Chapter 81 - The Blue-Eyed Knight (3)

Knight.

A word that even a boy who had rolled through the mud of the back alleys could feel resonate inside him.

There had been someone who opened the door to the world called knights, a world he had thought he could never reach even if he crawled his entire life.

Even beneath the moonlight, that man had never lost his presence, and he was someone who possessed a blue world.

And the boy lost his nest to the world he wielded.

Jorge's eyes, swaying emptily at the tips of his fingers.

The ragged pieces of meat falling over his head.

The knight of blue moonlight, who had poured those pieces that were both salvation and insult over the boy, had once said,

["A knight always takes only proper compensation."]

The third rule of the Swordmaster.

A knight must always be honorable.

Therefore, he must always take only proper compensation.

"... I have come here to pay the proper compensation for your handkerchief, Lady Alicia."

And now, the boy knew that rule as well.

Because the toes of the boy who had struggled and crawled through the mud had finally reached the blue moonlight.

The boy, who could now proudly reach out toward proper compensation, raised his head toward the noble lady.

"For that compensation, I will stake the honor I possess as a knight."

The world he had dreamed of, the world he had longed for.

And the world he had sworn he would one day shatter.

Before the eyes of the knight of blue moonlight, Vlad quietly cried out.

That he had finally earned the right to stand before him.

"And I will do so with my name, guaranteed by Bayezid."

A knight of Bayezid, Vlad of Soara.

"..."

Blue and blue were quietly gazing at one another.

The boy's wavering eyes resembled his world.

* * *

"Vlad. Vlad of Soara, is it..."

The reception room Alicia had provided for her guests from the West.

There, Ishtvan sat lounging in a chair, smacking his lips.

He had thought things would proceed easily, but Bayezid had brought an unexpected move with them.

"That's a name I've never heard before."

With those words, Ishtvan turned his head toward Godin, who was sitting beside him.

A man who always wore a smile on his face.

Yet today, he was not smiling with his usual composed smile, but with something disheveled in his expression.

"Do you know him?"

If it had been the usual Ishtvan, he would not have paid the knights of the North any attention at all.

His bold nature, which he had been born holding along with his bloodline, usually pushed trivial existences out of his memory in no time.

But the brat who had come from the North was different.

"He was incredibly insolent."

"... Was he?"

He thought their eyes had met, but they had not.

Vlad's eyes had only been glaring at Godin, who stood behind Ishtvan, not at Ishtvan himself.

At the sight of Vlad casually ignoring him, Ishtvan felt curiosity along with a fresh sense of insult.

"... If you say I know him, then I suppose I do."

Godin answered Ishtvan's question, but he had still not escaped his thoughts.

The intense gaze the boy had sent him was still making Godin wander through Rose's Smiles.

"I never imagined I would run into him in a place like this."

That day, the reason he had spared the boy had not been born from simple sympathy alone.

The possibility the boy possessed had shone that brightly, and it was also something that made one want to cheer him on.

Even if it was a possibility that might later return as a future source of trouble.

'He's grown admirable to an absurd degree.'

The boy who had crawled up from a bloodstained floor.

The boy who had howled loudly behind his back.

But that boy from back then was gone now.

The boy who had stood before Godin's eyes today was a knight of Bayezid, Vlad of Soara.

'To think that bastard was that same bastard.'

Godin recalled the blue eyes that had looked at him and leaned his back against the chair.

It was an unbelievable result, but the Vlad of Soara he had only heard of through reports really was the Vlad he knew.

"So what are you going to do now?"

"..."

At Ishtvan's brusque question, Godin opened his eyes.

Only now escaping his thoughts, he became aware of his position and swiftly calculated the next action he needed to take.

"It is not as if there is no way."

The knight named Godin was also someone who could cut away even a precious old connection, so long as his lord commanded it.

Though it was a regrettable possibility, if it stood in his way, there would be no reason to hesitate.

"It is a rule that holds true anywhere that the victor takes all."

The boy held a handkerchief engraved with a noble name, and that was the only justification blocking Ishtvan's false proposal.

"Challenge that child to a duel."

"A duel?"

An honorable dueling ground where only those with the qualifications could stand.

The boy had now become a knight, so even without borrowing someone else's honor, he would be able to step onto that place in his own name.

"Young men in love sometimes fight to win the heart of a noble lady, do they not?"

Godin was smiling as he looked at Ishtvan.

It was the same expression he always wore, and it was also the expression trusted by Sigmund, the conqueror of the West.

"Good."

Seeing Godin's smile finally return to its proper place, Ishtvan smiled along with him.

The West did not care what means or methods it used if it meant obtaining what it wanted.

Recalling the blue eyes that had ignored him, Ishtvan smiled fiercely.

* * *

"Thank you for coming, knights of Bayezid."

A place where, beyond the window, a tree rooted atop a low hill could be seen.

Jager and Vlad, who had entered Alicia's office as guests, bowed their heads once more at her greeting.

"Lord Joseph said he would prove that the alliance between Bayezid and Heinal remains firm."

"I will have to send him a letter of thanks."

After hearing Jager's answer, Alicia nodded with a dependable smile.

For this mission, Joseph had sent not only Jager and Vlad, but also knights selected from among the upper ranks of Bayezid to Heinal.

It was also proof of just how high the value of the land called Deirmar had become amid the increasingly urgent political situation.

"Here is the letter Lord Joseph sent."

Alicia accepted the letter Joseph had sent.

"Though Sir Vlad possesses Lady Alicia's handkerchief, Lord Joseph said that alone would not make it easy to refuse the proposal sent by Gaidar."

After receiving Alicia's letter, Joseph had set aside even his work in Soara and quickly gone up to Sturma.

That was partly to move up the preparations regarding the boy that he had arranged in advance, but it was also a move to prepare a more certain play for this matter.

