Chapter 14
Chapter 14
The Executioner of Rondor (1)
“AAARGH!!”
Balon charged forward while raising his wooden sword high above his head.
After my conversation with Vergor, their movements definitely looked different to me.
Before, I had only thought they were clumsy and reckless... but now I realized they simply had never been taught.
-Thung!
I swung my wooden greatsword upward and deflected Balon’s attack.
That alone was enough to throw him off balance, his stance collapsing completely and exposing a huge opening.
“...”
But instead of attacking Balon, I looked toward Vergor, who was watching me from above.
He too was observing the choice I made.
...What exactly was I supposed to do?
I was still terrible at making peace with others.
Balon staggered back to his feet.
“...Bastard.”
Grinding out the curse bitterly, he looked around and exchanged signals with someone nearby.
“Die!!”
“We’re going again!!”
“AAARGH!!”
At the same time, three enemies charged toward me.
Balon, Willas, and Martin.
I calmed my surprise with a deep breath.
Father had always repeated until my ears hurt that the calmer I stayed, the more clearly I could see attacks.
Judging from the order they approached in, I needed to deal with Martin first, then Willas, then Balon.
“Hup!”
Putting my weight behind it, I swung the greatsword.
A familiar stance I had practiced hundreds of times.
Stepping backward, I sequentially blocked their attacks.
Martin must have grown impatient, because he sped up and broke formation.
I swung my sword hard at him as he rushed ahead.
“Uwah!”
-CRASH!
Martin awkwardly raised his sword to defend himself, but the impact shoved him backward.
Seeing my posture destabilized, Willas rushed in.
It was too late to counter with my own swing.
While fixing my stance, I twisted my head aside as Willas’s strike came flying toward my face.
-Whoosh!
His wooden sword sliced past my ear.
If it had connected, the three of them would probably have broken into huge smiles.
Just imagining that made the blood in my body run cold.
Balon seized the opening too.
Just like before, he lifted his wooden sword above his head and swung downward toward my skull as though chopping firewood.
It would have been far scarier if he had been holding an axe.
Pivoting on my left foot, I turned my body to evade his attack and used the rotational force.
Half a beat faster than Martin, who had been preparing his next attack, my wooden sword carved a large arc straight into his neck.
“Kehk!!”
Martin dropped his sword with a choking cry.
I stepped onto Balon’s sword, now buried uselessly in the ground after missing me, and leapt upward, smashing my knee into his exposed face.
-THUD!
The satisfying impact told me the hit had landed perfectly.
Balon’s head snapped backward as blood sprayed from his nose.
He dropped his sword and crashed onto his back.
I kicked the fallen wooden sword toward Willas as he rushed at me.
-Thack!
Willas blocked the poorly thrown weapon awkwardly, but he couldn’t defend against my follow-up attack.
My wooden sword slammed into his stomach hard enough to sink in nearly a handspan before recoiling.
“Ghk!!”
Willas collapsed to the ground as well.
Martin crouched while clutching his shoulder, Balon bled from the nose, and Willas wheezed while holding his stomach, unable to breathe properly.
Only now did the people around us begin paying attention to the fight that had exploded in the blink of an eye.
“Haa... haa...”
I looked toward Vergor.
He had one hand pressed to his forehead while shaking his head.
Seeing that, I clicked my tongue.
What exactly did he expect me to do?
It’s not like I could just stand there and let them beat me up.
“...”
Still, Vergor’s words really had shaken me.
Now that I thought of them as the baker’s son, the fisherman’s son, and the farmer’s child, this victory didn’t feel nearly as sweet.
And imagining them becoming my comrades someday on a battlefield made things feel even stranger.
Eventually, I walked over to Balon.
“W-What?”
He instinctively raised his arms first and flinched.
A natural reaction from all the beatings so far.
“...You should get used to using an axe.”
“...What?”
Next, I approached Willas, who was still wheezing.
He looked up at me only with his eyes.
“You put too much force into your attacks. You lose balance every time...”
“...Ghk... huff...”
Lastly came Martin.
“...You’re just... sigh, forget it.”
Suddenly, all desire to give advice vanished.
I didn’t even know why I was doing this.
What was so great about these bastards who constantly picked fights with me and mocked me?
I tossed the wooden greatsword back into the crate in the center of the training grounds.
Then I turned and left.
The Surveillance Corps didn’t bother stopping me.
First Knight Commander Baellor sat inside the knight order’s office.
Alongside him stood five vice-commanders of the First Knight Order.
Todd spoke.
Among the First Knight Order, he held the most influence after Baellor.
“Commander, shouldn’t you make a decision already?”
“...”
“How many times must Lady Vivian say no before you understand?”
If words like these had leaked out back when the Duke of Rondor still lived, every member of the First Knight Order would have been executed.
But now things were different.
Because the one leading them was Vivian Rondor.
Vivian possessed neither leadership, charisma, nor strength.
There was nothing she could do to control the First Knight Order.
Apparently even the Second and Third Knight Orders had started harboring doubts toward her as well.
If even they were like this, then who exactly could stop the First Knight Order?
That was why conversations like this could happen so freely.
“We’re not talking about betraying Rondor. If anything, this choice proves our loyalty to House Rondor. We need to find a new lord quickly. A lord capable of leading Rondor.”
“Who?”
Baellor asked while rolling a gold coin across his fingers.
Todd answered as though the answer were obvious.
“Robert Rondor.”
Robert Rondor was the younger brother of the Duke of Rondor.
Vivian Rondor’s uncle.
The lord of Nerum Port, the harbor city west of Roktana.
One of the men who left House Rondor after the legitimate heir Royce Rondor was born.
