“A country of fools whose heads are filled with chivalry and flowerbeds.”
Sien replied to Roselia’s mockery as if it were someone else’s business.
“Well, flowers usually bloom in the spring.”
“Ah, that is quite the clever answer.”
Roselia let out a laugh with her delicate, beautiful voice and sat down. The female knight with pale skin guarding her stood still, remaining alert to their surroundings without even a slight movement.
“Don’t just stand there; sit with us, Sir Theresia.”
“I cannot do that, Princess.”
The female knight, addressed as Sir Theresia, replied coldly.
“Please keep in mind that this is the den of the Nightwalkers.”
Her skin was as pale and white as a corpse, and the fangs glimpsed between her lips were twice as long as a normal person’s.
As one could see, she was not human. But she was not a Snake Eye, either.
She was one of the Twelve Knights of Charlemagne, the most elite knight organization this country boasted—and a half-Snake Eye, a cross between a human and a Snake Eye.
‘The Pale Lily, Sir Theresia.’
“I am well aware of that without you having to emphasize it further.”
The kind and good-hearted princess who loved her people, Roselia Charles.
“Surely you didn’t come all this way just to see my face, Princess.”
“That’s right.”
Roselia let out a pleasant smile at Sien’s sarcasm and continued speaking.
“I came because there is someone I want killed.”
An assassination request.
At those words, Sien gave a bitter smile and replied.
“Unfortunately, Your Highness, the assassins of our Nightwalker Family do not operate in such a manner.”
“Do you know the devil’s greatest trick?”
“Hmm, I’m not sure.”
To Sien, who was feigning ignorance, Roselia continued.
“It is making the world believe that the devil does not exist.”
“Then what would be the ‘Nightwalker Family’s greatest trick’?”
Roselia giggled as if she were enjoying herself. Sien remained silent. In the freezing silence, the air grew tense.
Suddenly, amidst that taut atmosphere, Sien burst into laughter.
“You certainly have a rich imagination.”
“There isn’t much to do when you’re trapped in a birdcage.”
“Is that all you have to say?” Sien asked in a cold voice.
“I’m not so idle that I can play along with the fantasies of a caged princess.”
“You…”
At Sien’s sarcasm, Sir Theresia placed her hand on the hilt of her sword.
“Well, I’m not asking you to kill him right this moment.”
Roselia opened her mouth, restraining the knight’s actions.
“I only hope that when the time comes, you will seriously consider my proposal. That is all I wanted to say.”
After speaking, Roselia stood up.
“Let’s go back, Sir Theresia.”
She left without even mentioning when that ‘time’ would be or the name of the target she wanted killed.
“— Even if that were the case.”
It was then.
Sien spoke toward Roselia’s back as she turned away.
“Why should I consider your proposal?”
“Because I am a person who possesses a great many things,” Roselia answered, still with her back turned.
“And I dearly love the things I possess—this country and its people. That is how I know.”
“Know what?”
“That we can never protect this country’s spring with the way things are now.”
“Even with the Twelve Knights of Charlemagne, the pride of the kingdom?”
“Sometimes I imagine it,” Roselia continued.
“The sight of this country if they were to act as ‘assassins’ instead of knights.”
“A country where the strongest knights of the kingdom obey my commands with absolute submission, and willingly follow them even if they are despicable and filthy.”
The kind and good-hearted princess who loved her people.
“What do you think? Don’t you look forward to it?”
“Well, it certainly is terrifying.”
That was the image of Roselia Charles that the people of this country held. At the very least, they weren’t entirely wrong about her loving her country and its people.
However, she was prepared to do anything to protect what she loved.
Just like the people of the Nightwalker Family who loved their own.
“To achieve that, we will need to clearly show everyone just how empty and ridiculous the chivalry they worship is.”
“How exactly?”
However, Roselia was neither that kind nor that good-hearted.
“Please kill Sir Roland.”
Sword Saint Roland.
The pinnacle of the kingdom’s knights and the model of chivalry—one of the greatest swordsmen of the era who stood shoulder to shoulder with the strongest on the continent.
The most noble and righteous knight in the world.
Sien could not hide his agitation at those words. At the same time, he was not so foolish as to miss the meaning behind them.
Idol destruction.
“As I said, I’m not asking you to kill him right now.”
Sien let out a laugh at those words. It wouldn’t be possible in the first place.
“But the time will come soon.”
“I only hope that when the time comes, you will seriously consider my request.”
Roselia’s cold voice was filled with a conviction that held not even a shred of doubt.
“As I told you, I possess a great many things.”
***
“Princess Roselia intends to turn the Charlemagne Kingdom into a ‘Country of Assassins’ in the future.”
Rather than a country of chivalry.
“Just like this country.”
When Sien returned from his mission in the kingdom and reported Roselia’s ‘assassination request’, Laila shrugged as if she weren’t surprised.
“Sir Roland will certainly never agree with her.”
“Because he is a knight who pursues ideals.”
Laila’s voice carried a cold sneer.
There was the ‘Sword Demon’ Oswald Grandel of the Holy Empire, who was blinded by petty fame and sugar-coated glory.
There was the ‘King of the Round Table’ Arthur Pendragon of the Archipelago of Seven Kingdoms, who would stop at nothing to satisfy his ambitions for continental advancement and territorial expansion.
