༺ 𓆩 Chapter 18 — Debts of the Heart 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
The tale had been woven.
Every sin had been laid upon Pyke.
Only one matter was told exactly as it had happened — the affair had begun as an effort to replenish the company’s supplies. Beyond that single truth, however, every arrow of blame was directed squarely at Pyke.
It was Pyke who had manipulated the Niers organization.
It was Pyke who had engaged in the slave trade.
In time, greed for money had driven him to lay hands even upon the maids of the manor.
When that scheme failed, he had tried to sell Isaac to a foreign land.
And it had been the honorable knight, the loyal knight Randolph, who stopped him.
“……”
The Margraave’s gaze moved slowly between the head of Pyke lying upon the desk and the two men standing before him, Isaac and Randolph.
“It is the truth. I was kidnapped by Pyke, and Randolph saved my life.”
Isaac answered, meeting Margrave's steady eyes.
“Carlson realized what was happening and tried to stop Pyke. That was why a fistfight broke out in the barracks, and soon enough they were even pointing swords at each other. I had to intervene. Pyke lowered his blade, but Carlson would not. He kept demanding that the kidnapped people be released and refused to put his sword away.”
In truth, the one who had never lowered his sword had been neither Carlson nor Pyke, but Randolph.
Unlike the other two, Randolph had a family. Should the Margrave learn that he had been involved in the slave trade, it was certain that the Margrave’s wrath would not end with him. His entire family would be wiped out.
Randolph had only meant to wound Carlson enough to silence him.
After all, the only language he had ever been taught was the language of the sword.
But Carlson’s swordsmanship far surpassed Randolph’s. Though Carlson could have easily taken the heads of both Randolph and Pyke and fled, he instead cut only Randolph’s ear as if to say that Randolph should listen. Then he surrendered and was arrested on the spot.
Randolph had told the story with certain… adjustments.
“Why are you telling me this now?”
After hearing everything, Margrave did not immediately pass judgment. He neither rebuked nor praised them. He merely concentrated on grasping the situation.
“I never expected Sir Pyke to go this far.”
“It almost sounds as though you would have covered this up if Sir Pyke had not tried to kill my son.”
“…I did not know what the right decision was. It is true that Pyke arranged all of this for the sake of the company’s infantry. Because of it, the casualty rate among the soldiers decreased. Their dissatisfaction lessened as well. Those things are also true.”
Randolph spoke while meeting Margrave’s gaze.
It was something he had long kept within his chest, words that no one had ever dared to say aloud.
Everyone in Winterband Fortress knew that Margrave did his utmost for Winterband and for the territory. Unlike other nobles, he lived with integrity. He indulged in neither luxury nor pleasure.
But reality was not so easily satisfied.
“Is that your excuse for neglecting your duty?”
Margrave's voice was exactly as it always had been.
Randolph, who would never have risen even to the rank of minor nobility without Margrave, stood there pointing out his own failure. Yet Margrave showed not the slightest disturbance of emotion.
At this moment, he sat not as a father.
He sat as the Supreme Commander of Winterband.
“I will accept any punishment you deem fit. I only ask that you understand the situation we were placed in.”
“Very well. We shall discuss punishment tomorrow. You may go. …And thank you for saving Isaac.”
“I am unworthy of such words."
Randolph gathered Pyke’s severed head from the desk and bowed.
“Have someone hang Pyke’s head in the square of Bern City.”
“Understood.”
“Isaac. You stay.”
Just as Isaac moved to leave with Randolph, the Margrave called out and stopped him.
***⚜***
Clank—!!!
Clank—!!!
Death row inmate Carlson; the man whose real name was Kyle looked confused.
The guard unlocked his handcuffs and shackles.
“Come with me.”
Kyle staggered after the guard.
“Ugh.”
Outside the underground prison, it was daytime; the sunlight was unusually strong.
Kyle squinted.
“Nice weather, isn’t it? Looks like spring’s coming.”
Isaac was drinking tea in the yard next to the mansion’s garden.
Kyle blankly stared at Isaac.
“What are you looking at? Sit down.”
“…….”
“Hans, get him some tea.”
“Yes, master.”
Hans, moving as if on instinct, placed a teacup before Kyle and poured him some tea.
The still-warm tea gave off a gentle steam, and a subtle fragrance tickled Kyle’s nose.
“Thanks, Hans. Now give us some space. Let me know if anyone comes near.”
