Chapter 46

“Um, by any chance…… are you Sir Lucas?”

As they left the audience chamber, the guard guiding them spoke.

Lucas cast him a glance instead of answering.

“Are you really Sir Lucas Liberator?”

A half-doubting voice.
It was filled with expectation.

Lucas nodded.
A bright smile spread across the guard’s face when he saw it.
He showed an awkward but bright smile.
He even talked about how, as a child, he had dreamed of becoming a knight while looking up to Lucas.

‘He looks really excited.’

Serpens stared blankly at the guard.

‘Lucas really is…… consistent.’

When someone showed that much respect, you would think he could at least smile.
But there was not the slightest change in Lucas’s expression.
Judging by how he nodded, he did seem to be listening.

How he had cut down thousands of monsters in war.
How he had single-handedly turned the tide in a war against another race.
The guard excitedly chattered about Lucas’s heroic tales.
They were achievements that could hardly be thought of as human.

Since the words came from the mouth of an overly excited guard, Serpens doubted them for a moment.
But when he thought of Lucas as the subject of those heroic tales, Serpens had no choice but to nod.

‘Anyway, he really was a knight.’

Serpens recalled one year ago.
When it hadn’t been long since he had met Lucas.
He had once asked him if he was a knight.
When Lucas answered that he could be called one, Serpens had been sure he absolutely was not a knight…….

‘So he had been a knight.’

He had simply not been a knight at that moment.

He did not know why.
He had only realized that something had happened, causing Lucas to step away from his knightly position.
And that today, he had returned to that position.

“Then are you returning to the knight order now?”

As soon as that thought came to him, the guard asked with sparkling eyes.

“That is not it.”
“What?”
“It is true that I will return to the battlefield, but I am not returning as part of the knight order.”

Confusion spread through the eyes that had been sparkling.

And at that moment, Lars murmured, “Ah,” as if something had come to mind.
He furrowed his brows as if he had remembered a mistake, but soon nodded and relaxed his expression.

“Bro. Now that I think about it, His Majesty might misunderstand and think we are returning to the knight order.”
“……That could happen.”
“Shouldn’t we go back and tell him now?”
“You saw it too. As soon as we left, a nervous new knight went in. Serpens has already refused the oath, so we cannot intrude on someone else’s moment as well.”
“That is true too.”

Lars sighed, saying it was bothersome.

They exited the palace gate.
Passed through the garden where a cold wind blew.
And left the palace grounds behind.

By the time the guard’s farewell, promising to see them again, grew distant.
Serpens’s tension completely eased.

“Wow……. I never imagined I’d live to see the emperor of this empire in person.”

Once his tension eased, he began to grow excited.
At the same time, the boy’s mouth began moving without rest.

“The place where the emperor lives really is amazing. It’s so huge that it can’t even be compared to other places.”

He used polite speech, but he was not particularly expecting an answer.

“It feels like just yesterday I was being chased by guards. And now a guard guided me!”

The boy simply wanted to feel his emotions more vividly by sharing what he felt.

Serpens chattered for several minutes.
The three found a restaurant near Lars’s mansion for a meal.

“Ah, Lars. So why did you hint that I shouldn’t take the oath?”

During the meal, Serpens voiced a question that suddenly came to mind.
He had already refused, but even thinking back on it, there had been no bad conditions.
Considering the attitude the emperor had shown, not entering it actually felt like a loss.

Lars stuck his fork into the chicken dish and left it there.

“Bro will explain it for me.”

Warm steam rose from the chicken dish with the fork stuck in it.
Lucas quietly looked at it.

“Serpens. Think about your goal again.”
“My goal?”

Serpens tilted his head as he chewed over the meaning.

“Did you not say you wanted to create a world for the weak, especially young beggars like you once were?”
“I did.”
“If you take the oath, that goal may become difficult to achieve.”
“Huh?”

A lonely smile settled on Lars’s lips as he listened to the conversation.

Lucas slowly continued.

“The rules in the oath can have a positive influence. The rule about protecting the weak is one example. But as with most oaths, priorities inevitably have to be set within it.”
“Eh……?”
“What the oath prioritizes is ‘loyalty to the empire.’ Helping the weak can be set aside in the name of loyalty..”
“What does that mean?”
“It means that if the emperor gives an order to treat the weak as enemies, you would have to follow it.”

