Chapter 18: Death Knight (4)
18
“Are you really okay, young master?”
“Uh, yeah, I’m fine, fine….”
I answered Arin’s voice and tried to raise my body, but a wave of weakness immediately washed over my entire body.
“What do you mean ‘fine’? You’ve been groaning for three days straight!”
“It’s, uh, because I didn’t sleep well. If I rest a little, it’ll be fine.”
As I said that and forced myself to get up, Arin, who had been watching me, tilted her head.
“What could you possibly be doing at dawn that you can’t sleep?”
“Huh? Ah, well, I, um, had some research to do late at night….”
I said that and tried to avert my gaze, but Arin wasn’t the type to let it slide so easily.
“That’s a lie! The books and even the pages were all exactly the same as before?”
“Ugh!”
This was dangerous.
Once the first lie failed, suspicion only grew stronger.
Arin stared at me with dagger-like eyes and kept questioning me.
“So what exactly did you do all alone during the dawn hours, young master?”
“No, it’s, uh, that is….”
“And you did it without telling me or Sir Dunkel either?”
“Th-that…!”
Damn it.
I couldn’t come up with any more excuses.
“Hmm….”
While I hesitated like that, I saw Dunkel’s brow gradually furrowing as he looked at me.
‘Damn it, did he notice after all?’
Dunkel stared at me with a serious expression for a moment, then slowly approached me.
“…Young master.”
“Eek?!”
At Dunkel’s voice calling me, my shoulders flinched.
Maybe it was because I had a guilty conscience, but my body felt even stiffer than I had expected.
‘What a humiliation! The great Akimond trembling like this because he can’t even come up with a single excuse…!’
Thinking that, I desperately tried to come up with something to say, but my brain, completely clogged with fatigue, refused to function properly.
“It’s all right. There’s no need to be embarrassed.”
But then, Dunkel said that with a solemn expression and placed a hand on my shoulder.
‘Is he letting it go? Then that’s a relief….’
As I was exhaling a sigh of relief, a single uneasiness flashed through my mind.
…No need to be embarrassed? What was he talking about?
“Miss Arin?”
Dunkel’s serious voice called out to Arin.
“Yes!”
As Arin looked at him with her eyes wide open, Dunkel spoke with a grave expression.
“The young master is currently going through a very important period.”
“An important period?”
‘An important… period?’
‘What the hell is he talking about?’
I made a bizarre expression as I thought that, but Dunkel nodded once more while looking at me.
As if he were boldly insisting that I leave it to him.
‘No, seriously, what on earth is this bastard misunderstanding?’
“There will likely be similar incidents from time to time in the future.”
“Huh? You mean you’ll keep groaning like this again?”
“Yes. But that is a natural phenomenon.”
‘???’
Dunkel nodded toward the head-tilting Arin, then looked at me and said,
“During puberty, one tends to be particularly vigorous.”
‘…Hey, you crazy bastard.’
I got it.
I finally understood what this bastard was mistaking my condition for.
This insane knight, what the hell does he take people for…!
“Hey, Dunkel. I get what you’re thinking right now, but it’s not like that, okay?! Actually, I’m—!”
Saying that, I stood up from my seat.
Maybe he noticed my face flushing bright red, because Dunkel grabbed both my shoulders and spoke as if to reassure me.
“Don’t worry, young master. Isn’t this something every man goes through?”
“I said it’s not. I said it’s really not…!”
I was still talking, but it was already pointless.
Dunkel, who had already reached his own conclusion in his mind, simply wouldn’t listen to anything anyone said.
“There’s no need to be ashamed, young master.”
“I said it’s not, it’s not, it’s not! What would I possibly be lacking that I’d do that alone at night…!”
At that point, as if something had suddenly occurred to him, Dunkel stood up and walked out of the room.
“Hey, hey! I’m not done talking yet, where are you going?!”
Hearing my urgent shout, Dunkel looked at me and said,
“I’m going to report to His Grace the Duke.”
