Monster no Goshujin-sama - Volume 15 - Chapter 14

Chapter 14: The Knight Among Knights

The first thing I felt upon returning to the real world was a relieving softness and warmth. Much like when I was in the world of hearts moments ago, I had a petite girl wrapped in my arms. The monster was nowhere in sight. In its stead was Katou, her head buried in my chest. She stirred slightly and looked up, smiling like a gently blooming flower.

“Senpai,” she said, her voice tickling my ear and giving me a real sense that she was back. “That dream...wasn’t a dream, right?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Besides, can’t you feel it?”

Grasping my meaning, Katou gave me a truly happy smile.

“So this is your mental path.”

Her heartfelt delight was conveyed to me—not in the metaphorical sense, but for real. I also felt how much she’d wanted this until now. The time we’d spent together, the bonds we’d fostered, all of it connected us. And as we smiled, other voices called out to us.

“I see Katou has come back to us, my dear.”

“Sttter!”

It was Salvia and Asarina. It seemed they’d been treating a woman who’d collapsed on the ground, but upon noticing that the monster was gone, they’d come our way. The two of them were overjoyed that Katou was back.

“Sorry for worrying you,” Katou said.

“It’s fine. I’m glad you’re back safely,” Salvia said. “Besides, it looks like you finally got your feelings across.”

Salvia giggled. The last remark was for both of us. I nodded and Katou blushed happily.

“Oh, guess we can’t stay like this too long,” I said, remembering I’d left Mikihiko and the others behind. “We’ve gotta head back.”

“Now that you mention it, did you come here alone, Senpai?” Katou asked.

“I used a teleportation runestone Mikihiko prepared for us. Only one person can use it. He apparently planted it among your effects.”

“When did he...?”

I’d used the teleportation runestone to jump to Katou’s location, skipping the path I’d used before. As such, I didn’t know the way back. By all rights, it should’ve been very difficult to find our way. Fortunately, Ayame was also with Mikihiko, so I knew the general direction they were in. And so long as I knew that, I could work things out one way or another. As I was now, I had control of this world through the Misty Lodge. It wouldn’t be very difficult to find a path back so long as I knew what direction to go. It would also be possible for me to rendezvous with Lily and the others, who were isolated from us.

I’d had to concentrate on the mental path’s connection to Katou, so my threads were currently severed, but I could use them again right away once a connection was reestablished. I was pretty exhausted, so the reconnection would take some effort, but we only had one last spurt to go. I focused on my mana to manipulate the magic mist once more, when suddenly...

“What...?”

I felt a chill. I tensed up immediately, switching gears from the relaxed atmosphere we were in to prepare for battle. The perception magic of the Misty Lodge detected danger. I turned around right as I heard the sound of collapsing rubble.

“Senpai?!”

I grabbed Katou and jumped backward.

“He’s...”

Someone came out from beneath the destroyed altar. His gaze told me that it still wasn’t over.

◆ ◆ ◆

“Harrison... So you’re still alive.”

The marshal of the Holy Order had pushed himself out from under the rubble. His imposing figure was a tattered mess. His trimmed black hair was dirty with sticky red blood. His left arm seemed to be broken, dangling unmoving from its socket.

He used his remaining arm to push aside the rubble crushing down on him. He’d apparently survived Katou’s attack. I was dumbfounded by the fighting spirit blazing behind his eyes. However, I quickly regained my composure.

“Give it up,” I said. “You’re not in any state to fight.”

He’d taken a hit from a monster that was so far beyond the norm it could’ve fought the exploration team head-on. The fact that he was still breathing was astounding. However, his wounds were far too deep.

A large pool of blood stained the ground. One of his arms was broken. His crushed armor made it easy to imagine the state of his torso beneath. His injuries were harsh enough that simply standing up likely put his life at risk. There was no moving around in that state.

Even if he forced himself to move, he wouldn’t be able to exhibit much strength, and he’d only be able to do so for a short time. We could win just by waiting for him to come to a stop. He was undoubtedly aware of this too.

“And what of it?”

However, he remained unwavering. He clenched his good fist, not even armed with a sword. He kicked off the bloody ground with transparent determination. His body was severely injured, but the threat I sensed from him was no joke.

“Haaah!”

He swung his fist with the force of a gale. I jumped back on instinct, then immediately opened my eyes wide. The spot I’d been occupying was smashed to bits. The force behind his punch was enough for me to doubt his injuries. A single hit would be enough to knock me out of this fight.

Still, the motion of the attack itself had been stiff and easy to read. This was likely because he was recklessly using mana to reinforce his broken body and force it to move. There was no other way he could be dexterous like that.

The backlash seemed to have opened his wounds further, sending blood dribbling to the ground. Regardless, Harrison remained on his feet. His fighting spirit was unfaltering, his clear hazel eyes glaring at me.

“Why are you...?” I mumbled.

His unshakable conviction kept his broken body up. In all likelihood, this willpower was what had allowed him to climb to the very top of the Holy Order. It was precisely because I sensed this in him that something felt out of place.

“Majima Takahiro. I must kill you.”

His quiet tone had something behind it that I’d also sensed when I first met the man in the imperial capital. This was the pride and dignity of a knight; the noble will to offer everything he was to protect the stability of this world. Even now, not a single thing about that impression had changed. I naturally remembered what he’d said when we were first introduced.

“Mister Majima, I harbor no ill will toward you like the margrave does.

“I also will not selfishly pursue personal glory like Travis did. All I wish for is to fulfill the duty I’ve been charged with.

