Chapter 14: It Was Said That Forgiveness Was Easier Than Permission
14
“Long time, no see.”
Even at the moment I opened my mouth, it felt as though my lips were drying out.
Priest Garrison, wearing a benevolent smile, looked at me and spoke as if nothing were wrong.
“There was a summons from the Order, so I had to make a hurried trip. I ended up being delayed longer than expected.”
The same calm voice as always.
And yet, the intuition of Akimond, who had faced countless strong foes and monsters, was sending out a warning.
‘Can I respond with my current strength? No, that’s impossible.’
A talent that allowed me to perfectly steal an opponent’s swordsmanship.
But to make use of that, I first had to survive being hit by the technique.
With this body, which had only just begun to accumulate real combat experience, it was something impossible even if I died and came back to life.
“However, I happened to hear something interesting from the Order, you see?”
Garrison’s smile as he approached me grew deeper and deeper.
“Something interesting?”
“When the young master was attacked, they said a Necromancer appeared, didn’t they?”
At his question, it felt as though my breath was caught in my throat.
Forcing a smile, I met his gaze.
“That did happen.”
“I killed that bastard with my own hands. But they say there wasn’t just one trace of a Necromancer, but two.”
With each step he took forward, I could see the strength gradually building in his hand.
“A Necromancer who deceived my eyes and escaped so leisurely—where do you suppose he is now?”
“Well, I’m not really sure.”
Kkudeudeuk!
With nothing more than the simple act of clenching his fist, the very air trembled.
‘As expected, he’s planning to kill me right here.’
An intuition bordering on certainty.
Sensing the danger instinctively, my smile only grew thicker.
Koom-!
A pressure so intense it felt as if the duke’s mansion itself were shaking.
The killing intent emitted by the strongest human weapon of the Order pressed down on the space around us.
“Do you intend to keep lying until the very end, Necromancer?”
Along with a voice that had sunk into a deep abyss, his smile vanished without a trace.
A face like an emotionless piece of wood.
At the same moment his eyes captured my smile, his overwhelming force came crashing toward me.
Violence that could crush a human body with nothing but wind pressure.
Even up to the very moment it was about to engulf me, the smile on my face did not disappear.
Why?
Because everything was going exactly according to plan.
Kaaang-!
Just before Garrison’s fist could reach my face, it was knocked away.
Garrison’s fist, whose sheer brute strength alone rivaled a siege ballista.
The sword strike that neutralized it became a shockwave that shook the mansion.
Kururururu-!
“Kyahhh?!”
“What is this, an earthquake?!”
“Protect His Grace the Duke! Guards, to your positions…!”
At the sudden impact, the entire mansion was thrown into a state of emergency.
Before long, guards and knights would pour out in perfect order, converging on Delain and Heinkel.
“Could you explain what you think you’re doing right now, Garrison?”
Hearing the voice from behind me, I let out a sigh.
It was both a sigh of relief and a complicated lament.
“Your Grace the Duke.”
Garrison’s heavy voice echoed through the corridor.
The one who had blocked his attack from behind me was Heinkel.
The current Duke of Leinrant, and the strongest knight on the continent.
‘He must have heard most of my conversation with Garrison as well.’
Knights were more sensitive to hostility and killing intent than anyone else.
With someone of proxy rank emitting killing intent so blatantly, there was no way the renowned Duke of Leinrant would fail to notice it.
“I’ll ask again. What exactly were you trying to do to Klein just now? Garrison Bierkman.”
“Klein? No. What stands before my eyes is nothing but a loathsome Necromancer.”
A sword glowing blue from condensed mana, and surging mana that wavered around it.
Upon confirming that, Garrison’s body began to swell.
Kuuoooo-!
Sharply refined mana of a swordsman. And the deputy’s violence baring its fangs toward it.
The fighting spirits born from two different pinnacles intertwined, and cracks began to spread throughout the mansion.
“Your Grace the Duke! Are you unharmed, urgh?!”
“Do not approach rashly!”
A knight tasked with protection shouted urgently.
A chilling fighting spirit that even guards unable to handle mana could feel.
Everyone who sensed it watched this place while holding their breath.
“The young master used necromancy. You know what that means, don’t you?”
“Nowhere on the continent except the theocracy forbids the activities of necromancers. The use of necromancy alone is not reason enough to kill Klein.”
“You of all people should know what necromancy means to the young master.”
“He suffered for seven years because of a trifling rumor. That’s enough.”
Brushing aside Garrison’s words, Heinkel raised his sword and aimed it straight at him.
“As the Duke of Leinrant, I cannot stand by and allow the Order to interfere further in the affairs of the main house. Deputy.”
At those words, Garrison’s expression grew even more ferocious.
Referring to him by title rather than by name.
In other words, Heinkel, as the Duke of Leinrant, was declaring his intent to escalate this matter into a conflict between House Leinrant and the Holy Order.
“Withdraw your sword. Unless you wish to make the entire North your enemy…!”
“Huahahahaha-!”
In the middle of his words, Garrison’s mad laughter cut Heinkel off.
“I proclaim this: let there be no shame in your faith. Entrust not your heart to the tongue of an unbeliever.”
Reciting the holy doctrine of the Holy Order, Garrison bared his white teeth and growled.
“If one trembles at such a paltry threat and fails to purge the heretic before his eyes, how could he dare to call himself a deputy?”
“Garrison…!”
There was no room left for negotiation or dialogue.
Thinking as much, Heinkel drew even more mana into his sword.
Kurururu…!
The fighting spirits of the two men churned as if they might explode at any moment.
A hair-trigger situation.
If they were to clash like this, the mansion would collapse from the aftermath alone.
