Chapter 106
Leon had never been the type to enjoy fighting.
The sense of accomplishment that came with growth, and the thrill of victory, were certainly nice, but...
After all, to him, a sword was nothing more than a means of getting through the grueling business of surviving.
He didn't dream of spending his whole life devoted only to swordsmanship, treating his sword like a lover, regretting a realm he'd never reached at the moment of death, or reincarnating as a TS pretty girl and becoming a sword saint.
Only once he had freedom and survival firmly secured could he worry about whether to romanticize the sword.
That was Leon.
For once, he readily accepted Aslan's offer to spar. There wasn't any grand purpose behind it.
'Let's blow off some steam.'
For the past few weeks, he'd been clumsily working an unfamiliar pen and forcing out creative pain, and it had left him dizzy.
He wanted to swing a sword without thinking about anything. If he didn't work off this stress, he felt like his body might start twitching.
His opponent was the Imperial Knights.
Leon had a personal grudge against them.
They were the reason he'd been trapped here, writing all day.
Of course, Leon was also the one who had used his influence to summon the Imperial Knights and then botched things, making the situation worse.
'So what.'
He didn't care about the details.
If they were offering him a legal chance to beat them up, there was no reason to refuse.
He planned to use the opportunity to blow off steam.
However.
“Leon won't be holding a sword from now on. I'm going to make sure he holds nothing but a pen for the rest of his life, so keep that in mind.”
None other than Aurora strongly opposed it.
“What if he gets badly hurt while fighting? If he can't write anymore, who's going to take responsibility?”
“Writing... you mean? Him, the slave knight?”
At Aslan's baffled question, the suddenly guilty Aurora gave a start and her shoulders jolted.
Only a tiny handful of people knew that the true author of the hit novel currently sweeping the Empire wasn't Aurora, but Leon.
Just the two of them, the Empress, and maybe Aither.
Everyone else simply thought Aurora was a genius writer whose talent had only bloomed late.
Aslan wasn't loose-lipped enough to go blabbing to others, but Leon still didn't want this secret discovered by anyone else.
“W-well, what I mean is, Leon's been helping me with my writing lately. So much so that he barely has time to hold a sword. Right, Leon?”
Aurora shot him a desperate look.
But Leon's eyes had gone cold.
“It's not just assisting with the writing—I'm the one doing all of it...”
-Mmph!
Aurora was horrified and roughly clamped a hand over Leon's mouth.
Leon glared at her fiercely for a moment, then turned to Aslan with a bright smile as if nothing had happened.
“Sir Aslan, the two of us have something urgent to discuss, so could you excuse us for a moment?”
“As you wish.”
As soon as Aslan left, Aurora locked fierce eyes with Leon again.
“Are you really going to be this petty?”
“It's Your Imperial Highness, the princess, who's in the wrong for trying to lie to an elder.”
“That's not really something for Leon, the one who blinded that old man's eye, to say, is it?”
“It was self-defense. And I even got word from the person involved that he's fine, so I don't feel guilty, you lying princess.”
At Leon's shameless reply, Aurora's lips trembled in disbelief.
“How can you do this to me? I treated you so well! You're the first person I've ever given a lap pillow to!”
“That was fair compensation for writing for you. If you're really that upset, shall I lend you my lap instead? It'd be my first time offering it too, so wouldn't that make us even?”
“Of course, I did want to try it once, but not now. And above all, how could a princess's lap pillow possibly be worth the same as a slave's?”
The two of them were locked in a fierce standoff.
Aurora couldn't understand the mindset of this slave, who willingly chose needless hardship.
Sipping the finest tea in cool shade and idly twirling a pen.
Getting blood splattered and wounds opened in a hot, stinking training yard.
By any measure, the former was a luxury no different from heaven.
Why he was being so stupidly stubborn was beyond her.
Despite the vast gap in status between princess and slave, their oddly even standoff continued.
It was Leon who first offered a compromise.
“Then let's do this. Let me spar on a regular basis, and I'll obediently write the sequel.”
The moment she heard he would write a sequel, Aurora perked up.
“……Really?”
“After all, you have to let the heat built up in your body out every so often to clear your head, and then the writing flows better.”
She wasn't thrilled, but if it improved his writing ability, she had no reason to stop him.
“All right. I'll allow it.”
“Thank you.”
“But you mustn't get hurt. If you get hurt and can't write, I'll be angry.”
***
After finally getting Aurora's permission to spar, I headed to the training grounds with Aslan.
Naturally, Aurora followed behind like a leech.
If I even got a scratch on my hand, she would surely charge in and stop the spar.
She was worried sick I might get hurt, but it wasn't very touching.
