282

Chapter 282 — Tell Me (12)

“Where should I start…….”

After sending the soldier out, Gunter brought over a chair and sat down.

The mage started in surprise and tried to move, but Gunter roughly waved the attempt away.

He had no intention of making someone sick enough to collapse while coughing up blood wait on him.

“Münmund has a tradition of bestowing gemstone names upon its senior knights. Did you know that?”

“…No. I didn’t.”

“I see.”

Gunter had always thought all mages shared the same trait: if they knew something, they showed off about it; if they didn’t, they pretended they did.

Apparently that was limited to those affiliated with Magic Towers.

He scratched his head while looking at those green eyes, which resembled curiosity.

“For our senior knights, we have a tradition of bestowing a gemstone name based on the characteristics of the knight in question. Aquamarine Knight, Sapphire Knight, Emerald Knight, Ruby Knight, and so on.”

Of course, by “senior knight,” he didn’t mean an apprentice knight who had ranked first at school.

He meant those among the official knights serving Münmund who had risen in rank by earning command authority or proving overwhelmingly superior ability.

“Since it is an honor bestowed only upon senior knights, there aren’t many people who can enjoy that glory. At most, there are five in a generation. At the fewest, only around two.”

“I see…….”

“And Atia was a promising knight expected to claim one of those positions within five years.”

“…….”

“Honestly, that was only natural. Atia never once lost first place during the entire time at the Knight Academy, and after graduating, even killed a Dullahan single-handedly.”

Dullahans were demons whose difficulty varied depending on what sort of knight the body they were made from had been while alive.

But even the poorer-quality Dullahans were ordinarily said to require three active knights to defeat them, or at the absolute minimum two.

That was because the process of corrupting the body made its skin as hard as stone and increased its muscular strength three- or fourfold.

“The only reason Atia didn’t receive a name then was simply a lack of experience, something unavoidable for a freshly graduated knight. There were no other disqualifying factors.”

And yet a newly graduated knight had killed a Dullahan.

The fact that it had been a particularly weak Dullahan made from the body of an apprentice knight wasn’t especially important.

A Dullahan was still a Dullahan no matter how weak it was, and Atia had likewise been an inexperienced rookie at the time.

“Yes. Atia was more than qualified to become a gemstone. The only question was whether it would be chrysoberyl or peridot.”

Chrysoberyl. Peridot.

Considering the greenish-brown color of Atia’s eyes and the colors of those two gemstones, neither would have been strange.

So Gunter had never doubted for even a moment that Atia would receive the name of a gemstone.

“…I just never imagined Atia would die before receiving one.”

That had been true.

Until Atia died.

“That’s…….”

In front of the mage, whose lips moved as if searching for words, Gunter closed his eyes briefly.

A memory passed through him.

“…For reference, Atia came from a family of knights. Atia’s father was already a senior knight bearing the name Amber, and Atia, as I said, was considered a likely future senior knight. There was even the second child, who had just graduated from school and become an official knight, and the third child, who was still attending school to become a knight.”

The second child, Alya, had never achieved anything as remarkable as Atia.

That was because during the year when she had graduated and just received her post, the demons had remained quiet and there had been no reason for her to go to the battlefield.

But just like Atia, she had never once lost first place throughout her time at school.

Perhaps she too might have become a future senior knight.

The third child, Pasha, had also proved their shared bloodline by passing the entrance examination with the highest score—though not the highest score in history.

“The youngest was still far too young for talent or anything else to matter. Growing up came first… but in any case, that family possessed enough exceptional talent to earn the Lord’s particular favor.”

Even if the third child failed to graduate, and even if the youngest never followed the path of a knight, there would still have been three knights from a single family.

How could a family like that not be cherished?

“And it was also because of that… because they were favored, that they died. They went to a villa the Lord had lent them to celebrate the youngest daughter’s birthday, and disappeared without a trace.”

The Amber Knight dearly loved the youngest child, who had come late in life, and the older children also doted greatly on their very young little sister.

So they requested leave to celebrate the youngest child’s seventh birthday…

And the Lord responded by lending them a villa.

It stood about two days away from Münmund.

“The reason for their disappearance still hasn’t been discovered. The entire villa vanished along with them, so there wasn’t a single clue left behind.”

“…….”

“But it probably wasn’t the work of demons. That place… that villa wasn’t somewhere demons could easily attack.”

They had converted one of the relatively broad plains around Münmund into farmland.

They built a village for the people who would cultivate it.

To protect the farmland, they constructed walls and watch posts and permanently stationed mages there for communication.

After all that, the scenery turned out to be quite beautiful, so they built a cottage on a hill at the edge of the village and used it as a villa.

