Chapter 2 – The Bastard of Westphalen (2)
The moment I arrived in front of the lord’s manor, I was stopped by a knight and several guards.
The knight stepped forward with one hand resting on the hilt of his sword, while the guards pointed their spears at me.
“Young Master Eric? What brings you here at this hour? And on horseback, no less.”
“I have something urgent to report to the lord. Inform him that I’m here.”
“Please tell me what the matter is first. Once I judge the situation, I’ll decide whether it is necessary to contact the lord.”
Still sitting on my horse, I looked down at the knight.
“What’s your name?”
“Knight Lawrence.”
“This isn’t something Sir Lawrence needs to hear, nor is it something for you to judge.”
Perhaps my words offended him.
Lawrence suddenly grabbed my horse’s reins and yanked them hard.
Neighhh!
The exhausted horse staggered helplessly from the force.
Anger immediately surged through me.
“What the hell are you doing?!”
Still holding the reins, Lawrence replied.
“Reporting matters to the lord is the responsibility of the knight on duty.”
So that was it.
He thought he was the one with the authority to decide.
How ridiculous.
He was merely standing in front of a door, yet he was already trying to throw around the tiny bit of power he had been given.
Still, I didn’t have time to waste wrestling with this bastard.
“This is an important matter. I’ll report it directly to the lord.”
I immediately jumped off my horse and headed toward the entrance.
“Stop right there!”
Lawrence hurried after me and reached for my shoulder.
I twisted my body and easily avoided his hand.
Maybe he was startled.
Or perhaps his pride had been hurt.
Either way, Lawrence crossed the line.
“Well, look at you.”
I stopped walking.
No matter if he was the knight on duty or not, I was still a noble.
More importantly, I was the count’s son.
A mere knight had no right to speak to me like that.
I immediately turned around and snapped at him.
“What did you say, bastard? You wanna die?”
“Did you just call a senior knight a bastard?”
I stared directly into Lawrence’s eyes.
Lawrence didn’t back down and glared right back.
He had called himself a senior knight.
That meant he commanded twelve knights and was at least an intermediate-level Sword Expert.
Maybe Lawrence believed that his position was important enough that even the count’s son couldn’t casually mess with him.
Unfortunately for him, I wasn’t the kind of weakling who would simply let something like this slide.
Shing.
Lawrence pulled the longsword from his scabbard, but instead of taking out the blade, he held the empty scabbard in his hand.
A knight’s scabbard was made sturdy enough to be used as a weapon in an emergency.
It was practically a club.
From the look in his eyes, he intended to beat me senseless before letting me enter the manor.
“Trying to force your way past the knight on duty... It seems the young master, being a mere ‘bastard son,’ is in need of some discipline.”
I pulled the scabbard from my arming sword as well.
His words had gotten under my skin too.
“Come on, then. Come at me.”
I curled my finger toward him.
Lawrence immediately swung his scabbard down at me.
I struck it once to kill its momentum, then pressed my own scabbard against his.
We both gripped our scabbards with two hands and began a contest of strength.
However, my strength was far greater than Lawrence had expected.
Slowly, he began to get pushed backward.
“Ugh! What kind of strength is this?!”
“If you’re scared, turn on your aura and come at me.”
Even though I had no special talent, I had never neglected my training.
I wasn’t afraid of the strength and swordsmanship of knights who relied too heavily on aura.
As I continued increasing the pressure, Lawrence began to panic.
The soldiers watching us couldn’t hide their surprise either.
“Is Sir Lawrence actually getting pushed back?”
“He’s incredible. He looks stronger than a knight, and he seems better with a sword too.”
“I thought he was just some sheltered young master. Who knew he was hiding that kind of strength?”
They had whispered quietly, but their words still reached Lawrence’s ears.
And clearly provoked him.
Maybe he thought he couldn’t allow himself to be humiliated by a mere bastard son.
Suddenly, Lawrence tried to rotate his scabbard toward my head.
No.
The exact moment he tried—
An opening!
For that split second, the strength he was using to resist me weakened.
I shot one step forward and drove my fist straight into Lawrence’s face.
Thud!
“Ghk!”
Lawrence went tumbling across the ground.
Blood immediately poured from both nostrils.
Not only Lawrence, but even the soldiers watching were shocked.
