Chapter 9
Rex and I reached the capital after a peaceful week-long journey.
The journey was peaceful, except for encountering bandits and wild monsters at three-hour intervals.
[Were there always this many bandits?]
“This area is like that.”
That was because,
“The lord had abandoned public order.”
There was also the fact that the lord had colluded with criminals, but that would be a spoiler, so I saw no need to explain it.
There was only one thing Rex needed to know.
“I suppose they find Lord Rex··· attractive.”
[You were going to say easy target, weren’t you? Besides, ‘attractive’ is rude too?!]
“It was a slip of the tongue. Still, from the bandits’ perspective, the two of us are indeed tempting targets for plunder.”
At my words, Rex examined his own condition and mine.
And then···
[Mr. Duke?! But the guildmaster and doctor seemed to recognize you···]
“When I was a wandering knight, I went around wearing armor.”
A crumpled helmet, plate armor like scrap metal, a greatsword with a thoroughly worn-down edge, and a red tail feather like a rooster’s comb.
That was the appearance of the wandering knight Duke.
By contrast, I was not wearing armor now, let alone carrying a sword.
Since nobody knew my bare face, it was only natural that the bandits did not recognize me.
(For reference, before meeting Rex, I had made sure nobody knew my bare face in order to maintain my mysterious image.)
[Ah-ha.]
Rex was convinced by my explanation.
[Still, thanks to you, the journey was comfortable.]
“It is an honor.”
As I watched Rex bow his head slightly to me, I recalled the original story.
‘In the original, he traveled alone and was tossed around all over the place.’
Although Rex’s support ability had surpassed the seventh tier and could even aim for the eighth, his personal combat power was only slightly above the first tier.
He had at least managed to reach the city by playing an assassination game alone with the minimap, but by the time he arrived, he had been battered beyond recognition.
Compared with that original story, Rex’s journey in this world had been comfortable enough to be called sightseeing.
On the way here, I had snapped the necks of enemies with telekinesis before they even appeared as hostile markers on Rex’s minimap.
At first, Rex had been dumbfounded whenever a red dot vanished on its own, but he seemed to have gotten used to it after the second day and stopped checking the minimap altogether.
Thanks to that, I was able to reminisce for a while as well.
‘It had been a long time.’
Bandits had attacked when I had first begun traveling, but after I started wearing that tin can with the red tail feather, the bandits began fleeing, making travel boring.
‘Eventually, I was the one who chased them.’
So I chased them. Why weren’t they coming to me?
That got me blacklisted throughout the bandit network, but those things had happened.
While I was thinking about that, Rex spoke—or rather, texted—to me.
[Do you perhaps hate slaves···]
Rex watched my reaction.
He looked as though he was worried that I might not want to dine at the same table as A.
‘Hmm··· That’s about average morality in this world.’
It was a world where it was considered perfectly reasonable to beat a slave to death with a club on the spot for daring to dine with a knight.
Rex was worried that I might be that kind of scum.
The common sense of knights was a separate matter, regardless of whether they were loyal and kindhearted people.
But Rex was mistaken about one thing.
“A knight’s honor comes from respect, not violence.”
The final boss character known as Duke Urwick was not like that.
Of course, my goal was indeed to become a final boss who stood in the way of the protagonists of certain stories, but that applied only to those protagonists.
Toward his subordinates and companions, he had to be a character who displayed boundless gentle charisma.
In other words, toward Rex’s future subordinates and subjects, I had to be a knight straight out of a fairy tale.
‘Besides, this is a transitional period.’
I was not even in my final-boss state yet.
My martial power was sufficient, but my social status had not yet caught up.
Even a Demon King needed a Demon King’s castle before he could act like one, didn’t he?
The same applied to me.
Someday, as the final boss known as Rex’s sword, I would invade other domains and nations, but for now, I was in the process of building an organization.
What was needed at this stage was not utter evil, but charisma capable of winning people’s hearts.
Therefore, I spoke to Rex, who was already worrying needlessly.
“And if I want to be respected, I must respect others first.”
I meant that even if A was a slave, I would treat that person with respect.
‘What use would it be to build walls between myself and the future empress?’
If things went wrong, the empire might be torn apart by the empress and the second-in-command.
Rather, we needed to become close starting now.
