Condemnation (2)
"Treason? What kind of dog-shit nonsense is that!"
Chris bellowed, beside himself with rage. I quietly recited the mantra once more.
Crackle... crackle... crackle...
Blinding lightning coiled about my right hand. Chris thrust out both palms and cried out in a panic.
"W-wait a moment! L-let's talk this out!"
"Talk it out?"
I snorted.
"Why do you want to talk now, of all times? You're the one who never did."
"I-I got a little greedy, that's all! With you and Marbel gone, the empty seat simply caught my eye. But sitting in an empty seat makes me a traitor? What would Father say if he knew what kind of man you really were?"
"Don't you dare invoke Father, Chris."
"Why do you think I ended up like this in the first place? I was first in the line of succession—why! It's all because brawling with Marbel put me out of Father's favor, isn't it? And now look at what you've done! Look at what you did to my leg! And even after this, you—!"
"Father is alive."
Chris froze like stone, mid-rant.
"He's in bad shape, but he'll recover soon. And fifty Steel Guards who can testify to your treason are still breathing."
"...So?" he shot back, face rigid.
"What exactly did I do wrong? Did I stab Father with a blade? Did I beat the Steel Guards to death? My only crime is not opening the gate—so what, I was supposed to throw it wide open while a demon army came swarming in, black as night?"
"How did you know a massive demon army was coming?"
Chris's eyes wavered without shame.
"When the Steel Guards asked you to open the gate, it wasn't yet certain that any army was coming, Chris."
"Th-there was intelligence. That a duke-class demon was marching down with his forces..."
"You received it after the Steel Guards had already left the Demon Realm? That makes no sense."
"..."
"And you've never once served as a commander. A drunk who passed out every day, and he's talking about intelligence."
Father must have seen Chris's disgrace with his own eyes. I could picture him worrying over Chris before departing the holy city. How disappointed must he have been. How much it must have broken his heart.
"You never received intelligence and never held a command, yet you knew Demon Duke Ragnor would come with his army. You kept the gate shut because you were certain an enemy Father couldn't beat was on his way."
I leaned in toward Chris.
"Traitor."
And I seized him by the collar.
"The councilmen here are bats, you say? The real bat is you, Chris. You're the only one who gave up being human for the sake of one measly title."
"What would the likes of you know!"
Chris's eyes bulged as he roared.
"I was the next Duke! If it weren't for you—!"
"Shut it, Chris."
I gagged his mouth with a sealing talisman.
"The only reason I'm letting you live is that I judged Father might still have words for you."
After binding his limbs with sealing arts, I gave the knights their orders.
"Throw him in the dungeon."
Chris was dragged out, heels scraping along the floor. Now only the members of the 'Council' remained in the office, and they were so terrified that meeting my eyes was beyond them.
Well, from where they stood, I must have looked like a complete psychopath. I had roasted my own brother's leg with lightning without so much as a blink.
And I hadn't just roasted it—I'd stomped it flat under my heel for good measure. To a monster who spared no thought for his own kin, men like them had to be nothing more than flies.
...Good.
Better to be taken for a monster than for a fool.
"Viscount Verden."
"Ye-yes!"
A scrawny man jolted upright as he answered. Until only recently, this was the man who had styled himself Count Abaro's right hand.
"Wasn't the Council dissolved?"
"Well, you see... the motion was certainly passed under Count Abaro not long ago."
He adjusted his glasses with trembling fingers.
"And yet?"
"Lord Chris ordered it restored. N-not only that, but the calls from every quarter to keep the committee in place were simply too loud..."
He was watching my face with every syllable, as though uttering Chris's name might summon a bolt of lightning.
"I see. Then since you're all gathered again anyway, I have a favor to ask."
"And what favor would that be, my lord?"
"Lend me your troops."
They turned to look at one another.
"While you were away, young lord, seven mercenary companies were hired in our families' name and departed for Andrassy."
"Did you not hear a word I just said? A Demon Duke has invaded—you can't seriously intend to hold the line with a handful of mercenaries."
"B-but moving our knight orders at once would be... difficult for us as well..."
They were always like this. Always content to watch Stormrock from a comfortable distance. Like a flock of crows circling a wounded beast, waiting for it to fall. Father had tolerated them for any number of political reasons. I had no intention of doing the same.
"As you've seen, I despise traitors."
Every time my gaze touched them, they flinched like men whose voices had died in their throats.
"Holding back to watch from the sidelines at a time like this... If they were half as clever as they thought, they wouldn't do anything to invite suspicion."
I said it with a sneer and turned my back. That was enough. They clutched at my sleeves, tripping over one another with promises to send their knight orders.
See? Get branded a lunatic once, and the world becomes a far easier place to live in.
My mood was a tangled mess. My long, wretched history with Chris had finally been tied off, and yet I didn't feel purely satisfied—probably because he and I shared blood.
People who wanted me dead were nothing new; I'd dealt with plenty. But if Chris alone always made my feelings spill over the brim, it was because of that one thought: how could a man call himself my brother.
