As It Is Known, Like A Frenzy (3)
Siorin could feel an ever-increasing number of eyes watching the delegation as the days passed.
Wherever they went, there were always gazes that followed them, and always ears that eavesdropped. When they left the cities and entered the wilderness, he could feel that there were those following them. This change had taken place ever since that first bizarre battle the first prince had instigated.
Prince Adrian made the knights of the kingdom face their imperial counterparts wherever they went.
Sometimes the bouts turned out to be one-on-one affairs to test the mettle of individuals, and at other times, the prince arranged group-on-group bouts to hide the true power of his knights.
Siorin had counted, and the number of completed battles, both individual and grouped, now numbered exactly two-hundred. Surprisingly, the kingdom’s knights had not suffered a single defeat. It was an incredible record, and it was all thanks to the first prince’s amazing foresight.
Prince Adrian always decided who would face whom, when one knight should step forward and another withdraw. As long as the prince implemented his own arrangement over the battles, defeat was not on the cards. Siorin was curious about it all, and he sometimes imagined the young prince somehow had hidden knowledge about the status of the imperial knights.
It was to that great an extent that the first prince’s vision and foresight had been sharpened. And such tactics, surprisingly, also worked against the paladins of the Marquis of Yvesinth.
The marquis, who had not seemed trouble in the least when he had seen the Montpellier family’s plaque, had proposed duels against his paladins. His plan was a seeming masterpiece that clearly showed his intention of shattering the morale of the delegation which had so greatly risen in recent times.
Siorin had thought that the prince would refuse the challenge, but such was not the case.
The prince had happily accepted the Marquis of Yvesinth’s proposal, but had delayed the time of the bouts into the dead of night.
Compared to the kingdom’s cold atmosphere, the climate of the central imperial region was so hot that it was best to conduct serious duels only after the sun has set and when the earth has cooled. The Marquis of Yvesinth did not refuse such conditions.
When night fell, the prince had chosen his knights. They were the three most silent men in the delegation, along with two unknown women who did not speak and wore hooded cloaks.
Their titles and origins were unknown to Siorin, and he only knew the men’s names to be Gwain, Trindall, and Kampra, as written on the list of the prince’s companions.
The prince made these three silent knights face the paladins, as the format of the battle was three versus two. Even though the kingdom’s knights numbered one more than the imperial paladins, the prince didn’t seem to care. On the contrary, the paladins felt that it would be unreasonable for two of them to face a mere three knights, so one of them stepped back and stated that he would only join in if the situation demanded it.
“Don’t be silly!” the first prince had exclaimed, but of course, the paladins had pretended not to hear him.
The bout started, and a terrible battle ensued. The three knights constantly flapped their gums as they held their swords, and kept denigrating the powers of the paladins and their meager swordsmanship.
“Are you a paladin, then? Let’s see whether you deserve to use that title!”
“My stomach is fluttering! Isn’t it great, that I feel drunk without having drunk a drop of liquor?”
“It’s been a long time since I faced off against the empire’s knights! It’s nice to face ancient foes.”
Siorin had figured that, if the empire’s paladins were defeated, it would not be due to poor swordplay but rather their impatience and confusion at the three knight’s insults.
However, despite their constant chatter, the swordplay of those three knights was never lacking. Even Siorin, who had only learned the art of the sword due to his position as a noble, noticed that the knights possessed specialized and exceedingly subtle skills with the sword.
They were so agile, their movements organic.
But that was not enough: The one who ruled the duel was the empire’s paladin. So great was his destructive powers as one of the gifted that the knights had started vomiting blood, and it seemed as if flies would soon start to circle their corpses.
However, even faced with such great adversity, the three knights continued to laugh at the paladin. They said that the knights of the empire had greatly regressed. Even if they were brothers and sisters of battle, there was no righteousness in them.
“You are not a paladin! You are just a swordsman!”
The knights, after saying that the paladins were sad and pathetic, stepped back and whispered something under their breath.
“The king is coming.”
It sounded like they were singing a song, even if the casual observer would just interpret it as meaningless whispers.
“No one dares bow down in worship.”
When one of them whispered, the second knight repeated the verse, and the third one thereafter.
“Worship of the king is the wellspring of our being.”
