Ch.340EP.71 – Cowardice Is Not the Exclusive Property of Villains (5)

It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

…That aptly describes what they’ve done.

“Sigh… Couldn’t you have at least consulted with me first, Your Highness?”

“I’m sorry to say this, Rafael, but if I had consulted with you, this plan wouldn’t have worked. You wouldn’t have permitted such a thing.”

“…I won’t deny that statement, Your Highness.”

“Yes, exactly. Because you adhere so strictly to principles, I couldn’t tell you.”

“…I suppose that’s also true.”

“…I’d rather you get angry at me. It would make me feel better.”

…Rafael didn’t lecture him with righteous arguments.

He didn’t say things like ‘this isn’t right’ or ‘how can doing the same things as those we condemn be considered proper?’ He didn’t make any appeals to conscience.

This wasn’t because he was intimidated by Galahad’s authority, nor had he given up in disappointment at Pierre’s behavior.

He simply knew.

“Why should I be angry? Your Highness, though I’m just a powerless old man, I’ve lived long enough. I’m not naive enough to believe that living virtuously guarantees good fortune. How could the world run solely on righteousness and goodwill? How can we speak of morality and ethics toward those deemed our enemies?”

“……”

“Of course I feel sadness, but this sadness stems from my own incompetence. If I were more capable, if I were a greater man, then perhaps Your Highness, my brother, and those children… wouldn’t have had to walk this tainted path. So I’m angry and despairing at my own incompetence, not blaming Your Highness or my brother.”

“……”

“Rather, I apologize. If hands needed to be dirtied, I should have dirtied mine, yet I allowed Your Highness and my brother to soil yours… I’m truly sorry…”

“…Ahem.”

Listening to such lamentations, Blake showed rare discomfort.

No, he…

“…Please get angry at me. I feel so uncomfortable it’s like I have a lump of lead inside me.”

Blake was experiencing a feeling of guilty conscience he hadn’t felt since he was five years old.

‘I’d rather bow my head like a knight.’

He saw a knight who, without being ordered, punished himself by bowing his head to the ground, and Blake envied him.

Because the eyes of this saint, reflecting not just his expression but his very heart, were more frightening than any scolding.

Even more than the scolding of his father, the king known as the Military Sovereign…

* * *

…Rafael left.

His already aged body must be quite tired, having come at this late hour before dawn.

Shadows escorted him back to the temple, and once the knight confirmed he was gone, he quietly deactivated the carpet bombing.

“…How frightening.”

“……”

“I find it scariest when kind elders get angry…”

“……”

“What’s with that look? If you have something to say, say it.”

“…It’s nothing.”

Pierre looked at the knight somewhat glaring, or rather, with a hint of jealousy.

And for good reason…

‘He scolded him…’

Rafael had scolded the knight.

It was a strange thing to say. Rafael had only sighed at the knight or patted his shoulder.

If anything extra happened, it was when he was returning to the temple.

Tap…

– May the blessing of radiance be upon your future.

He did tap the knight’s back as he left.

No one would have found this strange.

But Pierre knew.

That this was Rafael’s way of scolding.

Pierre knew that the simple act of patting a shoulder or tapping a back was the maximum rebuke Rafael could show.

…Having been cared for by him for many years, only Pierre knew this.

That’s why he felt sad and jealous.

Being scolded meant that there was still “faith” in the person.

Whereas for himself…

“…What exactly is the difference between you and me?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Did I do something so wrong? I…”

SMACK!

“!?”

“What the hell. Now that I look at you, you seem a bit crazy. Did your mind break during the possession?”

“W-wait, that’s not it…”

SMACK!

The knight struck the back of his head again, and each time Pierre felt tremendous pain.

Though he was only hit on the back of his head, it wasn’t just his head that hurt—the impact resonated through his entire body, and the pain was beyond imagination.

It was truly terrible.

As tears welled up in Pierre’s eyes involuntarily, the knight spoke, unconcerned whether he cried or not.

“Tell me if you start feeling mentally unstable. We’ll need to go through some verification process.”

“V-verification process…?”

