Chapter 42
The pupils of the two lords trembled as though an earthquake had struck.
Was he asking that sincerely?
No way. He used to be a duke, albeit in the past, and he was someone who kept company with Duke. Surely there must be some deeper meaning behind it.
Even so, just in case, the two of them glanced at Duke to gauge his reaction.
Duke understood their feelings, nodded, and spoke to the old man.
“What an assortment of excuses. Now it’s the empire’s fault?”
“?”
“He was like that whenever he started drinking, even before the empire fell.”
Of course, before the fall of the empire, the Peter in Duke’s memories had been more polite than he was now.
Back then, he talked about successors, children, and dreams, but he did not openly go around shouting about sex.
He had expressed it more nobly, saying that one should abandon greed and prepare so that one’s dreams could be passed on to future generations.
The problem was what happened after the empire fell.
Now that he had stepped down from the position of duke, he had started openly shouting about sex.
The two lords’ gazes grew cold at Duke’s words.
They had thought that a man who had been a duke would have some deeper meaning, but he was simply a senile old man.
When Peter burst into a hearty laugh at their expressions, Duke belatedly defended his honor.
“Of course, he isn’t senile enough to be that kind of man, so you can just answer honestly for now.”
Only after Duke vouched that this was the old man’s way of testing them did the two return to a serious state of mind.
But that lasted only a moment.
When they actually tried to answer, their lips would not part easily.
What am I supposed to say?
As Rex’s eyes spun, Hana, her ears flushed red, answered first.
“I haven’t··· had any experience yet, but there is someone I have chosen in my heart.”
Peter’s gaze sharpened.
She was making an effort, but he noticed her eyes shift ever so slightly toward Duke.
The old man smiled contentedly.
Ah, the joys of youth.
Hana took it as a good sign and continued.
“As for a successor··· I’m not attached to blood relations. If someone appears who can make my people happier than I can, I will gladly step down.”
Since she had protected her domain and passed it on to Rex in the original story as well, there was not a shred of falsehood in her words.
That sincerity reached the old man.
The old man’s smile deepened.
He stroked his corn-like beard and nodded.
“That is a model attitude.”
Hana’s expression brightened.
But one should always hear a person out to the end.
Without erasing his smile, the old man delivered a verdict that could be somewhat cruel to her.
“But that is not the answer I want. In fact, it’s an answer I dislike, my lady.”
Hana’s cheek stiffened.
Though she had endured her shame and confessed, this was the response she got?
It was not merely a wrong answer; it was an answer he disliked.
Her fist trembled.
It was impossible to tell whether it was from anger or shame.
Hana’s turn ended, and the opportunity passed to Rex.
Rex barely held back his social anxiety as he laid his heart bare before the old man.
“I···I haven’t had any experience yet··· Experience is···”
Somehow, when Rex said it, Ari blushed too.
The old man inferred the nature of their relationship from their reactions and nodded contentedly.
Rex continued as Hana had.
“And I haven’t made any plans for a successor yet.”
Peter’s expression hardened.
He raised the veins in his neck as though he were about to thunder, “Is that an answer?”
But Rex could not meet Peter’s eyes. He scratched his cheek and continued.
“I don’t have the leeway right now. Once I’ve made conditions where my child can be happy··· hehe···”
It was the mindset of an ordinary Korean from the twenty-second century.
Once they had a home, a stable income, and everything else in place, they would have children.
Of course, the twenty-second century where Rex had lived had achieved the astonishing birth rate of 0.1 at the end of that mindset, but even when the world changed, people’s attitudes did not change all that much.
Of course, they were financially stable now.
But Rex and Ari had been too busy developing the domain to spare any time for a child, so they had been putting it off.
This was also an extension of Rex’s sense of responsibility.
As if to show her support for Rex, Ari subtly shifted closer to him.
Peter admired the sight of the two of them.
“That is admirable responsibility.”
“Then···”
“But that too falls short of the answer I want.”
“Pardon?”
Rex could not hide his bewilderment.
If both Hana and he were wrong, what answer did this strange old man want?
Noticing the two lords’ questioning gazes, Peter jerked his chin toward Duke.
“He should know the correct answer.”
At Peter’s words, Duke nodded.
Thanks to his knowledge of the original story, he already knew the model answer, and after drinking with Peter hundreds of times, he could not help but know it even if he disliked it.