And shortly after that verse was spoken, a dazzling flash of mana erupted from the knights.
Siorin did not even realize that the duel had ended.
By the time he snapped awake, the bout was over, and the bloody paladin was kneeling on the floor. The three knights were also in a poor state, for they too looked like they would keel over right away. They were staggering about.
Then, the first prince quickly announced that the battle has ended and that the kingdom’s knights were the victors. The remaining paladin had noticed his comrade’s peril too late, so he had jumped forward and drawn his sword, but his attempted intervention came too late.
He eventually retreated to his spot, staring angrily at the three knights who were now lying on the floor.
The Templars, who had tensely watched the situation unfold, then burst into excited shouts and cheered. Siorin had momentarily forgotten his official station as he had celebrated alongside the Templar Knights. His heart felt like bursting.
Siorin had always hated to see the nobles of the powerless kingdom tucking their tails between their legs in the presence of imperial officials. He had always hated to see the king of Leonberg’s every effort frustrated whenever an imperial ambassador showed his face in the capital. Now he was surrounded by the cheering knights of the kingdom, who roared in victory after they had witnessed the defeat of an imperial paladin. He had even blushed as he took in the sight.
Still, neither his joy at victory nor the small reward of a historic humiliation lasted long. The moment that the first prince brought Arwen out to battle with the remaining paladin, Siorin’s heart had pounded in his breast and then ceased beating.
The paladin was determined to make up for his comrade’s defeat, and he was more than willing to break the spirit of the kingdom by killing its knights, if necessary.
He’s putting Arwen before such a bitter paladin!? No matter how much she has been honed, her skills have not been verified to be on such a level. It’s unacceptable!
However, the first prince was resolute. He said that victory could not be claimed unless it was through a one-on-one contest, and Arwen sympathized with his words.
Siorin took in the face of his daughter: Fear had not crept into her eyes, rather, she was determined, and Count Kirgayen knew that he would not be able to stop her.
And so the duel began.
Arwen fought with astonishing proficiency against the imperial paladin. Still, she had not yet gained the wall, and the paladin stood far beyond that wall of impregnable achievement.
All of her attacks were so easily swatted away by the paladin’s Aura Blade. Her spirit and energies were scattered by the paladin’s overflowing fount of mana.
Still, the bout continued for a long time.
After she had been forced to roll to the floor several times, Arwen’s neat clothes became muddied, and her once-tied hair became caked and stiffened by blood and sweat.
Everyone knew that the paladin was taking his time, deliberately toying with her.
He wished to at least humiliate someone in order to rectify the results of the previous bout in the minds of his comrades. On the larger stage, he aimed to firmly imprint the gap between empire and kingdom on the delegation.
Siorin asked that the duel be stopped, but the first prince refused. Prince Adrian just told him to wait. Siorin didn’t know what the hell they were waiting for, and he didn’t want to know. He surely didn’t want to see his daughter repeatedly wounded until she finally fell before her foe.
Siorin was about to step up on his authority as the delegation’s leader, but the prince restrained him.
He could only look at his daughter while the prince had held him back.
Arwen had been battered to the floor, but she now raised her sword. Then, she grabbed onto her hair, tangled and dirtied by blood and sweat, and cut it all off with a quick upward slice of her blade. The fine hair fell to the floor, and Arwen’s face, up to now obscured by her loose hair, was revealed.
And she was smiling.
Hers was a very reassuring smile; an expression of satisfaction that one would wear were they to finally get what they had always longed for.
‘Wroo, wrooo!’ cried Arwen’s sword.
And at that very moment, a dazzling flash of light bloomed from the tip of her blade. It was fundamentally different from a sword aura, containing a sharper and more destructive light.
It was an Aura Blade, and it was at that instant that another champion was born to the kingdom.
Arwen straightened her sword before herself. Unlike before, the paladin did not dare to hamper his strikes, for he suddenly took his opponent very seriously.
And then, Arwen’s ethereal swordplay weaved in and out dozens of times, forcing the paladin to block the blows on a back-footing, and he finally surrendered.
It was only then that Prince Adrian’s face, which had been calm as Arwen had suffered and rolled across the floor, became distorted.
“Damn you! You piece of trash, you have no respect for those that walk the path of the sword!” the prince swore aloud.