Serpens was at a loss for words.

“Of course, Kerum has never given such an order. He is not the kind of man who would. But in an era growing as harsh as this one, it would not be strange for people to change in any way.”

The emperor, of all people, treating the weak as enemies.
Serpens couldn’t understand it.
He didn’t want to understand it either.

“That is why we did not let you take the oath.”

Serpens quietly nodded and let out a breath.

“It would’ve been bad if I had said I’d take the oath.”

Lars gave the boy a bright smile.

“Maybe you would’ve just enjoyed a comfortable life as a knight?”
“…….”
“It was a kind of a check. To see whether you could trust and follow us when faced with a value the world takes for granted.”

The boy blinked, trying to hide his confusion.

“You, who trusted and followed us even in a sudden situation! You have earned the right to continue with us! Applause!”

Serpens, not understanding what was going on, frowned and clapped along.
The boy wondered whether he was allowed to feel betrayed that they had tested him.

“You caught on well enough on your own.”

Lucas, who had maintained his silence, opened his mouth.

“Lars kept glancing at me every now and then. And he stepped in first and said I wouldn’t take the oath.”
“Well done.”
“…….”

Serpens chuckled and nodded.
What betrayal?

Now that he had refused, he could accompany them without worry,
but even if he hadn’t, he could have lived as a knight.

Hadn’t he gone from a back-alley orphan who could die at any time to a knight, even if it was the lowest kind?
Thinking he should be grateful for such a tremendous rise in status, Serpens neatly folded up his sense of betrayal and threw it far away.

To put it bluntly, now that he was in a position where he could support himself.
Even if Lucas suddenly told him they were parting ways, he would have no choice but to accept it.

‘Though I’d throw as much of a tantrum as I possibly could.’

To prevent an unwanted parting,
he just had to cling to the opportunity given to him with all his strength and improve his skills.

If he became stronger than he was now someday,
Instead of “kid number one” being dragged along,
but a proper companion, it might be possible.
If that happened, he would not have to worry about parting either.

“I’m grateful you hinted at it for my sake.”
“…….”

Lucas looked at the water in his cup.

His face reflected on the small surface of the water.
It looked haggard, and also fierce.

‘He really followed a face like this.’

What had Serpens been thinking when he followed him?
No matter how one looked at it, it was not a face that made someone want to follow.
It was not about outward appeal. It was the air a person gave off.
From that perspective, did he not look like someone no one should follow?

‘Strange kid.’

Well, thinking about it now wouldn’t change anything.
The boy had grown, and Lucas had contributed to that growth.
Someone was needed to polish Serpens’s unrefined power, and Lucas would do that work.
The reason was probably responsibility.
If it was not, even Lucas himself could not find the reason.

“Then what should I do now?”

Serpens asked with his mouth stuffed full of meat.
He asked while looking toward Lucas, but Lars was the one who answered.
He did not mind.

“After eating, we are going to the problem areas near the southern coastline. The knight orders dispatched there are on the verge of annihilation.”
“Annihilation……?”
“Yes, annihilation. There are a few troublesome monsters there.”

The south.
It was a place Serpens remembered visiting.
The Navigatou territory, where he had met Rail.
The events in the port city were still vivid in his memory.

He could also understand why it had become a problem.
Had Serpens not also faced troublesome monsters before?

The giant monster born from the corpses of monsters.

“Ugh.”

When he recalled that thing, his stomach suddenly turned with nausea.

‘A few monsters……?’

There were several of those things.
His head throbbed just thinking about it.

In his case, Lucas had resolved it easily.
But where would one find someone like Lucas so easily?
No.
Just recall the way that guard had praised him a short while ago.
That was proof that people like Lucas were rare.

‘By the way…… I wonder if Rail is doing well.’

The Navigatou territory of the south.
His visit there had all been because of Rail.
What had happened between him and his father?
Had it improved? He just hoped it hadn’t worsened, if possible.

“Oh, right. Lucas, what happened to that jewel?”
“Jewel?”
“You know. The jewel I found after we defeated that giant monster in the Navigatou territory.”

At the mention of a jewel obtained after defeating a monster, Lars also showed interest.
His eyes blinked and turned toward Lucas.

