The Shame of the Ducal House
My vision was smeared with blood. A hot, viscous liquid soaked my eyelids, and a grotesque ringing tore through my eardrums, stretching on and on.
...Again.
It was a familiar sensation. That vicious chill that came when every bone in the body crumbled to pulp and the soul was hurled into the cracks between dimensions.
By the time the stench of blood washed away, the gore pooled in my mouth had vanished with it. All that remained was a bitter film of saliva on my tongue.
"...Hah."
I opened my eyes slowly.
A ceiling of dark red timber looked down at me. Lavish furnishings crowded every corner of the room. My bedroom, in the main house of House Astell, in the Imperial Capital.
I lifted my hand without hurry. The left one — the same hand that, mere moments ago, had been sheared off in a demonic beast's jaws inside a hellish dimensional rift. It was smooth. Not a single scar. The bloodless hand of a boy.
At some point I had started checking my hands first whenever I opened my eyes. If they were still attached, I had come back. If not, I was still in the process of dying.
In the corner of my vision, transparent letters surfaced of their own accord, without my calling them.
"The tenth..."
I swallowed a hollow laugh and pressed my hands over my face.
Ten times.
It sounded like so little. Ten times you only reached by dying, every single time.
In the first regression I had clawed and fought to save the world, and a comrade I trusted had cut my throat. In the third I had swung a sword day and night for the family's recognition, and become fodder for demonic beasts on the front lines. In the seventh I had given up on everything and fled to the Empire's hinterlands — and still burned to death in hellfire when the world ended.
And in the ninth, the last one... I had driven a blade into my own chest. Death itself refused to take me, and threw me back into this seventeenth spring.
Salvation, revenge, running, suicide... none of it had meant a thing.
No matter what I did, I came back to the same spring.
The shame of the family. The discarded youngest son with an F-rank magic aptitude. The man who entered the Academy, got framed, and had his engagement broken off.
Ethan von Astell.
Whatever rage or grievance I had once felt toward the world had long since gone somewhere I could not follow. The only wish I had left was a single one.
This life... I'll just live it quietly, and go.
Do nothing. Form no deep ties with anyone. Simply go where the wind blows, flow where the water runs. Until I found a way to sever the cycle of regression, I would not be swept up in any storm. I would keep my head down and breathe, and that was all.
I rose from the bed and pulled on an outer robe. On the table, a small porcelain cup sat with tea gone lukewarm. I picked it up and brought it to my lips.
A bitter, cold fragrance wet my tongue. Something in my chest settled, just a little.
The sound of the cup returning to the table was unusually loud. Had this room always been so quiet?
Three knocks. Precisely three. Cautious footsteps beyond the door, and a voice that trembled as it came through.
"Y-Young Master... breakfast is served."
The voice of Lia, my personal maid.
The old me would have snapped at that sound and thrown the teacup, or else forced an awkward smile, desperate to stay in the servants' good graces. Now, though — nothing came to mind at all.
"Yeah. I'm coming out."
The door opened. Lia, head bowed and body trembling, flinched and looked up at me. She took a half-step back — the posture of someone waiting for today's allotment of temper.
I passed her without a word and walked out into the corridor. Lia's eyes went wide, darting in confusion.
"Y-Young Master...? Are you going straight to the dining hall?"
"Yeah."
"Um, that is... would it be all right if I didn't straighten your clothes...?"
"It's fine. I'm tired. Let's just go."
I walked on without looking back.
Lia kept a half-step ahead of me and glanced behind her twice, then twice more before we reached the end of the corridor. I knew what she was measuring. When I would lose my temper.
Treating her kindly would not change this girl's future. Give someone affection and it costs you later to tear it away. I had tried it a few times. I stopped.
The grand dining hall of House Astell. Beneath a high ceiling, ornate chandeliers hung in a glittering line, and a long marble table was laid with a feast.
At the head of the table sat the patriarch of House Astell, Commander of the Imperial Knights Guard: Duke Maha von Astell. Beside him, the pride of the Imperial Academy and a consummate Sword Master — my eldest brother, Chris von Astell.
The moment I opened the dining hall doors, two pairs of cold eyes found me at once. Chill. Dismissal. And a faint boredom.
