The Shield Behind His Back
Watching that spectacle, he had no choice but to let out a short sigh.
Laios really was Laios.
A man who held grudges, granted—but still Laios through and through.
"If it's Warren you're worried about, there's no problem. When the moment comes where he needs to act, he won't hesitate. He'll clean up after himself, too."
"……"
"And besides, no one knows the prince is taking requests from our side. Not even his most trusted covert operatives. At least, not as of this very moment."
Arendt slung his sword over his shoulder and added, offhand:
"It can all be dealt with in one sweep, without a trace left behind. Without dirtying our own hands, at that."
"……"
A frigid silence settled over the training grounds, where only the two of them stood.
Laios simply stared at Arendt, as if frozen solid.
The apprentice knight shrugged.
"Well, let's hope it never comes to that. The prince is simple-minded, but he's no fool—he won't do anything reckless."
"……Haa."
After a moment, Laios exhaled slowly. The Commander swept his bangs back, as if trying to quell the turmoil within, and spoke with a troubled expression.
"You need to fix the way you talk."
He steadied his sword, straightened his stance, and continued.
"That will never happen."
"I beg your pardon?"
"You entrusted things to Prince Llewellyn because you judged he wouldn't betray us. You placed Warren at his side because you intend to keep him from coming to harm during a dangerous investigation—that's all there is to it."
*What on earth is he going on about now.*
Arendt's eyebrows shot up.
"Do I look like such a good-natured fellow to you, Commander?"
"I couldn't call you good-natured even as a joke. But it's true you have a bad habit of twisting words on purpose."
"……"
The reply came back firm and unwavering.
"When you say something can be 'dealt with easily,' I'll take it to mean you've already considered every consequence and I needn't worry."
Having said his piece, Laios allowed himself a faint smile.
"Warren will probably have his hands full, though. Guarding a prince that eccentric."
"……It's precisely because the Commander is so hopelessly naive that you keep getting stabbed in the back."
"Don't worry. The only person who's ever stabbed me in the back is you."
It was absurd.
So the beatings he'd taken on his way up to the Commander's seat didn't even count as being stabbed in the back?
Lee Su-hyeon had been a devoted reader who reread the novel countless times, watching Laios's growth arc unfold. He didn't need to dig through his memories to recall, vividly, just how mercilessly the man had been put through the wringer.
Of course, most of the villains who appeared back then had been shown the door under the doctrine of virtue rewarded and evil punished.
"If it's a decision you've made, Commander, then I need no grounds presented."
"That's a reckless way to think. Preparing for what happens when things go wrong is only common sense."
"If things go wrong, I'll take responsibility. Up to that point, the worries of a mere apprentice knight don't concern me."
"……"
This time, at last, the mere apprentice knight found himself at a loss for words.
"Commander, do you realize you look like an absolute sucker right now?"
"Why would I?"
"You're actually asking me why?"
Even at Arendt's incredulous outburst, Laios only tilted his head blankly.
"Hm. I couldn't say."
"……"
His expression was the same impassive mask as always, yet somehow it came across as utterly shameless. He knows exactly what he's doing and answers like that anyway—Arendt was certain of it.
"Since you stole the initiative from me, I couldn't very well lead from the front. So at the very least, I'll guard the rear."
Laios looked his subordinate squarely in the eye as he spoke, as though carving the words into stone.
"Don't make me into a useless Commander."
"……"
Meeting the gaze of a man who said such things in that steady, resonant voice, Arendt found his thoughts strangely unsettled.
A useless Commander……
Not once had he ever thought of him that way.
Naive to a fault, so devoted to justice that underhanded tactics were simply beyond him—and that was precisely what made him worthy of being the protagonist.
*'Anyone can do the dirty work.'*
Holding unbroken to fairness, in a world that rewarded the opposite—that was the hardest thing in the world to do.
But he had no intention of reciting those accolades now. That was a private appreciation, his and his alone, not something to be spoken aloud as lines.
Instead, he chose the more entertaining option.
"I'm relieved to hear it."
Laios, who had been waxing solemn and lecturing at length, jolted as if struck.
Arendt showered him with a look of profound pity, then activated his artifact.
Frost bloomed white across his blade, and a cold breath mingled with the air exhaled from his lowered stance.
The message was clear: shut up and spar.
He had grown considerably adept at handling mana as well. His total reserves still fell short, but he seemed to have genuinely mastered the trick of putting the magic stones socketed into his sword to proper use.
A startling rate of growth.
*'At this pace, ten years…… no, perhaps even less.'*
If things continued this way, the title of Empire's Greatest Sword would one day belong to Arendt.
*'Though he'll have to cut down his seniors first.'*
Eighty percent of the reason the 3rd Knight Order's training grounds had been so raucous lately was that fellow. The other knights, no doubt, had been spurred on by Arendt's meteoric rise.
A virtuous cycle—or so Laios had thought, watching Arendt with fond satisfaction, until another possibility occurred to him.
*'……Is it that he's grown frightening once brute force alone can no longer subdue him?'*
Perhaps he'd felt a creeping sense of crisis watching Arthur, lately, do nothing but lose to Arendt.
The man had always been energetic, if relatively level-headed—but recently Laios seemed to see him clutching his head and tearing his hair out far more often.
The proud gleam in his eyes soured into unease in an instant.
"Is something the matter? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"No. It's nothing."
*I'll have to oversee the others' training starting tomorrow too.* A grim resolve took root: this one, at least, must never be allowed to become the Empire's strongest.
*'If that lunatic becomes the Empire's strongest?'*
The discipline of the Imperial Knights would go to hell in a handbasket.
The moment that thought crystallized, the Commander resolved to extend his own personal training hours as well.
