Chapter 82 - The One Granted Permission Because He Was Worthy (1)

“I hate fools.”

In the Bayezid office specially prepared by Alicia.

The one-eyed knight sitting there narrowed the only eye he had left and spoke.

“And of all the bastards I’ve ever seen, you’re the biggest fool.”

Vlad was now a knight.

But before Jager, the boy could only ever be an inadequate squire, and he stood politely with both hands clasped.

“I think your stupidity in ruining all the preparations Lord Joseph worked so hard to arrange with a single handkerchief has already reached the realm of talent.”

“... I’m sorry.”

Before Jager, who quietly recited his wrathful scolding, Vlad could only stand in a posture of repentance, as he always had.

'... Of all times, why did it have to be that?'

This time, he had truly wanted to do well.

It was his first assignment after becoming a knight, and in a way, it was also a mission centered around him.

But the affairs of the world did not always move according to one’s will.

“I didn’t know that was how it worked.”

Both the handkerchief Zemina had given him and the one Alicia had given him were precious, so he had only kept them tucked inside his breast.

It was not entirely Vlad’s fault that he had kept them so deep inside that the two handkerchiefs ended up stuck together.

But regardless of his intentions, Vlad had committed yet another great mistake against Alicia.

“... Get out.”

“I’m sorry.”

Jager did not strike the boy down any further.

Once this winter passed, Vlad would be eighteen.

It was the age when he would become an adult rather than a boy, and since the title he held was now knight, even Jager had to treat Vlad with a certain measure of respect.

“...”

However, Vlad, the one actually being treated with respect, seemed entirely awkward with the situation and only stood there watching for cues despite being told to leave.

“Why aren’t you leaving? Do you want to be beaten like before?”

That would be more comfortable, if anything.

Vlad brought out the words he had been keeping in his heart and honestly said how he felt.

“You’re right. Could you just hit me instead? I think that would be better.”

“... Haa.”

Jager could only let out a groan at Vlad’s absurd answer.

He had thought the boy difficult to handle from the moment he had first picked him up, but he had never imagined he would become this unpredictable.

“Stop talking bullshit and get the hell out. Please.”

Seeing Jager growl while rubbing his eyepatch, Vlad had no choice but to hurry out of the office.

Because the knight with the green world was, without realizing it himself, preparing to enter an even deeper world at Vlad’s absurd words.

“... What are you all looking at?”

What awaited Vlad after he hurried out of the office under Jager’s murderous order to leave were the knights of Bayezid who had come with him on the mission.

“You’re such an impressive fellow, so we ought to at least get a look at your face.”

“Aren’t you the infamous prodigal of the North? My, what an honor.”

“To carry two women in one hand—now that is what one might call the bearing of a hero.”

The knights snickered as they laughed at Vlad’s foolish behavior.

But their laughter was not scorn, but an act that held a certain affection.

Through his missions with Rutiger, Vlad had gotten to know the knights of Bayezid.

The knights here were people who had seen the boy always struggling with all his might, and now that he had become a knight and their youngest, they put up no walls against Vlad.

In other words, their teasing now was merely to toy with their youngest knight.

“I’d like to be alone.”

“Oh my, then should we make room for you?”

“This new youngest one is different from the start.”

Looking at the senior knights cackling at him, Vlad had no choice but to snort and step out of the reception room.

“Damn it.”

Having come outside to escape Jager’s anger and his seniors’ laughter, Vlad walked down the corridor and roughly mussed up his hair.

Even to his own eyes, it had been a foolish mistake he could not defend, so there was no way for him to answer back.

“... Ah.”

At that moment, familiar memories began to rise in Vlad’s mind as he walked down the corridor.

The memories that surfaced like déjà vu slowly brought Vlad’s steps to a halt.

“I guess the way people live is similar everywhere.”

Rose's Smiles of that time, which now existed only in his memories.

There had been men who had laughed at the boy in much the same way as the knights now.

The laughter of the knights still coming from behind him sounded like Burleigh and his seniors from back then making a racket.

