His Reasons (0)
Kalman's father was a mercenary named Antel, and Antel had recognized his son's talent early on.
The boy was unmistakably different. Antel himself had been fated to live and die a nameless sellsword, but his son, if raised right, might one day become a proper knight.
But raising a knight on a mercenary's income was a mountain too steep to climb. The price of a mana core was punishing enough on its own — and the awakening aids that helped manifest an Awoken Ability cost an eye-watering sum besides.
So Antel stopped picking and choosing his contracts. If the pay was real, he took the job, no matter how dangerous.
"Father, you don't have to buy me these things anymore."
Kalman had felt the burden of it since he was small.
"I heard from a friend's mother that awakening aids are pure snake oil. She says plenty of people manifest their Awoken Abilities without them."
"Don't talk nonsense, Kalman. Who would know better — your friend's mother, or Sir Deulo, the right hand of Duke Genen? Just last week Sir Deulo came to the shop in person and certified its efficacy. You need at least three bottles a week for it to work, he said."
A single bottle of awakening aid cost ten baht. Antel earned around two hundred baht each time he gambled his life. It was not a meager income, but once the awakening aids, the 6th-grade mana core, and Antel's own medical bills were paid, almost nothing remained.
So Kalman gritted his teeth. He practiced his swordsmanship even while skimping on sleep.
He made his meals of grain husks, ground and soaked in water. Every coin saved was one less weight on his father's shoulders.
Kalman's swordsmanship advanced by leaps and bounds. The better he became, the more his body wasted away to bone and sinew.
But however fine his blade work, he could never become a knight without manifesting an Awoken Ability. Three bottles of awakening aid every week, and still Kalman could not coax one out.
"The dosage must be too low," Antel said. "Sir Max drank five bottles a week, I hear. You know Sir Max, don't you? The one who passed the recruitment test at the very top."
"Yes, I know him."
"The head of the trading house even gave him a plaque of commendation. Said it was rare to see anyone respond to the stuff that well."
"But, Father," Kalman said hesitantly.
"It's all right if I never become a knight."
"Don't say foolish things, Kalman," Antel admonished him sternly.
"You don't know how frightening this world is. What it's like to carry a blade your whole life and still be laughed at like a joke."
"...Father."
"I won't watch you live your life being scorned too. Watching everyone's face, groveling to please them, selling your conscience for a few coins — that kind of life can end with a father. It stops with me."
Antel's thick hand stroked Kalman's golden hair, soft and slow.
"Don't you worry about the household. Just keep working as hard as you have been. The money is mine to manage, however I have to. I'll get you five bottles a week somehow."
Kalman could not bring himself to say what came after that. That maybe he should simply give up the sword and find an ordinary trade.
From that day on, Antel worked twice as hard. He no longer shied away from jobs that straddled the border between lawful and criminal. The more he took, the more wounds piled up on him — but the pay swelled accordingly.
Then one day, the thing he had dreaded came to pass. The knights of the domain launched a surprise raid on a smuggling ring. Among the mercenaries hired to guard that day's deal was Antel himself.
"W-who goes there!"
"Gyaaagh!"
No chance to explain themselves was ever given. The knights swept the mercenaries aside like insects.
Antel's right arm was cleaved off, and he passed out from shock. By the time he regained consciousness, it was far too late for holy magic.
"I'm sorry, Kalman."
From that day on, Antel reached for the bottle.
He never took another job. No one anywhere hires a mercenary with one hand.
Kalman remembered the sight of his father's back slumped in the darkness, the reek of stale alcohol, and the sound of his sighs.
"My greed ruined the road ahead of you. I'm truly sorry."
"No, Father. I'll simply work that much harder."
Kalman trained until his body felt like it would shatter. By then, no one his age could beat him with pure swordsmanship alone.
But without an Awoken Ability, it was all for nothing, however high he flew or low he crawled with a blade. As the years passed and one friend after another awakened, Kalman came bit by bit to grasp the wall of talent.
And then he turned fourteen.
At fourteen, he was far past too old to manifest an Awoken Ability. There was nothing left to hope for.
"A parent should never be the one to block a child's path."
Antel said, tears falling one after another.
"It's all my fault. If only I hadn't kept buying you those aids..."
Antel beat his fist against his own chest.
"...At this rate, you'll end up a mercenary too. Punished for the sin of being born my son!"
Antel's anguished cry gouged at Kalman's heart. Guilt bore down on his shoulders like a block of lead. Over and over, the same thought circled: all of this was his fault.
Father, it's all right if I never become a knight. I don't need to be greater than anyone else. As long as I can live with you, that's enough.
Kalman regretted, over and over through the years, that he had never managed to say those words to Antel.
That day was Kalman's fifteenth birthday. The moment he stepped inside the house, he could tell something was different.
The smell of alcohol that always drifted through the air like weather was gone.
"Father?"
Kalman opened the door to the inner room with care. Antel stood against the mold-stained wallpaper, a short sword hanging in his left hand.
"Stand right there," Antel said.
"Father, put the sword down."
