GDTEA Chapter 129

You’re Wrong

District A, where the Swordsmanship Academy had been established, had a completely different atmosphere from District D.

“Uwoooo—!!”

“Waaah!”

The cheers erupting from all directions were enough to make one’s ears ring.

While various competitions of all sizes were being held in District D as well, the swordsmanship tournament in District A was far more heated, as participants clashed weapons and even engaged in physical grappling.

“Please submit your entry forms over there!”

“Good heavens! Brothers, I keep telling you, you can’t fight here.”

Sharti, who had entered District A where fierce enthusiasm and sharp competitive spirit were boiling over, felt a different kind of tension than she had in the morning.

Unlike District D, which had carried the scent of medicinal herbs, District A was filled with the smell of iron and sweat, along with dust and dirt.

Every time Sharti encountered swordsmen and mercenaries carrying weapons, she found herself glancing over at Ren for no particular reason.

There aren’t many people bigger than Ren, but……

Still, there was no shortage of people with more threatening appearances and more muscular builds than him.

Will he be okay?

Hearing that nearly thirty people had been injured in the morning’s tournament alone did nothing to set her mind at ease.

No fatalities had occurred yet, but word had gotten around that something terrible had happened, and her heart beat uneasily at the thought.

“Why do you suddenly want to enter the swordsmanship tournament? You never mentioned anything like that before.”

She couldn’t get any read at all on what change of heart had led him to such a sudden decision.

Ren, who had returned after submitting his entry form for the tournament, gave a light shrug of his shoulders.

“I wanted to test my own abilities.”

“Wasn’t sparring enough for you?”

He had sparred with the knights of the House of Chelonar for many days and had even earned their recognition of his skill.

Sharti recalled the knights who, after every sparring session with Ren, would end up flat on the training ground floor, groaning.

Ren gave a thin smile and shook his head.

“The knights I sparred with weren’t official members of the knight order.”

“Then what were they?”

“Most of them were knights assigned to guard the estate, low-ranking knights, or squires still in training.”

There was no way a knight order would give a proper sparring session to a mere guest on the periphery — a complete outsider on top of that, one with the status of a mercenary.

A brief moment of friction had earned him permission to spar with Denver Weasley, but that had only happened once.

“More than anything, I don’t think noble swordsmanship suits me very well.”

Ren ran his hand along the hilt of his sword.

The knight orders of noble houses were all specialized in clean and precise noble swordsmanship.

But even while watching the knight order’s training, Ren had been entirely unable to imitate noble swordsmanship. Like forcing himself into clothes that didn’t fit, all he gained were movements that felt awkward and wrong.

“I hear that people from all kinds of occupations participate in this tournament, so it should be a good place for me to learn.”

At Ren’s candid admission, Sharti nodded and set her worries aside for the moment.

Whatever the case, what mattered was that Ren had something he wanted to gain from this tournament.

‘I’m still uneasy, though.’

Since she didn’t want to let her unease show and end up making Ren worry in turn, she kept it to herself.

Instead, Sharti reached out and carefully unwound her own scarf from around her neck, then wrapped it snugly over Ren’s hood.

“I’ll cheer you on with everything I’ve got, so go do well out there.”

“I think the scarf would be better on you, Sha.”

Ren, who had lowered himself to meet her hands, lifted both of his hands and cupped her pale white cheeks.

The white cheeks that had been hidden beneath the scarf had already gone cold with the chill.

“What if your body freezes and your muscles get sluggish? And your hood might come off too.”

Sharti murmured to herself, then looked at Ren all bundled up in the scarf and her eyes curved into a smile.

“The color of the scarf is a little loud, but then again, your opponent might let their guard down because of it?”

Ah. She’s smiling right now.

He could feel through his palms the movement of the muscles at the corners of Sharti’s lips curving upward.

Ren pictured her smile in his mind and smiled along with her.

“You’re only allowed to get hurt as much as I can treat.”

“Alright. I’m off.”

Sharti watched the back of Ren as he walked into the waiting room, and pressed her hands together as if in prayer.

Just as Ren had done for her, all she could do was cheer him on, believe in a good outcome, and wait.

“Just to be safe, I should go buy some bandages.”

There was still time before the tournament began, so she needed to fill her bag in case of emergency.

Sharti gauged the time and turned around.

