Chapter 25: Seeds of Division (1)
25
Clang-!
“Kyaak?!”
“Y-Your Grace, please hold her down…!”
Early morning.
At the very moment the day’s routine began, chaos erupted in the Duke of Polwyvern family.
“Let go of me-! You dare kill my knight and think you can walk back alive through my territory?!”
“M-My Lady! Please…!”
Anyone who saw this scene—
Anyone who knew Duchess Hellian would find it impossible to believe.
“Stop Her Grace! Hurry!”
“Let go-! I’ll kill you all! Aaaargh-!”
Her hair completely disheveled, Hellian held a rapier in one hand.
She swung it wildly, as if her mortal enemy stood right before her.
“Aaah?!”
“M-Mary!”
“The maid’s been cut! Someone, here…!”
“Shut up-!”
Blood splattered across the central staircase, adorned with splendid silk and brocade.
“Klein…! Klein, you bastard…!”
“Were you looking for me?”
Hellian’s face, red as if it were about to explode, turned pale blue.
“K-Klein, Young Master…!”
“Please step back. Her Grace is not herself right now…!”
The servants, terrified, spoke to me in trembling voices.
I understood them well enough.
At any moment, blades could start flying, and the very source of the controversy had appeared at the estate.
“You…!”
As expected, Hellian, unable to contain her rage, strode straight toward me.
“You… you dare lay a hand on my knight…!”
“Your knight? I have no idea what you’re talking about, Aunt.”
“What did you say?!”
As she shouted, Hellian raised her sword toward me.
“I’ll kill you right here today-!”
A sword path so simple it bordered on foolishness.
There was no need to even predict it.
I immediately knocked aside Hellian’s descending blade.
Kaang-!
“Aaah?!”
Struck by my sword, Hellian lost her balance and collapsed where she stood.
“What kind of disgrace is this!”
I deliberately raised my voice.
Loud enough for everyone in the estate to hear.
“If you were once a member of Leinrant, then act with the dignity befitting that name! Duchess Hellian!”
The insignificant second son of the main family knocked down the head of a collateral branch and scolded her.
Without using the honorific ‘My Lady.’
“T-That…!”
“Did Young Master Klein just shout at Her Grace…?”
Voices of agitation rose from all around.
Servants, butlers, messengers.
Anyone would do.
As long as rumors spread through the territory and turned into gossip among the nobles.
‘To deal with nobles, nothing beats a noble’s methods.’
As I glanced around, thinking that to myself—
“A-Ah…!”
As if she had finally realized what she had just heard, Hellian looked at me and tried to say something.
“You… you dare…!”
“Aunt.”
Just before she could finish, I grabbed her shoulder and pulled her close.
“Do you really think Leinrant, with the Empire backing it, depends on you alone, Aunt?”
When I whispered that, cutting her off, Hellian’s eyes widened.
“W-What…?”
At my voice, Hellian’s eyes opened wide.
It was a transparent trick anyone could infer with a little thought.
But right now—
At this moment, when she had lost her knight to some unknown cause—this bluff alone was more than enough.
“Why do you think I refused the sweet offer you made?”
“……!”
With a voice full of mockery, I shook Hellian again.
And if the Voice of the Dead, which resonated with the soul, mixed in—
it would sound as though it were the truth itself.
“The Order sealed off the site where Sanchez disappeared. They said the traces of necromancy were strong.”
The banshee I had sent had already been wiretapping Hellian’s residence all day.
What I said was information she herself had received at dawn.
To fabricate a lie, you mix in truth.
“Then, where was the group that has researched necromancy the most deeply on the continent?”
“……!”
Of course, Hellian had no reason to believe my words.
Believing the words of an enemy—especially one from the main family—at face value would be absurd.
‘So all I need is the tiniest crack. Just a sliver of doubt.’
The stimulus of Sanchez’s death would poke at that tiny gap again and again.
And the more it was prodded, the larger her doubt would grow.
And to drive a wedge into that doubt…
“K-Klein Leinrant-!”
A voice from the side snapped me out of my thoughts.
‘Perfect timing.’
