The Shadow of the Old Kingdom
Kaiser Swordsmanship, huh. So that’s what the sword technique I’m using is called.
Following the path where the monster had vanished, Vera—the blue-haired girl—stared at me with an expression of utter disbelief.
“Does that matter?”
“Of course it matters…! Kaiser Swordsmanship is a technique passed down from the royal family itself. There’s no way a commoner—let alone a black-haired one—could have learned it!”
Vera shouted as if the very idea was absurd.
“Wow! Sir Kang Seo-ja, were you part of the royal family? No wonder your swordsmanship looked so refined and beautiful~”
Syucali clapped her hands beside us, clearly delighted that her guess had been correct.
“No.”
“Aww~ Even if you aren’t now, you must’ve been from a noble family before, right? Just like the fallen Isabella.”
She was pouring out all the doubts she’d been holding in, using Vera as an excuse.
“Be quiet.”
“Yes~”
Syucali smiled to herself, looking thoroughly pleased. She seemed convinced I was some fallen noble who had once lived among the aristocracy. The girl had a serious misunderstanding.
“A noble family? Higher than a duke or count?!”
Vera, of course, took it at face value.
“Think whatever you want. Right now, I’m just an ordinary black-haired man.”
“…Come to think of it, I’ve heard something. About why black-haired people came to be called the cursed ones.”
“Hm?”
Vera’s offhand remark caught my interest. Why exactly had black hair become synonymous with being cursed?
“That’s right… You’re living proof of it…!”
“Proof of what?”
“Aah… Then it makes perfect sense that you can use Kaiser Swordsmanship.”
“I’d like an explanation…”
“Y-Yes! If you’re a royal knight, I have no complaints!”
“This conversation is getting stranger by the second…”
Vera’s nonexistent loyalty had apparently been ignited. She looked at me with sparkling eyes.
“Stop looking at me like that and just explain.”
“Explain what?”
“Why black-haired people are called cursed.”
“Aah… I suppose I should tell you, hehe.”
Her smile was suspiciously wide, but since this was her information, I decided to listen.
“Before the Terra Kingdom existed, there was the Divine Kingdom.”
“And?”
“I think I heard that the royal family of the Divine Kingdom all had black hair.”
“So the previous generation’s royalty had black hair like me?”
“Yeah. Which means you might be carrying the blood of the royal family. That would explain the Kaiser Swordsmanship too.”
The idea that the royal family of a bygone era—the ones erased from history—had been black-haired made my head spin for a moment. And then it clicked. That was why black-haired people were branded as cursed.
“The current king might have labeled the remnants of the black-haired bloodline as cursed and used them in his power struggle to wipe out the old royalty.”
“Well… when you think about it, there’s no shortage of reasons. To seize the throne, you’d have to kill or eliminate every trace of the previous royal line.”
“…That’s a dangerous thought.”
“Hehe, but it’s fun, isn’t it?”
“Remember that you’re a knight sworn to the royal family.”
“The royal family doesn’t feed me. Unless it’s my lord, I’m not interested in white-haired royalty.”
Vera walked ahead with a dopamine-fueled expression. Meanwhile, I felt like I’d just received some very unpleasant information.
Black-haired people were the defeated royalty erased from history. That was why they’d been branded as cursed and shunned. The current kingdom had either slaughtered every last one of them or turned them into objects of hatred. If I had entered Kidichi Territory, the nobles might have ordered my death on the spot.
Now I understood why Isabella had left me behind on Kidichi Hill with nothing but my luggage and coin purse.
She left without a word to protect me.
“It might not be true, so don’t take it too seriously, black-haired boy~”
“I won’t.”
After hearing this, I decided it would be wiser to keep my distance from nobles for the time being. Returning to the village and building power like the fallen noble Isabella seemed like the right move.
Come to think of it…
Margaret’s gaze toward me had also been strange. Why hadn’t she tried to kill me? Could it be that she’d spared me precisely because I was black-haired? Maybe, like Vera, she had seen my swordsmanship somewhere before. If an apprentice knight like Vera knew this much, there was no way Margaret didn’t. And if she was the type who loved information, she might know even more than Vera.
I’ll have to ask her when we meet again.
Whether she knew any other black-haired people.
“Shall we start setting up camp soon?”
“Yeah. It’s getting dark.”
We had put a good distance between ourselves and the battlefield. Tonight should be safe. Every beast and monster would have been drawn to the scent of blood over there. They wouldn’t come near our campsite.