While I was thinking that, Rex let out a sigh of relief.
“Whew···”
Even while sighing, he watched my reaction.
“···”
Unable to bear watching any longer, I spoke to him.
“Lord Rex.”
[Yes?]
“I understand that you’re afraid of me. It’s because you’re not sure how much the Covenant binds me, isn’t it?”
[···]
Rex flinched as though I had hit the nail on the head.
Seeing him still watching my reaction, I bowed my head.
“A lord should never worry about how his knight feels.”
I had felt this over the past week, but Rex was worrying far too much about my mood.
If this continued, I would become not the second-in-command, but the power behind the throne.
That must not happen.
If it did, even the domestic and clerical work Rex was supposed to handle would fall to me, disrupting my plan to dump the complicated tasks on him and joyfully run wild.
‘I’m a loyal knight!’
A knight who manipulated the king was a traitor, not a loyal subject. And that went against my character.
Before things reached the point of no return, I spoke clearly to Rex.
“I will not ask you to trust me. We have not known each other for very long, after all. Instead, I will prove it through my actions. Until you trust me, Lord Rex.”
There was no use trying to persuade this timid protagonist a hundred times by saying, ‘You are the lord, and I am your vassal.’
It was better to diligently stimulate his guilt by saying, ‘I’m sad that you don’t trust me,’ and let him awaken his sense of being the master on his own.
My method was highly effective.
[Sorry···]
The effect appeared immediately.
His tendency to apologize did not improve, but the fact that he had started speaking informally was a major gain.
Suppressing the corners of my mouth, which kept twitching upward, I delivered the final blow.
“You do not need to apologize. If I have failed to earn my lord’s trust, it is because I am inadequate.”
Sway!
After driving a stake into his guilt, Rex staggered.
***
Kargokar, the capital of the Kargokar Domain.
We continued our journey to find A here.
‘Ah, it’s Karognar, not Kargokar.’
I mean, how many domains have I visited in my life?
There were hundreds of domains in a single kingdom, and there were hundreds of kingdoms as well.
Each domain was the size of my country in my previous life, and since they also contained cities, I kept getting confused by the names of the cities and domains and could not memorize them.
It had not been a problem when I traveled alone, but now that I was the second-in-command, it was something I needed to pay attention to.
‘Fortunately, it’s displayed on the minimap.’
The name of this city was written in the corner of the minimap UI Rex had shared with me.
It did not update as soon as we entered; judging by how Rex had to stand there fiddling with something in the air, it seemed that he had to write the names down himself.
That made it easier for me to pretend to be knowledgeable as well.
However, that was not the current problem.
“Karognar is quite large.”
True to a domain the size of a nation, the capital was as large as Seoul Special City.
Karognar was divided into the inner city, where the lord and his vassals lived, and the outer city, where everyone else lived.
All we knew was the slave trader’s name and the fact that his trading company would be in the outer city.
‘What good is knowing the slave trader’s name?’
Without navigation, there was no way to find him.
‘Damn it. I don’t know anyone either.’
Rex was at least diligently searching the area with his clairvoyance ability, but he did not seem to have found anything yet.
[This domain is huge···]
Rex repeated the same words as me, perhaps embarrassed.
I had nothing in particular to say either.
While the two of us were wandering around Karognar City,
Clatter!
a random event occurred right before our eyes.
“Look what you did to my armor! How are you going to compensate me for this!”
Pointing at the dangling iron armor, a knight was harassing a middle-aged woman.
The knight, with a mustache that was villainous at first glance, had forced the woman to kneel before him.
The helpless citizen repeatedly bowed her head to the knight and begged for mercy, while passersby kept their distance from her.
As though this were only natural.
I reflexively examined the realms of the two people.
‘The citizen is level 7··· Is the knight level 24?’
They were in the zero and second tiers, respectively.
No matter how easy magic was to learn in this world, a zero-tier person was an ordinary individual who was not even considered superhuman.
And no matter how much they trained, most citizens could do nothing but stop at the threshold of level 9.
While they stagnated before that threshold, their bodies gradually weakened from aging they could not slow, and ordinary people generally died according to their natural lifespans.
The difference between levels 9 and 10 was merely one tier, but there was a wall of equal magnitude between them.
