Episode 9
Carnelian shook the blood from her blade and spoke.
“If it’s a duel, shouldn’t knights fight each other?”
“Bzzt. Except for a truly honorable few, the rest have their Seals fight each other. Well, that’s how the knight on the winning side wins the duel, I guess.”
Carnelian looked thoroughly disgusted.
“What? So… the Seals fight each other?”
“Well. They say a Seal is like a knight’s avatar, so a fight between Seals is the same as a knight’s duel, but that’s a blatant lie… Actually, it’s a method devised by fake knights afraid of losing their lives in a duel. Since they’re knights, they can’t avoid a duel, but they’re too scared to die, so they dump everything onto their Seals. Ugh, it really annoys me.”
Her words were laced with contempt for those who boasted of being knights. Perhaps that too had greatly contributed to her prejudice against humans.
“Then you mean I have to go out and fight in that thing called the Royal Tournament against that Kudrow guy’s Seal? Is that the duel?”
She nodded, too annoyed to even answer.
“How about we find a place to sleep first? Even a worthless knight should have a place to rest… and I want to do something about these bloodstains. Ugh! Covered in blood the moment we entered the city. I really am an ill-fated woman.”
Carnelian looked over her clothes with a look of revulsion. It would be better to just buy new ones.
“You keep calling me a knight, but let me say again, I’m not a knight….”
Before he could finish, he had to shut his mouth at Carnelian’s sharp glare. She approached Julitan and spoke clearly, word for word.
“I have absolutely no intention of being ridiculed as a chef’s Seal, so please, just in this city, act like a knight. Mas. ter.”
Overwhelmed by Carnelian’s inexplicable force, Julitan shrank back. The poor man. Thanks to the earlier commotion, people were beginning to gather around Elephas’s corpse, and the orc tending the horses, and the elf dancers with long golden and silver hair, were poking their heads out of the tavern windows on this floor, watching Julitan and Carnelian. And they began whispering to one another that a fearsome knight and his Seal had come to the city.
“Carnelian? But that Kudrow fellow? You didn’t intend to kill him, did you?”
“Why? Can’t I kill him? He tried to kill Master. Don’t be so spineless.”
“Killing someone… how will the city people look at us?”
“How will they look? They’ll tremble in fear, I suppose.”
“….”
“The weak who die to the strong have nothing to say. That’s the reality of this world I want to show you, Master. Law and order, humans make them and humans break them. Truth loses its value, truth loses its direction, and reality always sides with the strong. I don’t particularly like it either… but I have no intention of changing such a world, nor the power to change it, Master.”
“Why?”
“The way to survive… I’ll teach you from now on.”
Her words were a little frightening, Julitan thought.
Chapter #3 The Value of a Human Is…
-intro
Perhaps the reason knights are the object of many people’s admiration is because they hold the ‘right to kill others’. People call a thief who kills a cruel murderer, but think a knight who kills a person must have an honorable reason. Even though they are the same human being. I don’t think I can understand the reason until the day I die.
“A seal who knows me has come to this city. I feel that she is near.”
Ikates, the Seal of Rie Dietrich, the lady knight of Risenbeoreo, approached Rie, who was grooming her long blue hair—a rarity for a knight—and whispered as if sharing a secret. Ikates’s faint smile indicated that ‘she’—that is, Carnelian—was on good terms with her. Rie set the comb down on the table with a slightly surprised expression and looked at Ikates. It seemed that Seals too lived long lives and had relationships with one another. Or perhaps they had been connected to each other from the very moment they were born.
“Really? Are you talking about the seal you mentioned before? If it’s a seal you know, she must surely be as excellent as you?”
When she said ‘excellent’, she did not mean merely by the standard of a Seal’s combat power. Rie felt considerable closeness to Ikates.
“Compared to me… well. She is a Seal with abilities and depth far surpassing my own.”
Ikates spoke honestly.
“Greater than you? If the Tamer possessing such a Seal… I would very much like to meet them.”
She was usually calm, but a rare expression of anticipation crossed her face. (He felt like showing her the country chef Julitan.)
“This time, I do not know whom she serves as her master, but she is a Seal who does not often awaken from her seal. If the Tamer who woke her is… they must undoubtedly be a possessor of outstanding ability and excellent character.”
At Ikates’s words, Rie’s anticipation grew as well.
Normally calm and intellectual as she was, a knight is still a knight. The desire to meet an excellent knight is not easily suppressed. Well, if she knew that the ‘excellent’ knight she was looking forward to was actually a country fisherman from a foreign land, not to mention a younger chef, it would be an amusingly wicked pleasure to imagine how her ever-stable expression might change. She rose from her seat and told Ikates to bring her outdoor clothes.
“I should like to see him at least once before he leaves this city. I was merely lucky enough to obtain you, but one who holds such a Seal must surely be someone worth meeting without regret.”
Ikates merely smiled brightly at those words. Contrary to Rie’s modest words, Rie herself was born into the Dietrich family, a renowned house of knights, and had received the title of First Knight of the Kingdom of Risenbeoreo in her early twenties. On the Eastern Continent of Isilat, she was a talented lady knight famous by the honorable epithet ‘The Blue Raptor of Risenbeoreo’. Her personality was strong yet gentle, and she was a ‘rare’ knight who was kind even to commoners.