"What is this?"

"Please read it."

At Jager's words, Alicia tore open the envelope engraved with Bayezid's crest.

Joseph's message written in the letter inside.

Alicia's eyes began to tremble little by little as she read down the letter.

"... There was a method like this."

"We did our utmost for Deirmar."

After finishing the letter, Alicia looked at the knights of Bayezid with a light in her eyes different from before.

It was something colder and more settled, a gaze that had become a little more noble than it had been earlier.

"I am also someone who inherited the same blood as Lady Oksana. It is a perfectly possible method."

Duncan, who was standing beside Alicia, realized that her reaction was unusual and quickly picked up the letter to read it.

'... Damn.'

It was something he had been prepared for, but as expected, there was no one anywhere who would help Deirmar out of pure goodwill.

Duncan read Joseph's intent in the words written in the letter, then set the letter down with a grave expression.

Like most nobles, Alicia Heinal had been born with several noble bloodlines through marriage ties carried on since previous generations.

Among them, Alicia possessed the blood of the Oscar Family through her grandmother, and this blood came from the family of Oksana, Joseph's mother.

"... If the Countess of Bayezid becomes my godmother, then I could certainly brush aside the present proposal with ease."

"That is correct."

The problem Alicia had was that she had no parents.

Because of that, she had no choice but to be shaken immediately by the matter of the proposal Gaidar had brought, but if Oksana became her godmother here, the story would become a little different.

Because if Ishtvan truly wished to marry Alicia, he would have to obtain Oksana's permission.

"I worry that I may dare to place a burden on the countess."

"Lady Oksana said she would welcome Lady Alicia at any time."

A godmother or a godfather.

A relationship between an adult and a child bound in a religious form through the Church's certification.

In the worst case, when bloodline was threatened, it would be the only way to protect a child who could not yet protect herself, but wherever one went, authority always came with that much responsibility.

"Must I decide right now?"

"No. We also know well that this matter will be a burden to Lady Alicia."

Alicia, the sole Heinal.

And Oksana Bayezid, who could become her only guardian.

If Alicia accepted Joseph's proposal, Bayezid's interference in Heinal would gain firm justification.

"... It has been a while, Sir Vlad."

Gaidar, approaching a pure maiden under the pretext of a proposal.

Bayezid, baiting a parentless orphan with protection.

For powerless Alicia and Deirmar, there were now few people left whom they could trust.

"What do you think? Is the task you have taken on now burdensome?"

The boy before her was also a knight of Bayezid.

For that reason, it was only natural that he would be more loyal to Bayezid than to her, but even so, the boy would be a little more trustworthy than Joseph in that he had a duty he had to fulfill.

"I will do my utmost for Lady Alicia. That is what I was ordered to do, and it is also what I want to do."

Seeing Vlad's eyes as he spoke without wavering, Alicia smiled weakly.

She knew well that the boy was someone who always did his utmost, because she had seen it in the duel that day.

And she also knew well that he was a boy with an unadorned, faithful attitude, because she had seen him praying beneath the tree of her house.

Though it had been born from a misunderstanding.

"Thank you very much, Sir Vlad."

With a smile, Alicia extended her hand to Vlad and spoke.

"Show me my handkerchief. Since you have been carrying it around all this time, does it not need a bit of care?"

She had no doubt that the boy had kept her handkerchief carefully.

But since he must have carried it around for more than half a year, it would be right to tend to it at least once before bringing it out in front of people.

"Yes."

Watching Vlad reach deep into his breastplate as though he truly had kept it precious, Alicia felt proud for no particular reason.

Though she was still being pressured between the two families surrounding Deirmar even now, seeing the boy show such purity made her feel as if she had been healed a little.

"Here it is."

Sure enough, the handkerchief the boy took out had been well kept, neatly folded and in the same state as when she had given it to him.

If not for the other handkerchief that came out along with it.

"..."

Vlad looked at the other handkerchief that had come out with it and tried to pick it back up as if nothing were wrong, but Alicia's hand, stopping him, was faster.

There were times when a lady's movements were faster than a knight's.

"I do not think this is the handkerchief I gave you?"

Alicia lifted the unfamiliar handkerchief as though telling Vlad to look at it.

At that dreadful sight, Duncan's nape flushed red as he watched from right beside them, and Jager covered his only remaining eye with his palm along with a small sigh.

"It is nothing much, just a handkerchief a friend gave me. It is also the handkerchief I actually use..."

Vlad did not know why, but he thought his words sounded like a shabby excuse.

It felt rather similar to the excuses men made when their wives caught them going to a brothel.

But he was different from them.

Because he was honest, he had nothing to be ashamed of.

To begin with, he had received it by accident, not exchanged it to confirm their feelings for each other, had he?

"It is that kind of insignificant handkerchief...?"

Unlike his confident inner thoughts, Vlad's voice grew smaller and smaller.

Though he had been thoroughly educated by Oksana, the boy, who still did not know the intimate world of nobles, could only stare blankly at Alicia.

"Lady... Zemina."

The boy was saying it was nothing much, but Alicia could sense that a handkerchief with a name embroidered on it in fine thread was not such an object.

Alicia wanted to maintain her composure as much as possible, but today had been far too difficult for her.

Because of that, she could not help but waver for a moment with emotions that were difficult to describe.

"Your friend must be a woman?"

"Yes. We grew up together since we were young."

"Ah."

Vlad smiled along as he looked at Alicia nodding.

"Keep quiet. If you say one more word, I will kill you."

But at Jager's words as he jabbed him in the side, he closed his mouth.

The boy looked around at Jager's sudden warning.

The baroness with an exaggerated smile.

The old knight with a face flushed as if it were about to burst.

Jager with his pale expression.