I Am He Who Speaks the Truth
"Do not attack!"
Suetleug shouted in urgency as he watched the Death Knight speak. Fortunately, the creature did not appear to be the kind of undead that attacked anything that moved. It clearly had some other purpose.
Well, if it didn't, the village would be in a far bloodier state right now...
-You... you. Do you know where Sir Karamap is?
"...!"
Johan realized that things had just gone badly wrong.
An ordinary villager could have answered honestly — "I don't know."
But Johan?
He could feel it in his bones: this Death Knight would know a lie when it heard one.
Johan let out a single sigh and raised his mace and shield.
"If you're a knight, find out for yourself."
-You! You've hidden Sir Karamap! You must be the one who killed me!
"What do you think you're doing!"
Suetleug cried out in alarm. Blood could run hot, but picking a fight with a Death Knight?
"Is there anything I should watch out for when dealing with it?"
"Don't let it touch you with its weapon! The poison of the dead is vicious — it will rot your flesh and crumble your bones!"
The Death Knight surged forward, its whole frame shuddering. The swordsmanship it had learned in life was still etched into its body.
CRANG!
The rusted longsword struck against the shield. Even as a ruined weapon, the pressure it carried was no joke. With a hissing sound, a black mark seared itself across the surface of the shield, and the mark writhed as though it were alive.
"!"
The shield Johan carried was no ordinary one. The heater shape itself was unremarkable — it was the material that set it apart.
Johan's shield had been forged from a single slab of solid metal.
Shields made from a whole piece of metal were rare. Even thick wood offered plenty of protection, and a metal shield was simply too heavy — no matter how sturdy it was, it was worthless if the man carrying it exhausted himself in minutes.
But that much weight meant nothing to Johan. That was why, when Count Zarfen had offered him a shield, he had chosen the metal one.
And that choice was saving his life right now.
If it had been wood, it might have shattered by now.
The Death Knight rained down blows without pause. A living swordsman would have had to stop for breath, for fatigue — the knight had neither. The flurry of strikes came without end.
But Johan only needed one opening.
Blocking with the shield as he compressed his strength, Johan lunged viciously for the knight's flank. The mace came around like a siege ram and hammered into it.
WHAM!
With a terrifying crack, the knight was flung sideways.
"You all right?!"
"Are you calling to me, or to that thing?"
"You, obviously!"
"I'm perfectly fine."
The outer face of the shield had been chewed to pieces, but it still held. Unfortunately, the same seemed to be true of the Death Knight. Any ordinary man would have had his torso blown apart, yet it was already struggling to rise.
"What do you want with Karamap?"
-I must find Sir Karamap... but someone killed me.
"Who are you?"
-I am... I am Gairendel.
"Your family name?"
-I do not remember.
While they spoke, the Death Knight rose to its feet and reclaimed its weapon. Suetleug called out to it.
"The dead must return to the realm of the dead. What lingering regret drives you to torment the living?"
-I must find Sir Karamap.
"I swear upon the Ipael River — I do not know where he is!"
-I see... And you?
Johan answered by swinging his mace instead. The Death Knight took the hit and went flying backward once more.
Suetleug exploded in exasperation.
"What is wrong with you?! We ought to be helping the creature resolve its regret, not beating on it!"
"Lord Suetleug."
"?"
"Karamap has been dead a long time."
"...So that sword was Karamap's?! No wonder..."
"You suspected?!"
"No. I merely wondered."
The sword Johan had drawn was, by any measure, no ordinary blade. Magic that powerful radiating from raw iron could mean only one thing.
A Danus steel longsword!
For a wandering knight to possess a famous blade dating back to the Ancient Empire era...
At first Suetleug had assumed it was an heirloom, but on reflection that made no sense. It was not the kind of sword quietly passed down through an obscure, minor house.
Which meant it had been found by luck in some ruin — or taken from someone.
And that someone had been Karamap. Honestly, that had startled even Suetleug.
Karamap went about the battlefield in a full suit of dwarf-made plate armor — even meeting him head-on, it would have been nearly impossible to land a single wound on the man.
How on earth had Johan brought him down?
"Lord Suetleug. If we tell the creature the truth, how do you think it will react?"
"...I assumed that if we simply said we didn't know, it would pass on by... but I have no idea about that."
Undead with a purpose often left people alone if those people had nothing to do with that purpose.
The villagers had come to no harm, most likely because they knew nothing at all about Karamap.
But Johan was the man who had felled Karamap with his own hands. How would the creature respond to him?
-Sir Karamap... I must...
"I killed Karamap. It was a fair duel."
-You... you are lying. Sir Karamap does not lose!
Johan drew the Seal Retriever. The blade shimmered seductively, as though drinking in the faint moonlight. At the sight of that light, the knight froze.
"Karamap was defeated by me, and his sword became my possession. You have no reason to remain any longer. Stand down!"
The knight's form rippled, then began to lose shape and fade.
Its voice vanished, the light in its eyes died, and at last it dissolved into black smoke that melted away into the darkness.
"...Is it done?"
"You know, you might actually have an aptitude for magic."
Suetleug murmured in astonishment.
Magic was not the art of brute-forcing an enemy to the ground — it was the power in words themselves, the power to compel another to yield. And in what Johan had just done, Suetleug had glimpsed a hint of exactly that.
"Pardon? Are you saying that because you watched me swing my mace?"
"What kind of mad talk is that?"
"Well, I did fell a Death Knight with an ordinary mace, so I assumed that must be the magic you meant..."
"...That is, admittedly, a feat as astonishing as any magic, but it is not magic! It's like calling a catapult hurling a stone magic!"
Halfway through, Suetleug began to grow a little confused himself.