Lawrence wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand and sprang to his feet.
“Uraaagh!”
With a strange roar, he launched three consecutive thrusts at me.
Tak! Tak! Tak!
I casually deflected all three.
I could read every single path of his attacks.
Even his footwork practically screamed,
I’m going to stab right here.
His attacks were so pathetic that I almost felt disappointed.
Martin could do much better than this.
“Hey! No-mance! Is this really all a senior knight can do?!”
“Ghk! My name is Lawrence! Here I come again!”
Lawrence thrust his scabbard forward once more.
This time, I didn’t bother deflecting it.
Instead, I stepped diagonally forward and slipped past the thrust.
At the same time, I swung my scabbard downward.
My target was Lawrence’s hand.
Tak!
“Aagh!”
The sudden pain made Lawrence drop his scabbard.
Unlike an actual sword, a scabbard didn’t have a crossguard to protect the hand.
If he had been holding a real sword, he wouldn’t have injured his hand.
Lawrence simply hadn’t thought that far ahead.
The soldiers watching were amazed.
“Whoa... He’s completely outmatched.”
“No one would believe us if we said an ordinary person beat the crap out of a knight.”
“Isn’t he strong enough to beat the knight commander too?”
I began repeatedly smashing Lawrence with my scabbard.
It was time to properly educate this arrogant knight.
Thud! Smack! Thud! Smack! Thud-thud!
“How! Does! It! Feel! To! Get! Humiliated! No-mance! Senior! Knight!”
“Ugh! Ack! Gah!”
One hit for every word.
After being humiliated like that, Lawrence finally reached his limit.
He activated his aura.
Wooooong—
A faint vibrating sound filled the air as blue energy surrounded Lawrence’s body.
Unable to control his anger, he even picked up his longsword.
I immediately stepped outside the sword’s attack range.
I had no intention of risking my life over something this stupid.
“What the hell, No-mance? A knight is suddenly going to cheat?”
Blood streaming from both nostrils, Lawrence pointed his sword at me.
“If you don’t shut that mouth right now—”
That was when a low voice rang out.
“Stop.”
Aura was infused into the voice.
Everyone who heard it immediately turned toward the speaker.
Lawrence made a dumbfounded sound.
“Huh? My Lord?”
Standing there was my father.
The lord of this territory.
Count Michael Marcel Westphalen.
The moment Lawrence saw him, he seemed to come back to his senses.
He quickly lowered his longsword and stepped back.
One reckless move in front of the lord could bring down punishment far worse than anything I had done.
For a moment, silence fell over the area.
The one who eventually broke it was my father, Count Michael.
“Eric. What is all this commotion about?”
He actually called me by name.
It had been so long that I almost wondered whether my father even remembered my name.
“I have something to report to you, my lord. It is both urgent and important.”
I immediately got to the point.
Father quietly studied my face.
“Have you continued your sword training?”
Apparently, he had been watching my fight with Lawrence from the beginning.
“Yes, my lord.”
“What a pity...”
There was something in his voice.
Regret, perhaps.
Or lingering disappointment.
He probably left out the rest of the sentence.
What a pity that you have no talent as a knight.
Even I knew that if I had possessed talent for aura, I probably would have become a Sword Master long ago.
Father turned away and spoke again.
“Follow me.”
I followed him to his office.
As soon as he sat on the sofa, he urged me to begin.
“Tell me. You said it was urgent.”
“Yes, my lord. The tax collection party I was traveling with was attacked. Everyone was poisoned to death, then turned into zombies by dark mages of unknown affiliation.”
Father leaned back against the sofa.
“Dark mages...”
He stroked his chin in thought for a moment before our eyes met.
“How are you still alive?”
“It seems I ate less of the poisoned food than everyone else.”
Without the slightest change in expression, Father continued questioning me.
“I see. Then what do you think about this incident?”
What a ridiculous question.
His son had just told him that he had been poisoned.
Instead of worrying about me, he was asking for my opinion.
Seriously? And why are you asking me? You’re the lord. You should figure it out.
When I remained silent, Father pressed me again.
“Do you have no opinion of your own?”
I knew he was provoking me.
Still, I couldn’t just stay quiet after hearing that.
“I believe Pfalz is behind it.”
