章 109: The Great Banquet (1)
Hugo Les Baskerville.
The iron-blooded swordsman who rules Baskerville.
One of the seven pillars that support the Rock of the Great Empire.
In recognition of his great contributions to the unification of the continent's powers into a single empire, he was awarded the Star of Swords, and was knighted as a Marquis, at the age of fifty.
About a decade had passed since then.
Hugo was a man with literally iron blood and a furnace heart.
He drove the rampaging barbarians far beyond the borders of the country and wiped out over a hundred species of demonic creatures.
His exploits, and the power that made them possible, gave him a tight grip on the center of power.
Countless Baskerville hounds had been sacrificed along the way, but Hugo didn't care.
Hugo was a man who, once set on a path, never looked back.
... but.
That iron-blooded man was wavering now.
Hugo stared at the small girl before him with a blank expression he hadn't seen in decades, not even from Butler Barrymore, with whom he had spent his entire life.
Pomeranian.
Suddenly bursting out of the next room, she ran straight to Vikir and hugged him.
"Uncle! Thunderclap! Musher!"
But Vikir could do little more than hold the Pomeranian still.
Vikir couldn't do much more than hold the Pomeranian still, because the reaction of Hugo, whose eyes were now wide open in front of him, was too unexpected.
He glanced to the side, hoping to see something, and found Butler Barrymore staring at Hugo with an even more astonished expression.
Hugo's reaction is understandable, as there is no way in the world that Hugo would have such a look on his face.
Shock and horror. An awkward silence fills the office.
Then, like a man possessed by a ghost, Hugo took a step forward.
"Are you, are you... that face... can't be...?"
Hugo's hands and voice trembled. It was only now that Vikir realized it could be a tremor.
His unsteady gaze darted to the side of the Pomeranian's face, to the blood-red eyes half-hidden by black hair.
Meanwhile. Pomeranian, who had been squirming in Vikir's arms, looked up and gasped.
" Wooooaaah! Uncle!"
Pomeranian cried out loudly and stumbled backwards.
It's a natural reaction for a girl to have when she sees a middle-aged man with a mustache approaching her with a shaky hand outstretched.
"Moustache! Nose hair! Offensive! Shirer!"
The Pomeranian squealed, hiding in Vikir's arms.
And to Hugo's surprise, he froze in place in shock.
"My nose... mustache? My mustache?"
With trembling hands, Hugo groped under his nose.
Just then, Vikir stepped forward.
"Mr. Hugo, please calm down."
The cold, emotionless tone of his voice sobered Hugo.
As Hugo straightened up, Vikir asked.
"This is a child I picked up on my way here. I brought him here to run a personal errand, but I don't know if you're bothered by...?"
"Eh, eh. Picked him up on the road, huh?"
Hugo glares at Pomeranian even as he answers Vikir.
But Pomerian was already in Vikir's arms, so he couldn't see her face again.
When Hugo dared to lift his head once more to look into the Pomeranian's face, Butler Barrymore came to Vikir's aid.
"My lord. There are as many children in the world as there are grains of sand. There's nothing particularly strange about the Master picking up a child to run an errand for."
At that, Hugo stopped shivering.
"...I'm mistaken, then. The butler is right."
And then. Hugo reverted back to his stern expression.
But why was he fiddling with his mustache?
"Does the mustache bother you?"
"No. ...What are you talking about, butler?"
"Oh, no, no, I don't know!"
Barrymore blurts out, earning a favorable glare from Hugo.
Hugo sighs as he sits back down on the couch.
"I see. I was mistaken for a moment. I apologize for being so distracted, son."
Hugo apologized. This surprised Vikir once more.
Next, Vikir summoned the Chihuahua director to send the Pomeranian to the bedroom.
"Mr. Director. Please give him a quiet room today, since the thunder scared him so much."
"Yes, sir, and I'll have hot cocoa."
With familiarity, Chihuahua takes the Pomeranian.
It looked as if it had been with the Pomeranian for a long time, and Hugo could see once again that his agitation was an illusion.
Chihuahua was a quick-witted person.
Sensing Vikir's embarrassment, he gave Hugo and Barrymore a quick nod, then casually turned and covered the Pomeranian's face.