“I’m curious about that too. Some time has passed, so have you found out anything about that jewel?”

Lucas shook his head.

“That Optatum fellow didn’t know? Well, even for me, it’d been a while since I saw Demonic energy that dense-”
“I didn’t send it to Optatum.”
“What?”

As a conversation he didn’t understand went back and forth, Serpens turned his head this way and that, trying to grasp the situation.
He thought back, wondering whether there had been time for such a conversation to happen without him knowing.
Thinking about it, there definitely had been.
When he had first met Lars, had he not received gold coins and created time for them to talk?

“I sent the jewel to someone else. But I still have not received a reply.”
“……Someone else?”

Lars’s left eyebrow rose.
Someone else.
Who was he talking about?

It was a jewel that even he, an archmage, had not been able to learn anything about.
Optatum, the other archmage, was one thing.
But if it was not him, there was no magician who could accomplish what Lars could not.
Lucas should know that as well.
In that situation, just who did he mean by someone else?

“As you know, the only archmages in the three empires are me and Optatum. One of us would also know the most about Demonic energy. So I don’t understand what you mean by someone else, bro.”

Lucas calmly swallowed his water.
Then he answered.

“During the three years after I stepped down from my position in the knight order, I met a certain group. There is someone there who should know about that jewel.”
“A group?”

Lars searched his memory.
The three years Lucas had wandered.
He knew most of Lucas’s movements during that time.

What made him watch Lucas was worry.
The worry that, along with his sudden declaration of retirement, Lucas might be swept up in emotion and do something irreversible.
That was the kind of worry it had been.

But unlike Lars’s worries, Lucas had spent a peaceful three years.
Resting while traveling throughout the empire.
Occasionally encountering monsters and subjugating them.
Aside from his appearance growing more and more haggard, it had been a time that required no particular worry.

‘A group?’

But Lars could not remember him meeting a group.
He had rested, yes, but it had been personal time from beginning to end.
Was Lucas not someone who did not interact with others?
He had lived without communicating with others, to the point that it was fortunate if he uttered one word in a day.
And yet, a group?
Unless his memory was wrong, there had been no interaction with others, much less interaction with an entire group.

“You know that I cannot use Aura, right?”

Lars flinched and looked at Lucas.
After pausing for a moment, he answered while pretending nothing was wrong.

“I had noticed.”
“Then do you know when and why I became unable to use it?”
“Of course I know tha…….”

He couldn’t remember.

Lars’s pupils wavered with confusion.
He frowned as if chasing his memory, but he couldn’t reach the end of it.

“There was a magician among them as well. I sent the jewel to that one, but there has been no answer yet.”
“What kind of person are they……?”
“I do not know. I do not know exactly who they are either. But there is probably no one who hates monsters as much as they do.”
“And you’re saying I don’t know people like that?”
“I did not know either. Until they came to find me, I did not even know they existed.”
“…….”

A lonely silence flowed.
Lars held his breath and fell into thought.
At their table, only the sound of Serpens’s busily moving fork remained.

Lars stared at Lucas with eyes that had grown calm.
The moment their gazes met.
A gentle melody spread with a small ripple.

And before long, Lars shook his head.

“I don’t know. I really don’t.”

The flowing melody cut off in an instant.
What came out was a small sigh.
Lars crossed his arms with his eyes closed.

“Do you know why those people who supposedly hate monsters do not act publicly?”
“They said things I could not understand. They did say they were stopping the Akma somewhere else…….”
“Akma……?”
“It seemed to be a word that referred to strong monsters as a whole.”
“And we didn’t know about beings like that?”
“Perhaps it is because those things called Akma have not revealed their existence.”

Lars slowly shook his head.
It was not easy to accept.
More than that, there were more than a few suspicious points.

“Bro, you believed what those people said?”

Lucas nodded.

“Did you lose your Aura because of them? No, is it even possible to interfere with someone else’s Aura in the first place?”
“It was possible. Do not worry. I did not lose it permanently.”
“But…….”

Lars didn’t finish speaking.
He needed to learn about this slowly and in detail.
But not now.

“Tell me about this later.”
“I will.”

If it were urgent, if it were something they absolutely had to know.
Lucas would certainly have brought it up first.

“Things are getting complicated.”

So for now, they had to focus on the matter at hand.