“But Ikates. Can you tell me more about that seal? What abilities does it have?”
At Rie’s rare curiosity, Ikates pulled out a thin ivory cloak along with outdoor clothes, dressing her while speaking with her ever-present smile, resolutely:
“I apologize. That is the same as being unable to tell you my true name. Seals do not speak in detail about their pasts or about an opponent’s Seal. Just as you, Lady Rie, uphold your honor.”
“Well, it’s fine. I was simply curious.”
Rie answered, looking as if she had expected as much.
Rumor always passes through the ears and mouths of many people, inflating and distorting more than the actual facts. And this is truer in places where many people gather. In such a manner, the rumor about Julitan and Carnelian that instantly spread throughout the city of Bellesima was as follows:
‘A cruel wandering knight and his highest-grade Seal turned the city center into a sea of blood the moment they arrived. They say that knight kills people for fun.’
“Good heavens. I should be careful walking around this city for a while. My head might fly off to that knight…”
Wouldn’t people whisper such things?
The protagonists of that chilling rumor, Julitan and Carnelian, trying to secure a place to sleep, opened the door of an inn without a penny to their name. It was a typical inn, with a restaurant and tavern on its large first floor. As the thick wooden door opened, every gaze in the drinking hall focused on the blood-soaked pair, and for a moment, small whispers could be heard.
“He’s… that wandering knight. You’d best be careful.”
The moment their ‘identities’ became known, the female elf who had been singing on stage while plucking a harp with a thin voice fell silent. A terrifying silence that Julitan could do nothing about began, whether he wished to or not, and the thumping heartbeats and gulps of the people in the hall were audible. Moreover, their clothes were drenched in Elephas’s blood from the ‘incident’ just moments ago. Rather than the atmosphere, Julitan felt himself freeze, and he whispered to Carnelian.
“Carnelian. The atmosphere in this inn… is it always this cold?”
“Probably. I suspect it’s because of us.”
Julitan noticed that the expressions of the people avoiding his gaze had paled, and he too tensed as he slowly approached the man behind the bar who appeared to be the owner. But whatever Julitan’s thoughts were, in this atmosphere, if he tapped anyone on the shoulder, it seemed they would immediately scream, ‘Please spare me, Sir Knight! I have five children! Please!’ Was this funny, or was it unpleasant? The innkeeper Julitan was heading toward with a stiff expression also had cold sweat trickling down his forehead. It seemed not at all strange that the owner’s head might fly off by Julitan’s sword (though he didn’t even have a kitchen knife) at any moment. The people sitting in the hall were also half-rising from their seats, ready to bolt out the door at any moment. Julitan looked at the owner’s face, where even his eyes were now trembling, and opened his mouth lowly.
“By any chance, do you need a chef here… guh!”
Before Julitan could finish, a heated punch from Carnelian at a speed invisible to ordinary people slammed into Julitan’s back. A pained cry burst from Julitan’s mouth.
“Ma-master. The wound from then is still….”
Under the impact of a punch that felt like it would burst his internal organs, Julitan collapsed to the floor, his whole body trembling. With practiced acting, she ‘worriedly’ raised him. His face pale from the agony of his shattered spine, Julitan looked at Carnelian, who was shamelessly making a sad expression, and muttered.
‘W-what wound from then? You really are trying to kill me…’
But in the gaze she gave Julitan, this message was contained.
‘If you run your mouth any more, I’ll really kill you. Master.’
Carnelian supported Julitan, who was writhing in pain and humiliation, and spoke urgently to the tavern keeper.
“My master was injured fighting against over ten knights in battle in southern Dallakart a short while ago, and is now wounded in this manner. Could you please quickly prepare a place to rest?”
This is a northern city. There was no way to check what had happened in the distant southern part of the vast continent, and whatever one might say, the owner harbored no thoughts of refusing or doubting before the ‘merciless wandering knight’. It was simply Carnelian’s ‘wit’ in producing such words so fluently that was fearsome.
“Of course! It is nothing but infinite honor for our humble inn to host an honorable knight and his devoted Seal. Though it may be shabby, I shall prepare the best room in our establishment at once.”
Though it was hard to see what was ‘honorable’ about a fellow who suddenly collapsed and trembled before the owner, the owner bowed repeatedly and rushed up to the floor with the guest rooms in one bound, and in an instant, they succeeded in securing the inn’s best suite room without a penny.
Dragon Lady
Author / Kim Cheol-gon
Publisher / Park Seong-in
Managing Editor / Editorial Department
Published by / Next Level Studio
Address / 4F, 113 Seongsu-i-ro, Seongdong-gu, Seoul
Main Phone / 070-8801-6987
ISBN 979-11-92729-25-1
This book is published as an ebook by Next Level Studio under contract with the copyright holder.
Unauthorized reproduction of this book's contents without the publisher's permission is prohibited by copyright law.