Chapter 67: Phantom Thief Dauphin (11) - Worth It

#67화 Phantom Thief Dauphin (11) - Worth It

“I-it fell in!! Should we go in too?”

“If we go into the water in the middle of the night, we won’t be able to find him properly! Gather more people! We’ll wait up top and catch him the moment he surfaces!!”

While the other guards were making a ruckus about catching Dauphin after he fell into the river, Dahlia stared at the river with an unpleasant expression all by herself.

Because she was frustrated that her attack had failed, and that she still hadn’t caught Dauphin for certain.

That wasn’t it.

Rather, what annoyed her was Dauphin’s reaction a moment ago.

When Dahlia charged into the whirlwind, Dauphin had looked openly flustered and made a clear effort to rein in his attack.

Worried that Dahlia might suffer a fatal injury from his own attack, he failed to properly respond even to Dahlia’s counterattack, which he otherwise could have avoided.

At this rate, it was practically as if he had turned the other person’s goodwill and consideration against them to launch a surprise attack.

If Dauphin himself had heard it, he would probably have cheerfully called it his own mistake, saying, ‘Wasn’t the one at fault the person who got distracted in the middle of a fight and left an opening?’ But Dahlia, with her rigidly literal personality, couldn’t separate things that neatly.

“P-platoon leader! How was it? Did that bastard definitely get finished off?”

Dauphin’s target, the profligate young lord who had been keeping out of the way, hurried over once he confirmed the battle was over and asked Dahlia.

Dahlia replied in a flat tone.

“…At least his right arm. Maybe even his ribs were shattered.”

“Haha! Good! Excellent! I’d heard you were skilled, but I didn’t know it was this much! He fell into the river with a broken arm, so maybe he couldn’t even crawl out properly and drowned. Serves him right!!”

Apparently delighted beyond measure, the young lord kept alternating between praising Dahlia and cursing Dauphin.

In one corner of Dahlia’s field of vision as she silently listened to him,

she saw a boy in shabby clothes staring blankly at the river where Dauphin had fallen.

The boy soon turned his head and glared resentfully at the young lord and at Dahlia, whom the young lord was praising.

Because of the mask Dahlia was wearing, he didn’t seem to realize Dahlia was looking at him.

“The situation still isn’t one where we can be certain it’s safe. Please head back now.”

Dahlia steered the young lord’s gaze elsewhere so he wouldn’t notice the boy’s presence.

The young lord, too, seemed to feel uneasy again at Dahlia’s words; he looked toward the river, then hurried after Dahlia.

Dahlia suddenly looked up at the sky.

She had protected the person she was escorting and stopped the culprit.

Even though she had surely done her duty as a guard, the moon in that sky somehow seemed to be reproaching her, and Dahlia quietly lowered her eyes.

***

In the end, Dauphin, who had fallen into the river, was never found.

The guards chattered away with a mix of optimism and wishful thinking, saying that since he’d gone into the river wounded, he must have drowned there, and the city’s response split cleanly in two.

The upper class cheered, but were uneasy that no body had been found, while the lower class either despaired or spread rumors that Dauphin couldn’t possibly have gone out so anticlimactically and must have survived.

And Dahlia was granted another day off.

Dahlia, having left her lodgings in casual clothes, fell into a daze.

‘Where should I go?’

If this had been before, she would have roamed all over the city even on her day off under the pretense of taking a walk, repeating her patrols.

She would also have checked whether guards from other platoons were taking their frustration out on the residents for no reason.

But for Dahlia now, it was not easy to step into the commoners’ district as she usually did.

Because the face of the old woman who had condemned her, and the boy’s resentful stare, would not leave her memory.

Few people could look at Dahlia’s bare face and connect it to the 8th Platoon leader, but as the old woman had shown, such people weren’t nonexistent.

If she went to the commoners’ district or the slums as usual now, it would only cause unnecessary trouble.

If she went to the upper-class district instead, she would likely be welcomed in her own way, but she’d also probably be asked to protect them first.

Unable to easily set off in any direction, Dahlia hesitated indecisively.

She even thought about going back to the guard barracks and resting, but then she would probably worry her platoon members unnecessarily.

Her platoon members would tell her to try enjoying a hobby or two, but for someone whose life and guard duty had long since become half the same thing, even the word hobby brought to mind...

“…Ah.”

There was one.

Admitting that counted as a hobby was a little, no, a lot embarrassing.