Watching Dunkel spout complete nonsense with a serious face made my head start throbbing on its own.
“No, why would you tell my father that…! No, before that, it’s not that!”
“There’s no need to be embarrassed. Young Master Delain also went through it.”
What, he did that to Delain too?
Did a knight sexually harass the ducal heir?
Why are all the knights of this family the same kind of lunatics…!
‘It should’ve been that bastard, not Rudel, who got turned into a Death Knight!’
Seeing Dunkel with a face burning with a sense of mission stronger than ever only deepened that conviction.
“It is the tradition of the Leinrant Order for the first witness to report such matters.”
“Tradition my ass, that’s just a bad custom!”
“As a member of the Order, you must accept it.”
It was hopeless.
These lunatics called knights absolutely refused to listen to reason.
No, what kind of crazy bastard came up with such a deranged tradition in the first place?
When I asked back in disbelief, the answer I heard was the despair-inducing, “It’s a tradition established by the First Duke.”
“As Young Master Klein’s escort knight, I cannot fail to report such auspicious news. Then I shall take my leave…!”
“Hey, hey! Dunkel! Stop it! Hey!”
I quickly opened the door and ran out into the hallway after Dunkel.
But Dunkel was already running far ahead toward Heinkel’s room.
“This is lèse-majesté, you crazy bastard—!”
It was at the moment I shouted that with desperate fervor.
“Young Master Klein?”
At the voice calling me, I snapped back to my senses and turned around.
It was the head butler, Burkman.
“Uh, uh…. Why?”
I clutched my still-dizzy head, unable to escape the lingering aftereffects of Dunkel’s rampage, and asked,
“The appointment time is coming up soon…. Should we push the schedule back?”
At Burkman’s words, my muddled mind finally felt like it was returning to its proper place.
“No, I’m done preparing.”
After saying that, I called out to Arin, who had been waiting inside the room.
“Arin, let’s go.”
“Yes~!”
The one who had invited me was Hellian, and the invitees were just me and a single servant to attend to me.
When I called her name, Arin approached, carrying the luggage she had prepared in advance.
“This way, please.”
After confirming that all preparations were complete, Burkman nodded and led me to the front of the mansion.
In front of the mansion, a four-horse carriage was already waiting, along with two knights of the Duke of Polwyvern family escorting it.
“Young Master Klein.”
“We’ve been waiting.”
After checking the faces of the men I had seen before, I slowly boarded the prepared carriage.
“Oh, the carriage is so soft!”
“This time, don’t get motion sickness—get some sleep beforehand.”
The plush seats made for high-ranking nobles seemed to please her, and Arin’s expression relaxed.
“…Is the young lord of Leinrant riding in the same carriage as a maid?”
“Why, is there a problem?”
I asked back instead, as if puzzled, at the knight’s question.
“N-no, there isn’t.”
As if he felt my gaze, the knight shook his head and mounted his horse.
“You never know what might happen. Please be careful.”
“I know. Don’t worry.”
“Oh, and….”
Just before departure, Burkman approached the side of the carriage and whispered to me, as if something had just occurred to him.
“…I understand that you are at the height of vigor, but please keep your cycles regular.”
“…….”
It felt like the sanity I had barely managed to hold onto was flying away again.
Right. He was standing right by the door—there was no way he hadn’t heard it!
“You’ll ruin your bones.”
Yeah. Burkman had also been a knight of the Leinrant house.
Seeing the head butler spout utter nonsense with that serious face drained even the strength to argue back.
“It’s not like that, you crazy bastards….”
“Hyah!”
While I screamed internally like that, the carriage carrying me left the Leinrant estate.
Step, step.
A damp mountain path, still wet from rain that had not dried long ago.
A hulking man in black priestly robes was walking along it with slow steps.
“Kiiiii….”
“Grrr….”
Step by step, the priest moved forward.
Lining both sides of his slow advance were corpses so thoroughly mangled they were barely recognizable.
Rotten flesh and bones, and even imperial insignia scattered here and there.
