Chapter One Hundred and Sixty: Resolve to Hear
“What is it you want to talk about, Karen?”
“To be precise, I want to hear about something from you, Mr. Julius.”
“My story, then. …You’re prepared to hear it?”
“Of course.”
As they made their way back, Karen nodded firmly, and Julius, failing to suppress a bitter smile, spoke:
“In the end, I took the life of one person in a duel.”
Julius spoke expressionlessly, in a calm, detached tone.
“The others thought that even if I challenged them to a duel, I would at least spare their lives. When that expectation was shattered, they cowered in fear and refused to fight. Tristan, deeming them a disgrace to the house’s honor, executed them himself.”
“I see…”
Karen reevaluated Tristan a little. She had thought that if it were left to him, things would end up half-hearted. But he chose to carry out the punishment himself as a member of the house. If it had been handled as an internal matter, the trouble wouldn’t have become too large. While it would become a matter of Tristan’s responsibility within the house, at least they could avoid conflict with a B-rank adventurer.
“So you don’t need to worry about being attacked by them in the future—please be at ease about that.”
“Thank you for fighting for my sake.”
Karen bowed her head in thanks. When she raised her face, her expression was melancholic.
Was she mourning the life Julius had taken, or was she beginning to feel fear at Julius’s cruelty? Seeing what looked most like fear among the emotions showing on her face, Julius smiled darkly.
“For you, whose job is to save people’s lives, the existence of someone who takes human lives must be frightening, no matter what kind of person they are.”
“No, that’s not—!”
“You don’t have to pretend. Even I find myself detestable.”
“Um, really, I’m not thinking anything like that—”
“Yet your expression is dark.”
Julius caught Karen’s chin and tilted it upward.
But Julius immediately released his hand from Karen.
“I’m sorry. Though I’ve purified myself, it must feel unpleasant to be touched by these hands.”
“I don’t think that at all!!”
Karen firmly grabbed Julius’s hand as it moved away. His large palm that handled swords had hard, rough skin, contrary to the elegance one might imagine from its appearance. Gripping tightly with both hands, the hand she rarely had the chance to touch, Karen said:
“Mr. Julius, you fought to protect my honor, didn’t you?!”
“Protecting your honor might have been a pretense—perhaps I just disliked them.”
“Even so, what you did protected me!”
Those men who had said disgusting things. Karen felt like sighing at the thought that even among nobles, such people existed.
She hated to admit it, but there were men like that in the adventurer’s district too. Among them, some would reform if roughed up a little, but there were also those who wouldn’t.
The nobles were clearly the latter type, and if they couldn’t target Karen, they would simply change their target to someone else—so they had to be stopped here.
“If I had them offer lip-service apologies, let them go, and even if I didn’t suffer harm, eventually someone else would be hurt. If I let them go here and someone else got hurt, I think I would bear responsibility for having let them go. So if you hadn’t dealt with them, Mr. Julius, and if Thor hadn’t been there either, I would have handled it somehow.”
Having her soap stolen by the Gubert Trading Company. In exchange for Marian’s labor service, Karen had let it go once. The Ehlertt family was already backing her, and she knew she could make special potions with non-magical materials, so she thought she wouldn’t be in trouble. The public benefit of entrusting the soap sales to the Gubert Trading Company had also been attractive. But if there were people who had something stolen by the Gubert Trading Company after that, then Karen, who hadn’t reported them, surely bore part of the responsibility.
The fact that Harald and Tim were attacked afterward was also surely one of Karen’s responsibilities for having let the Gubert Trading Company go. She still hadn’t been able to tell Thor about the house being burned down—she felt too guilty toward him.
“I think it’s the role of the strong to punish hopeless people.”
Either punish them to make them reflect, or impose labor service to restrain them. If neither was possible, someone had to carry out their sentence.
“As a C-rank alchemist, I’m already strong enough myself. And yet you did for me what I couldn’t do. I feel nothing but gratitude, and besides, for nobles, duels are legitimate judgment, right?”
Originally, she had stopped Thor not out of an aversion to killing. She knew that if an adventurer killed a noble, it would generate strong backlash, and he would be resented and hated.
Adventurers had their way of doing things, and nobles had theirs. Karen knew that one of the nobles’ ways was dueling. So when Julius offered a duel, she was relieved.
Even if Julius was resented instead, it wouldn’t be as strong a negative emotion as what would have been directed at Thor. Still, there was no mistake that she’d made him take on an unpleasant role. And Karen was certain that it was for her sake.
“Even if it was only for pretense, I’m proud of your victory in fighting for me, Mr. Julius.”
“…Karen.”
“Far from being afraid, I want to brag to everyone about how you fought for me! Even if it was just for appearance’s sake, may I brag about it?”
At Karen’s words, Julius chuckled.
“Thank you, Karen. You’re trying to encourage me.”
“No, it’s not about trying to encourage you, I’m genuinely—”
Julius brought his face close to Karen’s as she started to object, making her swallow her words.
“Of course, my victory is dedicated to you. That’s not for pretense, so accept it and feel free to brag about it to your heart’s content.”
“Eek!”
Julius chuckled at Karen, who let out a high-pitched shriek and squeezed the hand she was holding with all her might.
Noticing that brightness had returned to Julius’s expression, Karen breathed a sigh of relief. But precisely because of that, her expression turned awkward and uneasy.
“Karen?”
“Ugh… I do feel terrible bringing this up while you’re so deeply and seriously troubled, Mr. Julius, but… the thing I actually wanted to ask about is something else.”
“Something else?”
Karen looked up at the puzzled Julius with fierce, rough eyes. Though Julius flinched back in surprise, Karen gripped his hand and wouldn’t let go.
“What I want to ask about is that woman with the light blue hair.”
“…Could it be that what you wanted to ask about from the beginning was about Miss Therese?”
“Yes.”
With a desperate face showing her resolve, Karen squeezed Julius’s hand harder.
An expression resembling fear showed on her face—and even Julius finally realized that this was the reason Karen’s expression had been dark all along.
Karen was afraid of learning about the relationship between Julius and Therese. She wasn’t feeling fear at Julius’s fighting form, at his sometimes cruel decisions, or at Julius, who had killed someone even though it was called a duel—
Julius looked down with a deflated expression at Karen’s nails digging into his hand, probably without her even realizing it.
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