Hollow Scar (1)
I spent the time lightly savoring a faint sense of liberation.
Not being jerked around by anyone, no matter who they were — the present wasn't as bad as I'd expected.
The next day, the butler recovered the Family Head's body.
He even brought in a priest from somewhere, laid him out in a coffin, and made a whole production of it. Praying right in the middle of the manor for all to see, doing something to keep the corpse from rotting, then moving the coffin somewhere else.
I didn't bother asking where they were taking it.
They'd bury him somewhere sunny enough, I supposed. Even though that man would have preferred to be buried beside his wife.
When I glanced down through the window as the coffin was carried out, the black-draped casket looked smaller than I'd expected. Almost pitiful.
I did nothing that day.
I smoked a cigar, stared blankly out the window, and smoked another cigar. Sometimes I drank. When I was hungry I ate, and when I was sleepy I slept. That was the full extent of the effort I put into living.
Without thinking, the day passed surprisingly quickly. When I opened my eyes in the morning, the grain of the wood on the ceiling came into view, and by the time I'd finished counting the rings while smoking, the sun was already sinking.
I picked at the meals the servants left for me and left most of them unfinished. At this point I couldn't even tell if they tasted good or not. Whether my tongue had gone dull, or whether the food had always tasted like this.
At night I drank. Emptying a bottle brought sleep. And when I fell asleep thoroughly drunk, I didn't dream.
The servants avoided me. I could see them trying not to meet my eyes. Well — if the son who murdered his father sat around casually smoking cigars and doing nothing, that was only natural.
Living like this might actually be fine in its own way, but in the end… it was only a brief stretch of time while I waited for Lione.
Anyway, one of the knights Her Holiness had assigned to me approached me first one day.
"Commander, may I ask a question?"
Half-reclined and drunk, sucking on a cigar, I turned my head only slightly. Watching the smoke rise slowly toward the ceiling, I answered.
"Just one?"
"It may not be just one."
When I nodded for him to go ahead, the knight began speaking in a low voice.
"We've heard through the grapevine that you executed the unfaithful Grian Family Head… that is, the Sword Saint. But when the Family Head dies, it's not the Commander who inherits House Grian, as I understand it."
"So?"
"The Young Family Head will come looking for you. Shouldn't you prepare? If you give the order now, we can pull as much manpower and resources as possible from the nearby churches…"
"The Young Family Head won't draw her sword without thinking."
The knight didn't press further, but his face was curious.
"It's just… there's no one by that child's side."
No one to push her from behind and tell her to draw her sword, and no one to hold her back and tell her to put it away. A person without that kind of presence can't move first. Because they have no certainty. And a person who draws their sword first without certainty ends up falling as low as I have.
Even if you can kill your opponent — if there's nowhere to return to after the killing, can you really grip the hilt and draw your sword?
The knight didn't seem fully convinced, but he bowed his head and withdrew all the same.
What did Her Holiness's orders, the Church's will, mean to those people? Staying here under someone like me couldn't have been particularly enjoyable. Weren't these the kind of people who'd be happier dragging in some dark heretic from somewhere, putting on white conical hats, and throwing a campfire?
Anyway, four more days passed.
Smoking cigars, drinking, doing nothing — the same days repeating. Each day had once been long enough to kill me, but here each day was short enough to kill me. Maybe it was because I was waiting for someone.
I wished she'd come soon.
And then one morning, something moved beyond the window near the front gate.
Regardless of how the rumors had spread, Lione came into view, riding into the manor leading twenty fully armored and heavily armed knights. At that speed, she must have come the moment she heard the news.
I'd thought it would be good if she came quickly, but when she arrives this fast, it becomes burdensome — that's just how people are, I suppose.
Before long, the Church knights — who had somehow armed themselves without my noticing — came looking for me. They surrounded me as if to escort me, so I gently pushed them aside and took the lead. They didn't bother overtaking me again.
Five of them following slowly behind. I took a drag from my cigar, slowly exhaled the smoke, and started walking.
Twenty knights. From thirty it might get a little difficult, but with six of us including myself, we could probably handle twenty without taking injuries. Looking at how all those knights were fully armored, and some even carried long spears, Lione seemed to have come quite wary of the Church.