Siorin could not figure out what the first prince meant. It was only until later that he learned the prince’s meaning: Arwen had quickly been approaching the moment of full realization of her powers, and the paladin had forcibly stopped that process by surrendering.
Prince Adrian said that, rather than damaging the spirits of the delegation, the paladin had showed how lowly a mindset he truly had, so pettily curtailing the natural development of the knights from other countries.
The prince had cursed the paladin for a few days after that.
The words he used were beyond colorful; they were the type of curses one might expect a stock merchant to use on his swine as he drove them to market.
“I mean, even if I die tomorrow, I still don’t want anything to go well for that fucker. He’s an intolerable whelp, and he’ll probably sell his own cousin into slavery if it’ll gain him a small plot of land.”
As she listened to the prince going on in such a manner, Arwen could not help but laugh.
There was no feeling of loss and regret to be seen on her features after the events of that night. Now that she had come close to that ultimate level, she said that she would reach it if she moved steadily forward. And even if the process proved to be slow, Arwen said that she had the first prince, who would guide her along the path.
Looking at his daughter, Siorin’s mood became grim for some unidentifiable reason.
His daughter had left the family holdings to become a knight, and here she was, standing on her own with a proud bearing. On the one hand, Siorin was overwhelmed by her pride and boldness. On the other hand, he was experiencing an uncontrollable feeling of loss and regret.
It was particularly when he saw his daughter glancing at the prince with a deep look in her eyes that such feelings came to the fore.
“Doesn’t your head feel empty?” Siorin heard the first prince shamelessly ask as he brushed his hand along Arwen’s ebony hair.
“I always just left it as it was, but I’ve never felt any special attachment to it. Rather, it feels just right now, regardless of what others say,” Arwen replied.
Siorin was certainly not pleased with his daughter’s attitude as she so casually accepted the first prince’s touch. Still, he repressed such ugly feelings.
Right now, he was the leader of the delegation, and he had to prioritize that duty above his role as a father. That was easier said than done.
The first prince had recently started to be closer to Arwen, and whenever Siorin noticed this, it felt as if he was boiling inside. The prince’s intentions were so clear. Siorin started to suspect that whenever the first prince looked at him, he must’ve been enjoying seeing him seethe inside.
He knew all of it, and it was hard to bear.
“Stop it!” he wanted to shout. Had it not been for the sudden appearance of an imperial messenger, Siorin would have surely exploded.
“The Leonberg delegation has been scheduled to meet an imperial noble, so prepare yourselves right away,” a mounted, golden-armored imperial knight said as he halted before the leaders of the delegation.
“All must disarm, and be ready,” he then ordered, stating that all weapons had to be stowed away in the wagons and carriages.
“And who is this noble, that we must-“
“His Imperial Highness has come,” the knight interrupted Siorin. Count Kirgayen then turned to find the first prince. Prince Adrian had been making some nasty joke regarding Arwen’s hair, but he turned to face Siorin at once.
“Ask him which one it is,” the prince said.
Siorin nodded, and asked the imperial knight, “Can you tell us which princeps came?”
The knight of the empire frowned as he heard the question. It was as if the nobles of the small country were planning what their response would be depending on which princeps they were to meet.
* * *
From the moment that I had entered the empire, I had wondered which one would come to me first.
Would it be the third, who they said was an explosive fool, or the fifth, who was rumored to have more stable, if mundane, qualities?
And now, from afar, I saw the knights in golden armor approach.
“His Highness the Third Princeps of the Grand Burgundy Empire has arrived! Leonberg’s delegation should show the requisite reverence to His Imperial Highness!”
I looked beyond the wall of knights, and directly at their charge. The third princeps was stiff-necked, stiff enough that I thought his neck would snap under the tension at any time. He raised his shoulders as much as he was able to. He likely believed his expression to be stern, but to others, he just seemed arrogant and unscrupulous.
So here was an imperial prince that remarkably reminded me of the first time I had seen the idiot Adrian as he had swung me about.
Perhaps there were slight differences, but I could see that this guy was just as filthy, stupid, and incompetent. The fact of the matter was clear: The princeps before me had all sorts of terrible qualities, on the scale of a natural disaster.
‘Come on then’, I thought as I awaited him.
I laughed happily as I watched the imperial disaster approach me.
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