24. No Matter What, Surely a Person Wouldn't...?
24. No Matter What, Surely a Person Wouldn't...?
The door to the Five Pillars' private bar was thrown open roughly.
The one who entered was Edgar Lemnos, who had been defeated in yesterday's duel.
He had apparently just risen from his sickbed, for bandages were wound tightly all over his body.
"What is this article?"
Lemnos was holding a newspaper in his hand.
It was the article about the duel that had been scattered across the entire academy that morning.
Something that could invalidate the result of his defeat... On the surface it was favorable news, but he did not look pleased at all.
"Edgar! Are you okay?!"
"Zeke, get out of my way! Who wrote this garbage article...!! Was it you, Perda?! Or was it Phrygia!!"
Zeke Albion, who was closest to Edgar Lemnos, approached first, but Edgar shook him off.
Albion fell backward, but Lemnos did not even look back.
With his blood vessels bulging, nothing else seemed to enter his vision.
"There, there, Edgar, you're too worked up. Let's calm down first."
Though the wound on his leg seemed to have healed, Lemnos was stumbling as if the aftereffects still lingered.
Seeing this, Perda grinned and rose from the sofa to support him, but Lemnos pointed the newspaper at Perda.
"Don't come near me."
Though he had merely raised a newspaper, an immense killing intent poured out as if he were pointing a real sword.
It was an audacity unimaginable from someone who had just been brutally defeated and was staggering only yesterday.
Perda didn't seem particularly frightened by it, but obediently complied.
"How scary~ Calm down, it wasn't me, for starters."
"!!!"
At Perda's words, Lemnos's killing intent fixated on one direction.
The one person still relaxing on the sofa.
Shara Phrygia was leaning against the sofa, leisurely observing Lemnos's actions.
"...You must be feeling quite at ease, Lemnos."
"You wench...!!"
When Lemnos's gaze fixated on her, Phrygia spoke first.
"Yeah, I did it. I got to work the moment your defeat was confirmed... Is that something to be angry about? I stepped up and cleared your disgrace. You should be thanking me."
"That duel was my duel. A victory is my victory, and a defeat is my defeat. Who are you to interfere with the result of my duel?"
Before being a member of the Five Pillars, Edgar Lemnos was a swordsman.
A duel held significant meaning to a swordsman.
The weight of a duel, a means to resolve individual disputes, was a burden to be borne entirely by the two who faced each other.
Whether the result was victory or defeat.
Phrygia had casually insulted such a duel from the sidelines with a flick of her hand.
To paint Atlas as a shameless cheater was an act that insulted even himself, the one who lost to him.
"Did... the name of Lemnos look that easy to you, wench?"
"That's what I want to say. Do the Five Pillars look that easy to you?"
"It's not the Five Pillars... This is my duel..!"
"As long as you carry the name of Lemnos, it's not solely your duel. It's the duel of us, the Five Pillars."
Phrygia snapped at Lemnos.
To her, the Five Pillars were a single community.
Even if the individuals didn't see it that way, from the perspective of a third party, the five families were lumped together as the Five Pillars, so if one committed an unsightly act, the other four unrelated ones would suffer damage as well.
"It's not that you lost. The sword of the Five Pillars was broken. Our already precarious image was about to plummet; are you satisfied now?"
Unlike the other four families, who prioritized skills like swordsmanship or magic and operated on the profits earned from their territories, Phrygia was a massive trading company.
The brand of the Five Pillars was Phrygia's greatest signboard, and what would happen to that image if the family called the strongest sword among them was defeated by some nameless new student?
From the beginning, Phrygia had not been pleased with that duel.
"You...!!"
Edgar grabbed Phrygia by the collar.
As Lemnos, as large as Lucia, lifted Phrygia, who was the size of Atlas, by her collar, her feet left the ground and she dangled limply.
As if her breath was choked, Phrygia frowned, and her slender, delicate hands grasped Lemnos's wrist, which was as thick as a club.
Unlike the other Five Pillars, Phrygia did not fight physically.
Therefore, Phrygia only possessed the physical abilities of an average person, at best.
If Lemnos, who had become a Sword Expert and entered the realm of superhumans, applied even a little force, Phrygia's thin neck would snap powerlessly like a reed.
"...Yeah, go ahead and hit me."
Yet Phrygia was unyielding.
Even in a crisis where a blow could kill her at any moment, she steadied her breathing and spoke.
"Right here. If hitting me will calm your anger, then hit me."
