Chapter 7 - A Famous Hot Spot (1)

"Not yet."

It was a question whose intent was plain to see, but I pretended not to know and shook my head.

"Well, now. His Excellency Count Ballorhard must have quite the headache."

The Third Prince spoke as if this were a grave problem.

"He cannot put an ordinary knight forward against a member of the royal family, but trying to find an opponent of suitable standing would hardly be easy either."

"So?"

"So what I mean is."

After rambling on for quite some time, the Third Prince finally brought out his business.

"What do you think of me as your opponent in that duel?"

It was exactly the business I had expected.

"As it happens, I gained one more ring not long ago, bringing me to exactly two. The dignity of the royal family would not be harmed, and regardless of who wins or loses, it would look like a match to deepen brotherly affection, so the picture would be good as well. I think that makes me the finest opponent you could ask for."

His words poured out like a rapid-fire barrage, and the way his eyes kept darting around was full of impatience. He looked as if he feared someone might snatch away a tasty morsel.

In this case, that tasty morsel was me.

No doubt he had heard about the wager between my uncle and me and had come running, thinking it was a chance to make himself stand out. No doubt he thought a fat scoundrel of an older brother would be easy to defeat.

Using his own brother as a stepping stone to make a name for himself—what tear-jerking brotherly love.

"Think it over carefully. Wherever you look, there will be no opponent better than this younger brother of yours."

"Well. I'll think about it."

Perhaps my lukewarm answer made him anxious, because the Third Prince threw a tantrum several times, insisting there would be no opponent better than him.

"It would look good, and no one's dignity would suffer. As I said..."

"If you keep this up, I'll find someone else. I can't stand people who talk too much."

At my words, the Third Prince snapped his mouth shut. The way he could not hide his thoughts at all made him a child through and through.

"Then please do consider it favorably! I shall be waiting for word! Please!"

After watching my mood, the Third Prince vanished with those words.

"Tsk. He's desperate. Completely desperate."

I was shaking my head and about to turn around when I heard a quiet voice.

"It was truly wise of you not to give an immediate answer."

It was Royal Guard Karl Ulrich.

"His Highness the Third Prince has been known since childhood to have talent with the sword. Rumor has it that he recently sparred with a knight and won."

If a young brat who was probably only fourteen or fifteen had already sparred with a knight and won, then he certainly was no ordinary talent.

But the reason I had not given a firm answer was not because his skills looked particularly impressive.

I simply did not want to drag the other princes into my personal wager with my uncle and attract attention.

"By the way."

I narrowed my eyes at Karl.

"You're talking quite a lot today."

When I said that because this taciturn man, with whom I had barely exchanged a few words over the past several months, seemed unusually talkative today, Karl bowed his head in his steadfast way.

"I apologize if I overstepped."

"You apologize for everything."

He had probably said it out of consideration for me in his own way, but I did not go so far as to thank him.

Words like that were embarrassing.

"I think I'll go in for today."

I had thought to take a walk, but that strange fellow had ruined the mood.

It seemed I would have to return to my bedchamber for the day.

"Your Highness."

When I returned to my bedchamber, the maid I always saw carefully approached and held something out.

"What is this?"

"They are letters addressed to Your Highness."

A thick bundle of letters was clutched in the maid's hand, and I broke the seals on the spot and checked their contents.

If I stripped away all the florid rhetoric plastered across the letters and summarized them briefly, they were as follows.

「Please grant me as well the chance to kick Your Highness the Prince's ass.」

The next letter, the one after that, and the one after that were all the same.

Their motives and justifications varied, but in the end, they all wanted one thing.

They wanted me to name them as my opponent in the wager between my uncle and me.

Ha. Look at these bastards.

I glared at the names written on the letters, then handed them to the maid.

"Write down the names of every bastard who sent a letter here."

I thought I had dealt with those presumptuous letters in my own way.

But I was mistaken.

The next day, and the day after that, letters continued to arrive.

Their business was exactly the same as the letters I had seen the previous day.

Everyone wanted a legal chance to beat me up.

Ambition, justice, simple curiosity, personal revenge—all sorts of things were hidden behind polite, refined sentences, while the letters earnestly asked me to name them as my opponent.

"A whole damn hot spot opened up."

It felt as if the entire kingdom was holding a feast with me as the dish.

"If any more letters come for me, check the contents roughly, and if they're about the same thing, just write down the names separately."

After giving that instruction, I was able to reduce the bothersome work by quite a bit.

Even so, there were some letters I had to check myself.

The maids could not carelessly break the seals on letters sent by great lords of count rank or higher, and at times like that, I broke the seals in their place.

But once they had been opened, that was the end of it.

"Write them down. Every last one."

The people of the 1st Prince's Palace looked extremely curious about what I intended to do with the names I was recording.

But no one stepped forward to ask.

I also had no intention of telling them what I was thinking first.

They would find out when the time came anyway.

Even while the 1st Prince's Palace was busy with the flood of letters, I leisurely recovered my body and waited for the day my uncle would come again.

