Chapter 9
The duke received Elliot warmly when he arrived unannounced.
Still so vivid in my mind.
The elf he longed for had been breathtakingly beautiful. Had it been mere beauty and nothing more, that would have been the end of it.
But there was emotion in it.
By the measure of swordsmanship, that was no different from having opened the door to the realm of mind-as-blade, where intent and killing strike become one.
What a shame. Had that talent been for the sword rather than the arts, our family would have stood at the summit of the continent once more.
Luon was a prodigy in his own right, but beside Elliot his light seemed dim. And their talents were of entirely different kinds if they had been competing in the same field, the sword, then what? The duke found himself thinking this every time he looked at Elliot.
"Come in, come in. What brings you here?"
The duke buried that feeling and smiled as he addressed Elliot. Elliot was caught slightly off guard by the expression.
This is new.
It was the first time since returning to the past that the duke had smiled at him like that.
Still, the duke always treated me without discrimination.
That had been the extent of it, and that alone was something. And yet the emotional want had never fully gone away.
But that was all in the past.
A past only he remembered. A past that would not repeat itself now.
Elliot was doing his best to keep the past and the present separate in his mind, especially when it came to people. Because the future was going to change.
I will make sure of it.
He would change it himself. And so the past would serve as reference, but he could not allow himself to be dragged under by old assumptions. Holding that resolution firmly, Elliot spoke.
"I would like to have a look around Harvy City."
"So you want to take a trip?"
"That seems a rather grand word for it. It is simply a light tour of our own domain."
At the northern edge of the Nert domain lay a vast mountain range known as the Harvy Range, and at its foot sat the city that bore the same name. It was on the periphery of the kingdom, but its scale was considerable.
"I would very much like to stop there before heading to the capital. Once we are there, finding time for this kind of thing will be difficult."
The most important reason was safety. The Harvy Range had no particularly dangerous monsters so long as one did not venture too deep into it, and under the Nert family's direction, monster suppression campaigns were conducted through the middle reaches every two years.
Even in a time of peace, monsters were a genuine source of dread for commoners, and the governance of the Nert domain was, by the standards of noble houses, a comparatively good one.
The last suppression campaign was about a year ago, I believe.
Beyond that, the countless medicinal herbs that grew wild throughout the range and the revenue from tourism drawn by the spectacular scenery meant that even commoners who applied themselves could accumulate a decent amount of money there. For all these reasons, Harvy City occupied an important position in the Nert domain, and the duke himself made regular inspection visits.
"Harvy City."
"I have only heard of it through rumor, but I am told it is a remarkable place. I imagine visiting will provide some inspiration."
What neither the duke nor anyone else knew was that elves lived there. The only person who possessed that knowledge was Elliot.
His reasons for going to Harvy City were threefold. The first was to make contact with the elves and begin building a relationship. The second was to raid the ancient ruins called the Palace of Time and Memory, which lay not far from the city.
"Would it be possible to delay our departure for the capital by just one week?"
The duke considered it briefly.
One week.
The original plan had been for the duchess to bring Elliot with her when she traveled to the capital. But it was not an urgent matter, and after a short deliberation the duke nodded.
"You can meet us there. I will send word ahead. But you must be accompanied by a guard. I will assign someone to you."
Elliot's eyes brightened at those words.
"Would I be permitted to choose someone myself?"
In other words, he intended to select his own dedicated escort knight. He had been wondering how to raise the subject, and the timing could not have been better.
"Ha! If you can get someone to agree on your own, by all means."
The duke laughed openly at that. A son of his ought to have at least that much ambition.
But knights are a proud lot.
And things were different now than they had been even a few days ago. The duke had made up his mind to confirm Luon as his successor, and he had made no effort to conceal that decision. Every knight in the household would know it by now.
"Then I may visit the training grounds where the knights practice?"
"Go whenever you like."
Elliot bowed and withdrew. The duke, returning his attention to the documents before him, posed a question to the air.
"Do you think the boy will succeed?"
A voice answered from the empty space around him.
