Chapter 198: The Tin Knight and The Crossroads of Swords and Magic (8)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 198: The Tin Knight and The Crossroads of Swords and Magic (8)
“I hear you skipped training again today.”
During a very pleasant dinner, Adelaide had been staring at the mountain of mashed potatoes piled on one side of her plate—a measure taken to prevent her from getting too used to overly luxurious food—with a grim expression, as if she were looking at her mortal enemy. At the single remark from her father, seated at the head of the table, she flinched.
“N-No, Father. I didn’t skip.”
“Averting your eyes when making excuses is the same as admitting you have something to hide. You’re doing it because you have a guilty conscience, are you not?”
“Ugh, umm.”
Adelaide had nothing to say.
While she had put in the required hours for training, it was true that she had slacked off here and there. It was only possible because the knight in charge had turned a blind eye, but he had his own excuses. Although it was common for noble families to begin training at a young age, she was still only thirteen. Besides, how could they be harsh on a girl who, due to the slow aging characteristic of the Lion Duke's bloodline, looked even younger than her actual age?
Adelaide’s eyes darted around.
Her mother wore a wry smile, as if to say she couldn’t help this time, while her older brother, perhaps sensing he wouldn't be able to refuse the plea of his adorable little sister, had already averted his gaze and was staring off into the distance.
Eventually, Adelaide hung her head low.
“I was wrong.”
She expected a scolding, but her father’s next words were unexpected.
“Do you perhaps dislike wielding a sword?”
Adelaide cautiously tried to read his mood before answering. Realizing he didn’t seem particularly angry, she answered honestly.
“It’s not that I dislike it, but doing only that all the time is… a little… hard.”
Objectively speaking, the training regimen Lord Friedel had assigned his daughter was not particularly harsh. But for a young girl, still full of curiosity about everything, consistently repeating the same task was, in itself, quite difficult.
Lord Friedel fell silent for a moment, lost in thought.
Adelaide’s mother and older brother spoke up.
“Father, Adelaide is still young. Isn’t it too early to be in such a rush?”
“That’s right, dear. It’s not as if she must walk the path of a knight.”
“…Is that so.”
Lord Friedel nodded solemnly, then turned to Adelaide.
“Very well. From now on, I will not force you to participate in training. You may do it if you wish, and you don’t have to if you don’t.”
Adelaide’s eyes widened in surprise.
“R-Really?”
“Even if you carry the Lennart name, you don’t necessarily have to follow the main family’s ways. If you were an only child, Adelaide, the matter of succession would leave no choice, but you have an older brother who is more than eager to take on your share of the work.”
“Ugh, somehow I feel like I just dug my own grave…”
Adelaide’s brother said with a click of his tongue, but he quickly broke into a playful grin.
Her mother smiled with her eyes, as if to say how nice it was to have such a reliable older brother, and even Lord Friedel, usually so strict and solemn, had a faint smile on his lips.
In the warm, cheerful atmosphere where everyone was smiling, Adelaide’s face blossomed like a flower.
What should I do with my free time now?
She was lost in happy contemplation.
She wanted to learn cooking or embroidery from her mother, and she thought it would be fun to bake cookies for her brother and the domain’s knights who had sided with her. Figuring out what would please her father was a considerable challenge, but she had plenty of time, so she decided she could think about it slowly.
That’s right.
There was plenty of time.
There should have been.
Huh?
Adelaide realized something was strange.
Her line of sight felt higher than usual.
She casually lifted her hands and saw familiar, yet slightly larger, hands and fingers.
What?
She saw her reflection in a mirror that had appeared out of nowhere.
Instead of her usual loose, modest dress, she saw herself clad in armor, like an adventurer.
Something was wrong.
Adelaide instinctively called out to her mother, who had been beside her.
“M-Mother! Mother?”
Her mother didn’t answer.
The Lady of Friedel, who had been sitting at the table with a gentle smile, was now lying in bed with a gaunt face, deep in a long slumber.
Adelaide turned to look where her brother was and, in the next moment, stumbled back in shock.
“Hiek…!”
Her brother was still sitting at the table, but his neck was twisted at a bizarre, impossible angle. Blood and brain matter oozed from his slightly crushed head, and a horse was licking the blood with its tongue.
With her last shred of hope—and a premonition of despair.
Adelaide looked toward her father.
The sword he always carried, as if to never forget his knightly mindset, was nowhere to be seen.
Because he had no torso.
His severed head was impaled on a long pole for display, and beneath it was a sign with the following words:
-August von Lennart. Beheaded here for the crime of harming innocent civilians as the leader of a bandit group.
*
“—No!!”
Thwack!
Adelaide shot up in bed with a scream, gasping for breath.
Her entire body was drenched in sweat, and the horrific final scene flickered beneath her eyelids.
Blinking in a daze, she clutched her chest, relieved to realize a moment later that it had all been a dream.
So, this is… Ouch.
As she tried to blankly sort out her thoughts, a pain in her forehead made her wince.
She reached up to the sore spot and her hand grasped a towel resting on her head.
It was a clean towel, still slightly damp.
As if it had been dropped while someone was nursing her, wiping away her sweat… uh, oh.
The pain in her forehead.
The used-looking towel.
The sensation, which she had just dismissed, of bumping into something as she sat up.
An instinctive deduction made a different kind of cold sweat run down her back.
