Chapter 62
#62 Phantom Thief Dauphin (6) - What It Means to Live Strongly
「Dad, I think the villagers are really awful.」
The girl with orange hair and bright light-green eyes went on complaining with a pout.
「Just yesterday they were going on and on about how you were their benefactor, their hero, and then the instant rumors spread that the lord was uncomfortable with you, they immediately told us to leave. How can they be so shameless?」
The middle-aged man gave a wry smile and soothed the girl, who kept looking back over her shoulder at the village as if she still couldn't cool her anger.
「My cute daughter. You must be upset we got chased out before you could even eat your pancakes.」
「That's not it, you know? I just hate how shameless they are. They cursed the lord out for leaving the trolls near the village alone, and then the moment the lord actually showed up and coughed a bit, they all started watching his face. It's so cowardly.」
「Dahlia.」
The middle-aged man stopped walking, lowered himself to match the orange-haired girl's eye level, and spoke.
「It wasn't because the villagers are evil or selfish that they turned their backs on us. It's just that the power they have is far too weak, and just getting through each day is already hard enough for them that they can't help but watch everyone around them.」
The girl's eyes reflected the middle-aged man.
A rough beard, coarse skin marred with scars.
His armor had been broken and repaired over and over again, and it was shabby—nothing like the splendor people imagined when they thought of a 'knight'.
He didn't even have the means to keep a horse, so he trudged along on foot, and with no proper squire, the only one traveling with him was his young daughter.
Knight of the common people.
Knight of the weak.
Knight of the lowest place.
No matter how grand a title you dressed it up with to fool the eye, the reality was just a drifter who slept on the ground, not even receiving proper pay from those he'd saved.
The little girl disliked that more than anything.
The girl recalled the knights she had seen in other territories.
Each and every one wore gleaming armor, had several squires in tow, and rode huge horses as they swaggered around their domains.
Then people would either kneel on both sides of the road with their heads bowed to wait for the knight to pass, or force smiles onto their faces and sing the praises of the knight and the lord he served, flattering them about how peaceful the domain was thanks to them.
Her dad could have done that too.
No, he could have lived even more grandly than they did.
Her dad was strong, skilled enough to cut down even a troll with a single stroke, and there were more than enough nobles eager to covet a wandering knight who had no clear lord.
Yet he rejected every offer from those nobles and insisted on remaining a free knight to the very end.
Because of that, he incurred the nobles' resentment and fell into even worse circumstances than before, but her dad never bent his will.
Because they already had plenty of knights who would swear loyalty even without him, he said someone had to fight for those who didn't have any, didn't he?
「Protect the weak, and lend a hand to those who ask for help. That is the very duty and romance of a knight.」
Despite his appearance, which showed a man who had lived long enough, his eyes still declared it like a dreaming boy's, and the orange-haired girl puffed out her cheeks.
「...And yet you won't even help your daughter who's right beside you.」
「Cough!」
The man who had been delivering such a cool line suddenly started coughing as if he'd choked, then quickly broke out in a cold sweat.
He was bold enough to state his own will even before the threats of a powerful great lord, but before his daughter, who had to suffer because of him, he couldn't help becoming utterly weak.
「No, um, if it's hard for us to travel together, you could stay at your friend's house like I mentioned last time...」
「You're telling me to leave my perfectly fine dad behind and go live at someone else's house while constantly watching my step? Why, are you already sick of taking me with you?」
「Of course not. Having you by my side, Dad is grateful every single day.」
Knowing better than anyone that he might be a fine knight but could never be a fine father, the man, as if he'd sold off all his earlier bravado, cautiously watched his clever daughter's mood.
Looking at Dad like that, the girl let out a sigh.
It wasn't that she disliked her dad. Nor did she think what he did was wrong.
But the people who wouldn't summon the courage to stand with her dad still felt cruel.
Even so, the girl tried to understand.
As her dad said, not everyone can live strongly.
You shouldn't force unreasonable courage on people who are already struggling just to handle their own lives.
That would surely be another cruelty, another act of violence.
***
“...The worst.”
Was the one word that leaked from her mouth really about the dream, or because of what happened last night?
Even Dahlia herself didn't know the exact answer, and so she greeted a gloomy morning.
In her first showdown with the phantom thief Dauphin, Dahlia ultimately lost.
She had somehow managed to protect the client's body, but that was all.
She failed to catch Dauphin, failed to stop him from making off with the valuables inside the mansion, and even smashed part of the building where the client was staying with her own hands.
Only a few hours earlier, after the client had collapsed unconscious, she had been chewed out by the company commander who arrived later, tidied up the messy situation, and finally managed to get a few hours of sleep at the guard barracks.
According to the 8th Squad's subordinates, on truly exhausting days you don't even dream and simply feel as though sleep is over the moment you close and open your eyes, which sounds unfair. If that's true, should I resent this body of mine for still dreaming so easily after running around all night?
‘I'm getting all sorts of random thoughts.’
Shaking her head, Dahlia began getting ready.
Anyway, as soon as she got to work she'd just hear the rest of yesterday's reprimand, but if she went around looking completely disheveled, she wouldn't set an example for the soldiers or earn the residents' trust.
She wasn't the type who especially liked dressing up, so aside from basic hygiene, the only thing that took much time was her hair.
Honestly, there were plenty of times she wanted to cut it short and be done with it, but she grudgingly kept it long because of the 8th Squad's female guards' cries of, 'If you do that, we'll all have to cut ours into bobs too!'
