Honor Won't Hold These Walls
The Walterheim family. A classic northern grand-ducal house straight out of fantasy—and the house of its third son, me, Victor Walterheim.
Right now, I was—
"...Haa."
I sat reading the list of the dead laid out on the desk in the Walterheim family's study, then let out a long breath and scrubbed a dry hand down my face.
The family head—my father—and the eldest and second sons of the house, my older brothers. All of them were on it. The Grand Duke of the North and his heirs, dead.
On top of that, even the spare my father had prepared in case the eldest fell—my second brother—was dead too. Which left the defective product the family had cast off to a branch house, me, summoned back home.
"...What's the situation?"
I lifted my head and asked Jester, the loyal butler who had served the Walterheim family since my grandfather's day.
"Barbarians have made camp around Blackheart Castle."
"Those bastards. The moment the Snow Ghosts pull back, they're hammering on the walls."
At my words, Jester only shrugged, answering as if this were the most ordinary thing in the world.
"That's their usual tactic, isn't it? They're fiendishly good at smelling blood."
"Tsk."
I stood. This was no time to waste on paperwork.
"However, Young Ma—no. Your Grace."
"What."
"Are you certain you have no need of it?"
At Jester's question I frowned and looked at the sword a servant was holding out.
"I don't need it."
For a defective product like me with not a shred of talent for the blade, that thing was less ornament than dead weight.
"Damn romance-fantasy settings."
"Pardon?"
"Nothing. Let's go."
Atop the walls of Blackheart Castle, the knights of the northern grand-ducal house were swallowing their rage as they looked down on the barbarians jeering up at them.
They wanted nothing more than to pour down the walls and butcher the lot of them—but.
"Hold."
The new Grand Duke of the North, Victor, had arrived on the wall, and he would not permit it.
"But, Your Grace!"
"Those dogs are insulting the late Grand Duke and the young masters!"
Wolves who had lost their master, howling in fury. Still—
"Hold."
Victor's answer was absolute.
"Anyone who charges out on his own will be dealt with under military law."
Stand by. That was the only order Victor gave the northern army.
"Damn it."
Below the walls, the barbarians were just as restless, watching the northern army ignore every insult without so much as a twitch.
"Chieftain. The tribal alliance is starting to grumble. What the hell is going on?"
"Did those Snow Ghost bastards trick us?"
"No. We already confirmed the damned Grand Duke and his heirs are dead. So why—"
Why were those masterless wolves up on that high wall so cold? They had meant to bait the empire's dogs into opening the gates in a rage, then swallow them with the alliance's overwhelming numbers.
Damn it.
If this kept up, his own tribe would take the full blame. The chieftain stepped closer to the wall.
"I am Hamit, chieftain of the Getra Tribe!"
At the barbarian's roar from below, every northern soldier on the wall turned to look.
"Captain of the empire's lackeys! If you've got the guts, come down and face me! Or die a coward!"
"Were you calling for me?"
When Hamit saw the black-haired youth with crimson eyes looking down on him from the wall, a thin, ugly smile cut across his mouth.
A brat barely twenty, still wet behind the ears. An insolent cub who looked just like those two fools who had charged him full of pride and fury.
"Yeah! Come down and fight me!"
"Why should I come down?"
"What?"
"This is more comfortable."
Creeeak!
"That crazy—"
Thud!
Hamit stared in shock at the arrow that had split the air and buried itself in his throat.
"Y-you—! You foul an honorable duel— ghk—"
"What are you babbling about."
Whiiish!!
Again, the sound of wind being cut. The arrow burst open the skull of the horse Hamit was riding.
"Gyaaaah!!"
Pinned under the collapsed horse, Hamit thrashed to free himself—but.
Whiiish!
Once more the wind parted, and this time the arrow punched clean through Hamit's skull.
"Y-you... no honor..."
Whatever last words the barbarian chieftain who called himself Hamit tried to leave never reached my ears. Instead—
"Y-Your Grace??!!!!"
"What in the world—?!"
The knights around me looked as if they had just witnessed something that should not exist.
"If you kill a man who challenged you to a duel like that, Your Grace's dignity—!!!"
"Does my dignity hold these walls firm?"
The knights stared at me as if I had lost my mind. I was the one who wanted to stare at them like that, you idiots.
Was swagger what mattered? Substance mattered. Damn sword-obsessed, honor-mad knights.
"Don't get it twisted. What you are meant to protect on these walls is not your precious honor. It is the people of the North living behind you—your families, your brothers and sisters."
"B-but—"
"Tsk."
Right. Falling for that kind of provocation was how Blackheart Castle fell in the original story.
"Irritating."
"The enemy is charging!"
"Ghk. All hands, prepare for battle!! Your Grace, fall back—"
"Unnecessary."
Creeeak!!
I drew the bowstring again. Then I put arrows through the faces of the commanders leading the barbarians, the ones racing across the white snowfield with their banners as if to shout, Here I am!
"Gyaah!!"
"Ch-chieftain?!"
"Damn it, the war chiefs?!"
With their chain of command shattered, the barbarians milled about like lost children. I raised my hand.
"Fire."
