Chapter 7

When you think of horses, you think of a knight’s partner—the unsung heroes who love carrots.

Whether in times of joy or sorrow, a horse is always there to let you onto its back if you wish. I wonder how many knights have had their hearts saved by that kindness. You rely on them to fight, you rely on them to flee, and sometimes you might cling to them just to fill the void of loneliness. If they were to fall in battle, you might find yourself stranded, unable to simply abandon them.

The horse and rider as one. The bond formed between a beast and a human can, at times, run deeper than any connection between people.

And so, being the idiot I was as a child, I once dashed out to the plains beyond the Royal Capital to catch a horse of my own.

Of course, because I was an idiot, I couldn’t catch one. It remains a mystery why I continued with a plan that had a perfectly prepared week’s worth of camping gear but left the most essential part completely blank. Children are just bad at looking at things from multiple angles.

To pick out a few flaws in my slipshod plan: “How was I going to tame a wild horse?”, “What was I going to do after catching it?”, and “How did I plan to ride it when I’d never even studied horsemanship?” The list goes on, but the biggest flaw was likely this:

In the first place, there are no wild horses living around the Royal Capital.

When I learned that fact several years later, I was so overcome with shame that I pressed my face into my pillow with all my might and let out a strange scream.

Apparently, they used to live there, but the overhunting by the knight orders and merchants caused horses to stop approaching the area entirely.

Et tu, Knight Orders?

Anyway, back to the point. My dreams—which were quite grand when it came to my admiration for horses—always ended up being snapped by reality.

The break happened shortly after I joined the Royal Foreign Hazardous Species Countermeasures Knights.

“Right, horses? We don’t have any.”

“Eh… even though this is a knight order?”

“Yes, even though it’s a knight order.”

The cruel truth was delivered nonchalantly while I was being shown around the headquarters.

“It seems we used to use them, but thanks to the blessings of magic, we don’t need them anymore. Just keeping them costs money, so now we just rent them whenever necessary, like for triumphal returns or ceremonies.”

“Th-That’s so stingy…”

“It can’t be helped. We have to cut costs.”

Later, I was informed that the primary reasons this order stopped keeping horses were “Motive Carriages” and “Familiars.”

The Motive Carriage is an evolution of the horse-drawn carriage that incorporates a completely new concept of power called a Motive Engine.

Its advantages: it can run longer than a horse, run faster than a horse, and thanks to a partnership with the Magic Research Institute, it’s cheaper to maintain than a horse. In other words, it’s the triple threat of long, fast, and cheap.

On top of that, the ride is smoother than a carriage, and its load capacity is superior. It’s a complete upgrade.

Well, modern Motive Carriages have the drawback of being difficult to downsize, so they’re massive things—about the size of two commoner houses—which makes them lack maneuverability… but our order, which prioritizes stealth against monsters, doesn’t use horses for fine movements anyway. To add to that, Commander Luger apparently started saying, “What do you think I had you take your armor off for? Run for the sake of cost-cutting!” which led to the horses being completely retired.

…By the way, the person who bought the retired horses and the one we rent horses from is the same person: a retired member of the “Pig-Hunt Knights.” This is just my own imagination, but that person must definitely be making some shady deals with Commander Luger behind the scenes. That’s more than just a cozy relationship; it’s full-blown collusion.

Now, putting transportation aside, horses have traditionally been indispensable for scouting and messengers.

Orcs are territorial, so we can choose when to attack, but there are too many inconveniences if the speed of information transfer is slow.

The thing that solved that problem in a snap was the magically contracted animal—the “Familiar.”

To put it simply, it’s like an enhanced version of a carrier pigeon. Because they transmit information faster than a human can, the mobility of a horse became unnecessary. I’m not an expert on Familiars, so I don’t know much, but regardless, they made the horse’s position even more cramped.

In short, horses were left behind by the times. That is the sad reality.

While I feel a tinge of loneliness about not being able to ride a horse, you start to grow fond of the Motive Carriage once you get used to it.

After all, it’s because of this thing that we can somehow make it back to the Royal Capital even with an insane schedule.

Sitting in the driver’s cabin at the front of the Motive Carriage, I gazed at the scenery of the plains as it flowed past. The driver’s seat was about two meters above the ground, giving me the strange illusion that I was floating.

Only a limited number of people in this country get to see this view.

As for the orc hunt, we ended up adopting Nonoka-san’s proposal: “A method that doesn’t increase risk even if we reduce manpower.” The order split into the Imperial Match group and the orc-hunting continuation group. The Imperial Match group consisted of the five representatives competing in the matches and the bare minimum staff.

I spoke to one of those minimum staff members—the man driving this giant vehicle next to me.

“Rai, how’s it looking? Think we’ll reach the Royal Capital by tomorrow?”

“Leave it to me. With this thing’s horsepower and terrain-conquering ability, we’ll arrive at the relay village right on schedule. We’ll easily make it by noon the day before the match!”

In response to my question, Rai, the dedicated engineer for this Motive Carriage, gave a thumbs-up.

