“W-what!”

“That little bastard!”

Gasps and shouts erupted all around as Shan’s sword slipped into the knight’s helmet.

Sparring with live blades was dangerous, certainly, but to dare drive a sword straight into the face of the count’s own knight, right before his eyes! Did the boy think he had a spare life?

Ignoring the reactions around him, Shan withdrew the sword from the helmet. Only then did the blade, unstained by a single drop of blood, break with a clang.

“I was able to gain the upper hand because you held back.”

After a brief silence, the knight slowly removed his helmet. His ragged breathing and streaming cold sweat were enough to suggest the terror he had felt.

The sword tip had come within a hairbreadth of his eye. Even a knight could hardly help being frightened. The eye’s complex structure made it one of the body parts most difficult to restore, even through healing miracles.

Having come within a moment of losing an eye, the knight heaved a deep sigh.

“Spare me the empty courtesies. You were simply better.”

“It wasn’t an empty courtesy.”

There had certainly been a difference in their abilities, but the knight’s strike and the spirit behind it had clearly been intended to break Shan’s sword and subdue him.

Had he swung with the intent to cut Shan down outright, the attack would naturally have been faster and stronger, forcing Shan to attempt a more dangerous counter.

Of course, in that case, Shan would not have let him off so lightly. He would at least have taken an eye. He might even have killed him, had he not considered the fact that Count Shedil actively employed Altoans.

Sheathing his sword, the knight turned toward the count and murmured,

“Master has raised a monster...”

Shan was about to ask what he meant when the count, seated in his chair above the steps, clapped his hands.

“Well, that was remarkable! Sir Gowell may have let his guard down, but to subdue him so easily! At that level, even in my younger days, I wouldn’t have stood a chance.”

Unexpectedly, the count looked intrigued rather than displeased, with an expression suggesting he had realized something. It was strange, considering the blow to his prestige from the one-sided defeat of the knight he had sent out.

Upon returning to the count, the knight first respectfully presented the enchanted sword he carried. As Shan had suspected, it apparently was not his own possession, but something the count had lent him for this match.

Accepting it, the count murmured,

“Things never do go as one wishes... Though I suppose that’s what makes life interesting.”

Then he abruptly turned to Shan.

“Have you had lunch?”

* * *

Quite unlike the castle’s relatively modest exterior, the count’s lunch was magnificent.

There was freshly baked wheat bread, pies filled with meat and fish, duck gently cooked in oil at a low temperature, and an unidentifiable stew laden with exotic spices.

Once, such a feast would have driven Shan wild. But the refined palate he had acquired through all the luxuries of the Wievers mansion helped him maintain his dignity.

Watching Shan eat with proper manners, the count clicked his tongue.

“At least you’d look quite at home among those noble bastards in the capital.”

“Thank you.”

Crude though his phrasing was, it was a compliment on Shan’s etiquette, so Shan responded in the manner he had been taught.

The count sat across from Shan, eating with only the knight called Sir Gowell standing behind him. Considering that he was one of the kingdom’s few high-ranking nobles, this was an extraordinary honor for a mere Altoan boy.

Tearing roughly into his pork, the count glanced behind him.

“Well? How was it, facing a fellow pupil of the same master?”

“It would probably take at least three of me to subdue him. Even that might not be enough.”

“And here I thought that old fool Darkal had finally gone senile...”

Listening quietly to their exchange, Shan finally understood the knight’s earlier remark—and why the most powerful man in Shedil had suddenly taken an interest in him.

“Were you Sir Darkal’s pupil?”

“I trained under him fifteen years ago. Lifting those rocks was sheer agony.”

Sir Gowell shook his head, his expression somewhere between nostalgia and utter weariness.

That made him a fellow pupil not only of Shan, but of Roden as well. Shan had known Sir Darkal had taught more than a few students, but he had never imagined meeting one like this.

As Shan privately congratulated himself on not actually stabbing the man’s eye, the count chuckled.

“Apparently, a letter arrived recently from a man who’d never once bothered to write. He said he’d trained a pupil in his old age, and that if they ever met him as an enemy, they should avoid fighting him if at all possible...”

