Side Story Chapter 4
Fire blazed up from Kireua Sanders’s sword. Although he had just slain his enemy, his aura wasn’t extinguished for a long time. Kireua’s scarlet flame was strong enough to even swallow another flame. Although the level of Kireua’s flame was higher than the other flames, it wasn’t enough to satisfy Kireua because he had known very well for a long time that he was unmatched among his rivals.
Argo rane Suspen’s headless corpse belatedly collapsed to the ground. Argo’s horse wailed plaintively at the loss of its owner; it seemed to know what its fate would be.
Kireua finally flicked his sword through the air, splattering Argo’s blood on the ground.
“Killll Kireua Sanderssss!”
“Protect His Highnesss!”
Two groups of people simultaneously broke into shouts. Kireua watched nonchalantly as an endless wave of infantry soldiers poured out from between the valleys, with knights wearing gleaming full-plate armor pushing through the wave.
Kireua’s enemies were spurring their horses forward in front of him, and his allies were also running toward him from his back. At this rate, Kireua would become marooned in the center, but he had zero intention of fighting head-on in open ground when he had the best fortifications in the world at his disposal.
“Go back! We’re going to fight them from inside the fortress!” Kireua shouted using his mana as he turned toward the fortress.
The knights on Kireua’s side slowly came to a halt.
“Kireua Sanders! Are you running away like a chicken?!” someone shouted from behind him.
However, Kireua just held up his middle finger to them. “What, did you really think I would get captured like this, you idiots?”
* * *
Marquess Dargo rane Suspen had been a loyal vassal of the Pontier family for a long time, so it was natural for the Suspen Family to crumble at the fall of his master’s family. Changed by that incident, Dargo refused to allow his only son to live like him; he intended to be to be the last Marquess Suspen that sacrificed himself for another.
Dargo had seen his hope in, surprisingly, none other than the current emperor. Joshua Sanders was a bastard and hadn’t known he was a prince until he became an adult, but even that kind of man had become an emperor with his talent alone.
Ever since then, Dargo dreamed that he might become his own ruler, not somebody else’s vassal. Even though he may not accomplish that goal in his generation, his descendants might be able to do it. Dargo couldn’t be sure of anything, but he was certain that he didn’t want his son to serve a girl for his entire life.
That had been his plan…
Dargo looked blankly at the corpse that had just been delivered to him. Then one of his knights brought something round, carefully wrapped in a cloth. Dargo didn’t need to ask the knight what he was holding.
“…Argo,” Dargo mumbled.
Was he too hasty? Or did this tragedy arise from his old greed? Dargo made every possible preparation during the past twenty years. On top of that, the Emperor, Dargo’s biggest obstacle, was gone now.
“…Was I acting hastily ever since that day?”
On that day, Lady Charles had announced her marriage to the Emperor. It was as if she had noticed the change in the southern region and was trying to unite her people in anticipation of what was happening today. Although the Emperor already had two wives at that point, Lady Charles readily became his third wife.
“Gamaere,” Dargo said.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
“We should get our revenge, shouldn’t we?”
“…Yes, of course, we should, Your Majesty.”
Gamaere was the subordinate that Dargo trusted the most in his entire life. He was currently the commander of the first knight order and the only Master in the Suspen Family aside from Dargo.
“Who are you?”
“We are the Tiger Knights of His Majesty Dargo rane Suspen, the White Tiger of the South!” Gamaere answered with pride.
“My son might have lost his battle, but it’s going to be different on the battlefield this time because my knight order will never lose, am I right?”
“You are right, Your Majesty!” Gamaere shouted again.
Dargo infused his mana into his sword. There were concepts called attribute and authority within the field of auras. An attribute literally referred to the characteristics of one’s aura. It was similar to the types of elemental mana, such as earth, fire, wind, and water. Dargo’s attribute was the fire that slayed ghosts, earning it the name “Ghost Slayer”.
And an authority was a supernatural ability like the abilities that the Angel Spirit, the Demon Spirit, and the Four Guardians[1] used, but it was a little different from aura. In the current generation, whether or not one had an authority was the factor in determining if one had the potential to become one of the Nine Stars.
“Let the vendetta begin,” Dargo declared.
“I shall fight alongside you until I die!”
A layer of purple aura surged over Dargo’s sword, incomparably thicker and more vivid than the greenhorn prince’s. The shape of a roaring tiger also floated overhead.
“I, Dargo rane Suspen, will take the lead. The White Tiger of the Southern Avalon Empire will lead his army!”
* * *
Kireua flinched as soon as he entered the fortress. Hamel was running toward him with a pale face.
“Your Highness!”
“I’m home.” Kireua waved his hand.
“W-Were you a Master?”
Kireua came to a halt and smiled faintly. “Are you surprised?”
“W-Well…” Hamel tried to say something, but his face darkened. “Why did you act so recklessly?”
“I was just testing my ability.”