I stood at the top of the stairs overlooking the manor's front entrance. Ashes fell to the floor while I waited for the door to open.
Before long, the door opened. The servants, certain that bloodshed was coming, fled outside the moment it did. In truth, while I'd been here, half of them had already fled — except for a few important ones like the butler, the head maid, and the head cook.
Lione came inside, bringing those under her command.
"It's been a while."
"What's this 'a while' nonsense."
She scowled, but it didn't feel particularly intimidating. She was much shorter than me, and standing below the stairs, she didn't look very threatening either. But her hand rested on the hilt of her sword. Not drawn — just resting there.
"Say whatever you want. Just spit out some excuse, anything."
"What excuse?"
"Oppa… there's no way you could have killed Father. It was the Church, wasn't it?"
"I have no idea what you're talking about."
"Then what are those parasitic Church bastards behind you? Those honor-sucking, greedy, disgusting…"
One of the knights behind me started to step forward. I raised my hand slightly and pushed him back, and he withdrew on his own.
"Ha, they listen well, don't they? Sold off the whole family and got yourself quite the promotion?"
"I did get quite the promotion."
Honestly, I'd half expected Lione to charge at me the moment she saw me, but she didn't.
"So how long are you going to keep talking?"
"You think I fucking can't kill you just because you're my oppa?"
"You could kill me, sure."
I had killed her before, after all.
"You seem to be under some misconception. Oppa means nothing to me."
Words cut off for a moment. Lione scanned the knights around her once, then looked back at me.
"…Have the Church bastards behind you stand down first."
"Why?"
"I'll pull back the ones I brought too. So… I'll give you a chance to explain."
When the girl turned and ordered them to withdraw, a man who looked like her adjutant protested. Lione snapped that this was family business and to shut up and stand down, and only then did the knights withdraw. I gave a look of my own, and mine stepped aside as well. They didn't look particularly worried.
Outsiders might think these friends had killed the Family Head for me, but these friends knew the truth.
It felt awkward to move somewhere else, so we continued talking with me at the top of the stairs and her at the bottom.
"So what happened to Father. Tell me."
"I killed him."
"…Don't say ridiculous things."
"I told you, I killed him."
"You killed Father? You, who couldn't even hold a sword properly?"
"It was hard, yeah."
"…Are you insane?"
"Who knows."
"If… if the Church is threatening you somehow, I can help."
"And then what?"
"You'd have to be punished, of course."
"What kind of punishment?"
"Because Father's death… it wouldn't be completely free of your fault."
She still didn't seem to believe I'd killed him.
"Not free of it, no. Since I was the one who stabbed him."
"It wasn't you. There's no way you could have."
"Lione."
"…What."
"Why, after coming all this way, are you trying to resolve this with words?"
"……Because we can still settle this through conversation. And if we're being precise, aren't you the one who should be laying down your weapons and begging for your life? Twenty proper knights for the succession of House Grian — you and the Church think you can take them on?"
"So what are you going to do about it."
"……Tsk. Whatever it is, I don't want to start a swordfight inside this manor."
Hesitating, Lione clicked her tongue and slightly lowered her hand from the sword hilt. And when she climbed one step of the stairs, trying to approach me, I casually swung my sword at her.
Lione dodged, but because she'd let her guard down, the tip of the blade lightly cut near her arm. If I'd aimed for her neck, I could have cut it. That's how much she'd let her guard down… standing in front of me.
Same as when she'd taken that blow to the solar plexus last time… Lione seemed to think of me as someone who would never attack her. Not because she lacked skill or talent, but because she thought, if it's Oppa, he won't hit me, he won't attack me. Even while acting the way she did.
Blood seeped through her clothes. Lione's eyes went wide. She clutched the lightly cut arm, stared at the blood flowing down, then looked up at me. It was the face of someone who couldn't accept that her brother had cut her.
"Just now… Oppa swung that?"
"What, is there someone else here besides us?"
"No. No, that's not it."
Lione gritted her teeth.
"Ah, it shouldn't be…!"
"Lione. Draw your sword."
At those words, Lione paid no mind to the blood flowing from her cut arm. With a trembling hand she gripped the sword hilt — but still did not draw the blade.