Chapter 279
Chapter 279: 4th Knights Commander (1)
"It's not mine."
Harad said reflexively.
Because Ellen's face, upon discovering the severed head, had contorted as though witnessing something grotesque.
It was, in fact, a grotesque sight.
"I didn't do it either."
"Obviously not."
Ellen believed him at once.
At least that much trust existed, thankfully.
"Then who?"
Not an enemy.
Appearances aside, Harad's Annex was located in the Inner Fortress. Had it been the Otherworld's or the Liberation Tower's doing, Grand Duke Aratus would have reacted.
"Cassion, maybe?"
"Why would Cassion?"
At some point, Ellen had dropped the "Sir" when addressing Cassion.
Unthinkable in the old days.
Ellen as she was still drew lines with the knights. A habit born from performing the perfect Serzila.
"He's got a record."
Back when Cassion had still been a spy.
He'd left the severed head of an Otherworld mage on Harad's bed.
The head of Compaso, 4th Rank of the Ivory Tower, whose Origin was eyes.
"He'd have no reason this time."
True enough.
That had been a spy's threat.
Cassion was now a double agent.
Not that it mattered much. Presumably, the Moon knew or suspected.
That was why only Cassion's Crystal Ball didn't work.
The Moon was tacitly allowing Cassion's defection.
Because Cassion had attached himself to Harad. The old hag was more magnanimous than expected. Though her purpose was surely greater.
"Sulking?"
"Why?"
"Because I didn't praise him at Laash?"
"...... Cassion isn't that petty."
Harad scratched his neck and nodded.
Cassion might grow crude, but he didn't throw tantrums.
"A new hobby?"
"After all this time?"
"Fair point."
If such a hobby had developed, heads would've arrived long ago.
"Someone you know?"
"Never seen this face."
The bulging eyes were desiccated.
Meaning the person had been dead a while. With only a head, whether it was a mage couldn't even be determined.
"Leftovers from Predation?"
Cassion, born of Gu Poison, was an addict worse than Harad.
Though leaving scraps on someone's bed made no sense.
"Well, I'll find out when I ask."
Harad was about to take the head but stopped.
By now Cassion would be stirring beef stew at Kubel's Annex. He couldn't bring a severed head where Shura was.
"You?"
"I came to go eat breakfast with you."
Of course.
"Let's go together."
***
Beef stew crust over if not stirred continuously.
That was fatal, or so Cassion had stressed multiple times.
What kind of nonsense that was, Harad couldn't fathom, but in any case Cassion was stirring stew again today.
It was Cassion's routine.
He liked standing still and watching the stew circle, he said.
"What head."
Cassion frowned at the intrusion.
"What head do you mean?"
His brow smoothed at once.
Because Ellen was there.
"My bed......"
"Shut up, Harad. I asked Ellen."
"I asked first."
"So what."
Cassion snapped back like Ellen.
Unlike with Ellen, Harad found it repulsive.
"You two talk."
"Ask, Harad."
"......"
Flip it over?
Harad glared at the stew, then held back.
That was Kubel's cooking. Cassion only stirred.
"Why did you leave a head on my bed?"
"So, what head."
Cassion frowned again.
"A human head."
"Why would I leave that on your bed."
"You did it before."
"This time it wasn't me."
Cassion waved the ladle dismissively, treating Harad like a peddler.
Harad studied the ladle and Cassion.
Seemed genuine. If it had been some kind of protest, he'd have shown a tell when confronted.
Thud.
A noise from behind. Big Kubel, peeking at them, had bumped something.
"Startled me, with the mood being different from usual......"
Kubel scratched the back of his head sheepishly.
"Was it you?"
"Pardon?"
"Never mind."
Harad had wondered if it was a Predation protest, but it didn't seem so.
Kubel's face was innocent as always.
'Then who? Duke? That's absurd.'
Killing a mage in self-defense and severing a head to deliver it were worlds apart.
The latter was a lunatic.
Harad didn't want to suspect Duke over something like this.
"Who's left?"
"Not Jis, so Eiga?"
Ellen said.
Harad shook his head. Not his style. He'd have done something far worse.
"The toad?"
"Then she'd have left a Crystal Ball too."
Not the Moon either.
That greedy hag wouldn't leave just a head.
"The culprit is in here."
Cassion spoke then.
"In Serzila."
"Obviously."
Harad clicked his tongue.
"Not a mage but a knight."
"How do you figure?"
"This is a knight's method."
Mage Cassion spoke with certainty.
Harad tilted his head.
"The culprit probably imitated me."
"Why?"
"How would I know."
Cassion clicked his tongue.
"Then why did the culprit imitate you?"
"Because they're a knight."
"......?"
What nonsense.
"Stupid bastard. Listen. The knight who's the culprit imitated me, a Knight Commander. Obviously they have business with you......"
"Let's go."
Harad turned on his heel.
"Already?"
"Being around you makes me feel stupid."
"Where to?"
"To the answer sheet."
"Eat breakfast first."
"......"
***
The culprit is in here.
From Cassion he'd gleaned only the obvious.
And in the Inner Fortress sat the answer sheet for that obvious statement. An answer sheet that couldn't be opened before working the problem.
A certain show of effort was required, and Harad thought visiting Cassion had been it.
"It's closed."
The Grand Duke's residence was locked, front gate and all.
A front gate he'd never seen since the regression.
