Chapter 61

“…Because we didn’t walk into a trap.”

“Ah.”

Celine’s face turned red. Leonhard was talking about something completely different.

“You don’t know how worried I was.”

“Leonhard has nothing to worry about. Now that the rebound has been released…”

“Celine.”

He interrupted her in a very serious voice.

“That’s what I’m worried about. I’m afraid the rebound will be released, and you’ll be too reckless.”

Even though Celine tried to say that she was originally reckless and that she wouldn’t just go back to the way she was before the rebound, Leonhard was a little faster.

“I don’t mean to blame you. Just…”

He hesitated for a moment.

“…I am just worried, so much so that I can’t stand it.”

Hearing those words, she gazed up at his deep eyes, as blue as the sea.

Her mouth hardly opened.

She would continue to act recklessly in the future, to prevent Leonhard’s destruction… If he had told her to stop being reckless in the future, she would have countered and said she couldn’t. Still, how should she respond to his pure worries?

“…I said something needlessly. Forget it.”

Celine shook her head.

“I’ll be careful. Really, I promise.”

While the anxiety in his eyes did not disappear, Leonhard’s stiff lips softened slightly.

“That’s a relief.”

* * *

“The Carpathia… Why is Leonhard in charge?”

Celine asked as she ate breakfast at the Grand Hotel, which was much more luxurious than when she had stayed before.

Even thinking about it all last night, she couldn’t think of any reason why he should be in charge of the evaluation of the Imperial Knights. To put it bluntly, wasn’t that what a Crown Prince or Emperor who oversees missions related to monsters and black magic was supposed to do?

Leonhard’s eyebrows twitched.

“Isn’t it natural?”

“Leonhard has nothing to do with the Knights Templar.”

“It doesn’t matter.”

He sighed before continuing his words.

“In principle, they’re like my limbs. It’s only natural that I take care of my limbs myself.”

Celine thought that it didn’t seem like something he should do though she asked only the necessary questions.

“Then, before Leonhard?”

“There has never been anyone like me before.”

Listening to his words, her head grew more and more confused.

“What kind of person like Leonhard?”

“That is… don’t you know?”

At that, he was so embarrassed that he nearly dropped the jam-packed white bread, but Celine just nodded her head seriously.

“I don’t know.”

Leonhard answered with a slightly blank expression.

“Yes… It could be my arrogance.”

He glared at the knife gleaming in the reflection of the morning sun.

He had expected that she didn’t know about Carpathia, but Celine bizarrely knew nothing. It wasn’t something incomprehensible. Nonetheless, it was just that he didn’t know where to begin to explain to the person who had become so important to him now.

“Baron Elmer’s son, you remember?”

Celine nodded her head.

Perhaps, she will never forget the voice of a child in the dark for the rest of her life.

“That was the case with me.”

“….!”

“When I was born, the prophets of the entire Empire united to say that I was destined to destroy the North.”

The blue-grey eyes grew large and began to tremble out of control.

“However, Father ignored it… Instead, he taught me to stay away from magic as soon as he discovered that I had magical powers.”

Leonhard let out a bitter smile.

“Of course… Now and then, I was not a very obedient child, but I didn’t have the courage to openly defy father’s words.”

The method the young Leonhard Bernoulli came up with was to have something to use the magic for other than him. Nonetheless, the stones and wood were too weak to contain the magic power properly and crumbled.

What he found was metal.

…Among them, the sword.

“Being a magic swordsman was like a cow walking backwards and catching a mouse.”

It was against nature to suppress the original magic and use magic as a medium.

The last recorded magic sword in history was a human weapon made to win the war more than three hundred years ago. At that time, there were about a thousand children with magical powers who were semi-forced to make a magic swordsman.

Only one of them survived.

But at the time, Leonhard thought it was just a strange game.

“Even though I thought it was my own little secret, it soon came to light. Even to the presence of His Highness Ricardo.”

Celine’s body shook.

As expected, that sly Crown Prince…!

“At that time, how old were you?”

“On my tenth birthday.”

“….”

Celine lost her words.

While she knew well enough that the Crown Prince was trash, he was such an inhuman scum that he trained a ten-year-old to strike down enemies.

Leonhard smiled bitterly.

“Don’t look at me with those eyes, because I was fifteen when I first killed a warlock. His Highness Ricardo is not that cruel.”

“You’ve been trained since then!”

Celine was taken aback, and she shouted.

“Besides, isn’t fifteen too young?”

Fifteen, at the age of middle school at most. Celine remembered the emotions she had when she first helped kill a warlock. It was a feeling that no fifteen-year-olds should experience, whether in this world or the other world.

“I was young. That was not enough.”

There was remorse in Leonhard’s voice.

“Anyway, the day it was revealed that I could cut down a warlock as easily as the magic swordsman in the history books, all the Knights of the Imperial Family were unofficially under my command.”

“…Officially?”

“Officially, I am nothing.”

Saying that, he shrugged his shoulders.

“But practically, all the knights of the Imperial Family must come to me whenever I summon them. Of course, the Carpathia became my business.”

