I Tried To Be Her Loyal Sword

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22nd Chapter

It had been three days since that day.

After exhausting all his mana during the campaign against the Debera Tears, Carl had been unconscious for the past three days. Upon waking, he immediately sought Mir, causing Parve, a bit tense, to pull a note from his pocket.

“This is a note left by Lord Mir.”

At the mention of Mir’s disappearance, Carl’s eyes, which had been dimmed by an unknown light, sparkled brightly. He snatched the note from Parve’s hands and quickly unfolded it.

[I’m heading out first. I’ve taken care of the monsters I encountered while leaving the forest. It seems the byproducts from the monsters will fetch quite a bit of money, so I don’t think we need to collect a reward. Once you wake up, take a bath. You smell like rotting corpses, young master. -Mir.]

“Hah.”

Carl let out a hollow laugh. Truly, a guy who never fails to meet expectations.

Carl was born… oddly.

He felt as if he weren’t truly alive. Blood flowed to his heart, and his lungs yearned for air, yet his soul felt as if it had perished. It was as if the creator, after completing his body, had simply forgotten to breathe life into his soul.

Life had become a grievous monotony. Each day felt meaningless. Nothing stirred any emotions in him, and he went about in a numb stupor. The only thing that sparked his interest was magic, but even that only provided enjoyment for the moment he cast a spell; once back to daily life, it was all just a cycle of tedium.

For someone hailed as a genius of the century, even the most complex magic seemed too easy.

Carl began searching for a stimulus. He dabbled in gambling and drugs, but even what was known as the peak of pleasure felt awfully dull to him.

“Please! Save me! Noooo!”

The only thing that provided him with the slightest amusement was torturing humans.

The desire to live. Struggling to survive.

These were feelings he lacked. Carl paradoxically felt alive in witnessing the dying struggles of those being tortured.

Yet, it felt like a sweet swamp that consumed him. Immediately after a session of torture, he would feel a filthy sense of becoming a monster himself, but his hands would tremble like an addict if he didn’t continue.

Humans only become monsters when they become desensitized to the deaths of others. At seventeen, Carl stood on the very cusp of becoming one.

“Stop torturing people.”

It was Caesar who granted him a brief break.

“It’s a mental illness that often runs in the Crisis family. My father didn’t have it, so it’s not absolute, but it does tend to manifest frequently in our lineage. I often find myself falling into the boredom you do. Yours seems a bit worse, but I understand what your boredom feels like. Torture may give you momentary satisfaction, but it offers no lasting solution. For now, remain in the mansion.”

After Caesar’s command, Carl had to stay in the mansion for a month. Although Caesar continuously provided means to shatter his boredom, everything felt useless against the onslaught of crippling monotony.

Stuck within the mansion, Carl’s possible areas of activity dwindled to only his room and the training grounds.

“What are you looking at?”

It was fate that brought him face to face with them.

“Hah! W-wait, young master! It’s not what you think…!”

“Enough. Answer me. What were you looking at?”

The faces of the two knights, who had been slacking off outside the training ground, turned pale as they stammered, unable to figure out what to say. Carl lightly ignored their flustered demeanor and pointed at the video magic tool one of the knights held in his hand.

“Is this what you mean?”

“Don’t make me repeat myself three times.”

“Yikes! We were watching the battle footage of the mercenary Mir!”

“Mir?”

Carl’s brows narrowed.

Mir was someone Carl was familiar with.

Mir had entered the mercenary scene three years ago and was currently presumed to be a Sword Expert, monopolizing all the contracts related to monster extermination with his silver shield mercenary company.

With many knights in the Empire, video recordings of their battles were commonly traded. However, there were still many knights who looked down on mercenary work, so Carl had never seen a video magic tool capturing a mercenary’s battle footage.

“Yes! He’s incredible! It’s really hard to get a hold of Mir’s battle footage, but my father, who trades in video magic tools, made a huge effort to acquire it just so I could watch it once and return it!”

Ignoring the knight who was boasting as if he had forgotten who he was, Carl snatched the magic tool from him.

Disregarding the knight’s cries that he would be torn limb from limb if he didn’t return it safely, he played the video.

Clang!

The sword moved endlessly. Proving he was not yet a Sword Master, his swordsmanship was a bit unstable. It was wholly unlike the elegant, precise attacks of knights; this was purely a sword for survival. Every single movement contained the desperation of someone determined to prove he was alive.

There was no elegance or grace.

Yet, it was astonishingly alive.

“How much is it?”

“Pardon?”

“I asked how much you planned to sell this for.”

“Um… If I heard right, they were considering selling it for up to a hundred gold coins each.”

“Before you clock out, have Taylor take ten times that amount.”

“What?”

Carl returned to his room, leaving the astonished knight behind, clutching the magic tool.

His eyes were dead. Yet the gaze, the composure, the surging aura, the sword that cleaved through monsters were all lively and pulsating. Carl felt a shiver; he reveled in a vividness he had never experienced before.

That was the turning point.

“Buy up every single battle video of Mercenary Mir.”

Carl endlessly replayed the lifelike struggles of the living. Watching it made him feel alive as well.

“I’ve heard you’ve taken quite an interest in Mercenary Mir lately. I take it you’ve stopped torturing?”

Seeing his son so subdued, Caesar raised an eyebrow. Carl simply nodded.

With a better path unfolding before him, he no longer had a reason to indulge in torture to feel alive.

