Chapter 72
There were several reasons why Yuriene designated Cadet Ekinesia Roaz as his Squire.
The first was to protect the Roaz family.
Now that the Demon Sword, which should have caused a massacre, had disappeared without a trace, the Emperor and the Second Prince would be suspiciously watching the Roaz family.
There was no way to immediately dispel that suspicion. But he couldn't just leave it alone either.
They were his father and brother, who had tried to cause a massacre using the Demon Sword as part of a mere show. He couldn't even guess what they might do while harboring suspicion.
So, it was better to create a reasonable reason for the Demon Sword to have vanished.
That reason could be Yuriene himself. To make them think that he had somehow dealt with the Demon Sword sent to the Roaz family.
She was a scapegoat chosen purely because of Yuriene's interest, and since she had escaped the massacre, the Roaz family couldn't deny their connection to Yuriene anyway.
In this situation, it was better to create an official relationship rather than leaving things ambiguous.
Making her his Squire was the fastest and safest choice. If it became known that the Azure Knights' captain of the royal guard had a Squire from that family, it would be harder to recklessly touch them.
The second was surveillance of the Demon Sword.
Yuriene had seen Ekinesia succumb to the accumulated murderous intent of the Demon Sword and commit unintentional killings several times. She controlled the Demon Sword almost perfectly, but she made mistakes when she was emotionally shaken. And every time she made a mistake, she regretted it terribly, and even harmed herself.
As time passed, she became more accustomed to the Demon Sword, and such incidents decreased, but the murderous intent continued to accumulate.
He learned about the situation because he had overheard her talking to the Demon Sword. He couldn't hear the Demon Sword's voice, but he could roughly guess the conversation just from what she said.
A person cannot always perfectly maintain their reason. He wanted to stop her if such a thing happened.
To do so, he had to be as close as possible. Making her his Squire was advantageous because he could keep her by his side and watch over her.
As the owner of the Holy Sword, preventing accidental killings was a natural thing to do. But more than that, he didn't want her to blame herself.
If she was so angry that she lost her reason and became consumed by murderous intent, the victim was often not innocent either. At least, that was the case in the instances he had seen.
Of course, that didn't mean killing was okay, but Yuriene never wanted to see her cut her own hand again because of such a thing. Rangiosa would be horrified if he knew that his master was going insane.
And the last and biggest reason was, ultimately, his desire.
To be closer. In his first life, he hadn't even had a conversation with her, but this time, he wanted to get a little closer. He didn't want to just keep watching anymore.
After three days of agonizing, Yuriene made a plan for what to do in the future. And he decided to designate Ekinesia Roaz as his Squire as soon as she entered the academy.
This was even before the selection test results were out. Vice-Captain Baron was dumbfounded, but there were no major procedural problems. The paperwork was ready, and all he had to do was stamp it as soon as she entered the academy.
He felt a little nervous after preparing to welcome her as his Squire. No, actually, he was quite nervous. He was finally going to meet someone he had been watching all along, so it would be strange if he wasn't nervous.
'Should I prepare a gift or something?'
It was a sudden impulse, but he immediately put it into action without hesitation. When he thought of it as her first gift, a sword immediately came to mind.
Ekinesia had been using cheap swords throughout her time gathering Giosa. When the blade was chipped, she would throw it away and buy the cheapest one again.
She was at a level where she wasn't restricted by the quality of her weapon, and she could use the Demon Sword when she needed to do her best, so there were no major problems.
Still, he thought it would be more convenient if she used a good sword. It would be troublesome to throw it away and buy a new one every time.
A sword was the most common gift a Lord gave to his Squire, so it also had the advantage of not appearing to be a gift with ulterior motives. Yuriene didn't realize that he already had plenty of ulterior motives at the point when he was making such considerations.
'If possible, something elegant that suits her, and since she seems to be reminded of bad memories whenever she sees a sword, I should enchant it so that she doesn't have to bother maintaining it...'
The expressions that occasionally became blurry and broken when he took out Rangiosa and stared blankly at it. The way she shuddered and threw the sword away after swinging it. The way she picked it up with the intention of maintaining it, then flinched at the sight of the dried blood and threw the sword away.
Watching her, he couldn't help but know. That she didn't really like swords.
In fact, it wasn't that she hated swords themselves, but rather that she hated the nightmares that came to mind when she saw them. It was hard to truly hate the thing she was best at.
So Yuriene made a special request to the Magic Tower. He requested magical craftsmanship from the Magic Tower of the Southern Kingdom, as he was reluctant to use the Imperial Magic Tower, and hired a blacksmith to create a sword while personally interfering with the blueprints.
There was no limit to the budget, so it cost a great deal of money, but he had a considerable amount of wealth accumulated because he had never really coveted anything or indulged in luxury, so there was no problem. He spent money like water for the first time.
[...You seem to have changed a bit.]
The Holy Sword muttered sullenly. Yuriene replied nonchalantly.
"Isn't it natural to change? Wasn't that why you hesitated to show me those memories?"
He had never seen anyone as amazing as her in his entire life. She was such a radiant being, and it would have been stranger if he had remained the same before and after knowing her.
Anyone who learned about her would be captivated. He sincerely believed that. Rangiosa gave up and shut his mouth.
After entrusting the production of the sword, Yuriene tried to find out why Ekinesia Roaz had become a Military Cadet. But he couldn't read her mind, so there was no way to know why she had come to Ajenka.
So he decided to use a means that was unbecoming of the owner of the Holy Sword.
