The Knight of Loyalty and the Burden of Nobility
Cold kindness. "Congratulations, Count Leng Dust."
"No. Why would I be...?"
Leng Dust, the knight of absolute loyalty. At twenty-six, he was a peerless hero who had protected Carix Valentia, the last remaining successor, against seventeen knights who had betrayed the ducal house. He had charged alone into the count’s estate that assassinated the young duke, beheaded the count—a 4th-grade mage—and, with thoroughness that left no room for future trouble, hunted down the fleeing retainers who had ungratefully sold out the ducal house. It was an achievement that truly lived up to the epithet of "Knight of Loyalty."
"When on earth did I do such things...?"
"You did all of it. Why are you pretending you didn't?"
"It was all you, Young Master!?"
"No, it wasn't."
"Pardon?"
"I was attacked by the traitorous knights."
"...Yes."
"But what were you doing then?"
"I was stomping on the gatekeeper whose arm had been severed."
"You protected my back without betraying me until the very end."
"How does that count as protecting..."
"When we went to the count's estate, was there any other escort besides you?"
"B-but the count was killed by you..."
"No one saw it. Above all, everyone testified that it was you who blocked the private soldiers at the entrance of the count's estate."
"No, that was under your orders..."
"But you were alone, weren't you?"
"No..."
"And who sent the assassins to the fleeing retainers?"
"No, that was you...!!"
"Who sent them?"
"I... I requested it."
"Right. So who did it?"
"Ah, well... what is this..."
I sipped my tea, laughing through my nose at the despairing Leng. When I was cleaning out the trash in the family, I had actually investigated Leng as well. Honestly, his skill in following my orders and preventing others from interfering at the count's estate was quite useful, and because he was that kind of guy, I wanted to dig deeper to see if anything would come out. But this guy had lived a life like a legendary Pokémon from whom you could find nothing even after a thorough search, having spent five years as a squire and three years as a knight in the ducal house.
"A-ah, no... If you're taking me to the academy, you could just take me as an escort... I'm twenty-six now, what is this..."
"Why on earth do you hate it? You're a count. Money comes in even if you just sit there, you know? I can't give you all the western territories managed by Count Berzen, but you've been given three villages and a gateway that, while ambiguous to call a city, still has a fortress attached to it. Why do you hate it when I'm giving you money? You can even support your only mother and younger sibling comfortably, can't you?"
"No! How can I, a commoner, manage that!? I haven't even finished learning how to read properly! This is really not right!!"
"It's fine. You just need to make people who are good at their jobs do the work. I make you do everything for me, don't I?"
"Ah..."
High-ranking people just need to know how to use others well. Look at the nobles from the start. The eldest sons study a bit because they have to inherit the house, but the second or third sons below them, and the young ladies who can't inherit the house, are always causing trouble wherever they go. Those troublemakers studying? They're out doing drugs, visiting red-light districts and gambling dens, and spawning illegitimate children. It was possible that Leng knew more letters than they did.
"Leng. Have confidence. You are the escort I want to take to the academy, even if I have to make you a noble to do it. Or do you still not trust me?"
"How could that be! Where in the world is there an idiot who doesn't trust you even after seeing your true self?"
True self, huh. I don't remember showing him much yet. Anyway, if he trusts me based on what I've shown so far, that was enough.
"Then stop grumbling and prepare for enrollment. We're entering the academy next week."
"? I haven't even taken the exam."
"That is the privilege and responsibility of a noble. You are now the head of the Dust Count family. You aren't going to take an exam; you are going to fulfill the duties of a noble."
"......? Wait, the duty of a noble is surely to graduate from the academy and go to the magic beast front...? Young Master? Young Master!?"
I'm sorry, Leng. But for me to be comfortable, you have to enlist. This is all necessary stress.
"This isn't right!! What kind of wealth and glory am I supposed to enjoy at the magic beast front...!!!"
You are the successor to the ducal house you chose to trust and follow. Endure it with grit and guts.
A carriage heading to the academy after my twentieth birthday. I was on my way to the academy with Leng, who had been forcibly made a count and had to enlist from school enrollment all the way to the magic beast front.
"Leng."
"Yes."
"Hypothetically, I found the person involved in the murder of my older brother. What would you do?"
"I would draw my sword immediately."
"And then?"
"I would verify their level of involvement and either stab them or subdue them."
"5 points."
"......Is that out of 10?"
"No. Out of 100."
