Chapter 38
The corner of Dominic's mouth twitched.
‘As expected of the protagonist.’
What he had taught her over the past few months had not been in vain.
Despite her injuries, she blocked the old butler's strike.
The old butler composed his expression and glared at her.
“Are you feeling even a trace of lingering attachment as you look at this young face?”
He delivered the line while trying to strike a balance between rudeness and courtesy.
At the old butler's question, she shook her head.
“I was lying over there and heard everything you said. To sum it up, it looks like this lizard impersonated him, and the swordsman who saved me was you. You were never dead to begin with.”
“It seems that's how it turned out. I had my reasons. Then are you stopping me because there's something you want to ask this man?”
"No, I have no interest in a lizard like this.”
“Then all the more reason you shouldn't stop me. Or are you trying to steal my revenge?”
“That isn't it either.”
She shook her head.
“I gave up my desire for revenge a long time ago after meeting someone precious.”
“Then yield this man to me.”
“So this time, I'll tell you. This isn't like you, Dominic.”
Her eyes were straight and unwavering.
Dominic acknowledged that she had completely let go of her desire for revenge.
“What is like me?”
“You said you had abandoned your desire for revenge.”
“Yes, that's what I thought. But now that I'm facing this bastard myself, I don't think that's true.”
“I have to ask, just in case. Did you approach me because of this?”
“No. It was a coincidence for me as well. What a face I never wanted to see.”
The old butler gave a bitter smile as he looked at the Godfather.
“I already thought there was no honor left for me to lose. This is shameful. Perhaps it is fate brought about by my own wicked deeds.”
“Yes. Perhaps it is fate.”
Jane stepped between them, raising her sword.
And then···
“Do you remember the contract?”
“?”
Shhk.
She cut the unguarded Godfather's throat.
Not out of revenge, but to save the person who had become her emotional pillar.
Without even glancing at the severed head with the swordsman's face, she turned back toward Dominic.
“Revenge is gone now. What are you going to do?”
“You will regret this, Miss Jane.”
It felt as though a dagger had been driven into her chest.
She had never imagined it would hurt this much for the old butler, who had always called her young lady, to call her by her name.
But she steeled her heart for his sake.
“Since you've saved me twice, it's my turn now.”
***
The two of them clashed.
The old man's movements were as dazzling as when he had toyed with the Godfather.
Even though his opponent was Jane, there was no mercy in his strikes.
Had this been one of their usual spars, she would have been completely overwhelmed.
But she was holding her own against Dominic's sword.
As if she completely understood his inner world.
Jane interlocked their crossguards to pin their swords in place, then asked Dominic a question.
“Your sword··· Where did you train in swordsmanship?”
Dominic nodded.
"They were brothers I crossed swords with.”
Dominic tried to maintain the proper emotional tone.
He had brothers by blood, but he had never crossed swords with them,
and although he had taught himself swordsmanship, he did have both a sword and brothers, so it was not entirely a lie.
It was not difficult to justify it to himself and recall his sad memories.
The precious fateful encounters he had missed because his schedule had become tangled.
The alternate characters he had been forced to abandon when his acting skills were lacking and their character collapses could not be fixed.
The commoner foods he could no longer eat after adopting the dignified Duke persona, and would never be able to eat again···
‘Sniff. I want some jajangmyeon.’
Though he had no idea whether there was anywhere in this culture that sold jajangmyeon.
Recalling all these memories, Dominic put on a solemn expression.
“I swore upon the sword. We vowed to live for honor. Under that oath, we took one another as masters and honed our swordsmanship.”
He put on a sorrowful expression as he recalled another discarded alternate character.
Using that failed character as a lesson, he had created the character of the nameless swordsman, so it was not a lie.
In any case, he had honed his swordsmanship thanks to his brothers.
Hearing that, Jane gave a faint smile.
“Then isn't the sword I forged through sparring with you the sword of your brother?”
Dominic's eyes grew as large as moons.
Oh! What a romantic interpretation!
Since it was overflowing with romantic appeal, he played along with her words.
“··· That may be so.”
Dominic's sword tip trembled faintly.
She did not miss that tiny opening.
“Guld!”
The spirit of light burst into a flash before his eyes.
Dominic closed his eyes and responded with his other senses.
Three sensations registered.
A presence in front,
a sound to the right,
and killing intent behind him.
