Chapter 15

Translator: Willia

Every morning at dawn, Arne ran a lap around the inner courtyard of the citadel. He didn't just run, either; he ran wearing something like a leather vest, a piece of gear made for physical conditioning. The kind stuffed with stones to make it deliberately heavy.

Wearing that vest, a single lap took him about ten minutes, and with each lap Arne added more weight, running five laps in all.

It was training brutal enough to leave him gasping for breath and seeing spots. Above all, it was training no one had ordered him to do, which meant his will and mental fortitude were tempered like true steel.

Yet as good as it was to condition the body, from another angle it looked almost as if he were punishing himself.

What was he pushing himself this hard for? To get ahead? To keep from falling behind? Or was he simply running away? And if he was running away, then from what?

Such questions might well have surfaced, but a body worn to its limit left no room for stray thoughts. He simply ran.

And then, into Arne's flagging mind, someone abruptly intruded.

"So you run like this every morning at dawn?"

Arne, who always ran alone, whipped around in surprise. It was Valery. He was running alongside him, wearing a training vest just like his own.

"Cough! Hack! Ugh!"

For a moment Arne's breathing broke and he fell into a fit of coughing. He barely managed to steady it again and kept running, but he couldn't help being unsettled.

Flustered as he was, Valery just kept running beside him.

Then, right about when he'd gotten used to it, a needless competitive streak flared up in Arne, and to shake Valery off he picked up his pace. But Valery kept up without any trouble.

Having overexerted himself more than usual, Arne stopped before he could finish his five laps.

"Haah, haah, haah, haah......"

It wasn't as if Valery weren't winded too. As they both stood there catching their breath, Arne spoke.

"You, you joined late, so I was already worn out."

What was he trying to say? Probably that, had they started together, he'd have left Valery in the dust easily enough.

Valery answered with a smile.

"Then tomorrow let's run together from the start."

"......"

Arne felt thoroughly strange.

He made a deliberate effort to ignore Valery and headed for the barracks' training yard. But Valery kept following him.

Valery was on his nerves, but that was no reason to skip his daily training. As he lifted a practice sword with his weary body and made to drill, Valery spoke.

"Want me to spar with you?"

"......If you would."

It was a bout with the prodigy whose name had lately been on everyone's lips. To say he wasn't secretly excited would be a lie. And part of him wanted to win, too.

Valery took up a practice sword of the arming sword type. Then, as if getting a feel for its weight, he rolled his wrist in circles and gave a few light swings through the air.

As the two of them squared off, the men quartered in the barracks began gathering here and there to watch with curiosity. Some, just now out of bed, looked on from their windows.

Valery set his feet slightly apart, front and back, standing to face Arne head-on. Arne, for his part, turned his body a little, spread his feet wider, and lowered his center of gravity.

There were four years between them in age, yet the difference in height and build was not so great. Valery was the slightly smaller of the two.

It was Valery who moved first. He tipped his weight forward as though slowly toppling over, an odd, distinctive motion. It almost made Arne wonder if he was fooling around.

Summoning his focus, Arne shifted quickly to the left and thrust his sword. Valery brought his own blade up to block, cutting off the line of attack.

Clang!

The real contest started here. Arne moved to close in fast. Even in his worn-out state, his burst of speed was scarcely different from what it was at his very best.

Folding the blade back toward his own body, he tried to strike Valery with the guard.

But just then, Valery dropped low, sinking as if the ground had swallowed him. Then, quick and smooth as a swallow skimming low to the earth, he cut across Arne's waist and swept past.

The cut had landed with force, twisting Arne's body around, and a throbbing pain shot through him.

"Ugh!"

Already spent, and now struck by that sudden pain, Arne dropped hard onto one knee. But at once he sprang back up like a released spring.

The onlookers burst out here and there with ohs and ahs of admiration.

"Want to go again?"

Valery asked, spinning the sword in circles with his wrist. Resentment rose in Arne, and yet alongside it he felt oddly refreshed. It was a wholly unfamiliar sensation.

"......If, if you would."

Valery smiled gently.

The next bout followed, but there was really nothing to see. This time Arne couldn't manage anything resembling an attack, nor could he properly react to Valery's opening move.

He pitched forward rather clumsily. Pushing himself up off the ground, he steeled his resolve further and said,

"Again."

Sad to say, this time there was even less to see. A blow to the wrist knocked the sword clean out of his hand.

Clatter.

The bouts went on a few more times after that, and the more they fought, the worse Arne got, since his body was exhausted and by now even holding his focus was a struggle.

Valery's movements, at any rate, held not a trace of strain; every one of them flowed like water, natural and beautiful.

And when his sweat-dampened platinum hair swayed, it robbed the onlookers of their wits, bout or no bout.