Sir Gowell had been wondering what had prompted such an uncharacteristic fuss when he happened to hear of a boy whose appearance matched the letter’s description exactly. He reported it, and the count, his curiosity piqued, had summoned Shan.

“I thought he was fussing over a promising pupil, afraid the lad might be cut down before he could bloom. But it turns out the ones that old man cherished were his other pupils! He was afraid the boys he’d trained before would be sliced to pieces by his new monster!”

The count made a great fuss about how ignoring Darkal’s letter and arranging a match had nearly cost him a valuable knight.

Shan’s surprise at his teacher’s unexpected thoughtfulness soon passed, and his attention returned to why the count had summoned him, abruptly made him spar, and then invited him to lunch.

Noticing his gaze, the old bear set down his cutlery and drew the enchanted sword at his waist halfway from its sheath.

“What do you think?”

“Well...”

Naturally, it was almost irresistibly alluring.

It had possessed enough power to break Shan’s sword despite his blocking with the thickest part of the blade, reinforced with ample spirit...

A weapon like that could surely cleave through a large monster’s body even without spirit. If Sir Gowell had maintained a defensive stance instead of trying to break Shan’s sword, getting past him would have been no easy task.

“No need to say any more! You look like a beggar who hasn’t eaten in years. That’s my objective achieved, at least.”

“Your objective?”

“The original plan was to slice that old iron sword clean in two with this, then hold it out to you. ‘Look! Isn’t this a splendid sword?’ I wanted to show it off.”

After laughing in language ill suited to his noble station, the count’s tone turned serious.

“Would you take this sword and enter my service?”

‘He’ll give me the sword?’

Shan nearly nodded as though entranced, but the rest of the offer brought him back to his senses.

Enter his service? It sounded impressive, but wasn’t it rather vague and insubstantial?

“Do you mean you would knight me?”

“No, not that. An Altoan knight? Out of the question.”

The count refused him coldly, then devoured his food. It was an odd attitude for a man who employed Altoans without discrimination.

After chewing noisily for a while, he wiped his mouth with a handkerchief.

“Put simply, I want you to become an unseen blade. You live freely most of the time, and when orders come, you go where you’re told and use your sword. Simple enough, isn’t it?”

“An assassin.”

“You can think of yourself as a mercenary in my exclusive employ. Sometimes you might have to guard someone or deal with a monster. As for money, you’ll earn enough to make most knights envious, and I’ll furnish you with only the very finest magical devices. I’ll give you a beautiful wife and a manor to provide for your old age, too.”

Since all Altoan artifacts passed through Shedil, the count whispered with a serpent’s smoothness quite at odds with his bearlike appearance, Shan could possess the most powerful armaments in the kingdom.

Formidable magical devices, money, a woman, even land—it was an offer of everything except honor.

Shan listened quietly, then shook his head.

“I’m sorry, but I cannot accept your offer.”

“Don’t tell me it’s because you want to become a knight?”

“Yes.”

“That’s impossible. There’s an unspoken ban on granting Altoans the rank of knight or anything above it.”

Shan had heard that there had never been an Altoan knight, but this was the first he had heard of an outright ban. Neither Roden nor even Kalion or Sir Darkal had ever mentioned it.

As Shan’s eyes narrowed, the count snorted.

“From the look of you, those two old men, Kalion and Darkal, didn’t know either. Or perhaps they knew and didn’t tell you... Becoming a knight is far more difficult for an Altoan than you imagine. Even if I wanted to make you one.”

Count Shedil was a great lord who held the largest territory in eastern Pendia and controlled the passage between the Demonlands and the kingdom. Geography limited his influence over politics in the capital, but his sheer standing could not be ignored.

Yet even he, after witnessing Shan’s prowess, said knighting him would be difficult.

“As you know, I employ Altoans. A great many live in my territory, so I need to appear a fair lord to them. Yet those noble bastards in the capital pick fights with me at every opportunity merely for employing them as guards and servants. Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Are you saying it would be difficult even if I achieved enough to deserve it?”

“Even if you became a warrior stronger than the Lord Protector, even if one of your parents happened to be a Pendian noble, you wouldn’t stand a chance. You’d best wake up from that dream. No one short of the king would dare knight you.”

