The Stage Is Set
The Stage Is Set
"I've learned a lot. You're truly amazing."
As soon as I stood, I bowed to the Knight Commander.
The sheer strength and powerful mana emanating from his massive frame had initially driven me back, but his swordsmanship and mana cultivation technique were also far superior to mine.
Though his skill set wasn't broad, he had honed a single path to such a degree that, as expected, he was the strongest person I'd ever encountered in real life.
Despite my words, the Knight Commander gave me a crooked look.
"Are you mocking me, or is that somehow a humblebrag? If I'm amazing, does that make you the Monster King or something?"
Still dazed, I'd answered a little too casually, but the Knight Commander also had an incredibly blunt personality.
With a personality like that, it was obvious he wouldn't have gotten along with either the First Prince or the Second Prince.
"My apologies. I was a bit out of it..."
I apologized at once. There was no reason to get on his bad side for nothing.
"Don't pick on an innocent kid. He's not one of your subordinates."
"With this level of skill, he'll be my subordinate the moment he graduates. He's a bastard son, so there's no way he'd stay in his family anyway."
It sounded like I wouldn't have to worry about finding a job.
But hadn't the Knight Commander resigned?
"Do you even intend to return?"
"I'm planning to show my face once the next king is decided, but..."
I'd thought he wasn't political, but apparently I was wrong.
He meant he would rather keep out of the way and reappear later than be harassed in the middle of everything.
That was something only someone with absolute confidence in his skills could do.
The old man shook his head at his words.
"I think the Royal Knights will disappear before then."
"No way. Is it really that bad?"
The Knight Commander's eyes widened.
"Haven't you been listening to the news at all?"
"Well, right now, only one person ever comes to visit me, doesn't he? I've been so engrossed in training that it's been ages since I last went outside."
"Tsk, tsk. It's not as if you're stupid, but you're incredibly lazy."
"That's why I'm cooped up here."
"More importantly, what do you mean? The country is falling apart?"
"I don't think the next king will be decided by the two of them bickering alone. The nobles have already chosen sides. The moment the King dies, civil war will break out."
Although he had lost his mana, the words "civil war" had come from a royal's mouth.
This meant that I wasn't the only one anticipating a civil war. Everyone was.
"No matter who wins, the Royal Knights of the past won't remain. There won't even be a place for you to return to. And you won't want to return to a place where the people have changed, either."
"Ugh. That's a bit troublesome."
At the old man's words, the Giant looked troubled.
"Then how about you take a quick look at the situation?"
I slipped into the conversation between the two.
A kid like me shouldn't have butted in, but it seemed unlikely I'd get another opportunity like this.
The two of them stared at me.
"Come to think of it, why did you come looking for me anyway?"
"Hmm? What do you mean by that?"
The old man looked puzzled by the Knight Commander's question, but the latter kept speaking to me.
"In any case, if you're learning from the Duke, you shouldn't really need to spar with me, right?"
"Well, that's because it's difficult for me to spar with him."
The old man explained the reason instead.
"But you have the bracelet."
"Even with the mana from the bracelet, sparring isn't easy."
"If this kid charges it, there should be plenty of time to fight, though?"
Could it be that he had also found out about my 'Mana Resonance'?
The old man looked puzzled, but the Knight Commander said nothing more about the bracelet.
Instead, he merely gave me a suspicious look.
He was right.
Sparring with the Royal Knight Commander hadn't helped me much, unlike the sparring I'd experienced at the Marquis's estate.
Perhaps because he was a Royal Knight, his swordsmanship was almost identical to that of the old man, the Duke of Ceuta.
Although it had been modified to suit his mana cultivation technique, it was clearly the same swordsmanship.
And his mana cultivation technique wasn't that of the Carlos Hero.
His mana cultivation technique was difficult to use alongside my own, and his swordsmanship was something I already knew.
But it wasn't as if I'd known beforehand that sparring with him wouldn't help.
I, too, was deeply disappointed.
Still, it was true that this sparring wasn't the reason I'd come looking for him.
"I am Princess Aisha's escort knight."
This was the first time I'd referred to myself as the Princess's escort knight.
Everyone else seemed to think I was the Princess's escort knight, but I'd always brushed the subject aside vaguely.
Even now, to be honest, I didn't really feel like an escort knight.
She was a cute girl worth protecting, but I had no intention of playing the role of an escort knight who would sacrifice his life for the Princess.
"You said the Princess and Katrin introduced you to the Duke, right? I figured your relationship wasn't ordinary, but an escort knight, huh?"
He tilted his head at my words. It was impossible to tell whether he approved or disapproved.
"If he's an escort knight, it might be hard for him to join the Royal Knights..."
His next muttered words made me realize why he had tilted his head.
They came completely out of the blue.
There was absolutely no need to worry about what he was thinking.
Yet, unlike his random muttering, his next words were highly businesslike.
"I get that you're an escort knight, but what of it?"
I calmly continued.
"I've obtained information that, in a few days, some members of the Royal Knights might use a terror attack in the capital as a pretext to harm the Princess and the Grand Archduchess."
I hadn't received that information from anyone else.
It was something I'd personally seen, experienced, and heard from the people involved in my past life.
Although things had changed slightly this time—Ivana hadn't come to find me, for example—unless something extraordinary happened, the exact same event was bound to occur.
At my words, both the Knight Commander's and the Duke's expressions stiffened.
"You're not lying to us, are you?"
"It's something I heard from a trustworthy source. A source so reliable that I went out of my way to seek you out, Knight Commander."
There was no way I wouldn't trust myself.
When I said that, the Duke clicked his tongue.
"So there really was another reason? Tsk, kids these days use their heads too much."