Without some special factor like a fortuitous encounter, crossing that wall through effort alone was no easy task.
‘I had no trouble because I knew all those fortuitous encounters.’
Reaching a realm was not the end of it after crossing one wall.
Even superhumans who entered the first tier could spend their entire lives without encountering a fortuitous opportunity, remain at _level 9 for decades, and then grow old and die after taking the full force of the aging-and-lifespan combo.
However, the reward for receiving the benefits of a fortuitous encounter, escaping the grasp of one’s lifespan, and crossing the wall was equally sweet.
They had crossed only one wall, but they could achieve growth ten times greater than in the realm below.
‘And there’s a wall equivalent to ten people between levels 19 and 20 as well.’
Thus, there was an explanation for why the second-tier knight was acting so boldly in the middle of the street.
It was that research city where even goblins were fourth tier that was strange,
because to ordinary people, a second-tier knight who could face a hundred people alone was more than enough of a disaster.
That knight knew it well, which was why he was committing such an outrage in the middle of the street.
‘Good grief. This is why I keep saying training needs to include a character-development course.’
With that thought, I focused on the conversation between the knight and the poor citizen.
“My lord, what have I done wrong···”
“Oh? You don’t know? You really don’t know, and you’re asking?”
“I’m sorry! I’m lowly···”
“You failed to clear the gravel properly, so the chain on my armor broke!”
Ah, a fairly common routine.
How could gravel damage armor?
Naturally, it was just an excuse.
The excuse was merely a pretext; his actual goal was to harass the woman.
Everyone on this street knew that very well, but nobody could oppose him.
It was one of the phenomena that arose because the law was far away and the sword was close at hand.
Smack!
The knight slapped the middle-aged woman.
The woman was knocked down helplessly by the thug knight’s blow.
It was an unpleasant sight, but Rex only grew furious without taking action.
The thug knight spat at the fallen woman.
“Khak, ptui. That’ll teach you to train your son so arrogantly.”
The woman sat on the ground and sobbed.
She called out the name of the person presumed to be her son.
Those words reminded me of my own past, and I sighed involuntarily.
- “Disciple. Your realm is too high.”
My master and senior disciples had tried to kill me because my realm had risen too quickly.
It had happened because killing was the most efficient way for the superhumans of this world to raise their realms.
Killing someone around your level raised your realm, while killing someone of a higher level could even break through the _level 9 wall.
However, fighting someone at a higher level involved many risks, so people generally killed someone once that person reached a level close to their own.
Even someone weaker could provide the experience needed to break through a wall if their level was close enough.
It was a highly reasonable method if one was willing to accept accumulating a little Karma.
Because of this, superhumans grew sensitive whenever their levels approached one another.
Those above you assumed you would stab them in the back, so they tried to kill you before you caught up.
Those below you watched for an opportunity to stab that person and rise above them.
When someone luckily overcame this unfairness and became a knight or lord, they took revenge on their predecessor and repeated the same behavior.
'My master was especially anxious because he thought his lifespan was about to catch up with him, so he tried to kill me.'
My master had happened to be stuck before a realm barrier, so he had become even more obsessed with my condition.
In the end, the fact that my master died a natural death at my hands was not important.
I returned to reality and focused on the woman again.
‘The woman won’t die.’
Killing a level-zero person would only needlessly raise the thug knight’s Karma.
But the knight would continue harassing the woman in the future.
That was because it did not count toward his Karma score.
When I had first been reincarnated into a world like this, seeing things like this had been difficult for me as well, but after living for two hundred years, I had become numb to it.
Rex, who had lived only thirty years, did not seem to be the same.
I saw Rex beside me, gritting his teeth.
‘Hmm···’
It was a scene that had not appeared in the original story, but··· well, it should be fine.
I spoke to Rex to begin the buildup.
“Are you all right?”
[Fine<Delete>. No, I’m not fine. I don’t think I can fool Mr. Duke.]
Is that formal speech or informal speech?
Still using imperfect informal speech, Rex nodded repeatedly.
[It can’t be helped. This is Count Karognar’s domain. It would be rude for me to interfere in how the lord’s knight treats the people of his domain.]
I looked at the crown of Rex’s bowed head.
Rex was certainly right.
There was no good or evil in this world, where even the standards of Karma were full of loopholes.
What mattered was power.