Learning that the racial barrier he had only vaguely imagined was far thicker than expected, Shan set down his cutlery, feeling lost. The shock was all the greater because Roden had named Count Shedil as a likely candidate to knight him.

“So why not abandon that futile dream and simply work for me? Of all this country’s nobles, I’m the one who treats Altoans most generously and with the least discrimination. I promise you treatment worthy of your abilities.”

Was it truly impossible to rise through ability alone and become a knight, no matter how hard he tried?

If he could never become one anyway, perhaps living comfortably in exchange for a little sword work would be better than spending his life wandering remote wildernesses for a paltry reputation...

He had barely begun to consider it when he noticed the count’s smile. It was a mocking expression, as though to say that nothing Shan did would make any difference.

The moment he saw that infuriating face, an answer escaped his lips of its own accord.

“Thank you for the offer.”

“Usually, the next word in a situation like this is ‘but,’ isn’t it? I’m not accustomed to being refused, you know.”

Perhaps guessing his answer from that first sentence, the count grumbled, the smile vanishing from his face.

Of course, that was not enough to frighten Shan into changing his answer.

“Even if it’s difficult, even if it may be impossible... I will become a knight.”

Originally, it had been a dream Roden had all but planted in him.

If all he wanted was better food, as he had back then, he could already have his fill. Working as the count’s assassin would let him live in still greater comfort with little effort.

But unlike before, Shan’s desires were no longer simple enough to be satisfied by material things alone. Through his travels, a yearning for honor, power, or something nobler still had quietly taken root within him.

“Do you understand what it means to refuse me here in Shedil?”

“Yes.”

At the count’s chilling words, Shan slowly tensed his muscles. The instant the count gave a hostile order, he intended to seize his table knife and take the count hostage.

The fully armored Sir Gowell standing nearby mattered little. If the count believed Shan had managed their earlier exchange only because he had a scrap-iron longsword in hand, he would pay for that mistake.

After Shan’s reply, the table fell so silent that not even breathing could be heard.

What broke that tense silence, unexpectedly, was a roar of laughter.

“Ha, hahaha! Insolent brat! How entertaining! Yes, fearless, disobedient bastards like you are a nuisance, but you’re entertaining... The ones who do nothing but bow and scrape are convenient to use, but they’re no fun.”

The count had been glaring menacingly only a moment before, and now he was throwing his head back in laughter. Unsure how to react, Shan simply stared.

The count smiled at him.

“Very well. I failed to hire you, but you entertained me, so I ought to pay for it. Tell me what you want.”

“That enchanted sword...”

“None of that bullshit.”

The count’s face turned stern at once, as though his earlier laughter had been a lie.

* * *

After leaving the count’s castle, Shan returned to the inn and found Roden pacing anxiously in the stable beside it. The horses’ saddles were piled with baggage, as though he was ready to leave at a moment’s notice.

“I’m back. What’s all that?”

“I heard you went to see His Excellency! Nothing happened, did it?”

“Uh...”

From driving his sword into Sir Gowell’s helmet during their match to rejecting the count’s offer and silently preparing for a fight...

After reviewing the day’s events, Shan answered calmly.

“Nothing much.”

“Looks to me like quite a lot happened. Hurry up and spill it.”

As ever, lying to Roden was difficult.

A little later, after hearing the story, Roden let out a sigh deep enough to sink the earth.

“Haa...”

“Is that relief or despair?”

“I’m not sure myself. Anyway, you’re saying His Excellency probably won’t be marching an army over here right away?”

“Hmm. Probably.”

Shan was hardly confident in his ability to judge people, but he did not think the count would come to seize them just yet. If that had been his intention, wouldn’t ambushing Shan on the way back have been better than letting him return and fully arm himself?

The two unpacked their baggage in their room, then lay on their respective beds and talked.

“Did you know about Sir Gowell, Roden?”

“No. Since when does Master talk about his old pupils?”

“That’s true.”

Becoming a count’s bodyguard was quite an accomplishment, yet Darkal never boasted about having trained anyone into a knight.

“Come to think of it, Sir Gowell said something else. He warned me to be careful, since some people might dislike or envy me after reading Master’s letter.”

“It’s strange, however I look at it. I wouldn’t have thought he’d write a letter like that.”