I set down the massive backpack and washed up with a Water Ball. Then I began preparing dinner.
With Water Ball, this should work.
The dish I was going to make tonight was naengmyeon—cold noodles. I tried to recreate it as best I could from memory. The reason was simple: after being exposed to Salamander and Margaret’s fire magic all day, I wanted to cool down.
“I’ll prepare the meal.”
“What…? You can cook too, black-haired boy?”
When I pulled out the various cooking tools, Vera approached with curious eyes.
“Sir Kang Seo-ja’s cooking is good enough to make even royalty surrender.”
“That good, huh… Hmm…”
Vera looked skeptical at Syucali’s claim.
“It’ll take some time, so the rest of you get the campsite ready.”
“Yes~”
After serving the caravan members, I collected the leftover bones and simmered them into a rich bone broth. For the noodles, I took wheat from the farm village’s grain sacks and made them by hand. I seasoned the meat on the spot, like yuksu-naengmyeon, and let it marinate briefly.
I need something sour.
Vinegar was essential for naengmyeon. Well-refined vinegar would be hard to find, but in this world, wine and beer often turned sour and became acidic. The sour wine that restaurants usually threw away made a decent substitute. Some shops even used it to make pickles, so it was perfectly usable as a cooking ingredient.
Since we’re talking about pickles, I should make some garnishes too.
I used the sour wine to make a few pickled side dishes. The area around the campsite was full of mana-infused herbs. I tasted them one by one and gathered crisp vegetables similar to cabbage and turnips. I pickled them with salt, sour wine, and fruit juice in place of sugar.
Once the broth had simmered long enough, I removed the bones and impurities, repeatedly extracting a clean stock.
-Sizzle…
I adjusted the seasoning of the broth and began grilling the marinated meat in a pan.
“Eos, can you make the broth in this pot as cold as possible?”
“Yes, Master. The Blue Demon race excels at ice magic as well as water magic. However, it will consume some mana stones. Is that acceptable?”
“It’s fine.”
“Understood.”
Eos used the power of a mana stone to chill the broth inside the pot. While she did that, I boiled the noodles, checked that they were perfectly chewy, and divided them into bowls. I ladled the broth over them and finished with the toppings.
“What is this…? Cold broth with noodles…?”
“I’ve never seen cold food before.”
“Haha… After being surrounded by explosions and flames all day, this is perfect for cooling down…”
Everyone looked less than thrilled. In this world, hot cooked dishes and soups were the norm, so cold food wasn’t something they preferred.
“Where I come from, this is called naengmyeon. We used to eat it in the summer to beat the heat.”
It was closer to wheat noodles than traditional buckwheat naengmyeon, but that detail didn’t matter here. What mattered was that we could eat something cold.
“How do we eat it?”
Eos was the first to show interest.
“Drink the broth first, then eat the noodles.”
I watched as she eyed the pickled vegetables and meat in the center.
“Then… slurp… gulp… gulp…”
Eos boldly lifted the bowl and drank the broth.
“Huh?”
When she lowered it, only the noodles remained.
“There’s plenty of broth, so I’ll give you more.”
“Ah… Thank you.”
Eos received a refill and kept drinking. Seeing her, Syucali moved as well.
“Slurp~ Ooh… The noodles are so chewy. I really like this~”
Syucali looked satisfied as she ate the noodles with the meat.
“Because it’s cold, the noodles feel so alive. It goes perfectly with the warm meat. I can’t believe food like this exists!”
Seeing Syucali’s pleased expression put me at ease.
“So this is black-haired family cuisine… Chew… Huh? What’s this luxurious aroma…”
I had thought it would be enough if Syucali and Eos enjoyed it. But Vera suddenly picked up speed and began eating faster.
“More… Give me more…!”
“The knight lady has quite a few cute sides to her, doesn’t she?”
“No I don’t, you swindler!”
“Hehehe.”
Vera’s face flushed red as she asked for multiple refills of broth and noodles. She must have been quite hungry—she devoured everything with gusto.
“Do the dishes.”
“Yes, Master.”
“Thank you for the meal~”
My body had cooled down again, so I reached my hands toward the campfire. The pleasant chill paired with warmth—what a luxurious feeling.
“Hey, black-haired boy.”
Vera called out to me.
“My stomach’s full, so let’s have a light sparring match.”
“Sparring?”
“I like to end my day with the sword.”
“Hmm…”
I was about to refuse when curiosity struck me. Just how powerful was Noble Swordsmanship Lv.2? Vera would make the perfect test subject.
“Fine.”