The Standard of a Monster

“You’re aggressive, and you don’t hold a grudge against those you’ve acknowledged—is that it?”

I caught his sword and pushed upward with force. I had dropped my stance, gripping the pommel with my other hand, ready to follow up with an attack the moment an opening appeared. However, the sword I clashed with felt much lighter than I had expected.

“Uh…?”

To be honest, I truly only intended to parry him lightly; I didn’t mean to send his weapon flying like that. Blodgett’s sword spun through the air and hit the floor with a loud, ringing clang.

Frozen, Blodgett slowly turned his head to look at my sword. He glanced at his own discarded blade, then at my hand, and finally back at my face. The first thing that escaped his lips was a weak, hollow laugh.

When I suggested we go again—thinking his grip might have been weakened from being hit on the wrist—Blodgett snorted. He claimed the match was already over and saw no reason to drag it out, yet his eyes were smoldering even more than before. At this rate, they looked ready to turn bloodshot.

“You look small, thin, and pretty, so I wondered if you could even hold a sword properly. You’re quite something. I suppose being taught by the Vice Commander of the Silver Hawk Knights makes one special.”

His sarcasm, even using the alias of the Candilhas, lacked the composure he had earlier. It was annoying, but I didn’t take much offense, as it seemed like his way of salvaging what was left of his pride. He was just a kid, after all; losing in front of his crew must have stung. It showed decent patience that he didn’t just throw a punch or try to have his friends jump me after his sword was sent flying.

However, just because I was fine with it didn’t mean Elliot was going to keep his mouth shut.

“I heard Lovenus was a trend-setting city, so I naturally assumed news traveled fast here. I suppose word hasn’t reached you yet that the youngest of the Edwill family is being tutored by Edward Spellman. It’s been quite a while, but I understand. I was a bit surprised, but I understand.”

“What?”

Blodgett, who had been trying to regain his initial smirk, stiffened. His face turned sharp, like a cracking mask, as he glared at me.

“Don’t lie. Edward Spellman was the Grand Commander of the Imperial Knights.”

“If you think it’s a lie, you can just ask your uncle. If he’s a proper knight, he should know that much.”

Ultimately, Blodgett led his friends away with heavy, angry strides. I watched their retreating backs and spoke to Elliot.

“I thought the point was to get close to them?”

“After this, even if you don’t go looking for them, they’ll be chasing you every day.”

As he spoke, the smile on Elliot’s face looked downright villainous.

11. An Angelic Face

Just as Elliot predicted, Seth Blodgett showed his face every single day. Blodgett would challenge me to a duel, I would accept, I would win, and he would shout that he wouldn’t lose next time. After repeating this cycle until it became routine, I had become well-acquainted with the Blodgett group in less than a week.

One morning, Elliot vanished early after hearing that foreign goods had arrived at a merchant guild he’d discovered. While I was finishing a meal alone on the first floor of the hotel, a familiar head of red hair approached.

“Morning, Blodgett. You’re here early.”

“Hmph.”

Blodgett turned his head away as if he didn’t even want to speak to me, but then began nagging when he saw the sandwich I was munching on.

“Eating so poorly is why your height is stuck to the floor.”

I was perfectly average height. He was just exceptionally tall for a fourteen-year-old. However, I didn’t have the energy to explain the height variations of the adolescent growth spurt. Even if I did, he’d probably just counter with, ‘I was way taller than you even at that age!’

Still, nagging about my meal while acting like he hated me… it was actually kind of cute.

I let out a hearty laugh, burying the memory of when I first encountered this classic tsundere character and asked Erkel if Seth Blodgett was a major character—only to receive the reply: [Who’s that?]

I finished the thick-cut salmon sandwich and followed Blodgett. His family had been prominent figures in Lovenus for generations, and his father had provided him with a spacious training hall and expensive instructors.

I exchanged nods with the rest of the Blodgett group, who now treated me like a friend. Among them was a face I hadn’t seen before. With honey-thick blonde hair, rosy cheeks, delicate eyelashes, and blue eyes, he looked exactly like an angel from a classic painting.

“Who’s that?”

Seth Blodgett pouted but answered the question nonetheless.

“Kyle Berinnon.”

Kyle Berinnon? The name sounded familiar. It took a moment of digging through my memory before I recalled that he was Elliot’s distant relative—the one Elliot had flatly judged as having a “terrible first impression.”

Taking after his father, perhaps, Kyle Berinnon looked quite different from his mother. He gave me a soft smile. It was a lovely smile that suited his pretty face, but stuck between all those hulking brutes, he looked out of place. I was torn between the angelic boy I saw before me and Elliot’s sharp intuition.

