Chapter 69 – Corrupted Duke
"So. See me later, kid."
So Sang-kyu flicked the last apple seed off the table and grinned at me, lazy and dangerous.
"You may be young," he added, "but you have much potential."
Coming from a thousand-year-old half-demon fist lunatic, that was… something.
"I'll try not to die before then," I said.
"Do that," he replied, as if it were the simplest thing in the world.
I dropped a gold coin on the counter on my way out. The innkeeper's eyes went wide, his hands fumbling to grab change.
"Sir—sir, that's far too—"
I was already gone before he could finish the sentence.
One gold was nothing compared to what sat under my village. To him, it was a miracle. Let him have a miracle. The world didn't hand out many.
Outside, the air was cooler. The streets of Ocria buzzed with a kind of forced normalcy, like the city was pretending a tower-height flesh nightmare hadn't just tried to eat it days ago.
A young servant in the duke's colours waited near the door, pale and stiff-backed.
"Sir Harbard?" he asked.
Harbard. Right. That was me now.
"Yes," I said.
He swallowed.
"The duke's men are waiting," he said. "They've been… instructed to escort you to the palace."
Of course they had.
Melody's presence brushed the edge of my mind, amused.
"See?" she said. "You burn one monster and suddenly you're everyone's favourite guest."
I followed the servant.
The knights stood in a neat line just beyond the inn's shadow, armour gleaming in the afternoon light. They wore light silver-and-brown plate, asymmetrical and layered, designed more for movement than holding a shield wall—curved pauldrons, segmented chest pieces, long cloaks that hid how fast their legs could move.
Not parade toys. Working killers.
One of them stepped forward, leaving his helmet tucked under one arm.
Brown hair. Golden eyes. The posture of someone who knew exactly how far his sword would reach and how quickly he could put it there.
"It's an honour to meet you, Harbard," he said, bowing slightly. "On behalf of Morel, thank you for saving the ducal capital."
I blinked.
"I thought I was in trouble," I said.
Melody chuckled.
"Maybe you are," she murmured. "Just in a different way."
I ignored her and tilted my head at the knight.
"What exactly happened?" I asked. "Why drag me to a palace instead of just sending a nice basket of fruit?"
The knight straightened.
"The duke wishes to reward you personally," he said. "You—ah—burned away what our mages and soldiers could not handle. The court has… questions."
His gaze flicked briefly to the sword at my back.
"You're the mage dwarf, yes?" he added. "From the reports."
Mage dwarf.
I managed not to visibly flinch.
A dwarf gave me the exoskeleton. That did *not* make me a dwarf. But correcting that misunderstanding right now would only invite more questions.
"That's what they're calling me?" I said lightly.
He coughed.
"The dwarf magus who felled the tower," he said. "That's how the story's spreading, at least. There was mention of a strange derivation—"
"Stories grow extra limbs when you're not looking," I said. "Let's go before this one grows teeth."
He nodded.
We moved.
The escort fell into formation around me—not quite a prisoner's ring, not quite a guard of honour. Somewhere in between. Armour clinked. Cloaks swished. No one spoke.
Ocria passed around us.
Repair crews swarmed the damaged districts. Mages stood at strategic points, hands lifted as sculpted dirt and stone moved where they directed—filling cracks, smoothing over collapsed walls. Others guided carts loaded with debris. Children watched from alleys, eyes wide, until a sharp shout from an older sibling sent them scurrying.
On the surface, everything looked… efficient.
Underneath, it stank.
The poor were everywhere.
Not the usual background poverty you got used to in any city—patched clothes, thin faces, the occasional beggar. This was different. Concentrated. Deeper.
People with hollow cheeks and bruised eyes watched us pass without bothering to straighten their backs. Mothers held on to listless children whose eyes had forgotten what excitement looked like. Men leaned against walls with the slack posture of people who had been tired for so long they no longer remembered any other way to stand.
Their gazes flicked over the duke's colours with the dead calm of prey that already knew running wouldn't help.
Melody fell silent, which was rare.
"This…" she whispered finally. "This isn't just monster damage."
No.
It wasn't.
The monster had tried to swallow a district.
Whoever ran this place had been chewing on its people long before that.
My fingers itched.
Throwing money at this would be easy.
Dangerous, too.
If I just dumped food and gold here, prices would collapse. Farmers would see their crops devalued overnight. Merchants would scream. The duchy's already rotten balance would snap. People would starve differently, and they'd find a way to blame the ones I'd "helped" first.
