49 - Jean-Jacques's Disposition
After the second fever subsided, the pox and ulcerated skin slowly began to recover. Jean-Jacques was the only one who showed recovery after deterioration, and observing Jean-Jacques seemed to yield great gains for the Sedovara Church. Eventually a notice came from the Sedovara Church through Jasper.
Those with skin abnormalities and their scabs still retain infectivity, so do not let your guard down even if you think they have recovered. Do not touch them until they heal naturally, do not let others touch them, do not let the scabs fall off. Continue to guard against droplet infection, and use masks when speaking with people. Be excessively conscious of cleaning and laundry, was the message.
...I'd intended it to prevent scratching, but covering the affected areas with bandages also helped suppress infection, it seems.
In the quarantine section now, new cases were decreasing. The occasional increase in patients was mainly from travelers like merchants who caught the infection outside the city and came to Grenore without realizing it.
...I feel sorry for the merchants, but I'd be in trouble if they spread the infection further too.
The epidemic was finally settling down, but the scars it left were deep. According to Alf, five villages including Meillu were completely wiped out. Countless villages barely avoided total annihilation but lost most of their workforce, and even towns and villages where bathing culture had taken root suffered damage. It was a disease that hardly anyone infected survived. Aside from the Black Knights given medicine early on and those who caught it after enough medicine became available, everyone except Jean-Jacques died.
...There were other knights who received medicine like Jean-Jacques did, though.
Whether it came down to physical strength or willpower. Among the Black Knights given medicine after the initial stage, Jean-Jacques was the only one who survived.
The Mandeze Knights, who had been pursuing the pet animals brought in as merchandise, visited Grenore Fortress a little past noon with news confirming the bandits' annihilation. I happened to be in the office at the time, invited by Leonardo to have lunch together, so I was able to overhear the whole story.
"...They brought the stolen goods back to their hideout, and while discussing sales channels, they got infected and wiped out, huh."
"There were also signs they tried to eat them as food rather than sell them. The numbers don't match the merchant's purchase records, so we've informed the hunters living nearby to kill them on sight."
"I see. You've come a long way, good work. Tell me a bit about how things are at Mandeze Fortress lately."
"Yes sir! ...But before that."
Trying not to interrupt the conversation, I just kept my ears open and quietly nibbled on the sandwich prepared for lunch, but the reporting Black Knight's gaze briefly turned to me.
...Huh? Is this something I should step out for?
Receiving the gaze, I looked between Leonardo and the Black Knight's faces. If they told me to leave, I would, but when he saw my face, the target of the Black Knight's gaze, Leonardo just shrugged lightly.
"Tina."
"Yes?"
Should I leave after all? I looked up at Leonardo, but he gave a wry smile. It seemed I didn't need to leave the room.
"This guy's an uncle named Talmo, the vice-commander of the Mandeze Knights. Looks are as you see, but he's not a bad guy. You might need his help someday, so remember his face well."
Told to remember his face, I stopped nibbling my sandwich and got down from my chair. I moved in front of the man introduced as Talmo, gave a simple "Hello," and then stared at him intently. He had a large build, muscles that suited a berserker more than a knight. Red hair, black eyes, and as Leonardo said, his face was the intimidating type, a rugged old man. I couldn't quite tell his age. Maybe around forty, give or take.
As I stared at him trying to memorize his face, Talmo, the one being stared at, softened his expression into a fond smile.
"I'm Talmo. You can call me Uncle Talmo. You're Tina-chan, the rumored Commander's little sister, right? You're as cute as I heard."
...What exactly, and how far, has the rumor spread?
Even when I was helping in the quarantine section, there were occasional Black Knights who came to verify the rumor that "the Commander's little sister is cute." In this life, my face really is cute, so I've seen several Black Knights sobbing with relief that the rumor was true.
...Wait, this is the Grenore Knights, right? Didn't Talmo-san say he was from the Mandeze Knights?
Had the rumor spread to other knight orders too? Or was the Mandeze Knights so idle they'd come all this way just to verify a rumor?
...Hmm? I feel like I just about remembered something...?
The only knight order I knew besides the Grenore Knights was the Restham Knights, where Yurgen belonged. Yurgen's position should also be vice-commander. Normally, you wouldn't send a vice-commander as a messenger to another knight order... what were the commanders of Restham and Mandeze thinking?
...Huh? Yurgen-san called Leonardo "Commander," right? And Talmo-san too.
Something was strange. I finally noticed.
"Talmo-san, can I ask a quethtion?"
I tried asking, but Talmo just kept smiling silently.
"Talmo-san?"
