LP 1.5 The Most Glorious Knight

It was around noon that Kosha was released. It was when the sound of water trickling down echoed sadly from under Kosha’s belly, who had skipped breakfast to offer the magic potion.

Gosrick was the one who opened the door to the prayer room and entered, again.

“What’s so good that you’re grinning like that?”

It seemed he still had a bit of a smile on his face. As soon as he saw Kosha, Gosrick threw something at him, scolding him gruffly. It was a black sack, just big enough to fit a head inside.

“Put this on. I’ll send you home.”

“…Now?”

Kosha hesitated. So soon? …Suddenly?

“Then, what about His Highness…?”

“What about His Highness?”

“…Is he alright?”

Gosrick’s brow furrowed. Kosha, unable to gauge his expression, nervously fidgeted with the hangnails on his fingertips.

The answer came a little late.

“…Yes. Didn’t you fix him?”

“Ah.”

“Or did you do it wrong?”

“No, no!”

Kosha vehemently shook his head, waving both hands at the seemingly threatening voice.

…It’s a relief that he’s alright, but does that mean I won’t see him again? I thought I’d be able to see him at least one more time.

Just as he was lingering with a sense of regret, Gosrick seemed to read his mind and warned him sternly.

“Don’t dawdle. I’m a busy man, and he’s even busier.”

“……”

“And you should be grateful that you’re being sent back with your head still attached.”

If you put it that way, he was right. Kosha soothed his slightly empty heart with generous understanding.

“Aren’t you moving quickly?”

Gosrick yelled. Startled, Kosha immediately put the sack over his head as he was told.

The journey home was somehow more grueling than the journey when he was captured. It might have been better if he had lost consciousness when he was captured.

Gosrick roughly placed Kosha on the saddle and then rode the horse, as if he thought of Kosha as luggage rather than a person.

After a rough ride with no consideration whatsoever, Kosha barely managed to roll off the horse and had to hold onto a tree trunk for a while, retching.

“A man getting motion sickness from just that…”

Gosrick, who had only pushed Kosha off and hadn’t dismounted himself, looked at Kosha with a look of disdain.

It was a deserted village entrance. On this little path, which had become less frequented since a new main road was built, a wooden sign engraved with <Osterwick> was barely standing, almost completely worn out.

“Here.”

Something fell at Kosha’s feet as he barely wiped his mouth and caught his breath. It was a pouch that looked quite heavy.

“Take it and go home quietly.”

Gosrick said. Kosha hesitated, looking back and forth between the money pouch and the man, but Gosrick waved his hand first.

“Don’t try to argue, it’s annoying. Just think of it as hush money.”

He waved his hand. Ah, Kosha finally understood. He was a little scared as to why they would give him money when he should be grateful just to be released, but if it was hush money, he understood.

He had no intention of spreading rumors anyway, but he couldn’t afford to refuse the money. Kosha awkwardly bowed his head.

“…Thank you. I will never, ever tell anyone.”

“You better not.”

His glaring eyes scanned Kosha up and down as if warning him, then he pulled the reins and turned the horse’s head. Gee-up! With a sharp signal and a spur, the large horse leaped forward.

Gosrick disappeared as quickly as he had come.

Left alone, the events of the past few days felt like a strange dream, and Kosha stared blankly in the direction he had disappeared for a long time.

---

“Your Highness, it’s Gosrick.”

After formally showing the insignia engraved on his sword to the attendant to confirm his arrival, the heavy door creaked open. The room was already filled with close aides and staff officers.

And in the center, a man with bright blond hair stood with his back to the door. Tall, with broad shoulders and a straight posture. He would have stood out even if he were just wearing rags.

Because of that shell…. The moment his mouth felt dry again.

“That guy.”

As if he had eyes in the back of his head, he turned to face Gosrick exactly. Lucian was often overly perceptive. Gosrick bowed sharply.

“I’ve returned him.”

“Is that so?”

Lucian, who seemed to be answering absentmindedly, turned his gaze back to the document he was reading. Only after finishing what he was checking and passing the document on did he open his mouth to Gosrick.

“What did you say you did with the placement on that side?”

“I’ve had Marlon and Eydrick lie in wait.”

Lucian nodded readily, as if thinking for a moment. Both of them had experience in combat against mages. Of course, Gosrick also had plenty of experience, but he was already exposed, which made it difficult.

The ‘disposal’ of that mage was a topic of considerable debate among them.

The view that the mage should be killed to eliminate any future problems came first, followed by a plausible rebuttal that killing the mage was too dangerous in a situation where the mechanism of the magic potion ‘detoxification’ was not accurately known.

There were also claims to imprison him permanently, and claims to torture him at ease to find out who was behind him. There was also a small claim to reward him and try to appease him, but it was quickly dismissed.

‘…What if we just let him go?’