Bandage on a tumour.
When I get back, I thought, I need to start with what I can control. My own town. My own systems. Land ownership. Jobs. Education. Controlled grain stores. Slow, boring, structural things.
Not like it'll turn into a city or anything.
Melody snorted faintly at the thought.
"Sure," she said dryly. "No way *that* could ever happen."
We approached the palace.
It wasn't subtle.
High walls of white stone, trimmed in blue and gold. Towers with decorative battlements. A wide courtyard where knights trained and servants scurried. The kind of place built to look impressive from a distance and suffocating up close.
The gates opened at our approach with mechanical precision. Inside, the stone underfoot changed from rough cobble to polished tile. Servants in clean uniforms bowed as we passed, eyes carefully lowered.
The scent changed, too.
Outside: sweat, dust, ash.
Inside: roasted meat. Wine. Perfume.
The contrast made my teeth grind.
We stopped before a set of double doors carved from dark stone, veins of lighter rock running through them like frozen lightning. Two maids stepped forward in perfect sync, bowed, and pushed the doors open.
"His Grace will see you," one murmured.
Of course he would.
***
The throne room was large and empty in the way only rich places could manage. High ceiling. Tall windows draped with heavy curtains. A red carpet led from the entrance straight to an elevated dais where the duke's chair sat—a throne in everything but legal wording.
He was already there.
Even if I hadn't known his title, I would've recognised his type instantly.
Fat.
Not the solid weight of a warrior gone to seed, but the soft, oily bloat of a man who had never once missed a meal someone else paid for. He lounged on the chair with one leg hooked over the arm, a plate of roasted meat in one hand, grease glistening on his fingers.
Two women knelt on either side of him, chained to the base of the dais.
They wore scraps that pretended to be clothing. Cloth that covered just enough to avoid legal obscenity, and nothing more. Thin fabric. Bare arms. Bare legs. Bare shoulders. No jewellery—just the iron on their wrists and necks, too tight, biting into bruised skin.
One had hair that might have been a rich chestnut once, now dull and tangled, hanging in front of her face. The other was blonde, skin mottled with old and new marks. Both were too thin. Not starved enough to die. Just enough to stay weak.
They didn't look at me.
They didn't look anywhere.
Their eyes hovered somewhere past the stone floor, like they had learned that focusing on real things only made it worse.
My stomach twisted.
"Ah," the duke said, seeing me. "So this is the hero who saved my ducal seat from that… unfortunate incident."
His voice was wet.
"It's an honour to finally meet you, Harbard," he added. "I was beginning to think the stories were exaggerated. A dwarf mage, they said. Or perhaps a half-breed. I see, instead, a boy with a mask and a sword."
His eyes slid over me like I was a piece of meat at market.
"For some reason," he continued, "you were easier to believe as a dwarf."
Melody's presence coiled cold around my spine.
"Careful," she whispered. "He's the sort that thinks his title is Vastriel's signature."
The knight with the gold eyes stepped forward and announced me formally. Words like "saviour" and "rescuer" and "one who felled the tower" bounced around the stone room and died in the corners.
I knelt.
Not out of respect.
Because this was still the Argent Crown's law, and until I broke it, I had to use it.
"Your Grace," I said.
The duke snorted a laugh.
"No need for such deep formality," he said. "You've done Morel a great service. I merely wished to see the man who burned my problems away."
I resisted the urge to correct him on "man."
"So there's no particular reason you called me?" I asked mildly.
He tore another piece of meat from the bone with his teeth, chewed loudly, and waved a greasy hand.
"I told the steward to think of a reward," he said. "Land, perhaps. A stipend. Titles are… tricky. The Crown would have opinions, and I am tired of letters. But I suppose we could find you a comfortable corner somewhere. You could marry. Breed. Live out your life in peace."
His gaze slid, just for a second, to the chained women.
"Or perhaps," he added, lips curling, "you prefer other rewards."
The blonde shifted.
Not much. Just enough to tug the cloth over her chest a little higher, hands trembling as she tried to cover herself more.
The duke's face darkened instantly.
"You little whore," he hissed.
He didn't even rise all the way from the throne.
He just leaned forward and swung.
The back of his hand hit her cheek with a flat, heavy crack. Her head snapped to the side, body rocking with the force. Before she could fall, he kicked her.
Once.
Twice.
Boot driving into her ribs, her stomach, her shoulder, wherever it landed.
