It's Not Extortion
Hair black as the night sky. Skin white as snow in stark contrast. So pale one might mistake her for a ghost rather than a living person—skin that made it easy to guess what kind of life she normally led.
No, no, no—that's not what matters here…
I fixed my gaze on her chest, which had been hidden beneath the robe. Only after confirming the two softly rising mounds could I finally accept that she wasn't a pretty-faced man, but an actual woman.
Yes. She was a woman. Canelly—that creepy guy, that suspicious alchemist whose thoughts I couldn't read—
Had been a woman all along.
"A-are you asking if I'm a woman…?"
Canelly glared at me as if to demand what kind of nonsense that was. Her gloomy disposition transformed into introversion; her unreadable suspiciousness into mystique.
Honestly speaking, she was cute.
"Crazy."
"W-why are you cursing…?"
"No, I wasn't saying that at you… I just didn't know you were a woman. I'm sorry."
"…Is that all? D-do I not even have that much charm…?"
Canelly said this and began to tear up halfway. Apparently, saying I hadn't known she was a woman had registered as meaning she possessed no feminine charm whatsoever.
Even the way she teared up was cute.
"Crazy."
"A-again with the cursing…"
"No, seriously, I wasn't directing that at you…"
In the span of just a few hours, every negative feeling I'd held toward Canelly evaporated in an instant. Into that empty space settled a label that read good memories.
Realizing how insane this was, I kept cursing under my breath. No—just because the other person is a woman and her face and voice are a little cute, do those memories automatically get retconned inside my brain?
"Hic… huuuh…"
It does make sense.
Looking at the teary Canelly, I felt a sadistic thrill—and at the same time, a desire to protect her. This urge to safeguard something.
In other words, it was love.
Crazy. Crazy…
But I didn't want to admit that I was this much of a woman-obsessed idiot. That I was this much of a sucker for falling at first sight.
So I clenched my teeth and denied the reality before my eyes.
…But does riding a carriage together today count as a date?
"Have you calmed down?"
"Y-yeah. Thanks…"
After some time had passed and Canelly's tears had stopped, Evan demanded various explanations from her—how the Blue King had appeared here, what kind of person he was, and so on.
Following the king's orders, Canelly pulled the subspace key from the corpse thief's body and began packing the dragon's carcass into the subspace as she spoke.
"All the nobles of this kingdom are the Blue King's limbs…"
"I know that nobles rank below the king."
"That's not what I mean… In the sense that if His Majesty wishes it, they must offer up their very bodies."
The method of becoming a noble in this country was very simple: pass the nobility examination the state held every year.
Those who passed received a title matching their scores—and at the same time, a transfusion of a single drop of the Blue King's blood.
Most nobles gladly accepted the fact that the great king's blood could flow through their own bodies as well, but that was never a ceremony created merely to confer the status of nobility.
"His Majesty the Blue King can control any noble who has accepted his blood. And though somewhat weakened, he can freely use their power as well."
"How is something like that possible?"
"Because that's the innate ability the Blue King was born with. A Gift. Literally, he is one sent down from the heavens. His Majesty the Blue King."
Evan, still reeling from the revelation that what he'd witnessed had been a weakened state, realized something and looked at Canelly. She looked back as if asking whether he had a question.
"…Canelly, you surprisingly use honorifics with His Majesty the King?"
"U-uh? W-well—because that person is the one who allocates my research funding and various budgets…"
"Ah… how materialistic."
The reason she feared the king was very simple. The king allocated research funding. Fall out of favor, and the funding disappears. She didn't want that. A thoroughly primal reason.
Before long, having collected all the corpses, Canelly tucked the subspace key into her bosom and grinned.
"C-collection's done. Let's head back now."
"Just like this?"
"Y-yeah. His Majesty said he'd send troops…"
Indeed, as she said, an army clad in armor began to appear in the distance—hundreds of knights in splendid platinum full-body armor.
Racing toward them at breakneck speed on horseback, they spotted Evan and Canelly and turned their reins this way.
Confirming the face of the one riding at the very front, Canelly quickly pulled her robe back on and clung timidly behind Evan.
The army that soon arrived before them gradually slowed and came to a stop. Then a blond knight at the front slowly stepped down from his carriage.
"—Is that not Miss Canelly."
"Allyn… Your Highness the Second Prince."
"I came because His Majesty the King sent me… but it seems we're already late."
