Anyway, one heard that the justice of the Supreme God did not lie in the expiation of evil. It was in the ceaseless questioning of what was good and evil.
“Tell me… Tell me one thing,” the man said. If, in spite of this truth, they were doing justice by expunging evil… “What god, what deity, gave you this revelation?”
There was a sound, a gentle rustling, and a breeze blew from somewhere unknown through the suffocating corridor. It brought with it a piercing chill, weaving between the knight and the lady and then the man before continuing to wherever it was going. In its wake, it left only a faint, bitter taste of ash in the air.
“Who—?”
Who the hell does this “knight” think he is?!
The man didn’t even realize that his right hand was reaching for the sword at his hip; his eyes glazed with hatred. The Knight of Diamonds—his ass! This was the man who had received the golden spur? He was an outlaw!
That armor he was wearing—he’d probably stripped it off a corpse on some battlefield somewhere.
“You have no right to complain about what I do! Who died and made you king?!”
“Who indeed?” The knight—the Knight of Diamonds—appeared to laugh. “Funny. I was wondering the same thing about you.”
“…What…?”
“Each time you speak, the words you wield are like a blade fashioned for that particular occasion. They lack any consistency.”
Sigh. The lady-in-waiting shook her head at this, appearing exasperated. She looked at the man with eyes as cold as ice and whispered that he should just play along.
The expression, the body language—the man remembered them. In his mind, the pieces fell into place with an audible click. “I know you! You’re the king’s dog—his little pet!”
She was the king’s attendant. This was all the proof he needed that the king and the Knight of Diamonds were colluding with each other. A genuine smile came over the man’s face. This was absurd! Perfect! More than enough to drag the king off his throne. The man would never get another chance like this.
His hand tightened on his scabbard, but he couldn’t draw yet. He was going to cut down his opponent, and he needed the right excuse.
Luckily for him, he had it. For the knight had mocked him. And if I revile someone, hate them—does that not show that they are evil?
“You may try to humiliate me, but it will do you no good! I will let the world know of your misdeeds, and you will face judgment!” he hollered—but there was no answer.
Instead, the Knight of Diamonds raised the visor of his helmet ever so slightly and said, “Are you so quick to forget my face?”
“?!?!”
A moment later, the man lunged at the Knight of Diamonds. He gibbered incomprehensibly, clutching his sword in his hand, taking a great swing.
He wasn’t even aware that the sword he struck with was already broken in half. His eyes blazed; he bared his teeth; he reveled in the joy of destroying an opponent. It was not the face of a human being.
It was no longer a man who threw himself at the Knight of Diamonds—but a beast who had heard the whispering of the External God.
“Keerraahhhhh!” he cried.
“I want you to know, I’m not here because you opposed me at every turn,” the knight said abruptly. “It’s because you dragged my little sister into this.”
This crazed beast was no match for the Knight of Diamonds. His vorpal blade decapitated the creature effortlessly, a single fatal stroke. The man’s vision filled with the void spinning around him once, and then he bounced along the ground once, twice—and then everything went dark.
Even without its life force, the body continued to writhe on the ground; the silver-haired lady-in-waiting promptly dispatched it with her dagger. The likes of this thing deserved no more honorable death.
Once, then twice, her blade plunged into his heart. Then she got to her feet.
“…So?” There wasn’t a speck of blood on her outfit; she remained the picture of a pure, faithful servant. “What will we tell them? That after he was injured in the tournament, things went downhill from there?”
“No… That would cast a pall over the girl’s victory.”
“What do we say, then?”
“What, you don’t know?” The knight shook the blood off his blade and returned it to its scabbard with a fittingly royal motion. He looked exactly as he had when he’d faced the No-Life King here in the capital—although, in fact, much time had passed. “He had a stomach ailment of some kind, let’s say, and with the conclusion of his participation in this tournament, he intends to keep to strict bed rest, his emoluments to be granted to his family.”
“Sure. That’s what we’ll go with.”
If it wasn’t going to be an issue for the silver-haired attendant, she had scant further interest in it. It would be a problem for the red-haired cardinal, but she could safely ignore it.
Besides…
The man had bound himself to an evil sect, tried to disrupt the tournament—indeed, tried to perpetrate terror in the royal capital. And his method had been to attempt to curse the girl—not even because she was a member of the royal family! For the likes of him, this young woman had little compassion indeed.
Guess our hands are tied, though.
There was nothing more tiresome than politics—it had so many rules. That was what made it politics. If they just went around killing everyone they didn’t like because they didn’t like them…
We’d be no better than him.
“…I’m starting to think adventuring might have been easier,” she muttered.
She felt the weight of the Knight of Diamonds’s rough gauntlet on her head; he mussed her hair. It wouldn’t help—he couldn’t distract her that way.
She pouted even more fiercely than usual and said, “I’ll deal with this guy. You get some distance.” But all the same, she placed her hand over his and didn’t push him away. “Just try not to be too serious. Please.”
“How’s that?”
“The demons who poured from that portal…” The young woman looked around the passageway; the touch of evil had departed from the corpse, and now the place was no more remarkable than any other hallway. “You struck them all down in one fell swoop, and you’re still not satisfied?”
“Oh, how many times am I going to get a chance like this?” The knight was always this way. He chuckled calmly, looking the way he did when he wanted to go into a dragon’s den. “Anyway, my opponent is just a girl dressed in green wielding an iron spear—well loved by the Trade God.”
“You’re not going to fight a hero with an enchanted blade?”
“Don’t be silly.” The knight appeared unbothered by the young woman’s barb. This was what made him so much work!
“Gods above…”
The young woman smiled in spite of herself. The knight ran his fingers through her hair, and then he set off. The commotion in the coliseum was over, and the tournament would soon begin again—it needed to. If they let this cause them to shrink back and give up their plans, it would be exactly what the enemy wanted.
They could not give in to the god of death and ashes, who wished to burn everything to the ground. They could not bend to evil. That cult would take any excuse to light a flame, but that was all it was—an excuse because they wanted to burn.
A truly fair world—would that not be a world that everyone can enjoy? In which all people share laughter?
As he prepared to leave, the knight knelt down and, just once, spared a look at the man’s lifeless corpse.
May the soul of this sorry man be judged fairly, as he wished.
And with that, the Knight of Diamonds walked away.