She even provoked Lemnos, sticking out her own cheek and telling him to hit her if he wanted to.
Veins bulged on Lemnos's forehead.
His hand rose to shoulder height, then trembling, lowered again.
It wasn't that he was afraid of the aftermath if he hit her.
He simply couldn't bring himself to do it, fearing that in this enraged state, he might fail to control his strength and snap the neck of that frail, average-person-level Phrygia.
Seeing his hand lower again, Phrygia spoke.
"You can't do it? Then fix that habit of yours where your hands go up first before you have anything to say."
It had been a consistently blank expression and stiff tone and attitude from start to finish, but Lemnos felt what she just said was different.
He felt as if Phrygia was mocking him.
Lemnos's fiery temper reignited.
"You..!!"
"Edgar, no!! She'll really die, I tell you!!"
Lemnos's hand, which had been lowering, rose again.
It was dangerous even if he hit her gently, but if he was this furious, right to the very top of his head, Phrygia would definitely die.
Just as Albion panicked and tried to stop Lemnos,
"Come over here."
The door to the private bar swung open abruptly.
Lemnos's hand stopped.
"You're...?"
The one who opened the door and entered was Atlas.
Seeing Lemnos holding Phrygia by the collar, he grinned broadly and said with a breezy, casual air,
"What's this, you were fighting? Don't mind me, carry on."
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When I entered, Lemnos was holding Phrygia by the collar.
The size difference between the two was like me and Lucia, so the sight of Phrygia dangling with her feet off the ground was comical.
The Five Pillars were supposed to exercise restraint among themselves, but for it to go this far, Phrygia must have said something that really clawed at his pride.
They say the average personality of a Phrygia is all like that, and it seemed that hadn't changed.
If they were fighting internally like this, it was to my benefit, so I wished they would fight more.
"How are you here, you bastard...!"
It was also surprising that Lemnos was standing on both legs perfectly fine.
I had clearly severed the muscle bundles in his calf in yesterday's duel, so I had thought he would be bedridden for at least three days.
'Whoa... it hasn't even been 24 hours since his calf was shredded, and he's managed to get up. How many elixirs did he take?'
No matter how much this world's medical technology magically heals external injuries, seeing such a deep wound recover in a day without aftereffects meant he must have used some expensive vitality-boosting drugs.
One drop of that stuff requires a commoner family to save up their earnings for ten years; as expected of the Five Pillars.
"I've also got business with the one you're holding."
When I precisely indicated her, Phrygia's expression subtly changed.
Had she anticipated that I would track her down here?
'No way she did.'
How could she assume that a mere new student could react and handle things so quickly?
"I don't know how you learned of this place, but this is somewhere only the Five Pillars can enter. I'd like you to leave."
Zeke Albion approached and tried to usher me back out the door, but a hand suddenly appearing from behind me blocked him.
"My companion... not... an outsider."
"Russell? Your companion, you say...? You have companions...?"
Seeing Lucia, who had arrived right behind me, Albion was surprised.
It was because it was quite well known that Lucia Russell did not form personal relationships at the academy, and this was the first time she had shown up with someone else.
Moreover, if that someone was me, who had taken down Lemnos, it was all the more surprising.
"The reason I came here... is to inform you. Those newspapers full of that bullshit have all been collected, and a correction report will be out tomorrow."
"On whose authority? Don't you understand what you've done...? You've picked a fight with us. Do you think you can just walk away from that?"
At the news that the rags she had ordered distributed had all been collected, Phrygia's eyes twitched slightly.
"...As of yesterday, Atlas has come under Russell's protection. That duel was a matter between Russell and Lemnos. It's not something for Phrygia to meddle in."
"That guy entered Russell's protection? Russell, no matter how friendless you are, don't you think carelessly handing out such a valuable position is a bit much? Our image too..."
"I said it's none of your business, Phrygia."
Lucia spoke directly, which was rare for her.
"Yeah~ Come to think of it, it's practically like I fought Lemnos in Russell's place, so isn't that enough to be accepted?"
When I nudged her a bit, Phrygia's eyes turned fierce.
As the two called the Two Swords, Russell and Lemnos were the most influential families within the Five Pillars.
Most opinions were put forward by Lemnos, and though Russell was taciturn, if the opinions of those two became one, even if the remaining three pillars united their opinions, they couldn't win.
I didn't know why, but Lemnos also seemed displeased by the attempt to overturn the duel's result, so things became even more advantageous.
"It's rare for their opinions to align. I'm on Lemnos's side."