The Pfalz territory bordered Westphalen, and relations between the two territories were extremely poor.
The conflict was especially severe over the area surrounding Zigen Village.
Pfalz claimed that the land had once belonged to them and demanded that it be returned.
Father continued.
“What method do you think they intend to use?”
“They probably want to turn the area into disputed territory. More specifically, I think they’ll summon priests from the Sun God Church, show them the zombified tax collectors, and use the incident to manipulate public opinion.”
“Manipulate public opinion?”
“They’ll claim that such unholy events are happening because Westphalen governs Zigen. If the situation escalates, they may station troops there under the excuse of protecting Zigen and the surrounding villages, or even provoke several small local battles before attempting to absorb the area.”
Apparently satisfied with my answer, Father continued questioning me.
“And if we request arbitration from the imperial family?”
“The imperial family is also deeply devoted to the Sun God Church. In this situation, there is a good chance they would side with Pfalz.”
Father frowned.
Obviously, it wasn’t something he wanted to hear.
“Then tell me what countermeasures we can take.”
“There are two immediate options.”
I raised a finger.
“First, destroy the evidence. Leave immediately, burn the zombified people and the campsite, then pretend we know nothing.”
A second finger went up.
“Second, bribery. We should make a rather generous donation to the cardinal of the Sun God Church. That should at least convince him to remain neutral.”
I paused for a breath.
“I recommend doing both at the same time.”
Then I continued.
“And if possible, the best option would be to capture the dark mages and hand them over to the cardinal. If the cardinal’s standing within the church rises because of this incident, he’ll have a reason to support us.”
Perhaps Father hadn’t expected me to answer so thoroughly.
He stared at me for a while before ringing the handbell on his desk.
Ring, ring.
A servant soon entered after hearing the bell.
“Call the knight commander.”
“Yes, my lord.”
The servant quickly left.
Father walked over to me and stopped right in front of me.
Then he grabbed both of my arms and looked up at my face.
What’s with this all of a sudden? This is embarrassing.
“You’ve grown quite a lot.”
“It is thanks to your grace, my lord.”
Father had a slim build and stood around 170 centimeters tall.
Meanwhile, I was a sturdy 185 centimeters.
I couldn’t even remember the last time the two of us had stood face-to-face like this.
Back then, I had been much shorter than him.
Father frowned slightly.
“Stop calling me ‘my lord.’ From now on, call me Father.”
“Yes, my lo— Father.”
Summer ended ages ago. Did this man suddenly get hit by a late heatwave or something?
Ever since my aptitude test when I was three years old, we had barely spoken privately.
And now he was suddenly telling me to call him Father.
It was a word I had never called him before in my life.
“When is your coming-of-age ceremony?”
“The tenth of next month. About two weeks from now.”
So he didn’t even remember his own child’s birthday.
Instead of feeling hurt, I almost laughed at how ridiculous it was.
Maybe that was because I had already been worn down by life quite a bit myself.
Father checked the schedule lying on his desk and nodded.
Then he spoke again.
“I will send the knight commander personally to destroy the evidence. Can I leave the meeting with the cardinal of the Sun God Church to you?”
I had ridden through the night, and now I was being sent on another trip.
I wasn’t exactly thrilled.
Still, this concerned the territory where I lived.
For the sake of my peaceful and comfortable future, I decided to accept.
“Yes. I’ll prepare to leave immediately.”
“Tell the head steward whatever you need.”
I bowed respectfully to Father and left.
I had already wasted too much time fighting with Knight Lawrence.
Every moment mattered.
I immediately headed toward the head steward’s office.
The head steward seemed to have just arrived for work when he greeted me.
“Young Master, what brings you here...”
“The lord will probably summon you soon. Take this drawing with you when you go.”
Without waiting for his response, I grabbed a blank sheet of paper and quickly drew the location of the campsite and the mountain hideout used by the dark mages.
“What is this?”
“It seems knights will be sent to these locations. Give it to the lord or the knight commander.”
“Very well.”
I hesitated.
“Um... and one more thing.”
“Please, speak freely.”
Feeling slightly embarrassed, I cleared my throat.
“Ahem. Give me some travel expenses...”
I paused.
Then added,
“...and some money for bribes.”
The head steward blinked.
“Excuse me?”