And at the very moment it reached its limit.
“Priest Garrison!”
Arin appeared between the two of them, cutting off the space between Heinkel and Garrison.
“?!”
“Arin, miss?”
An innocent maid who appeared in the midst of tension that felt ready to explode.
Perhaps neither Heinkel nor Garrison had expected it, because the fighting spirit that had been shaking the entire area scattered in an instant.
Yet whether she knew that or not, Arin puffed out her cheeks and held out her hand toward Garrison.
“You said you’d bring me a present when you came back!”
“….”
“…….”
Hearing those words, neither Garrison nor Heinkel—nor even I, who was watching the scene—could say anything.
“Come on! Hurry!”
Was being unable to read the mood a talent at this point?
Under pressure that would have crushed an ordinary person into helplessness, Arin casually walked right through it and held out her hand to him.
“……Yes, I did say that.”
With those words, Priest Garrison let his shoulders slump as if all strength had left him.
Perhaps deciding that he couldn’t kill me in front of Arin, Garrison relaxed his grip, rummaged through his robes, and handed a small box to Arin.
“Candy!”
When Arin opened the box and cried out with sparkling eyes, Garrison laughed hollowly and said,
“There’s a famous confectionery on Royalgate 3rd Street. I picked it up there.”
Even as he spoke, Arin was already biting into a piece of candy with a blissful expression.
‘No wonder his strength drained away.’
Watching Garrison click his tongue inaudibly, I felt relief inside.
Looking at that, everything that had been about killing and being killed just moments ago felt utterly meaningless.
“I will return again, young master.”
I’ll come back to kill you again.
Garrison, as always, greeted me like that and then left down the corridor.
“Do you want to try one too, young master?”
As if she couldn’t see my utterly drained expression, Arin came closer and held out a piece of candy to me.
“No, I’m fine. And….”
“And?”
Arin, who had already popped another piece of candy into her mouth, tilted her head and asked.
“…Go to the head chef and ask him to make a big cake. Say I asked for it.”
“Oh! Really?!”
“And you eat all of it.”
Saying that instead of taking the candy, I patted Arin on the head.
“Yay~! Cakeee~!”
After Arin bounced happily and ran off toward the kitchen.
“Klein.”
Another gate spoke to me.
“…Father.”
When I turned toward the one standing behind me, I saw Heinkel’s rigidly stiffened face.
“Come inside. It seems there’s more to discuss.”
***
“Did you learn necromancy?”
There was no way to deny it, and no reason to.
As I slowly nodded, Heinkel’s eyes as he looked at me grew deeper.
“Where did you obtain that knowledge?”
“My mother’s private chamber.”
A lie.
But considering my background, it was the most natural excuse.
“Claire’s…?”
Yet upon hearing my answer, Heinkel instead widened his eyes as if surprised.
“Or did you truly think I was the reincarnation of Akimond?”
At those words, cracks formed in Heinkel’s expressionless face.
‘You spoke like that to Garrison, but you must have been uneasy deep down.’
After staring at me in silence for a moment, Heinkel continued.
“It’s the shackle that bound you for seven years. Why did it have to be you who touched necromancy!”
Necromancy itself was not the problem.
It was that I, of all people, had done so.
The fact that I—branded as someone under the Order’s close surveillance—had learned necromancy was the issue.
“I have no intention of making excuses for not informing you in advance.”
I said this to Heinkel, who was seated in the study.
“But for me, this was the only path left open. Father.”
“There must have been other ways! Even just your swordsmanship…!”
“If swordsmanship were all I had, I wouldn’t even be standing here now.”
Cutting off Heinkel’s words as I said that, I drove the point home and asked him,
“Or would it have been better if I’d just died in that forest?”
“……!”
At my question, Heinkel seemed to lose his words entirely.
‘It’s an extreme method, but there’s no helping it.’
The premise of my plan was to engrave and have acknowledged the identity of Klein Leinrant the Necromancer.
If I tried to hide who I was and operate in the shadows, the end would clearly be ruin.
So in this situation, there was only one choice left to me.
A frontal breakthrough.
“You’ve seen the report Dunkel sent.”
“…Yes.”
Heinkel nodded at my words.
“The Empire was gnawing away at the North by using necromancers, and we didn’t even suspect their existence.”
When I pointed out the duke family’s failure, Heinkel narrowed his eyes.
“To ensure that nothing like this happens again, Leinrant must acknowledge my existence.”
Heinkel already knew, to some extent, what I was capable of.
Achievements created using tricks and tools.
Even so, he couldn’t ignore the fact that I had single-handedly wiped out a necromancer enclave.
‘Decide, Heinkel Leinrant.’
With the logic of needing to know one’s enemy to fight it added on, I could throw down the winning move.
‘Will you use me to save the family, or will you wither away like this!’
It was then.
“When you first came to the ducal house.”
Starting like that, Heinkel looked out into the mansion’s courtyard through the window cut into one side of the study.
“Even after being locked in the reformation facility for seven years…. You called me father without a single word of resentment.”
Seven years spent taken in by the Order and living in a reformation facility.
Recalling that time, which had been like torture, I too looked in the same direction as Heinkel.
“Even though I couldn’t protect Claire, and couldn’t take responsibility for your future….”
I heard Heinkel’s voice, filled with regret.
‘He’d been carrying that in his heart all this time…?’
From my perspective, it was simply that I’d felt liberated from the Order and so everything had seemed good at the time.
But it seemed Heinkel had been quite moved back then.
“I have no grounds left to stop you now, nor the right to do so.”
Having made up his mind, Heinkel rose from his seat and approached me.
“So go ahead and do as you will. Klein.”
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