Arc-6 Ch-30

 The grounds of the ducal estate were vast, to the point that even when compared to a small settlement, they were in no way inferior. Of course, there was the mansion where the head of the house and his family lived, but in addition to the extensive gardens, there were halls for tea parties and evening gatherings, and even an airfield where airships could land and take off. As the size of the grounds increased, so too did the amount of work required for maintenance, and the number of employees—including stewards, servants, attendants, cooks, footmen, and guards—approached one hundred.

Ever since the prince who carried the blood of King Holfort received the dukedom and territory as the first head of House Redgrave, the family had maintained its position as the foremost among the ruling nobles and continued to reign as one of the kingdom’s most powerful pillars. In particular, the current head of House Redgrave, Vince Rapha Redgrave, was known as a noble of good sense and was highly regarded both domestically and abroad. For the ruling nobles who had long been limited in their involvement in national politics and oppressed under the ideology of female supremacy, Vince was a reliable leader, and for the Holfort royal family, he was an indispensable mediator between the crown and the nobles who harbored discontent.

The distortion in the relationship between the Holfort royal family and House Redgrave began when the current king, Roland Rapha Holfort, took a princess as his bride through an alliance with the Lepart United Kingdom. The alliance between the Kingdom of Holfort and the Lepart United Kingdom had been formed in preparation for conflict with the Rachel Holy Kingdom, and a capable regent was needed to act in place of Roland, who showed little interest in state affairs. Queen Mylene Rapha Holfort, who married into the kingdom, was renowned as a prodigy, and it was certain that she possessed the talent required to oversee governance.

However, it was impossible for the king and queen alone to manage and administer the entirety of the state. The court nobles who were loyal to the royal family presented no issue. They had no lands of their own, so as long as they were given salaries and positions, they could serve as loyal pieces on the board. The problem lay with the ruling nobles. They were the descendants of kings from small nations who had once competed for dominance when the kingdom was still undeveloped. If subdued by force, resentment would only deepen, and distrust toward the royal family would grow.

Furthermore, the queen had married in from another country, and no matter her royal birth, her authority did not extend to the royal harem of her homeland. Feeling that her husband was unreliable and the king’s younger brother also untrustworthy, it was only natural that she sought a protector for herself and her children. Thus, the duke’s daughter, Angelica Rapha Redgrave, became the fiancée of the First Prince, Julius Rapha Holfort. At the time, everyone rejoiced at the excellent match, unaware that it would lead to strife between House Holfort and House Redgrave.

However, the one Angelica married was not the prince who held the first right to succession, but a frontier lord who had risen through military achievements. That fact forced House Redgrave to feel an undeniable sense of decline, and naturally cast a shadow over their treatment of the Bartfort viscount. Marriages among nobles were typically conducted between families of equal standing, and even when status differed, one rank apart was the limit. Yet a duke’s daughter of long lineage had become the wife of a viscount four ranks below. It made it feel as though the present House Redgrave was no more than a viscount-level house, as if the world around them were declaring so.

The servants born into families of higher rank than the Bartforts trembled with humiliation. And yet they could not openly criticize the royal family, and their pent-up emotions turned into sympathy for Angelica and resentment toward Leon, now her husband, and were directed at the viscount couple.

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Leon Fou Bartfort, Viscount.

A newly risen noble who earned his title and rank through military achievements in the war against the Principality of Fanoss. Born into a poor household so insignificant that it could barely be called a frontier noble family, he was little different from a commoner of noble blood who could not even attend the academy. A crude, boorish man with a gloomy demeanor, bearing scars on his face from the battlefield and showing no attempt to hide his unpleasant manners. A lucky man who happened to survive the battlefield, gained rank and land, and then happened—again through luck—to marry a duke’s daughter. Used as a tool to attract young nobles to the ducal faction, the Lady Angelica, whose engagement with the prince had been annulled, had been pitifully married off to a mismatched husband, forced to live a humble life in the frontier.

Why was Lady Angelica given to such a man?

