There's Something There
Agnes's eyes went round at the bizarre proposal from the man who, mere moments ago, had seemed like a monster. The black helm hid her face, but even through the bulk of her armor, her bewilderment was unmistakable.
"Why...?"
"Why what? Why I'm hiring you? Or why I'm letting you live?"
"Both..."
Still cowed, perhaps, by the force he'd shown in battle, Agnes seemed awkward even speaking to him. Rai snorted at the caution in her voice.
"Isn't it obvious? Your horsemanship is insane. I've never seen anyone ride like you. It'd be a waste to let that rot, so I'm hiring you as an instructor. Unpaid labor at the academy in exchange for your life. Pretty sweet deal, right?"
"It would not be unpaid labor. We would still need to speak with the Headmistress, but she will extend every consideration she can. And you would not even be bound to the academy."
Leila cut in at once, tacking on a clarification before Rai's explanation could send Agnes running. She was opposed, in principle, to hiring a Death Knight as an instructor — but once a decision had been made, Leila was the sort who would follow it through regardless of her own views. Doubts still gnawed at her, yet having come this far, she did everything she could to bring Agnes around.
Agnes looked from Rai to Leila without a word. The helm made her expression impossible to read, but nothing about her silence felt like agreement.
"If you don't like it, you die."
"Mister! Don't bully her!"
"Hey — I'm not a mister. And she's not your unnie either. She's more like my great-great-grandmother. What 'unnie'?"
Famous knight or Death Knight, a woman's age was apparently still a sensitive subject. Agnes flinched and stared at him. Sensing that the longer this conversation dragged on, the worse the mood would get, Leila spoke up quickly.
"This is not a threat. He talks like a thug, but he has no actual intention of killing you."
"Huh? No, I—"
Rai started to object, then shut his mouth when Leila drove an elbow into his ribs.
"That said, the academy holds you in high regard. The incident has already grown far too large. If we take you in, the academy will have no choice but to shoulder a considerable burden."
Agnes did not need the explanation. She had been attacked again and again for no reason other than being undead. Until now, Tora the unicorn had been with her, and she had been able to slip away without ever needing to engage — but this time, in order to enter the academy, she had been seen by far too many people.
She had killed an alchemist, villain though he was, and though she had only fought those who came at her, on the surface it was no different from an assault on the city itself. Paladins had even been deployed, which meant the Church had named her an enemy. What kind of public opinion would form if the academy took her in was obvious. Church and city alike would turn their harshest criticism on the academy.
The best course was to offer up her own neck. The next best was to run. Agnes knew perfectly well that the world would be better off with a Death Knight gone, and she could tell the academy was doing her a kindness.
"First, we will provide quarters within the academy for you and Sena. And in the academy's name, we will protect you from those who would make you their enemy."
"I can really stay with her!?"
"That's right. We'll find you a safe, comfortable home."
When Sena asked with a bright face, Leila stroked the girl's hair as she answered. The moment she sensed Agnes wavering, Leila had brought Sena up at once. The bond between the two of them was little more than a rescue, and they had not known each other long — but from talking with Sena, Leila had gathered that Agnes was a deeply affectionate soul.
Sena cheered and threw her arms around Agnes's neck. Agnes looked at the girl's face for a moment, then took off her helm.
The hair she had twisted up inside it came tumbling loose — a long fall of gray, drained of every trace of color. The records had described it as radiant gold. Leila, remembering that Agnes had once been blonde, said nothing about the gray cascade that reached her waist. The effect of becoming a Death Knight, most likely. Colorless as it was, the gray somehow suited her deathly pale skin, lending her an otherworldly air.
A girlish face that had yet to shed its youth made it hard to believe this was the same knight who had been executing brutal mounted charges only moments before. Her shyly downcast eyes looked almost innocent, and her face was so small it seemed a head had been perched separately atop the massive armor — an uncanny, faintly unsettling effect.
"I am grateful for Legandia Academy's offer... This wretched body of mine is at your service."
Agnes set the helm on the ground and started to rise, intending to drop to one knee as she would for a knight's oath — then collapsed again. The wounds Rai had dealt her were nothing to take lightly. Unable to keep herself upright, she let Leila help her back against Tora.
"I'm sorry... my body isn't... ah...!"
The quiet voice broke into a startled gasp, her eyes flying wide. Following her gaze, Leila found Rai licking the helm.