Morality was a law created by the strong.
However, that was precisely why Rex could be said to be mistaken about one thing.
‘Endure? Why? When I’m here?’
Even in the original story, Rex endured this kind of injustice early on and made a resolution.
He vowed that his city would never be run like this. (That city would become the empire.)
It was a meaningful scene in its own way, but it was also frustrating for the reader.
It had been frustrating for me too.
But not anymore.
“Lord Rex.”
[Hmm?]
“Here, you who wield my sword are the law.”
At this moment, Rex stood above the lord.
Rex’s pupils shook as he realized what I meant.
I bowed my head toward him.
“Command me.”
[···]
Rex clenched his lips and agonized over it.
His mind was probably in turmoil.
He was wondering whether he could bear responsibility as the wielder of my sword.
I quietly waited until he made his decision.
Before long, Rex opened his mouth··· no, he struck the typewriter.
[This may be meddling, but could you save that person? As long as it doesn’t cause trouble later.]
He wanted to meddle, but he did not want things to become complicated.
Rex wore a self-deprecating smile at the contradiction in his request.
I bowed my head as though I had failed to understand the meaning behind that self-deprecating smile.
“Your will shall be done, my lord.”
I immediately headed toward the thug knight.
I did not forget to walk with an awareness of my dignity.
At the moment, I had no armor, sword, or helmet.
Perhaps because of that, when my shadow fell over him, the thug knight’s reaction did not change much.
“You bastard? What are you looking down at?”
The reason he did not cower even before my two-meter-tall body was probably that the realm he sensed from me was only around the first tier.
I had not intended to lower myself this far, but I did so because of Rex’s request; he did not want to attract attention.
Thanks to that, I was able to see a fresh reaction from the thug knight for the first time in a while, but it was not the reaction I wanted.
Instead of answering him, I slowly released my realm before the knight.
The knight had been full of swagger until my realm broke through the second tier, but his complexion grew pale around the time I reached the fourth tier.
And when my realm reached the fifth tier···
“I’m sorry!!!”
He slammed his head into the ground with enough force to make it seem as though the earth would split.
That was only natural, since the fifth tier was the lord’s tier.
He had picked a fight with someone like that···
‘He has no grounds to complain even if I kill him.’
Just as a second-tier runt had bullied a zero-tier person, I had the right to do the same to him.
That was the common sense he had worshiped until now, too.
I would have been happy to deal with him here, but···
‘He said not to let things get complicated.’
Remembering that, I looked down at the knight with a cold gaze.
“You know how to conduct yourself.”
“I’m sorry, Sir··· no, my lord!”
“You blocked the path of me and my lord, wasting our time. How will you atone for that?”
The thug knight’s crime was the crime of hurting my feelings.
Since he had bullied someone over drill-yard gravel, shouldn’t he be bullied over time as well?
Realizing the intent behind my question, the knight raised the angle of the bow he was making and shouted.
“I didn’t kill your junior! I only···”
“I don’t think that’s what I’m asking about.”
“I’ll apologize to the woman as well!”
“Hmm. Then why is your head pointed toward me?”
The knight immediately changed direction and apologized to the woman as well.
Pride?
This was a world where displaying such a thing would get you killed on the spot.
The thug knight discarded all his pride and begged the woman for forgiveness.
The woman did not seem able to forgive the knight, but···
“Please disappear from before me···”
At the sight of her speaking while suppressing her fear, the knight repeatedly bowed his head and fled, saying he would never appear before her again.
‘Hmm···’
This was somewhat disappointing.
The woman had spoken that way because fear had been engraved into her, but I could not accept it.
Without anyone noticing, I seized the knight’s shoulder with telekinesis.
If gravel had broken the chain of his armor, shouldn’t he suffer an injury worthy of it?
“Ghk!”
He clutched his shoulder in sudden pain, but the thug knight continued running away.
‘I’ll spare him his shoulder blade.’
I ended it at that because he had not killed the woman’s son.
A knight’s life was in his shoulders, so in a way, this was a death sentence···
‘Well, he can get healing magic or handle it himself.’
If that knight had enough wealth to pay for healing magic—a cost that would make even America take a step back—he could return to being a knight.
After sending the thug knight away, a young man with ‘diligence’ written across his forehead ran toward us.