"When it's like this, you shouldn't go in."
Ellen knew Grand Duke Aratus's temperament well.
So did the reverted Harad.
When the gate closed, even the Elaine of the past life couldn't enter.
Not because the Grand Duke was in a foul mood, but because her conscience pricked her.
Elaine and Ellen simply feared her for no reason.
Harad lobbed the severed head over the gate.
Thud, thud. The moment it cleared the wall, it shot back and landed at Harad's feet.
"She's watching and listening."
"Feels like she's telling us to scram."
Harad threw it again.
Thud. It came back.
Thud, thud, thud......
"Your turn?"
Harad handed the now rather squashed head to Ellen.
"Same thing will happen."
Ellen muttered but threw anyway.
Thud. A landing sound from beyond the gate.
It didn't fly back.
Instead: crack, as something was crushed. The head bursting.
Then a response came.
The second-floor window of the residence swung open. Grand Duke Aratus looked down with a fearsome face.
"Could you please tell us the culprit?"
"......"
Harad shouted, but the Grand Duke said nothing.
Harad secretly jabbed Ellen's nape with a finger.
"Ah."
"Ah?"
At Ellen's gasp, the Grand Duke's face twisted.
"Could you please tell us, big uncle?"
"......"
The Grand Duke's lips sealed.
Crack. A bone-chilling sound from the molar area.
"Go to the 4th Knights."
It sounded like she'd tell them once they came back.
***
Not a bolt from the blue.
The order to earn the knights' recognition came around whenever the Grand Duke was bored.
The 4th Knights were the last Wall knight order the reverted Harad hadn't yet visited.
'Skipped them and went to the 5th first.'
Because of the Haunted House in the Boundary.
There had been a past-life matter to resolve first.
"The Elaine of the other world was close with the 4th Knights Commander!"
Ellen phrased it oddly.
Because questions about the other world were forbidden.
"They weren't close. Right?"
"Right."
Ellen grinned.
Thus Ellen had figured out how to learn about the other world without tripping the regression's constraint. A loophole, if one called it that.
"A little not-close."
"......"
"Very not-close. Right?"
"Right. No different from strangers."
The 4th Knights Commander had been a taciturn knight, even more so before a mage.
Harad had rarely even heard the man's voice.
"Then you don't know much?"
"Enough."
What anyone would know, he could say.
In Serzila, not knowing the Wall's Knight Commanders made one a spy.
That applied to Harad the mage as well.
"Sir Mores Palaz's senior, isn't he."
The 4th Knights Commander had more years than even that Mores Palaz.
But unlike Mores Palaz, he hadn't retired.
Because only at such extreme age had he finally weakened to human levels.
Older than even Grand Duke Aratus, yet more hale than any knight.
The 4th Knights Commander was Serzila's famous old monster.
'The end's the same, though.'
Not that his final hour was special.
As with the Wall, the 4th Knights too had crumbled all together.
That fact still jolted the reverted Harad with vigilance.
The future was changing and the Otherworld's forces had been trimmed, but the Otherworld was the Otherworld.
Complacency had been partly to blame, but still -- an Otherworld that had broken every Wall knight order in a single day.
"Recognition."
A belated order, in all truth.
Every Wall order save the 4th was studying magic under Harad's guidance. He'd long surpassed mere recognition.
'Still, I should go.'
That zeal for learning needed to include the 4th Knights.
He wasn't going to earn their recognition; he was going to preach magic to them.
Perhaps Grand Duke Aratus wished for the same.
'The effect is clear.'
That blockheaded 1st Knights had captured a Tower of Storms mage alive.
Unimaginable until recently.
Indeed, Northeaster Peneon had testified that he'd toyed with the 1st Knights from the sky on multiple occasions.
'Of all things, the Tower of Storms.'
Come to think of it, an apt opponent.
The Wall garrison looked similar wherever you went, but the 4th Knights' garrison alone stood out.
One building at its center, specifically, was conspicuously massive.
"That's the 4th Knights Commander's quarters."
Ellen said.
Her voice rang crisp. Because the surroundings were silent -- far too silent.
"They're all on patrol."
"Must have coincided with the tradition. The 4th Knights do that occasionally."
The current 4th Knights Commander had held the post for decades. Traditions had formed. He would sometimes send every knight on patrol at once.
The Commander himself was excepted, of course.
He was a superhuman whom even Serzila called a calamity.
Up close, the quarters were even larger. Standing at the door made Harad feel small. The door was bigger than Kubel.
That massive door opened abruptly.
An enormous hand shot out and gripped the top of the frame. The 4th Knights Commander's hand. A casually spread palm was the size of Harad's torso.
Despite the massive door, the 4th Knights Commander had to duck considerably to exit.
"Mage Harad."
A voice like sawing through thick steel.
The Commander straightened to his full height.
"That's right."
To meet his eyes, Harad had to crane his neck far up.
The 4th Knights Commander was as tall as a grizzly and built beyond one.
Large enough to make Kubel look cute.
'And they call that an old man.'
A monster who'd become human only at such extreme age.
Harad laughed dryly anew. He felt like Duke. Ellen was Shura. That was the gulf between them and the 4th Knights Commander.
"Did you receive the gift?"
"Gift?"
"Yes. A rather fine mage's head."
Harad's eyes went round.
"You sent it? Why?"
"I heard the 2nd Knights Commander became closest to you that way."
"......"