After a brief exchange about Sir Darkal’s teaching philosophy, Roden stared at the ceiling and murmured,

“So he said it was impossible for an Altoan to become a knight...”

“Yes. Do you think it’s true?”

“Who knows? It’s not as though I know all the nobles’ unwritten rules. But considering there’s never been a single Altoan knight, it does make sense.”

Indeed, among the famous Altoan mercenaries Roden knew, several possessed skills comparable to most knights.

Until now, he had assumed they had never been knighted simply because, given equal ability, there was no reason to choose an Altoan. On reflection, though, it seemed stranger to suppose that in all of Pendia’s long history there had never been an Altoan as exceptionally skilled as Shan.

While Roden pondered this, Shan rolled about on his bed and muttered plaintively,

“The way he said it, it sounded like it would absolutely never happen, no matter how great my achievements were.”

Of course, things might be different if a dragon appeared and he slew it, as Roden had once suggested. Realistically, however, there was little chance of a dragon appearing within Shan’s lifetime.

The last sighting of a true dragon—not a lesser dragon—had been five hundred years ago, when the empire fell.

“So, you still haven’t changed your mind?”

“No.”

Just as he had told the count, Shan intended to become a knight.

If the nobles blocked his path with their unwritten rules, all he had to do was become so important that the benefits of knighting him outweighed those rules.

If all else failed, he would amass a fortune, hire a horde of mercenaries, overthrow Pendia, and found a new kingdom. Then he could crown himself the Knight King. That would still make him a knight, after all.

“Still, His Excellency wasn’t entirely bad. He even gave me a present.”

“Oh, right. This... It should be a huge help.”

At Shan’s words, Roden took out the booklet Shan had handed him earlier. In place of the enchanted sword, this was the count’s gift for going along with his unreasonable demands that day.

It was a compilation of highly reliable information selected from the reports that registered explorers had sold to the explorers’ guild. Even within the guild, it was provided only to expeditions that had earned considerable credit by supplying information repeatedly. Money alone could not buy it.

For a party about to undertake a journey far afield, it was a genuinely useful treasure.

* * *

Two days after that stormy encounter with the count, the Green Eyes expedition gathered again on the first floor of the explorers’ guild.

As noisy and bustling as ever, the guild fell quiet at Shan’s arrival.

“Hey, is that the brat?”

“Yes... No! I told you not to call him that. He’ll hear you!”

“He really doesn’t look it.”

Something about the people whispering about him felt strangely different to Shan. He had drawn looks after defeating the men in the square and after his first expedition, but these had a different quality.

Even explorers who had never witnessed his display in the square were looking at him with awe.

He learned why when he met Vent and Zerpo.

“We heard the rumors. You fought a knight one-on-one and defeated him overwhelmingly, I hear?”

“People are talking about it?”

“The whole guild was buzzing with the story yesterday.”

Shan’s eyes widened in surprise at their words. He had assumed it would be kept secret, since word of defeat at the hands of a mere Altoan boy would damage Sir Gowell’s honor. How had it become so widely known?

Then again, more than a dozen soldiers and servants had been present. They could hardly silence every one of them. Short of killing them all, someone was bound to speak carelessly.

‘If I’d known this would happen, maybe I should have won in a more presentable way instead of sticking my sword through his eye slit.’

The thought occurred to him, but holding a blade to the knight’s throat or another vital spot would hardly have been any better. Besides, if Sir Gowell had failed to realize that a vital spot was threatened and continued attacking, Shan would have had to stab him for real before the sword broke.

His unease over the unintended outcome did not last long. Roden unfolded the map he had been working on and changed the subject.

“This is the provisional plan for our next expedition. Please look it over with me and correct anything you think might cause problems.”

“Oh...”

“The route’s become remarkably detailed, hasn’t it?”

“You’ve even marked areas farther out than we traveled, at least roughly. Neither Vent nor I have ever been here.”

Both looked curious about where he had obtained such information, but neither pressed him. Each person’s sources of information were, after all, a private domain the others ought to respect.

After discussing a few more policies, they gathered in a circle and slapped hands together as though performing a ritual, then rose to their feet.

It was time to set out and excavate the ruins that lay slumbering somewhere deep within the Demonlands.