Chapter 355 - Scolding and Teasing

["Keep fighting real battles."]

Rem had concluded that Encrid grew stronger through actual combat. Anyone could see the clear limits of Encrid's talent. Rem was no exception. It would have been only natural for his growth to stop at any moment. How many people had he seen climb toward knighthood, or some other goal, only to come to a halt? The limits of talent arrived silently, settled in, and ate away at a person. Then was there no way to break those limits?

There was. In Rem's opinion, the best way was to stake your life on it. Limits meant complacency. One of the best ways to avoid complacency was to put your life on the line, whatever you did. That wasn't limited to swinging a sword. Even writing poetry or singing would make you improve if you approached it that way. That was Rem's philosophy. ["Put your life on the line out on the battlefield."]

It was the best advice Rem could give a man who never stopped trying to advance. Encrid recalled their conversation and mulled it over. This was no battlefield. Yet he could see someone struggling with his life on the line. That was what Krang seemed to be doing: throwing himself into the struggle, risking his life. It gave Encrid something approaching an epiphany. More than anything, it made him want to keep watching. "Enjoy a look around the palace," Marcus said. "Would I be too much of a shameless crook if I offered you another commission here?"

Encrid ignored that addition entirely. Watching Krang kept him busy enough. Esther narrowed her eyes and examined the palace grounds. Her instincts as a mage detected the magical implements and spell devices scattered throughout. Something felt strange. It was a nation's royal palace; of course it would be full of spell objects and artifacts. That was only natural. So the artifacts alone weren't the reason. Mages weren't surprised by things within the bounds of their predictions. 'Then what?'

Something sinister lurked here. Something that stood opposed to order. Magic did not inherently conform to order, but she sensed a certain malice. GRRR.

Esther gave a whisper-soft growl. Its unusual form piqued her interest a little. Above all, while the palace seemed fraught with danger on the surface, to a mage of sufficient attainment its defenses were utterly shoddy. She had no idea how it had come to this, but defensive measures were lacking in numerous places. No, it looked as though someone had deliberately left openings. "Have you come looking for a place to die?"

The guard who alone wore a dark-gray helmet spoke as they made their way toward the palace. Rather than passing through the center of the capital, they were heading toward one corner. Coupled with the route, his words sounded like a threat. There were fewer and fewer people around. Matthew reacted.

"Do you know who stands before you?"

"Someone who will take offense if he's a fool who trusts his bloodline to excuse his behavior, and hold his temper if he isn't." Clear enough, Encrid thought privately. The man was no pushover. Instead of sizing them up openly as he had earlier, he was now studying these Royal Guards discreetly. Twenty soldiers had come to escort them. Some gave the impression of well-trained elite soldiers, men who would know to thrust their spears even when confronted with a considerable shock. Others, however, were pathetic. They couldn't even march in step. Drill was fundamental to soldiering. Anyone who couldn't even manage that could hardly be called elite. Was this really the standard of the Royal Guard, the spears that protected the royal house? Even so, the man in the dark-gray helmet walked at their head, maintaining a proper balance among them all. Encrid respected that bearing. Regardless of their individual abilities, he carried himself like someone who took responsibility for every one of them. 'I wish he'd attack.'

Judging by his bearing, he was the last man who would. With some people, you could get a feel for them just by watching them walk. This man insisted on facing an opponent head-on. He would speak plainly rather than mince words, and even given the chance to strike someone from behind, he would wait for them to turn around. His gait, posture, speech, and manner all hinted at it. He wouldn't fight without just cause. 'Jaxon's opposite.'

Thinking that, he glanced at Jaxon and met his eyes.

"You seem to be thinking something offensive," Jaxon said.

"No, not at all." Encrid denied it. A specialty of his. This sort of thing wasn't even a lie. It did no harm to his convictions. He was merely being considerate, keeping his thoughts to himself for the other person's sake. "I don't believe you."

"Looks that way to me, too."

"Your eyes have lost their way."

Jaxon tilted his head slightly in disbelief, followed by Rem and Ragna's comments. "But are they going to feed us?"

Dunbachel added a different question to the mix. Encrid seized on it.

"I'm sure they will."

"Instead of attacking us right here?"

"I don't think they will." Could the men surrounding them on either side fail to hear that conversation? Of course not. They heard it very clearly.

"How insolent."

One of the less capable Royal Guards spoke. The one who couldn't even march properly. He seemed to be acting as though he was deliberately refusing to, but even that only proved his pathetic lack of mental discipline. These were strangers he was meeting for the first time. In their presence, he should have marched properly for the sake of his unit's prestige, if nothing else. But he didn't. Which made him a moron. The moron sounded as though he was picking a fight. Encrid worried about his companions' reaction. What if they all went berserk? But someone else spoke up first.

