Chapter 30

Ghost Knight (2)

When Aiden thought about the person known as the Lord Protector, there was actually very little information to go on.

By the time the main scenario of the game began, she was already dead, and even her background was only mentioned briefly.

Sir Theresa Adelite had been close to Noel in age, though a few years older. She possessed far more battlefield experience, however, and she had also been the benefactor who took in Noel after the war left her an orphan with no relatives. She was the person who had exerted an enormous influence on Noel’s values and was practically her only family.

In short, she was a woman who had been almost like a parent to Noel.

Theresa was also the teacher who had taught her the abilities she used, including her pure-white ki and sword techniques. Of course, in terms of raw capability, Theresa had been closer to the person who organized the theory while Noel was the one who perfected it in practice, so Noel had ultimately become stronger.

“A ghost…?”

But none of that was the real problem right now.

Noel’s voice was barely more than a whisper, yet the emotion packed into that tiny sound was more intense than anything Aiden had ever seen from her.

How was he supposed to describe it?

Grief, despair, confusion—any of them would fit, and none of them would help them escape the situation.

After studying Noel’s expression from beside her, Aiden could make an even more precise assessment: this was beyond merely losing her composure. She had practically entered denial and could no longer properly process what was standing in front of her. Whether Noel was stronger or weaker than the opponent did not matter. In her current state, she would be useless in a fight and might not even be capable of running away.

“Why are you here…?”

Aiden could sympathize completely with the dazed murmur that escaped her.

‘Why is she here…?!’

Theresa had never appeared this way in the actual game. She had only been mentioned in background material and had never once returned as a ghostly enemy that the player had to fight.

And she had certainly never raised her sword to launch a lethal slash at Noel.

Aiden clenched his teeth, rushed Noel, and slammed into her. The two tumbled across the ground in a tangled heap just before the flying attack could strike.

‘I have no idea why she’s here, but…!’

There was still a way out.

The rift that had allowed spirits to manifest in the material world had already been closed. Aiden did not know why the Lord Protector’s spirit had suddenly emerged, but there was no way it could remain manifested for very long without that source.

All they needed to do was get out of the spirit’s combat range. Once they escaped far enough, the immediate event would end.

The problem was that Aiden could not do it by himself. His physical abilities were nowhere near sufficient to outrun a spirit capable of firing monstrous slashes like that. He absolutely needed someone else’s help.

“Sir Stella, can you carry both Lord Noel and me at the same time?”

“…It’s possible!” Stella gritted her teeth as she answered, seizing a nearby iron streetlamp with one hand.

The massive piece of iron tore free with a violent crunch, shattering the concrete around its base. It was such absurd physical strength that any normal observer would have been left speechless, yet Stella’s eyes remained tense as they locked onto the Lord Protector’s ghost.

Her instincts had clearly told her just how powerful the entity in front of them was.

“I can’t do it while shaking that thing off. Lord Noel needs to come to her senses!”

Stella hurled the uprooted streetlamp like a massive javelin.

The sight of an iron mass larger than a human body screaming through the air was terrifying enough, but the Lord Protector cleaved it clean in two with a single stroke.

Stella drew her own sword and rushed forward immediately afterward. Her intention was obvious: she planned to buy time. She had never entertained the idea of winning the fight in the first place. She was telling Aiden to somehow get Noel back on her feet while she held the enemy off.

Her determination was admirable, but with Noel in this state, even restoring her senses looked difficult, let alone escaping.

Noel’s eyes had lost focus as though she were staring at something impossibly far away. Her arms and legs hung slack, as if all strength had drained from them, and she seemed unable even to process what had just happened.

“…Theresa…?” she whispered, her voice sounding almost like a sob. “Did you… attack me?”

“Lord Noel, pull yourself together!” Aiden grabbed Noel near the collar and pulled her face close.

“…Mr. Aiden?”

“If this continues, all of us are going to die! We need to get out of here first!”