And the bandages she bought proved to be very useful afterward.

“Ren—!!”

In the third round, Ren had suffered a crushing defeat against some large-hatted swordsman and come away seriously injured.

****

That evening, after the various tournaments held throughout the county had wrapped up, Count Chelonar, who had skipped dinner and was sitting alone in his office, was deeply troubled.

His fingers were smeared all over with ink stains, and his desk was piled with letters on which he hadn’t managed to write even a proper opening line.

“Haah……”

He kept thinking about a drink, but he would soon need to go find Eryl and sing her a lullaby, so he had no choice but to endure his frustration without relief.

“Another crossroads of choice.”

Count Chelonar furrowed his brow and roughly loosened his cravat.

The mercenary called ‘Ren.’ Because of that one man, Count Chelonar had been on edge for days.

“This isn’t a problem that can be solved by brooding over it alone……”

It was too much to feel certain based solely on a pair of teal eyes glimpsed in passing through the dark.

Did it make any rational sense that he had seen before his very eyes a being who was already dead — whose body had even been found?

And yet the features and the gaze he had seen in that darkness were absolutely not an illusion or a mistake.

“They were unmistakably alike.”

Alike, that is, to ‘Leodelt Gwendhill’ — Grand Duke of the Great Empire of Neweiton and traitor.

“……Though there were some differences.”

The man whose eyes had met his in the darkness had carried a somewhat different air from the one in his memory.

There had been none of the characteristic pressure of a Sword Master either.

“Was it even the same person to begin with?”

<His injuries are from the swordsmanship tournament, it seems.>

The report delivered along with Sharti’s return to the estate only deepened Count Chelonar’s confusion.

He was taken aback at the out-of-the-blue news that the man had entered a swordsmanship tournament — and then left speechless at the additional word that he had been injured on top of it.

The man concealed his identity and infiltrated the estate of the leader of the neutral faction, and yet why would he enter a swordsmanship tournament that draws so much attention? And a Sword Master, no less, injured badly enough to have bandages wrapped all around his body.

It was a trail of conduct he simply could not make sense of.

“The War Demon who they say came through countless battlefields without a single scratch…… brought low by a mere swordsmanship tournament?”

By that logic, he ought to dismiss the notion that they were the same person — and yet his suspicions only kept mounting.

In truth, the Count himself had already reached his own conviction.

That the man called ‘Ren’ was ‘Leodelt Gwendhill.’

He simply didn’t want to accept it.

“……Haah—”

What other reason could there be for coming to the leader of the neutral faction and arranging a meeting with the Doctor who had treated Eryl’s illness?

Surely it was a request for support in the power struggle currently surrounding Grand Duke Gwendhill.

“Eryl……”

Of course, it was thanks to Sharti that Eryl had kept her life. But viewed from a different angle, it meant that Eryl’s life could be put in jeopardy at any moment because of Gwendhill.

The realization that what had seemed like a chain of kindness connected by mere coincidence was, in fact, no different from a political bribe — that cut deep.

“……Still, better than Bridend, who wanted to kill Eryl and take her as a hostage.”

Count Chelonar heaved his heavy body upright.

For Gwendhill right now, there was no time to spare. He could not afford to keep spending his time so idly.

‘I’ll need to approach this carefully.’

The man’s skill at concealing his face and acting as though he were someone else entirely was at an impressive level.

Given that he had prepared and approached things so meticulously, Count Chelonar knew he must never let his guard down around Gwendhill.

Count Chelonar was on his way to find Ren when he was told that the man was with Sharti, and immediately changed course.

He was carefully opening the door at the sound of voices from inside the room when—

Smack—!

“……!”

The sharp sound of a solid strike made Count Chelonar flinch and release the door handle, his hand jerking away.

Through the slightly opened gap in the door, the sound of conversation drifted out.

“—If you were injured you should have forfeited! ‘The sword isn’t broken so I can keep fighting’?”

“At that point the situation was……”

“Oh, the situation? So if your sword had broken, you’d have said ‘My head’s still on so I can keep fighting’ too? Depending on the situation?”

“……I was wrong, Sha.”

Count Chelonar stood outside with a dumbfounded expression at the sight of a man lying on the bed being thoroughly scolded, taking blows to the arm from a slender Doctor.