"Do you mean to make a fucking fool of me with that remark?"

Krang raised his voice from up ahead. "That was not our intention," the dark-gray helmet answered.

"Then shut up."

Krang spoke the instant he finished. That was forceful.

"And the bastard back there prattling about insolence had better shut up before I cut out his tongue." The Royal Guard's shoulders jerked. In fear? No. In anger. And he let it show, too. This fellow really did reveal his limits with remarkable ease. Still, despite Krang's claim to royalty, none of them seemed willing to acknowledge him. "The men charged with guarding the royal palace have loose tongues and careless hands. A deplorable state of affairs."

Krang continued his rebuke.

"You do not yet have the standing to judge our conduct," the captain said.

Krang snorted.

"I speak as a mere member of the royal house. Not as king."

"And must you not first prove that you are royalty?"

"That is no concern of a mere swordsman! If you were sent here under orders, carry out those orders and nothing more!" Krang suddenly thundered another rebuke. Since he was right, the captain had no response. He mulled the words over several times, then held his tongue. Meanwhile, Encrid had to turn around. "Bleh."

Rem was sticking his tongue out at the Royal Guard from earlier.

Oh, this gloriously crazy bastard. What could he say? He hadn't expected that. And Rem wasn't the only one. Jaxon clicked his tongue disapprovingly and shook his head. As for Ragna:

"You must know how to read the stars to know where you're going. And you must look before you lie down."

He offered the man some advice. Encrid was too dumbfounded to speak. What had happened to the bastard who'd stared south and muttered about looking north? Of course, the advice itself wasn't wrong. You should check where you could lie down before stretching your legs. It was a maxim built on that saying. Coming from Ragna, however, it carried rather less weight. GRRRK.

The Royal Guard ground his teeth. His face was scarlet. Left alone, he looked ready to turn into a ripe tomato. 'If someone turns into a fruit or vegetable, they wouldn't be a Beastman. What would you call them? A Fruitman?'

Distracted by that idle thought, Encrid murmured, "Tomato man."

Naturally, he adjusted his volume so that only the Royal Guard could hear. "That slipped out."

Then he passed off his spoken thoughts as an accident. Naturally, the Royal Guard bastard ground his teeth twice as hard and turned even redder. Matthew, meanwhile, felt as though he were walking a tightrope over a cliff. He couldn't hide his disbelief at the chatter behind him. Those crazy bastards. What the hell were they doing?

Krang suppressed his laughter, while Marcus felt much as Matthew did. He hadn't expected them to act this way even in the capital, surrounded by Royal Guards. Wasn't there a saying that a flask that leaked indoors would leak outside as well? The lunatics were no more normal outside Border Guard. "You lot."

Their commander looked back for a moment and started to say something, then shut his mouth. The party reached the outskirts of the city and boarded a carriage. More precisely, Krang, Matthew, and Marcus boarded it. Marcus's guard tried to follow, but Marcus sent him away.

"I'm with the Royal Guard and the hero whose name resounds throughout Border Guard and its surroundings. What danger could there be, especially in the heart of the royal palace?"

There seemed to be a barb in those words, but that was no concern of Encrid's. The rest remounted the horses they had ridden here. On foot, they wouldn't arrive until around sunset. So the carriage and riders proceeded at a moderate walk. The road to the palace ran along the city's outskirts. Guard posts stood at intervals, naturally occupied by a few soldiers each. There were also gates and barriers for blocking the road to the palace should anything go wrong. At present, of course, they stood wide open. From horseback, Encrid could see the light-absorbing city wall to the left and a portion of the cityscape to the right. This wasn't a market district, but an area lined with mansions. "The capital really is big. Been here before?"

Rem asked, and Encrid nodded. On his previous visit, he had been little better off than a beggar. Quite a few things had happened, too. Some people had looked down on him. Others had tried to kill him. Relating every incident would take half a day; written down, they would fill half a book. So he kept it brief.

"Last time, I was too busy getting beaten up to look around." "Sounds like you, Captain."

Rem chuckled and nodded. Ragna quietly looked from side to side. This was his first visit to the capital, too. In a big city, the slightest mistake would surely leave you lost. The alleys twisted like a maze. 'Even getting from the palace to the city gate will be a struggle.'

In fact, all he needed to do was follow the main road, but Ragna was already absorbed in the maze-like alleys, thinking about how to navigate them. Jaxon followed quietly. He had visited both the capital and the royal palace before.

'Abnaire.'