‘The front.’
But the old butler thrust his swords toward the right and behind him.
At that moment, both swords slipped from his hands.
Just as he had done when they first met.
When he opened his eyes again, Dominic saw a sword laid against his neck.
“That's one win for me.”
“··· You have learned to wield killing intent freely.”
“I told you. I let go of revenge a long time ago.”
“Congratulations.”
Dominic was already looking at her with kind eyes again.
Exposed to his gaze full of longing, she awkwardly scratched her cheek.
“Honestly, even if it was a fluke, I won this time, right?”
“It wasn't a fluke. You seized a fair and square victory.”
There were no absolutes in strength.
Just as Dominic had defeated the Godfather because the dragon had let his guard down, it was only natural for him to lose after failing to predict her growth.
Gaining confidence from his words, Jane declared her victory as a rightful privilege of the victor.
“Now, can't we say I've inherited your brother's legacy and start writing a new honor from here on out? Forget revenge and all that.”
“Haa.”
The old man let out a sigh filled with countless emotions and drooped his shoulders.
“I concede completely. I briefly lost my reason. I'm sorry, miss.”
“You taught me everything I know, so what's the problem?”
She returned the sword to Dominic.
As Dominic took the sword, she collapsed into his arms as well.
“I'm tired. Carry me.”
“Yes, miss.”
The old butler lifted her with one hand.
The narrow-eyed tax official floated behind him.
“You knew telekinesis too?”
“I'll explain later.”
“All right.”
Together with the two of them, Dominic headed to the hospital.
As he prepared to bid her farewell.
***
Several weeks passed after they defeated the Godfather.
Removing the marquis from power was not particularly difficult.
Although his rank was high, the Godfather had broken all four of his limbs to turn him into a puppet.
The marquis himself said he did not wish to prolong such a humiliating life, and handed the marquisate over to Rex without a fuss.
(As an added bonus, word came that Rex had taken to bed from joy.)
While Rex came to the marquisate to take over as its lord, the leading figures of this conquest exchanged the stories they had left unfinished.
“But why did that lizard put this half-cripple out front and pretend to be the mastermind?”
The half-crippled marquis flinched at Jane's somewhat violent wording, but a loser had no right to say anything.
The narrow-eyed tax official answered her question.
“He was afraid. He thought that if he openly presented himself as the marquis, that swordsman would eventually return.”
“He thought that man was dead, though.”
“Wounds of the heart cannot be explained rationally.”
He had not shown his face openly because he feared that a dead man might return.
“Polymorph must work according to the same principle.”
A dragon's polymorph takes on the form of the human it imagines.
Therefore, in the Godfather's case, his fear of the swordsman had been etched so deeply into his heart that he could no longer imagine any other appearance.
“It's a sort of awe. Humans who witness overwhelming fear end up worshipping what they fear. Ah, since we're on the subject, ancient humans···”
Ignoring the narrow-eyed tax official as he rambled about totemism and the origins of religion, Jane looked at Dominic.
“Well, from one perspective, it wasn't entirely wrong.”
At her gaze, the old butler shook his head.
“It's an embarrassing past. Please forget it.”
At the old man's words, Jane gave him a mischievous smile.
“Nope. I'm not forgetting it. I'm going to tease you about it for the rest of your life. Nyah nyah.”
“I've beaten you many times so far. As my reward, I demand the right to be forgotten.”
“Yeah, but I won at the end, right? You can't fight~”
“··· I demand a rematch, miss.”
“No way~”
She had not realized it while consumed by revenge, but Jane's true personality was closer to this.
Now that she had regained her composure, the atmosphere had grown somewhat lighter.
However, she treated only Dominic this way.
With other people, she might be somewhat rude, but she was never so lighthearted.
‘Dominic. So you were that swordsman?’
She had a strong desire to be seen as the child she had been back then by the hero who had saved her in her childhood.
Another reason was that she had lost her parents at an early age (she had been forty at the time, but that was young for an elf), and therefore wanted to act spoiled.
“Nyah nyah~”
Knowing how she felt, Dominic indulged her teasing as though he were looking at his own daughter.
‘That little tyke grew up like this.’
As the two of them reminisced, the time to join Rex drew near.
In other words, it was time for both the narrow-eyed tax official and Dominic to return to their true identities.
And the day before they joined Rex,
Dominic and the narrow-eyed tax official had their final meeting with her.