In House Astell, a youngest son with no magic aptitude was a disgrace by the mere fact of existing. A boy who caused nothing but incidents, who let his inferiority complex run wild and stained the family name — a presence of no use to anyone.
"You're late, Ethan."
The Duke's heavy, cold voice broke the silence.
Early on, that voice would have made me clench my teeth in resentment, or else pour out every excuse I had in a bid to be acknowledged. I said nothing. I drew out a chair and sat down quietly.
The plates were already set. Meat first, soup after. The same sequence nine times. The tenth was no different.
A clink of cutlery.
"..."
The Duke's brow and Chris's twitched, just barely.
"You're quiet today."
Chris set down his fork and stared at me.
"Normally you'd be whining from the moment you sat down — your head hurts, the servants are disrespecting you, on and on."
I swallowed a bite of meat, took a sip of tea, and answered without inflection.
"It would be poor manners to complain with a meal this fine set in front of me."
"...What?"
"Brother, I'll accept whatever reprimand you have for my tardiness after we've eaten."
Chris's face twitched, as if a nerve had jumped.
Come to think of it, I don't believe I ever used that address at this point.
To me it was just a familiar form of address. At this point in time, though, I had been so jealous of Chris that I had spent every day avoiding him.
"You... what's with that look in your eyes."
Chris muttered it under his breath. I gave that no answer either, and set my cup down.
Then the Duke, seated at the head of the table, opened his heavy mouth.
"Next week, the young lady of House Rosenberg... your fiancée, Eleanor, will be visiting the estate."
The air in the dining hall sank, subtle and immediate. The maids lowered their eyes as if by prior agreement, and even Chris's hand, still holding his fork, went still.
Rosenberg. After nine lives, I knew all too well why that single name made an entire dining hall go careful.
I rinsed my mouth with water and nodded.
Eleanor von Rosenberg.
Across nine regressions, the woman I had killed the most, and the woman who had killed me the most. In one life I had died trying to save her. In another, a misunderstanding had put her blade through my chest. In another still, we had held knives to each other's throats and burned to ash together.
There had been a time when her beauty had captivated me, when I had tried every means I knew to win her heart. That time was gone. Even the thought of her silver hair did not stir my chest at all.
She would come next week. She would sign. That would be the end of it. After that, we would have no reason to see each other.
Perfect timing.
I blotted my mouth neatly with a napkin and spoke without interest.
Every sound in the dining hall died.
A maid froze with a teacup half-caught in her hands. Chris's fork hit the table. And Duke Astell's brow twisted into something ugly.
"...What did you just say, Ethan."
The Duke's voice dropped low. The terrifying mana of an S-Rank Knight crushed down across the entire dining hall — a pressure as if the moisture in the air itself were freezing solid. A weight that would have put an ordinary knight or a noble heir on the floor, wetting himself.
The Duke looked down at me and issued a cold command.
"You have no authority to decide an annulment. The political marriage with House Rosenberg is an instrument of this family's interests. Even if you are a card to be discarded, the one who chooses is me — not you."
His murderous intent came in to pin me down. I... picked up my teacup and met it without moving.
I had taken that murderous intent nine times. The first two, my legs had given out. After that, it just washed over me.
For an instant, the Duke's red eyes wavered.
Why was there no fear in the eyes of a youngest son who ought to have been terrified.
Better to cut it clean here than play the cowardly youngest son. If it meant peeling off a troublesome fiancée, a few suspicious looks were a cheap price.
My throat was wet with tea, so the words did not catch.
"It is precisely for the honor of this family."
I set the cup down and looked across into the Duke's red eyes.
"Lady Eleanor already despises me, and this family already regards me as a card to be thrown away, does it not? Having me quietly accept an annulment is more advantageous than leaving me as a lingering obstacle."
"...You."
The Duke's voice split, just slightly.
No one else opened their mouth.
I rose from my seat without hurry.
"Thank you for the meal. I'm tired, so I'll retire first."
I turned and walked out of the dining hall. Behind me I could feel my father's and brother's stunned gazes, and the frozen breath of the maids.
I did not look back even once.
They would all be people who did not matter soon enough.