Though it was disrespectful to doubt the judgment of the duke, their lord and employer, everyone who worked in the ducal estate harbored this question to some degree. Except for the servants assigned to menial duties who were born commoners, most of the employees working in the estate were born into families aligned with the ducal faction. Second sons who were born into reasonably ranked noble families but were not heirs, and young noblewomen seeking opportunities for marriage while maintaining ties between their birth families and the duke. Recruiting these rootless noble sons and daughters and strengthening ties with other houses was the duty of great nobles and a standard means of maintaining influence. Naturally, even those of good family were excluded if they had personality or conduct issues.

Thus, the selected servants carried both loyalty to the ducal house and great confidence in their own abilities. Because of this, they could not wipe away their aversion toward the strange existence that was Leon Fou Bartfort. Of course, it was not that they harbored arrogant thoughts that they themselves could marry the daughter of the house. But for someone clearly inferior to themselves to marry a duke’s daughter, and for a second son born into a lowly noble house at the very bottom to become part of the family they served, was galling. No matter how much they wished for it, they could not inherit their own family’s titles, nor could they expect to marry a lady from a superior noble house. Because they were capable, they could not hold hope for their own futures, and their pent-up frustration transformed into contempt for Leon Fou Bartfort as an individual.

This was why the servants of House Redgrave continued to treat Leon harshly. During the scandal of the annulled engagement with the prince, many servants resigned and left the estate, and for a time, the estate had a deserted appearance. House Redgrave lost ground in its power struggle with Marquis Frampton, and because of the presence of the Saint Olivia, it temporarily declined, and those who had once fawned over them behaved as though they had never owed the house any favor. Later, when the Frampton family, who had colluded with the Principality of Fanoss, were all executed, and even when the royal family sought reconciliation, the duke rejected their extended hand. And when the servants who had abandoned the ducal house came crawling back after the marquis’s faction was destroyed, the treatment they received from the duke and his heir was enough to freeze the blood of anyone who witnessed it.

Vince Rapha Redgrave never forgave those who betrayed his expectations. There was no way to survive except to continue serving in fear. After the second war ended, the position of House Redgrave within the kingdom became unshakable. If the ducal house continued to prosper, perhaps they too could obtain titles. For the servants living with both fear and faint hopes for the future, Leon Fou Bartfort was nothing but a foreign element. An upstart who had become part of the ducal family through luck alone.

A man of low birth, lacking manners or learning, whose only asset was skill in violence. When faced with someone one cannot understand, choosing rejection over understanding is human folly. There is no greater outrage than seeing someone one believes to be inferior receive recognition. Finding fault in others out of anger and jealousy only kills one’s drive for self-improvement, and looking down on others because of their background becomes nothing more than baseless confidence.

Thus do the strong fall.

For in every era, those who bring down the mighty are the wisdom of the weak and the arrogance of the strong. And the assessment that a viscount was unworthy of a duke’s daughter became scorn and then transformed into carelessness. If even one person had kept an eye on Leon, such a situation might never have occurred. If even one person had checked the interior of the Bartfort family’s airship, the attack might have been avoided. If even one person had inspected their baggage, the duke and his son would not have been caught off guard. There exist cunning beasts that pretend to be weak in order to make their prey lower their guard. A man whose only strength is violence could not possibly protect his allies in a second war. They were careless, deluded into believing that because they were members of the ducal house, they had become giants capable of shaking the royal authority.

Thus the scheme succeeded. For they, too, were nobles swollen with arrogance.

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The young man who served as a guard at the ducal residence was patrolling the duke’s garden to check the security within the estate and to confirm the duties of the servants. The sunlight announced the arrival of spring, and the warm weather invited drowsiness. If he straightened his posture and walked at a slightly brisker pace to shake off the post-lunch sleepiness, the rising yawn should settle a little. Flowerbeds, hedges, fountains, and stone pavements—various structures were arranged in a regular pattern, decorating the garden. For nobles who possessed airships, looking down on their gardens from above was one of the important elements for judging the condition of the family. If a family declined, the number of those serving them decreased; if the number of servants decreased, maintenance of the estate would fall behind, exposing a shabby sight.