A Doctor raising her voice and reprimanding Grand Duke Gwendhill, of all people?

Regardless of whether the Count was receiving a shock on the other side of the door, Sharti crossed her arms and stared Ren down with wide eyes.

“Do you know how frightened I was? I went to go treat you when I saw you’d been hurt, and you’re in that state taking on a commission? With blood pouring down your head?”

“……It wasn’t pouring quite that much— no, you’re right. I was wrong. I wasn’t thinking, Sha.”

At the sight of Ren squirming helplessly, Count Chelonar felt as though he’d been struck in the head with a blunt instrument.

It was far too sincere to be mere acting.

It was, in fact, rather like watching himself during his own newlywed days.

“You say you were wrong but you’re not reflecting on it at all, Ren.”

“……”

“Fine, if you’re not going to tell me. I’ll go get more bandages.”

With a sigh, Sharti left the room.

As the sound of her footsteps faded into the distance, Count Chelonar knocked carefully and stepped inside.

“……”

Ren showed no sign of being flustered by Count Chelonar’s sudden visit.

His eyes made it clear that he had anticipated everything — that the Count had been listening from outside the door, that he had been waiting for an opportunity to speak with him alone.

It must have been the moment Ren too had braced himself for, from the instant their eyes met in the darkness.

“Sha could return at any time, so please get to the point.”

The moment Count Chelonar heard that low, even voice, he felt a chill run down his spine.

The manner of speech and intonation were different, yet the voice that accompanied those commanding eyes carried a sensation he had experienced before.

Count Chelonar steadied his trembling breath and fixed his gaze squarely on Ren.

“Why, of all people, was it me?”

Why had he specifically sought out the leader of the neutral faction? He could have gone to the Grand Duchy of Gwendhill, or made contact with the subordinates at the Grand Duke’s residence — why had he gone to the trouble of using such a roundabout move to make contact with him?

“Because you looked like you needed help.”

“……!”

“Coming here was a coincidence as well.”

“……Ha, you expect me to believe that? Surely you know what has become of Gwendhill!”

At the direct mention of Gwendhill, Ren’s expression turned sharp in an instant.

“That has nothing to do with me anymore.”

“……What do you……”

Count Chelonar faltered at the firm response.

Ren held his gaze without the slightest waver and repeated himself.

“Let me make this perfectly clear right now. I have forgotten ‘Gwendhill.’ I have chosen to live an entirely different life, one with no connection whatsoever to any of that — so do not bring it up in my presence ever again.”

“A different life, you say……”

Caught off guard by the unexpected response, Count Chelonar swallowed dryly.

“You intend to live under a forged identity? To live on as this nobody called ‘Ren’?”

“How do I look to you, Count?”

“……Pardon?”

Only then did Count Chelonar take a proper look at ‘Ren’s’ condition.

Bandages wrapped all around his head, shoulders, and arms. Disheveled hair. Shabby clothing.

The figure half-lying on the fine bed in the guest chamber of the Count’s residence looked nothing like a noble.

Whether his thoughts had shown on his face, Ren let out a quiet laugh.

“I am happy right now.”

“……”

“I like who I am now, by the side of the woman I love. Scrambling to do something — anything — for her with nothing to my name, I am happier now than I have ever been.”

“……”

“That is the only reason I live as ‘Ren.'”

Count Chelonar felt all the fighting spirit he had been on the verge of unleashing crumble away in an instant.

What more needed to be said?

The face of the man smiling softly and saying he was happy — it felt unfamiliar to the point of being unsettling.

Count Chelonar forced his drying mouth to move.

“……You mean to say you would abandon everything, for that Doctor?”

She was his benefactor, yes, but she was still a common-born Doctor who hadn’t even earned a proper license.

A woman with no notable family, no matter how skilled — an entirely ordinary woman.

“You’re wrong.”

Ren opened his mouth with a face devoid of any trace of a smile, his eyes holding a slight emptiness.

“It is she who saved me when I had been cast away, and who is keeping me alive.”

Count Chelonar understood.

The man before him was not ‘Leodelt Gwendhill.’

‘Leodelt Gwendhill’ was never the sort of fool who would abandon Gwendhill and choose love.

Count Chelonar drew in deep, slow breaths, again and again.

And then, unable to meet his eyes, he asked one final question.

“Have you…… lost your memories?”