* * *

Physical conditioning was always worthwhile. When it came to surviving real combat, fitness mattered far more than technique or finesse.

But training meant constantly testing yourself, so it was always grueling and painful. It never became easy.

Thus, physical conditioning developed more than fitness. It also forged a powerful will and mental resilience.

What was it all for? Once, it might have been to run away. Not anymore.

Now it was to fight and win. More than that, it was to fight and overcome oneself—and ultimately, to become a better person.

With those thoughts in mind, Arne ran again today. It would be a lie to say he felt no sadness, but at least he no longer clung to his family. They would have their own lives to live.

Unlike before, though, he now had plenty of people running alongside him. They might not share the same dream, but they were running so they could dream together.

Valeri, Skard, and the other soldiers.

Some of the soldiers, seemingly inspired and spurred on by the success of Valeri’s party, had simply started running after them.

Some, still unaccustomed to it, fell behind even without training vests. Some tried to finish even if they had to walk, while others kept running to the end.

Yet without anyone telling them to, those in front helped their straggling comrades along, and those who had fallen behind refused to give up.

In the end, every one of them crossed the finish line wearing a satisfied smile.

“Idiots. Utter idiots. Stupid fools.”

Someone spoke as he looked down at them from the castle on the hill. It was Guttorm, the second young lord.

“Everything’s decided at birth anyway. Do they think doing that will make them nobles?”

He was free to think what he liked. The reason it rankled him, though, was that they had something he did not: lean, healthy bodies.

“But weren’t we all warriors back in Grandfather’s day? We weren’t nobles then, were we?”

The eldest son, Gunnar, spoke while dipping bread in wine.

“Are you an idiot? We were a Jarl’s family even when we lived in the frozen lands. We’ve always been nobles. Do you think just anyone can become a Duke?”

“Were we?”

“Oh, forget it...”

While they were talking, the study door opened, and its rightful occupant, Duke Sven, entered.

He appeared to have summoned his sons beforehand. Both grew tense as their father came in.

Duke Sven frowned at Gunnar, his eldest. He had been telling him not to eat in the study for over twenty years, yet nothing had changed.

As though he no longer had the patience to scold him, he sat down and went straight to business.

“Who’s doing it?”

“Er, I am...”

Guttorm, the second young lord, answered with a tentative raise of his hand.

“How many men do you need?”

“If you could give me just two knights...”

“Will that be enough? Will it? Use your head. You have to clean things up properly and promptly, or you’ll attract vermin. There are four large warehouses at the landing. Two men won’t be enough to seize them. Take four knights, each with five support soldiers. Twenty-four men in all.”

“If we take too many, the margrave might...”

“The margrave might what?”

“N-nothing.”

“Do I have to worry about what that bastard thinks?”

In fact, he did worry. But Duke Sven had his pride, so bringing up the margrave to his face was not a particularly good choice.

Guttorm resisted the recurring urge to touch his nipple. It was a kind of compulsion, something he did unconsciously to soothe himself, but doing it now would earn him a scolding.

Fidgeting with his fingers, he answered.

“No, of course not.”

“Choose the men yourself and leave early tomorrow morning. Once you’ve taken control, withdraw them a few at a time. When I send an administrator, you can come back.”

“... Yes, understood, Father. But what will you do about that bastard?”

“What about him?”

“Don’t you think he’s getting too full of himself, throwing his weight around?”

Duke Sven had already been frowning, but his expression darkened further at Guttorm’s words. He looked at his son with something approaching disgust.

Guttorm flinched beneath that gaze and shrank into his enormous body. His hand kept drifting toward his nipple, then dropping again.

“Are you a child? Is that what you are? Just do your own job properly. This is why Ketil outdid you. What did I tell you? Don’t let your feelings dictate how you handle things. How did I end up with the likes of you as my legitimate children? When I think of Ketil, it’s clear I’m not the problem. Your mother was. You’re stupid because that woman was stupid. Do you understand?”

Duke Sven hurled such vicious abuse at his sons that outright profanity would have been kinder. He compared them to someone else and even insulted their mother.

They would hardly have been human if they felt no resentment, but neither son dared let it show.

“...”

“Make no mistakes. Nothing could be easier than this. If you understand, both of you get out.”

Though they were grown men, Gunnar and Guttorm left looking utterly cowed, like children after a scolding.

Meanwhile, Ketilmund’s death had proved a more painful loss than Duke Sven had expected, and it hurt more the longer he thought about it. The man had been truly useful.

Perhaps that was why the very thought of Knut enraged him. Naturally, it also brought to mind that woman who was his mother, making his stomach twist.

