Chapter 40
I'm Desmond Ronan, commander of the Second Knight Order. Last year, I inherited the headship of the Ronan family as its eldest son.
Nobles have a system in which the eldest son inherits everything. And a count's family ranks among the higher nobility.
I'm the eldest son of a count, a knight commander, good-looking, and robust.
Judging by my marriage prospects alone, I'm quite the catch. I've been extremely popular with women ever since I was a child.
And yet, for some reason, my childhood fiancée dumped me and chose my younger brother instead.
He has no prospect of inheriting a title, ordinary looks, and is, if anything, rather frail. He's just a low-ranking civil official.
There were only two possible explanations.
Either there was something so wrong with my personality that it outweighed all my good qualities, or women in general weren't worthy of trust. It had to be one or the other.
Of course, I chose the latter without hesitation.
And I've never regretted that choice.
◇◇◇
'If you could choose just one person to stand beside you on the battlefield, who would it be?'
That's a foolish question.
If I could choose anyone, I'd pick Cyril Sutherland, commander of the First Knight Order.
His swordsmanship is extraordinary.
Anything truly perfected looks simple and effortless.
In other words, from the outside, Cyril's swordsmanship looks incredibly simple, like a textbook example of the basics.
His technique—striking down enemies with the shortest possible movements, piercing their vital points without the slightest error—looks incredibly easy.
When Cyril gets caught up in the heat of battle, he wears a languid smile.
Once that happens, the battlefield is his. He cuts down the enemy until not a single one is left standing.
That's why Cyril's smile on the battlefield is called the "Grim Reaper's Smile." It's a sign that he's begun annihilating the enemy. Whenever he smiles, his allies silently raise a victory cry, certain that victory is theirs.
Cyril is peerless in his bravery on the battlefield, but he's just as capable in the office. Thanks to the education he received from childhood, he handles paperwork with ease.
But his subordinates came to me, worried because Cyril had seemed absent-minded and listless for the past few days. I knew why, so I took the matter off their hands and said I'd check on him myself.
And so, that night, Cyril and I met in the recreation room reserved for commanders and deputy commanders inside the royal castle.
The spacious room held only the two of us.
We didn't so much as glance at the chess and billiards tables. We just kept raising our glasses.
I watched as Cyril downed the amber liquid in front of him in one go, then ordered another glass of the same thing. He kept repeating the process.
“If you're going to drink at that pace, wouldn't it be better to order two or three glasses at a time?”
Watching his glass empty in an instant, I couldn't help offering some advice.
Cyril glanced at me from beneath his lowered lashes.
“I wouldn't drink in such an inelegant way.”
Oh, right. The head of the foremost ducal house was always a stickler for manners.
I shrugged and picked up my own glass.
“Well, you know how it is. Sometimes a man just wants to drink. I'll keep you company as long as you like, so drink your fill.”
“Heh. That's unusually sympathetic of you. Very well, then. You'll stay with me all night. I'm in the mood to drink myself into oblivion.”
Cyril murmured self-deprecatingly, his gaze still lowered.
“You wouldn't get drunk no matter how much you drank, anyway. Honestly, being that strong with alcohol is a problem in its own right.”
As I said that, I drained my glass and asked the server for another.
...Fine. Today, I'll empty as many glasses as you do.
It takes a terrifying level of resolve to drink as much as Cyril.
Even though I was showing tremendous manly spirit, Cyril didn't even notice. He spoke in a sulky voice.
“If you're going to be sympathetic, couldn't you be a little kinder? I'm very hurt right now, you know.”
Oh, I knew that. But he was carrying half his pain alone, unable to share it with anyone.
And you don't intend to let your real feelings slip tonight, either, do you?
Knowing that, I decided to tease him.
“What a coincidence. I'm a wreck, too, thanks to that rookie of yours. Ahhh, my glorious career as commander of the military police is completely useless! What am I supposed to rely on from tomorrow onward?”
Cyril wasn't stupid. He knew I was joking, and played along anyway.
In other words, he had no intention of speaking honestly.
“You have plenty of unmarried knights who admire you, don't you? Did you know that, since you're high-ranking, good-looking, and good at your job, yet your fiancée ran off with your younger brother, all the unmarried knights without lovers admire you passionately, saying, 'There is no royal road to love'? Good for you. I can't speak for your popularity with women, but at least some of the knights like you.”
“Wait, this is something I should be mad about, right? You just completely insulted me, didn't you?”
Cyril gave a small, resigned smile, emptied his glass, and ordered another of the same.
“I'm saying I'm jealous. My direct subordinate called me a ‘bastard’ right to my face.”
“...Ah—well, that couldn't really be helped. I don't think he meant to say it to you.”
