Chapter 389 - Who Stood Before the Queen?

Today, which had always ended before sunset, had changed. Ragna, living proof of that change, turned around.

As he lowered his sword and steadied his breathing, the proto knight who had seemed like death incarnate crumpled behind him. Blood welled from the severed stump, feeding the carpet already soaked scarlet. "How?"

Encrid spoke. He was hardly horrified, but he was surprised. Genuinely curious, too. So he asked. Was he asking how Ragna had gotten here? Watching them, Krang wondered the same thing. Help had arrived at an uncanny moment.

In truth, this was the culmination of a repeated, twisted today, but Krang could not have known that. While Ragna silently flicked the blood from his sword, Encrid made the reason for his surprise clear.

"How did you find your way here?" How could he not be surprised?

Ragna had come all this way alone. He could hardly have been following Encrid in secret, so he must have come from the gate. This was something that could never have happened unless the goddess of luck had done far more than kiss him and personally taken his hand to guide him. Ragna puffed out his chest at the question. It was as though he had come all this way just for this moment.

"I know a shortcut." "Luck?"

Encrid compressed his question into a single word. Had luck brought him here?

Ragna gave an equally compressed answer.

"Skill."

He had a natural gift for finding shortcuts. Krang blinked.

What the hell were these bastards doing? He couldn't make sense of their conversation. Wasn't this the talk of madmen?

Well, it wasn't his place to complain. What mattered was that they were alive. Night had not yet fallen. Krang realized that things had ended before the help he had arranged could arrive.

"I nearly pissed myself."

He flopped down onto the floor. Those were hardly words for a man who aspired to rule a nation, but saying them did nothing to diminish Krang's dignity. That was the kind of man he was.

Why should taking joy in surviving, as any human would, diminish his dignity? That was what he would have said if anyone asked. After his brief exchange with Ragna, Encrid used his left hand to roughly set the displaced bones in his right wrist. His eyes remained on Ragna.

His gaze had changed from when he had spoken almost jokingly a moment ago.

Finding his way here was one thing. But what came next? Ragna had driven back a man Encrid himself could not handle and cut off his head. Encrid had watched the entire fight.

Anyone who had seen Ragna fight, who had seen his sword, would have known.

He had not yet attained knighthood, but he would become a knight. That was the kind of talent he possessed. A fraction of it had spilled out into view. Matthew, too, stared wide-eyed, his breathing quickening.

It was that astonishing. Encrid spoke.

"Thank you." The words expressed gratitude, but another emotion outweighed it in his tone.

Krang's ears pricked up, and he turned his head. Encrid rarely showed his feelings so readily, but now he seemed unable to contain them.

Looking at him, Krang shouted,

"A healer! Fetch a healer!" His two guards were badly injured. Tending to them was urgent, too.

Whether out of devotion to their duties or loyalty, a servant and a maid emerged at once.

"Y-yes, Your Highness." Wherever they had hidden, they had managed to escape death and injury. No, that was only normal.

Had the dead proto knight's intentions come to fruition, these people would have attended to Krang's body. Besides, unless he was some depraved killer obsessed with murder, there was no reason to kill servants and maids for nothing.

Even if he had turned traitor, the dead man had belonged to a knight order. Krang knew that, which was why he had called for someone. "Fetch a healer."

Krang spoke from where he sat on the floor, and the servant and maid hurried off. His gaze never left Encrid. "You nearly died."

Ragna spoke. He meant Encrid, of course. Had he sensed the emotion behind that thank-you? Was he reproaching Encrid for directing such feelings toward the man who had saved him?

There seemed to be a little of that in his words. Krang had a talent for discerning the hidden meanings in people's words. Insight, one might call it.

Even so, Encrid's gaze did not change. Encrid dreamed of becoming a knight. Yet even with his mind set on stopping that man, he had failed.

And he had not fought alone. Krang's guard Matthew and the other spear fighter had helped him, yet this was the result.

He had lost. It was defeat. An ordinary person might have tasted frustration and despair. Even without those feelings, seeing Ragna would inevitably stir something else.

Anyone human would feel jealous. Could someone truly be human without having envy seize their heart?

That was what Krang thought. Then he looked at Encrid and thought,

'That bastard isn't human.' "Let's have a bout once this heals."

Encrid raised his right wrist.

What emotion burned in those eyes? Not a trace of envy. Only exhilaration, joy, and the desire to test himself.

That was what Ragna was scolding him for. "When you've just escaped death, you ought to know how to restrain yourself."

It was an unlikely thing for Ragna to say, but this time Encrid had certainly gone too far. Recognizing that himself, Encrid nodded. "Krang?"

Encrid called to him. Krang had been about to collect his thoughts and act. His mind was already full of what needed to be done next.

Then his 'preparations' came into view. He had not traveled the continent merely to flee.

This was one of the results. "I'm late."

A man with short brown hair spoke as he approached. Watching him stride down the corridor, Ragna recognized at a glance that he was no easy opponent. "Sir Ingis."

Krang addressed him. Encrid recognized the man's affiliation. How could he not, when two swords and the Sun Beast were engraved on his breastplate? "Ingis of the knight order."