“There are people with real mental illnesses, but there are also idiots who pretend to have them—like those who can control their anger just fine but claim to have anger management issues in front of their parents or weaker people.”

“……”

“If you think you’re mentally unstable, tell me quickly. It doesn’t take long to beat—I mean, cure you.”

Crack, crack.

“……”

An ominous sound came from the knight’s hand, and just from that, Pierre felt as if his body was being distorted.

Somehow, he was certain that this so-called “treatment” would be far more harsh and painful than the blow to the back of his head.

And so…

“No, I’m fine. Really…”

“Are you sure? Don’t pretend you’re not in pain.”

“Yes, I’m certain.”

“…Hmm, I’m still suspicious,”

“……”

Pierre’s inner demon was forcibly resolved.

Through a treatment called a fist.

* * *

Unaware that he had just prevented someone from turning to the dark side, Ihan finally asked something important.

“So, if you’re mentally sound, tell me now, where exactly are ‘those guys’?”

Despite the risky plan of targeting a high noble, they executed it for one reason.

It was solely to capture the Brass Knights hiding in the royal capital, and knowing that Roseth wouldn’t willingly reveal this information, Pierre’s role was crucial.

How much memory he could recover was important.

“…First, let me say that it’s certain the Brass Knights were staying with the Lohengrin family.”

“That sounds like an uncertain beginning?”

“You’re right. Even Roseth doesn’t know the current whereabouts of the Brass Knights. Or more accurately, he wasn’t interested.”

“……”

“Don’t look at me like that. I-I’m just telling you what’s in Roseth’s memories…”

Pierre tried to relay as much information from Roseth’s memories as possible.

“R-Roseth Count provided generous support to illegal magicians and alchemists to achieve his ‘goal.’ He dealt in drugs to fund this research.”

“This is driving me crazy…”

“Also, during this process, Roseth seems to have killed his own father, whom he saw as an obstacle. He did so thinking that if he were caught, everything would be ruined.”

“……”

“…Don’t look at me like that. I am not Roseth!”

“How am I looking at you that you’re having a fit?”

“…I felt killing intent.”

Pierre sighed deeply and barely managed to continue, fearing he might be killed.

“…During this process, the Blood Crusaders who were hiding in the temple approached Roseth and proposed cooperation. Roseth judged that the Blood Crusaders would help achieve his goal, so he gladly joined hands with them. And… that brings us to the present.”

“……”

“……”

“…?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Is that it…?”

“What point are you trying to make?”

“Well… you said they were collaborators? Then shouldn’t you know something important?”

Ihan needed to know things like the Blood Crusaders’ objectives, where they were hiding, or at the very least, a description of the Brass Knights.

Literally, et cetera.

“…Roseth didn’t seem interested in such things.”

“……”

“It’s not a lie. I, who have absorbed this man’s memories, can confirm it. Count Roseth is extremely indifferent to others, willing to cooperate with any criminal to achieve his goals, and has no interest in their personal details. In common terms…”

Sociopath. Not like a psychopath who lacks emotions, but someone with antisocial tendencies who, combined with power, develops arrogant traits that make him almost indistinguishable from a psychopath.

Additionally…

“Count Roseth has congenital prosopagnosia. Normally, people with this condition would find ways to remember others, but Roseth, this arrogant man, didn’t even make such efforts. In other words, Roseth was not only a sociopath but also an extreme egoist.”

“Now you’re just packaging it as your own body… He’s just a defective idiot, isn’t he?”

“……”

“…This guy is useless.”

Ihan was frustrated that despite the risky operation, Roseth wasn’t providing much help.

He couldn’t believe such a person existed.

A sociopath with prosopagnosia, and a fool who didn’t even investigate his suspicious collaborators.

“Succubus, can’t you wake that bastard up again?”

“Why?”

“So I can beat him more. He’s worse than Nolbo, no, worse than a spellcaster, absolutely disgusting.”

Ihan made a disgusted face, claiming he had met someone worse than a spellcaster for the first time in his life.

“J-just wait a moment! I-I’ll examine his memories more. There must be some useful information!”