"Don't you dare act modest in front of me," he snarled between kicks. "You think anyone wants that scrawny body? You should be grateful. Grateful to be in my sight. Grateful I feed you. Grateful I—"
"Please," she gasped, curling in on herself as much as the chains allowed. "Please, I—"
His heel cut her off.
Around us, the knights looked away.
Not all at once.
Not dramatically.
Just… eyes sliding to the floor, to the walls, to a spot somewhere above the duke's head. The way you avoided looking at the sun.
Their jaws were tight. Hands clenched on sword hilts. No one moved.
No one said a thing.
Melody's voice came from somewhere near my ear, low and cold.
"If you don't kill him," she said, "I might."
My fingers were already wrapped around her hilt.
I hadn't noticed moving.
Heat climbed up my spine. Not the wild, unfocused rage of my first life. Something colder. Clearer. An old kind of anger that had learned to wear patience as a mask.
You eat like that while your people starve.
You chain women while you call yourself noble.
You beat them for existing.
And everyone around you thinks their silence isn't also a choice.
I stood.
The nearest knight stiffened, hand twitching toward his sword, but he didn't draw. Not yet.
The duke paused mid-kick and turned to look at me, eyebrows lifted in lazy disdain.
"Is there a problem, boy?" he asked.
I drew Melody.
Steel slid free with a soft, hungry whisper that seemed too loud in the quiet hall.
Every knight's hand went to their weapon.
Melody hummed against my palm, eager.
"Careful," she murmured. "Law first. Then throat."
I met the duke's eyes.
"You," I said, voice steady. "You corrupt noble."
The words were heavy in my mouth. Old phrases, old anger. Things I'd seen in too many timelines.
"Do you know," I added quietly, "that under Vastriel's law, a titled noble who abuses their authority can be called to account by Sacred Duel?"
His gaze sharpened.
For the first time since I walked in, I had his full attention.
"Child," he said slowly, "I sincerely hope you know what you are about to say."
I did.
I'd watched this kind of thing from the edges before.
Never been this stupid in the center of it.
Vastriel's law was simple in theory.
Nobility carried privilege and weight. In return, they were bound more tightly by certain strictures than anyone else.
If a noble was accused of corruption, and the accuser held a title—even a minor one—or a recognised deed, they could invoke the Sacred Duel. Vastriel's name made it binding. Heaven watched. Or pretended to.
It was always supposed to be for justice.
In practice, nobles turned it into just another game.
The duke relaxed again, leaning back into his seat, the corners of his mouth twitching upward.
"Go on, then," he said, wiping his fingers on a napkin. "Amuse me."
I took a slow breath.
Melody's presence steadied against my hand.
Then I spoke.
"By the God of the Universe," I said clearly, letting my voice carry, "by Vastriel who holds the stars and judges oaths, I invoke the Sacred Duel against Duke Hans of Morel."
The room exhaled.
The knights shifted, some recoiling as if I'd thrown a spark into a pool of oil.
The maids by the door went white.
Even the blonde girl on the floor flinched, though she probably didn't know exactly what I'd done—only that something *big* had just been dropped into the air.
"For the sake of justice and balance," I continued, "if I win, you will obey these conditions: you, Hans of Morel, will be stripped of your title. Your line will lose its claim to this duchy. You will face execution under Crown law."
My voice didn't shake.
Not even a little.
Melody was very, very quiet.
The duke stared at me.
Then, slowly, he laughed.
It wasn't even a good laugh. Just wheezing and wetness and crumbs sticking to the corners of his mouth.
"You really said it," he chuckled. "I thought you might flinch at the last moment. But you went all the way. How… delightfully stupid."
His gaze flicked up.
High above us, near the ceiling, the faint outline of a sigil had begun to glow—Vastriel's eye, barely visible, acknowledging the invoked law.
The Sacred Duel couldn't be unsaid now.
The terms were set.
At least, my side of them.
"Do you know," Hans said, in the tone of a man explaining something to a particularly slow child, "what the Sacred Duel means when invoked against a duke, boy?"
I didn't answer.
I knew the theory.
I wanted to see how he'd twist it.
"It is not a duel in the common sense," he went on. "You do not simply cross blades with me personally. A duke is not a common knight. When *I* stand in a Sacred Duel, I stand as the sum of my house. My knights. My guard. My power."
He spread his hands.
"In this case," he said, "I think I shall let thirty of my personal knights represent me. Thirty men who have fought in more battles than you have had birthdays. Thirty blades that will be more than enough to cut down one arrogant little mage."