Unable to hold out any longer, Arne sprawled flat on his back and gulped for air. He wanted to fall asleep just like that.

Hands clasped behind his back, Valery looked down quietly at Arne and said,

"You don't have to be honest even in a fight, do you?"

"......What?"

"Your honesty's really admirable, but that doesn't mean you have to stay honest even in a fight, is what I'm saying."

"Me, honest in a fight?"

"Yeah. The slightest feint and you fall for it every time, without fail. What I mean is, read your opponent's intent. Think too much and your movements slow down, but it's something you need to master. Down the line you'll come to perceive it all naturally, by feel. I'm thinking you might steer your training in that direction."

Hearing Valery's words, Arne felt something that had long weighed on him come loose. And yet a question rose in him as well.

"Why are you doing me this kindness?"

"Didn't I say? Because I want us to be close."

"......Why? And come to think of it, I've never seen you before, so how is it you know me?"

"Am I not allowed to?"

Valery smiled faintly and held out a hand. Arne wore a look that said he'd never met anyone so strange, but he clasped the hand and rose to his feet.

Skard's gang had been watching the two of them spar as well, and one of them, glancing at their leader Skard for a read, said,

"If we fought him now, while he's worn out, seems like we might win......"

Skard reckoned there was something to that.

Seeing Valery's skill for himself, it was true the boy was good, but he didn't seem quite as formidable as the rumors made out.

That, however, was because Valery had been going easy, holding back out of consideration for Arne.

His calculation done, Skard took up a practice greatsword, strode out boldly, and called out loudly,

"Oi! Bastard!"

Valery turned to look at him.

"You think the barracks is some place you can just wander in and out of as you please? Whose permission did you get to come in here?"

It was a flat-out provocation. Had he simply asked nicely for a bout, Valery might well have obliged, but Skard clearly didn't have the sense for that.

If nothing else, his one talent for picking fights was truly exceptional. Seeing as he'd made a profession of it.

Valery looked at Skard without a flicker of feeling and said,

"Your dad."

"What?"

"I said I got your dad's permission to come in. Was looking around the city yesterday and saw someone begging in the market. That was your dad, wasn't it?"

For someone so rare and beautiful to look at, no one had expected such a low, parent-insulting jab, and Skard along with everyone else was struck speechless.

But this was Valery, who before his regression had spent years living in the back alleys. When the situation called for it, his tongue could turn coarse.

This was a kingdom that revered a warrior's valor, that fighting spirit. However wildly the customs differed from one place to the next, that one thing was common the world over.

To swallow an insult and let it pass was unthinkable. It meant renouncing one's claim to be a warrior, and with it, renouncing a warrior's rights as well.

"You bastard......!"

Sure enough, Skard, seething with fury, charged at Valery.

He swung the practice greatsword wide with all his strength, but Valery closed in half a beat faster and launched a kick at his head.

The power of his conditioned thigh muscles combined with astonishing flexibility to make it a kick of explosive, devastating force. That kick landed square on Skard's jaw, unerring.

Crack!

A sound like a skull splitting rang out. Skard's head really did rattle, and the sword he'd been swinging so hard veered limply off its path. In the process it slipped from his grip and went flying.

Clatter!

The sword hit the ground. Before it did, Skard's hulking frame had crashed down, arms and legs splayed out. The onlookers' eyes went wide with shock.

His constitution must have counted for something, because, remarkably, Skard didn't lose consciousness entirely.

He tried somehow to get up, but his body was in no state to obey. Even clenching his molars and forcing himself upright, he only staggered and toppled again at once.

Valery walked slowly over to Skard, looked down at him coldly, and said,

"Follow your old man's lead and take up begging too. I'll make a proper cripple out of you."

It was unlike the threats thugs usually threw around. Valery was the sort who, once he said a thing, saw it through without fail. It was no mere threat, but a statement of action, of certainty.

Valery raised his practice sword and brought it down hard on the fallen Skard. Then again, and again, striking him viciously, over and over.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack! Thwack......!

With such a big body there was no shortage of places to hit. Skard tried somehow to guard himself, but Valery picked out the spots he couldn't cover and hammered them. His body curled up tighter and tighter, like a pill bug.

The onlookers were so appalled that they felt genuine fear. It was as if a man who had looked like an angel had turned demon in an instant, and there was a particular terror in that gulf.

But the one who stepped in to stop him was Arne. Grabbing Valery's arm, Arne said,

"Stop. Stop it."

Valery turned to look at Arne. That his eyes stayed calm and unmoved, even after beating a man like that, was, if anything, all the more chilling to see.

"You've got to half-kill a man before he'll never cross you again. Do it halfway and people just look down on you and come back for more. That's human nature."

"......Even so, he's my comrade."

Calling him a comrade, after being tormented like that. In one light it might look like foolishness, but it also meant Arne was a man of great capacity.

