Flawless Perfection (4)
No sooner had I brought up using the Sword Saint’s name to have the local judge dismissed than a messenger from the lord appeared out of nowhere and escorted the father and daughter all the way to the lord’s castle.
The lord stepped out from the inner reception room, faced me alone, and looked at me with an apologetic expression.
“I am sorry, Sword Saint. You do not possess the authority to dismiss a local judge.”
“Hmm…”
“—But I do. Exactly as you wished, I have stripped him of his office and thrown him in prison. He knows his own crimes well enough; he will comply quietly.”
Hearing that, I gave him a crooked little grin.
“And what crime did he commit?”
“Well, the greatest offense was, of course, offending the Sword Saint’s sensibilities… but if we must list legal charges, abuse of authority and bribery will do.”
“Oh? You know quite a bit.”
“I looked into it the moment I invited you. I apologize for not handling it sooner. I will investigate thoroughly so nothing similar happens again. I will also see that the two waiting outside receive compensation.”
The lord bowed his head as he spoke. Watching a noble apologize so freely drew a quiet sound of admiration from me.
In fairy tales, nobles were always high-handed, scheming to stab the hero in the back, power-hungry and greedy to the core.
Yet the count of Bland County—where the dragon had appeared—and this count here were nothing like those storybook aristocrats. The nobles of this kingdom carried themselves differently.
“Fine. That should be enough. I wasn’t planning to kill everyone anyway.”
“Your boundless mercy is deeply appreciated.”
“But is it really all right to dismiss a noble over something that small? He kept calling himself a quasi-baron or whatever.”
“It is perfectly fine. Quasi-nobles are the sort one can replace at any time.”
When I showed I was satisfied with the ruling, the lord relaxed and sipped his tea as he continued talking.
Listening to him, I found myself wondering about the difference between a true noble and a quasi-noble. It couldn’t simply mean someone who hadn’t become a full noble yet—after all, I myself held the title of quasi-count.
“By the way, what exactly is a quasi-noble? I’m one too.”
“Ah—simple enough. You already know that in our kingdom even nobility is a position granted only after passing an examination, correct?”
“I think I heard that somewhere.”
“After passing that examination, there is one more test. The transfusion of His Majesty the Blue King’s blood.”
“So a quasi-noble is…”
“Yes, exactly. Those who cannot accept His Majesty’s blood. From a noble’s perspective, they are the culls—the inferior stock. —Ah, of course the Sword Saint is an exception. Someone who attained superhuman power entirely on his own is a rather different case…”
Back when the black magician and the Hyena mercenary band had attacked Bland County, the Blue King had appeared using the corpse of the count who died that day.
I had always wondered how that was even possible—yet the lord casually revealed the secret.
Isn’t this the kind of secret that shouldn’t be told?
Even Canelly, a state-approved alchemist, had never mentioned it. A moment’s thought made the reason for secrecy obvious.
The reason neighboring nations and other superhumans never attacked the kingdom was simple: they would have to fight the superhuman Blue King who protected it.
The Blue King’s strength did not come from raw power alone. It came from that absurd ability to enter a body that was not his own and fight as if it were.
But if the world learned that the condition for using that ability was limited to those who had taken his blood—and only those whose blood compatibility was high enough?
They could attack the kingdom while simply avoiding the Blue King…
I shot the lord a look that said, “Why would you tell me this?” but he had already blossomed into full conversational mode and kept talking without pause.
“Most who pass the examination succeed in receiving the blood, but occasionally there are those who suffer rejection. The fellow you caught today was one of them.”
“Ah, I see.”
“I suspect that is also why he caused this incident. The inferiority he felt at being unable to accept the blood manifested in another form—the belief that only citizens of the kingdom are the superior race, and every other race is lesser. Those two were among the few Easterners in the city; he must have thought them easy targets.”
“…”
“—Ah. Ahem. I’ve talked far too long. I’ve wasted the Sword Saint’s precious time. Forgive me.”
Belatedly reading the room, the lord guided me outside. Following him to the waiting room, I found my master fretting and glancing around restlessly, while the dojo master stood with arms crossed as if unconcerned—though he couldn’t hide the way his legs were shaking.
“—You two, shall we go?”
“Evan! Is it over? More importantly, what on earth happened…?”
“Do not make such a fuss, daughter.”
“Father, the one making a fuss until a moment ago was you.”
“Nonsense. I did no such thing.”
Watching the two bicker so amicably, I smiled brightly. The lord who had been walking beside me suddenly stepped forward and bowed to them.
“Come to think of it, I have not yet apologized to the two of you in person. Allow me to do so now. I also promise the compensation will not take long.”
“No, my lord, there is no need for you to…”
“Th-that’s right! The bad one was that man, not you, my lord…”
“A subordinate’s failure is also my failure. Everything stems from my own shortcomings.”
