The Proxy Knight Who Wants a New Weapon (3)
The heart of the North—Waldemar Grand Ducal Castle.
The black stone walls rose massive over the barren earth, like a giant's shield crouched to hold back the disasters of the wild itself.
The heavy gates swung open, and at last we entered the Grand Ducal Castle, the center of northern power.
The first to greet us was Ilyana.
"Sir Knight. You've come a long way. Thank you for the hardship."
"Hardship? I only rode in a carriage."
I answered curtly and rolled a stiff shoulder—and that was when it hit.
Kuuung—!
A crushing pressure, as if the very air were being forced down, rolled over my entire body.
This was no cheap trick of murderous intent. It was pure martial force, tempered over long years of walking the line between life and death, seizing and dominating the atmosphere of the hall itself.
"Father."
Ilyana hurriedly straightened her posture and bowed her head.
From deep within the Grand Ducal Castle's vast hall, the ruler of the North revealed himself—Grand Duke Baltazar von Waldemar.
A frame that called mountains to mind. Beast-like eyes flashing between deep-cut wrinkles swept over me from head to toe.
Oh.
Inside the helmet, the corner of my mouth lifted on its own. My blood began to boil.
He was of a different order entirely from the hothouse knights of the capital or the greenhorn captains of some fort.
A pure fighting spirit surged up in me—the simple desire to cross blades with a true powerhouse like that, even once.
But.
The instant my gaze, sweeping over the Grand Duke's whole frame, reached his right shoulder, the martial artist's fire that had been leaping in me went cold as if ice water had been dumped over my head.
An empty right sleeve.
The right arm of the man called the North's greatest sword had been torn away entirely.
Ah. So he's missing the right arm.
A bitter taste filled my mouth. That overwhelming presence rolling off the Grand Duke—seen through a martial artist's eyes—was less the ease of a strong man than an overcompensating defense, a forced attempt to mask the ruined balance of a body that had lost its arm.
Thick disappointment washed over me.
If all four limbs were intact, I'd have asked for a spar right now. What's the point of beating a one-armed patient in a fistfight? That isn't the way of a martial artist.
The light that had been flashing as I faced a predator lost interest in a single breath and sank dull and flat.
It was the most cutting, insulting look that could ever be cast on a warrior—a mixture of pity and disappointment.
"……."
The Grand Duke caught the shift in my gaze with perfect precision.
A man who had received only awe and terror his entire life found a mere knight's pitying look a bizarre sensation he had never once known.
It was a provocation that scored an indelible scratch into his pride as a martial man.
The Grand Duke's wrinkled eyes trembled; murderous intent flashed.
But as a seasoned ruler he crushed the rising fury and opened his mouth.
"Welcome. So you must be Mumeong. I would commend you this very moment for the feat of slaying Nergal—but complicated family affairs are tangled at present, so that will have to wait."
The Grand Duke's voice was frozen solid.
"Will you wait until those matters are settled? In the meantime you will stay in a guest chamber of the Grand Ducal Castle, and every convenience will be provided."
Getting the forge permit stamped and forging a weapon was urgent—but with another man's household affairs in turmoil, I could hardly grab the Grand Duke by the collar and force a seal onto a document.
"I'll wait."
I answered halfheartedly.
Well. I'll rest a few days, then make certain I get that forge authorization. Walking around empty-handed without a hunk of steel feels hollow enough to kill me.
A guest chamber prepared for honored visitors within the Grand Ducal Castle.
I was buried in a plush chair, working the stiffness out of my muscles, when the door opened lightly and Agnes stepped in.
"My lord. Are you resting comfortably?"
"Yeah. But with nothing in my hands, I'm bored out of my mind. The old man at the forge won't even lift a hammer without the Grand Duke's leave, and the Grand Duke's stalling the paperwork with family business as an excuse. A perfect waste of time."
As I grumbled, Agnes approached quietly.
While I rested she had spoken with Ilyana and carefully read the political climate inside the Grand Ducal Castle.
"My lord. A Trial by Combat is scheduled to take place within the family."
"Trial by Combat? I saw plenty of those in the capital. They do that in this frozen backwater too?"
"It is a dispute over interests between Lady Ilyana and the first son, Lord Kalan. On Lord Kalan's side, veteran knight-captains of the North will stand as proxy knights."
Agnes's blue eyes gleamed with quiet purpose.
"What if my lord were to stand as Commander Ilyana's proxy knight?"
She meant to drag me onto the dueling ground, bind Ilyana to me as a flawless backer, and secure a firm foothold inside the Grand Ducal Castle. I only shook my head as if it were too much trouble.
"No."
"Why not? It is a chance to cross blades in real combat with the North's renowned strong ones."
"They'll just be the type who spray aura all over the place. Boring."