[“If you weren’t a duke, Your Grace, you would be a man incapable of doing anything.”]

Those mocking eyes. The words and behavior that treated him like a joke. And then she had even dared try to kill him.

She must have intended to take over the house. He would never let her have it. Not even over his dead body would the third young lord become his heir.

“I ought to throw him out... Nothing ever goes right.”

Near the landing on the western side of Torvik lay a reed marsh. It was best not to venture into it carelessly.

There was no telling how far it stretched, or when you might sink into a bog and die without anyone knowing.

It probably held many buried stories. The reeds swaying in the breeze seemed to whisper those secrets.

Two people stood facing each other some distance apart within that marsh. As the reeds swayed back and forth, they appeared and disappeared from one another’s sight.

One wore a mask that left only his eyes exposed. The other had pulled his hood low.

The hooded man’s exposed lower face and jawline alone hinted at extraordinary good looks. He was none other than Valeri. The masked man belonged to the Black Hand.

“Tomorrow. The second young lord leaves with his men tomorrow morning,” Valeri said.

“How many?”

“Four knights and twenty soldiers.”

Valeri knew the exact size of the force because everything was visible from within the citadel: how many soldiers had been detached from the barracks, how many knights were making preparations in the annex.

“And what do you want?” the Black Hand man asked.

It seemed to be a reciprocal arrangement in which they exchanged information, but Valeri’s answer went far beyond his expectations.

“Kill the second young lord. The knights and soldiers too. Every last one.”

SHHHHH...

The reeds swayed in the wind. The sound resembled rolling waves, as though grinding the spoken words to pieces.

The Black Hand man spoke.

“... I’m having trouble understanding. Are you bold, fearless, or simply thoughtless?”

“A few halfhearted acts of sabotage won’t settle this easily. You won’t hold out in a protracted struggle. Whatever else Duke Sven may be, he’s certainly persistent. You’d be better off taking control of the situation.”

“And killing the second young lord will let us do that?”

“Yes. That leaves only two legitimate children: the eldest young lord and the third. Duke Sven dislikes the third more than he dislikes strangers, so that effectively leaves one. He may be persistent, but he isn’t brave. He’s a coward. He’s never had his courage tested, so he doesn’t even know it himself. But once the second young lord dies, his true nature will show. He’ll grow impatient and misjudge things, or he’ll shrink back so far that he can do nothing, even with the whole world laughing at him.”

Before turning back time, Valeri had faced Duke Sven in the succession war. One thing had become perfectly clear then: the man was a coward.

Even when Valeri deliberately exposed weaknesses while maneuvering or encamping his army, Sven had dithered, unable to decide, and let every opportunity slip away.

It was typical of a man who did all his thinking behind a desk. Duke Sven was skilled only at turning people against each other and using them. He had no idea how to wage a war in which he had to be prepared to lose everything.

Leading men on the battlefield while personally enduring a rain of arrows was something a coward could never do, not in a thousand lifetimes.

Valeri, by contrast, had done it all.

Burning an entire city and massacring its people might be cruel, but his willingness to burn a city rather than lose a single soldier had earned him his men’s unconditional loyalty.

During sieges, he had also been the first up the ladders. He had charged with a lance alongside his knights and stood shoulder to shoulder with the infantry to hold the line.

In short, as cruel and ruthless as he was, he had never hesitated to put himself at risk and lead by example.

That was how he had become king. Being clever and sitting back would never have made him the final victor of that brutal succession war.

Truly, becoming king meant being able to do everything. After all, the very justification for the royal succession war was to enthrone the king most outstanding in strength, courage, and wisdom.

To the Black Hand as it stood now, however, killing the second young lord sounded like far too much to take on.

“... That’s an absurd risk to take on your word alone. If things don’t turn out as you say, won’t we bear the full brunt of the duke’s wrath?”

“Weren’t you planning to use me as your inside man anyway? Then you should have expected me to use you too. If you can’t do that much, you’re of no value to me.”

Valeri and the Black Hand were not currently in a business relationship. It was something like an alliance, though it was more accurate to say they were using each other wherever their interests aligned.

Both Valeri and the Black Hand had wanted the Ballsack Opener removed. The Black Hand wanted a monopoly on the landing, while Valeri wanted the second young lord eliminated. Those were the interests involved.

“Use the margrave. Dress like regular troops and burn everything down. Think of it as making room for new warehouses. Once peat catches fire, it won’t go out. Induce the second young lord to take a boat, then drown him on his way back. Depending on how you look at it, that could be an accidental death. While the duke and margrave snarl at each other, you need only reap the benefits.”