In any case, there was a place where she could spend time purely for enjoyment, rather than out of duty or responsibility.

“I should repay the favor.”

After muttering words that sounded like an excuse to no one in particular, Dahlia made her way to ‘his’ house.

The border between the upper-class district and the rest of the city.

A building that fell short of a noble mansion, but was more than comfortable for ordinary commoners.

Dahlia stared at the front gate with a solemn expression, as if it were the entrance to a battlefield, then solemnly rang the bell beside the door.

A clear chime rang out, and after waiting a moment,

“Hm? Ah.”

The man appeared from inside and opened the door as if nothing were the matter, making Dahlia’s tension seem foolish; when he saw her face, he gave a gentle smile.

“Welcome, young lady. I’m glad you didn’t forget your promise.”

“Yes, well.”

While cautiously nodding, Dahlia’s gaze quickly checked the man’s right arm.

And after confirming that he was casually using that right arm to open and close the door, Dahlia finally let the tension leave her shoulders as well.

Thank goodness. Truly.

So it really was all my own overthinking.

The man tilted his head at Dahlia, whose face had somehow cleared up.

“Did something good happen? Ah, come to think of it, I heard you made quite a big contribution again. Is that why?”

“Not really.”

“Is that so? Well, come on in for now.”

After that, things unfolded much like last time.

The man presented her with various issues, some of them even rather extreme, and Dahlia pushed back against his arguments, sorting through the many emotions inside her with increasing clarity.

However, it wasn’t exactly the same as before.

Because mixed in with the discussion was not just debate, but Dahlia’s own personal story as well.

By nature, Dahlia wasn’t the sort who liked talking about herself.

Even within the 8th Platoon, aside from a few veterans who had spent at least several years with her, there was practically no one who knew her past.

So it should have been impossible to tell this kind of story to a man she’d only just met for the second time, yet for some reason, in front of this man, her mouth opened easily.

Maybe she simply wanted to vent the burden and stress she’d been feeling lately, even if only in this way.

“You see, I’ve been physically strong since I was little. I don’t know how that sounds, but to a somewhat abnormal degree.”

From childhood, she was never overpowered in brute strength even by adults, let alone her peers, and she had never once contracted the various diseases that so easily took the lives of infants and toddlers.

Her physical toughness was especially absurd; when a little girl missed her footing and fell from the height of a second floor, she didn’t even get so much as a scratch.

“Dad, uh. I mean, my father...”

“You can just call him Dad if you like.”

“...Dad was troubled by it, but I was happy. Dad had such severe wanderlust that an ordinary child wouldn’t have been able to keep up with him or would have only gotten in the way, but I could.”

There had even been a time when a bandit who rushed at her to take Dahlia hostage pressed a knife to her throat.

She had also been struck by a stray arrow while protecting civilians during clashes between territories.

And she’d even had her arm bitten by a pack of wolves that had developed a taste for human flesh after attacking peddlers.

Each one was a fatal threat to a child, but Dahlia either endured them unharmed or, if she was injured, it was only minor scratches or bruises.

“But to other people, I guess it looked a little bizarre. I was treated like a monster, or said to be a witch in disguise, and some people even said I looked like a monster pretending to be human. Then Dad said this: ‘Dahlia, that constitution of yours is neither monstrous nor strange. It was bestowed by the gods in heaven to protect people. So even if those fools say stupid things, ignore them.’”

After putting on a rather unconvincing imitation, Dahlia snickered.

“That was the only time Dad ever called the people he protected ‘fools.’ When they were ungrateful to him, he was as kind as could be, but when they insulted his daughter, I guess he just couldn’t stand it.”

“Hmm.”

The man seemed to choose his words for a moment before asking.

“So you became a guard? Because you were born with great strength, and wanted to use it to protect people?”

“Half of it, yes. The other half was just to make a living.”

“There was also the adventurer path, wasn’t there? I understand the adventurers’ guild here in the Kingdom of Birk originally sprang from a self-defense militia. Wouldn’t that also have been a way to help people?”

“I’m not very fond of adventurers.”

Dahlia muttered with a grumpy expression.

“The ones who come to kill monsters for money, then bully a village as if they’re doing them some huge favor; the ones who were mistreated by a lord and deliberately slack off so the territory’s people suffer; even the ones whose earnings are so poor they change careers on the spot and run wild as bandits. They talk about romance and about the freedom to defy nobles, but at heart they’re just thugs wandering around with weapons and taking only what benefits them.”