Seriously. How does a man who's supposed to be your brother end up like that.
I hadn't asked for much. If he'd simply treated me the way brothers in ordinary families did, I wouldn't have given the dukedom a second thought. I'd have wandered off on my own travels and quietly withered away like a flower of ice.
Just about the time the chaos had been more or less sorted out, a welcome face appeared at the office.
"I heard you'd returned and came running the moment I did."
It was Vitten. Hellcat was tucked in the crook of his arms.
"First, if you'd just take this—ack!"
Before he could finish, Hellcat raked her claws down his forearm and launched herself at the ceiling. She alighted daintily atop the alarm clock and set about licking her front paw with an air of supreme dignity.
"Did you see that, my lord?"
"Yeah."
"While you were away, that winged devil made my life a living hell. What manner of cat has a temper this foul?"
"She's at that age where she's shy around strangers."
"This is exactly why people keep dogs and not cats. The little wretch honestly believes she's the master of the house."
"You've been through a lot. I'll take her from here, so get some rest."
"Huh... rest?"
Vitten scratched the back of his head.
"Why?"
"Everyone else is out fighting the demons. Feels wrong for me to be lazing around here on my own."
"You want me to send you to Andrassy?"
"Well... yes."
"Loyal as ever, Vitten."
"It's not loyalty... isn't this just what any decent man would do?"
Watching him squirm in embarrassment, the heaviness in my chest lifted a little. Right—why stay worked up over someone who hardly seemed human, when there were people like this standing beside me?
"Wait a little while. Once the reinforcements are assembled, you'll march up with them."
"The sooner the better, if you ask me. I can't sleep a wink for worrying whether that Thalia girl is holding up all right."
"Thalia will do fine."
"I'd like to believe that, but she's a surprisingly clumsy creature."
Vitten still seemed to carry the image of Thalia from her younger days. Back then she had lost everything, learning everything from scratch.
After Vitten left, I spent a long stretch working through the backlog of official duties. Coming back from a long journey bought me no rest. I was now a man answerable for the lives of millions of subjects—and the military leader who had to meet the unprecedented crisis of a Demon Duke's invasion.
"I hear you called for me."
I lifted my head and looked at the voice's owner. A tall man in a long coat strode briskly into the office.
"Perfect timing. I need your signature here, Kalman."
He skimmed the letter I held out.
"You intend to request reinforcements from the imperial court under my name?"
"If it bears your name, His Majesty won't be able to ignore it."
"...You know nothing about His Majesty."
"I don't. I'm simply doing what an acting lord can do."
I would not force death upon the young men of Esterzy territory alone, not any longer. This crisis was a burden the entire Empire had to shoulder together.
Kalman considered for a moment, then took up the pen and signed. I sealed the letter in wax before he could change his mind.
"By the way, Marbel ran off."
Kalman called Marbel's departure a 'flight.' I agreed with the wording, so I answered with a smile.
"He won't make it easy. He's a clever man."
Marbel must have resolved to march to war the very day Kalman arrived as an investigator. Better to take the field as a wandering swordsman than rot in a cell as a criminal—he'd surely judged it so.
As long as he fought in the war, Kalman couldn't lay a hand on him. And if he won great merit in battle, he might even turn the unfavorable whispers about himself around.
Thanks to that, this war would likely give me my first glimpse of Marbel's true strength. Just what had he been deceiving the entire world for?
I kept writing letters even after Kalman left the office. Requests urging swift reinforcements, now that Stormrock Fortress had fallen.
Most of them would probably be ignored. Even Father had been treated as a provincial outsider by the central nobility—how much would the pleas of his son move them?
Still, sending the letters mattered. Whether they chose to help or not, their answers would all be meaningful to me.
Night had deepened. I heard a carriage pull up at the entrance of the ducal residence. A caller at this late hour, without so much as an appointment—how unusual, I thought.
"Young Lord Iden."
A moment later.
"Marquis Legdar has come to see you."
Lily announced the visitor's arrival. At the same instant, a man in his prime with salt-and-pepper hair pushed open the door and stepped inside. He was Father's sworn friend, the one who had spent whole nights alongside him bragging about their sons. I shot up from my seat. I was so startled, and so glad, that for a heartbeat my composure simply failed me.
"...Marquis."
"So Drek went down?"
That was Legdar's opening line.
"Yes. He fell in a duel against the Demon Duke."
"Tch. Powerless exactly when it counts. How's a man supposed to amount to anything like that?"
He chuckled. The empty sleeve fluttered along with the shake of his body.
"I scraped together every knight and soldier in the marquisate and hauled them here. Should be a little over five thousand."
"Five thousand?"
"What's with that face? You look like a man who's seen something he shouldn't have."
The Marquis looked at my expression and burst into roaring laughter.
"I couldn't leave you to fend for yourself and end up watching that rascal Drek strut around all high and mighty again. Our Silva never caught a giant only because there wasn't one to catch—you don't think her skills came up short, do you?"