The Black Dragon Robe
Raon did not take the Black Dragon Robe. Instead, his gaze lifted past it to Ogram.
"Would you tell me what kind of wager you made with the Patriarch?"
"That's no trouble at all."
Ogram draped the Black Dragon Robe over his shoulder and nodded. Raon had thought it before, but the man was straightforward to a degree that was almost startling.
"I started it. I called you a pretty-faced brat and laughed that you'd be out of the tournament in no time."
Coming from the Beast Alliance, which prized physical might above all else, it wasn't a strange thing to think. Raon gave a small nod of acknowledgment.
"That's when your old man jumped in. He said it wasn't just you — that none of Zieghart's kids would lose to the Alliance's children."
"Ah..."
Raon's mouth fell open as he looked at Glenn. He hadn't expected the Patriarch to rise to a taunt like that at all.
"Ahem."
Glenn cleared his throat as if the matter were of no interest whatsoever, then turned his head and took a sip of wine.
"That's how the wager came about. I put the Four Clouds Pills on the line, and your old man..."
Ogram raised a finger and pointed at the sword hanging at Glenn's waist.
"He put up that sword."
"The Heavenly True Sword?"
Raon's jaw dropped as his eyes followed Ogram's finger to the Heavenly True Sword.
He staked his sword...
The Heavenly True Sword was a blade that stood as a symbol of Glenn Zieghart himself. Raon could hardly believe the Patriarch had wagered it — not even for himself, but for the Light Wind Squad — over a tournament this small.
"Patriarch..."
"You staked the Heavenly True Sword... for us..."
Burren and Marta clasped their hands together as they looked at Glenn.
"Thank you!"
"Patriarch! Thank you for believing in us!"
The other swordsmen of the Light Wind Squad bowed their heads as well. Every last one of them looked ready to cry at the slightest touch.
"Thank you."
Raon straightened his back and shoulders, then bowed to Glenn with full formality.
"It was nothing more than a bit of idle amusement."
Glenn waved a hand, his face expressionless, as if it were no great matter.
He's started to trust us, even if only a little.
He called it amusement, but a swordsman only wagered his blade when he was certain. The thought that the Light Wind Squad as a whole had earned Glenn's faith made Raon's heart pound in his chest.
"Won't you keep faith with This King as well?"
Wrath drifted up and shoved his face in close, frowning as he pointed at his sunken cheeks.
"This King's belly is about to stick to his spine!"
I'll let you eat your fill later. Get out of the way for now!
"Urgh!"
Raon swatted Wrath away with the back of his hand and looked back at Ogram.
"Please, continue."
"He put his beloved sword on the line. I couldn't just let that pass. I swore I'd give Four Clouds Pills to every last one of you, and throw this Black Dragon Robe in on top of it."
Ogram went on in a tone that made it sound like nothing at all.
"The result, as everyone knows, was that the slightly unhinged kid took the Expert division, and you took the Master division. A perfect defeat. No excuses anywhere."
He admitted the loss without the slightest hesitation, and the cheerful smile never left his face.
"The elixirs go to all of you. I never said who the Black Dragon Robe was for, so I want to give it to you. You've caught my fancy."
Ogram lifted the robe from his shoulder once more and held it out.
"The Black Dragon Robe is a coat made from black dragon scales. Are you certain you can give something like that away?"
The Black Dragon Robe was not fashioned from the scales of a young dragon or a hatchling. It was made from the scales of a true dragon. It looked like an ordinary black coat at a glance, but both its outer face and its lining were treasures among treasures.
"A promise made is a promise kept. The beast tribes do not speak with two mouths."
He nodded as if that were the most obvious thing in the world and waved his hand, telling Raon to take it already.
"Mm..."
Raon did not accept it at once. He looked to Glenn, who gave a small nod, as if to say Raon could do as he pleased.
"I'll give it to you, but as you are now, you won't be able to use it properly."
"Pardon? What do you mean by that?"
"This thing was made together with that madwoman over there. It's picky about its master."
Ogram frowned and glanced up at the platform. Chamber, who had been eating chocolate with hands stained dark, grinned and waved.
"It's a rather finicky creature. You'll need to break through a wall before you can handle it properly."
Ogram stepped forward and draped the coat over Raon's formal attire himself.
This is a bit long...
Raon was tall in his own right, but the coat had been worn by a man who stood nearly two meters thirty. The hem dragged along the floor.