Those who had attacked the priest were necromancers of the Empire.
“Sp-spare me! Please…!”
The last remaining necromancer said that as he staggered backward.
But the moment he turned his back to flee, Garrison’s massive hand had already seized his neck.
“Ghk, ghk…!”
“Repent and atone. Praise and glorify. Thus shall I grant you dominion and let you abide eternally, the souls that have come to the sacred body….”
The priest recited scripture like an incantation as he tightened his grip on the neck.
He looked at once like a wounded beast, and like a saint bearing a cross.
“W-why…! Why would an agent of the Holy Order do this to us…!”
The necromancer struggled as if unable to comprehend it, but it was useless.
As strength was poured into the hand gripping his neck, the necromancer’s face, caught in that grasp, burst like a balloon.
Thud-!
A killing carried out in an instant.
This made it the twelfth necromancer he had eliminated already.
Tap.
As the priest walked along the corpse-strewn mountain path, he felt a sensation touching his arm and turned to the side.
“Oh my.”
A deep, resonant voice reached his ears.
Judging by the height, the figure reached about to Garrison’s chin.
What had touched the priest’s arm was an old man dressed in worn travel clothes.
“Ho ho ho, my apologies for that.”
Despite the voice, the old man was large-framed and powerfully built.
With white hair tied back, the old man showed his face as he spoke with a smile.
“…….”
Eyes devoid of focus, completely empty.
Seeing that, the priest realized that the old man he had encountered was blind.
‘A necromancer, or perhaps….’
Looking at how utterly composed he was, Garrison fell into thought for a moment.
Still, the old man’s behavior did not seem like a ploy aimed at attacking him from behind.
‘He’s not an enemy.’
If he was not an enemy of the Order like the necromancers, there was no reason to be hostile.
Having finished his judgment, Garrison asked the old man,
“How does one who cannot see manage to travel alone.”
A flat, emotionless voice was directed at him.
Only then, as if he realized where the priest was, the old man looked straight toward his face and smiled as he replied,
“Ah, my younger brother sent me a letter, you see. I’m on my way to see his face after a long while.”
“I see.”
After answering like that, the priest turned his back and hastened his steps.
All the heretics blocking the path ahead had already been eliminated.
He judged that there would be no danger befalling that traveler.
“Ah, you there.”
But at the old man’s voice calling him from behind, Garrison turned around once more.
“What is it.”
The old man looked at Garrison for a moment, then slowly nodded and said,
“Since you couldn’t kill it this time, you won’t be able to kill it in the future either.”
At those words, Garrison’s breathing stopped for a brief moment.
The first being he had failed to kill.
Realizing at once what that implied, Garrison bared his teeth at the old man.
The path he had walked was a single road.
And at the end of that road stood the mansion of the Duke Leinrant family.
That alone was more than enough reason for Garrison to show hostility toward him.
“Shall I kill you now.”
A murderous voice spilled from the mouth of the Holy Order’s human weapon, the agent.
An ordinary person would have fainted on the spot.
Yet the white-haired old man merely chuckled, showing no agitation whatsoever.
It was a serenity that looked as if he had transcended the world.
“Didn’t I say it? You can’t kill it.”
As the old man said that and lifted his chin, Garrison’s face appeared right there before him.
It happened in the blink of an eye.
“Why do you think that.”
When Garrison’s voice, filled with rage, rang out, the old man replied,
“A bond nurtured with the heart must be severed the moment one resolves to do so. If you fail to kill it in a single strike, you’ll never be able to sever it for all eternity.”
Hearing those words, strength flowed into Garrison’s fist.
His iron grip was already within reach of the old man’s face.
In just a moment, the old man’s body would vanish without a trace.
Whooom-!
A chilling sound of air being torn apart split the void.
A blow so powerful it seemed to warp space itself for an instant.
Yet Priest Garrison, who had unleashed that attack, wore a frown.
“We’ll meet again soon. Let’s talk then.”
With those words, the old man’s figure vanished without a trace.
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