[So you're going to do a background check now.]
"I don't want to be as stupid and ignorant as I used to be."
[Good excuse, but it's still a background check. Even using an organization.]
"Why, is it an evil deed?"
[...It's not quite an evil deed.]
The Holy Sword grumbled unhappily.
Yuriene quietly visited the port city of Olavarte. Olavarte was the city where the headquarters of the largest and most secretive organization in the Empire, called 'Wedge,' was located.
Yuriene originally didn't know much about this organization. He knew of its existence, but he didn't know how to request their services or how they were structured. The Azure Knights were too high up to care about organizations like Wedge, and Yuriene himself had walked too straight a path to get involved with the dirty underworld.
He learned about Wedge thanks to Ekinesia's memories that Rangiosa had shown him. The organization she had visited to obtain information about the Giosa in the erased time was right here. The very organization that had been smashed by her for insulting the Azure Knights.
Until now, the means of obtaining information that Yuriene could use were difficult to hide from the Imperial family. He used his connections, the members who went on missions, the informants belonging to the royal guard, and the merchants of Ajenka.
But the underworld organization was different. If you paid them well, you could request an investigation without being caught by the Imperial family.
[My master is going to request something from an underworld organization instead of going to subjugate them. I've lived a long time, so I'm seeing all sorts of things.]
Yuriene ignored Rangiosa's complaints and went to find the organization. He pulled down his hood and went into a bar in the back alley, ordering two beers and baked potatoes for himself. After making wedge-shaped cuts in the potatoes, he called the employee and demanded that they bring him new ones because the potatoes were undercooked.
"We apologize for serving you undercooked potatoes. The chef wants to apologize in person. Would you like to follow me for a moment?"
It was Wedge's invitation. The process of finding the organization and requesting their services was very easy thanks to seeing what Ekinesia had gone through. Besides, she didn't have much money back then, so it was difficult to make a request, but Yuriene had a lot of money.
Wedge was very generous to clients who paid a lot of money. They didn't even try to find out the identity of the client who was wearing a hood.
Yuriene requested several investigations from them.
The first was, of course, about the Roaz family. The family's history, the direct descendants, and the current general situation of the family. Ekinesia Roaz was the most important, but Yuriene deliberately requested an overall investigation so that it wouldn't seem like she was his only target.
The second was about the Pelletro family. He didn't care if attention was drawn to this one, so he specifically named a person. He asked them to investigate Ian Pelletro.
The plan he had made after realizing that time had been turned back included things other than just her.
The time that had been turned back was three and a half years. As the captain of the royal guard, he knew quite a lot of information about the future. He selected the incidents that absolutely had to be changed from among them.
The most representative was the Monster subjugation that would take place this year. A rare catastrophe in the Azure Knights where more than twenty people died. Even Baron's Squire, Baraha Islaff, died at that time.
It was caused by a sudden Specter attack, and on the surface, it was just an unfortunate accident. But Yuriene, who had True Sight, had a hunch. He was certain that Baraha's death was not an accident that occurred during the catastrophe, but a deliberate murder.
When he reported Baraha's death to him, Ian Pelletro's soul was dyed black with malice and rejoicing.
[You shouldn't punish someone based on True Sight alone without evidence. That's not right. It's okay to have bad thoughts, they're human. It becomes a sin when you put it into action.]
That was what Rangiosa had said to Yuriene, who was suspicious of Ian. Yuriene agreed with that opinion. So he secretly investigated Ian Pelletro, but he didn't leave any evidence. Perhaps he had become more cautious after that incident, as Ian was particularly careful.
He couldn't punish him without evidence. In the end, Yuriene had to watch Ian Pelletro be appointed as a Knight.
But he wouldn't let that happen this time. He had no intention of letting Baraha or anyone else be harmed.
Now that he had an unexpected means called Wedge, he intended to gather evidence in advance and deal with him. He was going to prevent murder, so even if the death penalty was impossible, at least expulsion.
Besides Ian, there were a couple more people who needed to be expelled from Ajenka. He also entrusted them with investigating them.
Yuriene often saw malice but had to let it go because there was no evidence. They were mostly people who had some power or connections within Ajenka, so it was not easy to catch them.
Wedge was a force outside of their expectations, so it would be useful. If he had evidence, punishment would not be difficult.
[You're using them thoroughly while preparing to cut them off from behind.]
"Is it not righteous?"
[No. It's not because those guys are evil, either. Don't you know that and do this?]
"I thought so."
[...I sometimes think that if you weren't my master, you would have been a pretty scary person.]
The Holy Sword muttered in a fed-up voice.
No matter what Rangiosa said, Yuriene proceeded quickly. He did not entrust Wedge with the investigation into the Demon Sword conspiracy. It was too big and dangerous a task to entrust to an organization like that.
In any case, the Crown Prince's side would be diligently investigating and collecting evidence. The documents that the Crown Prince had shown Yuriene three and a half years later were not materials that could be compiled in a short period of time.
He also wanted to avoid such a thing because delving into the Demon Sword would inevitably involve the Roaz family.
He wanted Ekinesia to avoid getting involved in the chaos that was entangled with him as much as possible. She had already suffered too much.
This time, at least, he wanted her to live peacefully. He wanted her to be happy, as she had said in front of the Holy Sword.
After ordering the investigation into Wedge, he moved. The dormitory in the headquarters was closer than the private residence away from the headquarters.
Yuriene completed all of this in the few days before Ekinesia Roaz entered the academy. And he waited for her to enter.