Celine frowned.

The authority that Leonhard held was very large when she heard the explanation. However, had the Imperial Knights ever been of any help to him?

“Do they have…anything to do?”

“No.”

Leonhard sighed.

“It’s been a long time since I told them to just rest because they’re only trying to hide behind me. It’s cumbersome.”

“Then, why this time…”

“They can’t stand it.”

Celine nodded her head as she recalled the knight’s commander she had met at Agathirsus.

“It’s understandable.”

“And…”

Leonhard hesitated for a moment.

“Because they haven’t been able to rest properly.”

The corners of Celine’s lips rose.

“I’m fine. Thanks to you, I can stay in such a luxurious place. The hotel must have been relieved.”

“I’m happy if you’re satisfied.”

He still looked dissatisfied.

“If it wasn’t originally a hunting contest, what was it?”

“I gave it to His Highness Ricardo after giving them a moderate score based on performance. Then, His Highness chose it.”

Celine bit her lip.

“…This time, they will roll to the brink of death.”

“Even if you don’t say anything, they will do it. Being a Carpathia is a great honor.”

“What if the Crown Prince opposes the hunting contest?”

“He would rather welcome it. As long as they kill a lot of monsters, it doesn’t matter what they do.”

* * *

“Commander, what do you mean?”

The members of the Paradiso Knights opened their mouths in unison.

“Are you all deaf? This Carpathia is decided by a hunting contest.”

In an instant, the training ground became noisy with a deafening noise.

“…A hunting contest?”

“Are you saying that we should catch an elk?”

“You fool, it must be a monster.”

“It’s our job to catch monsters, but does a context make sense?”

Most of them threw one word at a time with an absurd look.

“It was the Lord’s decision.”

Bart, the commander of the Paradiso Knights, explained with a sigh.

“Isn’t there a border area with the principality? It seems that he was planning to wipe out a group of monsters one by one in the name of a contest.”

The knights became quiet in an instant.

The hordes of monsters nesting on the border with the Principality have been a troublemaker for a long time, but the main damage was seen by the people of the Principality, so the Empire continued to delay its collapse.

“It wouldn’t be that hard.”

“It is not difficult if all the knights are mobilized.”

Bart cut off the uneasiness that arose among his members along with the murmur.

“The destruction has been delayed, and it has not been neglected. The boss monster is there. In the worst case, the Lord would come.”

“…Is he aiming for victory?”

“Of course not.”

Bart grinned.

“Then, it could be an opportunity for us.”

A blush appeared on the members’ faces. The Paradiso Knights had never become the Carpathia in nearly twenty years.

“Yes.”

Bart nodded his head.

“I don’t know what kind of whim he has… In fact, in the meantime, the Carpathia has only been called a Carpathia by name. Everything was done by the Lord.”

“That’s what I heard.”

One stepped out in high spirits.

“It is said that the Lord, who was enjoying a banquet in the north, was suddenly summoned. But when the Lord came, he heard that it was a mere shell and that he got angry.”

“Haa.”

Sighs came from all over the place.

Leonhard Bernoulli embarked on a mission no matter how dangerous, but he hated being called in just for a shell. Wasn’t that the reason why Grand Duke Bernoulli had gone to the north with all the subordinates three years ago in a rebellion?

“Who are the idiots who feared the shell and reported it as a warlock?”

“The Hobson boys.”

The training ground was buzzing with blatant ridicule.

“If I belonged there, I would have bitten my tongue and died by now.”

After ridiculing them, Bart returned to a businesslike attitude.

“So, let’s do our best this time. It’s an opportunity that may never come again.”

The Paradiso Knights started training with the most energetic attitude in recent years. The gray flag with palm trees, the emblem of the Knights, flew more vigorously than ever before.

Four days later.

The hunting contest that will determine the Carpathia had begun. The sight of all knights belonging to the imperial family except for the Guards was truly spectacular.

Admiration escaped Celine’s lips.

The orderly arrangement of the knights and the waving of flags engraved with colorful patterns for each order seemed to appear only in movies. It was said that the wizards of the imperial family stayed up all night to gather these personnel to the border area in four days.

“Cool…”

They stood on a cliff overlooking the border.

The official organizer of the hunting competition was also the Crown Prince, so there was no need for Leonhardt to appear. Though Leonhard had to be in a position where he could immediately notice in the event of an emergency, so he looked down with her in search of a cliff of a suitable height.

The Crown Prince’s voice, amplified by magic, resounded resoundingly.

“The Knights that showed the most outstanding skills in this tournament will be the Carpathia.”

The Crown Prince spoke slowly.

“If anyone loses their life here, the Knight’s order will be disqualified, so know everyone’s life should not be wasted.”

Celine glanced up at Leonhard with a smirk.

“Is it Leonhard’s idea?”

“Yes.”

Leonhardt readily admitted.

“If we don’t put such a provision, there will be a lot of commanders who will sacrifice an easy subordinate without a need as a living sacrifice.”

After a while, the Crown Prince listed all the areas he assigned to the Knights.

Thousands of horses started running in all directions, raising dust clouds.