Aiden still possessed the Prince’s Skill Imitation charge, but against an opponent like the Lord Protector, it would accomplish very little on its own. He would need to devise additional measures before he could use it efficiently.

“Die…?” Noel repeated the word weakly with unfocused eyes. “Theresa is going to kill me?”

Her voice had a detached, unreal quality Aiden had never heard from her before. She seemed completely unable to understand the situation.

Aiden understood why when he considered the relationship between Noel and the Lord Protector. It must have felt like being told that one’s own parent was trying to murder them.

But understanding did not change the situation. He had to find some way to snap her out of it.

Then, something warm suddenly ran down Aiden’s forehead.

He must have torn the skin when he tackled Noel and rolled across the ground with her. A single drop of blood fell onto his face.

The instant Noel saw it, her pupils widened.

As more drops slid down his forehead, focus returned to her gaze. Her consciousness seemed to come back from whatever distant unreality it had been drifting through. It was almost as though she had suddenly remembered something she had to do.

Noel raised a trembling hand and brushed Aiden’s forehead. Bright red blood stained the tip of her finger.

“…Are you hurt?”

“What?”

“Mr. Aiden, are you injured?”

“…I am, technically, but this is nothing.”

It truly was not serious—little more than a shallow scrape. Yet the sight of it immediately put something like firm resolve back into Noel’s eyes.

“How is this nothing?! You’re bleeding!”

“…”

“Honestly, you…!”

“…”

Noel suddenly shouted and surged back to her feet. That single sight seemed to have snapped her completely out of her shock.

‘Just how overprotective is this woman going to be toward me?’

Aiden was relieved she had returned to normal, but his feelings about the reason were complicated.

Noel looked toward the Lord Protector’s ghost, who was exchanging rapid blows with Stella, and clenched her teeth. Whatever else had happened, she seemed to understand what needed to be done now.

“Haa…”

After letting out a quiet breath, Noel wrapped one arm around Aiden and tucked him snugly against her side.

“…”

Aiden no longer had to ask where Stella had learned her method of carrying people.

Then Noel braced her rear leg and kicked off the ground.

A crater exploded into the pavement where she had been standing, as though a bomb had detonated beneath her feet. The impact did not stop there; the entire ground rumbled for an instant, enough to make anyone nearby think the area had been shelled.

Noel crossed the distance to Stella in a fraction of a second and drove a devastating kick into the Lord Protector with all the force of her momentum.

Two explosive impacts thundered through the street.

The Lord Protector’s body was launched across the avenue and smashed into a building hard enough to destroy half of it, as though she had been struck by a heavy siege ram. Unlike before, when she had pressured Stella effortlessly, she had not even managed to react to this strike.

‘What kind of strength is that?!’

Aiden had thought Stella ripping a streetlamp out with her bare hands was already outrageous, but compared to this, it was nothing.

As he realized once again just how far beyond ordinary humanity knights who wielded special powers truly were, Noel grabbed Stella and tucked her against her other side in exactly the same manner.

“Hold on tight.”

Cracks split the ground again as Noel prepared to spring away.

“We’re getting out of here!”

With those words, all three of them shot high into the air.

She was not truly flying, of course; Noel had simply jumped so high that it appeared that way. Even while doing so, however, Noel kept her eyes fixed on the Lord Protector staring back at her from inside the half-destroyed building.

She continued watching until Theresa disappeared from sight.

✦ ✦ ✦

They had escaped the immediate danger, which was good, but Aiden now felt as though his head were splitting open from a pounding headache.

[Quest Info]

▶ The incidents listed under this entry impose enormous penalties upon failure!

♠ Main Quest

◈ Act 1: < Imperial Capital Fracture >

Chapter 1: < Ghost Knight Incident >

▶ The 'Boss' has not been defeated. The quest remains incomplete.

▶ A penalty is applied due to partial failure.

▶ The Boss becomes significantly stronger!

▶ A 'Suppression Battle' will occur again soon.

▶ Failure of that battle will result in quest failure!

‘Oh, come on.’