“If we keep hesitating like this, House Rondor will collapse entirely. We need someone powerful. Someone decisive. Are we seriously going to wait around hoping Lady Vivian grows up someday?”
Another vice-commander cautioned Todd.
“Todd, watch your mouth. We’re all thinking the same thing anyway. There’s no need to speak so aggressively. You never know who might hear.”
“And if they do hear, what’s the problem?”
Todd shot back.
“To put it crudely, aren’t we basically holding ourselves back from simply taking over the family ourselves?”
“-Todd.”
Baellor slowly opened his mouth.
“...Enough.”
“...Commander.”
Truthfully, Baellor didn’t like Vivian either.
There were already over twenty condemned prisoners still alive simply because she couldn’t even stamp an execution order.
Just feeding and housing those vermin twisted his stomach in disgust.
Vivian had far too many flaws to serve as lord, and one of them was her inability to kill.
How could someone without the resolve to take lives possibly handle anything else?
Of course, he understood she was young.
That was why he had been patient with her until now.
But that didn’t mean he needed to keep understanding forever.
Rondor needed a leader.
The family wasn’t meant to unite just to become Vivian’s babysitter.
According to Baellor’s informants, even the loyalists within Rondor were beginning to waver.
Factions were splitting apart, with many people searching for their own paths to survival.
Even the vassal houses that once swore loyalty had begun increasing contact with other families.
There was no need to look far.
The First Knight Order itself already reflected the same situation.
Todd passionately insisted that someone other than Vivian should lead Rondor.
Even so, Vivian was still the Duke of Rondor’s daughter.
Could a man who betrayed his lord’s daughter truly still call himself a knight?
“...”
That thought held Baellor back.
It wasn’t that Todd’s words made no sense.
...Perhaps, as Todd claimed, doing nothing really was the true betrayal of Rondor.
-THUD.
Baellor lightly struck the desk and rose to his feet.
For now, he needed to meet Vergor and discuss strategy for the upcoming deployment.
He no longer wanted to continue such exhausting discussions.
Baellor ended the meeting and headed out to meet Vergor.
Because my thoughts had become complicated after training, I climbed a tree to rest.
Up here, no one searched for me, and I could avoid the retainers whispering behind my back.
The breeze was cool, and the leaves provided shade.
It was the perfect place to rest.
Besides, simply watching people walk around below was entertaining enough.
It gave me the feeling of spending peaceful time.
...And while staying here, sometimes I caught sight of Vivian too.
Sure enough, I spotted a girl with red hair walking in the distance.
Vivian Rondor.
She wandered through the castle with two guards accompanying her.
Today, she didn’t seem to be looking for me specifically.
She wasn’t turning her head side to side searching like usual.
“...Seriously unfair how pretty she is.”
I muttered to myself again.
Every time I saw her, she showed some new expression, making it impossible to grow used to her easily.
The pitiful atmosphere surrounding her probably played a part too.
She always gave off the feeling that leaving her alone was dangerous somehow.
Even now, seeing her walking around with only two guards looked incredibly pathetic.
Even the treasurer, intelligence officer, and head butler each walked around with at least three attendants.
Yet Vivian, the head of House Rondor and lord of Roktana, only had two guards.
It felt like a perfect reflection of her standing here.
-Clank. Clank. Clank.
Then, from the opposite direction, the sound of rattling armor approached Vivian.
Several knights advanced with an oppressive presence.
I knew exactly who it was.
The knight who dragged me all the way from my homeland to Roktana.
The knight who warned me to witness Rondor’s fury properly.
I learned later that he was Baellor, commander of Rondor’s First Knight Order.
I looked back at Vivian.
She froze in place clutching the hem of her clothes, swallowing nervously.
Even from this distance, I could tell she was tense.
“...What the hell is she doing?”
I muttered while watching her.
Vivian was probably the only person in existence who became frightened at the sight of her own knight order.
Ultimately, that was just who Vivian was.
She showed me anger and roughness because her hatred toward me ran so deep...
But objectively speaking, she was simply a timid, tearful noble girl raised gently.
“C-Commander Baellor. G-Good aft—”
-Swish.
Baellor ignored Vivian’s greeting completely and walked past her.
Even my own breath froze at the sheer rudeness.
Or perhaps it froze because I saw Vivian being ignored like that.
The knights following behind him did the same.
Not a single one saluted Vivian.
They completely disregarded the head of the family.
The nearby guards and maids all carefully watched the atmosphere.
At the center of it, Vivian’s face gradually turned red.
-Thud.
Then Baellor, who had already passed her, stopped in place.
Turning his head, he looked back at Vivian.
The knights behind him split apart to either side, clearing the path so Baellor’s gaze could fall directly on her.
After taking a long breath, Baellor spoke to Vivian.
“Can you not stop stuttering?”
“...Ah... w-well...”
“How much longer is this going to continue exactly?”
Watching this, I was dumbfounded.
“Has he lost his mind?”
That wasn’t how a knight spoke to the head of his family.
Such a thing could never happen in House Allen.
It was grounds to strip him of everything and revoke his knighthood entirely.
“...”
But Vivian only lowered her head in humiliation.
Baellor stared at her for a long while before letting out a shallow sigh and shaking his head.
Then he walked away again.
Vivian remained frozen there for a long time.
I watched her just as long.
And irritation slowly rose inside me too.
“...D-Don’t follow me.”
-Tap tap tap!!
After saying that to her guards, Vivian ran off somewhere.
The guards looked at each other helplessly, unsure what to do.
The moment I realized she had probably run away somewhere to cry again, I was already climbing down from the tree.
Before I could even understand what I was doing, my body was already chasing after her.
Today once again, I found myself taking another step deeper into Vivian’s life.