"When I lost my mana, the late King must have taken pity on me and let me keep my royal title. Thanks to that, I've been living comfortably even at my age."
This was a world where disabled veterans were treated poorly.
In that sense, it was quite similar to the country I'd lived in during my past life.
In this world, though, that was simply because they lacked the funds to pay disabled veterans.
Allowing the Duke, who had lost his mana, to retain his royal title seemed to be an immense privilege in this world.
His royal title remained, but unfortunately, it was nothing more than a title.
Even the carriage we were riding in wasn't a royal carriage, but an ordinary one we'd rented.
A few soldiers were guarding the forest entrance, but as soon as they saw the old man, they let us through.
"They all recognize you. You must come here often."
At my words, the old man snorted.
"It's not that I come here often. It's that absolutely no one else ever comes."
As we entered the forest, the road grew rough.
Just as the Duke had said, almost no one seemed to travel this way.
The path was so overgrown with weeds that it was barely visible. It looked as though the carriage wouldn't be able to go much farther.
"Tsk, tsk. Since none of those rascals like hunting, this path will eventually disappear, no matter who becomes King."
He was talking about the First Prince and the Second Prince.
They weren't the King's only children, but no one seriously considered the Princess as a possible successor.
As we continued along the rugged path, a log cabin came into view.
It was larger and much better built than I'd expected.
"I heard it was a hunter's cabin, but it's quite large."
"Did you expect some kind of shack used by mountain keepers? Even if it's called a hunter's cabin, this is where the King of this nation stays when he goes hunting. A King can't stay in some hovel."
Still, there was no hiding how weathered it looked.
It seemed to have been repaired here and there, but even this cabin didn't look as though it would last much longer.
When the carriage came to a halt, I got out first and helped the old man down.
If he still had his mana, he'd be leaping around, but physically, he was just an old man his age.
As soon as he stepped out of the carriage, the old man shouted.
"Get out here already!"
Even without channeling any mana, the old man had a remarkably powerful voice.
Creak.
No sooner had his words left his mouth than the heavy log door swung open, accompanied by a grumbling voice.
"It's not as if you boiled and ate a dragon's head or anything, yet your voice is still so loud in your old age."
A heavily bearded giant pushed open the log door with one hand and stepped outside.
The man who stepped out had to be the Royal Knight Commander, but looking at him, I couldn't help calling him a giant.
He was tall. He easily looked well over two meters.
He was massive, too. He wasn't lean; he had the build of a bodybuilder or a wrestler.
No matter how I looked at him, I doubted he weighed less than 150 kilograms.
Knights were generally well-built, but the man who had just appeared looked a full head taller than any of them.
No matter how you looked at it, he was a giant.
Thanks to my own sudden growth spurt, I'd felt less intimidated when facing other knights lately.
But looking up at him like this, I felt exactly as I had when I was a child.
"So, is this brat the one you wanted to show me?"
It seemed the Knight Commander and the old man shared an easy, informal relationship.
Despite their titles as Royal Knight Commander and honorary Duke, the two of them appeared very close.
Looking more closely, I could tell that, though his beard obscured much of his face, he was quite advanced in years.
There was still a gap between him and the old man, but he seemed to be quite old—probably in his late forties or early fifties.
Since he was the Royal Knight Commander, it was only natural that he was a mature man.
At his words, I placed a hand over my chest.
"I'm Alex, a second-year at the Royal Academy."
"You introduce yourself as an academy cadet instead of giving your family name? Are you an awakened commoner?"
If I were a noble, it would have been natural to give my family name. It was reasonable for him to mistake me for a commoner.
"He's the son of the Duke of Gracia."
"Then why?"
"Because he's an illegitimate son."
"Ah. Well, that would make things awkward."
The two of them casually discussed my family and my status as an illegitimate son.
Perhaps it was because they were comfortable with each other, but they were also the sort of people who could afford to speak so freely.
One was a member of the royal family who, despite losing his mana, possessed swordsmanship worthy of remaining an advisor to the Royal Knights, and the other was the Royal Knight Commander, who had left his family behind to succeed solely through his own strength.
In a place with no one else around, they could easily speak of a ducal house without a second thought.
Fortunately, they didn't seem to find my status as an illegitimate son strange, either.
He scanned me from head to toe, then walked over to a massive lump of iron leaning against the wall.
Grabbing one end of the rusted mass, he lifted it.
As if it weighed nothing, he swung the rust-flaking iron mass this way and that.
Whoosh.
"Cough, cough! Take some care of it, will you? Who on earth would recognize that as a sword!"
The old man coughed violently as rust flew in every direction, while I stared blankly at the iron mass as its layers of rust began to flake away.
I'd thought it was just a lump of iron, but it was actually a sword.
It was a massive greatsword covered in thick rust.
Since it looked like a greatsword even in that giant's hands, anyone else probably wouldn't even be able to swing it.
After a few swings, all the rust clinging to the blade flew off.
It was an exquisite application of mana: he channeled energy into the sword to blast away impurities.
Normally, no one would use such an advanced technique just to remove rust.