However, Duke did not tell them the answer.
“You two must find the answer yourselves.”
This was partly because Peter would not follow that lord if Duke told him, but it was also out of respect for his drinking partner.
“May I tell them the reason?”
The old man nodded at Duke’s question.
“That much is fine.”
With the old man’s permission, Duke pointed out the problem with their answers.
First, Hana.
“A ruler must have ambition. He needs enough ambition to bear the dreams of the countless people who follow him. Frugality is a virtue, but it is a virtue for middle managers. What dream can a lord without ambition entrust to a successor?”
Hana’s body trembled faintly at Duke’s criticism.
Duke left her to herself and spoke to Rex as well.
“If I may speak frankly, the answer this old man wants is not merely about succession. There is nothing wrong with your answer, Lord Rex, but you missed Peter’s intent.”
In other words, Hana’s answer was not even worth considering, while Rex’s was merely regrettable.
Rex rolled his eyes.
Then what was the intent behind asking that question?
Hana’s reaction was more dramatic by comparison.
The fact that Duke had harshly criticized her shocked her even more than Peter rejecting her answer.
Peter sensed the two lords’ presences and, despite his sightless eyes, skillfully picked up a piece of beef tartare with his chopsticks.
‘Duke··· After all that talk, you really did find yourself a liege. Lucky bastard. Still···’
He then wet his throat with wine and turned his attention to the two lords, who still could not rise from their seats.
‘Maybe it’s shameless, but I’m feeling a little excited too.’
Perhaps he, too, would find such a person before long.
With that faint hope in his heart, the old man emptied his wine and snacks.
***
That evening.
After Duke’s party left Peter’s house with promises to meet again, other guests arrived at the mountaintop where the old man had settled.
They had not been invited, nor had they arrived there by chance after losing their way.
In the first place, there was no way for lost travelers to find the summit of this rugged mountain range, which even people of Tier Four could barely climb.
People who hid their faces behind black cloth, concealed concealed weapons in their clothing, and held their breath while watching the thatched cottage were generally called assassins.
However, they differed from ordinary assassins.
They possessed their own system of hand signals and had concealed weapons of somewhat better quality than those normally carried by assassins.
They held their breath in the forest and watched the thatched cottage.
Croak, croak. Chirrrp.
A peaceful night filled with birdsong and crickets continued.
For several hours.
At last, the door of the thatched cottage opened, and the old man walked out of his room with his cane.
Since Peter was blind anyway, the lightless darkness was not much different from daytime to him.
Peter tapped his cane as he headed toward the outhouse.
Even then, the assassins held their breath and waited for something.
Eventually, as Peter emerged from the outhouse and returned to his room,
“Huh.”
A wire snare caught around his foot.
As though they had been waiting for that moment, the assassins attacked the old man all at once.
Some came from above his head, some from the ground, and some raced across the earth, surrounding the old man from every direction.
At the center of that encirclement, the old man sighed.
“The royal family’s dogs take after their masters; they don’t know any manners.”
Shing.
A blade timidly emerged from the stick he had thought was a cane.
Immediately afterward, the old man’s arm blurred, and the assassins’ vision split in two.
One saw a horizontal slash, another a vertical one, and another a diagonal one.
Each saw a different scene, but the result was the same.
Thud.
Heads sliced in half fell to the ground.
Meanwhile, the three assassins who had evaded the strike backed away from the old man, blood flowing from their faces.
“Damn. This wasn’t in the intel···”
“Tsk, tsk. The kingdom’s people these days are too complacent. The imperial lot were arrogant in proportion to their skill, at least, but why are the kingdom’s people so careless? The world has become too peaceful.”
The old man returned the sword to the form of a cane and clicked his tongue as he leaned on it.
The assassins remembered that Peter was blind and communicated with hand signals.
- I’ll draw his attention, you cover me, and you ambush him from underground.
The three divided their roles. One slipped into the shadows, while another widened the distance.
The remaining one thrust a spear to draw Peter’s attention.
Another supported the spearman from the shadows.
The last waited for an opening in the old man’s defenses while aiming a crossbow.
It was a well-coordinated assault.
But it was nowhere near enough to reach the old man.
Peter accurately blocked the spear with the sheath, then drove the sword he held in a reverse grip into the ground.