“Yes, master.”
Hans bowed and retreated a good distance away.
Kyle twitched his eyebrow at the familiar scent.
“Recognize the smell? It’s from your homeland.”
“I have no nationality.”
Kyle answered bluntly.
Schneeflocke.
A tea beloved in the Republic, where the word for “snowflake” was the common language.
It was also the tea his sister loved.
Kyle looked at Isaac.
The boy had the face of a twelve-year-old, but acted nothing like one.
He knew Kyle’s secret and had even leveraged it in what could only be called blackmail.
Kyle had no idea what Isaac was thinking, nor what he wanted.
Were all young nobles this deviously minded?
No.
At least not all the nobles Kyle had met were like that.
It was just this peculiar boy called Isaac.
“Sir Randolph confessed everything.”
“…….”
Kyle couldn’t hide his shocked expression, but quickly closed his open mouth.
He had countless questions but didn’t ask rashly.
It was a habit honed through a lifetime of hardship.
“Half truth, half lies.”
“……What do you mean?”
But he couldn’t help asking when he heard Isaac’s next words.
“Pyke died by Sir Randolph’s hand.”
Isaac recounted the events and the falsehoods they had told Margrave.
Kyle tried to maintain a neutral expression, but before he knew it, he had completely forgotten to.
As the story continued, his mouth slowly fell open.
Randolph was allowed to keep his estate and his junior baron title for stopping Pyke and saving Isaac’s life.
However, he was dismissed from his post as Winterband’s company commander.
Kyle, too, avoided execution since he had tried to stop his superior’s wrongdoing.
But since he had committed the grave crime of insubordination, he was stripped of his squad leader title in Winterband.
“I didn’t even know you were a squad leader.”
Isaac’s tone, explaining the aftermath, was as casual as if he were discussing how the stew had tasted at lunch.
“……Why didn’t you report it?”
“Report what?”
“That my real name isn’t Carlson.”
“I had to save that card. If I revealed it, I couldn’t use you.”
“……”
“You told Sir Randolph something, didn’t you? That any sword, no matter how fine, turns into a cursed blade when it gains a will of its own. What about you?”
Kyle’s face was clouded with turmoil.
It was still hard to guess the intentions of this boy who knew too much.
Everyone Kyle had encountered until now had clear interests and goals.
They tried to use Kyle under those goals.
Whether they were mercenaries, knights, or high-ranking nobles.
Through all of this, Kyle had learned one thing for sure.
Those whose true intentions are unknown are dangerous.
What was unsettling this time was that such a person wasn’t an old, crafty fox, but a boy raised like a delicate flower in a greenhouse.
Was he possessed by a demon or something?
“Rather than trying to guess my intentions, I’d prefer it if you just stayed true to your own purpose. After staying cooped up and reading books all the time, I realized just how complicated people are. So I actually like people who have clear desires. Like you.”
Isaac smiled brightly.
Just looking at his face, there wasn’t a trace of any hidden schemes — an innocent expression.
“Do you know what my purpose is?”
“Isn’t it to kill? Should I even tell you the name of the greedy old man who slaughtered the family you barely managed to get?”
Kyle stared intently at Isaac instead of answering.
As if daring him to try answering.
“Viscount Klaus von Botmer. From one of the wealthiest families in the north.”
“……”
Kyle’s eyes shook.
He hadn’t expected Isaac to know even that.
“He is… a noble of the kingdom.”
“So?”
“And I’m a foreigner. Even so, you intend to help me kill him? Just to ally with a foreigner?”
“I need a magic sword. A true sword that bears its own will. That’s all.”
Isaac took a sip of his now-cold tea while gazing into the faraway snow-covered mountains.
“I heard from Randolph that you dedicated yourself to training day and night. As if you planned to sleep only after death. Did it pay off? Enough to slay three hundred elite soldiers and eleven knights by yourself to reach a viscount’s neck?”
“.............”
“Botmer doesn’t have much time left. He’s got syphilis. At his age, no less. He’ll desperately cling to life, but he won’t last much longer. Your sword likely won’t reach him in time unless you get help. If you help me, I’ll help you too.”
Kyle couldn’t tell if Isaac’s words were all true.
But one thing was clear.
Isaac had kept silent about the company soldiers involved in the slave trade and had spared Randolph.
That meant he had also saved Kyle’s comrades.
He recalled the words of Cayenne, his father.