"That seems unlikely, does it not? Had he shown talent with the sword, perhaps. But as things stand."
It was Resperyn, the head of the ducal household's secret organization.
"Even so, I would wager on him succeeding."
"Should I then place my bet on failure?"
"Ha, no need for that. And have the third unit ready to follow him as escort. It is our own domain, but one never knows."
"Understood."
The Nert family's knights were organized into three groups.
The Azure Knights, who represented the family's prestige. The Griffin Knights, who handled the majority of external affairs in practice. And the Eagle Knights, who were the most numerous of the three.
The unit Elliot sought out was the Griffin Knights. But when Elliot named the person he was looking for, Griffin Knight Commander Robera Stacia suppressed a sigh.
"You are truly looking for that one?"
"Yes, that is correct."
Why him of all people.
"Young master, I would ask you to reconsider. He has the talent, so ability is not the issue but he is extraordinarily lazy."
And beyond that, he had been born into a noble family, fallen though it now was. His pride ran high, as one would expect of someone who was still a noble, however diminished.
"I ask only that you arrange a meeting. I will not trouble you further after that."
Elliot bowed politely, and Robera exhaled again. Elliot had been fully removed from contention for the succession, but the duke's personal interest in him had only deepened, which made it impossible to simply dismiss the request. If Elliot had been cut from the succession for other reasons and the duke had lost interest, she would have refused without hesitation.
"Then come with me."
"Thank you, I appreciate it."
Elliot walked alongside Robera toward the training grounds, the two of them exchanging light conversation along the way.
"Your skill at the piano is truly that remarkable, they say?"
"You are far too kind."
Robera found herself quietly pleased by Elliot's modesty. If the rumors currently circulating through the Nert household were true, Elliot had every right to be arrogant. Talent backed by real ability was simply called confidence by another name, and in truth, even a fraction of what the rumors described would make it difficult to maintain such a humble manner at this age.
And he is only sixteen, making his social debut now. I simply cannot believe it.
Robera found herself genuinely taken with Elliot's composure, his dignity, his courtesy, and his modesty all at once.
"Who is that?"
"I feel like I have seen him somewhere."
"Idiot. That is the second young master."
"Ah, right..."
When Elliot and Robera appeared at the training grounds, murmurs rippled through the gathered knights. It happened to be a rest period, and the rumors about the family had been circulating too widely for the arrival to go unremarked.
"What could bring him here? I cannot think of any reason."
"True. Though I must say, he seems quite different from how I remember."
All the more so because the spot where Robera and Elliot stopped happened to be in front of one of the more unusual members of the knights.
"Liam. Get up."
"Commander?"
The person Elliot had come for was Liam Lampar, the last surviving descendant of the already-ruined Lampar count's house. In the course of that ruin, the Duke of Nert had intervened on Liam's behalf out of an old connection, and in gratitude Liam had taken a place within the Nert household.
The Lampar house had once been one of the three great swordsmanship families that represented the kingdom, which meant Liam's ability was extraordinary. But that was the whole of it. Liam was a lazy genius possessed of remarkable talent, but with almost no inclination to apply it.
"There are others present. Mind your manners."
"Hm?"
Liam opened the eyes he had been keeping closed. He remained lying on the ground as he spoke.
"And you are?"
Robera was about to say something sharp at that, but Elliot stepped forward.
"It is all right. My name is Elliot Nert."
"Ah, the second young master. And what might you want with me?"
Only after hearing who Elliot was did Liam make a slow, unhurried effort to rise and offer a greeting. Elliot moved directly to the point.
"I would like you to become my dedicated escort knight."
"Pardon?"
Liam thought he had misheard.
"Would you be willing to serve as my dedicated escort knight?"
"Ha. Do you know who I am?"
Elliot already knew everything worth knowing. He had the benefit of a first life. What Liam appeared to be was lazy, but the truth was that Liam was more diligent and trustworthy than almost anyone else.
Beyond that, separately from his work here, he had been reaching into the shadows to try to resurrect his family's name. For Elliot, who had no personal power base within the household, bringing Liam into his fold would serve two purposes at once.