“Pardon? A test?” Hamel frowned, unable to understand what was going on inside Kireua’s head. “Haven’t I told you that you are the commander-in-chief of this place and that you need to remember what kind of weight the title holds!?”
“I won, didn’t I?”
“If you were a little slower, you would have been surrounded by the enemies and very well could have been killed!”
“But in the end, I escaped, and now I’m here.”
Hamel let out a long sigh. “Our real problems start now. Although you called the enemy a fox… he’s a tiger. Did you think about what the tiger that lost his cub would do?”
“A tiger?”
“Marquess Suspen’s other title is The White Tiger.”
Kireua chuckled. “A rebel leader doesn’t really deserve that kind of title.”
“You can’t think lightly of him. He’s a powerful warrior that is respected even by the Imperial Knights.”
Kireua’s expression changed subtly. “…Oh, yeah. He and his family were the Pontiers’ highest-ranking vassals before the rebellion, right?”
“Just as you said. By the way, why have you hidden your talent until now? If you had revealed it sooner, it would have helped increase our people’s morale.”
“I’m sorry about that, Sir Hamel,” Kireua apologized. “I didn’t plan on deceiving you specifically.”
“What do you mean…?”
“It was necessary. I’ve been away from the Empire for ten years, so I don’t know how things work within the Empire.”
Hamel’s eyes widened as he realized what Kireua was thinking right now.
“It’s said that to deceive my enemies, I should first deceive my friends.”
“…Did you learn that in the Thran Kingdom? Come to think of it, your aura… Was your teacher…?” Hamel trailed off.
“Yes, my teacher is the Flame Emperor. I learned his sword techniques and the mindset of a swordsman from him.”
“Mmm…!” Hamel grunted as his assumption turned out to be true.
He couldn’t disregard Kireua raising Ulabis’s name since it meant that the Prince was taught by one of the continent’s Absolutes.
“‘Hide thirty percent of your ability, but if you enter a battle, try your best. Don’t trust anyone on the battlefield,’” Kireua recited, as Ulabis had taught him.
“…Indeed.”
“But it was different today,” Kireua suddenly added.
“Pardon?”
“If I had acted in accordance with my teacher’s lessons, I would have never accepted that challenge.”
Hamel frowned slightly. “What do you mean…?”
“My teacher always used to say that not every knight on the continent can become Joshua Sanders.”
“That is also right,” Hamel agreed. “Not everyone can become a one man army. Going out onto the battlefield alone without enough skills is merely reckless bravado.”
“Yes, I myself might get slaughtered while trying to save another person, so if there is anyone else who likes to play hero like I did today, I should abandon that person without a second thought.”
“Yes, that is the reasonable approach that everyone should take. We, the Imperial Knights of the Avalon Empire, teach that too.”
Kireua grinned. “But you sent our strongest knights to save me even though you knew that very well, Hamel.”
Hamel quailed for a moment. “I-It’s different here. You’re the commander-in-chief of this army and His Majesty’s son, so how can we give up on you?”
“Of course, you might have made such a move because you were worried about our soldiers’ morale, but…” Kireua’s eyes turned cold. “...how did those rebels find out I was here when I’d returned to the Empire only recently? How did they know the extent of my abilities and chose to challenge me to a duel? Dargo rane Suspen, the head of the Southern Rebel Army, is a very careful man, right? I left for the Thran Kingdom very discreetly ten years ago, so he shouldn’t really have any information about me. It’s really strange. He doesn’t seem like the type of a man who would send his own son without being certain that his son would win.”
“W-well, that’s because they wouldn’t have known that you’re a Master—”
“They know who my father is. A careful man like him doesn’t gamble his son without concluding that a victory is guaranteed, but there aren’t many ways to find out about my abilities when I’m far away…”
“Are yo-you saying there is a mole in the fortress?”
Kireua readily nodded. “Yes, that’s the only way to make sense of the situation. The mole must hold a pretty high rank and can easily access information about me.”
Hamel couldn’t say anything because he realized who Kireua was suspecting.
“Your first question as soon as I returned was really weird. It wasn’t, ‘Are you hurt?’ or, ‘Why did you do this without thinking it through?’. It was ‘Were you a Master?’”
Hamel’s expression darkened. His palms were starting to sweat now.
“You’ve told me before that our best option right now is a strategic withdrawal, so I actually sent a scout party to the rear gate at dawn. But as it turns out, they found traces of preparations for an ambush. If we really exited through the rear gate, the rebel soldiers who were waiting for us would have torn us apart.”
The crowd of people around Kireua and Hamel froze.
Metal rasped ominously against leather..
“Sir Hamel.” Kireua pointed his sword at Hamel’s neck. “Why did you betray us?”
1. The four divine creatures associated with the cardinal directions. Azure Dragon, Vermillion Bird, White Tiger, and Black Tortoise. ?
Namu's Thoughts
Why would you do that Hamel when your name is Hamel?!?!
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