Agnes's face flushed scarlet, as if his tongue had found her cheek instead of the metal. She discovered, in passing, that even a bloodless undead could blush when sufficiently mortified — but that was hardly the point right now.
"You... you..."
Even Leila, who normally spoke with crisp precision, seemed to lose her words at the sheer perversion of it. Rai, under the stares of all three women — Sena included, her mouth hanging open — hastily pulled his tongue back.
"Don't get the wrong idea. I was analyzing the mana."
"..."
Nobody believed him.
"I-it's true! I'm not a pervert! Soft breasts feel way better than a hard helmet anyway!"
"This bastard will say anything in front of a kid!"
"Hawaah—"
While Rai was getting hit by Leila, Agnes clutched her burning cheeks and made a sound that defied interpretation.
"It's true! It is! You saw me do it at that alchemist's house! Tasting is the fastest way to analyze mana!"
Rai protested as if he were the injured party, but Leila made it clear that if he did not explain, immediately, why any of this was necessary, she was going to kill him. Meeting her axe-eyed glare, he set the helm down and reached a hand toward Agnes.
"Eek!"
Still rattled by the licking, Agnes recoiled from the approaching hand as if it were a weapon. She looked more terrified now than she had when she'd been beaten in combat and forced into submission.
"I'm not gonna eat you, so stay still."
The line only made him sound more like a pervert. Sena tried to intervene, but Leila drew the girl back with her. When Sena demanded to know whether they shouldn't stop him, given that the knight-unnie was scared, Leila soothed her and told her it was all right, then kept quiet so Rai could concentrate.
From the moment he extended his hand, a wicked energy began to seep from him. Not a figure of speech — the same corrupted mana that clung to a Death Knight was flowing from his body, which at least suggested that licking the helm to analyze its mana had not been a complete lie.
Nothing in the records concerning the Devil of All Nations had ever mentioned that he could use necromancy. Openly practicing it would have been difficult given social convention, but using it to wring information from prisoners or corpses was extraordinarily useful. And yet throughout the entire Era of Strife, Rai had never used it once. Joshua had been at his side constantly in those days; if he had practiced necromancy in secret, it would have been written down. A man who never stopped preaching efficiency should have used it indiscriminately — and he hadn't. Refraining from necromancy had been a form of respect for the enemy. Leila, discovering a new side of him, watched in silence.
Mindful of how tightly wound Agnes was, Rai rested a hand on her shoulder and let the corrupted mana flow into her, mending her wounds. Used on a living person, it would have rotted the injury and drained the vitality from the flesh. Used on the undead, it was the opposite — a means of recovery. The pain from the wounds that had pierced her body vanished so quickly that Agnes, marveling, ran her hands over herself.
"Done. Not completely, but enough that you can move. You'll be fully recovered in a day anyway."
Tora, still pressed against Agnes, seemed to have recovered as well; the unicorn gathered itself and lifted its head.
"Ah..."
Rai, who had been getting to his feet, glanced over at the sound of her voice.
"Um... thank you..."
"I'm the one who gave you the wounds. Classic case of beating you up and then patching you up."
He grinned, playful. Agnes covered her mouth and smiled shyly.
Leila, watching the peculiar atmosphere between them and wanting no part of it, wordlessly fired a signal flare into the sky. The sign that the matter was resolved, and that the barrier could come down.
The translucent membrane vanished. The people beyond it stared in bafflement at the sight of Rai tossing lame jokes at Agnes. Bright, who looked as if he had known this was coming and was already weary of it, turned to Leila.
"So she accepted the offer, in the end?"
"Yes."
Leila answered shortly, nodding. Bright, who had been opposed, made no effort to hide his unease as he looked at Rai and Agnes.
Recruiting Agnes into the academy was a secret known only to four people, the Headmistress included. It had started like this.
"We're supposedly the Empire's finest academy. Don't you think we need at least one ghost instructor to look mysterious?"
Bright had thought it was the most asinine nonsense he had ever heard, and even Headmistress Celenas had considered the proposal absurd. The Black Knight had shown no intent to fight. She had caused no harm to civilians even in combat. She was in full possession of her faculties. Citing fact after fact, Rai had recommended they bring Agnes in.
Leila, though opposed, had neutrally and calmly laid out the advantages and disadvantages of recruitment — then immediately cast her vote against. Rai, who had been nodding along to her persuasive analysis, had stared at her like a man betrayed the instant she finished and voted no. She had not cared in the slightest.