As I was observing Berinnon, Blodgett urged me on. He was already standing in the center of the training ground with his sword drawn. Seeing him practically vibrate with the desire to clash made him seem rather adorable. I readily stepped into the ring. The training ground, which had its own dedicated caretaker, was perfectly maintained—the floor was dry but not brittle.

Blodgett’s swordsmanship was becoming increasingly tenacious. Since this was also my first time sparring with someone my own age, I found the experience genuinely enjoyable. I learned a few things through these bouts: first, that Blodgett wasn’t bad, and second, that my own skills weren’t half-bad either.

I thought back to my spars with my master, where I tasted nothing but defeat, or that day at the festival. In the former, the skill gap was too overwhelming; in the latter, the numbers were too overwhelming. I hadn’t been able to gauge how I compared to my peers. Surrounded by monsters like Leo, Spellman, and the Knight Commander of Kahillm, Kisar Tessa, I felt weak by comparison. But now, I felt a glimmer of hope that I might actually become a decent knight.

Yes, my standards had simply been too high. Those men were among the elite in an Empire where knights were as common as grains of sand on a beach. It wasn’t like I needed to become a one-man army, anyway. Being reasonably good would be enough.

A bit of movement was enough to make me sweat. As I went to wipe my forehead with my sleeve, someone handed me a handkerchief. It was Kyle Berinnon.

He spoke with a gentle smile.

“Hi. You must be Llewellyn. I’m Kyle. Kyle Berinnon.”

“I don’t recall giving you permission to use my name.”

I decided to trust my friend Elliot’s gut feeling and drew a firm line. His slender hand, which looked like it had never gripped a sword, dropped weakly. I could see his downcast eyelashes trembling. His reaction was so fragile and timid that it gave me a twinge of guilt. Elliot said he felt “off” and uncomfortable, but wasn’t this boy just a pitiful little animal?

“I’m sorry. I was being rude.”

“Not really. No need to apologize.”

I felt a prick of unease, as if I had become the bully. I expected him to snap back if I acted tough, but he didn’t. Feeling awkward, I feigned ignorance and made my exit.

Elliot didn’t return to the hotel until evening. When I offered him dinner, he declined and drank cold tea with a weary face. Seeing him look so stressed, I hesitated before speaking.

“How was it? Are the foreign goods different?”

“The styles are different, but that’s true even if you just cross a few cities within the Empire, so that wasn’t surprising…”

Tapping the armrest of his chair with his index fingernail, Elliot tossed a box toward me. I caught it and opened it to find jewelry—necklaces and rings. Every piece was flashy and featured high-quality cuts. I picked up a brooch and held it up to the light. The gem, which looked like a sapphire, shimmered with a strange hue when hit by the light. It was a magic artifact.

“I know you don’t have a talent for magic, but you’re the brother of a mage recognized by the Magic Tower, so you should be better at this than I am.”

“You’re better at judging the quality.”

Though I was close to Abel since we were nearest in age, I didn’t know the specifics of his work. Even after he got home, he usually stayed in his private lab, clutching his head in frustration. At most, he’d occasionally show me something cool.

Still, I checked it using my shallow but broad knowledge. I ran my thumb over it with light pressure, feeling a slightly bumpy texture. Both the inside and outside were well-finished; it wasn’t too soft or too hard, but had a moderate suppleness. I wasn’t an expert, so I’d need to check for fakes separately, but I assumed Elliot had already handled that.

“This isn’t an enchantment on a gemstone; it’s a mana stone, isn’t it?”

“Which is why I couldn’t sweep up the whole stock.”

Elliot clicked his tongue, lamenting the limits of the capital he could mobilize on short notice.

“Where did you say today’s goods came from? El-Sevet?”

“Yeah. Most of them.”

The Empire, boasting a massive territory, had swallowed up most of the continent. Because their own land was so vast, the people of the Empire had little interest in foreign nations, and information about them was scarce. “Foreign countries” were usually just small city-state kingdoms, unless they belonged to other races.

Perhaps it was different in a place like Lovenus where foreign exchange was active, but the capital nobles tended to believe their glory was eternal and didn’t waste time learning foreign culture or history. Even I, who was confident in having taken the elite course for imperial nobility, only knew the locations, names, and current royal families of places outside the Empire.

But perhaps because of the unique people I surrounded myself with, I had overheard a fair bit—and the Magic Republic of El-Sevet was no exception.

“That’s a bit strange.”