With the creaking movements of a wooden doll, Adelaide turned her head to the side and saw it.
The black witch, collapsed unconscious next to the bed as if she’d been struck by a blunt weapon.
All sleepiness vanished.
“W-Witch? Witch!?”
Having unintentionally committed such an ungrateful act, Adelaide frantically tried to wake Dorothea.
Creak.
The door opened, and the Tin Knight entered, likely having heard the commotion.
His blue, will-o’-the-wisp eyes darted between Adelaide’s bewildered face and Dorothea’s collapsed form on the floor.
And then he spoke.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that a dark corruption event is a good way to get a quick power-up, but he doesn't recommend it because of its low potential ceiling!]
“That’s not what this is!?”
[The ‘Tin Knight’ asks if it was a personal grudge then, marveling at his disciple's bold methods!]
“It’s not that either!”
The Tin Knight paused.
A deep understanding flashed in his eyes.
Then, he nodded gravely.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ assesses that achievements are important for a hero, and that subjugating a witch would be a fine military exploit for the Lennart Mask!]
Thwack!
The towel Adelaide threw struck the Tin Knight squarely on the head.
The grace of her masters, who could make her forget even a foolish nightmare without a trace, was truly magnificent.
*
Adelaide trembled in fear, but fortunately, an enraged Dorothea did not curse her into a golden retriever.
“It’s a good thing I’d taken off the belt… My head is still ringing.”
“I-I’m so sorry.”
“It’s fine. More importantly, are you lucid enough for me to explain the situation?”
Adelaide nodded at Dorothea’s question.
After her battle with Hilda, the ruffian girl of the Lion Duke's bloodline, Adelaide had immediately collapsed from exhaustion. While her opponent’s strength was a factor, the violet lightning she had unleashed at the end had a greater impact.
While Sophia protected Adelaide, the White Knight had arrived—in place of the Tin Knight, who had been blown to bits and needed time for reassembly—and retrieved the two of them. She had been resting ever since.
“That girl… What about… what about Hilda?”
At Adelaide’s question, Dorothea’s face contorted.
“We tried to track them down afterward, but we lost them. A group that conspicuous would draw attention just by walking down the street, so they’ve probably already left the city.”
“What… could have been their purpose?”
“Well, to find that out, we’ll need to visit the Lennart dojo one more time.”
The reaction of the dojo members upon seeing Adelaide, who had lost the effect of the potion and returned to her original golden hair and violet eyes, was quite a sight to behold, she said.
“What do you want to do? Go meet them now? Or rest a bit more?”
Adelaide couldn’t help but smile wryly at the casually offered option to rest.
Dorothea must have been quite anxious herself because of her teacher's curse, yet she didn’t let it show at all.
Though she was still confused, the boisterous commotion with the Tin Knight seemed to have dispelled some of her gloomy feelings.
“Let’s go see them right now. There’s a lot I want to ask.”
*
Unlike the last discussion with just Sophia, Adelaide, and Norman, this time the entire Tin Knight party was present, making the reception room feel quite crowded.
The dojo staff showed slight displeasure, but Norman, the representative instructor, dismissed their concerns and greeted them alone.
“First, I must give you this.”
Swoosh.
Norman held out a small, fan-shaped metal fragment.
It was the token signifying she had passed the test of the Lennart dojo’s Trudvangar branch.
Normally, Adelaide would have been delighted to receive the token, but not now.
She accepted it with a stoic expression and quietly gathered her thoughts.
Although her companions were with her, they were only here for support. In this matter, at least, she needed to take the lead.
“Mr. Norman. There’s something I need to confirm first.”
“Please, speak.”
“What was the extent of your intentions?”
The Head of the Tower of Annihilation had said it.
Without a proper apology for the invasion incident, any kind of exchange was impossible.
To put it another way, that meant the Tower had already sent a ‘request for an apology’ to Lennart, or the Empire.
“I find it impossible to believe that the representative instructor of a Lennart dojo, especially one in charge of a place that serves as a channel to the Empire, would assign me a negotiation task with no chance of success without knowing anything. How much did you know, and what were you thinking when you sent me there?”
“…I understand that this situation may seem quite malicious. So, I will explain everything in order. First, regarding what the Tower claims was a ‘localized battle.’ The version of events I confirmed after inquiring with the main family is entirely different.”
Calmly, as if he had been waiting for this, Norman continued his explanation.
“It began with a series of raids in the northeastern part of the Empire. Several towns and cities near the border were said to have been burned to the ground. However, the military found it suspicious that a mere bandit group could break through an area protected by regular forces. They launched an investigation and soon confirmed that although the bandits were disguised as being from the lawless areas of the eastern continent, their actual base was in the Magic State.
The Empire sent an envoy to the Tower of Control, where the bandits were based, to protest, but the Tower of Control dismissed it as a baseless accusation. We had no choice but to proceed with subjugating the bandits within a range that did not cross the border… but suddenly, a large-scale force dispatched from the Magic State annihilated our subjugation force.
The military—or to be more precise, the main family, which has deep ties to the military—saw the pro-war faction rise up, denouncing the Magic State’s outrageous actions and calling for a fight. It nearly escalated to the point where an attack force was about to be dispatched.”
But war never broke out, he said.
“—The Guardian Lord of the State. Because Duke Lennart ordered the incident to be handled quietly.”