Since it had originally been intended for the Lord personally, the place had been exceptionally secure as well.

It was the sort of location where Münmund would notice the existence of attacking demons and respond before those demons could ever reach it.

“Even if it was attacked, it should only have been by one or two demons that lost their way and slipped through… and surely one senior knight, one prospective senior knight, one official knight, and one apprentice knight wouldn’t fail to deal with that. So… so it couldn’t have been demons. It must not have been demons.”

But if it wasn’t a demon?

If a demon wasn’t responsible, then who was?

Surely they hadn’t destroyed the cottage themselves and vanished?

“…It shouldn’t have been a demon.”

The cottage had vanished without leaving a single trace behind, while not even a hair on the heads of the villagers had been harmed.

There were witnesses who said they had heard a tremendous roar but hadn’t seen even a single unusual shadow.

Confronted once again by the past he had impulsively confessed, Gunter suffered.

Every possibility he imagined produced another contradiction, and each one felt like a dagger stabbing into his chest.

He didn’t want to forget, yet remembering always tore at him this badly.

Just like all those times he had glimpsed a vaguely familiar profile, chased after a passerby, then lost them in the end and fallen into despair.

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“…Were you very close to Atia?”

“…Close?”

And even at a moment like this, he was hungry.

As though his body were screaming at him that he was alive, still alive, he was hungry.

“They were my family. People who were no different from my family.”

“…….”

“Atia, Alya, Pasha, Rinya… the Amber Knight and his wife too. Every single one of them was my family…….”

Gunter interlaced his fingers as though praying and buried his face in them.

The mage’s face, barely visible to him, was slightly distorted, perhaps from the pain rising through the body.

“…Has that satisfied your curiosity?”

But Gunter was hardly in a position to worry about someone else when he had enough trouble taking care of himself.

He didn’t ask the mage whether everything was all right.

There wasn’t a single person here who was all right.

“If it has, don’t go around asking people who Atia was. Most will answer like that soldier from earlier… but someone might suffer the way I do.”

Ah.

He was hungry.

* * *

Gunter returned to the castle clutching his starving stomach.

“Did I not specifically ask you not to go ahead without me?”

His bodyguard, who had hurried after him, reproached him, but Gunter merely glanced over and said nothing.

He didn’t even have the energy to apologize.

He was thirsty.

He was simply hungry.

“…Young Lord.”

“What new work has appeared that brought all of you here? Come inside first.”

Instead, Gunter gestured to the soldiers waiting for him.

His powerless legs carried him into the room that served as both reception room and office.

“A soldier who refused to follow orders during distribution and tried to hide food away…….”

“Some of the villagers started a riot…….”

Going all the way inside before receiving their reports would only waste time.

He lined the people who had come to report to him up beside himself one after another.

The flood of stories was exactly what he had expected.

“The curse may be affecting them, but we cannot continue employing as soldiers people who possess so little self-control. Punish them strictly according to military discipline. As for the villagers, identify those who instigated the riot and…….”

His words trailed off as he ran his tongue over his lips.

He couldn’t tell whether his mouth was dry because his throat was so parched there was barely any saliva left, or because he had simply talked too much today.

“How much water have I had today?”

“Less than your allotted ration. Shall I have some brought?”

“…No. Forget it.”

Gunter thought for a moment before ultimately refusing.

It wasn’t because he wasn’t thirsty enough to need it.

It was simply because he couldn’t trust an errand runner.

“Even the soldiers are trying to steal food and water. There’s no guarantee the servants won’t do the same. Rather than worry they might take some for themselves along the way, I’d rather send a soldier later or go get it myself.”

And the people were already weak from hunger.

If he ordered them around unnecessarily and someone was consumed by madness and started a riot, that would be troublesome.

Gunter calculated the personnel absolutely necessary to keep inside the castle and resolved to give everyone else leave.

Even if the same hunger followed them, it would be easier to endure if they could simply lie still at home.

“Hmm… Then I’ll at least bring you some water…….”

“Are you insane? Go do your work.”

“You need to eat as well.”

“I can do that later. Stop worrying about it.”

Using a soldier for such a trivial errand was already excessive.

He certainly couldn’t use a senior knight for it.

Gunter rejected the suggestion immediately.

“We should probably reduce the castle guard too. If everyone stays concentrated in a smaller area, we’ll need fewer people to maintain security.”

Instead, following the idea that had just come to him, he gave a new order.

A knight who had been listening beside him let out a small exclamation.

“Ah. The Lord already ordered that.”

“Oh, did he? Did he also give leave to the people working here?”

“Yes.”

“No wonder there seemed to be fewer people in the castle…….”