Liam.
They had not been particularly close, if he was being honest. But even after restoring his family and winning independence from the Nert house, Liam had continued to demonstrate loyalty and integrity. He had said that the value of his life was not so cheap.
With this, the debt is repaid in full, interest included. So my son...
Liam had kept faith until the very end, dying with honor intact. The image of Liam, saving Elliot's life at the cost of his own, was still burned deeply into his memory.
"If you agree to serve as my knight, I will remove the scar from your face."
Elliot set aside the complicated feelings churning within him and made the offer in an even, composed tone.
"Pardon?"
Liam blinked at Elliot, momentarily at a loss for words. The burn scar he had sustained when his family fell was a source of deep shame, which was why he had grown his hair long not because it suited him, but because he wanted to cover it.
"You are welcome to test me first. Or shall we do it this way? What if you were to serve as my temporary escort for a time?"
The scar had been one of the driving forces behind his eventual ascent to Sword Master. The depth of that feeling needed no further explanation.
"One year as my temporary dedicated escort knight. If it does not suit you, you are free to leave afterward. Either way, I will remove the scar."
Liam's brow furrowed slightly as he spoke.
"Even the high priest gave up on this scar. How would you manage it?"
He said this and swept back the hair that had been concealing his face. But Elliot's expression did not shift in the slightest.
"Yes. I can treat it."
Something in Elliot's unchanged manner caused the furrow in Liam's brow to ease slightly.
I have heard the rumors, but what is this exactly? Is this what genius looks like peculiar?
Half of the face was unmarked, and the other half was devastatingly disfigured, to a degree that the word monstrous would not have been unfair. Liam had never once shown his face to someone who reacted with such complete absence of reaction. Even the current Duke of Nert, a Sword Master, had allowed a trace of pity to flicker through his eyes.
"What do you say? I will have the scar removed within ten days. The offer remains the same."
A lifetime would be something else.
But only one year.
If the scar could truly be removed. For that, within the bounds of his knightly code, Liam felt he could do almost anything for Elliot for one year.
"And if you fail within ten days?"
"Then I will offer a formal public apology on my name. And I will provide whatever financial compensation is within my means."
For a noble to stake their name on a formal apology was equivalent to incurring a debt. Invoking that debt entitled the holder to one reasonable favor, given freely.
"...Very well."
At present, Liam had just finished consolidating his grip on the shadowed underbelly of the Nert domain. The first thing he had done was reorganize its operations, and the element he had given the most attention to was eliminating activities that fell entirely beyond what he could tolerate, things like the drug trade and human trafficking.
There is no shortage of things that require money.
That had been the reason the duke permitted it. However formidable Liam might be, without the duke's silent allowance, operating on that scale would have been impossible.
There is nothing to lose here.
The worst case was only one year of his time, and the best case was the removal of the scar. If it failed, he would receive a named formal apology and a reasonable sum of money. The only risk was time, and only ten days of it. As an offer, it was one Liam found impossible to refuse.
But why?
Why on earth was this proposal being directed at him? Writing it off as a joke was difficult, given that the second young master had recently become known throughout the household as some kind of mysterious prodigy. And it had not been said in private, either word of today's exchange would spread before the day was out. Liam could not make sense of it.
"The oath ceremony can wait until after the treatment. We depart for Harvy City tomorrow morning, so please organize your people and prepare accordingly."
"...Understood."
"Ah, and we will be traveling on horseback rather than by carriage."
Liam blinked at that.
"Pardon?"
By horse rather than carriage?
"We will be riding hard, so please prepare for that."
This pampered young master thinks riding hard on horseback is something to be taken lightly.
Liam opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. Let him find out for himself. A day or two of this and the complaints would start soon enough. Would he still manage to maintain that composed and mysterious air then? Liam knew better than most how quickly a person could unravel.
I know, because I did.
Sustained hard riding was no small thing. And if that was all it took, then knightly oaths were out of the question even as a temporary escort, the oath ceremony was something Liam intended to refuse on his own terms.