Festival of Silver Dust and Iron Blood (4)
If the morning events, led by the orphanage children, had centered on human horse races and mounted combats, then the pinnacle had been the clash among the apprentice knights in the boys' division—with Noir emerging victorious.
After lunch, the afternoon's highlight and the festival's main event was, of course, the "Knight Order Ranking."
"Won't you be competing, Sir Robert?"
"I'm here as an escort."
Astasia asked Robert, but he merely shrugged with no trace of resentment on his face.
"Miss Ellie, the ranking isn't about sorting every single knight in Gibraltar."
"Then what is it?"
"It's essentially a way to decide the strongest among the knights—a sort of 'captain selection,' you could say."
Robert gave a concise summary of what I'd explained to her earlier.
"Shall I quiz you? So, the winner of this tournament will later..."
"Become the captain of the Gibraltar Knight Order once it's formed?"
"...Yeah, exactly."
Robert scratched his head and shot me a sidelong glance.
Astasia's not the type like Noir.
He'd thought it was an answer she'd arrive at after careful thought, but he hadn't expected her to hit the nail on the head so quickly.
"Ahem. Since you got it right, I'll tell you the rest. Everyone—"
"It's to overwhelmingly dominate in front of everyone and prove your strength so no one can say, 'Why's she the captain?'"
"...And on top of that, the top contender had a bunch of bad impressions floating around."
If the surface goal was what Astasia nailed, then Robert's explanation covered the real purpose.
"The winner's most likely Lady Mente."
"Oh, really? Why?"
"Master Grey placed bets on Lady Mente in your name at the gambling tent."
Robert pointed to one side of the arena, where Orphanage Director Merrill and White 36 were manning the booth.
"As you can see."
Behind the two stretched a tall wooden board. It listed the names of competing knights alongside all sorts of numbers.
"Bet on your knight!"
"Somnus gold on the likely winner! Oh, over there! No real gold—only Somnus gold accepted!"
"Only the sole winner counts! Winner only!"
For gambling, it was refreshingly simple. In a full tournament, they'd have people filling out entire brackets, but the locals weren't quite there yet.
"The only ones betting on Lady Mente are you, Master Grey, and people close to him. So..."
Robert lowered his voice for a moment, nodding toward a few watching merchants.
"Who're you betting on?"
"Sir Carlos, obviously. You think an advanced knight who attended the academy with the margrave looks like a pushover?"
"What about other contenders? They say Lady Mente's pretty strong."
"What? That little squirt? Ha. My kid could take her."
Lady Mente's appearance earned her little trust in many ways.
"She's from Morgania. Sure, the margrave recruited her, but still."
"They say Morgania held onto her for three years because the margrave wanted her for the canyon."
"They gave up on her. Why else would someone from near the capital come all the way to this borderland?"
"Well, yeah, but..."
The biggest factor in the distrust toward Lady Mente was—
"And all she does here is mentor Grey."
If her cursed body accounted for 40% of it, then her role here made up the other 60%.
"I thought they'd make her Noir's mentor or something, not Grey's."
"...Maybe she did him some big favor in the past? Helped him romance the marchioness or whatever."
"Otherwise, there's no reason to recruit her. No reason to pay that salary just to rot away as Grey Gibraltar's teacher."
How ironic.
How long does she have to keep proving herself?
Her salary was several times what these merchants cleared in pure profit.
"Come on, come on! Step right up! Who will claim victory? Will it be Sir Carlos, as everyone expects?!"
Her skills had been honed to the point where she was said to be the strongest knight in Morgania after the grand duke himself.
"Or will it be the rising star, Sir Merlang?! Time's almost up!"
Not a single Gibraltar knight dared treat her lightly.
"Hesitate too long, and it'll all be over! The hourglass is nearly empty! Once the sand runs out, the betting closes!"
Above all, she'd been personally recruited by the notoriously picky Crimson Gibraltar when it came to judging knights.
"Didja see that girl's wrists? God, even thinner than my daughter—merchant's daughter, that is. And her height? A runt like that beating all the Gibraltar knights? Ha, might as well say the Empire's gonna conquer the kingdom."
"......"
As I listened quietly, their distrust and suspicion brought an involuntary smile to my lips.
This festival might look like Noir's spotlight, but it served multiple purposes.
