The Name He Let Slip
Arendt deliberated for a moment over how to respond, then decided to stick with his bratty-noble-sprig act for now.
He gave a careless little nod.
"Yes, well... go on about your business. I was just out for a walk."
"You're not thinking I came all this way just because I had business with you?"
At that attitude, Kan only smiled a placid smile.
The situation was getting a bit tiresome, and Arendt's brow creased of its own accord.
"And what am I, exactly? A mere apprentice knight. There's no need to go out of your way for someone like me."
"'A mere apprentice knight'... what hollow modesty. All of the Imperial Capital knows how arrogant you are."
Kan tilted his head, stroking his chin.
"It was already established at your trial that you're hardly the sort to call yourself 'mere.' And taking that into account, what you just said amounts to 'I'd rather not waste words on you.'"
"You read the situation with impressive precision. And I confess I'm curious myself. As far as I know, nobody has any particular business with me."
Tch. Clicking his tongue inwardly, Arendt planted one hand on his hip and slouched into a defiant stance.
He'd guessed it instinctively — he wasn't getting out of this one easily.
Kan settled a serene smile back onto his handsome face.
"Why, don't you know how famous you've become in this capital? It's hardly strange that someone might come all this way just to catch a glimpse of your face."
"And how was the view? Did it live up to expectations?"
Arendt tossed the words out with studied indifference.
The corner of Kan's mouth lifted slyly.
"Insolent and ill-mannered, just as rumored. Almost a shame, given such a lovely face."
"Thank you for the compliment."
"Did that sound like a compliment to you?"
Kan shot back, flabbergasted.
Arendt favored him with a long, level stare that said, well, what do you want me to do about it?
Kan stared blankly back at him for a moment, then burst out laughing.
"You're truly something else. I heard you rampage like a mad dog, but that doesn't quite seem right either. I'd wager you prefer snide remarks to open thuggery — getting under people's skin until they boil over."
"Oh...?"
This time it was Arendt whose eyes widened, then blinked.
Kan pressed the question.
"Am I wrong?"
"Probably not. No — wait, you read it exactly right. Your insight is rather impressive."
"..."
At Arendt's deadpan response, a fresh wave of disbelief crept into Kan's gaze.
Still, Arendt's admiration was half genuine.
'Even the guys who see my face every day never caught on.'
That the contents had been swapped out — no one could so much as guess at that. And truthfully, the only ones in the knight order he'd held a real conversation with were Arthur, Richt, and Laios.
"...In any case, I've heard plenty of other stories about you as well. Which is why my curiosity got the better of me."
"You came all this way over that? You must have a remarkable amount of free time."
"You never let a single remark slide, do you? Is that a habit? You claim you don't even know who I am."
"And that's exactly why I keep the basic courtesies, isn't it? I'd rather not be flogged later."
Arendt shrugged out of habit.
At that breezy nonchalance, Kan chuckled.
"'Flogged'... if I were truly a man in a position to inflict such a thing on you, wouldn't you agree that an attitude like yours would be asking for it?"
"What can I say? Arendt von Eckhart was simply born this way. Besides, if anything, your own mischievous streak runs at least as deep as mine."
Arendt bobbed his head as if returning the laugh in kind.
"You did seem to have improvised the name 'Kan' on the spot, and no matter how I look at it, it doesn't sound like a real name."
"Why do you say that?"
"Who do you take for a fool? Someone who makes a show of being a person of consequence and then tosses out a bare first name with no family name attached — who would just swallow that as it is?"
Throughout the entire conversation, Kan had treated a knight of the imperial household like some lowly subordinate.
And for all his plain clothing, the longsword hanging at his waist was, at a single glance, no ordinary weapon.
Given all of that, there was only one answer.
Arendt let out a short breath.
"A person who can throw others into an impossible predicament simply by refusing to say who he is, deliberately posing as an underling like that — it's a little much, don't you think?"
"Why, that almost sounded like an accusation."
"I can't help it. As you know, I've made plenty of enemies, so I'm obliged to be on edge even about petty matters."
"'On edge'... to my ears, it rather sounds like a warning to stop picking pointless fights."
"I said no such thing."
"Which is to say, I'm not wrong."
His eyes, fixed on Arendt, sparkled with an even keener interest than before.
It was an ample enough situation to find unpleasant, yet Kan instead smiled with obvious pleasure.
"If you're out for a walk, why not stroll along with me a while?"
"Is that an order?"
"And if it isn't? Planning to refuse?"
"I'd like to, yes."
"Then let's call it an order. Come along — it won't do you any harm, either."
Without waiting for Arendt's answer, Kan set off in long, purposeful strides.
Arendt gave the back of this man called 'Kan' a brief once-over, shrugged, and started after him.
Kan stole a sidelong glance at the knight trailing a step behind him.
True to the claim that he'd barely passed twenty, a trace of youth just out of boyhood still lingered on his face.
And yet the golden eyes settled beneath those slightly drooping lids held not a speck of impudence — only an unshakable indifference.
His expression hardly changed at all, maintaining a perpetual air of disinterest from start to finish, which only deepened the impression.
So, in a word:
'A cold one, this.'
That was Kan's conclusion.
Noticing the gaze on him, Arendt tossed a question his way.
"Called a man out and then what are you brooding about?"