I muttered inwardly as I looked at the man rushing toward me with a flustered face.
Hector Ross Polwyvern.
The last pillar supporting Hellian emotionally.
And the final chess piece for my plan.
“Before I return to the main family, let me give you one piece of advice, Aunt Hellian.”
Just before Hector reached me,
as I looked into her eyes filled with unrest, I whispered to her one last time.
“Hector. You’d do well to keep a close watch on him.”
“……!”
After adding that single line and straightening up, the late-arriving Hector pointed at me.
“You, you! Why the hell did you come here?!”
Perhaps the sensation of a blade at his throat still lingered, because even as he shouted at me, he shrank back.
“Well, this works out nicely.”
Saying that while looking at him, I continued.
“I’ve finished attending all the events I was invited to, so I’m returning to the main family.”
“R-Returning… you say?”
“Yes. Take good care of Aunt.”
With a smiling face, I said that, then turned my back and walked straight out of the estate.
Outside, Laia’s carriage, which I had prepared in advance, was waiting for me.
“Do you really think Hellian will move exactly as we want because of such a bluff?”
I answered the sulky voice that greeted me as I boarded the carriage.
“Laia Ren Polwyvern.”
Whether it meant she trusted me or that she’d been found out and didn’t care anymore, she had dropped her act of being a proper young lady.
“I don’t.”
“Then why go so far….”
“The more unstable factors there are, the higher the chance of mistakes. And….”
As I checked the backpack Arin had prepared in advance, I finished my sentence.
“No matter how they respond, Hector will die.”
At my single remark, Laia’s expression stiffened even further.
After staring at my face for a moment, Laia let out a sigh and spoke.
“You talk about killing people far too casually.”
“…People, you say.”
At Laia’s serious expression, a scoff escaped me.
“What’s so funny?”
“Should we really treat those things as people?”
As I said that while looking at Hellian’s villa receding into the distance, Laia spoke to me.
“They may be fighting over the succession, but even so, there are lines that must not be crossed as a knight.”
“As a knight.”
Dunkel, Berkel, and Laia right in front of me.
That title of ‘knight’ that all of them spoke of so readily, and the weight it carried.
For someone like me, who had resorted to any means necessary just to survive, it was something I could never truly understand.
‘Looks like I’ll need to explain a bit.’
Even if I couldn’t understand it, the place I belonged to was a family of knights.
To convince fellow knights, I would need to secure at least some degree of justification.
“When you go out on knight order missions, you don’t hesitate to say you’ll kill monsters, right?”
“Huh?”
Laia questioned my sudden inquiry, but before long, she nodded.
“Then what if that monster was a good monster that saved dozens of lives?”
At that, Laia’s expression grew even stranger.
“Is there really such a monster?”
“Let’s say there is. Then would you kill it?”
After thinking for a moment at my words, Laia shook her head.
“No. I don’t think I could.”
Hearing that, I nodded and asked again.
“Then what would you do with a human who killed dozens of people?”
A murderer who killed dozens.
When I gave that example, her answer came much faster this time.
“They should be killed.”
A firm answer.
Nodding at that, I continued.
“Then just now, did you decide whether to kill or not based on whether they were human?”
“…No.”
As the exchange continued, it seemed Laia finally understood what I was getting at.
“The standard for valuing a being shouldn’t be race or birth, but actions…?”
“You catch on quickly.”
As I said that, Laia frowned deeply.
“So, to you, the nobles of Hellian’s faction and monsters are….”
“They’re the same kind of pests.”
After saying that, I smiled at Laia.
“You don’t need to feel guilty about burning thousands of mosquitoes, right? Isn’t that so?”
“……!”
Hearing that, Laia fell silent for quite a while, lost in thought.
“Miss. We’ve arrived.”
By the time our exchange finally came to an end.
The carriage carrying us reached its destination and opened its door.
“At the latest, word will reach them within three days. Then….”
“I know. I’ll keep my promise.”
At Laia’s firm reply, I nodded and stepped down from the carriage.
A forest path thick with trees.
It was perfect for hiding one’s body.