Dread smoldered slowly to life. Kalman took a careful step forward.
"Didn't I tell you to stand still!"
Antel shouted, brandishing the blade. The tear tracks on his gaunt face were unmistakable.
"I was thinking about what I could do for you on your birthday, Kalman."
"You've already done more than enough for me. From now on, it's my turn to look after you."
"Promise me just this one thing. That you will become a knight, no matter what. That you will never give up on your dream."
"Father, I..."
It's already too late.
"They say there is exactly one way to manifest an Awoken Ability even at a late age."
"Father, please stop this."
"All you have to do is suffer a shock great enough to shake the mind."
Antel set the point of the blade beneath his own chin. Kalman felt as though every drop of blood in his body were draining out through the soles of his feet.
"F-Father."
Trembling, Kalman reached out both hands. Antel glared at him through bloodshot eyes and asked:
"Do you love me?"
For a heartbeat that stretched into an eternity, Kalman agonized. What words could stop his father?
"I love—"
Kalman's eyes snapped open. With the campfire burned out, nothing remained to see by but starlight. Dreams of his father had a way of waking him like this.
It had happened well over a decade ago, yet every time the past stirred, his mood turned foul. The emotions, the sensations, everything he should have felt — it all clung to him, tenacious as a curse.
"You're awake early."
Irene greeted him.
"It's a long while yet before the watch changes, my lord."
"Sleep won't come."
Kalman sat up and leaned his back against a tree.
"You sleep."
"I'd rather not. Sleep won't come for me either."
Irene dug in her heels. She leaned against a tree on the opposite side.
"I'm not sure Lord Iden will be all right," she said. "His Highness will hardly back down that easily."
"He'll sort it out himself."
"And I don't understand why His Majesty keeps shielding Lord Mavel. Anyone can see that Lord Iden is the one suited to be Duke..."
"That is not your concern, Irene."
"Forgive me."
When Irene fell silent, Kalman let his eyes drift half-closed once more.
He had decided to make Irene his confidante three years ago, the moment she came running back to the field right after her arm — the one she had lost to the demonkin — was restored.
Even seasoned mercenaries often struggled to overcome the shock of losing a part of their bodies. Holy magic could mend the flesh, but the mind was the person's alone to carry.
Irene was capable and trustworthy. That was exactly why Kalman made a point of treating her all the more harshly. Pointless curiosity gets people killed.
"Lord Kalman."
Irene called to him in a low voice. Kalman eased his eyes open.
"Something is strange. There are far too few signs of life around us."
Irene's Awoken Ability resonated with the small creatures around her. It was thanks to that ability that she had been selected for the investigation team.
Kalman lifted his ki sense. Just as Irene had said, the signs of life felt strikingly few.
'Was it already too late?'
Or perhaps his instinct had simply erred. It was possible the world was quieter than usual today.
But Kalman chose to trust the instinct. His dark premonitions had never once been wrong.
"Irene."
"Yes, Lord Kalman."
"Turn back the way you came and request aid from Iden."
Irene's eyes widened. But she did not object — she did not even stop to judge the order. She wheeled around at once and began to run.
Kalman pushed his ki sense up another notch. The moment Irene began to move, the movement on the far side turned that much more overt.
Some of them peeled off to tail Irene, but Kalman had nothing to spare for her now.
Out of the darkness strode figures wrapped in enormous ki, step by deliberate step. King Sandor and his retinue.
"Kalman."
Sandor called out.
"Nothing personal in this. Just know that much."
'So that's why the escort felt too large.'
Kalman calmly took stock of his surroundings. He could not tell east from west or north from south. The directions themselves were being warped — the work of a spatial ability user, or the trickery of an illusionist.
"Is it His Majesty, or the First Prince?"
"Both. But the order to have you removed came from His Majesty. He found the noise you kept making... displeasing. Handing an investigation to a meticulous creature like you was His Majesty's mistake from the very start."
For the past three years, Kalman had condemned the imperial family for coddling Mavel. Because he had clung to the illusion that hope still remained for this country.
"So the conclusion was reached that Mavel Esterzy is worth more than one of the Seven Pillars of the Empire."
"Exactly."
Sandor drew his scimitar and rested it across his shoulder.
"What choice was there? They say he stamps out 2nd-grade mana cores like cookies."
"The Esterzy brothers are deeply entangled with the demonkin. Swallow a power of unknown origin so carelessly, and there is no telling what the backlash will be."
"Haven't you nagged enough about that for three years, Kalman?"
Sandor picked at his ear.
"The charge for your death will be pinned on Iden. And that way, House Esterzy gets dealt with into the bargain."
"Iden is not an easy opponent."
"It's only fun if he thrashes about a little."
Sandor smirked and leveled his scimitar at Kalman. A ribbon of fine sand was coiling around the blade.
"You'll be dead soon enough anyway, so answer me just one thing."
"Speak."
"Your father. Everyone has wondered — did you kill him deliberately, or was it an accident?"
A dazzling sword aura erupted from Kalman's blade. Sandor let loose a peal of wild laughter and hurled himself at him.