Nobles who obtained important positions and abundant assets would start to care about their homes in addition to their clothing and vehicles. Insults were more intolerable to nobles than anything else, so they would desperately adorn themselves. Such was the nature of nobles. Walking along the stone-paved path slightly off from the center of the garden, he saw the duke’s private air harbor come into view. Docked there was the airship owned by the Bartfort Viscounty, to which Lady Angelica of the Redgrave Ducal House had married. It was a noble-class vessel manufactured by the largest workshop in the Holfort Kingdom, one of the models frequently seen within the kingdom.

It was likely an airship bestowed from House Redgrave to the Bartfort Viscounty. The bow and both sides bore the Bartfort family crest in only a token manner, barely enough to distinguish it from airships of other lower nobles. Those who worked at the ducal residence could broadly be divided into two groups. Those who had served since before Lady Angelica’s annulment of engagement, and those who began serving after that annulment. This young guard, though young, was one of the old group. He was born as the youngest son of a certain territorial noble house, achieved fairly good grades at the Royal Academy, began serving the Redgrave family afterward, and about seven years ago he was chosen as a guard for the ducal residence in the royal capital.

His connection with Lady Angelica, who had been the ducal daughter, was no more than occasionally seeing her within the estate. Her beauty and intelligence, which could be felt even from afar, carried such brilliance that calling her the ruby polished carefully by the ducal house over many long years was no exaggeration, and no one doubted she would become queen. The future was bright. But Lady Angelica’s partner was an upstart who was only good at fighting. It was chilling to think that such a loathsome man would be connected to the Redgrave Ducal House. Today, it seemed he had come for greetings ahead of the upcoming commendation ceremony, as well as to report Lady Angelica’s childbirth, but honestly he wished for a quick return home.

Recently, more nobles had been visiting the ducal residence, and the mansion was busy dealing with them; there was even talk of hiring new servants. Thinking that the Redgrave Ducal House had become indispensable to the Holfort Kingdom did not feel bad, but being assigned patrol duty even on his days off was unfortunate. He wanted to finish quickly and relax in his room at the dormitory. As he approached the duke’s private air harbor, the air vibrated and a warm wind brushed his cheek.

The propellers of the Bartfort family’s airship began turning slowly, increased speed, and the vessel gradually lifted into the air. It seemed the unwelcome visitors were departing. When Lady Angelica and Viscount Bartfort had arrived a few hours earlier, the servants had gone out in full to greet them, but seeing them off with no farewell felt somewhat forlorn. Perhaps Lady Angelica refused a send-off, or the message simply had not reached him.

The ducal estate was vast and had many servants; recently the busyness had caused communication among the staff to become spotty, which was a troublesome issue.

Leaving the red carpet laid over the stone pavement as it was, the Bartfort family’s airship rose further away from the ground.

He thought to call gardeners and attendants to quickly retrieve the carpet. As he left the private air harbor while searching for other servants, the Bartfort airship was still hovering directly above the ducal residence. That shabby airship—had it broken down somehow and stopped moving?

This was why he disliked lower nobles. An airship was a symbol of a noble’s wealth and power; the higher a house’s rank, the more beautiful its decorations and the better its performance would be. To dock a mass-produced airship at the ducal private harbor was nothing short of an insult. Why did the master marry Lady Angelica to such a man?

Why continue lending funds to the Bartfort territory?

He could not possibly believe Viscount Bartfort possessed that much capability. Even as he left the private harbor with resentment in his heart, the airship continued floating. The first thing he felt was a sense of wrongness. How long would the Bartfort airship keep hovering over the ducal residence?

In the first place, why was it maintaining that exact position?

Only airships owned by the royal family and nobles were permitted to fly over the royal capital. It was to avoid accidents such as collisions between airships or the falling of heavy objects that could damage noble estates. Air routes were strictly limited, and flying over the royal palace without permission was restricted so severely that one could not complain even if shot down. Something was happening. He did not know what it was, but the airship was clearly floating over the ducal house with intent.

