Ill-Fated Relationship (2)
Ill-Fated Relationship (2)
A beautiful, if not particularly grand, mansion was enduring an ordeal today.
Despite its beautiful exterior, the mansion had a strangely chilly air.
The main gate, made of thick iron bars, had been bent open, and the beautiful garden lay in ruins, as if it had been struck by a storm.
Soldiers and knights lay collapsed all over the garden.
Judging by their groans, they fortunately didn't seem to be dead.
But they couldn't move, as if they had broken at least one bone.
An elderly knight stood alone before the mansion's wide-open main gate, glaring at the knights lined up in front of him.
"How dare you! How can you invade another territory like this without even declaring a territorial war!"
Though all his subordinates had collapsed, his spirit remained unbroken.
A middle-aged knight stepped forward and replied.
"It seems it was your lord who completely ignored the multiple contacts we've already made."
The knight drew a document from his breast pocket. It bore the royal seal at the bottom.
"And this time it's a direct request from a royal successor. When there's been no response, yes or no, it's only natural to come in person and confirm."
"What kind of visit is this!"
"I apologize. We had no choice, since you blocked us from seeing your lord."
The middle-aged knight, Angel, calmly apologized to the opposing knight.
In any case, they had already taken down all the other soldiers and knights.
Honestly, they could have easily defeated the last remaining knight commander of this territory as well.
But just as he had said, the knights of the Duke of Gracia had merely come to officially receive an answer.
They could have easily taken down any soldiers or knights who attacked them, but they had to leave at least the knight commander standing, for the sake of the opposing lord's honor.
That was why they were bickering with the opposing knight commander in front of the mansion.
Presumably, the knight commander was trying to buy time for his lord to escape, but Angel wasn't particularly worried.
This was the third territory the order of knights had passed through.
They hadn't missed a single opposing lord or noble so far. There was no reason to miss one now.
Although he still didn't quite like Young Lord Alex, he had no choice but to acknowledge Alex's skills and the ability of the noble lady accompanying him.
Clang!
"Aaaaargh!"
It was the same this time, too.
A nobleman dressed in luxurious clothes was thrown out of a second-floor window.
He was an old man covered in wrinkles, but perhaps because he was also an awakened noble, he landed safely despite falling from the second floor.
Upon landing, though, the noble stared up at the second-floor window with terror-stricken eyes.
His expression was as if he'd seen something unbelievable.
And yet, someone completely unexpected appeared at the second-floor window from which the noble had been thrown.
"I'm sorry. I tried to talk it out, but he just ran away, so I had no choice."
The person who appeared behind the broken window was a young-looking maiden.
The very beautiful girl waved her hand, but not a single knight was mesmerized by her appearance.
"W... Witch..."
The old noble unconsciously muttered to himself upon seeing Balea, and honestly, the knights sympathized with him to some extent.
Even though she was on their side, that didn't make her any less terrifying.
When he'd seen her manipulate all kinds of objects around her with an expressionless face, even Angel had nearly called her a witch.
In any case, she was currently an ally who provided a great deal of help.
"H... How dare you! Coming to someone else's territory and running amok! To think the Duke of Gracia was such an unprincipled noble! I will expose this matter to everyone!"
Though the knights of another territory stood lined up with their swords drawn, the old lord scolded them.
These were knights who had come with justification on their side. If it had been the knight commander, a fellow knight, he could have easily argued back. But arguing with a noble lord was impossible.
Angel stepped back. Someone else would deal with the lord.
A young knight stepped into the spot Angel had vacated.
He was young enough to be considered a mere youth.
He looked like he was still at the age when he should be a squire or an apprentice knight, yet both the old noble and his knight commander flinched and stepped back at the sight of him.
That was because he had defeated most of the knights collapsed on the ground.
Incapacitating knights like that without killing them was something even multiple knight commanders couldn't do.
And it was even more impossible for a lord whose abilities had nothing to do with combat.
The young knight spoke, seeing the noble and the knight commander's stiffened expressions.
"The Duke has nothing to do with this. This is simply an action taken by me, the Princess's escort knight."
"You are..."
"I am Alex, the illegitimate son of the Duke of Gracia."
At the words 'illegitimate son,' the old noble's face twisted.
He realized it would be difficult to drag the Duke of Gracia into this.
Looking at the expressions of the lord and the knight commander, I smiled bitterly to myself.
At this rate, things seemed to be playing out exactly as the Duke had intended.
By using my position as an illegitimate son, they could pressure the surrounding territories without tarnishing the honor of the Duke's estate.
In the process, of course, my own reputation would be dragged through the mud.
'But then, it's not like I had any reputation to begin with...'
In any case, given my position as an illegitimate son, earning the respect or awe of other nobles had been out of the question for a long time.
If so, in the end, I had no choice but to use fear.
I'd already decided to reveal myself during the civil war, anyway.