Valeri even supplied a detailed plan.

Quite apart from whether the plan was feasible, the Black Hand man was momentarily speechless.

He looked Valeri up and down anew before speaking.

“Where in the world did you learn that? Did the Earl of Winslow teach you?”

“I learned it from people like you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Does it matter? Decide for yourselves whether you’ll do it. If the second young lord comes through unharmed, you and I have no further business. That’s all.”

He was resolute, cold, and uncompromising. Perhaps it was neither arrogance nor the wounds of his life before turning back time, but simply his innate disposition. Perhaps that was just who he was.

It was as though both were sharp swords, each trying to wield the other, yet one danced upon the blade while the other fretted about cutting his hand.

The Black Hand was utterly outmatched—in force of presence, resolve, and vision alike.

He had known at their first meeting that Valeri was no ordinary boy. Now, at their second, he was beginning to feel that the boy was genuinely beyond their ability to handle.

But why did Valeri want the second young lord removed? In the Black Hand member’s judgment, Valeri seemed to be backing the third young lord, Knut, as heir.

Then, once the third young lord became Duke, Valeri would gain power as his closest confidant. That appeared to be his aim.

“Our results will be our answer,” he said.

Without replying or nodding, Valeri turned to leave. The man had said the results would answer for him, after all.

Before leaving, however, he stopped, looked back, and spoke again.

“You said before that you had valuable information for me. In the end, it was useless to me. That business about the second young lord doing something to Winslow.”

“I remember.”

“I’ll give you some valuable information too. How you’ll meet your end.”

“...”

“An organization that values secrecy above life and keeps itself closed off can’t grow beyond a certain size. That means when an army finally comes, there’ll be nothing you can do. You won’t be able to resist as they kill, burn, and plunder everything in sight. That’s your limit.”

To stop an invading army, an entire city had to work together: repairing walls, stockpiling food, procuring supplies, and defending against a siege.

But the Black Hand could not do those things. Of course, its inability to do so had also brought about a turning point in Valeri’s life before he turned back time.

“Would an army ever come here? There are mountains to the north and wetlands all around.”

“Who knows? There’s no telling what will happen to the world when the king dies. Everyone acts as though he’ll live forever. I don’t understand why.”

With those words, Valeri turned and walked away. His footsteps rustled for a moment before the reeds quickly hid him from view.

Then, as always, two others emerged from hiding nearby to join the man who had spoken with him.

“I’m in favor. I like the idea of using the margrave. A war of attrition with the duke would only hurt us. And we can’t surrender the landing either.”

“I’m in favor for now too, but what if they impose another embargo?”

“We’ll smuggle. What else?”

The Ballsack Opener had wanted to torment people, so he had stopped even smuggling. A thieves’ guild, however, was ultimately interested in profit.

An embargo would naturally cost them. But losing the landing would cost them more.

“And you? For or against?”

“Wasn’t this a majority vote? We have no choice.”

It was unclear exactly what they were voting on, but it was probably the killing of the second young lord.

“Scary bastard, though. There’s no line he won’t cross. Talking about the king’s death like that. Does he not care if he goes to hell?”

People generally believed that the king led them to heaven, so even thugs did not lightly speak irreverently of him.

“It took extraordinary nerve to duel the Ballsack Opener in the first place.”

The Ballsack Opener had spent his time fleeing, and his nickname was rather ridiculous, but it had been hard to imagine anyone in the world capable of beating him one-on-one.

Of course, that was partly because their horizons were limited, but his local notoriety had not been earned for nothing.

Nor could they carelessly attempt an assassination. If it failed, there was no knowing what kind of havoc he would wreak.

In short, even the Black Hand had feared the Ballsack Opener.

“And he won. At fourteen, too. At this point, wouldn’t we be better off throwing in with him? Should we actively back the third young lord ourselves?”

“Calm down. No. That’s beyond our capabilities.”

“Anyway, what he said about the organization’s limits bothers me.”

“Because he wasn’t wrong.”

Yet even knowing he was right, there was nothing they could do. Overcoming those limits would require changing the organization’s structure.

To become something other than a thieves’ guild, they would need the vision and knowledge to do so—and above all, a desperate need. Wanting it was not enough.

“Let’s hope the king lives a long, long life. O King, may you enjoy long life and good health, and lead us to heaven.”

It was half a joke, half an attempt to soothe their unease. Soon, they too disappeared.

As always, the reeds rippled in the wind, whispering secrets no human could understand.

SHHHHH...