"Thinking that your temper is anything but ordinary."
Kan answered with perfect candor, a smirk tugging at the corner of his mouth.
"Do you know the name Kan?"
"Thought you made it up on the spot."
"Not exactly. It's what close friends call me — a pet name. And at the same time, it's the name of the most famous knight this empire has ever known."
Kan continued in an even tone.
Arendt's brow arched slightly.
"A famous knight?"
"You're a knight yourself, so surely you know him. The founder of this empire — the first wielder of the Sacred Sword. You didn't sleep through every academy lecture, I'd assume."
"...You mean Emperor Kahn the First?"
Arendt played along, reading the cue.
Kan nodded lightly.
"That's right. In an age when the world was swallowed by war and darkness threatened to devour everything, the hero who took up the sword after receiving a revelation from the God of Light, Luce. They say when young squire candidates are being trained, his deeds come up often. Given that you came from a fallen kingdom, that is."
It was a familiar enough tale.
Disaster had befallen the world, and it had plunged into all-out war.
Wicked hordes overran the continent, and humanity was driven to the very brink of annihilation.
Then a knight of a ruined kingdom appeared like a comet, swinging the Sacred Sword and saving the world.
That man was 'Hero Kahn.'
After the war, he raised a new nation on the ground where his homeland had once stood.
A flag of the Callion Empire was planted in the land that death had swept bare, and around that empire, humanity swiftly rebuilt its civilization.
To Arendt it sounded like nothing more than a myth, but in this empire, it was history.
The Callion Empire enshrined the God of Light, Luce, from that very myth, as its chief deity.
The Sacred Sword said to have descended from god back then was held under strict guard by the highest priests of the imperial court.
And when the oracle came, that sword would pass to Laios.
Kan's voice carried on.
"He deserves every ounce of veneration. He saved the world, and he saved mankind from the brink of extinction."
"Yes... I suppose."
Arendt's answer was grudging.
"They say Hero Kahn wished to be remembered, to the very end, as a knight who served the god rather than an emperor. Even after taking the throne, he spent the rest of his life at the Sacred Sword's side, ranging across the continent in his effort to bring the world to stability."
Kan turned on his heel to face the knight directly.
"The spirit that moved a god to awe. The chivalry that delivered all mankind. What say you to that?"
"Are you asking my opinion just now?"
When Arendt asked this, Kan nodded lightly.
"I am. You may still be an apprentice, but you're a knight all the same. Surely you have some impression of him."
"Obviously it was a magnificent thing. He saved the world, founded a nation... well, they say he strove for humanity's sake to the very end."
"Indeed — which is why the knights of this empire cannot help but be exemplary. They were born carrying the most upright knight's spirit in all the world."
"Are they, now."
The flat voice came out bluntly.
Kan stopped dead in his tracks without meaning to and turned to look back.
Naturally, Arendt halted in place as well.
"Upright spirit... how lovely. But do you know what becomes of it?"
"Becomes of it?"
"It snaps. Crack — just like that."
There was not a flicker of feeling in his voice.
It sounded light, like a remark tossed off in passing — and yet it seemed to carry a certain weight to it.
When Kan only blinked blankly, Arendt added on.
"Upright spirit, knightly virtue — all very nice. Until it breaks clean in two and lays you in the ground. Die chasing fairness and noble causes, and who's going to scold you for it? It'll be called an honorable death. Someone might even lay an extra flower on your coffin."
Having thoroughly sharpened his tongue, Arendt plunged his hands deep into his pockets.
"Heroic sagas are always splendid, but applying them to real life is a bit of a problem. Most people aren't heroes. And... the thing about oral tradition and written records is that they're trimmed of anything unflattering or unbeautiful before they survive, aren't they?"
"..."
"Do you imagine heroes are heroes from the cradle? They happened to survive, and so they got called heroes."
Kan stared at the young knight before him with an expression too subtle to put into words.
"Explain that more plainly, if you would."
"It means that if you want to live long, you have to be willing to do ugly, dirty, underhanded things. Hero Kahn would have done them too — and if he himself refused, then the people around him would have done it in his place. And that, presumably, is why he came to be called a hero."
Kan seemed lost in thought for a while and said nothing for a long time.
Arendt, too, offered nothing further and kept his silence.
After a moment, Kan's mouth twisted upward at the corner.
"Pragmatic, then. Utterly pragmatic. But I'd say that's the last thing a knight should say out loud, don't you?"
"Knights are people too. And if you wanted to have a conversation about chivalry, you should at least have thought twice before seeking me out."
Arendt paused briefly, then added a short line.
"Wouldn't you agree, Your Highness Crown Prince Cantares al Callion?"
"...Huh?"
A thick silence settled over the garden where the two of them stood alone.
Kan froze solid, smile still fixed on his face.
Hooooh.
A pleasant breeze drifted in from somewhere, ruffling the hair of the two men.
Only the rustling of branches from the deep-blue garden trees circled the quiet garden.
Arendt curled the corner of his mouth into a smile.
Then, as if delivering a confirming shot, he murmured slyly:
"You were hoping, I take it, to watch an unbearably insolent apprentice knight lose his composure. My apologies for moving first."
"...May I just punch you once?"
Kan — no, Cantares — failed, in that instant, to hold back the honest thought that had burst out of him.