“Shall I investigate Mir’s true identity, then?”

In that moment, Carl pondered. What kind of person was the Mir he had met? Was he really that radiant, living so brilliantly?

There was a desire to answer ‘yes,’ but he ultimately shook his head.

“That’s fine. I don’t want to force out what you’re trying to keep hidden.”

It was the first moment Carl Crisis suppressed his own desires for the sake of another.

“Right. If you find anything lacking, speak up. You may return now.”

Caesar’s indifferent voice resonated with a hint of deep consideration.

Neither Carl nor Caesar could be called a person capable of loving someone. However, even so, Caesar endeavored not to be the worst father, wishing to accommodate Carl’s desires and staying attentive to his boredom.

The dry and dull relationship between the two persisted entirely thanks to Caesar.

“Yes.”

And although Carl could not claim to love Caesar, he understood and respected him. They were silent sympathizers of one another.

Following that, Carl’s life found a sufficiently normal trajectory. He no longer wandered in search of pleasure and cut off from the practice of torture. Many people remarked that he had changed by about ninety degrees, if not completely.

However, in reality, not much had changed. Carl was still bored, still unaware of love, and still craved life. The only thing that had changed was that he knew Mir.

Carl lived another day, savoring Mir’s brilliant existence.

The day the living Mir, not just the one from the videos, fell into his life came two years after he had first learned of Mir, on a winter day.

“Young master, we’ve received a call from the Duke’s Mansion.”

“Tell them I’m busy.”

“This message comes directly from the Duke.”

Carl’s hand drawing magic circles paused. It was unusual for Caesar to contact him directly, especially since Carl spent most of his time in the magic tower; Caesar never sought to interrupt his leisure time.

“Is there an urgent matter in the family?”

“More than that, it seems an opportunity has arisen for you, young master.”

The attendant wore a significant smile. As Carl grasped the magic tool, the letters that rose to the surface prompted him to quickly don his outerwear.

“Activate the teleportation device immediately.”

“It’s already on standby.”

The attendant who had worked by Carl’s side for a long time knew him well.

[Mercenary Mir will be participating in this monster extermination at the Village of Lujou. If you arrive quickly, you can catch up with him.]

Caesar Crisis knew his son well, too.

“Are you not going?”

Seeing Carl stand like a statue in front of the teleportation device, the attendant tilted his head. Carl slowly blinked.

Perhaps, beyond this point, Mir would be waiting. The protagonist who had been the driving force of his life for two years.

And at that moment, Carl hesitated before that very instant.

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to see Mir. Throughout the two years he’d explored Mir’s existence, he wanted to experience the reality of Mir more than anyone else.

Yet, he was afraid.

Fear. What a word that hardly suited Carl Crisis. And yet, here he was, hesitating before a moment he longed for, struck by fear.

What if the Mir he had yearned for so long turned out to be nothing special?

Suddenly, a single assumption dominated Carl’s mind, driving him to madness.

It was amusing how, for nearly two years, Mir had appeared to Carl as the kind of imaginary hero boys often idolized.

A star that shone brighter for being unreachable. An idol worshipped because his true self was unknown. An ideal that could be longed for because his essence was indeterminate. The moment his identity was confirmed, his precarious heart might crumble into dust.

Carl had invested far too much emotional equity in a mere mercenary, whose identity was still a mystery.

“……Young master?”

Parve’s cautious call pulled Carl from his thoughts. A charming smile had somehow appeared on his lips as he chewed on his worries.

“Parve Roman.”

“Yes, young master.”

The loyal knight of the Duke’s Mansion bowed his head before the small master.

Carl Crisis loathed stupid humans. The pests that clung on without knowing their place, the bees drawn to sugary syrup, oblivious to the secrecy within. He found them utterly pitiful and bothersome.

Yet, he did not detest the foolishly acting Mir.

Objectively speaking, Mir was not foolish. On the contrary, he was among the sharpest and wisest individuals Carl had ever encountered.

He displayed exceptional insight based on extensive experience regarding monsters, exercising a caution that distanced him from the aspiring knights filled with admiration, exhibiting an almost miraculous intuition and rapid situational judgment.

Yet, for some reason, this extraordinarily intelligent Mir acted foolishly only in front of Carl.

As if he sensed that Carl was wearing a mask, Mir would furrow his brows for a moment, only for a strange faith from somewhere to wash over his innocence and dispel any doubt. The weak pretense depicted a concern for Carl, almost forgetting his own status as a noble.

Carl recalled Mir’s gaze watching him. Those eyes, often expressionless, would hold a strange light whenever they looked at him.

As if meeting an understanding in a world filled with ignorance and misunderstanding, or perhaps feeling as though he himself was an understanding presence to Mir. It was an odd joy, intertwined with deceit.

Mir already knew him.

Since when, Carl didn’t know. Or rather, it hardly mattered when. He wasn’t concerned with why Mir looked at him that way or how he had figured him out.

It simply felt nice to see those eyes. No, it felt astonishingly good.

Had he never known, he might never have grasped hold of it. But once he did discover it, he couldn’t let go.

With a psychotic grin, Carl coldly commanded:

“Find Mir. Spare no expense or means. If you fail to uncover his identity, be prepared to end it all.”

Carl never let go once he bit down.

Meanwhile, Parve, who had heard the same precise words from the Duke before leaving the mansion, could only inwardly curse the duo for their madness.