The fact that Gosrick said that there… was a minimum of human decency. Conscience, something like that.

‘Let him go?’

When Lucian asked back, he wondered if he had interfered unnecessarily.

‘I think we should let him go for now… and keep an eye on him. There’s no need to provoke the mage’s hostility by doing something like torture.’

However, Gosrick added, pretending to be nonchalant. Yes, he still had a conscience. Perhaps there was no such thing in those blue-gray eyes that stared at him as if trying to gauge him.

Anyway, that guy did his best to fulfill his duty, and it was a bit much to torture him right away….

And it wasn’t entirely wrong. A mage’s grudge is a troublesome thing. Some curses were said to survive even after the mage died. It couldn’t hurt to be careful.

Even if he was a bit… slow-witted mage.

‘Now that Your Highness has returned, there is a high possibility that the person behind the incident will approach him again. Wouldn’t it be better to take advantage of that opportunity?’

‘Aha. Opportunity.’

His neck stiffened with tension at the sarcastic tone.

‘…Osterwick, where he lives, is just around the corner, so we can detain him again in case of emergency.’

And after looking at Gosrick for a while, Lucian nodded readily for some reason. Gosrick, who had expected him to spew out some kind of venom, thought it was a bit unexpected….

‘Sir Gosrick.’

‘……’

‘Those who are not human easily bewitch humans, isn’t it time you knew that?’

Thud. A large hand came and rested on his shoulder. It looked like a light grip, but the squeezing grip was so strong that the veins on his forehead twitched without him realizing it. Besides, bewitch, that guy was too young and looked like a mangy mutt.

‘I’m not bewitched.’

‘Aren’t you?’

Or not. Lucian replied lightly. The hand gripping his shoulder slowly lost its strength, and he patted his shoulder as if encouraging him.

‘Do that, then.’

And unexpectedly, approval was given. That was how Gosrick came to return Kosha to the entrance of Osterwick village.

Mage or whatever. He didn’t know how he got caught up in this, but he hoped he would be more careful and live like a dead mouse from now on….

Then Lucian gestured for the people to leave. The usual people remained in the room, Gosrick, Pellon, and Mylotte, who had been with him since his hometown of Carlotte, his oldest confidants. Mylotte, who acted as a strategist, Pellon, who was in charge of direct protection, and Gosrick.

There were only three of them. Even if those who were not here were added, it would only be about three or four more. Compared to leading clouds of followers, he was extremely picky about choosing and bringing in people.

Lucian poured wine into a pewter cup. Mylotte frowned and interjected.

“Isn’t that strong liquor? How long has it been since you recovered? Are you really alright?”

He was the same age as Lucian, but he looked almost like an uncle because his hair had started to fall out early. He seemed quite sensitive, perhaps because his lord had suffered for about ten days from being played with by the so-called ‘Love Potion’.

Well, there must have been a lot to clean up. Lucian ‘out of control’….

“It’s only strong for you.”

However, his lord was uncooperative as always. In fact, he was considered the biggest cause of the tragedy that had befallen Mylotte’s hair.

“I’m so fine it’s amazing, so you don’t have to make that face.”

You don’t have a very good-looking face anyway, so you should at least smile—Lucian added gently. If you only listened to his voice, it sounded like praise and encouragement. Mylotte smiled soullessly.

“You’re really amazingly fine. Do as you please.”

Lucian poured the wine in the small pewter cup into his mouth and sat on the desk. His eyes scanned the faces of his vassals one by one as if checking them.

His eyes stopped at Gosrick. The blue-gray eyes were as dry as they had always been since he became an adult. The savagery that had been glistening for the past ten days had disappeared as if it had been a dream. Lucian poured another glass of wine and tilted his head.

“So, Sir Gosrick.”

“…Yes.”

“You must be very well off these days. Perhaps the salary I give you is too much?”

Gosrick clenched his hands and resisted the urge to scratch his forehead. Of course, he was paid as much as he worked, so he certainly had enough….

“Were you watching me?”

“Watching?”

Lucian laughed briefly.

“I was just worried that my loyal subordinate might be backstabbed by a cunning member of another race.”

“……”

“Want a drink?”

Lucian held out the glass. The smile was very soft and affectionate, as if it were real. Cunning another race…. Gosrick sighed and shook his head.

Yes, the money he gave the mage as hush money was his own decision.

“…He didn’t seem like the type.”

The young man’s beaten-up appearance was pitiful, and if he had been tempted by unscrupulous people because of money, he hoped he wouldn’t do that in the future.

“Anyway, didn’t he make the detoxification magic potion?”

He could not have done that.

Mages are a closed race, and magic is an unknown area to humans. Even the king’s mage, who first diagnosed Lucian’s ‘poisoning’ symptoms, was forcibly dragged in because he owed a debt, but he only managed to make a diagnosis and then ran away. That was the average for mages.