“I-I see?”

“There are adventurers who come to Revbruk now and then too, and they’re practically sworn enemies with the guards. They say we just grovel under nobles because we don’t have the confidence to survive on skill alone. As if they’re any better, living hand to mouth with no stable salary.”

The man somehow looked oddly flustered.

Wondering if there had been something in what she said that would fluster him, Dahlia suddenly thought of a possibility.

‘Could he be an adventurer, or related to one?’

If so, she had ended up badmouthing them unintentionally, and Dahlia felt a little sorry.

After clearing her throat a few times, she continued.

“Well, it’s true I don’t like adventurers much, but I do know there are good people among them. Especially after hearing that this time the adventurers’ guild went to subjugate the lich without negotiating with the other nobles first, there were plenty of compliments within the platoon too. If they hadn’t moved quickly, the entire kingdom might have been in danger.”

“Indeed. The courage and devotion of those who make difficult choices should be judged accordingly. A world where goodwill toward others becomes a laughingstock and is exploited, while those who mock it are praised as wise, would surely be worse than a sewer.”

Dahlia flinched before she knew it.

Because she remembered that in some platoons besides the 8th, they had laughed at them as ‘idiots who died playing hero on their own.’

She had felt that way to some extent before, but lately her doubts about her workplace and her profession seemed to be growing by the day, and Dahlia let out another sigh.

Perhaps noticing Dahlia’s mood, the man brought up a new topic.

“Then did you learn your martial arts from your father?”

“Spear techniques and mana reinforcement, yes. I can’t do things like release sword aura, though. I can pour mana into a weapon for a very brief moment, but it’s only for a truly brief moment, so the limit is basically activating the spear’s length-adjusting mechanism.”

After hearing Dahlia’s explanation, the man made a request of her.

“Could you extend your hand for a moment?”

“…? Yes, well.”

Dahlia obediently extended her hand, and the man placed his hand over hers.

Dahlia kept shifting her gaze around awkwardly, but the man was focused entirely on the sensation of the hand touching hers and didn’t notice.

A moment later, the man let out a dry laugh.

Because he understood how Dahlia’s father must have felt when he realized what his daughter’s constitution was.

‘He’d have been happy. But at the same time, he must have been dumbfounded.’

There is a concept called mana cultivation arts.

It refers to a technique that achieves various effects by circulating mana within the body in specific ways, such as increasing the amount of mana that would otherwise be fixed by birth or granting mana special properties.

Fairly well-known knightly houses, or houses renowned for martial prowess, usually possess such cultivation arts as secret techniques, because they also include improving one’s constitution among their effects.

Greater strength, a sturdier frame, endurance that never tires.

It was only natural for groups that had a means of later enhancing qualities so vital to physical fighters to stand above those that did not.

But one hypothesis could be made here.

In the end, cultivation arts are a way of directing the mana in the body along specific routes and processes with a certain intent.

Then what if the mana that naturally flowed through the body without any conscious effort was itself optimized to strengthen the body?

What if there were someone who had been seeing the results that others only gained after years or even decades of gradually changing their constitution, and only after reaching a certain level, from the moment they were born?

Of course, it wasn’t easy.

Mana cultivation arts frequently went to hell with even the tiniest route change, so a poorly learned one was said to be worse than not using one at all.

If you threw tens of thousands of multicolored dominoes into the air and let them fall to the floor, how often would they already form a perfect picture without any outside adjustments?

But if such a thing did exist.

If someone were truly born with such a constitution.

‘Without even looking far, by copying the mana circulation instinctively used by someone like that and making a few adjustments, one could complete a vision capable of creating an entire knightly order.’

Not everyone would be able to use it, of course.

Dahlia herself had simply been using it naturally since birth, so she had reached the point where, despite not being able to use sword aura, let alone proper sword energy, she could brawl with the lower end of the 5th rank on physical strength alone, but others probably wouldn’t achieve efficiency anywhere near hers.

Even so, this was power that could be handed to the weak.

What choice would Dahlia make when, someday, this gift was passed to her?

The man was very curious about that future, but he had no reason to rush ahead.

After all, it still needed time before it was complete, and if he threw something like that at her as a ‘gift’ before she’d resolved the problem weighing on her heart, it would obviously only burden her more.

Still, it had been a good discovery, and the man laughed, saying it was worth having forcibly moved his right arm with the suit’s effect.