The name of Aspen's strategist came to mind. He had detected no lies in what the man said. In that case, the business he needed to attend to would be somewhere inside that palace. At the end of the road, lofty spires came into view. The three tall spires represented the three swords that symbolized the royal palace: the three knights who had protected a king of old and written the kingdom's founding legend. When the throne passed to the next ruler, a national crisis had struck, but a divine creature called the Sun Beast had appeared and protected the kingdom. Founding myth, legend, and actual history. Dunbachel was getting hungry. Encrid privately hoped he might meet a knight inside the palace. He also wondered what he would ask if he did. "We've arrived," the Royal Guard commander said.

And they had. They were at the entrance to the royal palace. Soldiers guarded the inner castle's gate, dressed in the same uniforms. Royal Guard was the collective name for the force protecting the inner castle. There were four gate guards in all, and each saluted the commander. Then they looked over the party and exchanged nods with the Royal Guards who had escorted them. Something about that struck Encrid as odd.

'They're split into sides.'

The greetings suggested closeness with some, yet distance from others. He'd heard factional divisions were rife inside the palace. Apparently, they had affected the Royal Guard as well. "I'll get you for this."

Just before they parted, the soldier they had mocked spoke through clenched teeth.

"He's the one who made fun of you."

Encrid put Rem forward.

"Wow, that's unfair. You tell him. Was I the only one?" By turning the question back on the Royal Guard, Rem dragged a blade across the thread of reason the man was barely clinging to. Still, perhaps patience had been the strength that earned him a place in the Royal Guard, because he held out to the end. "Enough."

The commander pulled his subordinate back by the shoulder.

"Don't push it," he warned.

Encrid kept pointing at Rem, as though he were the only problem.

"I'm telling you, this isn't fair." The commander turned away without waiting for an answer. Someone new greeted the party.

"The Queen has summoned you to the audience chamber."

It was an unfamiliar face. After looking Krang and his companions over once, he introduced himself.

"I am Viscount Vantra." Ah. Encrid knew that name. A noble under Count Molsen. The bastard who had sent troops with their insignia removed to Border Guard. He was blond, with a clean-cut face and broad shoulders. A trained body. "Marcus Vaisar."

"It's been a while."

Marcus officially held the rank of baron, a title bestowed at the discretion of House Vaisar. That was one of a marquis's rights, granted under royal authorization. Not that they handed out titles to just anyone. Marcus had proven his worth. He and Viscount Vantra knew each other. More precisely, they had been fighting each other with the royal palace as their arena. Vantra simply led the way, ignoring Encrid's party entirely. Apart from Marcus and Encrid, he hadn't even properly examined their faces. As they walked, Krang spoke again without moving his lips.

"Don't make fun of the Queen."

What did this bastard—no, this illustrious royal bastard son—take him for? Mocking the Queen was an offense against the royal house. Why wouldn't he know better than to do that? He had intended to wait outside the audience chamber in the first place. "You are to enter. The rest will wait."

That had been his intention, but Viscount Vantra stopped him.

"Her Majesty wishes to see the face of the hero who saved Border Guard." Encrid had expected a lesson in etiquette and a change of clothes before going in, but circumstances were what they were. A royal bastard son had suddenly appeared. In reality, the major nobles would already know all about him, but they had to pretend otherwise, didn't they? It wasn't as though any of them wanted to announce that they were the bastard who had sent the assassins. So they would treat this as a hastily arranged meeting prompted by surprise. And while they were at it, they would see this Encrid, the hero of Border Guard. "I fear I may breach etiquette."

"Do not worry. I shall remain at your side and instruct you personally."

The viscount's answer only made Encrid more uneasy. He could detect no emotion at all. Accordingly, he sensed no malice, but it still felt unpleasant. Yet he had no grounds to refuse. But did Viscount Vantra not wash often, or did he have a taste for chewing raw meat? A faint, rank odor stung Encrid's nose. Dunbachel was holding her nose behind him; apparently, she'd already smelled it, too. To someone with an ordinary sense of smell, it would merely have been unpleasant. To a trained nose or a Beastman, however, the rankness went beyond unpleasant and threatened to set their nerves on edge. Encrid briefly wrinkled his nose, then replied.

"Thank you for your consideration." Soon they reached the audience chamber. Behind him, Rem gave a hand signal telling him to go and endure the ordeal. In southern parlance, wasn't that something like, "Have fun working your ass off"? The others came to a halt and simply stood there. Encrid stepped into the audience chamber. Doors carved with various patterns swung open to either side. The guard stationed before them swept his gaze over Encrid's entire body. He had already surrendered his weapons. Once he was inside, the doors scraped across the floor and closed with a low rumble. The Queen had yet to arrive. Only six nobles were in the audience chamber. Since the meeting had been arranged in haste, only those likely to attend were present.