His voice was young. So was his face. Could he even be past twenty? In fact, Ingis was only twenty-eight. His youthful appearance was a sore point.

He was also the most gifted genius in the Scarlet Cloak Knight Order. During his wandering years on the run, Krang had visited the south as well. More precisely, he had met the knight defending the southern border and the regions adjoining the Demonic Realm.

["Sir Cyprus."] He had met and spoken with the knight who even had a military unit bearing his name. Then he had witnessed the fighting in the south. There, Krang had nearly lost his head four times.

Thanks to that, he had seen their battles and understood the dangers they faced. ["I will not borrow a knight's power to ascend the throne."]

Krang looked to the future. He envisioned what lay ahead for the royal court. That was why he knew he could not draw on a force beyond the norm, a knight, now.

Should he cut away the royal court's own flesh to gain the throne? ["Keep your honor. I will do what I must."]

He would not. He would make the foolish, stupid choice. And so he had.

Perhaps that was why he had won a promise, and why Ingis stood before him now. This was the help that would arrive and resolve matters if he could hold out for half a day. "I came with eight squires."

It was as Ingis said. The others were clearing things up at the gate, while he had hurried here.

His gaze went to the proto knight Ragna had killed.

"Sir Pilten." Regret seeped into his voice, but he did not blame Ragna or anyone else. He merely gazed at the dead proto knight with mournful eyes for a moment.

Everything came down to one's own choices. He knew well that Pilten envied him, but that did not mean he had wanted this outcome. Pilten had become a rebel and chosen his side. Right or wrong, it was the path he had chosen. It was only fitting that he bear responsibility for the outcome.

Inwardly, Ingis was also grateful. Had Pilten lived, he would have had to kill him himself. He soon raised his head.

"We must go to Her Majesty the Queen."

Master Cyprus had given him two orders. Besides ensuring Krang's safety, Ingis was to stop and quell any sinister threat within the palace. "I was just about to."

Krang agreed.

Had a single proto knight from the south been the only blade he had prepared? Had he staked everything on one person's decision, when a change of heart would doom him?

Of course that was not all. Yet none of the other help had arrived. That meant trouble had broken out elsewhere.

The entire party headed for the same place: the Queen's audience chamber.

* * *

"You're the tax collector?"

Having reached the palace, Jaxon had arrived at his final stop. This was his destination.

He had found the person who commissioned the assassins' alliance. At first, he had thought it was Viscount Mernes. Mernes had profited from using the bandits known as Black Blade.

But following up on several pieces of evidence had revealed another person. He had learned a great deal while killing off the assassins' alliance. As a result, he had identified Black Blade's leader and the client. He had not uncovered everything alone. Outside pressure had brought this about. More precisely, it was thanks to that man Krang's maneuvering.

Krang had physically divided the nobles into opposing sides. So...

'I can't say the captain didn't help, either.' The thrashing Black Blade had taken had forced this man into the open. Otherwise, he would neither have pressured the assassins' guilds into forming an alliance nor commissioned them.

No, he would never have acted personally in the first place. "They failed?"

His question was answered with another question. A large man stood with his back to a broad window. Jaxon nodded.

"They never stood a chance."

"Why?"

"The difference in skill."

"How kind of you."

"I have a question, too. Will you answer honestly?"

"I will." A man who had begun as a merchant, purchased noble standing, and become a tax collector, an official collecting the royal house's taxes. A man said to have sold his soul to a demon to get there.

"Are you one of the black lily?" The large tax collector twisted his lips. He smiled, but his face was far too contorted for a smile.

"Fuck. I told them we should have made sure to kill and burn every last one of you." His words brought back the image of a burning mansion.

Jaxon had come to the right place. Raising his sword, he said,

"The rightful son of the Bensino family has returned." Throughout their exchange, the tax collector had kept his hands beneath the table. Now he withdrew them from under the thick, sturdy, and exceedingly expensive rosewood table.

He held two modified crossbows, already loaded with bolts, ready to fire at a pull of the trigger. "Can you dodge these in a cramped room?"

"I stand here as a man robbed of his family, as a son robbed of his parents."

"Quit spouting bullshit and come at me." For the last resort of a man who had used Black Blade to carry out all manner of schemes, it was utterly sordid. But Jaxon did not condemn him.

He merely had one wish.

"Please. Don't beg for forgiveness."

He meant it. "Bullshit!"

The tax collector fired the crossbow in his left hand.

TWANG!

The string snapped forward, sending a black-painted bolt into the darkness left by the setting sun. Its tip was coated with a poison called Ten Breaths. A graze would be enough. Jaxon did not hide in the darkness to unsettle him. This was a moment to follow his heart, and he wanted the man to see him clearly until the very end.

He swung his sword and knocked the bolt aside. This hardly even qualified as a feat. CRACK!

The bolt snapped, its pieces ricocheting into the wall and floor beside him. Meanwhile, a second bolt came flying. A staggered attack.

Jaxon drew his sword back and struck that one down as well. SNAP!

The broken bolt's tip grazed his cheek. He had not wanted to dodge it. So he hadn't.