The man called the Second Prince looked over the ruined count's territory with a bitter smile. But whether he saw such things often, or even that bitter expression was false, he instantly changed his face and extended a hand toward the two of them.
"Where is the dragon's carcass? We'll take it."
"Th-that's—"
"—Hold on a second. Why are you taking it?"
"…And you are?"
Evan naturally stepped in front of the Second Prince, who had been about to claim the dragon's carcass. Seeing him, the Second Prince snorted as if finding it ridiculous that some little kid was blocking his way.
"I'm Evan. The owner of the corpse."
"Ah… so you're him."
And that snort immediately turned into a gasp of admiration. He hadn't known that the Swordmaster who killed the dragon was such a young child.
But the admiration was brief; Allyn thought he could make use of the Evan standing before him. Wasn't this too young, even for young?
"His Majesty ordered us to escort the dragon's corpse. We're not taking it with any ulterior motives—simply to transport it safely to the Royal Capital."
"I don't trust that."
"…Are you saying you don't trust His Majesty the King's front line?"
"But—you guys arrived later than me, didn't you? I already went to the Royal Capital once and came back. How am I supposed to trust people who are later than me? There's a limit to how lazy you can be."
Evan's words were sound. What on earth had they been doing that they didn't show hide nor hair the entire time Evan went to the Royal Capital and returned to the count's territory, only to suddenly appear now?
And what was with suddenly showing up after everything was over and demanding the dragon's carcass?
More than anything—these guys could be cut down.
"How lazy. And weaker than me."
"—You little brat, I've had enough! What insolence before His Highness!"
"Want to try me?"
Looking at the knight who drew his sword and stepped forward, Evan grinned and stroked his sword hilt. In that hair-trigger moment, Allyn swung his blade at the knight who had stepped in front of him.
Slash—! An arm was severed. The knight who lost his arm to the sudden attack blinked as if not understanding what had happened.
"—Kyaaaaaah—?!"
"My apologies, Swordmaster. My subordinate is rather hotheaded."
Having casually severed his subordinate knight's arm, Allyn wiped the blood from his sword with an unbothered expression. The knights behind him, having heard that Evan was the Swordmaster, began to murmur among themselves.
"Swordmaster… the Swordmaster?"
"That little kid…?"
"Well, that's why His Highness also…"
When the murmuring died down, Allyn looked at Evan and spoke.
"If you won't entrust it to us, then at least allow us to accompany you on the road to the Royal Capital. We'll escort your journey. We can't very well return having done nothing."
"If it's just that much… more than that, Your Highness."
"Yes, what is it?"
"Your sword swinging is a bit shoddy. Seems like you need to relearn? Shall I teach you?"
Looking at Evan, who spoke with a bright smile, Allyn smiled along. But no one thought that was a real smile.
Is this person a better person than I thought?
Except for Evan, who had taken a favorable view of the sight of him cutting off a subordinate's arm for talking back.
"May God bless these little lambs… and receive us into Your embrace. Let us pray."
After returning to the Royal Capital, a joint funeral was held to mourn the tragedy that had occurred in the count's territory—an event born from the fact that thousands of people, including the count, had all died.
Naturally, being so close to the Royal Capital, there were plenty of people who had acquaintances, family, and lovers living in the count's territory—and they began to pour out their grief of losing family at the funeral.
Even Evan, who hadn't felt much of anything when looking at the piled corpses in the count's territory, began to feel something watching middle-aged people and elderly who had lived twice as long as him shed tears.
…If I hadn't killed the dragon, these people wouldn't have died, would they?
Of course, the fact of killing the dragon itself wasn't wrong. If he hadn't killed the dragon, the citizens of the count's territory would have died to the dragon rather than to dark mages or bands of thieves.
He had no intention of feeling guilt over not protecting someone. By that logic, Evan would have to suffer guilt over not protecting every invisible person in the entire world.
What Evan carried was closer to a sense of responsibility than guilt.
"If I had collected the corpses then instead of leaving…"
If he had collected the dragon's corpse instead of leaving it out of laziness—or at least waited for the troops to arrive to transport it to the Royal Capital…
If he had done so, might the people of the count's territory have survived? Might they not have died so meaninglessly?
So.
"That's how it is, so give me the subspace key."
"U-uh?"
"Hurry up."
"B-but this is…"
"Ahem."
This isn't extortion—it's about taking responsibility.