chapter 3
Chapter 3: The prosecutor who went down for free takes back his home
Swordless Style, First Form—Thrown Sword.
My fist stopped in midair, just a little in front of my chest. A straight punch cutting through the void.
But the overwhelming pressure of wind howling from my fingertips was anything but still.
"Wh—what?!"
Two gleaming Knights faltered before the sudden gale. Yet, as befitting of Knights, they refused to surrender their footing and steadied their stances.
"Ha, a bizarre little trick!"
One fierce gust of wind. That was all. When it died down, one of the flustered Knights let out a hollow laugh and mocked me.
"You'd best brace yourself. Dying by beheading will be the least of what you—"
I paid him no mind. I calmly withdrew my fist. The moment the Knight opened his mouth to say something more—
"H—hey. Joseph."
"What?"
"Y—your, your back—"
His back. Even hearing that, the Knight in full plate armor didn't understand. His breastplate, gleaming silver, the riveted breast armor, was immaculate. Not a single scratch. Yet, his back?
Then, all at once, he became aware that his back felt just a little… hollow.
The Knight slowly turned around.
Drip. Drip.
Something was falling. Something red and viscous was splattering wetly.
"Wh—what is—"
Drip. Drip.
His breastplate, protecting the front of his body, was perfectly fine. Not a single wound. Yet on his back—as though struck by a cannonball—a gaping hole had been blown open. His spine snapped, his ribs shattered, and his mangled organs spilled out one after another—
Stumble.
The instant that reality hit him, his world collapsed. Like a puppet with its strings cut.
"M—magic!"
The Mage in the purple Robe, stunned by the sight, cried out in alarm. I shook my head.
"What magic?"
Magic? Hardly. My Master was a woman with a bone-deep, ferocious hatred of magic.
"Magic? That's nothing but a self-defense trick for women and children."
"Um, with all due respect, Master, you are also a wo—"
"What did you just say?"
"No, I didn't say anything."
For the record, that day, I nearly died by her hand about five times.
Pushing aside the cold sweat that trickled down just from the memory, I added firmly.
"This is not magic. This is a legitimate Sword Art."
"You crazy bastard!"
The surviving Knight and the Mage instinctively fell into a battle stance. As if refusing to give me even a moment's respite, sharp ice crystals swirled at the Mage's fingertips and came surging toward me.
"B—Brother!"
Chloe screamed in horror.
Whoosh!
The ice arrow was faster. It plunged straight toward my chest. And right after, the Knight, closing the distance in a single kick off the ground, swung his sword. Aimed precisely to take my head.
Two killing intents crashed into me in quick succession, and the sound rang out.
Clang, clang!
"!"
"Wh—what?!"
"Blocking the enemy's attack with the scabbard. Isn't it basic common sense in Sword Arts?"
"?"
What's there to be so surprised about, for someone who calls himself a Knight?
Union of Body and Blade.
"For the swordsman and sword to become one—that is the true foundation of the Sword Arts."
"……Was that what it meant?"
"What else would it mean?"
Quietly reproaching my former self for not grasping its profound meaning sooner, I turned my head slightly to the side.
My body—was made of scabbards.
The ice arrow, lodged like a thorn beside my neck, slowly crumbled apart with that movement. Into beautiful crystalline fragments.
Crack.
The ice shards scattered like powder.
So did the Knight's sword.
"Y—you monster—"
The blade that should have taken my head couldn't cut through my skin and simply stopped.
Crack, crack.
From somewhere, fractures spread along the hilt in the pattern of tree roots—
I silently grabbed the blade with my hand and twisted.
Crunch.
As the metal screamed and bent, the radiant gleam of Sword Energy imbued in the blade flickered and died.
"You dared to ravage this Büschel County and humiliate my little sister."
"B—Brother……"
Thud.
I looked down at the Knight, his own crushed sword still in my grip. Ten years to survive. Through those ten years of ruin, the devastated territory finally came into view.
Devastated was too gentle a word—wrecked was more like it.
Unlike Ernst—the wastrel of the original story who had strutted about as the Heir of the Büschel County Family—I had never cared one bit about this County or its succession.
But seeing the land I had been born and raised in—even if only by Reincarnation—turned to ash was anything but pleasant.
Above all, seeing Chloe's pitiful state—in rags, filthy with grime—made it worse still.
The hardships she must have endured in my absence, or because of my absence.
That wretched Half-Sibling of mine was one thing, but Chloe's haggard appearance had poured oil onto what little sense of duty I had left as a brother.