Aiden groaned inwardly as he stared at the floating window before his eyes.

He had expected something like this. They had effectively abandoned the boss battle—the crucial conclusion of the event—so he had never believed the system would simply let it pass without consequence.

What made him dizzy was the part stating that the boss would become even stronger. Theresa had already looked capable of fighting Noel on roughly equal terms. If she became significantly stronger than that, even bringing Noel and Katya together might not be enough to handle her.

‘My head hurts…’

How was he supposed to come up with another solution now?

As Aiden groaned inwardly, Noel finished wrapping layer after layer of bandage around his forehead and finally withdrew her hands. “This should be enough.”

“…Anyone looking at me would think I got shot in the head.”

Before Aiden could complain that this was a ridiculous overreaction to a minor scrape, Noel continued without paying any attention to his grumbling. “I’ve called a medical specialist. You should at least undergo a proper examination, just in case.”

“Isn’t that going a little too far…”

“Mr. Aiden,” Noel cut him off with a brilliant, radiating smile.

Her eyes, naturally, were not smiling at all. She clearly had no intention of hearing objections. “Get examined.”

“…” Aiden could only nod in silent surrender.

“That wound came from contact with a spirit. No one knows what kind of unusual curse or injury it might develop into.”

“…Right.”

By that logic, being beaten half to death by Meyer nearly every night in his dreams was probably the greater concern, but there was no reason to voice that thought out loud.

There was something else bothering him far more.

“May I ask you one thing?”

“Yes?”

“Lord Noel, are you all right?”

“My injuries are only minor scrapes—”

“No, I don’t mean physically.” Aiden paused for a moment before speaking again softly. “Are you really all right?”

“…”

“You may have to face that thing again later.”

The moment Noel realized he was referring to the Lord Protector’s spirit, her mouth snapped shut.

“You may have to fight her again.”

“…You sound as though you’re certain that will happen.”

“I am.”

There was a way through this. After watching yesterday’s fight, Aiden had already begun to glimpse something resembling a viable opening. The real question was whether Noel could handle her part in it.

Even during the few exchanges she had made with Theresa, Noel had hesitated to an almost unbelievable degree. She had looked as though she absolutely, categorically did not want to raise her blade against her mentor.

Noel remained silent for a long time before releasing a quiet, heavy sigh. “…I’m not all right.”

She said it with plain, quiet frankness. The expression on her face carried scars as deep as the memories behind them.

“Theresa was with me from so early in my childhood that I can barely remember a time before her. To me, she was practically my real older sister.”

“…”

“It still hurts just to think about her. How could I possibly be all right if I’m told to fight something that may be her soul?”

Of course that was exactly how she would feel. If she felt this strongly, perhaps it would be better to leave her out of the next encounter entirely.

“But,” Noel abruptly cut that line of thought short, “if you try to solve this without me, I’ll be angry.”

“…What?”

“I’m the one who dragged you into all of this in the first place.”

Before Aiden could answer, Noel placed a warm hand on his shoulder. The corner of her mouth lifted slightly. Her expression was casual, but that only made the sincerity beneath it easier to feel.

“…Besides, we don’t have definitive proof that thing truly is Theresa’s soul. And even if it is…” Noel took a deep breath before finishing, “no matter what happens, I will take responsibility for returning you safely to your family.”

Just as she had done when the crisis erupted the night before.

Even if she had to cross swords with something that might be the soul of the woman she considered an older sister, Noel intended to protect Aiden to the very end.

“Do you understand? Don’t worry about my circumstances. Your safety comes first.”

“…”

Aiden stared at Noel for a moment, temporarily at a loss for words.

‘…Now that I think about it.’

He rubbed a hand down his face with a faint, incredulous smile.

He had heard her say many times that she would protect him, but he had never realized just how deeply and sincerely she meant it. Even with the Lord Protector involved, Noel still placed Aiden’s safety ahead of her own emotional anguish.

“Why are you making that expression, Mr. Aiden?”