“...That's true. But it gets to you more than you'd expect.”
Cyril settled deep into his chair, crossed his legs, and leaned his head against the backrest. Then he closed his eyes.
I watched him in silence, then emptied my own glass and ordered another of the same.
Then I sighed inwardly.
...That's not what you're hurt about. That's not it at all.
Without thinking, I sank deep into my chair, crossed my legs and arms, and let out a deep sigh.
――――The royal family's obsession with Saints is extraordinary.
It's enough to have elevated Saints to the highest position over the course of several hundred years.
If anyone were to condemn that as twisted and wrong, the royal family would be the ones accused. Cyril, who ranks high in the line of succession to the throne, would be included.
Of course, Fia, who had said it aloud, probably hadn't understood that at all...
I took a sip from the fresh glass that had been handed to me.
Then I glanced at Cyril, who still had his eyes closed.
――――I've never seen anyone fall in love at first sight.
But I think I saw the moment when a single sentence struck someone's heart like a blade piercing it.
Cyril had revered and worshipped Saints from the moment he was born.
Anyone who's been on a battlefield should know how precious their power to heal wounds is.
And Cyril, who had crossed countless battlefields alongside the Commander, was a veteran hero among heroes.
No one else could appreciate its value as deeply as he did.
And no one else could have spent as much time thinking about what a Saint ought to be as Cyril had.
Though Cyril would never say so aloud.
Having actually spent time with Saints and witnessed their words and actions, he must have felt a deep sense of unease.
More than anyone, he must have felt frustrated by the gap between the image of Saints the royal family had created and the Saints as they really were.
What had Fia said to Cyril as he wrestled with a conflict he couldn't share with anyone?
'What do you intend to do with Saints? Put them on a pedestal and turn them into goddesses?'
Yes, she'd said it with a laugh, as if she found the whole thing utterly ridiculous.
And she'd declared that it was wrong.
'A Saint isn't some distant being who only grants salvation on a whim. A Saint is a knight's shield.'
The moment Fia said that, Cyril looked as if she'd pierced him straight through the heart.
Or perhaps like a believer receiving a revelation from God.
Surely, at that moment, Fia's words became Cyril's answer.
That girl knight had offered him, with startling ease, the answer to a question he'd spent so long pondering, struggling with, and searching for.
She'd laughed as if she found it absurd that anyone could fail to understand something so simple.
Cyril probably wouldn't be able to turn away from that answer now.
Whatever he heard or felt from here on, he would hold on to that answer as the true purpose of a knight.
“Fia is terrifying...”
I found myself murmuring.
She slips right into the hearts of even the most cautious knights.
Then she drops an anchor they can't pull free.
As proof, Cyril still hasn't once mentioned the ideal of a Saint Fia described.
The shock was too great, and what she'd said was too close to his core for him to even bring it up.
All he ever talked about was the utterly trivial matter of Fia insulting him.
That night, beneath the moonlight, how had the red-haired girl walking unsteadily appeared to Cyril?
What did he make of the girl walking barefoot, with a shoe hooked over the fingers of each hand, singing and laughing on a whim?
――――Thank goodness I don't trust women in general. My soul is safe!
I remember thinking that with my drunken head.
“...That's right. She's a terrifying girl, insulting her superior to his face like that.”
Cyril pretended to misunderstand and replied.
―――Fine. If you can't even talk about it yet, I'll play along with your nonsense.
We chatted, little by little, and went through several more glasses. After a long silence, Cyril finally seemed to work up the nerve to speak.
“The Commander...”
But he faltered, then shook his head as if he'd changed his mind.
“No... It's nothing.”
...Ah, that's right.
There was someone even more obsessed with Saints than Cyril... the Commander.
Thinking about the impact one girl knight had had on the Knight Orders sent a chill down my spine.
“Cyril! We're drinking tonight! I'm in such a state that I can't cope unless I drink! Actually, I don't want to be in my right mind!”
I made the suggestion, overwhelmed by a feeling I couldn't shake, and Cyril smiled beautifully.
“I'm all for it, Desmond. Just for tonight, make me drunk.”
...Get you drunk?
Even if I made you drink every last drop of alcohol in this room, that would be impossible.
I thought that, but I wasn't foolish enough to say it aloud.
And so we kept drinking until morning. In the end, we had a Second Knight Order commander who looked like a rotting corpse and a First Knight Order commander who was as fresh as ever.
The next morning, in the senior officers' lounge flooded with sunlight, I croaked weakly―――...
“Cyril, the strange thing here is how much alcohol you can hold... So stop looking at me like I'm some lower form of life...”
But Cyril kept looking at me as if I were some inferior creature, even though I'd gone beyond my limits to keep him company all night out of concern for my colleague.