Slowly leaning his back against the corridor wall, Vlad fiddled with the handle of the dagger Jorge had given him.

Longing was something eased by sharing memories, but the boy had few people with whom he could share his own.

And so, in the middle of an empty corridor, only the boy stood there, chewing over his memories.

* * *

“The more I think about it, the more ridiculous it is.”

Alicia had her lips pressed tightly together as if angry, but Duncan, who had watched over her for a long time, knew that she was not truly angry.

The attitude Alicia was showing now was merely a small bit of pouting.

“Even if he lacks common sense, how could he keep a handkerchief from another woman together with mine? Do all men do that?”

“... Still, the handkerchief was quite clean.”

At the words from beside her, Alicia shot Duncan a sharp look.

“Of course it was.”

“It is not a matter of course. Especially for a boy of that age.”

Duncan let out a single dry cough before opening his mouth.

He was not saying this only because the one-eyed knight who had come to him last night had bowed deeply in the boy’s stead.

“I heard the missions he has taken on until now were harsh ones. The fact that he kept it safe even through all that surely means he had been paying special attention to it.”

“...”

Alicia remained silent, listening closely to Duncan as if telling him to continue.

The document she was holding had not turned a page for some time and remained right where it was.

“It was a mistake born of ignorance. In a way, it also means he is that pure. At the very least, he does not seem to have any ulterior motives, so is that not fortunate?”

“... That is true.”

Knights were always people desperate to climb higher, and from the perspective of such people, Alicia’s handkerchief was surely no different from an opportunity to rise in status.

Even now, there were men everywhere drooling over her, so in that sense, the mistake made by the boy named Vlad could even seem rather admirable.

“Even so...”

At Duncan’s defense of Vlad, Alicia finally released the lip she had been biting.

After hearing Duncan’s words, it seemed there was no particular reason for her to be angry.

“Look over there.”

Watching Alicia slowly regain her composure, Duncan gestured with his eyes toward the window.

“I suppose each and every one of those actions is why Bayezid cherishes the boy.”

“...”

Following Duncan’s nod, Alicia turned and looked out the window.

There was a boy kneeling on the hill.

With both hands clasped, he looked to anyone like he was offering a prayer in a devout posture.

“That hasn’t changed, then or now.”

The boy’s blond hair was fluttering within the landscape she had seen for so long, but Alicia felt no sense of incongruity at the sight.

That was how sincere Vlad appeared.

“But who is that?”

As Alicia watched Vlad praying in peace, something unfamiliar suddenly came into her view.

From far below the hill, someone was slowly walking up with his hands clasped behind his back, as if it were his own backyard.

The unfamiliar back told her that he was not one of Heinal’s people.

“Damn.”

Duncan, who realized the man’s identity before Alicia did, hurriedly picked up the bell and began shaking it hard.

“Attendant! Is there an attendant outside!”

Hearing Duncan’s bell ring urgently, Alicia slowly approached the window.

The boy was someone who had received permission from the mistress of this place to climb the hill.

But the person now climbing the hill was someone who had never received her permission.

“Hurry and inform Sir Jager!”

The most dangerous person among those currently in the estate.

A knight of the West who had received no permission for anything regarding Deirmar.

Ishtvan of Gaidar.

He was approaching the boy who was praying.

* * *

It is sorrowful to be left in a place no one can see.

Even if one shines by oneself, it would be sad if that light had no meaning.

Vlad, who knew that situation well, lifted his head toward the white snake that no one remembered.

Through the World of voices, the snake whose eyes met the boy’s was smiling.

“Do you still not remember anything in particular?”

["Hard to say."]

He had come up to Deirmar’s hill again for the voice, but it seemed no special memories were surfacing even now.

“Didn’t you say a few came to you when you saw Noir?”

["It seems I am connected to spirits somehow, after all."]

Still, Vlad’s efforts were not entirely without results.

Among the memories that had surfaced like fragments, the voice could tell that he was fixated on spirits or forgotten things of old.