He was still wondering whether he ought to cut it down when the Black Dragon Robe shuddered with a low, resonant hum. It shrank like cloth pulled from water, drawing itself in until it matched his height exactly. Its shape changed as well. What had looked like a rough windbreaker settled into something noble and elegant, perfectly suited to the formal wear beneath it.
It feels like it was tailored to me.
There was not the slightest discomfort when he moved, as if he were wearing a garment made to his measure. He could barely even tell he had the Black Dragon Robe on over his formal clothes.
"Now that I did not expect."
Ogram stroked his beard as he watched.
"It hasn't accepted you as its master yet. But it has acknowledged your existence."
"What does that mean?"
"It means it already thinks of you as its future master."
He clapped Raon on the shoulder, as if to say the boy really was something else.
"Does the Black Dragon Robe have a will of its own?"
"Nothing so grand as that."
Ogram shook his head.
"It only amounts to whether it acknowledges a master and lends its power, or whether it doesn't."
He studied the robe with a curious glint in his eye, then took another step forward.
Lends its power...
From the way Ogram described it, some special force seemed to dwell in the Black Dragon Robe as well — something akin to the Requiem Sword.
"Enough about the robe. Tell me, are you married?"
Ogram leaned in until his face filled Raon's vision, his eyes roaming as if he were inspecting livestock.
"Uh..."
Raon's mouth fell open.
That's it?
He had just handed over the Black Dragon Robe, a treasure whose name was known across the entire continent, and he wasn't even going to gloat about it. The man was so refreshingly blunt it was almost absurd.
"...No."
Sudden as the question was, Raon shook his head at once.
"A girl you're seeing?"
"There isn't one."
"Excellent!"
Ogram laughed from the belly and clapped him on the shoulder.
"Then how about meeting my daughter? She's a cute, petite little thing."
"That's..."
Something about the word petite snagged in Raon's mind.
"Mona is petite, that's true."
Raon turned toward the deep voice at his back. Garona had come up behind him, grinning.
"When I saw her last, she was about yea high."
Garona raised a hand and indicated his own chin.
That's petite?
That's at least a hundred and ninety.
Garona's frame did not yield even to Ogram's. His chin sat higher than the crown of Raon's head, which meant that even a conservative estimate put Mona at a hundred and ninety centimeters.
Raon did not care whether a woman was tall or short. What he could not accept was calling a hundred and ninety petite.
"If you marry Mona, you and I will be real brothers! Wait — we're already real brothers!"
"That's right! You're my brother too! If Mona likes you, it'd be a wonderful match!"
Garona and Ogram boxed him in from front and back, roaring with laughter loud enough to make his ears ring.
"Mm..."
The pressure rolling off two giants well over two meters tall was considerable, but some things still had to be said. He had a goal he would stake his life on. He had no intention of binding himself to anyone in marriage. Not yet.
"I have no plans to marry at present..."
"Hey! Don't you dare jump the line!"
The moment Raon tried to refuse, Chamber appeared out of thin air.
"We've got a good girl on our side too!"
She gave her staff a little flick, and Princess Jayna, who had been standing well across the hall, popped into existence right in front of them.
"Kyaaah!"
Jayna dropped the fork in her hand and let out a scream.
"Our Jayna's got the face, the background, and the skill. Her personality is a little — just a tiny bit — prickly, but that's charming in its own way."
Chamber poured out praise that wasn't quite praise, utterly unconcerned with whether Jayna was flustered or not.
"Kh..."
The instant Jayna's eyes met Raon's, her face flushed scarlet and she whipped her head away.
Raon watched the mix of fury and embarrassment on her face and let out a quiet snort of laughter.
"Oh?"
Chamber looked from Jayna to Raon and back again, her mouth rounding into a circle.
"What's this, what's this?! Have you two already done it?"
"Absolutely not."
She had clearly gotten the wrong idea, so he waved it off at once.
He knew Jayna's true nature well enough. Other people were one thing. There was no world in which he and she would ever be a good match.
Even if the sky fell, there is no chance I'd end up with that brat.
"You're the brat here! This King just wants to eat!"
"The more I see of him, the more interesting the boy becomes."
King Lecross watched Raon hold his own between Ogram and Chamber and smiled with genuine warmth.
"He does not cower before the strong, yet he has a nature that considers the weak. That is a rare temperament these days. Now I understand why a child so young carries chivalry in his epithet."