“The Lord does possess remarkable foresight.”

“…He does.”

That old man certainly was good at his job.

It had to be the first time either Gunter or the Lord had dealt with Erysichthon, yet the speed at which the man adapted and prepared was extraordinary.

“…His field of view is so broad I can’t imagine ever managing the same.”

It was fortunate that someone like that was the Lord.

Truly fortunate, but……

As he listened to the things the old man had done, Gunter pointlessly thumped his chest.

They were clearly good for the city, but strangely enough, his chest felt stifled and his appetite disappeared.

“That isn’t bad.”

“Pardon?”

If his appetite disappeared, he would probably eat less.

Ignoring the stomach that had started growling, Gunter received and dealt with several more reports.

The hour hand of the clock finally passed twelve.

“I’m hungry.”

Still, even without an appetite, hunger remained.

Gunter finally surrendered to the limits of the human body.

“Shall I have a soldier bring you something to eat?”

“No. I’ll go myself.”

The soldiers’ evening rations were distributed at seven.

It was now midnight.

Even without a curse, this was around the time hunger would begin to creep back in.

And at an hour like this, ordering someone to bring food that wasn’t going to be shared with them?

There were few things more cruel.

For the sake of some poor soldier, Gunter chose to go himself.

“You stay here too. Moving around wastes energy.”

“But your safety…….”

“If someone manages to break through this security, they’ll kill the Lord. Why would they bother killing me? Stay here. Aren’t you in a situation where you need to conserve your strength too?”

“…Come back quickly.”

It wasn’t far anyway, so under ordinary circumstances there would have been nothing wrong with the choice.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“…Lord.”

“I asked what you think you’re doing.”

If not for an unforeseen variable, that probably would have been true.

The instant he ran into the Lord making a nighttime patrol, Gunter’s expression hardened like an overcast sky.

“Do you have any sense at all? At a time when you should be setting an example, you sneak off in secret to steal food? Do you think that is why I placed you in that position?”

“…I wasn’t trying to steal food—”

“I don’t need your pathetic excuses. Shut your mouth and return to your room immediately. Before I strip the title from in front of your name and use you as an example to warn the rest.”

At the torrent of words crashing down on him like a waterfall, Gunter reflexively clenched his fist.

“You don’t hate excuses. You just hate listening to anything I have to say, don’t you? Because I’m an incompetent successor. Because I’m a useless bastard who can’t even manage a quarter of what you can do.”

The emotion surging inside him was refined into clear language, becoming a blade.

“…You!”

“But you’re the one who put that idiot in this position. You’re the one who refused to listen even after I told you a thousand damn times to give it to someone else.”

No matter how many blades he fired, however, it did nothing to make him feel better.

『I told you not to let your emotions control you! How do you ever expect to become the Lord like that……!』

With memories and emotions churning through his brain, he pressed a hand over his face.

『That’s why I keep telling you I won’t do it! I’m just going to become a knight—!』

His cheek felt as though it were stinging from a slap he had received long ago.

“You little bastard, I’ve put up with enough……!”

“Forget it. What’s the point in talking to someone who has no intention of listening?”

“You, you…….”

“So just.”

His fist opened along with the strength draining from him.

His stomach, which had received neither proper food nor water since lunchtime, hurt as though it had shriveled up.

“Just use me as your example.”

He was hungry.

He was truly, desperately hungry.

“You think I won’t do it merely because you say that?”

“No.”

He was so hungry.

“I just think it’ll take something about this bad before you finally let go of Mother.”

His head dropped.

“…You disappoint me to the very end.”

Really?

Wasn’t that Gunter’s line?

At the words of someone who hadn’t listened to—who would never listen to—even his explanation, Gunter placed his left hand against his neck and the back of his head.

Things like, You’re being too hard on someone who hasn’t eaten since lunch, or, How can you know the city so well and still have no idea what your own son has been doing all day…

Those words simply scattered somewhere inside his heart.

There was no point saying them to someone who wouldn’t listen.

He would only make himself look more pathetic.

“Let’s go to the prison.”

Instead, avoiding the furious Lord’s face, he lightly tapped the soldier standing beside him.

The soldier’s face turned deathly pale, but Gunter didn’t withdraw his words.

According to Münmund’s military law, anyone caught attempting to steal food was to be imprisoned immediately and await a trial that could result in execution.

No—most of those trials resulted in execution.

And because that was the case, he would go to prison.

Gunter willingly had himself locked inside the cold dungeon beneath the castle.

Ah.

I was supposed to ask the mage whether he was willing to be employed.

Only belatedly did he remember what he had failed to do.

It was already too late.