“Every moment I’ve lived as a knight I’ve devoted to protecting the peace of our brittle and frail world. I am sure I will continue doing so from this day onward too.”

So long as we didn’t threaten the world, he would never become our enemy. At the time, that was what I believed. In the sense of upholding justice, he was the same as Louis Bard—the man who’d acted as Margrave Maclaurin’s proxy—but his way of life was different.

The one time I met Louis, he’d seen himself as righteous and me as evil. However, that didn’t apply to Harrison. In truth, even now, there was no revulsion in his eyes. I felt neither hatred nor fury from him. The only thing I saw was a sense of duty. It didn’t look like an act. That was exactly why a question came to mind.

“Why are you trying to kill us?” I asked.

If I died after being explicitly invited to the capital, the Holy Church would lose trust and authority. The world would be destabilized and the church’s relationship with the exploration team could also deteriorate. Regardless, he’d resorted to assassination. This wasn’t motivated by revulsion, hatred, or anger. What drove him to do so was far too much of a mystery.

“Why would you...?” I repeated.

Harrison stared back at me. I really couldn’t see a hint of disgust or hatred in his eyes.

“Majima Takahiro. Why do you fight?” he asked.

“What?”

“I’m asking why you fight. Never mind. There’s no need for you to answer. I know. You simply fight for your companions.”

Was this an answer to my question?

“As the one leading your companions, you devote yourself to fulfilling your responsibilities,” Harrison continued indifferently. “You try to protect everything important to you within your reach. Isn’t that right?”

Everything he said was correct.

“Even after being called Aker’s hero, you don’t fight for the sake of righteousness,” he said. “Even if you save people as a result, you don’t misinterpret your objective as carrying out justice. To you, the presence of your companions carries far more weight than anything else. Surely, they even have more weight to you than the world does.”

There wasn’t anything to deny. He really was different from Louis. At most, Louis had only ever seen me as the Wicked Monster Tamer. Unlike him, Harrison didn’t discard all attempts at understanding me. This was a difference large enough that it couldn’t be ignored. However, looking only at the answer it’d guided him to, the difference could also be said to be minuscule.

“That’s why I must kill you,” Harrison said.

He understood me well. This wasn’t anything born of a misunderstanding. Just maybe, he even regarded me highly. Nevertheless, even as a knight who protected the world, Harrison was after my life.

As such, a sudden hypothesis came to mind. Really, just hypothetically speaking, say he truly was a knight who protected the world. Say he was fair and impartial, and had come to the conclusion that I had to die...

“What do you know that we don’t?” Katou asked. She must have come to the same conclusion as me already. She keenly got to the point, her eyes staring at Harrison with an intensity that saw straight through to the truth. “Something about this world is strange. I always felt something was out of place, but it’s clear to me now. The Holy Church no longer requires saviors. Not only do they possess beloveds of blessed blood who can rival a visitor’s power, they even have a man who has already surpassed many visitors.”

It turned out Katou had noticed something because of this incident. When she verbalized it like that, I started to sense something out of place too.

“I get it,” I said. “Even on the exploration team, the only ones capable of comparing to Harrison’s power are some of the nicknamed cheaters.”

“Yes. That’s right,” Katou said. “And the important thing here is the fact that over a hundred visitors arrived in the human world from the Colony. By all rights, only one or two visitors should ever show up, and only once a century. As such...”

“If not for an irregularity like that, it’d be pretty much impossible for a visitor to appear who’s stronger than Harrison, you mean?” I asked.

“Exactly.” Katou nodded, then turned to Harrison. “Having the power of a visitor must make things easier, but the need to revere them as absolute as you do now should have waned. It’s far more reassuring to rely on your own strength than something as uncertain as a visitor, right?”

What Katou was saying made sense to me.

“And then there’s your current behavior,” she continued. “You don’t believe Majima-senpai is evil, do you? You would have been stirred to action much sooner otherwise. You’re nothing more than a knight. You exist to protect the people of the world and maintain society. However, you still tried to assassinate Majima-senpai, risking the trust and authority of the church. None of it makes sense. That’s how it looks to us, at least.”

Even though saviors weren’t required to protect the world, the world still relied on saviors. Even though Harrison was supposed to be working to protect the world, he was trying to kill a savior meant to be accomplishing that same task, risking the trust of the people in the process. None of it made sense.

I couldn’t see it any other way. However, meeting him face to face like this, Harrison didn’t seem like the kind of person to do something so reckless. There had to be something else driving his actions, some unseen circumstance.

“What is it that we don’t know?” Katou asked, her voice frighteningly earnest.

She understood too. Even if we did win here, so long as we didn’t comprehend the man before us, the situation wouldn’t be resolved.

The church would be at the end of its rope if it learned that this attack failed. Taken to an extreme, it was entirely possible for them to try and stop it from going public, ignoring all appearances and crushing Aker.

Naturally, if they resorted to that, there would be a major backlash. However, that would mean throwing the world into chaos. As a concerned party, we wouldn’t be able to live in peace. So, we had to prevent that from happening now.

“Answer us, Harrison,” I said, glaring at the knight.

Our eyes clashed and a dreadfully heavy silence filled the room. Harrison stood there imposingly, his sense of presence unaffected by his wounds. His gaze had a sharpness and strength akin to a drawn blade. I refused to surrender to timidity, though. I glared right back at him, Katou leaning against my side.

“So you want to know,” Harrison eventually said with blood-soaked lips, something calm yet ominous behind his voice. “Very well. If that is what you want, then I will tell you about the truth of this world.”