On my signal, the stones loaded into the catapults waiting behind the wall began to crash down into the barbarian ranks.
"Aaaargh!!"
"S-save me!"
"What is this—!!!"
Watching the chaos unfold across the snowfield, the chieftains of the tribal alliance ordered their people to withdraw. The commander on that wall was something else entirely from the two Hamit had killed. Spilling blood here would mean nothing.
"D-damn you!! Draw your sword and face me fair—!!"
Thud!
One last arrow, planted in the skull of the final banner-bearing target still screaming something or other.
"Don't drag a warrior's honor into war. Anyone who spouts that nonsense in the North under my command will answer to military law."
With those words, the war with the barbarians was over.
"Your Grace."
"I'd like to be alone for a moment."
"Yes."
Jester nodded at my words and quietly left the study. Alone in the chair, I could no longer hold back the rage welling up from deep in my gut, and I roared.
"Damn romance-fantasy settings!!!"
The novel my sister wrote, A Flower Blooming Above Wind and Rain—that was this world. When I was born nineteen years ago with the memories of my past life, I despaired. Born into a novel written by my own family-register mate, and a romance fantasy at that.
"Sword supremacy! Honor! Duels! What a sparkling set of worldbuilding choices!!!"
Fine, I get it. I know it's a device to make the male leads around the heroine look better. But why the hell does it have to apply all the way up here in the North, where life is real combat!!! Just remembering the faces of those knights who had been staring at me like trash until a moment ago made my insides twist.
"Fuck! Why does a defending commander charge out into a one-on-one duel and get himself killed, for fuck's sake!!!"
[That's not honorable. Reflect on yourself.]
Don't you dare start with me!!!! Does honor put food on the table?! Who the hell wrote this setting! You crazy family-register mate of a woman!!!!!
"Damn it."
The only reason the North had never fallen under such a deranged system was that my father, Proud Walterheim—called the strongest on the continent—and generations of superhuman ancestors before him had been here to hold it. But once those superhumans collapsed, the children left behind were nowhere near enough to guard the North the way they had.
Restoring that broken North was supposed to be the job of the heroine and the male leads. The fall of Blackheart Castle. I had just ripped that first button clean off and thrown it away. I had repaired the catapults rotting in storage and put an arrow through a barbarian chieftain's head.
Why didn't I follow the original? Because my second life had only just begun, and I had no intention of rotting in a freezing prison waiting for a death sentence while everyone pinned the blame on me. Consistency? Story collapse? What does that matter—this is my story.
"Jester!"
I called for Jester waiting outside the door. The old butler entered, bowed his head, and—
"You called for me."
—stood ready for orders.
"Bring me the roster of the knight order the imperial family dispatched."
"Yes."
Not long after I gave the order, Jester set a single list on the desk.
"Haa."
I sighed the moment I looked at it. Not a single northern-born knight. Nearly all of them were knights sent from the center—the imperial house.
"Why do you suppose it turned out this way, Butler?"
"Yes. Because the late young masters drove out the northern-born knights, claiming they knew less of honor than the barbarians."
"And Father just went along with my brothers' request, did he?"
"The late Grand Duke no doubt considered it part of their education."
"Which is exactly how a pack of one-on-one-duel-obsessed lunatics ended up in command and made a complete mess of things."
Having identified the cause, I wrote out recall orders for the knights my brothers had banished and handed them to Jester.
"Will you be all right?"
"About what."
"If the knights currently on the walls revolt..."
"Let them try."
An arrow through the skull would settle it. And for you to talk as if this has nothing to do with you—
"Butler, you think this is the right call too, don't you? Be honest."
"I simply follow Your Grace's commands."
"Let's be honest. You served my grandfather and my father. You know it as well as I do. Greenhouse flowers came up here and wrecked the North and House Walterheim, and that has to piss you off."
"..."
"I've heard silence is agreement."
"Your Grace."
"Return to active service, Jester von Helm. What I need is not a capable butler. What I need is one more soldier."
Grit.
The day after the battle with the barbarians, the imperial-dispatched knights took one look at the men the Grand Duke of the North had summoned and brought with him, and stared at those glaring faces with open dislike. A moment later—
"I've kept you waiting."
As the Grand Duke of the North, Victor, stepped through the door, Belos—representative of the imperial knights and his adjutant—shouted.
"Your Grace! Why are those brutes who know even less of honor than the barbarians standing here?"
"I issued the recall orders."
"We are here for the front lines! So why—!"
"Because I don't care to keep the imperial family's rats at my side."
"...Pardon?"
Thud!
Belos swallowed dryly as dozens of letters fell at his feet. The same letters rained down in front of the knights behind him as well.
"Did you think I wouldn't know? That most of you have ties to the imperial princes and princesses?"
"H-haha... Your Grace, this is a misunderstanding... so please—"
Belos and the knights behind him let their hands drift toward the swords at their hips.
"I will clear up this misunderstan—!"
"Hold."
In that instant Belos saw whose sword was at his throat, and cold sweat began to pour down him. The man who had been the second-in-command of the northern grand-ducal house—now the aging hunting dog of the family, retired from active service: Jester von Helm.