Chapter 39
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Translator: Ace
Chapter: 39
Chapter Title: Boy, Take Up Your Sword (2)
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"I feel sorry for imposing such a burdensome request on you."
"Not at all, my lord Count. On the contrary, I'm grateful that you don't consider this old man useless and entrust me with such an important mission."
Hansen fiddled with the scroll Bartolomeo had handed him, his voice trembling as he spoke.
In a neat, gray-white office, two white-haired old men were engaged in conversation.
"I'll never forget your achievements and loyalty in the Tolome Knights all these years."
"I merely followed in the footsteps of the brilliantly shining Lord Bartolomeo."
"......Your sons and family—I swear on the name of Tolome that I'll take full responsibility for them. More thoroughly than you could have managed."
Bartolomeo gazed at the white-haired knight standing before him.
Knight Hansen.
At fifty-three years old, he had pledged his loyalty to Bartolomeo as his knight from the very beginning of his exploits.
While most would think of the Knight of Swiftness, Edwin, when hearing of Bartolomeo's knights, it was the quiet supporters working tirelessly behind the scenes who had helped them achieve their current fame.
He wasn't flashy, but he had always given his all from his position.
A veteran knight undeterred by his own limited talents, who even past fifty strove to maintain his prowess.
That old knight, now with one arm bandaged, offered his final salute to the man who had been his lord.
"The glorious times I spent with you, my lord Count—I shall never forget them."
Raising his head, Hansen met Bartolomeo's eyes.
"Knight Hansen. I will surely complete the final mission you have given me."
With his salute complete, Hansen turned on his heel and left Bartolomeo's office.
Though they had been comrades for decades, the parting was clean.
That was how men said goodbye.
Yet Bartolomeo couldn't tear his eyes away from the door Hansen had exited for a long while.
He had broken a piece of porcelain.
It was a piece cherished by his father's concubine, who was also the lord of Lombard's lady.
He hadn't broken it himself. Precisely, his half-brothers had smashed it and pinned the blame on him.
Young Simon hadn't realized the matter would blow up so badly.
"Forgive him, milady! He didn't know any better—please, just this once!"
Each resounding crack of the leather whip drew screams from his mother. Simon felt the sickening vibrations transmitted through her body as she clutched him close, and...
"Aaagh!"
he saw the bright red blood bursting from her.
That terrified him.
Every time that vivid red left his mother's body, it felt like the only wall protecting him was crumbling away.
And so Simon wailed to the man he thought was his father, begging him to spare his mother.
But Calric Dies merely sat there impassively, even as his own blood pleaded.
Only then did Simon finally realize his true place.
"That damn dream again......"
Simon Dies swept back his sweat-soaked forehead as he woke.
Stinking men lay snoring beside him, their rumbling unbroken.
"This is reality."
Simon mocked his own lot.
It was a dingy inn. The owner, capitalizing on the kingdom tournament, crammed over ten guests into rooms meant for three or four.
The warming early summer heat, the stench from strangers, the squalid conditions.
Yet Simon Dies hadn't complained.
He'd believed this harsh reality was just temporary.
But even now, Simon Dies remained holed up in that wretched inn.
"Life's a bitch. It never once smiled at me."
Simon packed his things and stepped out of the inn.
Mercilessly hopeless, today's sun rose golden beyond the eastern statue, heedless of Simon's will.
Blanc stopped by a magic tool shop run by the Inzhang School, accompanied by Tarania.
"The best way to guard against black magic is to spend money."
"I figured the Torch Knight Order would use something different."
"We do, but those are secrets only for within the order. If you abandon the secular world and join us, milord Baron, I could tell you."
"That would be inconvenient."
After getting scolded by the black mage Tideman, Blanc sought ways to detect and repel magic through Tarania.
To others, it might look like prudent preparation from failure and experience, but Blanc had an even greater reason.
It was all because of Cielra Neuendorf.
To uncover the vicious curse hidden in her body, he needed a way to detect magic.
The Tideman incident made a perfect excuse. Preparing against black magic after such a scare raised no suspicions.
"Recommend some good magic tools."
"The better the tool, the pricier it is. Better trust your purse over me, milord Baron."
Tarania deliberately spoke insolently to unsettle him.
She wanted to ripple his eyes through emotional disturbance.
Having glimpsed something enormous in Blanc's inner world, Tarania was doing her utmost to uncover it.