Sensing that this was a farewell from the different atmosphere surrounding the two men, she greeted them with a serious attitude.
“It's about time for us to part. You two are returning to your original positions, right?”
She had guessed as much herself.
That this meeting could not last forever.
They were high-ranking nobles of the count's domain, while she was a vigilante with no background whatsoever.
They could not continue this relationship forever.
Their friendship would remain, but it was time to face the wall of social status between them.
The narrow-eyed tax official nodded with regret visible on his face and dispelled his disguise.
His narrow eyes remained unchanged, but dark skin and pointed ears appeared beneath them.
Dark elf.
A third-class citizen whom elves despised above all others.
But Jane's attitude did not change after learning the tax official's identity.
Since her own family had once been driven out by elves, she even felt a sense of kinship with him.
“Should I start speaking formally to you now, then?”
“No. In our count's domain, everyone is equal beneath our lord. You needn't use honorifics.”
“Thank goodness. I got goosebumps just saying it.”
She lightly tapped the commander's shoulder and looked at Dominic.
What could this old butler's true identity be?
Under her expectant gaze, Dominic gestured to the commander.
“Understood.”
The commander turned his back to Dominic.
While she was wondering why the dark elf commander was doing that, Dominic dispelled his disguise, and wind came rushing from that direction.
(For the record, the wind was just a useless effect.)
A fierce wind struck her face, making it difficult even to open her eyes.
A voice came from the center of the wind.
“Though my face during our journey together was a lie···”
The voice gradually changed into a low, resonant voice like one echoing through a cave.
At last, Duke spoke in his original voice.
“The human you spoke with has never once been insincere with you.”
Her pointed ears perked up.
It was a familiar voice.
Until moments ago, she had thought Dominic was a superhuman who had accepted aging after meeting her.
An old man who had laid down his revenge and accepted the natural order.
But that was not the case.
Her hero had not aged in the slightest since that time.
If anything, his voice had become even more delicious··· No, even more handsome.
Duke weakened the wind slightly, and she was finally able to open her eyes.
Her gaze rose from below.
She saw unfamiliar shoes and a uniform.
But as she raised her gaze further, she saw a familiar jawline.
Before putting on his helmet, Duke smiled at her.
“You have grown wonderfully, Jane.”
He had not changed in the slightest from back then.
While she was lost in nostalgia, Duke put on his helmet.
‘Ah···’
Unaware of her disappointment, he bid her farewell.
“You may call me your friend whenever you wish.”
Of course, he said that, but Duke knew it was practically impossible.
Duke was the second-in-command of a massive domain that had swallowed the marquisate, while she was a vigilante with no social status whatsoever.
In modern society, it was a gap in status on the level of an unlicensed unemployed person and a four-star general.
Even in a democratic society without social classes, people felt some distance when they met over drinks,
so naturally, the gap between them in this world was immeasurable.
Duke was disappointed as well, but this was reality.
She seemed well aware of that fact and did not hide her wistfulness.
“You can still invite me out for drinks sometimes, right?”
“Do you like drinking?”
“I plan to start liking it.”
Since her revenge was over and she had nothing else to do, she meant to find herself a hobby.
“That's a good attitude.”
Duke nodded and reached out a hand.
Since this was their last meeting, he sacrificed a little of his character and patted her head.
“Don't overdo it, kiddo.”
- “Don't overeat, kiddo.”
She accepted his touch and smiled more brightly than she ever had before.
“Yeah!”
***
The next day.
“Please take care of me! Jane of the Fifth Cohort, reporting!”
A new recruit in Duke's personal guard shouted in a lively voice.
Inside his helmet, Duke was more than a little flustered.
‘Didn't you hate public authority!?’
He had never imagined that this free spirit would join Rex's command.
So why had he set the mood and exchanged such a dramatic farewell with her?
However, there was one thing Duke had misunderstood.
What she hated was incompetent, corrupt public authority, not public authority itself.
In that sense, this personal guard was not the public authority she hated.
He could not even imagine the knight order led by Duke becoming corrupt.
“I will continue to work myself to the bone to maintain the peace of the marquisate under your command!”
Watching her give an energetic salute as the other knights welcomed her with applause, Duke thought inside his helmet,
‘This is awkward.’
He would have to tell her not to share any stories about him with the other knights.