Pierre frantically searched through the memories, sweating profusely as he felt the pressure of being seen as useless.

To prove his worth, he tried to extract any helpful information.

“I-I have memories about the half-human manufacturing process. Also, there’s a list of nobles cooperating with Roseth, and information about alchemists and magicians.”

These were certainly good, even high-quality pieces of information, but not what Ihan needed right now.

As Ihan’s expression began to show disappointment…

“…But what exactly was this ‘goal’?”

“……”

The duke asked with a puzzled tone.

He seemed to have been glossing over it, but strangely, he hadn’t clearly heard what Roseth’s “goal” was.

“……”

…Though it was just a casual question from the duke, Pierre tensed up again and broke into a cold sweat.

Already pressured by Ihan and now by the duke as well, he was sweating so much he might become dehydrated.

“…I just mentioned it. Count Roseth has congenital prosopagnosia, so severe that he couldn’t even remember his parents’ faces. However, there was one woman whose face Count Roseth could uniquely recognize.”

“……”

“It was strange enough for him to recognize someone’s face for the first time in his life, but the woman was also beautiful, and he fell in love. However, that woman already had a lover. And that lover was even more excellent and remarkable than Roseth himself…”

“What… are you talking about?”

Pierre had to force himself to speak up despite sensing the duke’s increasingly chilling atmosphere.

This truth would come to light eventually.

There was no point in hiding it anymore; it was better to take the beating now than later.

So…

“…Even after decades, Roseth still loved that woman. And at some point, that emotion seems to have changed from love to something like obsession. Roseth’s goal was none other than to resurrect the body of that beloved woman, who was already dead, to make her his. For that purpose, he committed countless evil deeds and achieved some meaningful results, and…”

Drip, drip…

“H-he finally discovered a way to resurrect that woman, u-using her ‘daughter’—the child the woman bore—as a sacrifice to restore the woman’s body.”

“…!”

“R-Roseth Count, through extensive research, perfected a method to determine parentage using just hair. He successfully found the woman’s daughter, who happened to be taken in by Galahad, h-he says.”

“……”

With a face so pale he looked about to faint, he used his last strength to deliver the final blow.

“…Duke, the adopted daughter you took in is indeed the child of the woman you loved. —Irene Windler, that girl is your biological daughter. And, it’s not just Count Roseth who’s targeting your daughter. The Brass Knights are also after her, for her fairy blood-“

THUD-

With those words, Pierre rolled his eyes back and fainted.

He lost consciousness, unable to withstand the “rage” emanating from the duke.

…But the duke paid no attention to whether he had fainted or not, and remained silent.

Then,

“My child… resurrect my wife? Targeting my child? Heh heh.”

[……]

“This isn’t even funny, what on earth is happening…”

CRACK!

The wind around them, no, the space itself began to shatter.

His magic sword responded to his anger and spewed fire.

And so.

“—Kill everyone who targets my daughter. Civil war? I don’t care if one breaks out!”

[[[For the glory of Galahad! Death to the enemies of Galahad!!!]]]

…Duke Blake awakened.

“…Talk about being late to the party.”

Despite all the hints about his daughter, he wouldn’t believe it, but now he believes it when his most hated rival says so?

This is the definition of being late to the party.

Well…

Ihan felt his whole body tingle in the face of such fierce momentum that he couldn’t possibly stop, and he shrugged his shoulders.

As if not wanting to disturb the whale’s mood.

“…That pufferfish chick is never getting married now.”

Who could possibly approach such a terrifying father-in-law?

At least.

‘Not me.’

If only out of fear of his wrath.

*

*

*

Jolt!

“W-what was that!”

[…Arin, why did you suddenly wake up? Did you have a nightmare?]

“Y-yes, it was terrifying. I dreamed I would be an old maid forever. What kind of dream is that…”

[That’s just a silly dream. Just drink some cold water and go back to sleep.]

“O-okay.”

Irene felt an inexplicable uneasiness but closed her eyes and fell back asleep.

Hoping that this time she would dream of falling asleep in the instructor’s muscles…

Irene snored soundly again as overwhelming fatigue washed over her.