— A merchant places goods on the scale. A mercenary places his own and his comrades’ lives on it. It’s a trade. A trade that must never be broken. A mercenary who breaks the trade no longer has a life worth weighing.
The sun, hidden behind clouds, shone through again.
And during that time, neither of them spoke.
Kyle finally opened his mouth.
“May I ask just one thing?”
“Go ahead.”
“What is all this for?”
“If I had to answer, it’s for myself. Because I have debts I need to repay.”
Isaac answered absentmindedly.
It was an instinctive, honest answer.
Practically, it was for protecting his family, but even deeper than that.
There was an old, worn ledger buried inside his heart.
In it, the debts he owed were densely recorded.
They were debts of the heart.
***⚜***
"What do you make of it?"
"......I am simply astounded."
"Could this truly have come from Isaac's own mind?"
“After the mana explosion, you never appointed him another tutor, did you?”
Schiller answered Margrave’s question calmly.
The reason Margrave had dismissed Randolph first and kept Isaac behind was nothing more than the worry of a father for his child.
Human beings were fragile creatures.
Once their survival was threatened, the body or the mind quickly faltered; sometimes both.
The Margrave himself had killed a tribesman beyond the frontier when he was only eleven years old. Yet he had never wished for Isaac or Jonas to face death so early in life.
He knew better than anyone how dreadful such an experience was.
And yet Isaac, who had nearly died at Pyke’s hands, remained astonishingly composed.
More than composed, in fact. He had calmly pointed out the root cause of the entire situation.
Even the Margrave had never arrived at such an idea. It was bold, perhaps even impertinent, a thought that stepped cleanly beyond the boundaries of the established order.
“To let go of the hand we hold with the Old Faith…”
Year after year, the royal court sent less and less of the Shield Tax.
It was compensation granted by the crown to those who guarded the frontier in its stead. As the payments shrank, feeding and clothing the soldiers grew increasingly difficult.
Yet Goethe could not voice complaints about it. Nor could he attempt to accumulate wealth.
The reason lay in a shadow that stretched a century into the present.
A century earlier, the 10th-class archmage Zeke von Goethe had burned the royal capital.
That crime of treason, committed by an ancestor, remained carved into the Goethe name like a brand.
If the family were to attempt building wealth, the royal court would inevitably suspect that Goethe harbored other ambitions. The Shield Tax would vanish, and worse still, the crown might impose direct restraints.
Better to maintain the current system with the meager budget they had than to endanger the entire house.
That had always been Margrave's belief, and it was the attitude that the previous heads of the family had consistently upheld.
Isaac had called it mere presumption.
“—The royal treasury worsens with each passing year. The Shield Tax will continue to shrink. In such a situation, if House Goethe were to become self-sufficient and voluntarily refuse the Shield Tax, it would be worth discussing whether the crown would feel threatened… or relieved.”
And then he had struck where it hurt.
“—Isn’t the truth that House Goethe simply failed to find a source of income worth risking the loss of the Shield Tax? The land is barren, and enemies surround us. That is why you have merely watched the crown’s mood and depended entirely on the Shield Tax.”
Isaac’s criticism had been sharp.
It pointed to a problem long overlooked, or perhaps deliberately ignored, through the inertia that accumulated over generations.
At first the Margrave had dismissed the boy’s words as youthful bravado. Yet the more he listened, the more Isaac’s argument revealed its practicality.
Still, if it was to hold any true meaning, Isaac had to offer a concrete solution.
And when Margrave pressed him with that difficult demand, Isaac had answered.
“—The beginning is to release the hand we hold with the Old Faith.”
The Margrave walked toward the window of his study.
From the private study tucked in one corner of the manor’s third floor, the courtyard below could be seen clearly.
There stood Isaac and Carlson, engaged in conversation.
What could they be talking about?
The Margrave found himself strangely curious.
For a fleeting moment, his own son felt unfamiliar to him.
“……”
Watching the Margrave, Schiller formed a quiet thought.
The Margrave, it seemed, was in rather good spirits.
His hand had not stopped tapping the back of the chair.
Isaac might have been born with a peculiar constitution that was little different from a curse.
Yet the boy was brilliant.
And now, before Schiller’s eyes, stood a father who had witnessed that brilliant son surpass him, if only in part.
How could he possibly not feel joy?
Schiller allowed himself a faint smile.
END σϝ CHAPTER