The Traitor Is Already Dead
{He was already dead.}
The moment those words left his mouth, the training arena erupted. At first it was murmuring—a low, uneasy hum that rippled outward. Then that murmur swelled into a clamor laced with shock and fury.
"Decapitated?"
"What did he just say?"
"Are you telling me he meant it… for real?"
The knights' faces stiffened. Some thought Kyle was throwing another provocation—spitting out the word "traitor" just to humiliate. But others saw something different. They looked into Kyle's eyes. They saw the smile curled along his bloodstained lips. And they saw the short sword in his right hand move in a single, swift arc.
In that instant, Grand Duke Rodrik Hartvalt shot to his feet from the high seat.
"Stop it, Kyle!" The Grand Duke's voice thundered through the arena.
But it was too late. Genuinely, impossibly late. By a hair's breadth.
Shk—The blade swept past Barren's neck.
Thwack! Blood splattered across the arena floor.
Barren's body convulsed like something possessed. And Kyle, who had just cleaved through his throat, tilted his head with a puzzled look.
"Why did you tell me to stop?" He asked as if he truly couldn't understand.
Rodrik's face twisted with rage. "Didn't I tell you to stop?!"
Kyle lightly flicked the blood from his blade. "I did try to stop. But the neck was already cut. I was too late in stopping."
The arena went deathly silent at that calm reply. Blood continued to spill from Barren's severed throat, spreading across the floor. The golden lion crest embroidered on his uniform was soaked crimson in an instant. Only then did the knights' screams erupt.
"He's insane!"
"He actually killed him!"
"Isn't killing in a duel explicitly forbidden?!"
"He killed Sir Barren!"
"That madman finally crossed the line!"
The audience—knights and soldiers arranged in a circle—descended into chaos. Several young knights rose as if they'd leap into the arena that instant, their hands reaching for their sword hilts. But no one dared draw first. The high seat held Grand Duke Rodrik and former Grand Duke Balgrim, along with the rest of the Hartvalt family. And above all, the words Kyle had just spoken still hung in the center of the arena.
Traitor.
That word held their feet to the ground.
Kyle slowly turned his gaze toward the knights shouting angrily. "Killing in a duel is forbidden," he said, smirking.
"That's true enough."
That admission only stoked their fury. The audacity of acknowledging the rule while having already killed someone poured fuel on their rage. But when Kyle's next words came, the noise sank again.
"However, Barren Kreuz did not die during the duel."
Kyle's voice cut through the arena like ice. "That man was, before anything else, a traitor who publicly confessed to treason against the Hartvalt family."
The knights' faces hardened. But no one spoke immediately. The word "traitor" carried that much weight. Watching them hesitate, Kyle let out a soft laugh and looked down at Barren's corpse.
"A knight of the Hartvalt family must be loyal to the Hartvalt family," he continued slowly. "That should go without saying."
"It is permitted to be loyal to the current Grand Duke. After all, the Grand Duke is the head of the Hartvalt family."
Kyle's gaze shifted to the high seat. Rodrik was grinding his teeth.
Kyle smiled. "But Karon Hartvalt is different."
At those words, several knights flinched. "Karon is not yet the Grand Duke. He has not been formally declared the successor. He is merely the second son of the Hartvalt family."
Kyle slowly walked past Barren's body. "Yet a knight serving in the Hartvalt family's knight brigade, receiving the Hartvalt family's stipend, stood in the middle of this arena and spoke openly."
The corner of his mouth twisted. "He declared—'My liege is Prince Karon Hartvalt.'"
The moment those words were spoken again, a cold silence settled over the knight brigade's viewing section. Even the knights who had been shouting in outrage moments ago fell silent, their mouths clamping shut. They were only now beginning to realize—that statement had not been a simple expression of loyalty.
"A knight of the Hartvalt family pledges loyalty not to the family, but to a private individual. That individual is neither the Grand Duke nor the officially designated successor. And yet he boasted about it right here in the arena."
Kyle nudged Barren's corpse with his foot. "If that isn't treason, then what is?"
No one answered immediately. The knights of the brigade. The privatization of the succession struggle. The militarization of private forces undermining the authority of the Hartvalt family. The veteran knights who grasped the meaning in a single breath had their faces lock into rigid masks. The younger knights, meanwhile, still wore bewildered expressions. Most of them clearly hadn't even considered how seriously Barren's words were a problem.