“Because I’m a little embarrassed.”

“Excuse me?”

“You look a little different to me now, Lord Noel.”

How was he supposed to put the feeling into words? He had never particularly disliked her before. But now, he genuinely felt close to her as another person. He wasn’t about to call it romantic affection, but at the very least, he sincerely liked her.

Which was becoming troublesome in its own way.

The moment Noel heard him, she slowly began backing away. “…Why would you say something like that in a situation like this…?”

“What?”

“Mr. Aiden, I don’t dislike you either, but I hardly think this is the right moment to start making advances—”

“…”

That was not what he had meant at all. He desperately needed to change the subject.

“More importantly, what’s that?”

Looking for anything else to talk about, Aiden gestured with his chin toward the newspaper lying on Noel’s desk. He had never seen her reading something like that before, so he had asked casually. The moment she heard the question, however, her expression darkened noticeably.

“…Ah, this is…”

Aiden narrowed his eyes at Noel’s hesitation and leaned over to read the front page. His expression changed immediately when he saw the bold headline spanning the top.

< Lord Protector’s Ghost Appears in the Imperial Capital… “Lionheart, What Happened During the Coalition War?” >

“…”

“Everyone seems to be making quite a fuss about what happened yesterday,” Noel gave a bitter, weary smile while Aiden read the article with a rigid face.

As Meyer’s earlier example had shown, several strict conditions had to be met for a spirit to manifest physically in the material world. It had to have reached an extraordinarily high realm of power in life, and after death, it needed to retain a lingering attachment or grudge powerful enough that it could not possibly rest.

“…So they’re claiming the Lord Protector died because of you, Lord Noel, and came back as a ghost seeking revenge over that grudge?”

Once those spirit rules were taken into account, the Lord Protector’s appearance the previous night could easily be reframed into a sensationalized story like this.

The article carefully twisted its wording to avoid taking direct legal responsibility for the accusation, but it effectively treated that malicious interpretation as established truth.

Aiden might have dismissed it if it had come from some trashy scandal rag. But this was one of the most reputable, widely read newspapers in the Imperial Capital. A respected publication had openly released an article attacking Lionheart—one of the Empire’s greatest living heroes.

And more importantly, the timing was far too fast.

The incident had happened only the previous night. Not even half a day had passed. For an article like this to appear in a major publication so quickly, there had almost certainly been deliberate, powerful pressure behind it.

As for who was responsible, Aiden did not need much imagination.

‘The Prince.’

No matter how he considered it, there was no other faction currently hostile enough to Noel and powerful enough to exert this kind of media influence.

“Well,” Noel answered with another bitter smile, “it doesn’t matter what they say. They’re free to think whatever they want.”

“…”

“I don’t particularly care. It doesn’t bother me at all…”

Her sentence cut off abruptly when Aiden walked straight toward her and planted both hands firmly on her shoulders.

“Lord Noel.”

“…Yes?”

“We haven’t known each other for very long, but there’s one thing I know for certain.” Aiden tightened his grip on her shoulders slightly. “You don’t seem like someone who would ever do what they’re accusing you of.”

“…” Noel fell silent, meeting his clear gaze.

“You don’t have to explain the details to me. I’ll only ask one question. Did you do it?”

“…What do you mean…?”

“Did you actually do the ridiculous thing this newspaper claims you did?”

Noel blinked, staring up at him in complete bewilderment. Her face still carried the slightly tired expression Aiden often saw, but something deep in her eyes shifted. It looked almost as though she had just made up her mind about something important.

“…Of course not. Theresa was my benefactor.”

The instant Noel said it, Aiden nodded once and removed his hands from her shoulders. “Good. Then let’s go.”

“…What? Go? Where exactly are you—”

“We’re going to smash the heads of the people spouting trash about you.”

“…”

“Where is that Prince right now, anyway?”

Just as Noel had spoken to Aiden moments earlier, his dark expression made one thing abundantly clear: he had absolutely no intention of accepting any objections.