Even if it meant prodding the pride nobles held dearest.
"Don't worry about the purse. Count Bartolomeo gave quite a generous sum."
The black-haired boy seemed utterly unperturbed, unbothered by such things.
'Unnecessarily handsome.'
If anything, Tarania, peering deeply into his eyes, found herself drawn into their depths.
As the two with differing goals entered the shop, Blanc spotted a familiar back.
'Billy?'
It was his butler, Billy.
The evening before, upon confirming Simon Dies's existence, Blanc had ordered Billy to track his location and movements.
To verify if it was the Simon Dies he knew—and if so, where he was.
Thus, he'd sent Billy to tail him.
It would be trouble if he slipped out of Baltimer.
'Not bad.'
Butler apprentice Billy, on his first shadowing mission, moved convincingly even to Blanc's eye.
'So that's Simon Dies......'
At the end of Billy's gaze hung a man with brown curly hair.
A man walking shoulders slumped, eyes on the ground rather than ahead.
Blanc felt familiarity in Simon Dies's face, but couldn't be certain he was the one who led the Void in his previous life.
Back then, his eyeballs had melted, spewing only black void from the sockets.
This was the first time seeing Simon Dies's face under bright sunlight.
"Sir Tarania, sorry."
"What is it?"
Confirming Simon Dies, Blanc hurried off.
"Go ahead and pick out tools at the shop. Something came up."
With that, he vanished without a backward glance.
Tarania could only gape with her one remaining eye.
Simon Dies stood before a building.
It was a labor office.
Baltimer was the largest, most complex city in the Felix Kingdom. Thus, it constantly needed droves of day laborers for odd jobs.
But the Simon standing before it was a knight.
Knighted by some obscure nobody, granted.
'If possible, I'd sell my sword arm......'
Simon wanted to sell his skills. Natural for a knight.
But Baltimer now overflowed with knights and squires more than ever.
Sword-wielding jobs were scarce, seekers plentiful.
No connections in Baltimer, and as a prelim dropout who hadn't impressed at the tournament, no one wanted to hire him.
'Gotta head home. No choice.'
He'd made it to Baltimer thanks to his mother's savings from maid work.
Her callused fingers from hard labor, offering pocket money.
Without it, he couldn't have dreamed of the two-month journey.
'Mother......'
How she'd wept clutching the money saved solely for him.
He'd vowed to make a name at the kingdom tournament and return triumphant, but now he was more wretched and starved than a sewer rat.
But he couldn't just sit sucking his thumb.
Swallowing knightly pride, Simon moved to enter the labor office.
Yet life was ever harsh to Simon Dies.
"Simon Dies! What are you doing here?"
"You look like a drowned rat!"
He'd run into the last people he wanted to see.
"......Have you been well, brothers?"
They were the Dies family's legitimate sons.
Blessed offspring from the proper wife, unlike this bastard.
"Hmph! Strutting in Lombard, and now this?"
The eldest and second sons sneered, jabbing mercilessly at his sore spots like it was their chance.
'If not for you bastards!'
His prelim first opponent was the Dies eldest before him.
He knew Simon Dies's weakness well.
"A knight who still fears blood? What noble would take you?"
Simon Dies feared blood.
The image of it bursting from his mother's back had seared deep into his young mind.
Her paling face as blood drained had been utter terror to child Simon.
The Dies eldest knew this flaw well.
In practice spars, Simon shone fully, but blood-spraying mock combats always made him falter.
So he'd deliberately grazed Simon's blade to draw blood.
Then slyly pressed close.
Spectators likely thought Simon just froze from tension.
Against that stiffened Simon, the eldest claimed easy victory, barely scraping into the main rounds on momentum.
"......"
Talented yet unable to conquer his blood phobia, Simon.
Having failed his limits, he'd ended up this pathetic.
"That's why we shouldn't accept baseborn scum into the family!"
"Blood of a whore doesn't change!"
"......!"
Hearing his mother insulted, Simon clenched his fists tight.
He could endure scorn toward himself.
He'd lived a lifetime of it, as natural as breathing.
But enduring slurs on his mother was excruciating.
He'd swallowed blood before, but not today.
Breathing hurt.
Insults he'd normally shrug off now lodged deep in his chest, choking him.
Their words stabbed his heart, blood pooling in his lungs.
Instinct told him.
To breathe.
He had to draw his sword now.