“Well then, shall we get to work.”
Saying that, I loosened my pack, draped myself in a robe, and put on a mask.
[Guide Klein calls upon the wandering souls. Answer.]
As I stretched out my hand and chanted the spell, one of the souls drifting through the forest answered my call.
Srrrk…!
A form like a milky white liquid.
Before long, however, it transformed into the shape of a human remaining in my memories and bowed its head toward me.
On one side, the Necromancer Pale. On the other, Hector.
A ghost that mimicked its target’s form to sow confusion—a doppelganger.
“Good. That should be enough preparation.”
As I observed the appearance of my newly created work, a banshee approached me from within the forest and whispered something into my ear.
“…Yeah, this is going to be easier than I thought.”
The smile tugging at my lips deepened.
Now there was only one thing left.
All that remained was to wait for the prey to bite the bait.
“Damn it, why did Mother send me to a place like this….”
After Klein left the territory.
Hellian shut herself away in her study and showed no intention of coming out for quite some time.
Relief at the fact that peace had finally arrived was short-lived.
Hellian summoned Hector and appointed him as the garrison commander of Galond, a fortress city in the southwest.
“Rather, this is an opportunity, Young Master. Being the garrison commander of Galond is a position on par with a knight commander!”
“I-Is that so?”
On the road to Galond.
Hector was confused by the sudden transfer, but at the words of his accompanying adjutant, he seemed to be in much better spirits.
‘Right. Since it’s come to this, I’ll properly do my part in Galond.’
Defeated by a Young Master little better than a leftover, Sanchez missing, and his mother not in her right mind.
Even so, Hector forced himself to steel his resolve and hastened along the road to Galond.
“H-Halt! Stop right there!”
As they were passing through a dark forest path.
The two knights at the front seemed to have spotted something and brought the procession to a halt.
“What is it? What’s going on?”
“Ah, Young Master. Please look over there.”
One of the knights escorting Hector said that and pointed to a spot in the forest.
“That is…. what is that?”
A bizarre silhouette clad in a black robe and mask.
At the sight of it, Hector’s expression turned strange.
“It’s an Imperial Necromancer.”
“A Necromancer? One of those the Empire trains…?”
“That’s right. From the looks of it, they seem to have lost their way….”
As he said that, the knight waved his hand.
If they belonged to the Empire, they were allies of Hellian’s faction.
And if they were isolated in a forest like this, there was no reason not to help.
“H-Hey…. Let’s just go. I’ve got a bad feeling about this.”
“Young Master….”
Those who raised corpses to fight.
It was only natural for nobles like Hector to feel repulsed.
While the knights exchanged wry smiles at Hector’s reaction.
The Necromancer, who had been staring at Hector’s group for a moment, stretched out a hand toward them.
“Look at that. They’re not responding on their side ei—!”
Just as the knight trying to placate Hector said that much.
Puk-!
A chilling sound of flesh being torn.
At the same time, the knight’s eyes widened.
“Why…. why…?”
What burst through his chest was a massive spearhead.
As if it had been abandoned long ago, it was heavily rusted.
“Uh, uh…?”
At the moment when Hector, unable to fully grasp the situation, could do nothing.
“Kraaaaah…!”
“Kiiiiii…!”
“Grrrrrrrr…!”
Along with spine-chilling cries, sharp, menacing lights began to multiply one by one in the darkness.
Skeleton soldiers shrouded in black smoke.
Undead used by Necromancers—Skeletons.
“W-Wait a second!”
“What is the meaning of this! Hey, you there! We’re—!”
As the other knights hurriedly tried to say something.
Thudududuk-!
A volley of arrows flew in from somewhere, and the knights hurriedly drew up their mana.
“Damn it all?! What is this?!”
“An Imperial Necromancer is attacking us! Everyone, prepare for battle!”
In a dark forest where they couldn’t even distinguish friend from foe, let alone know exactly where they were.
Just as the unseen Necromancers and the knights began to clash.
From elsewhere in the forest, similar shouts rang out.
“Hellian’s knights have betrayed us! Everyone, summon the undead-!”
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