Rai was an immigrant whose selling points were his spiky blond hair and a bright, refreshing grin. He was someone majoring in magic science at the Royal Magic Research Institute. Unlike Nonoka, he wasn’t a professor-rank researcher but was a student of a professor studying magic science. Since we were the same age, we’d occasionally grab a drink together; he was a different kind of friend than my best friend from the academy.

“…Whoops, I’m pretty sure the road ahead turns into a forest. I’ll shift our course a bit to the north-northwest.”

Rai only looked at me for a split second before immediately focusing back on driving. He was manipulating objects that an amateur wouldn’t know the use for—apparently they were called steering wheels, switches, and levers, and he’d taught me how to use them a few times—to control the speed and direction of the Motive Carriage.

The way he fiddled with the various levers and switches, especially when firing up the Motive Engine, looked incredibly cool. I’d love to be able to master a generalized Motive Carriage like that myself someday. If I were still a kid, my eyes would probably be sparkling with idiocy as I watched an engineer.

“If I’d been born ten years later, I might have aimed to be an engineer too.”

“Oh, Varna-san making a joke? That’s rare.”

“It’s not a joke. When I was a kid, I was surprisingly simple. I only aimed to be a knight because I thought it looked cool.”

“Eeeh, that’s unexpected. Varna-san, you’re the kind of guy who looks like he was born to be a knight. The genius swordsman who appeared at a young age! Ooh, that’s exactly the kind of impact befitting a story’s protagonist!!”

“What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t get you.”

I’ve never quite understood this side of Rai—how he gets all fired up over things that aren’t even about him.

Me, a story’s protagonist… No way. I’m not burning with ambition, and even if you call me a genius with the sword, the fact that my opponents are almost exclusively orcs means it wouldn’t make for a very exciting story.

“Anyway, what about you, Rai? Did you ever admire knights?”

“Of course I did. Plus, in my home country, there were more slots for commoner knights than in this one. Naturally, I took the exam… but here’s a shocking fact! I managed the studying part somehow, but my swordsmanship was total garbage!”

“Ah, well, that can’t be helped… I didn’t have any confidence in my studies, so I was the type who bet everything on the sword. Passing was… well, it was a miracle of sorts.”

“It’s a super-special elite slot that only five people a year get into, after all… But Varna-san, you’re the one who made the Goddess of Fate look your way, so I really think you’re a chosen person. Besides, from last year’s commoner slot, you’re the only one left in the order, aren’t you?”

“…Don’t go reminding me of sad things.”

“S-Sorry…”

That was right—of the four other recruits from my year, every single one of them had already quit the knighthood.

One had been tossed into a dungeon for the crime of embezzling the order’s funds.

One had ignored orders and tried to fight an orc head-on, only to be defeated; they resigned in despair shortly after.

The remaining two had lost hope in the current state of the “Pig-Hunt Knights,” seeing no path for promotion, and vanished into the night.

And the saddest part was that despite being in the same year and the same order, I hadn’t managed to become friends with any of them.

Case in point: I could recall their faces, but their names wouldn’t come to mind.

Wait, that’s strange. Am I actually just terrible at making friends?

Those two who left for the “fast track” were the popular types, too…

Huh? Even before entering the officers’ academy, did I only have three or four friends?

And I haven’t seen any of those few people in three years.

Wait… wait? Was my youth just the sunset of a barren mountain, with a crow looking down and mocking me with an “Idiot! Idiot!”?

“My youth is so lonely…”

“You’ve got me, don’t you?”

“You’ve been using formal speech with me this whole time. It’s so distant. I’m not saying I want someone over-familiar like Senior Rock, but yours doesn’t exactly feel great either, you know?”

“I don’t know about everyone else, but I intend for mine to be a sign of pure respect, you know?”

Rai said that with a playful grin, his eyes narrowing slightly.

“Varna-san, you’re amazing… You worked hard, and hard, and kept working hard to realize that dream of ‘it looks cool,’ and now you’re someone everyone acknowledges. To me—someone who failed and drifted onto a different path—Varna-san is sparkling like the brightest star in the night sky.”

There was a mix of emotions there: envy, inferiority, and a cramped feeling as if he were averting his eyes from something too dazzling.

That glimpse, seen for just a fraction of a second, instantly hid itself back in his heart like a timid beast.

Honestly, why was he being so self-deprecating?

I knew… that there were moments when a man like Rai shone so brightly it was blinding.

“Rai, it’s already ten at night. The others in the Motive Carriage are probably dead to the world, exhausted from today and preparing for tomorrow.”

“I-I suppose… You can head up to bed too, Varna-san. Even though the driver’s cabin is always a two-person shift, today’s travel ends after one more hour of driving.”

“No, the sandman usually attacks right when you let your guard down like that. More importantly—”

Without hesitation, I shoved the Motive Engine’s output adjustment knob on the dashboard toward the highest setting.

Instantly, the Motive Carriage’s engine let out a roar: Guoooooooooooonn!!