"...Well. He's been a little different from other children since he was small."
Glenn's eyes flicked toward King Lecross, and he gave a small nod.
"I imagine it has been a pleasure, watching him from so close."
"I wasn't particularly interested."
He waved a hand as if he hardly knew the details.
"Is that so? A pity."
King Lecross let his mouth turn down, disappointed not to hear about Raon's childhood.
"Ahem."
A few seconds of silence passed. Then Glenn cleared his throat and opened his mouth.
"The boy first distinguished himself during his days as a trainee candidate. He was suffering from a poor constitution at the time, but in his first training session he ran all the way to the end without collapsing..."
Sheryl's mouth fell open as she watched Glenn launch into a story about Raon.
He's starting from there?
Not from some later feat, once the boy had grown — from his days as a trainee candidate. Glenn looked as though he intended to recount Raon's entire life.
She wanted to tell him to start from a more proper achievement, but there was no stopping him.
His face is far too bright.
Glenn looked so happy telling stories of Raon's childhood that she could not bring herself to cut him off.
And besides...
King Lecross already held a favorable impression of Raon, and he seemed thoroughly absorbed in the tale.
"...And so Raon won his first duel with his head held high."
"Oho. So he stood out from a young age. Our third prince has been singing Raon's praises ever since he returned from Zieghart, as it happens."
"There is more after that. Once he'd been recognized as a full trainee and was about to begin proper training, Marta..."
Glenn was about to carry the story into Raon's trainee years when Derus climbed onto the platform at a leisurely pace.
"Mm..."
Glenn stopped speaking and called out to him.
"How is the Blue Sword's condition?"
"The diagnosis is the same. There will likely be some lingering aftereffects."
Derus shook his head, his brows drawn down just slightly.
"Mm..."
King Lecross's face tightened.
"This happened in our kingdom. I cannot simply stand by. If there is anything I can do to help..."
"There is no need."
Derus shook his head, his manner gentle.
"We all know it was Cadis who raised his killing intent first. He brought it on himself."
"Are you certain you are all right?"
Glenn narrowed his eyes at Derus. The look in them was calm, as if to say he would help if it was needed.
"You need not worry. I have already thought of several ways to set it right. Cadis will have learned something from this as well. I am satisfied."
Derus smiled faintly and said he would have to leave as early as tomorrow to treat Cadis's arm.
"You haven't changed."
"Admirable."
Glenn and King Lecross both let out murmurs of genuine admiration, looking at a man who seemed to think only of his son.
"Woooow..."
"That's Lord Derus for you."
"There isn't another man that gracious in this world."
"There's a reason the South is at peace."
The others in the banquet hall heard Derus's words and their eyes shone.
"Let us put the grim talk aside."
Derus clapped his hands and took up a glass of wine.
"It is no small thing for us to gather like this. What would you say to a toast, for the first time?"
He raised his glass, and Glenn and King Lecross raised theirs in turn.
"Ah, I'm in too!"
Chamber had appeared at some point, and she floated a cup of juice into the air.
"Planning to have all the fun without me?"
Ogram vaulted up onto the platform as well and lifted a mug of beer.
Five glasses met with a clear, ringing note, and beneath them the eyes of the leaders of the Six Kings were reflected in the wine. Every gaze was calm and untroubled — except Derus's, which had sunk as deep as an abyss.
"Wooooaaaaah!"
"Long live the Six Kings!"
"Let us walk forward together!"
Everyone in the banquet hall burst into applause and cheers, noticing nothing. Everyone except one. There was a single person who saw through to what lay beneath.
Raon watched Derus wave in answer to the crowd's cheers, and he smiled.
He's pissed.
Thoroughly, completely pissed.
The plan that had used Cadis had failed. On top of that, Zieghart's name had soared until it scraped the heavens, and Cadis would carry a disability in his shoulder for the rest of his life. It was the worst possible outcome.
He looked perfectly composed on the surface. Inside, the rage would have risen high enough that he wanted to turn this entire hall upside down.
Derus Robert.
He really is something else.
To be that furious on the inside and still wear a smile that gracious on the outside — he was an enemy, but he was a monster Raon could not help but acknowledge. The man's patience made any comparison to Cadis embarrassing.
But...
You won't be able to endure the next one.
Red lightning flickered in the depths of Raon's eyes as he looked at Derus.
Because the treasure of that Undersea Dungeon you cherish so much is about to disappear.