* * *
By the time the aftermath of the ceremony had fully faded and the Imperial Palace had settled back into quiet, Cantares summoned the commanders of the Imperial Knight Orders.
"We've received word from the Lucain Kingdom."
The moment the three commanders had assembled in the conference room, the Crown Prince cut straight to the matter at hand.
Kendrick raised a puzzled brow.
"The Lucain Kingdom, Your Highness?"
"Yes. Their Grand Duke attended our recent ceremony, as you'll recall."
The Grand Duke had likewise returned to his kingdom carrying news of the Cult of Cernion. Having scrutinized that report in exhaustive detail, the King of Lucain had sent back a reply.
"Some months ago, he says, a riot broke out on the kingdom's fringe. It was suppressed without great difficulty, but a number of puzzles were left behind……"
Cantares paused briefly, then furrowed his brow slightly.
"To begin with, the leader of the rioters was described as strange."
"Strange in what way?"
"A woman, covered head to toe in scars, was the one leading the mob."
Truthfully, even that much was nothing out of the ordinary.
Cantares went on slowly.
"She fought on even after taking arrows in battle, even after being run through with blades—as though she felt no pain whatsoever."
"……"
The commanders' faces hardened.
"The mob revered her like a goddess. No matter how grievously she was wounded, she would shake it off and rise again—apparently they were deeply moved by the sight."
"What became of her in the end?"
"She fell with arrows through her heart and her skull, and died on the spot. The mob was put down. But that was not the end of it."
The Crown Prince's explanation continued.
An attempt had been made to interrogate the surviving rioters, but for reasons unknown, every one of them had gone mad. They babbled incoherently while exhibiting an unnatural aggressiveness, and their memories were a shambles.
Why they had incited the riot, what their purpose had even been—nothing could be extracted from them…… such was the Lucain Kingdom's account.
"Having read our official dispatch, the King glimpsed a clue in the mystery and saw fit to inform us as well. He says if anything further comes to light, he'll pass it along."
If the Lucain Kingdom was already in this state, it seemed certain that similar reports would soon arrive from other nations as well.
The war against the Cult of Cernion was no longer the Empire's problem alone.
Laios, who had been holding his silence, finally spoke.
"You mean to say…… that woman may have become a ghoul while still alive."
The ghoul that had appeared on the battlefield—intelligent, and capable of speech.
Diana, too, picked up the thread.
"But the ghouls we faced seemed to lack the intelligence needed to lead people."
"The one that appeared in Lucain must have been the finished product. By all accounts it was eloquent, and highly adept at commanding crowds."
Kendrick stroked his bristling beard as he supplied the answer.
As for the reason behind the riot itself—perhaps they had simply wanted to field-test the performance of their newly made ghoul.
After a moment's thought, Laios asked.
"……Does Arendt know about this?"
"We meant to inform him, but he already knew. Apparently he heard it through the Neumann Merchant Guild a few days ago."
"Then where is he at this moment?"
At Diana's question, Cantares put on a face that spoke of headaches to come.
"I have no idea. Somewhere in the palace, presumably. Come to think of it, does that fellow ever actually work? Apprentice or not, the Imperial Knights aren't so idle a posting."
"Astonishing as it may seem, he performs his duties—always, without fail, down to the last inch."
For all the chaos he wreaked inside the palace and out, the fellow never once failed to dispatch his duties as an apprentice knight to perfection.
"Whenever he needs to leave during duty hours, he dutifully applies for leave every single time……"
Laios let the sentence trail off.
Lately, it seemed, even Licht had grown tired of processing those requests—he had apparently handed over an entire stack of pre-approved exit permits and washed his hands of the whole business.
"In exchange for that personality, it seems, he traded for competence."
"A genuine tragedy."
Perhaps the gods really are fair after all……
At Kendrick's remark, Cantares nodded with grave solemnity.
"In any case, the Lucain Kingdom intends to widen its investigative net with the Evil God Cult in mind, so we would do well to observe the situation closely on our end for the time being."
"Yes, Your Highness."
Watching the commanders answer with firm resolve, Cantares let out a short breath.
Arendt von Eckhart had already caught the scent, which meant the fellow would inevitably be on the move again before long.
*'Reviling little wretch.'*
The man seemed to intend putting Laios front and center while shouldering the filthy work himself but…… well, whether things would actually unfold according to that rascal's designs remained to be seen.
*'His Majesty seems to have taken an interest in him as well.'*
He knew the Emperor found such an eccentric creature rather fascinating……
But never in his wildest imagination had he pictured His Majesty striking up a conversation with Arendt the very moment he entered the hall at the banquet.
The fact that the Emperor had then gone on to hold a lengthy discussion with both himself and Laios had let the matter slide as a passing oddity—yet it appeared the incident had put several nobles on high alert.
*'I understand His Majesty's intent well enough.'*
The fellow was obviously no ordinary man, so the Emperor had wished to see with his own eyes the one whose standing would only widen within the Empire—and to lend him a degree of support besides.
But thanks to that, the bloodsuckers would come swarming.
A young man favored by the Emperor's attention.
It was precisely the sort of thing that could reawaken the appetites of nobles who had, until now, dismissed him as a madman unworthy of their company.
The fellow was already scampering every which way as it was—better to lay the groundwork now, before further trouble blossomed here and there.
*'Not out of any consideration for him, mind you.'*
It was simply that if anyone carelessly poked that hornet's nest, the palace would inevitably be reduced to scorched earth in the blink of an eye.
And the cleanup, as always, would fall to him and him alone.
So that the damned troublemaker could flail about to his heart's content, clearing away whatever else came buzzing around him—*that* was this side's proper duty.