Bright had opposed as well. The students would benefit from learning such extraordinary horsemanship, but they could also be put in danger. Celenas had thought it over, then voted in favor. Including Rai, the vote had split evenly.
After a long discussion, they had agreed to proceed with the recruitment — provided a number of conditions were met.
1. The subject must be of sound mind, and not in an unstable state that risks a later loss of reason.
2. The subject must harbor no hostility toward the Empire.
3. The subject's fame and honor in life must have been considerable.
4. The subject's deeds in life must have been free of crime.
5. There must exist grounds for immunity regarding offenses against the city (the killing of the alchemist; the missing persons).
If she met all five, the academy could take Agnes in without undue burden. Famous as the Twilight Knight, Agnes had been executed — but it had been the tyranny of a king steeped in greed, and so, just barely, she passed every condition. Her reputation was enough to blunt the Church's criticism, and if nothing major went wrong, it would only raise the academy's standing. That the students would receive a finer education went without saying.
The sole sticking point for Bright had been the fact of her being a Death Knight. He had resolved that if the interview suggested she was dangerous, he would stop her himself, even if he had to do it personally. Of course, Agnes's character — a shy girl who went beyond mere goodness — was never going to be a problem.
It is the dead of night, and yet the world is bright as noon. Flames that hated the dark dance in futile gestures, as if they might drive the night sky itself away. They will never defeat the night — but they are more than enough to put frail humans to flight.
The conflagration that began on a faintly visible distant hill has reached the encampment, wringing screams from soldiers and shouts from adjutants.
How delightful.
"Damn it! You accursed devil!"
An adjutant rages at the endless field of fire. War is enjoyable precisely because the unimaginable happens — the adjutant simply does not understand. Men rush to douse the flames, but a fire this clearly artificial will not die from a splash of water.
That hateful, and beloved, son of a bitch's voice. As the Devil of All Nations draws near — the one who makes my teeth grind with rage and my heart leap with joy in the same breath — my mouth splits into a grin that threatens to tear my face.
Excitement surges and I start to charge out — but the adjutants hold me back.
"You must not! We have to fall back! To fight here is mutual suicide!"
"If the Empire's soldiers and knights die meaninglessly like this, they will not even be able to close their eyes in death!"
I look down at the adjutants clinging to my waist, begging. I am furious, but there is nothing to be done. They are not wrong. In moments like this, I utterly despise the title of Supreme Commander. Prey that delicious, grilled to a perfect medium rare, and I cannot even take a bite.
Fine. We will meet again anyway.
"Dales, Kuhn, Semera — take the rear. Full retreat. Faras, take the knights and soldiers, break out first, and lay an ambush on the road. That bastard will definitely come after us."
At my order, the adjutants scatter at once. His gleeful voice spills through the flames. A shame — but this is as far as it goes tonight.
Next time, I will be the one who makes it fun. Look forward to it.
Edelian, asleep in a soft bed, snapped his eyes open.
He had dreamed of the past again. Whether it was the Era of Strife he missed or the Devil of All Nations, he could not say — but tasting a vivid battlefield after so long put him in an excellent mood.
He had been saddled with the tedious work of stabilizing the Keilen Kingdom for nearly ten years now. Watching people steeped in peace wear happy smiles was, he supposed, a worthwhile thing. Personally, though, Edelian wanted to taste that excitement again.
Chiding himself for wasting time on useless thoughts, he finished his preparations and entered his office. A mountain of documents. Letters beyond counting. Perhaps he had dreamed of fire because he wanted to burn the lot of them.
He began the dreary work and checked the papers sent by the Imperial Intelligence Department. Anything important or unusual that occurred in the Empire was reported to officers of commander rank and above.
Legandia Academy has recruited a Death Knight as an instructor.
The Death Knight, identified as the Twilight Knight Agnes, was subdued by Academy Instructor Rai of House Redford.
Edelian laughed. What an interesting place. He had had plenty of interesting times himself, back when he was a student.
Memories welled up, fond and vivid — and then, the more he read, the more the smile drained from his face.
"Look at this. There's something here."
Edelian studied the account of the instructor who had subdued the Twilight Knight Agnes with close attention. He knew nothing whatsoever of House Redford — and yet this instructor named Rai felt, for reasons he could not name, overwhelmingly familiar.