"I'm much better, aren't I?"
The massive figure grinned and pointed at himself.
"You're no slouch when it comes to playing tricks, either. You just don't do it because you're lazy."
The old man snorted at the Knight Commander's words.
Watching the two of them converse, I cautiously spoke up.
It was an important moment, but I felt I had to ask.
"You two seem incredibly close, unlike a typical knight order advisor and a knight commander."
"You call this being close?"
The old man grumbled at my words, but the Knight Commander sighed and answered me.
"We've known each other for so long, it's a love-hate relationship. If the Duke hadn't been the master who taught me the sword, I wouldn't have even agreed to see you."
I couldn't help being surprised.
I'd figured they weren't ordinary acquaintances, but I hadn't expected them to be master and disciple.
Only then did the pieces fall into place.
I could now understand why the Duke of Ceuta had remained an advisor to the Royal Knights, and why the Knight Commander was staying in this forest.
I also understood why the Knight Commander's swordsmanship resembled the old man's.
Indeed, just as the Knight Commander had said, if my goal had simply been to learn swordsmanship, there would have been no reason to come here.
The Knight Commander asked the old man:
"Is that kid candidate material for the next Royal Knight Commander?"
"Well, I did meet him with that intention... What do you think of him?"
I finally realized why the old man had been so eager to teach me.
Still, it felt a bit excessive to view it solely through that lens...
"Well. Didn't you say he's sixteen? At that age, I was rolling around in the dirt at the very bottom. If we assume his skill will keep growing steadily... he's a monster. If a guy like him becomes the Knight Commander, there's no way the First Prince or the Second Prince would ever be able to control him."
The old man nodded at the Knight Commander's words.
I didn't appreciate them sizing me up right in front of me, but I held it in. I still hadn't gotten an answer.
"Don't tell me, are you thinking of that?"
"I don't know. I need to observe him a bit more."
"If that's the case, I suppose I should lend a hand too..."
Once again, a conversation I couldn't follow unfolded between the two.
Since I was inferior to them in status, power, and skill, it was incredibly difficult to butt in. It had been a long time since I'd felt this way.
Though my chest felt tight as the conversation kept drifting elsewhere, I waited patiently.
Within the repeating cycles of time, patience was my greatest strength.
And that patience eventually yielded an answer.
"Well, I suppose it's about time for me to go out for a stroll. But I don't know if I'll be of much help. I've left everything to the Vice-Commander, so I have no idea if the kids will even listen to me."
The Knight Commander said this, scratching his head.
"It must be incorrect information. Choosing a side is one thing, but there's no way the Royal Knights would fall so low as to do that."
The old man shook his head.
As an advisor to the knights, it seemed difficult for him to believe my words.
"We'll find out once we go out. I've also heard rumors that the Vice-Commander has already chosen a side, so it'll be a good chance to verify that as well."
The Knight Commander spoke as if he were merely going for a walk.
Yet as he spoke, his eyes shone with an incredibly cold light.
Time flew by like an arrow, and the day of the terror attack in the capital finally dawned.
All of my team members except me had left the capital.
I'd been secretly following Ivana for the past few days.
This was because the date of the incident might have shifted.
Unlike before, Ivana didn't seek me out. Instead, she actively avoided me.
Seeing her flinch whenever she saw me, I got the impression she was afraid of me.
I must have beaten the Marquis's son a bit too severely.
I worried that the changes from the past might prevent the event from happening, but fortunately, that wasn't the case.
When afternoon arrived, I heard from a staff member I'd bribed that Ivana had submitted a request to go out.
I'd also seen Paula several times in the days leading up to today.
But Paula was no different from before.
Although I'd fully witnessed her true nature before my death, there was absolutely no trace of it in her now.
It felt different from Balea's hypocrisy.
As expected of an empire spy.
I had to admit that her acting skills far surpassed my own.
As time passed and all the classes ended, Ivana left the Academy.
A man dressed as a mercenary was following her.
'He's a strong knight.'
Even dressed like a mercenary, his skill was obvious from a distance.
He was likely at least a senior knight in an ordinary knight order, or a knight of remarkable skill even among the Royal Knights.
Whether the Crown Prince had assigned an outstanding knight to her or Ivana had strengthened her guard using her own abilities was unclear.
Still, looking at her guard, I could easily understand why the kidnapping had failed.
Concealing my mana and suppressing my presence, I continued to tail the two of them.
They boarded a carriage that had been prepared in advance.
I hadn't prepared a carriage, but it didn't matter.
There was no reason I couldn't keep up with a carriage moving that slowly.
It was just incredibly exhausting to move without being detected.
The sun had already set before they departed, and by the time the carriage got moving, it was pitch-black night.
Thanks to that, tracking the carriage became much easier.
The carriage stopped in the center of the capital, and the two of them got off and headed toward an alleyway.
Is it over there?
A faint bloodlust drifted out from the alleyway.
Scanning my surroundings, I scaled the wall and leaped onto the roof of a building.
As I landed on the roof, someone stared at me in surprise.
It was a middle-aged man wrapped in a robe.
A spy for the Organization, and an official of the Empire.
I reached out and grabbed the middle-aged man by the throat.
"Ugh."
I couldn't afford to give him any time to use his abilities.
I tightened my grip.
The spy's breathing stopped.
I laid the corpse down beside me, sat where the man had been standing, and looked down.
It was a much better vantage point than I'd expected.
From here, I could see the entire alleyway.
Ivana and her guard entering the alleyway, along with Paula and a robed man hiding in the shadows on the opposite side, came into view.
Now, all the actors had taken the stage.
As the spectator, I, too, was ready.
It was time to raise the curtain.