An upright, unbending character. It was why, before the regression, Arne had been one of the few generals Valery trusted. Any fortress or stronghold that could become a fatal weak point, he had always left in Arne's hands.

But perhaps it was for that very reason that they had not been able to stay together to the end.

This time was different. Valery simply tossed the practice sword down onto the ground.

"If that's what you want, then fine, I'll leave it."

"Th, thank you."

Arne propped Skard up and helped him to his feet. Skard's face seemed to hold resentment, fear, shame, and a tangle of other complicated emotions. His lackeys hurried over and led him away.

The situation had turned rather awkward, but in any case, since he'd been training and sweating since dawn, Arne headed for the well in the barracks' back garden to wash up. And this time, too, Valery followed.

There was no particular method to washing. One simply peeled off every stitch, drew water with the well bucket, and poured it down from the crown of the head.

Both of them were men who trained, so their muscles were well-defined, like the statues of antiquity.

When water cold enough to make the head swim struck flesh worked hot from exertion, white steam curled up in wisps from their shoulders and heads. They took turns drawing the water to wash, and even scrubbed each other's backs.

"By the way, aren't they selecting for the Einherier?"

Valery asked.

"I don't really know much about it, but I heard the Rune Mages won't come until autumn at the earliest. Or it could be next year. You interested?"

"Not sure. You?"

"I know a star is something you can look up at but never hold. So I don't dream dreams quite that far-fetched. Though for you, Wid, it might be another matter."

Arne seemed to have simply little interest in the Einherier.

By the time they'd more or less finished washing, Valery, sweeping his hair back and glancing around, caught sight of something strange far off in the distance.

Torvik Citadel had a single watchtower, built exceedingly tall so as to see far into the distance.

It seemed to have been raised in ancient times, originally of stone, but its middle had crumbled away, and so it was a watchtower rebuilt from there upward in timber.

High up on that watchtower, something like a birdcage hung from a thick iron chain. It was no birdcage, of course; it was an iron cage built to imprison a person, its inner surface lined with spikes so that whoever was locked inside had nowhere to lean.

Inside it, a single man was confined. Even at a distance, one could tell that he was looking their way.

Just then Arne suddenly tugged at Valery's arm.

"Don't look."

At the abrupt gesture, Valery's eyes went round. Letting go of his arm, Arne went on,

"That's Young Master Knut. The Third Young Lord. He's being punished over the killing of Adjutant Ketil. The Young Master's got a vicious streak, so stare at him for no reason and there's no telling what he'll do to get back at you later."

Knut was notorious throughout the ducal house. As a child, he had once cut open a servant's belly, all under the pretense of catching whoever had stolen a watermelon.

"Oh? Then he and I are already enemies, aren't we? Since it's practically because of me that the assassination got found out."

"......Which is exactly why you need to be more careful with what you do."

"I don't know, I'd rather not be. So why'd he kill him?"

"No one knows for certain, or, well, actually everyone knows. Adjutant Ketil was as good as the real power here. More than anything, he held the purse strings, so the Young Lords were finding themselves inconvenienced in all sorts of ways. Say a Young Lord ran up a tab at a tavern in the city, and Adjutant Ketil refused to pay the bill, that would leave the Young Lord's dignity in tatters. Granted, the Third Young Lord wasn't the sort to go to taverns, but at any rate, there was a lot of friction like that between him and the Young Lords. Meddling in what the Young Lords were doing, blocking them, that kind of thing."

"......In a word, he was the whipping boy."

"What?"

From just these fragments, a fairly complex picture was already taking shape in Valery's mind.

Among the matters a lord had to handle, there were bound to be some his subordinates would resent. And so some lords shied away from them, while others forced them through with a heavy hand.

Duke Sven, in his case, had cunningly set Ketilmund up as the whipping boy, arranging things so that the grievances meant for himself fell to him instead.

And now that the Third Young Lord had gone and killed that whipping boy, it was only natural the Duke would be furious. Not just anyone could serve as the whipping boy, after all. Finding a new man for the role was bound to give him no small headache.

"By the way, so you're finally speaking casually with me, Arne."

"......Y, you seemed like you didn't know a thing, so I was just filling you in."

"Filling me in and dropping the formalities aren't really connected, are they?"

"Th, they are."

Arne gathered up his clothes and marched off to the barracks. At last Valery was left alone.

Valery pulled on only his trousers and, carrying the rest of his clothes in his hands, left the spot.

As he made for the guest wing with his upper body still bare, the maids passing by, and even those off in the distance, caught sight of him and broke into shrieks.

Heedless of them, Valery glanced back on a sudden impulse.

Far off and high above, the Third Young Lord Knut, locked inside the iron cage, was still staring intently. Straight at Valery himself, to be exact.