Chapter 19 — Debt

Gao Yang had no idea of the bold and thoroughly punchable notion taking shape in Rebecca's mind, but he did know that Viscount Andrew's protection of the Cecil domain's people could not possibly come free of charge. The age when a lord would defend his subjects to the death, when high and low watched over one another, when every soul gave selflessly to rebuild civilization—that age was long gone. Seven hundred years later, the Kingdom of Ansell had still not recovered the glory of the Gondor era, but where the arts of selfishness were concerned, the nobility had needed no teacher at all, and had maxed them out with effortless grace. There could be no doubt: from the very day the refugees of the Cecil domain entered Tansang Town, Rebecca had taken on a debt that had fallen from the sky.

But carrying that debt was still better than everyone being dead.

"The Cecil family will be grateful for your help," Gao Yang said, breaking the silence. "But what matters more right now is this disaster itself."

Viscount Andrew had noticed Gao Yang from the very beginning—the man seated between Rebecca and Heidi. He was deeply curious about this figure in ancient noble attire, a greatsword set beside him, his features stern and solemn. No such person existed among the noble circles Andrew knew. Yet from the deference with which Heidi and Rebecca treated this man, one thing could be judged with certainty: he was no ordinary man.

So when Gao Yang spoke, Andrew seized the moment to ask, "Forgive my boldness—I have been curious all this while. Who might you be, sir?"

"Ancestor of the Cecil family, pioneer among pioneers, one of the seven founding generals of Ansell, Grand Duke of the Southern Marches—Gao Yang Cecil," Heidi announced, springing to her feet, having long awaited this very question. Her face was utterly solemn. "You must have grown up hearing this name since childhood. He is the First Radiance of Dawn."

Gao Yang kept his face rigid, striving for the stern, awe-inspiring look of a man whose wrath was held in check, and gave a slight nod in time with Heidi's shameless overhyping. But at the final sentence he could not help but freeze, and quietly leaned toward Rebecca to ask, "What the hell is that last title supposed to be?"

Rebecca hastened to explain, "The posthumous title the founding king bestowed upon you after your death..."

Gao Yang was aghast. "...Couldn't that old chuunibyou have come up with something that at least sounds good?!"

As for Viscount Andrew, this meticulous and orthodox nobleman's first reaction upon hearing Heidi's words was to sit there utterly blank-faced.

Had this lady, after her family suffered catastrophe and she was frightened by monsters, cracked under too much mental strain and finally gone mad?

It was just as Gao Yang had thought from the start: unless one saw it with one's own eyes, no outsider would ever believe a tale of the Cecil family's Mystic Meridian Sect climbing out of a coffin. Even the worldly nobility and the erudite mages would never credit such a wild fantasy—though perhaps the illiterate common folk, their heads stuffed full of superstition, might swallow it whole.

That Andrew did not, immediately upon hearing Heidi's words, summon a servant to feed this lady her medicine was already a testament to his breeding.

"My lady, allow me to... er... allow me a moment to think," Andrew said, struggling to arrange his expression, apparently searching for some phrasing that might convey his feelings without being too rude, until at last he could not help but speak plainly. "I know you have suffered a nightmare beyond imagining, but to use such a fantastical tale to... isn't that going a bit too far?"

Heidi's expression did not change. "I knew you would react this way. In truth, even we could hardly believe it was real. Yet the ancestor of the Cecil family has indeed awakened from his long sleep. We saw with our own eyes as he sat up in his coffin, the Pioneer's Sword still in his hand, and we have verified that he is truly resurrected—not some trick of the walking dead..."

Andrew's face took on a look somewhere between laughing and crying. "If you have any request of me, then please say it outright. This..."

Gao Yang waved his hand for Heidi to sit, laid the Pioneer's Sword upon the table, and turned to look at Viscount Andrew. "Viscount, what purpose could Heidi possibly serve by telling such a lie? A viscount's domain has been destroyed by monsters and an elemental tide, and a dragon has appeared in the skies above our lands. An incident of this magnitude is enough to stir the king himself in the capital. In such a desperate situation, would we dress someone up in ancient stage costume, hand them a shoddy antique sword, and have them come to your castle to tell you a fantastical tale—just for our own amusement?"

As he spoke, he channeled his magic into the Pioneer's Sword. As the mana flowed in, dark red veins surfaced once more upon that ancient blade. This time the lines were clearer still, and near the hilt they formed a heraldic pattern of a blade crossed with an iron plow—the very emblem the Cecil family had fixed upon the day Ansell was founded, the crest of their pioneering years.

Knights possessed mana as well—only they wielded it in a manner utterly unlike that of mages.

Though the Pioneer's Sword had long since lost the greater part of its former power, its most basic identifying marks remained. Andrew went somewhat dazed the instant he saw the blade. He had never beheld the true Pioneer's Sword, but a replica was enshrined in the Royal Sanctum at the capital. Years ago he had been fortunate enough to see that replica, and he could hardly mistake it now.

If the sword on the table was not a forgery made by the Cecil family, then it could only be the genuine article—the true sword sealed away in the Cecil family crypt, the one no one had dared covet even after the family's decline.

Would this fallen family really go dig open their ancestor's grave, pry out the holy sword, and then use it to prop up a colossal lie?

Andrew hesitated. If this truly were a farce, then the cost of the farce was frighteningly steep. But if it was not a farce...

An ancestor dying and dying until he suddenly bolts out of his grave—no one would dare believe such a thing!!

"You are quite free to summon an elven craftsman to appraise the sword's authenticity—it was forged by their people in those days, and they know how to examine the elven sigils. You may also bring out the portraits of the founding princes and kings and compare them with me. Seven hundred years of sleep, yet I have been fortunate enough that my looks have scarcely changed," Gao Yang said with a faint smile, watching Andrew's shifting, uncertain face. "If you can manage it, you might even seek out elven mercenaries who took part in the Second Pioneering and now live in seclusion in the mountains—there may well be some among them who still remember me."

"No, that won't be necessary," Viscount Andrew said, waving his hand. He kneaded his brow, feeling that what was unfolding before him was truly not the sort of business he was equipped to handle. "Since it is a legendary hero such as yourself... sleeping seven hundred years and then resurrecting—such a thing may well be possible, I suppose."

So he said, yet any perceptive observer could see at a glance that the viscount still likely did not much believe in Gao Yang's identity. He was merely, in his half-doubt, seeking some pretext to suspend the discussion for the time being.

He had already worked it out: what did it matter to him whether the Cecil family's Mystic Meridian Sect bounced out of a coffin or not? Why tie himself in knots over whether the thing was true? Since the Cecils said it was true, then let it be true.

It was, after all, nothing but an ancient who had been dead seven hundred years.