An Ancient Longing (10)
Jacob was lost in thought. About himself, his family, and the god he served. The three invisible pillars that had allowed him to remain wholly himself. Now, he was about to shatter one of those pillars with his own hands.
The Moneylord family. A house with no noble title that had arrogantly called itself a “family” for generations, yet possessed more than enough power to justify the claim. And the very place that had abandoned him.
When did it start? Jacob wondered. When had his family begun to change? When had it started to rot?
Was it when they began to clash with the Braver Company, which had supported Heroes and Saintesses for generations? When they started manipulating the Savior Empire from the shadows during its conquests? Or perhaps when the family’s founder discovered the legacy left behind by the Alchemy Hero?
Ha! So this family was rotten from the very beginning.
Those in the know understood. The Moneylord family never earned money through honest means alone. They were a house that could do anything with money, and would do anything for money. That was the world Jacob had been born into—as the eldest son of the current Merchant Lord who sat at the very top of the Moneylord family.
Following the family’s ironclad rule of passing the position of Merchant Lord only to blood relatives, Jacob had naturally been raised as the heir. Instead of learning how to treat people as people, he was taught to view them as numbers. Born with a fairly sharp mind, Jacob absorbed those heir lessons without difficulty.
It was both a blessing and a curse. Because he had been born human rather than as some automatic calculating magic tool, Jacob could see the malice hidden within the numbers he looked at. And he found it unbearable.
With a single signature on a document, he could cause someone’s death. An entire local noble house could be crushed under a mountain of debt and destroyed. Jacob refused to sign. And so he was driven out of the family.
For the ridiculous reason that he couldn’t even sign a single document.
Oddly enough, Jacob felt refreshed. He thought it was far better to become a penniless beggar than to spend his entire life in this hellish pit and lose his humanity. He believed he would never have to see his father’s face again—the man who viewed even his own blood children as nothing more than numbers.
“What the hell do you think you’re doing?!”
“What does it look like? I’m in the middle of succeeding you, Father.”
“You? The idiot who can’t even sign a single document wants to lead the Moneylords? With that sword? Do you think this is some backwater little kingdom? Do you honestly believe killing me will let you take the Moneylords?”
It was an arrogant statement—that a family without any title held more influence than the king of an entire nation. Jacob merely gave a bitter smile and offered no rebuttal. No, he couldn’t. Unfortunately, the Moneylords’ influence truly held that much “value.” At least until now.
“I think you’re misunderstanding something. I’m not a patricidal monster. Why would I kill you, Father? It’s a misunderstanding. A complete misunderstanding.”
“Hah? So you’re planning to threaten me instead? Turns out you’re not just an idiot, you’re a complete fool, Jacob!”
“No. I came here to arrest you.”
The Moneylords had become so obsessed with their own “value” that they had crossed a line that should never have been crossed.
“What?”
The most exalted and valuable existence in this world was not some filthy merchant family. It wasn’t the Savior Empire, and it certainly wasn’t money. It was the Hero and the Saintess, who received the gods’ mandate to protect the continent and spread the divine will.
“I had my suspicions, but I lacked solid evidence. Until now.”
“...I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Watching his father brazenly deny everything despite the clear evidence, Jacob inwardly praised his own decision. It had been the right choice to beg forgiveness from Lady Levia and rush here immediately. If he had delayed even a little, the evidence he had worked so hard to secure would have become useless.
“To think you would dare lay a hand on the Saintess candidates. And on top of that… you dared to touch Lady Levia?”
What angered Jacob the most was this. The fact that they had touched the god he served—Levia Leviathan. To Jacob, Levia was a god. She was light. She was salvation.
“Hah… You finally come back after so long and you’ve already forgotten what kind of place this is. What do you think you can do all by yourself?”
Even with Jacob’s sword pressed against his throat, the Moneylord Merchant Lord didn’t even blink. He casually raised his hand and flicked his fingers. Jacob knew exactly what that gesture meant. It was the signal to call the bodyguards hiding in the office to protect the Merchant Lord.
“Still, it’s been a while. I was somewhat glad to see you.”
If things had gone according to the Merchant Lord’s plan, Jacob’s head would have rolled across the floor the moment those words left his mouth. But what fell wasn’t Jacob’s head—it was the Merchant Lord’s own bodyguards.
Instead, figures clad in pure white armor and emerald cloaks descended.
“Father. If you ask a question, you should wait for an answer. When did I ever say I came alone?”
“Who the hell are you people?! You look like paladins—state your affiliation at once!”
Watching the flustered Merchant Lord, Jacob felt an inexplicable itch. It reminded him of something Lady Levia had said to him and the other knights when she was still a child.
Are you embarrassed that the Holy Front Knight Order is basically a dumping ground for rejects? Cut it out! If you guys act proud, no one will look down on you!
Affiliation… affiliation, huh. In the end, it didn’t really matter. As long as it wasn’t this hellhole, nothing else mattered to Jacob. The other knights had never been able to hold their heads high because of the stigma of being “rejects.” But now things were different.