I laughed through my nose at the mid-twenties knight who looked dejected. Actually, it wasn't even a 5-point answer. It was about a 25-point answer. Drawing a sword and subduing them—those two things are common sense and obvious. But the ultimate answer I sought from him was, "How will you completely break the opponent and punish them?"
First of all, the question itself implies I found someone involved in my brother's death. That means even if they didn't do it directly, they were linked in some way, and that alone makes them a target that wouldn't be enough even if we chewed them to death from our family's perspective. So.
"If you find them, leave them be for now. Identify their precious people, belongings, and family. Seize their status perfectly and use it as material for threats and punishment. That is the bare minimum starting point."
"...Young Master. Have I ever told you that sometimes what you say is too scary?"
"You're talking about likes and dislikes now that you're a count?"
"It's not that... it's just truly scary."
I have no intention of tormenting or getting involved with characters corresponding to the player, the heroines, or NPCs linked to the player. But the existence that killed my brother, and everything that existence holds dear, is all a 'target for revenge.'
"...I must have cherished my brother quite a bit."
"I know that."
"Really? I, the person himself, just realized it now."
"Of course. As soon as you found out Count Berzen was involved, you went straight there and revealed the strength you had been hiding until now, wiping out the entire family. It would be strange not to know."
I see. Yeah. That's right. So that's how you could tell. Still, it stings a little... that I couldn't save my brother.
"...So, just don't get caught."
"Pardon? Weren't you going to find them?"
"I'm talking to myself."
The good-aligned characters linked to the player. Important figures. People with sad stories. Just, please, I beg you, don't get involved even by a hair's breadth. 'If you are involved, then... well, it will truly be unfortunate.'
I will certainly be more cruel and thorough than the Carix of the original work.
After finishing the boring, pedantic, and uninteresting entrance ceremony, and confirming only that classes start tomorrow, I headed straight to my lodging. I had requested to use the same lodging my brother used. It was a measure taken because I didn't know where or what kind of evidence might be there.
"There isn't a single servant or attendant?"
But why is the state of the lodging like this? Is it a haunted house? Why is it filled with dust, looking like it hasn't been cleaned in half a year?
"Young Master. Did you sleep during the entrance ceremony earlier?"
"No. I just didn't listen because it was annoying."
Students of the academy, be righteous and clean. Don't forget the pride of an academy student, blah blah blah. I didn't want to increase my brain's fatigue by listening to that kind of stuff. To begin with, the academy people themselves are righteous-less, unclean bastards, so why was their bullshit so long and drawn out? So I intentionally ignored the sounds and was contemplating how to find the culprits in the academy and how to punish them, but it seems there was something I needed to know.
"You can bring only one servant or attendant from the family. It was said that the management of the lodgings for noble children must be done by hiring commoners who enrolled in the academy, paying them wages, and using them as servants."
"...Did the academy have something like a servant or attendant training class?"
"I don't know that either?"
I asked because it wasn't in my memory. Is the academy crazy? Do they think noble attendants are part-timers serving at a restaurant?
"Sigh... Then the reason the state of the lodging I'm looking at right now is a mess is..."
"Since Young Master Deolis passed away, there was no one to pay them, so didn't the students all leave?"
I wanted to say, "Go catch all those bastards right now..." but I held back. Right. They're commoners. They're kids who paid money to enroll and learn at the academy. It's a problem directly linked to their own lives, so they couldn't have kept managing a lodging that didn't even pay them. Still, I'll investigate all of them.
"Leng."
"Yes."
"Clean everything within today. I'll be using my brother's room, so don't touch his belongings. I'm going home to sleep today, and I'll come back tomorrow."
"Eh...? Y-Young Master!?"
Leaving behind Leng, who was shouting that it was impossible for him alone, I headed straight to the carriage stop.
"Ah, Leng. You incompetent guy who is good at work."
There is a carriage stop at the academy. It is a place where coachmen like Bramble, one of the bastards who caused my brother's death, are always on standby, managing the family's carriages. However, the family carriage we rode in was not at the stop.
"Sigh... where do I even start teaching him."
The fact that I could bring one servant or attendant from the family, which I mentioned earlier. He carried it out without even consulting me. Well, he is a count now too, so he must have wanted someone to serve him quickly. I understood that since I didn't care, he cared for himself. But if you were going to do this, you should have bought your own carriage...!
"Sigh. Has the maintenance fee not been deposited yet? I'll have to tell the head of the family to have a carriage turned over in his name."
I thought he came with me because he was an escort, but it seems he didn't even buy a carriage at all. I wish he would take care of these parts on his own, he's such a frustrating friend.