Since things had turned out this way, becoming famous for instilling fear in the enemy wasn't a bad idea, either.
I'd already done the same in the previous two territories.
Thump!
I plunged the greatsword I was holding into the ground right in front of the noble.
"What will you do? I'd like an answer immediately."
"W... What if I ignore it again?"
"Then we'll simply head back."
At my words, the old noble's expression brightened.
But I wasn't finished speaking yet.
"I will ask the lord of the neighboring territory to declare a territorial war. And I will participate as that lord's guest knight."
The noble's face turned pale once again.
I continued speaking as I looked around.
I saw the soldiers and knights groaning on the ground.
"You had better treat them quickly before then."
This time, the knight commander's expression soured as well.
"...I will give you my answer now."
In the end, the old noble surrendered, just like the other nobles before him.
"A wise decision."
I pulled the sword embedded in the ground free.
The knights and scribes waiting behind us began to move.
Now it was time for the actual work of cooperation.
Receiving donations of money and food, engraving the lord's seal on the tablet supporting the Princess...
Though the cooperation was coercive, in any case, another territory had joined our side.
I slung my sword onto my back and watched the knights and scribes move.
They were feeding potions to the injured soldiers and knights, and talking with the scribes of this territory...
It was hard to believe we'd been fighting each other just moments ago.
But no one approached me.
This time, the knights I was close with couldn't come along.
They had stayed in the Duchy to manage the soldiers I'd brought.
The senior knight who came instead was Sir Angel, who was on the side of the first Duchess. The other knights weren't very close to me, either.
Unfortunately, it was difficult to get along closely with even our own side this time.
One person did slide up to me, though.
Regardless of the atmosphere around her, Balea was no different than before.
"The next territory is Viscount Ibiza's, right?"
Yet the words she spoke as she approached always hit the nail on the head.
On top of that, she even asked how I was doing.
"Are you alright?"
'She certainly knows how to deliver a blow, then follow it with a caress.'
It seemed Balea had heard the story of why the second Duchess had been expelled.
It must have been a story everyone had kept quiet about, so how on earth had she heard it...
I had no choice but to admire Balea's wide network of contacts every time.
"I am fine."
No, I was more than fine.
Others might not know, but I remembered everything from when I was young.
The memory of dying repeatedly because I lacked power.
And even how I'd barely managed to expel the second Duchess by borrowing the Duke's power.
Others might think that incident would remain a trauma for me, but it wasn't so.
Now, I simply felt that there was still a debt left to pay.
I hadn't decided how to pay it back yet, but I had no intention of letting it slide.
Balea and I left the knights behind and set off ahead of them.
Angel and the knights had to oversee the transfer of money and food to Gracia Territory after the contract was finalized.
In the meantime, Balea and I planned to scout out the next territory first.
That was how we'd been doing things so far, and this time it was the Ibiza Territory's turn.
The Ibiza Territory was located in a small basin surrounded by mountain ranges.
It was a bottle-shaped basin, with a single road leading north as its only entrance.
The crops in the fields were turning yellow, and the mountains surrounding the basin were filled with autumn foliage.
At a glance, it was an incredibly beautiful, warm, and inviting place.
But as we drew closer, we saw a stark difference from what we'd seen in the distance.
The crops were heavily overgrown with weeds, and the farming tools the farmers used lay abandoned and rusting away.
Though the crops had been left neglected like this, there wasn't a person in sight.
No one was traveling along the road, and there were no signs of life in the houses scattered along the wayside.
"Is it because of the civil war?"
"It seems it was abandoned too long ago to be because of the civil war."
I pointed to an abandoned house.
It was clearly a house where someone had lived until the very last moment, but it looked as though it had already been abandoned for several years.
The other houses and the abandoned farming tools were the same.
This hadn't been caused by the civil war.
This place had been neglected for months, even years.
Had everyone left?
But the soldier who had visited this place hadn't mentioned anything of the sort. He'd only said that they simply hadn't given an answer.
Balea and I slowed our horses and advanced into the basin.
The houses gradually grew more numerous. Yet they were all empty.
It looked as though everyone had vanished around the same time.
No matter how I looked at it, the atmosphere was bizarre.
It felt almost like the opening scene of a horror movie I'd watched in my past life.
Balea and I dismounted, and I drew the Divine Sword from my relic pouch.
When you didn't know what might appear, it was best to borrow the power of a god.
As I walked down the road with my sword drawn and a tense expression, a village came into view in the distance.
Fortunately, there were people in the village.
People going about their ordinary lives.
Perhaps Balea had been tense, too, because she let out a sigh of relief. But I couldn't let my guard down.
Balea might not have noticed, but I could feel it—the extreme sense of incongruity emanating from the people in the village.
The people walked with precise strides.
Even when greeting each other, they raised their hands at precise angles, and when bowing, they lowered their heads in exactly the same way.
They were moving systematically, almost like robots.