So I fixed my gaze back on the Knight before me, eyes filled with no small amount of anger.
Along with the Robe-clad Mage trembling stiffly behind him.
"Do you have any idea what you're doing right now?!"
"I do."
"W—we are merely following the will of the Royal Family and carrying out due legal process—!"
"That's a lie!"
Just as the Knight struggled and protested, his sword still caught in my grip, it was Chloe's sharp voice that cut him off.
Perhaps she had found courage seeing me, despite her own fear—she cried out in a trembling voice, yet with a resolve that refused to retreat.
"The Royal Edict that came from the Royal Family was strictly for an investigation into the truth behind the missing Sealing Stone of the Cursed Mountain Range and the punishments that followed! And yet—and yet, the state this County has been left in—!"
Regardless of the fact that this world was a Romance Fantasy Web Novel with heads full of flowers, that didn't mean the people living in it had the same kind of heads.
In some ways, quite the opposite.
"Who?"
So I asked.
"Who is the one who reduced our territory to this?"
A detached question. I hadn't even grabbed him by the collar, yet the Knight gasped for breath as though he were about to die, and cried out.
"—It was His Highness, Grand Duke Wilhelm!"
As though the authority carried by that name was his very lifeline.
‘Wilhelm? That sounds familiar.’
‘Actually, come to think of it, the Sealing Stone of the Cursed Mountain Range also rang a vague bell… Was it a bigger Plot Device than it appeared?’
‘Damn it, if I knew I was going to end up here, I would've read more carefully.’
Scrolling through my phone by sheer habit, there were times I couldn't tell if I was reading or just running on a human treadmill.
This novel had been exactly that. On top of that, having spent ten years cut off from the world in a frenzy of Training, I was now at the point where counting what I still remembered was faster.
"Ha, now you finally know!"
Perhaps mistaking my silence for fear at the name, the Knight twisted his lips and called out with even greater smugness.
"The Roaring Lion of the Kingdom! His Highness Grand Duke Wilhelm has concluded after his investigation that the concealment of the Sealing Stone was carried out in an extremely organized and covert manner! And so, to hold those involved to strict accountability—"
"I see."
"Lies! You all intended to seize Father's territory from the very start! The Sealing Stone was nothing but a flimsy pretext from the beginning!"
"What?! You little—!"
The shape of things is becoming clear. Conspiracy and schemes, political intrigue and backstabbing—this is what a Romance Fantasy should be.
‘Disgusting.’
Out of nowhere, I recalled those days of Training I had spent alone with my Master, without a care in the world.
Strange—those days felt both deeply nostalgic and impossibly distant.
The days when I didn't need to think about anything but growing stronger and surviving…… Hmm, maybe not that nostalgic after all.
"So, where is that guy now?"
"What?"
"I said, where is that bastard—Wilhelm or whatever his name is."
"H—how insolent! How dare a wretch like you—?"
Crunch.
At last, the blade in my hand shattered into fragments and crumbled to iron dust.
"How about it? I think that's been courteous enough, wouldn't you say?"
"Eek!"
The Knight's face drained white as a sheet.
His terror-flooded eyes were plainly visible behind the visor of his helm. I pressed on without concern.
"R—right now, the one overseeing the new Lord's Castle is Viscount Vilmayer, acting in place of Grand Duke Wilhelm……! After completing the investigation, His Highness the Grand Duke has returned to his own territory……!"
"So he's not here right now, is that what you're saying?"
"Yes, sir!"
"And there's someone standing in for him?"
"Yes! Viscount Vilmayer is the Grand Duke's third son, and—"
A sharp, clean answer. It was pleasing to see.
"Good. Then take me to where that bastard is."
"Yes, yes, sir! Of course! I'll lead the way!"
A sharp, clean answer, followed by a sharp, clean set of legs. Satisfying.
‘This too must be the grace of the Union of Body and Blade.’
I nodded, reflecting on Master's teachings.
The Knight turned his back to me and exchanged a sly glance with the Mage.
‘In the Viscount's Castle, there will be an elite Knight Order under His Highness the Grand Duke's direct command. No matter how much of a monster that bastard is, before the fearsome name of the "Iron Lion Knight Order"—!’
“Heh heh. “
Leaving his bitter chuckle behind, I quietly looked over at Chloe. Her green eyes were still tinged with faint fear, and she asked in an anxious voice.
"B—Brother, just what do you plan to do……?"
"Get our home back."
I answered.