.........No, wait. He spent his whole life just swinging a sword and suddenly became a noble, so I'm the bad guy for telling him to take care of it.
Eventually, I started walking again to find the public station, and as I walked, I realized that quite a lot of students were commuting. Most were noble children with homes in the capital and the children of wealthy merchants. The appearance of commoners was rather invisible.
"Is that person the young duke?"
As I walked to the station like that, the gazes looking at me from the surroundings began to increase.
"His looks are decent, though?"
"Where is he going?"
"If it's that direction, isn't it the station?"
"Don't tell me... the family didn't even give him a carriage?"
"Heh. They said he was an incompetent son they let go, it's really funny. How can he not even have someone to serve him."
What is this. Is it a prayer that they want to die? They aren't even speaking quietly so I can't hear them... They were giggling among themselves as if they wanted me to hear on purpose.
Hmm. But I don't intend to act like a villain. If it were the real Carix, he would never have stayed still after hearing that, but I, who decided to deviate from the role, can make a sufficiently rational response...
"They said the young duke who died last time also had terrible grades at the academy, so the Valentia family is confirmed to be ruined in this generation, too—"
The man's voice stopped at an ambiguous timing.
"Huh?"
"Hick!?"
Carix had appeared as if he had been sitting next to the man on the bench as if he had been there from the beginning. He looked straight at the pair of man and woman who were standing, and with a nod, informed them that the wrist of the man who had been talking until a moment ago was bent backward and twisted upward.
"Laugh."
The man whose wrist was grabbed looked at a glance like he was bowing his head and touching the ground with his remaining hand, but the two people who were watching his expression from the front could tell. Even though he was trying to scream, a foot, whose placement they didn't know, was slightly lifting his neck to block it. They could also tell how much pain their friend was feeling in that posture right now.
"Do you have many lives?"
An incomprehensible question flew out of nowhere. But behind the voice colder than ice, what could be seen was a giant snake opening its maw, ready to swallow them at any moment. The man and woman whose friend was grabbed instinctively realized the reality that if they said the wrong thing here, they didn't know what would happen to their grabbed friend, and to themselves.
"S-so-sorry..."
"That's not the answer to the question."
"O-one! We have one life!!"
"Speak quietly. And I told you to laugh, didn't I?"
"Yes...!"
The two people made forced smiling faces while looking at their friend, whose wrist was grabbed, who had started to drool and even shed tears. They turned their eyes and prayed that someone would help them, but they only realized that their location and the location where Carix was sitting were so exquisite that this situation could not enter anyone's eyes unless someone was focusing on it from the high floors of the academy.
"This friend seems to have self-taught his family education, but my brother was murdered and became a deceased person."
He just moved the grabbed wrist slightly while letting out a flat voice, but the terrible, dull sound like bones being crushed struck the two people's eardrums.
"So I am very sensitive right now."
The two people could not take their eyes off Carix, who was speaking softly with a truly non-sensitive expression.
"If I, who am sensitive, am surprised by your conversation and pull this shoulder, what do you think will happen?"
"""!!"""
The grabbed friend was a knight. He was an incoming student who had reached the 8th grade. Such a student had his arm twisted in an absurd direction without even recognizing it or resisting. And he's going to pull it? They didn't even want to imagine it.
"There is only one thing I want from you."
Crack. A sound like a thick tree breaking burst out from the friend's shoulder.
"Don't put my brother in that smelly snout of yours."
The gesture of Carix gently stroking the back of the head of his friend, who had started to shed tears with a face stained with pain, was so heterogeneous that the two people also wanted to cry.
"Don't appear in front of me."
He stood up with a gentle smile as if he were having a daily conversation, and before they knew it, he had let go of his friend's arm and was patting their shoulders. They hadn't seen him sit in the chair, and even though they were watching from right in front, they hadn't seen when he stood up. And he could grab their arms at any time and make them like the friend who had collapsed in front of the bench. Recognizing that action that informed them of that, the two man and woman couldn't even answer and nodded desperately, and Carix, as if satisfied with the two people's awareness, patted their cheeks and walked in the direction where the stagecoach was.
In the place where only they remained, the two people moved twitchingly and supported their fallen friend to stand up.
"Uh...?"
The friend's arm was fine. They had clearly heard the terrible sound several times, but there was no place that was broken. And in the left hand of the friend, who they thought was broken, a note was clutched.
-[Remember only what you must remember.]
The day after the entrance ceremony. Three names disappeared from the academy register.