Right now, this carriage was in a state where it was producing a massive excess of energy beyond what was needed for its travel speed.

To put it bluntly, it was a meaningless act that placed unnecessary strain on the Motive Engine.

However, if an engineer did “that one thing,” meaning would be born from that meaninglessness.

Looking at Rai, whose eyes had gone wide at my sudden eccentricity, I flashed a smile that even I knew looked wicked.

“We’ve got one hour left on the clock, but if we floor it during that hour, don’t you think we could make it to the next village over?”

“No, I mean, that’ll mess with the schedule, and there are speed regulations set by the Research Institute…”

“If I, the man in the passenger seat, say there were no violations, then there were no violations! Besides, weren’t you bragging earlier while adjusting the engine that ‘it could actually go twice this fast’? It’s fine. No one’s going to complain about being ahead of schedule. If anything, you’ll be praised.”

“G-Give me a break, Varna-sa—”

“More importantly, you—”

I pointed a finger at Rai, who was recoiling theatrically as if fearing something greater than a mere regulation breach. I whispered a magical phrase into his ear like a devil’s temptation to release his common sense.

“You’re internally itching to floor the accelerator and blast off, aren’t you?”

“…I’m no match for you, Varna-san.”

Hearing those words, Rai slumped forward with his hands on his knees for a moment—then, he pulled out a headband from somewhere and snapped it around his forehead.

Written on that headband in characters I’d never seen in this Kingdom was “Tyndalos”, and for some reason, there was a bright red circle pattern in the center.

This was his “Gleam Switch.”

Once this was wrapped around his forehead, his rampage could not be stopped.

“HELL YEAHHHH!!! I, the great Rai—the man who claimed the title of the #1 Speedster in the Imperial Capital, the God of Engine Modification for the ‘Tyndalos’ biker gang, and their former Raid Captain—will show you what lies beyond the limits of accelerationnnnn!!!!”

In an instant, the “nice young man” from before vanished, replaced by a Rai who let out a vicious lick of his lips. He slammed the gear lever into place… Gakokon!! …pushed a series of dangerous-looking red switches, and stomped on the accelerator with terrifying force.

Gyuooonnnnnnn!! The tires’ rotation speed surged in response to the engine, and the G-force of the acceleration slammed into my body, pinning me back—and in the next moment, the Motive Carriage exploded into a high-speed rampage.

The massive vehicle forcibly pushed aside the surrounding air, letting out a beast-like howl as it accelerated further and further.

At this point, it wasn’t a Motive Carriage anymore; it was a giant monster destined to leave its name in the Kingdom’s history.

“Kahahaha!! This is the best!! Seriously the best!! To think I could floor it like this in a government vehicle… the dopamine is flooding my brain! Pure ecstasyyyyyy!!”

“Yeah, go for it!! This organization is so stupid anyway, a little bit of this won’t hurt!”

“I love that broad-mindedness of yours, Varna-saaaaaannnn!! Yeeee-hawwwwww!!!”

Rai’s true nature: he was a former member of “Tyndalos,” a group of crazed engineers from the great overseas nation of the “Imperial Capital.” They were a gang that challenged the limits of acceleration by illegally modifying “motorbikes”—small vehicles equipped with Motive Engines that had been popular there for years. Incidentally, that organization was dangerous enough to be mocked as a “terrorist reserve force.”

That headband was apparently a memento from those days; putting it on was the trigger that revived his “Rampage Persona.”

According to him, he’d tried to quit being a delinquent and become a serious engineer, but because of his background, he was rejected everywhere until he finally drifted to this Kingdom.

Since his technical skills were the real deal and he usually had a decent amount of self-control, the Research Institute had taken him in, but all it took was a little push for him to end up like this.

‘Actually, the reason he couldn’t get into the knights was probably mostly because of this… well, whatever.’

Honestly, I enjoyed this vibe more, so I occasionally egged him on.

“Ooh!! Stray orc spotted up ahead!! Do we hit it!? Do we not hit it!? Which is itttttt?!”

“We don’t have a contract for it, so do whatever. Since we’re here, just mow it down.”

“Roger that!! You too shall become a phantom of days gone byyyyyyyy!!”

“BUGYOEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!?!?”

That night, local residents witnessed an ugly monster flying through the air with a satisfying thwack.

—The next day.

“H-Hey, Varna… I woke up this morning having rolled off my bed. Did something happen in the driver’s cabin yesterday?? The wine bottle on my table was smashed, too.”

“No, we stopped exactly at the scheduled time. Wasn’t it just your sleeping posture, Senior?”

“Hmm… ah, well. If it’s nothing big, it’s fine.”

As I watched my senior walk away looking unconvinced, maintaining my best poker face, Rai stood behind me whistling while washing away the orc’s bloodstains from the front of the Motive Carriage, sweating buckets. Apparently, he’d get scolded by his professor if yesterday’s events came to light, but I found myself thinking I’d have him do it again the next time we were bored.