As expected, Albion sided with us as well. With Lemnos and Russell sharing the same opinion, there was no particular reason to oppose it.
"So it's decided. Shara, want me to side with you?"
"...I don't need it."
Perda reached out a hand to Phrygia, but Phrygia refused it.
That's an irritating guy, pretending to be generous now that the majority has turned.
Left alone in an instant, Phrygia's hands trembled violently.
Since she wasn't physically strong, she had to resolve things with words, politics, and money, so she'd be furious that all those avenues were blocked.
"I'm leaving."
Phrygia, who had been keeping her mouth firmly shut, turned around and walked out of the private bar.
No one stopped her.
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Once we were outside the private bar, Lucia, confirming there was no one around, took a necklace from her pocket.
"This is what I mentioned yesterday.."
"I'll wear it well."
It was a necklace engraved with the crest of the Russell family.
I reached out my hand to accept it, but Lucia lifted it up again.
"I'll... put it on you."
Lucia bent at the waist to fasten the necklace.
The angle of her waist bending right in front of my eyes was painful.
Because the degree to which her waist lowered signified the difference in our heights.
As she was putting the necklace on me, Lucia seemed to discover something curious and touched what was already hanging around my neck.
"...You wear a lot of things around your neck, huh..?"
"Around my neck...? Whoa??? This thing was still hanging here."
When I raised my hand to my neck because she said something was already hanging there, I felt a familiar clinking and was startled.
Both the black identification tag from my days in the knights and the pure white identification tag from my adventurer days were still hanging around my neck.
When I lifted the Rare Metal chain by hand, it made a clinking sound.
It seemed I had worn them for so long that I'd even forgotten they were on my body.
All my high-grade identification tags were made of metal that didn't react with the human body, so they supposedly caused no particular fatigue, but to forget I was even wearing them—I've clearly gone crazy.
Fortunately, Lucia didn't seem to know what these signified.
"Identification... tags?"
"It's nothing. Hey, did you have the chain shortened or something? The necklace length fits perfectly."
"No, I received this as a gift when I was 10 years old."
"Ho-oh... A necklace that... fits the size you were when you were 10, huh...?"
So this necklace that fits me perfectly, neither too big nor too small, was a size that fit Lucia well when she was 10 years old, was it...?
Lucia must have just brought it without much thought, but it stung.
Seeming to like how it looked on me, Lucia nodded her head.
"...Phrygia seemed really upset... will she be okay?"
In the end, she appeared worried about Shara Phrygia, who had stormed out of the private bar.
"Nah, she's probably hiring assassins right now. Thinking something like 'I'll just make sure it's handled without anyone knowing who did it.'"
"What...? Then that's a huge problem..!"
Lucia's voice trembled.
She seemed to be thinking about what to do about assassins and such.
I think I scared her too much.
"It's a joke, a joke. Surely she isn't that kind of crazy bitch?"
"R... Right?"
Following my lead, Lucia laughed quietly.
I said that to lighten her mood, but my eyes weren't laughing.
Probably... she's actually hiring assassins right now.
Because that Phrygia really is exactly that crazy bitch.
At the earliest, assassins would be coming starting tonight.
If they didn't come by tonight, it meant Phrygia had truly backed off, so I'd leave her alone until the next event was over.
Because I had to start identifying the demon worshippers in earnest now.
Paradoxically, since Phrygia and Lemnos had gotten on my bad side this time, I was able to confirm they had no connection to the demons.
But if the assassins came today, I'd crush them immediately.
I was busy with things to do and had no leeway left to waste nerves on Phrygia's tantrums.
Earlier, I sent her away peacefully because there were eyes watching.
Probably, if Phrygia had been alone in the private bar, or if I had come alone without Lucia, the one holding someone by the collar wouldn't have been Lemnos, but me.
Phrygia, the newspaper club president, must be thinking that I navigated the crisis thanks to Russell and Lemnos.
Half right, half wrong.
If this had happened without Russell... anyway, since there was no way to resolve it other than force, I would have resolved it all with my sword.
The two pillars, Russell and Lemnos, didn't save me; in fact, they saved the lives of the Newspaper Club and Phrygia.
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That very day, before evening even came, I sensed the presence of an assassin.
They weren't lunging at me right away, but were quietly observing my actions.
Phrygia, you crazy bitch, how long has it even been and you actually called them?
She really is a woman who does what she says, huh.
I'll deal with that one first, and then it'll be your turn to die.