"Contact someone."

Immediately after that thought crossed his mind, something fell from the airship. A black shadow descended, slowing its fall by some means. The black shadow, boasting dozens of times a human’s volume and hundreds of times its weight, made a soft landing right beside the ducal residence.

Doooooon!

Even so, the heavy weight that could not be fully softened trampled the well-maintained lawn—like a green carpet—into a miserable mess, exposing bare earth.

The shrubs near the armored feet broke with a roar like a beast’s cry. Mixed with the sounds of destruction in the garden came the astonished cries and screams of the servants as they ran in panic. By the time the young guard arrived at the scene, the surroundings of the ducal residence were already in turmoil, and no one could make a normal judgment anymore.

He did not know what had happened.

The only thing he understood was the single truth that Viscount Bartfort had bared his fangs at the Redgrave Ducal House.

※　※　※　※　※

Doooooon

The shock sound from outside the window reverberated in my gut. You really kept me waiting. It was hard distracting the duke and Gilbart-san with conversation so they wouldn’t turn their attention outside. Several hundred seconds had passed since I pressed the button; it was close to a miracle that my deliberate provocation hadn’t been detected by those two smart men. When the light coming into the reception room was blocked and a loud sound was heard from outside, any person would reflexively turn their face that way.

In that moment, I released the restraint on the leather-bound book. Thick as a dictionary, it was indeed a real book up to the hundred-plus pages, but beyond that it was carved out into a large storage box. Smugglers had long disguised important items as canned goods, books, or snack bags to sneak them in—an ordinary method. Because it was simple, it was easy to expose. If one watched carefully, bringing it in would be difficult. What made this possible was that the ducal house underestimated me. Sad but true. If they had checked the contents of the bag the attendant carried when Angelica and I visited, this never would have happened.

Even if we had come by airship, if they had inspected the interior beforehand, they could have easily stopped our plan. The fact that it went through was the arrogance of the ducal house. A vassal never rebels against their liege; lower nobles never rebel against upper nobles. Ridiculous logic, in my opinion. If House Redgrave was rebelling against the Holfort royal family, why could they think the Bartfort Viscounty was safe?

I just don’t understand it. There was probably a part of him that trusted me because I was his son-in-law, though for all that, the duke’s servants were extremely harsh toward me. People who scheme evil things often somehow believe that they won’t be deceived.　At the very least, if I were the one plotting something, I would definitely not bring me in as an ally .Because, well, I’m the “Villainous Knight,” you know?

　I’m the kind of guy whose methods are so underhanded that not only my enemies but even my allies would criticize me. You just can’t. You absolutely shouldn’t trust someone like me. Crushed by guilt toward my father-in-law and brother-in-law, I pull out the gun hidden inside the book. My beloved military handgun is far too large to hide inside a book like this, so a small pistol that just barely manages to kill is the best I can manage. I wedge myself between Angie and the duke and Gilbert. Barely ten seconds. For me, that was actually pretty quick.

　"Please don’t move"

The coldness of the gun stealing the warmth from my palm feels incredibly disgusting. I hate this part of myself. I find killing people intolerably unpleasant, and yet, for some reason, my talent is specialized in taking lives. No matter how much I think “I hate this, I hate this,” if it’s for surviving, for protecting my family, I can still point a gun like this at the person in front of me. I hate myself for that more than anything. And on top of that, the ones in front of me are my beloved wife’s father and brother. No one who would do something like this could possibly be normal.

"I would very much appreciate it if you didn’t move. I don’t want to shoot Angie’s family"

"……That is not something to be said by a man pointing a gun at us."

"Right, I think so too"

"Do you understand what you are doing!?"