Because, when it came down to it, Johan's strength really was something close to magical.
"What I meant was that you felled the knight with the power of your words. Unless words carry real force, the undead cannot be brought down by speech alone."
I'm fairly sure it was because I'd already beaten the tar out of it, actually.
Johan thought it, but didn't say it aloud. It would only earn him a lecture about being a philistine.
"So I could learn magic too, then?"
"...Please, I beg you, don't go asking other mages that as casually as if you were asking for archery lessons. Gods know what abuse you'd take."
"I only speak so freely because it's you, Lord Suetleug."
"And you need to learn to ask more carefully... I suppose you could learn magic. But at most, that means it isn't impossible for you — it doesn't mean you can actually work it."
"?"
"For one thing, you have no interest whatsoever in mystery."
Suetleug carefully scraped up the black powder left behind where the Death Knight had stood and tucked it into a pouch.
It was apparently important enough that he handled it himself rather than ordering a slave to do it.
"You should have brought your slave along with you."
"You mean Goiden?"
"Deft hands, sharp head. My own slaves can't hold a candle to him."
Thanks to Goiden attending to Suetleug while Johan was away, the mage had come to rate him quite highly.
A traveling merchant who had roamed half the world — naturally he had a knack for exactly this sort of thing.
"Back to the matter of magic. If you want to wield it, you must take an interest in some mystery that exists somewhere in the world, and grasp its secret — the way I grasped the secret of the Ipael River. And this is not something I can simply explain to you, even if I wished to. Even if I told you, you would not understand. When I was young, I followed my master and spent months doing nothing but watching the surface of the Ipael River. By day I submerged myself in its waters; by night I stared at nothing but moonlight on the current. And at last, the river began to whisper to me. Could you do the same?"
Johan shook his head.
Now he understood why Suetleug had snorted when the notion of a knight learning magic had come up. Knights were men who ran chasing honor and desire — not the sort to dig some hidden mystery out of the world.
"Still, don't give up too easily. A life is long, and someday you may find yourself drawn to some mystery after all."
"Swordsmanship and archery don't have any mystery in th—"
"Enough of that nonsense and get inside. I'll be suspicious of you in there."
Johan and Suetleug put their heads together over how to handle what had happened in the night.
-This is surely connected to the lord of this fief. Otherwise there'd be no reason for a Death Knight to wander these parts.
-How is it connected?
-How should I know that? But there is an easier way.
-?
-We simply ask him.
-Will he actually answer?
-Of course he will. With the houses of Abner and Zarfen standing behind you, what does a fief lord imagine he has to be bold about?
Fair enough. Johan decided to go at it head-on.
"My lord. Last night, we saw a Death Knight prowling your lands."
"......"
At words dropped so bluntly by the two men who had come to see him alone, the lord's face went pale with bewilderment.
"I — what do you mean by that, I..."
"An undead wandering your village could bring harm at any moment. It may seem quiet now, but who can say it will not turn vicious tomorrow? And you hid this from us while such a creature stalks your own people. Have you no shame before your honor?"
Under Suetleug's rebuke, the lord's face darkened. He spoke with an expression full of gloom.
"As its lord, I have no intention of shirking responsibility. I will deal with the creature by any means necessary."
"You needn't trouble yourself on that account. I already felled it."
"...!"
At Johan's words, the lord found himself speechless, staring at the young man. Suetleug drove the point home.
"I saw it with my own eyes, so there's no mistake. The creature is gone."
"H-how?"
"A knight's valor, and a touch of magic."
At Suetleug's glance, Johan set down the shield he had been carrying. Across its surface was carved the black tracery of deathly resentment — unmistakably the mark of a battle with a Death Knight.
"This knight here had to wager his life in battle because your lordship concealed the truth. I believe he has earned the right to hear it. Speak. Why was that knight wandering these lands?"
The weight in Suetleug's voice shook the lord to his core.
The dwarf, sweat pouring down his face, agonized for a long while before he finally opened his mouth.
"...That knight is the one I killed."
"!"
The confession caught both Johan and Suetleug completely off guard.
After Karamap's disappearance, the Emperor had sent letters ordering his knights to find him.
Sir Gairendel had been among them.
He had moved in haste, bringing only a handful of men, and in the course of his search he stopped in the lands of House Valpa.
But House Valpa bore a blood grudge against the Emperor.
Had it been Johan, he would have skipped the meal entirely and started preparing to flee by midnight the moment he learned whose land he was entering. Gairendel was made of different stuff.
He requested the hospitality due a guest, and he believed that from the moment the lord accepted it, custom obliged the lord to protect him — whatever grudge he might hold.
Of course, there are always those who break custom. And that, precisely, was the lord of House Valpa. He poisoned the food and drink, killing Sir Gairendel and his men.
"A monstrous deed. You violated the customs of hospitality."
"I know... I know what I did. But... when I saw that wretch, daring to praise the Emperor and Karamap with that insolent mouth of his..."
The lord fell silent, head bowed. He had vomited up the truth; what happened now was out of his hands. It was the attitude of a man surrendering to his fate.
Suetleug nudged Johan with his elbow.
-What?
-You finish this. We can't just leave him sitting there like that.
-Excuse me, weren't you the one who dug all this up?
-I asked whether his lordship was dabbling in some sinister cult's relics or rituals! Never in my life did I imagine it was a blood-soaked revenge scheme of all things! This part falls to you. Rebuke him, judge him, shout at him — whatever you like.
Hmm.
It was true that he couldn't simply leave the man sitting there in this state. Johan organized his thoughts, then spoke.
"We will consider it something we never saw."
"...?!"
The lord's head snapped up. The words had come flying from the young knight before him — the very last thing he had expected to hear.