Though he could not know whether that fixation was a duty toward something, or whether it came from his own will.

["Someone is coming."]

With the voice’s warning, Vlad slowly rose from his seat as he felt an imposing presence being deliberately let loose, as if telling him to look this way.

Though he did not turn around, he felt as if he knew who it was.

“So there is a graveyard in a place like this.”

Pretending to have finished praying, Vlad stood and turned toward the voice he heard.

There stood a knight of the West whose burly build was as great as the confidence he possessed.

“Someone you know must be buried here?”

Ishtvan Gaidar.

The eldest son of Count Sigmund and the man courting Alicia.

And the man brought by the knight of blue moonlight.

“This is a place one may only come to with the owner’s permission.”

“Seeing as you’re here, I think I can be here too.”

“I received permission.”

Meeting Vlad’s unwavering gaze, Ishtvan smiled.

“Now you’re finally looking at me.”

“...”

“Back then, you were only looking at Godin. It made me feel as if I’d turned invisible.”

Passing by Vlad while making idle talk as if it were nothing, Ishtvan plopped down nearby and asked.

“I heard you have Baroness Alicia’s handkerchief.”

A man who had not received permission, yet was brazen.

Ishtvan spoke as he looked down at the estate visible below.

“Godin said if you give up that handkerchief now, he’ll count it as payment for the second piece of jerky.”

“...!”

The messy scraps of meat that had fallen onto his head.

There had been a boy whose life was saved through them.

It had been a moment when he could survive in humiliation because it was not a rightful price.

“Not that I know what that means.”

With indifferent eyes, Ishtvan held out his hand to Vlad and spoke.

“Hand it over.”

His stance was bold, as if he were asking for something of his own.

He did not hide what he wanted.

If he wanted something, he took it by force if necessary.

The world of the West, where only the greedy could survive, rested upon his palm.

“... Try taking it.”

To Ishtvan’s demand, Vlad merely laid a cold answer over it as if he had been waiting.

“If you have the ability, that is.”

The North does not retreat.

As Sturma’s red-stained walls bore witness, it does not give up what is in its hands.

The boy, through whom northern blood flowed, had no intention of complying with the utterly rude demand of the West.

“Well, he did say you wouldn’t listen.”

The West had come here to take, and the North had come here to stop it.

In the end, the two were destined to become like this.

With a small sigh, Ishtvan stood as if annoyed.

Beneath Heinal’s tree, the knights of the North and West began to face each other.

“It can’t be helped.”

With a rasping sound, Ishtvan’s sword began to slide out of its sheath.

A shape that could not be seen in the North.

Ishtvan’s greatsword was full of sharp serrations, as if baring its teeth.

“I have no intention of going back empty-handed, northern brat.”

Ishtvan’s sword extended toward Vlad.

“I challenge you to a duel, with Alicia’s handkerchief at stake.”

The winner above, the loser below.

An honorable duel where only the victor took everything.

“Do it again.”

But Vlad only crossed his arms at Ishtvan’s request and did not accept his duel.

“What?”

“I said do it again.”

The cry of the boy who had crawled across the bloodstained floor and shouted toward the knight of blue moonlight had been hollow.

Because the boy of that day had not been qualified.

“I am not a northern brat.”

But the boy of today was different.

The boy who had struggled to obtain his present qualification was someone who had the right to have his name called proudly.

“I am a knight of Bayezid, and Lady Alicia’s knight.”

In time with the boy’s surging presence, the white snake began to descend from beneath the tree.

The boy was someone who had been granted permission, and the master of Deirmar and its guardian spirit acknowledged that.

“If you want to challenge me to a duel, call my name properly, you western thug.”

Until just now, Ishtvan had thought he could suppress Vlad’s presence with ease, but the presence of the boy looking at him now was completely different from before.

Blue eyes that burned white, blessed.

At the same time, the boy’s presence had become as immense as the tree above.

The name of the knight who was more worthy than anyone, and therefore granted permission, was Vlad of Soara.