Seeing the father and daughter flustered by a direct apology from the lord, I realized they were far more simple-hearted than I had thought.
I could hardly picture the same people who had once charged at adventurers with swords for stealing their techniques, or glared at the local judge as if ready to kill him.
To harass people like this…
I couldn’t understand the racial discrimination at all.
Did kingdom citizens somehow not get cut by swords?
In a world where even dragons died to the blade?
“This can’t be… this can’t be happening…”
Clank—
The sound of iron chains dragging across the floor began. Staring at the manacles hanging from his wrists, Lushwaltz wore the expression of a man whose soul had left his body.
The knight looking down at him clicked his tongue.
“You should have simply done your job fairly. Then none of this would have happened.”
“Take these off! Take them off! I am a local judge of the kingdom! Lushwaltz! A noble who received a barony!”
“Both the office and the title you held have been revoked. The reason I still address you with respect is not because you remain a judge or a noble, but because I once respected your professional ability. I thought you should know that.”
“Th-that’s right! I placed second in the judicial examination! An elite! You’re going to throw away a talent like me over two measly monkeys?!”
“—You are a replaceable talent.”
At those words, Lushwaltz’s face crumpled into a look of dawning realization and despair. That was right. Second place in the judicial examination?
He was certainly gifted—but second place appeared at least once every year without fail.
A superhuman, a Sword Saint, on the other hand, did not appear so easily, nor could he be replaced by anyone. In the end, Lushwaltz had ruined himself simply by touching people under the Sword Saint’s protection…
“Damn it, damn it…! Why… why did it have to be some worthless sword dojo…!”
He couldn’t understand it. If the Sword Saint had learned his craft at that dojo and become the Sword Saint because of it, word would have spread long ago, and the dojo would have been famous across the entire continent as the place that raised a Sword Saint. Had that been the case, Lushwaltz would never have touched it.
But the Sword Saint had perfected the sword on his own. There had never been any rumor of him studying under anyone.
—Who in their right mind would ever imagine the Sword Saint enrolling in a dojo to learn the sword from people inferior to himself?
“Haha, hahaha—they’re all insane. Superhumans are all completely insane…”
“I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that.”
The knight sighed, closed the door, and left the prison. Lushwaltz’s muttering continued to echo inside the cell.
“To think young Evan was the Sword Saint all along…”
“I know. How did we never notice…?”
“I just assumed you already knew, so I never said anything.”
“Hmm, so it was our fault then! Hahaha!”
Back at the dojo, Mok Cheon celebrated the resolution of every problem by cracking open a bottle of wine. It was an extremely precious Immortal Wine he had brought with him when he crossed from the East into the kingdom.
True to the claim that it had been brewed by immortals, the moment the seal was broken a luminous fragrance filled the entire dojo. Just smelling it was enough to make one feel drunk.
Excited at the thought of drinking alcohol for the first time, Evan gulped it down—and immediately began coughing as if he were about to throw up.
“Keh—what kind of taste is this?”
“Hahaha! That’s exactly how it’s supposed to taste!”
Evan wrinkled his nose at the medicine-like flavor and refused to drink any more. Mok Cheon, who had been pouring himself cup after cup alone, suddenly stopped and fixed Evan with a steady gaze.
“We are thinking of returning to the East.”
“What?”
Evan tilted his head as if he hadn’t heard right. Mok Cheon only gave a bitter smile.
“I realized this is not the place for us. I came here with the arrogant idea of spreading our advanced swordsmanship across this continent… but people are people wherever they live.”
In a way, there was no need to curse Lushwaltz alone. Mok Cheon himself had come here believing the people of this land were inferior to those of the East, that their swordsmanship could never match Eastern standards.
Reality had been different. People lived here too, and their swordsmanship was by no means inferior.
Even the one called the Sword Saint—Evan—had grasped the deepest secrets of their own style in a single month, secrets they themselves had never fully understood.
He had been arrogant.
By unconsciously regarding them as lesser, he had drawn another form of inferiority toward himself.
“I see.”
Evan nodded, respecting Mok Cheon’s decision. He would miss them when they left, but not enough to try to stop them.
Mok Cheon looked at him and carefully made a proposal.
“Which is why I wanted to ask—young Evan, would you come with us?”
“……What?”
“To the East. Come with us. You would fit better there than here.”
Evan lowered his head for a moment and thought. The offer to go to the East together… he was a little curious about what kind of place it might be.
But mere curiosity was not enough reason to leave the land where he had been born and raised.
He shook his head firmly and refused. Mok Cheon muttered with clear regret.
“If you come now, I’ll throw in my daughter and the dojo as well.”
“……I already said I’m not going.”
Evan hesitated for a split second—but he felt no regret at all.
Yeah. Absolutely none.