A scratch opened on his cheek. A stinging pain followed. Poison. "Got you!"

The tax collector shouted. His flippant tone ill suited his bulk. Jaxon disliked it.

He had not expected the object of his vengeance to be some great man. But what was this? He was nothing more than a sordid little man. ["Aren't you making them grander in your own mind? Don't you think the people who burned your family must have had some reason worthy of it?"]

His master's words came back to him. They were right. That was how he had seen it. They had to be great figures acting for some great purpose. A demonic altar, the resurrection of an evil cult's god. Shouldn't it have been something on at least that scale? Or a great noble who manipulated the nation?

He had thought it had to be. He had built them up in his mind. Otherwise, there was no reason to go so far. No, there was a reason. Humans could kill for the smallest greed.

It was a mistake. That was all right. He could correct it. Hadn't Encrid shown him? What should he do when he took the wrong path?

'Come back.' He could start again. And if it happened again? If he made mistake after mistake? That was all right, too. He could repeat it. Start again. Keep at it until he succeeded.

Encrid had taken up a sword and dreamed of becoming a knight. Was that dream absurd? Laughable? An object of ridicule?

Not at all. Through repetition, progress, and refusal to give up, he built his own tower and walked his own path.

That was what Jaxon could do. That was all he needed to do.

He decided not to be disappointed merely because his enemy was sordid. "Ten Breaths?"

Instead, he named the poison.

"... You're really from Georg's Dagger?"

The tax collector looked troubled and tense as he spoke. Then he surreptitiously took out another object and threw it down. BANG!

Smoke billowed up. A smoke bomb. Jaxon felt vibrations that numbed his hearing. The smoke obscured his vision as well.

It posed no problem. He had seen through tricks like this hundreds of times. Sixth Sense, presence, disturbances in the air. He sensed them and located his opponent by feeling alone.

The man was trying to escape through the window. Jaxon strode over, seized him by the nape, and hurled him backward. The man swung his hand, a hooklike weapon clutched in it. Grabbing and throwing him with his left hand, Jaxon drew Stiletto with his right and raised it. He blocked and deflected the attack, then took a few steps toward the man he had thrown. The man neither screamed nor groaned. Within the smoke, he said what needed saying now.

What he himself needed to say, of course. The words meant nothing to Jaxon.

"Spare me, and I'll give you more wealth than you could dream of in a lifetime. I can give you treasure! I know Black Blade's secret vault!" "I know the secret vault of the continent's foremost assassins' guild."

A mere secret vault belonging to Black Blade?

The implication made the tax collector sweat. Jaxon opened the door. Several bodies sprawled outside greeted him. His own handiwork: the people who had barred his path here.

There had been guards and assassins among them. Presumably, they were what Black Blade's leader had prepared for him. Not everyone had died. There was no reason to harm servants or maids who had hidden in corners rather than attack.

Jaxon waited for the smoke to clear, then turned his head. He saw a curved dagger in the tax collector's hand. More precisely, he saw the man holding it in a reverse grip, hidden beneath his thigh. Jaxon simply raised his longsword and thwarted the man's intentions with a stab to the thigh.

SHUNK!

The point sank into his thigh.

"Aagh!" A scream rang out. Jaxon churned the sword in the wound, pulled it free, then stabbed the other limbs in turn. Once he had severed the tendons in the tax collector's arms and legs, he took his weapon and tossed it aside, then bound the wounds with broad strips of cloth to stop the bleeding. "You crazy bastard!"

The tax collector's voice was raw with fury.

"I hear that often. It never sounds endearing."

Jaxon spoke listlessly, then took out Stiletto and a whetstone and began sharpening its edge. He also set out a dagger with a saw-toothed edge. Beside it, he lined up an awl, pincers, and other implements.

Torture tools. "What do you want? The black lily? Should I tell you who the others are? What else? What do you want to know? What, you bastard!"

Jaxon blinked a few times before answering.

"Nothing."

"... What?"

"Please, don't ask for forgiveness. Your tongue comes last." Jaxon did not consider his vengeance beautiful, or even just.

["So what? Who gives a damn?"]

Encrid's words came back to him. He did not want to stab a friend in the back just because it was necessary. He wanted to look beside him, not merely straight ahead.

Hadn't people said everyone lived by exploiting others? Some people didn't.

At any rate, he didn't give a damn. He would simply follow his heart. "If anyone asks, tell them Jaxon of the Bensino family sent you. I'll send all your friends along, too. One of them should already be there."

"Aaaaaaagh!"

The tax collector's screams filled the mansion.

"It wasn't meeeee! It wasn't meeeee!"

To the very end, the tax collector cried that it wasn't him, but Jaxon did not listen.

* * *

"Should I say it's been a while?"

The Queen's audience chamber was in shambles, too. There had been a disturbance here as well.

The Queen sat on her throne, a mage on one side and the Frog Luagarne on the other. Several nobles stood below them. To Encrid's right were the Marquis of Fertile Lands and an old man he had never seen before, though he resembled Marcus.

Opposite them stood the man who had said it had been a while.

Count Molsen.