After finishing everything else and just about to put on her armor, Dahlia soon frowned.
Some part of it was badly dented, probably from when she'd crashed into something yesterday.
Normally she should have sent it for repairs, but unfortunately she didn't have time now, and she didn't have a spare suit of armor either.
There were off-duty female guards in the same dormitory, but the chest size of their armor didn't fit hers, so borrowing one would be pointless.
After a brief moment of thought, Dahlia set the dented part of the armor on the floor and pressed down hard with her palms to force it back into shape.
At least on the surface, the armor's shape returned to something fairly convincing.
If she cared about its protection, she'd need to have it properly repaired someday, but for immediate use it should be fine.
Having solved the problem, she left the dormitory and headed for the company commander's office.
The moment she faced him, she'd probably get cursed out.
Suppressing the sigh that almost escaped her, she knocked on the company commander's office door.
Knock, knock.
I’m the captain of the 8th Squad, Dahlia.
-Hmm! I've been waiting!
……?
She only had time to wonder about the oddly excited voice.
Before she could get to the bottom of it, the company commander opened the door himself and greeted her.
“Welcome! Hero of our Levruk Guard!”
Dahlia blinked a few times.
For a moment she thought it might be a new kind of sarcasm, but the company commander's face was far too bright for that.
He hardly seemed like the same person who had barked at her to get lost last night.
Seeing the bewilderment on Dahlia's face, the company commander seemed a little embarrassed himself, coughed awkwardly, and went on.
“I'm sorry about last night. My anger toward that wicked thief Dauphin was so great that I think I was ‘a little’ too harsh with you.”
Dahlia's mind flashed back to the barrage of insults she'd heard last night.
She wondered if those abusive words, which had nearly made some of the nearby squad members leap up in outrage, could really be called ‘a little,’ but Dahlia decided to let it slide.
It would be pointless to point it out if her superior said so, and she herself had thought it couldn't be helped that she got reprimanded since they had let the culprit get away.
Still, that was exactly why the company commander's current attitude was all the more baffling.
“Now then, instead of talking out here in the doorway, come inside first. Hey, you there! Bring us something to drink!”
After even having the duty soldier prepare some light refreshments, the company commander spoke in a quiet voice to Dahlia, who was bewildered by treatment she'd never normally received.
“Before you arrived, the tax inspector regained consciousness. He expressed great satisfaction with the outcome of this incident.”
“Satisfaction...?”
The culprit got away, and the valuables were stolen.
Could the word ‘satisfaction’ really be used in a situation like this?
Dahlia thought as much, but the company commander said firmly.
“No, it's different. That Dauphin fellow ‘fled.’ In the end, he never even laid a hand on the tax inspector himself, did he?”
Up until now, Dauphin had effortlessly broken through every guard, every countermeasure, every trap, stolen treasures, and displayed his targets all over the city as if they were trophies.
Among the upper class, who valued face and reputation more than anyone, that was in a sense an act more fatal than death itself.
But this time he was blocked by Dahlia and ended up only stealing the valuables and returning them to the victims, and the tax inspector, who had fainted and then woken up, valued that very highly.
After all, for him, the child of Count Sarnos, losing even a portion of his property didn't amount to much of a wound.
“It seems rumors about last night have already spread, because praise for you is circulating among the nobles as well. For reactions to be this quick means there were a lot of people paying attention to yesterday's incident. Captain of the 8th Squad, you've saved our guard force's face.”
Even with the company commander showering her with praise in a way that was unlike him, Dahlia didn't look especially happy.
No matter how good the words sounded, last night's duel had been a defeat for Dahlia herself.
Apparently displeased by her flat response, the company commander's smiling face cracked slightly, but soon returned to normal.
He needed Dahlia's strength right now.
“The 8th Squad will continue operating as the exclusive unit for the upper-class district. All of Dauphin's targets are over there, so in a way that's only natural.”
“...I don't mind that, but won't the other squads object?”
Dahlia herself wanted to settle things with Dauphin, so being given another chance at it was, in itself, something she welcomed.
But she doubted the ones who had been driven out of their posts because of her would faithfully do their jobs in the commoners' district.
“Of course they will. If they couldn't catch Dauphin, shouldn't they prove their reason for existing even in a place like that? They'll work very, very ‘hard,’ so rest assured.”
His tone suggested that if they couldn't even do that, he'd butcher them with his own hands.
Dahlia found the phrase ‘a place like that’ somewhat irritating, but she decided it was still a good thing if the company commander pressured the other squad leaders, since then they wouldn't be able to slack off either.
There was no need for the motive to be good and noble.
Even if the purpose was simply to bolster the company commander's prestige, if the result was helping people and allowing ordinary folks to live peaceful daily lives, that would be the guard's true duty.
「The collapse of order may bring blood and chaos. Yet is it right to ignore those who suffer under that order? Rather than keep letting the wound fester because you're afraid of the blood that will flow, wouldn't it be better in the long run to squeeze it out, even if it hurts?」
At the question Dauphin had raised in her mind, Dahlia fell into thought.
If he shattered order with his reckless actions and dragged the nobles' authority through the mud, would they really submit obediently?
There was no way.
The nobles would fight back, and to preserve their authority and power, they would only grow more oppressive and forceful toward the people.
People weren't strong enough to endure that blood and pain.
They were weak, so weak that merely living from day to day was already a struggle.
So don't incite them.
Don't force them to challenge a contest they can't win.
Even if it hurts, even if it's hard, it would be better than dying at the end of a reckless challenge.