And one of them was—
"Then I'll bet all my Somnus on Lady Mente!"
"Miss Ellie...?"
"I think she'll win!"
To prove Lady Mente's strength by having her crush every other knight on the path to victory.
"I'll bet on Lady Mente too!"
"Ah, um..."
Orphanage Director Merrill, doubling as the betting overseer, glanced at me and turned away.
"Well..."
"Why? Can't I? Oh, uh, is it my status...?"
"No. Actually."
Merrill kept her eyes averted, clutching her thigh tightly as she continued.
"We were supposed to close three minutes ago..."
"Ah."
The hourglass in front of her had run out completely.
"I couldn't just interrupt mid-conversation, and I did tell you to hurry as much as possible, but..."
"So... now that time's up, no more bets...?"
"Uh, well... there's this thing called fairness..."
To spare the troubled Merrill, I stepped forward and grabbed the hourglass.
"Eh...?"
And flipped it over with a casual flick.
"......"
"......"
"......"
"......R-Right! The finals haven't even started yet—haha! Last call, we'll take bets for five more minutes!!"
Merrill raised her hand high, clapped, and shouted to the crowd.
"Your last chance to bet on your knight! Miss it, and the opportunity's gone forever!"
"All my Somnus gold on Lady Mente! In Ellie's name!!"
"Wooooh—!! Thank you!!"
Merrill received the pouch of Somnus gold from Ellie with trembling hands.
Snap.
As expected—competent.
I gave Merrill a thumbs-up from below the counter.
"Pfft?!"
Merrill spat out the Somnus tea she'd been sipping like her throat had seized.
"Cough, cough!"
Seemed some had gone down the wrong pipe.
* * *
4 p.m.
"Woooaaah—!!"
The crowd's cheers echoed.
Below the circular spectator stands, at the stage's center, two knights clashed swords in a blur.
"Impressive as ever!"
The hulking knight swung his greatsword wide and bellowed.
"But I am Carlos, Gibraltar's foremost knight! I won't be felled by some rolling stone!"
The greatsword whistled through empty air, and the green short-haired girl who slipped beneath it gripped her blade lightly, slashing upward.
"Ngh!"
The giant knight barely jerked his head back, but his golden mustache fluttered into the air.
"Guh?!"
Perhaps the drifting hairs blocked his vision.
"D-Damn it!"
"Hahaha! You let your guard down!"
The green-haired girl, unable to follow through, planted her foot on the knight's solar plexus amid his grasping hand and leaped back.
Whoooosh!
"What!?"
The knight's hand cleaved empty space.
"You slippery squirrel!"
"You're the slow one!"
A split-second later, or if her legs had been just a bit longer, he'd have grabbed her ankle and slammed her down.
"Uwaaaah!!"
The crowd roared.
"That's advanced knight level!"
The exchanges were so fast some couldn't even follow with their eyes.
Sir Carlos, massive as Robert yet boasting incredible speed as an advanced knight.
And faster still—the girl who ranked second only to Father in swiftness in our territory—
"But it won't be easy! Black Rose's green lightning!"
"Call me by name!!"
Lady Mente, dubbed Black Rose's Green Lightning by some.
"Hahaha! Too bad—even with a blade, can you fell me?!"
Carlos lifted his greatsword high with a confident grin.
"You haven't forgotten why blades aren't used in the kingdom!"
"Shut up already! Fighting with your mouth?!"
"You're shaken! Uhahaha!"
Golden mana began to cloak Carlos's greatsword. Not full aura, but a brilliant gold that could fool the uninitiated into thinking it was.
"Even progenitor Geo Nostrum! Even Gibraltar's founding margrave! They all wielded swords! The sword is what those foreigners call the 'King of All Weapons'!!"
The phrase didn't quite mean that, but kingdom folk latched onto it.
Swords were the weapon of countless heroes.
Thus, blades—optimized for slashing—never caught on here.
"A sword cannot lose to a mere blade!"
Carlos bellowed, surging with ferocity.
"It's over!"
Whoooosh!
A massive horizontal sweep. The resultant sword wind startled distant spectators into jumping up—its edge was that razor-sharp.
"What...!"
Lady Mente appeared slashed along the greatsword's arc.
"Kyaaah!"
Some in the crowd screamed.
Not because someone's head had flown—
"What're you looking at?"
