Chapter 248 - Tracking
“Hahahah. Eastern sorcery truly is irregular and difficult to predict. Even I, watching it in person, found it hard to see the next move, so do not worry too much.”
“...Thank you.”
Pale lowered his head at the Crown Prince’s consolation, which was not quite consolation.
“Uncle. Now you understand, do you not? Why I sided with the East, I mean.”
“Yes. I understand perfectly well. So you may stop teasing me now.”
The Margrave picked at his ear in front of his visibly smiling nephew.
“Then I will go look for my younger sister. She dislikes social gatherings greatly, so it seems she was not in a state of mind to greet you, Uncle.”
“Take your time. I know Exia’s personality is exactly like her father’s, so how stubborn must she be?”
“I will return. You worked hard as well.”
“Thank you.”
The Crown Prince left the social gathering hall with a broad smile.
By now, even the remaining central nobles had mostly gone, making the place nearly empty.
Pale kept his head lowered and took a step toward the man who was his superior, his teacher, and like a father to him.
“I apologize. I ended up disappointing you.”
“Disappointing me? In what way?”
The Margrave piled onto a plate the food the central nobles had not even touched.
The meat had cooled a little, but in the borderland, this much would still count as freshly grilled meat.
He filled the plate with meat, with not a single bit of greenery in sight, and carried it to an empty table.
“Are you not eating? You used quite a bit of strength, so you must be hungry.”
“I am not hungry right now.”
“Then it seems I am not the one who is disappointed.”
“…….”
“You are merely disappointed in yourself. I, for my part, am not disappointed at all. It is not as if you violated military law or sacrificed soldiers.”
Pale watched him stuff his mouth with nothing but meat and clenched his fist tightly.
“Did I not lose to a blood kin of the East? Since I fought using the swordsmanship Your Highness taught me, I absolutely did not want to lose.”
“Pale. That swordsmanship was made so that you would not lose to giants. Did you fight a giant? He was smaller than you, even for a giant.”
“Fifth Son of Millesdusk is young, is he not?”
The Margrave laughed while chewing his meat. Then he took out a hip flask and opened the lid.
Instead of the central wine that was far too sweet, he cleansed his palate with liquor distilled in the borderland.
“Will you drink too?”
“Today, I would like to.”
“Drink.”
Pale took the flask and, like the Margrave, poured it down his throat.
Every place the liquor touched burned so fiercely that he felt as though he could name the location of everything from his esophagus to his internal organs.
The liquor was bitter, but it was not as bitter as the defeat from earlier. It was a different sort of bitterness.
It felt fundamentally different from the bitterness he had felt when he had been pushed back by a Snowfield Giant.
As an adult who had lived far longer than his young subordinate, the Margrave defined that feeling for him.
“Are you frustrated? Because you lost to someone younger than you?”
“…….”
“The other knights of the borderland have lived while constantly feeling what you feel now, but you are only feeling it for the first time. You are very lucky.”
The Margrave took the flask back and emptied even the last of it cleanly.
His body grew warm, and the tip of his nose reddened slightly.
“Pale. There is something very obvious, and therefore cruel.”
He exhaled at length and continued.
“You are not the greatest knight in this world. There is no guarantee you will become the greatest in the future either.”
“...I know.”
“But you certainly have talent, and your environment for cultivating it is good as well. When one lives such a blessed life, one eventually sees them.”
“Do you mean people like Fifth Son?”
The Margrave nodded.
“Those who seem as though they will one day reach the peak. There are people who look that way. What you saw today, I felt the same.”
The Margrave laughed softly and speared a piece of meat with his fork.
“Still, is it not fortunate? That fellow does not seem to have any intention of training his swordsmanship further.”
“...Do you believe that if he trained in swordsmanship, he might be able to catch up to me?”
“With pure swordsmanship alone, that would be difficult. But as you saw, to Fifth Son, the sword is a secondary weapon. It does not seem likely to go beyond that.”
“I felt it when I crossed swords with Fifth Son. There truly was no emotion to be read in his sword.”
“That is because he is a weasel.”
The Margrave, still seated, jerked his chin toward the entrance.
“Like the one standing over there.”
“...Chancellor Gunter.”
After disappearing with the Emperor earlier, the chancellor had returned and was standing in front of the door. Before standing there, he had come over to ask them,
—Where is Fifth Son?
When he was told that Fifth Son would return after a short while, he stood by the door like that.
They did not know his purpose, but it was true that Youngest Son, who would soon have a “conversation” with the chancellor, seemed rather pitiful.
“Weasels have their own way of fighting. You still do not have enough experience to engage in a battle of wits with cunning weasels.”
“I will gain that experience. What must I do to gain it?”
“Live as you are. You are working hard, and you lived that way today as well. As for the rest, you must let time do its work.”
Pale smiled bitterly.
“I would like to hasten that time, if only I could.”
“That cannot be done, but you can produce a similar effect.”
The Margrave took Pale by the arm and made him sit in the chair beside him.
“When two people have a mock duel, the two duelists are not the only ones who grow. Those who watch it grow together with them.”
Someone was gradually walking in from the entrance. He was a man with dark purple hair and blood-red eyes shining like his hair.
“So watch carefully. You will learn that crossing swords is not the only form of a duel.”
***
“You have arrived, Fifth Son.”
Chancellor Gunter stood before Youngest Son as he was about to enter the social gathering hall.
“What is it?”