“Mother!”
It was an apprentice knight whose face was swollen on one side as he hurried toward us.
‘Level 19.’
The diligent knight was at a level that would make the thug knight feel threatened.
The diligent knight worried about his mother, who was still kneeling on the ground.
“Mother, are you all right?”
“Dear, your face···”
“Ah, don’t worry. This much will heal quickly.”
I left the mother and son to worry about each other and turned around.
‘Sob. What a moving scene.’
Thinking that with an impassive expression, I moved away from the mother and son.
Then, on my way back to Rex, I thought of something I wanted to ask the apprentice knight.
‘I’d love to ask him for directions···!’
An apprentice knight should know the city’s geography well from patrolling it, shouldn’t he?
But the charismatic, cold-blooded knight Duke could not ask for directions in this atmosphere.
At times like this, I had to show them my cool back and leave.
‘Ah··· I need to ask for directions···’
Thinking that, I diligently moved my feet toward Rex.
- Sir Knight!
I heard the apprentice knight calling after me pitifully, but I absolutely could not turn around.
A truly charismatic knight had to disappear as though it were only natural.
Thus, I returned to Rex while pretending not to hear the apprentice knight calling me.
***
When Duke returned, Rex reflexively bowed his head.
[It was all because of me···]
At that moment, Duke’s words flashed through his mind.
- If you cannot trust me, I will prove it through my actions.
Remembering that, Rex revised his message after a brief moment of thought.
[Good work.]
An apology from a lord to a knight who had carried out his orders was an insult.
What the knight needed was nothing but gratitude and praise.
Duke also understood Rex’s intention and smiled contentedly.
“It is an honor, my lord.”
His affinity rose by 5!
Rex did not actually hear such a sound, but it seemed to ring in his head.
.
.
.
[But··· couldn’t we ask that apprentice knight for directions?]
At Rex’s question, Duke’s body trembled faintly enough that it was not noticeable.
An emergency siren was blaring inside Duke’s head.
- Emergency! My RP is breaking!!!
- No, you want me to leave so coolly and then go ask him again!?
- Nooo! I mean, we can! It would be rational!!
While Duke desperately racked his brain, the apprentice knight approached the two of them.
“Um··· Sir Knight?”
The apprentice knight bowed deeply to Duke and spoke to him.
Duke thought quickly.
‘Good! I’m counting on you, Rex!’
“I am merely a sword. If you wish to offer thanks, give them to my lord.”
For the moment, he did not know what the apprentice knight wanted to say,
but he had calculated that if he passed the baton to this protagonist of a misunderstanding story, who was loved by fate, things would somehow work out.
And that calculation worked astonishingly well.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t realize!”
The apprentice knight first apologized for speaking to the knight while bypassing his lord,
“If there is anything I can do to help, I will gladly do it!”
and immediately gave them an opportunity to ask for what they needed most.
‘Yes! Now we only need to ask him for directions···’
Duke looked at Rex expectantly, waiting for his next words.
And then he realized that he had miscalculated.
‘Oops.’
Rumble rumble rumble rumble rumble
Rex trembled as rapidly as a construction-site vibration drill.
The apprentice knight, who gave off the atmosphere of a sociable and diligent person, had entered without even turning on a conversational signal, sending Rex into a panic.
‘Damn it.’
Duke had thought Rex’s communication anxiety had improved, but it had only improved around people he knew.
[S-s-s-s-s-save me··· D-D-Duke!!]
Seeing the messages frantically rising above Rex’s head, complete with typos, Duke barely held back the sigh trying to escape.
Still, with this, they could achieve their goal without ruining his RP.
Duke pretended as though he had received a telepathic message from Rex and turned toward the apprentice knight.
“My lord wishes you to guide us.”
“Really? It’s an honor!”
Since it was not unusual for a lord to convey words through a knight, the apprentice knight did not question Duke’s character.
“Then I’ll guide you!”
The apprentice knight took the lead.
With him in front, Duke checked Rex’s condition.
Rex was looking at Duke with admiration.
Along with the message, [You saved me by speaking to him. Amazing!].
Having received all this praise, Duke···
‘Is this right···’
Despite receiving praise that was slightly more fervent than when he returned after driving away the thug knight,
he felt a slight sense of self-loathing.