Fwish.
With a sound like air escaping from a balloon, blood gushed from the shadows like a fountain.
Peter let go of the sword embedded in the ground and seized the spear he had blocked with the sheath.
He then threw the sheath at the assassin aiming a crossbow at him, drawing the assassin’s attention, and used the stolen spear to finish off the two nearby assassins.
By the time the crossbowman came to his senses, the old man, holding his sword in a reverse grip, was already right in front of him.
“Ah.”
Cutting through the assassin’s groan, the old man swung the sword in his reverse grip.
However, just before the sword struck, the old man returned it to its sheath.
The last assassin was struggling as he hung suspended in the air.
The old man raised his head toward the starry sky and sighed.
“They openly used hand signals just because I can’t see. They’ve regressed far too much from the imperial era.”
Tap, tap.
The old man muttered as he tapped the ground with the stick that had been a sword moments ago and was now a cane.
“This is why people should have sex while they can. Those royal bastards didn’t pass on a shred of legitimacy.”
Crack.
The neck of the assassin hanging in the air twisted, and an answer to Peter’s muttering came from the darkness.
“If that filthy will is going to be passed on through blood, it would be better if it weren’t passed on at all.”
Then, returning his left hand beneath his cloak, Duke emerged from the darkness.
“And what matters is not blood.”
“Indeed. If that were the case, you wouldn’t have kept me alive.”
“What do you take me for?”
“The Imperial-Blood Massacrer. The Greedy Serpent. The Sad Virgin Knight.”
“You really do want to die.”
Weep, Durandal
Duke drew a greatsword from his inventory.
Seeing that, Peter chuckled.
“Is it for real? Still? Well, you’re not likely to die young, so I won’t rush you.”
“···I’ll handle it myself.”
“Well, after seeing you today, I suppose you will.”
Duke conspicuously changed the subject.
“I’ll help dispose of the bodies. I don’t want to sour my liege’s mood first thing tomorrow.”
But Peter would not allow Duke to change the subject.
“So, are you planning to have sex?”
Facing the old man who habitually sexually harassed people, Duke lowered his head briefly before answering.
“I cannot entrust my dream··· to my child.”
“Do you realize how many people’s dreams you are carrying?”
“I only need to avoid losing.”
“That makes no··· Well, since it’s you, I suppose that kind of absurdity is possible.”
Peter turned away from Duke in disgust.
‘Tsk, tsk. Poor fellow.’
In Peter’s eyes, Duke was a knight who understood that great power came with great responsibility.
That was why he wanted to fulfill the dreams of the people of that vast empire on their behalf, and he certainly had the ability to do so.
But precisely because of that, he also knew that the dream was too burdensome to entrust to a child.
And so, he intended to bear all of it himself.
Peter muttered with his back turned to Duke.
“Even if dirt fills my eyes, I could never take you as my liege.”
A lord, by definition, was one who bore the dreams of the people.
But at the same time, he had to display his own ambition, make the people admire him, and ultimately set their hearts ablaze.
He had to dream, show people a dream, bear their dreams, make their dreams come true, and eventually become the dream itself.
Naturally, it was impossible for a human body to achieve all that completely, let alone continue it forever.
That was why a true lord also needed the wisdom to humbly acknowledge that fact and entrust it to future generations.
In other words, what the old man wanted was not perfection, but the effort to achieve it.
In that sense, Duke was not fit to be a lord.
He could bear people’s dreams, but he was too exalted for them to follow in his footsteps,
and though he could create a successor, his burden was too heavy for that successor to inherit his will.
“In my entire life, I’ve never met anyone like you except you.”
Ironically, though he was not fit to be a lord, he was perfect as a knight.
Duke replied without backing down.
“Isn’t that why I took up the sword?”
“You insufferable bastard.”
His insight was excellent as well, which made him all the more infuriating.
Peter grumbled as he cleaned up the bodies.
Duke helped Peter and thought to himself,
‘No, how am I supposed to pass on the final boss dream to my child?’
Aside from the fact that their concepts would overlap, it was so embarrassing that he did not even want to imagine it.
But Peter could never imagine that such a noble knight was that sort of person, so the misunderstanding would never be cleared up for the rest of his life.aisers, and some raced across the earth, surrounding the old man from every direction.
At the center of that encirclement, the old man sighed.