"A bowstring drawn too tight will break sooner or later."

My uncle, who appeared after nearly ten days, began lecturing me without warning.

Since I had done something wrong, I could not talk back this time and simply listened in silence.

But there was a limit to how long I could just listen in silence.

My uncle's nagging showed no sign of ending.

At this rate, today's training would end with me listening to him nag.

"Uncle. Is that going to end today?"

Unable to endure it any longer, I cut my uncle off and asked when we were going to train.

"You insolent brat."

My uncle clicked his tongue once, then waved his hand dismissively.

As if I had been waiting for it, I began running along the training ground.

HUFF, HUFF.

Perhaps all the effort I had put in until now had not been in vain, because my body felt fairly light.

Of course, that was only how I felt.

I had escaped [Morbid Obesity], but I was still fat, and I had the body of a middle-aged man with rolls of flab stuck all over him.

In fact, the [Obesity] entry was still firmly lodged in my traits.

Ugh. When am I going to become human?

As I was lamenting while looking at my body, which had quickly become soaked with sweat, my uncle threw me a wooden sword.

As always, I held the wooden sword and followed the sword path of the false Dragon Slayer.

After I had been swinging the sword for a long while, my uncle raised his hand.

It was a signal to stop much earlier than usual.

"Rumors are rampant throughout the kingdom."

I knew at once what rumor my uncle was talking about.

"Thanks to that, I have become very bothered."

"More than me?"

In truth, I had dumped all the letters on the maids.

But I put on an unnecessary show of suffering.

"And so. It seems we must make a decision now."

"What decision?"

"The Double Chain knight who will cross swords with you."

"Ah. An excellent thought. Once a decision is made, the bastards clinging to us like this should lessen a little."

My uncle nodded.

It was the first time our opinions had matched since training began.

Of course, I did not feel any sense of kinship over that.

It merely meant that we both felt the need to hurry and decide on my opponent.

"You decide."

"Me? I thought you had someone in mind, Uncle."

"You are the one who must cross swords with them anyway, so I thought it would not be bad for you to decide."

It sounded plausible enough in its own way, but why did it sound to my ears like he was saying he could not be bothered to choose, so I should decide?

"If you wish, you may also seek advice from others."

Because the eyes of the Royal Knights might be able to pick out a relatively easy opponent.

My uncle was not considering the possibility that I might win in the slightest.

Even in the face of that blatant disregard, I laughed hollowly.

Perhaps I had grown used to being disregarded after being subjected to it so much.

Now even my pride was not hurt.

"If you need time, think it over for a few days."

"There is no need."

I refused my uncle's consideration that did not feel like consideration.

"I've already decided."

* * *

"That was an excellent decision! Truly excellent!"

The Third Prince, who came to see me the next day, had a broad grin on his face from beginning to end.

"You made a wise choice, quite unlike you, Brother!"

"I can still withdraw the decision."

"I only mean that you chose that well, so do not twist my words."

Perhaps afraid that I might truly withdraw my decision, the Third Prince hurriedly added those words.

"I shall surely repay my brother's decision. I promise that I will at least allow you to save face. We are brothers, after all, are we not?"

"Well, then. I'm grateful enough to cry."

"No need to say such things. Did I not promise you then? That choosing me would be the best choice."

Apparently, this bastard was an idiot.

The sight of him taking my sarcasm at face value and acting smug made him the very image of a fool who knew nothing but the sword.

Is the bloodline bad?

The thought that the Leonberks of this generation seemed to have all gone to shit made a sigh rise from me on its own.

"Your role is truly important, Brother. It is, at least in name, a spar between royals, so should the picture not look somewhat proper? If you are too absurdly weak, it will be difficult for me to help you save face as well."

Looking at the Third Prince, who now treated me completely as his supporting act, I replied indifferently.

"Sure. I'll try."

"Very good. Very good indeed."

Looking at his childish behavior, I shook my head.

Well, this guy is only fourteen now, isn't he?

He tried to look mature, but he was no more than a child of fourteen at best.

Now that he had achieved his goal, so what if some of his thoughts spilled out?

Fourteen was that kind of age to begin with.

"At any rate, there is still plenty of time, so Brother must devote yourself and devote yourself again, hurry up and throw away that Training Sword, and learn a proper sword style. Only then will the picture..."

But even someone as understanding as me could not tolerate him looking down on the Dragon Slayer.

My uncle, and every knight in the world, might treat the Dragon Slayer as a worthless scrap of a Training Sword, but at the very least, the bloodline of Leonberk should not.

Even if it was only natural they did not know its true value because the transmission had been lost in the previous generations.

At the very least, they should not do so in front of me.

"Brother?"

The Third Prince, who had been excitedly chattering away, belatedly saw my face and his expression stiffened.

"It seems."

How valuable the things they had thrown away truly were.

"Choosing you really was an excellent choice."

The Third Prince was quite a decent opponent for reminding them of that.