If it were an artifact, it wouldn't rust in the first place, and if it were an ordinary sword, no one would leave it to rust like that.
Thud.
He slammed the massive sword into the ground.
"No need for tedious talk. Come at me. Let's first see if you're actually worth the Duke bringing you here."
I'd heard he wasn't politically minded, but this seemed a bit excessive.
And for a mere test of skill, he was radiating an intense amount of mana and bloodlust.
If I tried to test the waters halfheartedly, I felt like I'd be beaten to death by that massive sword.
I looked at the longsword I'd brought, then at the giant's greatsword.
This wasn't going to work.
I didn't want to show him my artifact pouch, but this time, I had no choice.
Setting aside the academy longsword—which I'd already broken several times before—I drew my sword from my chest.
"The Gracia Dukedom seems to treat its illegitimate sons quite well, even giving them artifacts."
Seeing me draw the sword, the Knight Commander sneered.
It wasn't just that he spoke so easily of the ducal house; he seemed to actively dislike families like that.
Though it was an artifact I'd obtained myself, I didn't bother correcting him.
After drawing my greatsword, I channeled my mana.
The Knight Commander's expression shifted instantly.
"Well, aren't you interesting."
Mana began to erupt violently from his body.
The mana he'd been releasing earlier was nothing compared to this.
Sparks of lightning crackled around his body.
It was the result of the Knight Commander's mana clashing with mine.
I bit my lip and pushed my mana to its absolute limit, but the sparks from our clashing energy remained locked around me.
I'd always been underestimated by others, but it seemed I'd made the same mistake.
This was the Royal Knight Commander of this kingdom.
There might be hidden powerhouses out there, but there was no way the Royal Knight Commander would be weak.
I could tell even without our blades crossing.
Of all the opponents I'd faced in reality, the man standing before me was the strongest.
He was likely the strongest person in this entire kingdom.
But he wasn't so far above me that I couldn't reach him.
I'd faced someone even stronger—the Twenty-Year-Old Hero.
Holding my sword, I charged at the giant.
Bang!
"Hahaha, this is truly amusing!"
Our swords clashed, and the giant's boisterous laughter echoed through the forest.
After swinging my sword for what felt like an eternity, I suddenly found myself collapsed on the ground.
I stared blankly up at the sky. Clouds drifted by overhead.
Looking at it like this, it didn't seem any different from the sky in my past life.
The duel had ended in my defeat.
Without using my necklace and with several of my abilities sealed, there was no way I could have won.
I had my unbreakable greatsword to thank, at the very least.
If I'd been using the longsword provided by the academy, it would have shattered long ago, ending the duel much sooner.
As I lay there in a daze, voices drifted over to me.
"Where on earth did you find a kid like this?"
"The Princess and Katrin asked me. They said there was a student who wanted to learn swordsmanship. When I reluctantly went to the academy, lo and behold, this rascal was there."
"No matter how I look at him, he's completely off the charts. Did the academy students get this good while I was staying out here?"
"Get better? Far from it. They've all gone over to the Inherited Ability Faculty, so the overall standard has actually gotten worse."
"Besides, the swordsmanship styles he was using were quite strange."
My dazed mind was slowly starting to clear.
As my senses returned, I felt a deep ache in every single bone in my body.
Having clashed so fiercely against that massive sword, there was no way my body could be in one piece.
"He naturally uses his own family's swordsmanship, and since he learned the Duke's swordsmanship, he can use that, too. But there was also a distinct flavor of the Pisen Marquisate's swordsmanship, and even a trace of the Vice-Commander's style mixed in."
I'd figured he would notice to some extent, but I hadn't expected him to dissect it so completely.
He truly was the Royal Knight Commander.
"Some parts are incredibly vague, and it even felt like he was using an awakened Mana Cultivation Technique. I have no idea what's going on with him."
At the Knight Commander's words, the old man grumbled.
"I didn't teach him. I only gave him a pointer once. This rascal could already use it before that."
"Could he be some kind of secret weapon of the Duke of Gracia, inheriting some unique ability?"
"That theory was debunked ages ago. Besides, does it make any sense to send someone created like that to the academy?"
I knew exactly what the two of them were talking about.
They were referring to the project of breeding a superhuman by marrying two exceptionally powerful ability users.
The nobles of today.
The descendants who inherited abilities from the heroes could possess only a fraction of their ancestors' power.
People naturally sought ways to strengthen those abilities.
Among them, the most plausible method was to arrange marriages between descendants of heroes with compatible abilities or from the same bloodlines, in hopes of producing even stronger powers.
Even if they couldn't create a stronger power, they hoped to at least replicate an ability close to that of the ancestral hero, but all their attempts had ended in failure.
In the process, many heinous atrocities had occurred. Still, perhaps it hadn't been entirely a bad thing, since those experiments had resulted in a thorough mixing of noble bloodlines.
As I lay there, listening blankly to their conversation, they seemed to realize I'd regained consciousness.
"If you're awake, stop lying around and get up."
At the old man's words, I pushed myself up.
For the first time in a long while, I was covered in dirt from head to toe.