Then, with a fluid motion, he picked up Pomeranian and carried her out of the office.
Hugo had been rubbing his face with his hands.
Vikir looked at Hugo, who was still very much shaken, and wondered.
Master. A swordsman who has touched the realm of the Supreme is not merely physically strong.
Their souls are extremely disciplined and tempered. A Swordmaster can only be reached by having a strong soul as well as a strong body.
But for Hugo, a man with such a strong soul, to be so disheveled...….
"There must be something to it."
Vikir decided to think more deeply about the Pomeranian.
Then.
"...Son."
Hugo opened his mouth to look at Vikir.
"Yes, Father."
Vikir replied with a short bow.
Then came the line Vikir had been expecting.
"Come to the great banquet tomorrow."
The Great Banquet. A small, exclusive dinner for the Baskervilles' direct descendants, the very elite.
It is the lifelong dream of every lowly Baskerville to attend, even once.
At one point, Vikir was one of them.
A typical seventeen year old Baskerville, especially one with a Van middle name, would have jumped for joy and wagged his tail at Hugo's offer.
But Vikir merely nodded meekly.
"I will see you tomorrow evening, father."
Hugo nodded back, completely unmoved, and didn't say anything else.
Only Butler Barrymore dabbed at his slightly reddened eyes with his handkerchief.
"You've been a good boy all these years.
Still, it was plain to see what the old butler was thinking.
* * *
That night.
Vikir retired to his bedroom in the city hall.
After a hot shower, he lay down on the fluffy bed and felt out of place.
After sleeping on dried straw and fallen leaves for the past two years, such a comfortable place to sleep felt foreign.
Eventually, Vikir left the bed and got down on the floor.
Before getting down, he tucked a pillow under the covers to disguise his bulge.
An occupational disease (?) from years of assassination experience.
"...."
After lying down without a blanket on the hardwood floor, I finally got used to it.
"Come to think of it, I always chose a hard stone floor like this to sleep on when I went hunting.
The two years he spent with the wolves, the warriors of Balak, were an experience he'll never forget. For a while, it seemed to stick with him.
Vikir lay on his arms and thought about what was to come.
"Come to think of it, Hugo's reaction today was quite unexpected."
His reaction earlier had convinced him to some extent that he should report the matter of the Pomeranian and the pendant.
'I'll think about it tomorrow after the great banquet.
"Then I'll pull out my hand at the most effective time."
Maybe it would be a good opportunity to give Hugo a last-minute, decisive blow.
Either way, it would have to be in a way that wouldn't harm the Pomeranian.
Vikir closed his eyes, planning his move.
"...!"
Suddenly, one of Vikir's eyes popped open.
Whirring.
A gust of wind, so slight that a normal person wouldn't have felt it.
The cold night air brushed against his skin.
The window opened soundlessly, and a shadow crawled through the crack.
The shadow approached the bed silently, and in its hand it drew a dagger with a sharp edge.
It smelled faintly of mana.
Then, The Shadow stood before the bed. It was where Vikir would normally lie.
But no.
The Shadow did not swing the blade directly at the bed. It simply lifted the end of the blanket and slipped quietly under it.
Of course, Vikir was on the floor, not under the covers, so he was able to watch the shadow's movements from start to finish.
"You've been back less than a day. You're a fast learner."
Vikir smirked and pushed himself up.
And.
The physicality of the Graduator Superior is on full display.
Bam!
Vikir drew his Beelzebub and knocked the shadow's dagger away in one swift motion.
…Puck!
The Shadow's dagger spun around and flew away, embedding itself in the wall.
At the same time, Vikir's grip flew out like a snake's gills and grabbed The Shadow by the throat.
In an instant, The Shadow's arm snapped and he fell backwards onto the bed, Vikir stamping fiercely on top of him.
Vikir climbed on top of him and whispered low in his ear.
"Next time, you might want to make a formal request for an interview. I'll kill you if you make a mistake."
"...I'll have to."
The Shadow's breathing was steady and measured.
Then, the black cloak that covered his face slipped off.
It was the old face he hadn't seen in a long time.
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