So that guy could have killed Lucian while pretending to make a detoxification magic potion. That he would willingly make a detoxification magic potion and offer it….

Honestly, no one expected things to be resolved so easily.

“Well, that’s true.”

Mylotte interjected, agreeing.

“By the way, is it done properly? Are you really alright?”

He asked obsessively, checking his condition, and Lucian just shrugged.

But he could tell without having to say it. If he hadn’t been alright, that mage would have been dead or close to death.

Besides, those embarrassing words, I’m in your debt, thank you, and so on, were clearly thrown out as a test, but they were not something that a Lucian who was not normal would bother to say.

Gosrick sighed again silently.

The most important element that made up the person Lucian, the ridiculous substance called ‘Love Potion’ or whatever had taken away from him for ten days.

There were various names he could give it, but to put it most directly, it was ‘pretense’.

The Lucian that the world knew was nothing more than a being pieced together with lies. A kind and gentle knight? The most fair and just of the king’s children, who cared for the weakest and did not turn a blind eye to the people in distress?

All, pure lies.

“I sent that idiot back nicely, didn’t I?”

Lucian said casually.

He was neither kind nor just. The people? Honestly, he didn’t care. It was just a pretty wrapping paper that his staff, including Mylotte, had planned and created by racking their brains to the point of going bald at a young age.

Wrapping paper, of course, is important. But just because you carefully wrap rotten meat in precious silk doesn’t mean it suddenly becomes fresh.

How much money, time, effort, and cost had gone into making a guy who wasn’t even human into a human? His undesirable way of speaking and his temper, which made him raise his hand whenever he didn’t like something, hadn’t fundamentally changed, but he could now act more plausibly and neatly than anyone else on the surface. He wouldn’t have been able to get this far if he hadn’t.

In that sense, the ‘Love Potion’ or whatever was very fatal. He didn’t know whether that magic had touched impulse, restraint, patience, common sense, concept, or something else—

‘Yes, Lucian, my well-to-do younger brother.’

It happened at the end of a small hunting gathering, at a dinner party hosted by Bastian, the king’s second son and eldest son. So, it was the evening of the same day he took that ‘magic potion’ in the morning.

Until then, he was doubtful. Lucian had mistakenly drunk ‘something’ in the alcohol and beat up the attendant, but that was a bit much, but it was still within a range that could be understood somehow.

Besides, the human vassals had not found any problems in the alcohol, including poison. In the end, they had no choice but to conclude that the alcohol tasted a bit strange that day or that he was tired.

Lucian had been a bit sensitive all day, but they thought it was because of the incident the night before, and since he didn’t pretend to be innocent even in front of his close aides, no one felt anything strange.

‘Lately, everyone in the world has been praising only you. Lucian, Lucian, Lucian! I’m sick of it.’

Bastian poured alcohol into his mouth and chuckled. The king’s children did not have a good relationship, and he was the type to speak like that. It was already a familiar situation, so those words could not affect Lucian.

‘You had the highest harvest in this hunt, too? You caught a wild boar with one arrow? Tell me. Did you really do it? Huh? You’re more pretentious than girls!’

Normally, he would have just pretended to be gentle and humble and moved on.

‘…You talk too much.’

So when Lucian stared straight at his half-brother and muttered that, it wasn’t just Gosrick and Mylotte, who were present, who thought they had misheard.

‘…Huh? What did you say?’

‘I said you talk too much, brother. Your voice isn’t pleasant to listen to, and you only put alcohol and food in your mouth all day, so even the smell is unpleasant. You pig-like bastard.’

At that time, Mylotte almost fainted, and Gosrick was so surprised that he froze. So Bastian’s attendant was the first to grab Lucian’s arm.

‘How dare you, what do you think you’re doing!’

‘What do I think I’m doing?’

The blue-gray eyes quickly scanned the attendant’s face and the hand that touched his arm. At that moment, Gosrick instinctively knew that he had to stop it right away.

‘What about you?’

There was no time to stop him. Long fingers grabbed the fork on the table, took the hand of the attendant who grabbed his arm, pressed it down on the table, and stabbed the back of his hand as it was.

Crack—a very bizarre sound was heard. More than half of the fork was buried in the back of the attendant’s hand, with only the tail sticking out.

No, it was just a fork. The end was a bit sharp, but it wasn’t enough to penetrate a person’s hand. It was just shoved in with force.

It took time just to understand what had happened. The attendant, who was the one whose hand had been stabbed, seemed to be the same, and the scream came out a beat late.

‘Aaaaaaah!’

With that scream, the banquet hall became as quiet as a mouse. Now Gosrick didn’t know how to handle this situation….

‘What are you doing! You, you’re now, dis, disrespectful….’