Behind me, armour creaked as the escort squad tensed.
Thirty.
Of course.
It was never going to be a fair one-on-one.
Vastriel's law allowed this. Nobles had argued for centuries that "power" was not just the arm that swung the sword, but the men who followed it. The gods hadn't smitten them yet, so clearly heaven was either fine with it or asleep.
"And should you fall," Hans said, voice full of smug satisfaction, "the conditions you declared rebound on you. You will be executed. Your name struck from the rolls. Your deeds forgotten. No ballads. No memorials. Nothing."
He smiled.
"Vastriel herself will look away," he added.
Melody pressed closer, angry.
"Liar," she hissed. "She doesn't look away from anything."
I kept my face neutral.
"And if I win?" I asked. "You accept my terms?"
He waved a hand airily.
"Of course," he said. "What else? That is the law. You win, I hang. My family loses its hold. The Crown sends some other cousin or upjumped baron to warm this chair. It won't happen, but I am not afraid to sign away a future that will never occur."
His eyes glittered.
"But that's not enough," he added. "I want a condition of my own."
I raised an eyebrow.
That wasn't how this usually went.
"You've already set the shape of the gauntlet," I said. "Thirty knights is hardly a friendly handshake."
He shrugged.
"I am greedy," he said. "Humour me. You have already stepped so far out onto the cliff, boy; another half-step won't matter."
I waited.
He leaned forward.
"If by some twist of madness you survive my men," he said, "Vastriel will honour your demand, yes. But if you *lose*, you will not just die. You will be erased. No record in my archives. No priest speaking your name. No recognition that you ever existed in this duchy."
He smiled, teeth wet.
"That, to me, is a far more satisfying end for an upstart who dares to bark at his betters," he said.
"One more thing," I said quietly.
He paused.
"If I win," I said, "those two." I nodded at the chained women. "They go free. No more collars. No more chains. No more nobles."
For the first time, something flickered in their eyes.
Not hope.
Something smaller.
Like a muscle trying to remember how to move.
Hans's lip curled.
"You are negotiating the fate of my duchy and my life," he said, "and you spend your breath on two used toys?"
"Yes," I said.
Melody laughed softly.
There was a faint shimmer from the sigil above us as the law shifted, recording the additional condition.
The duke stared at me for a heartbeat.
Then he barked a laugh again.
"Very well," he said. "Yes. Yes. Add that. If you win, my house falls, I die, and two whores get to limp off into whatever gutter will have them. I will even sign it on paper if it makes you feel better."
He wiped his fingers one last time, then clapped.
The sound echoed off stone.
"Captain," he called.
The golden-eyed knight stepped forward, helmet now on, visor lifted.
"Yes, Your Grace," he said, voice tight.
"Gather thirty of your best," Hans said. "Not the green ones. I want this spectacle to be worth watching. Strip them of lances and heavy shields. Swords only. Make it… interesting."
He glanced at me.
"And see that the arena is prepared," he added. "Vastriel likes order. There will be no excuses when I inherit that boy's corpse."
The captain's jaw clenched.
"As you command," he said.
He didn't look at me.
Didn't have to.
I could feel the split in him.
Duty. Disgust. Fear.
All wrapped up in steel and leather.
Hans leaned back on his throne again, picking up a fresh piece of meat.
"You know," he mused, as if we were chatting over drinks, "my court mage told me something fascinating. He examined the residue after your little… light show."
He licked grease off his thumb.
"He claims your mana core is weak," the duke said pleasantly. "Flawed. Over-taxed. That your body is fragile under the tricks and fireworks. That if you are pushed for more than a few minutes, you will collapse like a burned-out candle."
He smiled.
"There is no way you will last against thirty of my knights," he said. "No derivation of yours can change that."
He took a bite, chewed, swallowed.
"Truly," he added, as if confiding a secret, "I am delighted. The hero who saved my capital will die here, in my arena, under my law. And the world will never even remember his name."
Melody's laughter this time wasn't amused.
It was hungry.
"Thirty," she whispered. "Thirty men who think they stand between their plague and the knife."
My pulse was steady.
My grip on her hilt was firm.
Above us, Vastriel's sigil burned a little brighter, like a cold star.
Thirteen seconds to break a Swordmaster.
How long to break thirty knights and a duke's fate?
We'd find out.[1]
[1] Foreshadowing is a literary device where an author gives hints or clues about what will happen later in the story to create suspense and build anticipation.