There was someone who had created a paradise in the place they had fled to. Someone who had removed their stigma.
We are—
We who serve only Lady Levia, protect only Lady Levia, and offer our lives solely for Lady Levia.
The Divine Guard.
Thud! Thud! Thud!
At Jacob’s declaration, the knights surrounding the Merchant Lord gripped their swords with both hands and slammed them into the floor in unison.
Levia Knight Order.
After the introduction that would have made Levia cringe and scream if she had been present, Jacob spoke to the Merchant Lord in a voice colder than ever before.
“Moneylord Merchant Lord, Dallant Moneylord. You are guilty of illegal loan sharking, illegal slave trading, drug manufacturing and distribution, and countless other crimes. However, all of those pale in comparison to the most hideous sin you have committed.”
“Surrender quietly, traitor to humanity.”
All that worthless money of yours will finally find its true value in Lady Levia’s hands.
* * *
“Lady Levia! The angle is off by about ten degrees!”
“Ten degrees is still within the margin of error!”
What a cheapskate! Damn it! Who even cares about military right-angle tea drinking etiquette that’s so ancient people are starting to doubt it ever existed?! What does the angle matter when you’re just drinking tea?! And more importantly, why the hell do I have to do this?!
“Benica. You heard it during the meeting. I was originally a man, remember? There’s no need for me to learn this kind of stuff anymore.”
“Lady Levia, your past doesn’t matter. Right now you are a beautiful young lady, aren’t you? You are still a Saintess candidate, aren’t you? You may very well become the Saintess soon, isn’t that right? There is more than enough reason for you to learn perfect tea table manners.”
“No! Even so! I really don’t think I need to learn this! Look at Mint!”
“Is the young lady of the ducal house perfect, you mean?”
“Huh?”
At Benica’s words, I turned my head to look at Mint. There sat a graceful young lady with her legs neatly together, delicately lifting her teacup. She closed her eyes, wore an elegant smile, and savored the subtle aroma of the tea.
Who the hell are you? Where did Mint go?
Mint took a sip—slurp—and spoke with a seductive gaze.
“Is it to your liking?”
“...”
Traitor…! I thought you were the same as me!
“Heh.”
Mint set down her teacup and instantly discarded the prim-and-proper lady mask she had been wearing. She began to laugh at me openly.
“If you’re the daughter of a ducal house, this much is basic.”
“Did you hear that? It’s basic. Basic!”
Damn it, what the hell am I even doing here?
It was peaceful. So peaceful, in fact, that the etiquette lessons I had barely managed to squeeze in back at the Entat Parish had resumed. And they were taking place in the training grounds of the Le… Knight Order!
I had tried to use the excuse of training with these uncles to escape the etiquette classes, but they had vanished somewhere and I hadn’t seen them for days.
-Clink!
“Master! I completely agree with you! A Saintess doesn’t need this kind of thing! Combat! Strong enemies! Explosions! Ehehehe! It’s such a shame we only destroyed half of the Papal Palace! It feels like I was interrupted right in the middle of taking a huge dump! Let’s just smash the rest and rebuild it from scratch, yeah?”
Our El-Asat. The madness has returned.
Crack, crack, crack!
“Ugegegek…!”
“El-Asat. I told you I have no intention of becoming a Saintess, and I’m not your Master either. Go find someone else.”
No matter how much I tried to persuade this crazy spear, it refused to listen.
“I know.”
“If you know, then what—?”
“I know that Master has no intention of becoming a Saintess. I also know that I am not Master’s true weapon.”
Did this thing suddenly regain its sanity? It’s speaking normally for once.
“Even so… Master is still Master.”
Can you please explain what you mean in a way I can understand?
Looking back at El-Asat’s behavior so far, sudden outbursts were nothing new for this thing. But hearing it speak so seriously and normally created a massive gap that felt incredibly unsettling. If it had been a beautiful girl, I could have forced myself to call it gap moe. But when something that usually spoke like a lunatic suddenly became completely normal, it was actually terrifying.
“Whether you are a Saintess or not doesn’t matter. I simply like Master. And honestly, there isn’t much difference between you and the original Master anyway.”
“You’re saying the first Saintess and I aren’t that different?”
“Yes! Your appearance is the same, and the holy techniques you use are identical.”
“The only one who can compress and stack that divine power is Master!”
El-Asat’s words carried a strange nuance. To say that someone from 8,000 years ago had a face exactly like mine and used the same holy techniques… it almost sounded like I was that person’s daughter.
“Master is the daughter of Master, right? That alone is more than enough reason for you to be Master!”
So instead of looking for my mother from my previous life, I need to find my mother from this life…? Wow, having two mothers must be nice. I feel like I’ve only seen that line in anime, yet here I am hearing it in real life.
“And above all else…”
El-Asat brought the side of the spearhead embedded with the red gem close to my ear, as if whispering so no one else could hear.
“The original Master also had magi flowing through her body. Just like you.”