That was an even bigger problem. Kyle suppressed a scoff as he watched their expressions. 'This is how rotten it's gotten.' They believed it was only natural to follow Karon. They figured that since Karon would be the next Grand Duke, pledging loyalty in advance was perfectly fine. They couldn't distinguish between the Hartvalt family and Karon as an individual while serving in the family's knight brigade. That wasn't loyalty. It was the collapse of discipline.
"If you truly wanted to be loyal to Karon, the solution was simple," Kyle continued. "Leave the Golden Lion Knight Brigade. Give up your knight position in the Hartvalt family. Give up the Hartvalt family's stipend. Give up the Hartvalt name and its authority. Then you could pledge your loyalty to Karon as an individual."
He wiped the blood on his blade's tip across the floor. "If you had done that, at least he wouldn't have been a thief. And he wouldn't have been a traitor, either."
Several knights' faces went pale.
"But he didn't do that," Kyle's voice sank to a frigid chill. "He remained a knight in the Hartvalt family's knight brigade. He collected the Hartvalt family's stipend. He carried the Hartvalt name and its authority on his back."
His gaze swept across the knight brigade's viewing section. "And he actually pledged his true loyalty to Karon as an individual."
Some knights looked away. Some bit their lips. Some still glared at Kyle, unable to let go of their anger. Kyle accepted all those gazes with evident pleasure.
"That makes him a traitor. And a thief."
Rodrik's face flushed crimson. "Kyle!" He spat the words through a voice trembling with rage. "Even so, the matter you…"
He couldn't finish. Rodrik's mouth clamped shut. His pupils trembled. Only then did he realize what he had been about to say.
Even so, it wasn't a matter you should have cut down.
If they had been alone, he could have pressed Kyle with that pressure. But this was a public arena. Knights and soldiers were present. Veteran knights, of course, and members of the Hartvalt family had gathered as well. And former Grand Duke Balgrim was watching everything. If he scolded Kyle here, he would become the Grand Duke who shielded a knight loyal to Karon as an individual rather than the Hartvalt family.
Scolding the execution of a traitor would unleash a catastrophic backlash. He would be the father who prioritized Karon's private army over the authority of the Hartvalt family. The head of the house who tacitly permitted the militarization of the knight brigade for his second son. That label would stick.
Rodrik gritted his teeth. The rage churned inside him, but there was nothing he could say aloud. Kyle watched Rodrik and smiled quietly. 'Can't even open your mouth to scold—how pitiful.'
Then—
Thud. Heavy footsteps echoed from the high seat.
Former Grand Duke Balgrim Hartvalt rose from his seat. The moment he stood, the air in the arena shifted. Even the knights who had been in an uproar moments ago held their breath.
Balgrim, built like a massive bear, straightened his enormous frame and looked down over the arena. His gaze swept over Barren's corpse first. Then it cut straight to the current Grand Duke, Rodrik.
"Rodrik."
A low, rough voice. The atmosphere that hung in that single word was abnormal. Rodrik felt his shoulders tense. "Yes, Father."
Balgrim's eyes held anger. And beneath that anger, something darker—contempt.
"I gave the position of Grand Duke to the least incompetent of my disappointing successors, and look what you've done with it."
The entire arena swallowed its breath. It was a public humiliation. A reprimand from the former Grand Duke, directed at the current one.
Rodrik's expression went rigid, but Balgrim didn't stop. "Did you let the discipline of this brigade rot to this state?"
Rodrik's face locked up. "Father, that's…"
"Shut up!" One word. Rodrik's mouth snapped shut. Balgrim's gaze swept across the knight brigade's viewing section.
"A knight of the Hartvalt family's knight brigade stood in the middle of this arena and declared his loyalty not to the family, but to the second son of the Grand Duke as a private individual."
His voice pressed down on the arena like a physical weight. "And you couldn't even recognize how serious that was."
Rodrik couldn't retort. Balgrim let out a contemptuous snort.
"You tried to stop the grandson who carried out an immediate execution of a traitor."
Several knights in the brigade turned the color of ash. The ones who had been shouting "madman" at Kyle moments ago couldn't bring themselves to open their mouths so easily anymore.
Balgrim spoke. "A man who can't even execute a single traitor on the spot—"
His eyes fixed on Rodrik with a glare laced with contempt. "Is worse than that blood-stained brat over there by a long shot."
Rodrik's face hardened like stone. In front of all these witnesses, he—the current Grand Duke—had been told he was worse than his eldest son, the so-called madman. It was the worst humiliation imaginable.