And then there was Laila, the ‘Mother of Assassins’, who had never even called herself a knight to begin with.
Even those who held some of the greatest power on the continent exercised their strength thoroughly for immediate gain and self-interest. They did not care for empty ideals like chivalry.
However, Roland de Durandal, the ‘Sword Saint’ of the Charlemagne Kingdom, was different.
He was a true knight to his very core.
What was even more ridiculous was that even if his head was filled with chivalry and flowerbeds, he was at least not stupid.
‘Does one who lacks the Way discuss the Way?’
‘Is that why the Republic and the Nightwalker Family cry out so much for truth and trust?’
He was no fool. No, he even possessed the insight to accurately pierce through the essence of the Nightwalker Family and the Republic.
“I don’t know how much of a threat a kingdom without chivalry will be in the long run, but either way, eliminating Sir Roland is a deal where we have nothing to lose.”
“Are you accepting Princess Roselia’s request?”
“It will depend on how appropriate the time she speaks of is.”
“I understand, Head of the Family.”
It wasn’t something that would happen anytime soon. Nor was it something that needed to be worried about right this moment.
At least, that was likely what Laila thought for now.
“— Oh, come to think of it.”
Laila calmly changed the subject.
“Vigo mentioned recently that he wants to prepare for the Confirmation Sacrament.”
“Big Brother Vigo already…?”
Sien blinked his eyes in surprise at the unexpected news.
Vigo was his brother, five years older than him, and a family member who practiced the family’s 7th Stance, the ‘Black Widow Stance’.
“A Master’s exam at the age of 22…”
Sien spoke with a worried expression.
“It’s too early.”
He spoke as if he had long since forgotten the fact that he was only 17 years old himself.
“Pfft, to think I would hear those words from your mouth.”
Laila burst into laughter at Sien’s concern.
“The case is different for me.”
“Yes, it certainly is excessively early.”
Vigo was different from Sien. He didn’t have memories of the future like Sien did, and by the family’s standards, his talent wasn’t particularly outstanding either.
In the past, when Sien wasn’t around, Vigo hadn’t even been able to pass the Baptism.
“But he was stubborn about it, which is unlike him.”
“Stubborn…”
“He happens to be staying in the fief right now.”
Sien swallowed hard at a side of his brother he could hardly imagine, and Laila spoke.
“Could you go and talk to him?”
***
Big Brother Vigo.
“You’re back, Sien.”
He heard his younger brother’s voice from behind. There was no sound of footsteps or presence.
“I heard you performed a difficult mission in the kingdom—”
Vigo turned his head. There stood Sien, looking different than usual.
“You, those clothes.”
He wasn’t wearing his usual black-tanned iron leather coat, but a suit made of a special material.
It was the garment known as the ‘Spider Slough’.
It was the very armament one had to wear instead of a sword to perform the 7th Stance of the Nightwalker Family, the Black Widow Stance.
“I asked Lady Luna to adjust the size, but it’s still quite tight,” Sien said awkwardly.
“Since I usually don’t wear it.”
“You came because of what the Head of the Family said.”
As soon as he saw Sien dressed in the Spider Slough, Vigo realized the meaning behind it and gave a bitter smile.
“I’ll be honest with you, Big Brother. It’s too early for your Confirmation Sacrament.”
“Did you come to tell me that?”
“Yes.”
Sien nodded.
“I didn’t want to beat around the bush.”
Sien was not a Master of the 7th Stance. He wasn’t in the past, and he wasn’t now either.
Yet here was Sien, wearing the Spider Slough in front of his brother, Vigo, who claimed to be a Master of that stance.
“It’s not just you. It’s hard to find a precedent for someone becoming a Master at that age.”
“And you are always the exception.”
“Hmm.”
Sien nodded without denying it. Vigo gave a bitter smile.
“Is there a reason you’re trying to become a Master so urgently? Do you really think you’ve gained the ‘enlightenment’ to call yourself a Master of the 7th Stance?”
“You always look down on me like that, Sien.”
“I’ve never particularly looked down on you.”
Sien replied calmly. A short silence fell between them.
“…I thought I shouldn’t even look at a tree I couldn’t climb,” Vigo finally spoke after the silence.
“But in this family, no matter where I go, I see nothing but your shadow. Then I realized something.”
“Closing my eyes and ears and turning my head away doesn’t mean I can escape your shadow.”
As he spoke, Vigo moved his fingers. Suddenly, a pale, cold aura began to glow along his suit.
‘Black Widow Stance.’
True to its name, a practitioner of the 7th Stance does not use a sword. Instead, they use the ‘Spider Slough’, a garment woven from special fibers, as a weapon to weave threads of death infused with aura.
Sien also moved his fingers.
It was the starting position for the 7th Stance, hooking the fibers of the Spider Slough onto his fingertips.
The so-called ‘Cat’s Cradle Preparation’.
“Was the last time we fought like this before we received our Baptism?”
“Yes.”
“You always won.”
“And you always lost.”
It was always Sien who won. He knew that. For Vigo, that was a destiny that would never change.
“Show me that it’s different now.”
That was why Sien spoke.
“Defeat me here and prove that you have the right to call yourself a Master of the 7th Stance.”