What I wanted was the solid impact of bone and flesh colliding within the refined principles of martial arts. A fight that crushed every law of physics with the cheat key called aura was tedious beyond measure.
"Besides, I don't even have a weapon I can use right now. You can't beat plate armor with a broken wooden stick."
As if she had been waiting for that excuse, Agnes drew her own weapons from behind her back and set them on the table.
A round shield banded in solid iron, and a one-handed mace topped with a heavy iron head.
"Use mine, my lord."
"Yours?"
"Yes. I am still an incomplete body who has not awakened aura."
Agnes arranged her face into something earnestly solemn and pleading.
"If I watch with my own two eyes as my lord wages desperate combat against the strong using my weapons, might I not grasp some great clue? Please—for the sake of your inadequate squire's training—display the pinnacle of martial mastery."
She dressed it in lofty justifications, but her true aim was transparent.
A relentless effort to plant me on that sand no matter what pretext it took.
Refuse her here and she would simply change her reasoning and cling until my ears grew calluses.
Haa. Exhausting.
I sighed and closed my hand around the mace's haft on the table. I gave it a rough swing; the balance was not bad.
"Fine. I'll jump in once, whatever. Just don't cry if the weapon breaks while I'm farming mobs."
"Thank you, my lord! Let us go submit the name to the Commander at once!"
Having achieved her goal, color returned to Agnes's pale face.
At the same hour, in the Grand Ducal Castle—First Son Kalan's office.
Kalan paced the room, making no effort to hide his agitation.
The Black Knight who had slain Nergal.
It was all but certain that monster would appear as Ilyana's proxy knight in the Trial by Combat.
No matter how seasoned the northern knight-captains I've recruited are—can they truly handle the beast that killed a calamity?
If he lost the duel, the position as next ruler he had so perfectly built would dissolve into nothing.
Then the office door opened, and a vast shadow like a mountain range fell across the room.
"Father?"
Startled, Kalan was about to bow in a hurry when Grand Duke Baltazar's heavy declaration struck him squarely on the crown of the head.
"This Trial by Combat. I will stand myself as the proxy knight for your side."
"…What?! F-Father, you yourself, sir?!"
Kalan's eyes flew wide as if they might burst.
The ruler of the North, the man called the Empire's greatest sword, would personally step onto the sand over a mere children's squabble for interests.
It was an unprecedented, radical move.
A moment later, uncontrollable rapture spread across Kalan's dazed face.
His father would stand as his proxy knight? Was this not clear proof that Father had at last recognized him as the true heir and was lending him strength through force of arms?
"Father! This grace—I will never forget it as long as I live…!"
"Do not misunderstand."
The Grand Duke drew a cold line that shattered his son's expectations to pieces.
"I am not stepping forward because I support your shallow judgment. Still less to take your side. I have only a purpose of my own that I must verify."
"A… a purpose, you say…."
"Furthermore, for me as Grand Duke to stand on the sand myself is excessively unfair to the opponent. I will accept a handicap."
A bestial murderous intent stirred in the Grand Duke's eyes.
Burned deep into them was the Black Knight's arrogant, pitying gaze from the hall that morning.
But Kalan, blinded by power, had no inkling of the Grand Duke's true purpose; drunk on the certainty of victory, he clenched his fists tight.
Even with a handicap, Father is the continent's greatest sword! If it's Father—he might even defeat that Black Knight!
They stood on the same side, yet the two of them were looking in utterly different directions.
Unable to withstand Agnes's relentless pestering, I went to Ilyana's office to put my name on the proxy knight roster.
When I opened the door, Ilyana looked up from the documents she had been reviewing.
"Sir Knight. Why have you come instead of resting in your chambers?"
Welcome and deep fatigue both colored her voice.
With the round shield and mace slung casually over my shoulder, I declared myself as if determined to finish a tiresome assignment as quickly as possible.
"I will take part in this Trial by Combat as your proxy knight, Commander."
I expected gratitude and emotion.
Muddy power struggle or not, keeping force as reliable as mine at her side was as good as a guarantee of victory.
And I had volunteered to fight without even asking for pay—generously, no less.
But.
Instead of delight, Ilyana slowly set the pen she held down upon the desk.
Then she rose from her seat and looked me straight in the eye.
Clear amethyst eyes that did not waver.
Of the fragile weakness that once poured out tears of despair, not a single handful remained.
"I must decline."
"…What?"
I doubted my ears. Even Agnes beside me made a startled sound as she caught her breath.
In a voice without the slightest tremor, Ilyana drew the line again, unmistakably clear.
"Sir Knight, please rest comfortably in your chambers. This Trial by Combat I will fight alongside the veteran knight-captains of the house who have given me their support."
"I will no longer hide behind your broad back and seek only safety."