What scattered was mere mana afterimage; the real fighter was elsewhere.
"Is this... the end?"
Swish.
A green-glowing blade aimed at Sir Carlos's back.
Above the greatsword he'd swung backward, Lady Mente balanced lightly on tiptoe, her blade trained on him.
"......Hmph!"
Sir Carlos closed his eyes and nodded; Lady Mente sheathed her blade at once.
"Hahaha! Indeed! No longer Black Rose's sword!"
"So, I—"
"Welcome as the canyon's blade, Lady Mente!"
Carlos caught his greatsword from below and hoisted it skyward in one motion.
"Cheers to the victor!"
"Wha—w-wait...!"
Suddenly perched atop the giant knight's two-handed greatsword, Lady Mente frantically tried to dismount—but
"Mente! Mente! Mente!!"
"Knew you could do it, Lady Mente!"
"Damn my gold!!"
The torrent of cheers from the crowd kept her pinned up there.
"Lady Mente is undoubtedly a Gibraltar knight!!"
Even after all this time since arriving—
"To Gibraltar's new sword—!!"
"""To it—!!"""
No day had welcomed her quite so grandly.
"...Ha."
Lady Mente chuckled softly.
She scanned the stands, our eyes met briefly in surprise, but then she spotted an approaching man and leaped down from the greatsword in haste.
"Margrave of Gibraltar."
"Congratulations on your victory, Lady Mente."
Father—Crimson Gibraltar, Margrave of the Border—ascended the stage himself.
"We did it once at the castle, but for the victor, we'll do it again."
Father drew the sword at his waist with one hand, holding it vertically before his face.
"Lady Mente, assume the posture."
"......Yes!"
Lady Mente knelt on one knee before him.
"By the name of Gibraltar's current margrave, Crimson Gibraltar, I declare."
The crowd held its breath.
"Guardian of the canyon. Keeper of the nest by ancient pact with the gold dragon. Protector of the myriad people."
Everyone gulped as red aura flowed from Father's sword.
"In Gibraltar's name, I dub thee 'Knight of the Whirlwind.'"
A few tilted their heads. Knight of the Whirlwind?
"For Gibraltar's future, the first sword of the newly forged Gibraltar Knight Order."
It existed.
"To thee, the rite of the sword."
Whoosh.
"Thou art Gibraltar's sword."
As Father extended his blade over her head, aura flared from it like roaring flames.
"All for—"
He tapped both her shoulders lightly, then inverted the grip and plunged it into the ground.
"Gibraltar."
"For Gibraltar."
Not Nostrum.
They might've said Nostrum in the past, but would anyone notice this subtle shift?
"Lady Mente. Rise."
Father flashed a faint smile at her uplifted face.
"It seems not far off, so I look forward to the day you cross blades with me at full strength."
"...For Gibraltar."
Lady Mente nodded, her cheeks faintly flushed.
* * *
After the match.
Lady Mente rejoined our group.
"I thought the rite would make you a master."
"What nonsense is that? More importantly, how'd the money turn out?"
"Not much. 2.4 times payout."
"What? It was 5 times when I bet before the start."
"Someone diluted the pool at the end."
Right before the finals, the odds opened wide, and bets poured in on Lady Mente after her dominant run.
"Master. You think I beat four advanced knights for a measly 2.4 times?"
"Sorry about that."
There were extenuating circumstances.
Truly extenuating.
"Even this pittance barely covers pocket change, right?"
"Who was it that said they'd save up these scraps for something big later?"
"You can't hook a shark with a handful of bait."
I handed the sulking Lady Mente the gift I'd prepared.
"But if there were hundreds, thousands of minnows, the shark would come chasing."
"A victor's crown of Somnus flowers, huh."
"Do you know how hard I worked to keep Astasia from snatching it?"
I'd made just one, but she'd been hounding me since last night, so it took real effort.
"You'd have made another for me anyway, right?"
"......"
"Poor thing. Collars too—you even play the loyal dog."
"It's all an act."
If those photos reached the palace, the crown prince would say as much.
Ah, my daughter. You've finally made Gibraltar kneel like a dog.
"The act's over now."
The sporadic camera shutters had fallen silent; no need to perform anymore.
From here, it was Grey Gibraltar's time.
Dusk began to settle on the streets, shadows lengthening.