“Do you have time?”
Youngest Son looked at the Margrave, who was seated at some distance behind the chancellor.
The Margrave was already watching this place together with Pale. Youngest Son felt as though he understood what the Margrave wanted, so he entered the social gathering hall for now.
“It seems I do.”
In any case, all the notable central nobles had left, leaving only small fry behind.
Even they, when the chancellor approached, were pushed far away like dandelion seeds before the wind.
“There are a few things I wish to ask you, my lord.”
“Must I answer?”
“That is your freedom, my lord. But please hear me out.”
“Very well. The question is your freedom as well.”
Like the Margrave he had just seen, Youngest Son picked up a plate and put food on it. It was mostly seafood.
Since he did not dislike sweet wine, he took an entire bottle. It was likely good liquor, so just as he was about to take another bottle, he felt a gaze on him.
“Is it all right if I take one more bottle?”
“It does not matter.”
“Good.”
Then one more bottle as a spare.
For a very brief moment, the chancellor wore an expression of disbelief, then erased it again and changed the subject.
“I will speak without hiding anything.”
“I did not know you were capable of such a thing.”
“His Majesty told me to keep you close, Fifth Son. However, I do not understand it.”
Youngest Son, who had been placing neatly prepared lobster meat on his plate, chuckled.
“Then am I supposed to make the chancellor understand why His Majesty said such a thing?”
“That is the answer I must find.”
“You said you would speak without hiding anything. What was the question you meant to ask me?”
Youngest Son took a seat at a table in the opposite direction from the Margrave.
The chancellor still stood silently before him without sitting or putting any food on a plate.
He was an old man whose footsteps were even quieter than the Head Maid’s. The chancellor spoke in a voice that seemed to have no breath in it.
“In my eyes, my lord, you are a potential enemy.”
“Is that so?”
Unlike Youngest Son, who answered in a bored voice, the chancellor spoke as if pressing him hard.
“Then why am I being advised by everyone not to remain wary of you for what little remains of my life, but to keep you close instead?”
“Did you not say that only His Majesty told you so?”
“Please look around you.”
That was not a command to turn his head and look around at once.
It meant he should recall who was around him, and so several figures came to mind.
“His Majesty and His Highness the Crown Prince, His Highness the Margrave and Her Highness the Princess. Even General Raymond. All of them are trying to remain close to you, my lord.”
Princess Exia was not like that, but Youngest Son let it pass without bothering to say so. The chancellor then asked,
“Why do you think that is?”
“I am sorry to answer a question with a question.”
He opened the cork with his bare hands, without a tool, and poured wine into a glass.
As wine worth the price of a house poured out, Youngest Son also asked his question.
“Is there any chance that your suspicion of me will change depending on what answer I give? From what I can see, you are not the sort of person who changes his mind because of someone else’s words.”
“…….”
The chancellor closed his mouth for a moment.
For an instant, harsh words nearly came out. He felt as though some brat whose blood had not yet dried on his head had defined what kind of person he was.
It was a very fresh feeling, and at the same time, a filthy one. But the reason he closed his mouth was also because it had struck a nerve.
Still, the chancellor managed to nod.
“It can change. Depending on your answer.”
“How convenient. ‘Depending on my answer,’ you say.”
Youngest Son sighed faintly and put the wine he had just poured into his mouth together with food.
In the slight gap that appeared, the Magic Sword opened its mouth.
[Why is this old man suddenly doing this?]
—It seems he had some sort of conversation with the Emperor. In my opinion, the Emperor is beginning to withdraw from the front line.
[The front line?]
Having grasped the situation to some extent, Youngest Son thought about the relationship between the absent Crown Prince and the chancellor before his eyes.
The chancellor, who would become a wise adviser beside the new emperor, was already bloodshot with vigilance.
He was distinguishing those who would hold a blade toward the inexperienced emperor in the early days from those who would offer flowers.
Among them, Youngest Son, an outsider, was the first target of his caution.
It was not unreasonable, since despite being an outsider, he had already received the attention of too many imperial power holders.
Even the Crown Prince, who would later rise to the summit of the Empire, was giving him that attention.
The chancellor, standing upright with a body as dry as an old tree, was the same. Though not in a good sense.
Youngest Son answered.
“It is the same reason you were able to serve two emperors.”
“...What do you mean?”
“I mean a hired problem-solver. There were people who hired a problem-solver rumored to be good in the East, pretending they had been deceived, and the problem-solver completed his work. He earned their trust.”
Once trust had been earned, it was only a matter of time after that.
“Problems and difficult questions in a person’s life are bound to be endless, and the higher one’s position, the more difficult those problems become.”
“Then the previous clients seek out the problem-solver again. And the problem-solver completes the mission once more.”
“Correct.”
“…….”
The chancellor’s face became filled with thought. Nothing could be read from his narrow eyes, but his tightly closed mouth spoke for what was going on inside his head.
“I am a problem-solver hired from a foreign land. I do not have a home in the Empire, and I have no reason to live here. In other words, you can also become my client.”
“No.”
The chancellor denied it, but the meaning of that denial was not directed at what Youngest Son had just said.
“Rather, I strongly feel that you wish to become my client, my lord.”
The weasel who had survived the longest in the Empire saw through the inner thoughts hidden behind those blood-red eyes.
The problem-solver from a foreign land smiled at the local problem-solver.
“Count Baha. I want the chancellor to turn his eyes toward him.”