"Well, if I were sane, I wouldn’t be doing it this way. It’s far too forceful and reckless"

"It appears this is not a scheme you devised together with Angie"

　Without lowering the gun pointed at the two, I glance toward Angie. Her pale, stunned expression is slowly gaining color. I turn back toward the duke and Gilbert. To be honest, Angie frightens me so much I don’t want to look at her. She’s angry. She’s definitely angry. If I were the wife and my husband suddenly pointed a gun at my family without even discussing it, I’d demand a divorce on the spot! Ahhh, it’s over! Our married life is definitely over! But it can’t be helped! The duke said he’d separate me and Angie and demanded the children! If someone says something like that to me, of course I’m going to resist with everything I’ve got!

To protect my wife and children, I’ll fight with everything I have! Feeling Angie’s murderous aura from the side, I aim the gun at the duke. I want to cry so badly. While I have the gun pointed at the duke, I notice Gilbert slowly lowering his posture and inching toward the wall.

"I’ll say it again: please don’t move."

"…………"

"Give me ten seconds and I can put bullets in both of your heads and chests. That isn’t a threat—just stating a simple fact."

"It seems my son-in-law is a capable marksman."

"Thank you."

"Very well. We shall stay quiet. But may I sit?"

"As you please."

Whether this small pistol could kill instantly is honestly questionable. The skull is rounded so the bullet might deflect, and the heart is protected by the sternum and ribs. If it hits bone, it might fail to kill. If the duke and Gilbert attacked me together, my chances of taking them down would probably be fifty-fifty.

Damn it.

What are they doing? At this rate, I’m the one at a disadvantage. Dozens of seconds passed in stalemate, and from outside the window I hear a sound different from the armor. I want to relax my grip out of relief, but if I lower my guard here, everything will go up in smoke. A silhouette appears on the balcony outside the reception room, and then the window is struck repeatedly.

CRAAAASH!!

BAAAAANG!!

SCRREEECH!!

Cracks spread across the glass, and the handle’s metal bends. Couldn’t they break it a bit more gently?

KABOOOOOM!!

A large foot kicks through the window, and four fully armed people enter. The biggest one is Greg, the tiny one is Marie, the slim one is Jilk, and the one with the flawless movement must be Chris.

''You’re late. What were you doing?"

『Sorry, took a bit of work』

"Never mind. Hurry. ‘Muscles’ and ‘Glasses,’ take care of the hallway"

『Can’t you change these code names?』

"Complain all you want after it’s over. Now move, move."

『Honestly…』

"‘Shorty’ and ‘Dark-hearted,’ support ‘Aesthete’ and secure the outside. Don’t let anyone approach"

『You really do dislike us, don’t you?』

"Right now I’m the commander. My orders are absolute"

『I’ll remember that』

『Quit whining, let’s go』

With the helmets covering their faces and their muffled voices, it’s hard to tell who is who. But anyone who knows them well would figure it out immediately.　

"Quite an elaborate setup. You truly intend to take my life, do you?"

"If necessary, yes. I don’t mind if you hate me."

"Even if you kill me, nothing will change. Do you think the ducal faction will meekly obey the royal family after losing its leader? You would only worsen the kingdom’s turmoil."

"I’m not acting out of desperation. Even if the odds are low, I wouldn’t take a reckless gamble without some prospect of success."

"Then let me hear it. What exactly can you do?"

The duke’s eyes were clearly looking down on me. Whatever. I’m used to being underestimated. I’m tired of aiming this gun anyway, so still keeping it raised, I slowly sit down. Angie continues to glare at me. I want to go home. I want to go home so badly. Holding back my tears, I begin the final negotiation.

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Authors Note

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Congratulations on reaching episode 100! (It’s been a long journey lol)

But honestly, I’m a bit troubled that the overall plot hasn’t progressed that much.

The current strategy of using hostages to threaten the enemy is truly befitting of a “villainous knight.”

No matter how terrible the things Leon does, he somehow gets forgiven. (Hey, come on…)

It’s not that he can only use surprise attacks; it’s that without Luxion’s overwhelming power, and since Leon is inferior in talent to the five idiots, the only way he can win is by using dirty/cowardly tactics. That’s the sad reality.

This really makes you understand the catharsis of isekai reincarnation and cheat powers.

I’d be happy if you could share your thoughts and impressions. It would really motivate me for the future!