Because in the end, she was more worried about losing my labor than about my safety.
'Should I just grit my teeth and break something major?'
I was suddenly quite curious what kind of expression she'd make.
Of course, I had no intention of actually getting hurt.
My only asset was this body. If even this got ruined, my existence would plunge straight to rock bottom.
Lost in pointless fantasies as I walked, a needlessly familiar smell of sweat wafted toward me.
Imperial Knights' Second Training Grounds.
The huge oval training grounds were boiling with heat hotter than the midday sun.
“Hup! Hah!”
Loud battle cries burst from every direction. The metallic clash of sword on sword stabbed sharply at my eardrums.
The Imperial Knights were in the middle of intense sparring.
Fitting for the Empire's finest elite fighting force, the fighting spirit they radiated easily outclassed the ordinary.
“Everyone, halt!”
Aslan's thunderous bellow swallowed the training grounds.
'That old man's got a set of lungs on him.'
The effect was immediate.
The dozens of knights in training stopped as if by magic.
“Her Imperial Highness Princess Aurora has come in person. Everyone, show proper respect!”
The knights hurriedly put away their weapons and dropped to one knee.
Every movement was crisp and disciplined.
“Greetings to Her Highness, the First Princess!”
“Hello. It's hot out, and you've all been working hard. Since I'm the one who showed up unannounced, don't worry about the formalities and just keep doing what you were doing.”
Aurora was acting the elegant, dignified princess.
She was a completely different person from when she was alone with me.
In front of me, she was nothing but a brat who whined every day for me to write the next chapter.
The men who had no way of knowing her true nature just grinned stupidly at the princess's beauty.
Such is the curse of knowledge.
“You're the former knight commander, aren't you? Didn't you retire?”
I asked Aslan casually.
“Though I've stepped down from active duty, by His Majesty's grace I serve as an advisor to the knights. Guiding still-immature youngsters onto the right path is the last duty left to this old knight.”
“That sounds to me like you're being forced to take it on because there's no one fit to do it.”
“Hahaha.”
Aslan didn't deny it.
He answered with a warm smile, his wrinkles deepening.
“Sir Aslan.”
Then one man with a particularly massive frame and a fierce presence spoke up on behalf of the knights.
“What is it, Sir Richard?”
The man called Richard looked me over steadily.
His gaze lingered for a while on the restraint fastened around my neck.
“Could the man beside you be the rumored slave knight?”
“He is.”
“May I ask why he, a criminal and a slave, has come to this training yard?”
“Having crossed swords with him before, I found there was much to learn. I thought he might be of great help to you as well, so I brought him.”
“Is that so...”
Richard nodded calmly. Soon after, he met my gaze again.
“I'm Richard, commander of the 2nd Battalion of the Imperial Knights. Slave knight, I've heard quite a bit about you.”
“I'm Leon. I'm not a slave knight—just a slave. The house I belonged to has vanished, after all.”
“My apologies.”
Richard apologized matter-of-factly. I was quite surprised by his courteous attitude.
So far, most of the nobles and knights I'd met had been quick to look down on me as a slave.
And yet here was the commander of the Imperial Knights bowing his head to a slave.
'Could he be gay, or maybe just have a thing for slaves?'
This man is dangerous.
I need to keep my guard up.
The knights who had taken part in the witch hunt that day all gave the same testimony.
“What did they say?”
“That their advance had been stopped by a single man. That it was like facing a sword ghost.”
“Sword Ghost, huh.”
Calling a man struggling just to live a ghost...
“Would it kill them to call me something like a Sword Saint or Sword Master instead?”
Maybe slavery had really made my personality worse. That didn't sound like praise at all.
“Whenever I heard people sing your praises, I kept thinking I should spar with you someday. Just how skilled must you be for the praise to be so lavish?”
“I'm just decent with a sword.”
“You're being far too modest.”
Richard didn't seem to believe my words at all.
He let out a light chuckle.
“Sir Aslan, may I be the first to spar with him?”
“Go ahead and do as you please. I was only planning to arrange it from the start.”
“Thank you. Are you all right with that?”
“No problem.”
“Good.”
Richard stepped back lightly, opening up the distance.
The knights stopped training and, as if by prior agreement, spread out to make room for us.
“Then I'll go work up a little sweat.”
“You absolutely must not get hurt. Especially your hands. If you get hurt and can't write, I'll never let you hold a sword again.”
“Yes, yes. I understand.”
I let Aurora's earnest warnings go in one ear and out the other.
So, if I got hurt and couldn't write, she'd never let me fight again?
In other words...
'So she was saying that if I got hurt, I just needed to grit my teeth and keep writing!'
Crystal clear.