No response. I tilted my head, trying to look as adorable as possible while looking up at him, but Talmo still just smiled wordlessly.
"Tina, he's Uncle Talmo. Call him Uncle Talmo."
...Huh? That's what matters?
Leonardo whispered to me what Talmo was demanding. I thought how you addressed someone didn't matter much, but it seemed to matter to Talmo. I wanted to avoid long names since I'd stumble over them.
"Unca Talmo, can I ask a quethtion?"
See, I tripped again, I thought inwardly, but Talmo's eyes visibly creased. Actually, they creased as much as they possibly could.
"Ask me anything."
I could tell he was in a lovesick daze. I pulled his hand and led him to the map displayed on the wall.
"Whereabouts do the Mandeze Knighths guard?"
"Around here, mostly."
Talmo's thick finger circled the area north of the royal capital and just east of Grenore. There was a mark that seemed to be a fortress in the center of that circle.
"The bandits' hideout this time was around here."
He tapped his finger southwest of the fortress mark. Seeing the tree illustrations, it was probably a forested area.
"They're neighboths of the Grenore Knighths? Is that why they helped?"
"Neighbors indeed, but stopping the spread of Wards' disease was also our Commander's job. It's only natural for the Grenore Knights and the Mandeze Knights to cooperate."
"Is the Commander of the Mandeze Knighths on good terms with Leonyaldo-san?"
I knew it was a prejudice, but I had this image of organizational leaders mutually checking each other and tripping each other up. Even when the situation didn't call for it, they'd try to monopolize credit for themselves. But the knights of this country, at least the commander of the Mandeze Knights, didn't seem to be that kind of person. He seemed the type who could think rationally, knew when to show restraint, and could make necessary accommodations immediately in an emergency.
"Good terms? The commander of the Mandeze Knights is Leonardo-dono himself."
"...Leonyaldo-san is the commander of the Grenore Knighths, though?"
"Leonardo-dono is also the commander of the Mandeze Knights."
I couldn't immediately grasp the meaning and furrowed my brow. I understood the words, but I couldn't quite process it.
"...Leonyaldo-san is the commander of both knighths?"
"To be precise, besides Grenore here and the Mandeze I lead, he's the commander of four knight orders including Restham and Lugmilama."
Talmo told me that Leonardo was the lord of most fortresses in the northwest of the Ivisia Kingdom.
...Okay, I genuinely don't understand. Is that okay in various ways?
First of all, I was curious about how this situation came about, but I'd heard the Black Knights were meritocratic, so maybe it happened as an extension of that. It was a curiosity I figured I could ask someone about later. More importantly, I'd heard the Black Knights were commoners. Was it really okay for one commoner to concentrate command over four knight orders?
...This is totally the kind of thing that gets you resented by power figures like kings.
Perhaps because it became a boastful story about Leonardo, the master he served, Talmo's talk grew verbose. The Black Knights of the Ivisia Kingdom were stationed across twelve fortresses, and a third of that strength was under Leonardo's command.
The trigger, apparently, was Leonardo leaving the Silver Knights where he served in the royal capital and deciding to become a Black Knight. First, a comparison of strength was held at Grenore Fortress to see how strong the rumored Silver Knight really was. Leonardo apparently had various circumstances at the time, but he showed no particular deference to the older or more senior Black Knights already at Grenore, and simply ousted the then-commander to become lord of the fortress. That was fine so far, but the lords of neighboring fortresses, enraged that they'd lost to a Silver Knight exiled from the royal capital, one after another challenged him to matches, lost, and surrendered their positions to Leonardo.
...Wasn't Bart saying that the Silver Knights were a place where only incredibly strong people could join, with new members maybe once every five years...?
It seemed no Black Knight could defeat Leonardo, who came from such a knight order. One after another, commander-class knights from other orders came challenging him, and Leonardo himself, worried about military power concentrating under one person, apparently petitioned the royal capital to prevent him from holding command over more than the four knight orders he already had, which finally brought the festival-like chaos to an end. At that time he also advised that having four knight orders' military power concentrated in one person was problematic, but the king's order rejected giving up the other three orders.
...Why did the king reject that? No matter how you look at it, one knight having command over four knight orders seems dangerous.
When you see Leonardo up close, you know there's nothing to worry about. But to someone who wasn't close to him, Leonardo, who held a third of the country's military strength, would seem like a dangerous person who could rebel at any moment. It was strange that the king himself acknowledged this. Questions kept surfacing one after another, and my head gradually grew muddled.
Talmo's story increasingly turned into praise of Leonardo, continuing until Leonardo himself, apparently finding it unbearable, stopped him. I just wanted to know why Leonardo was called "Commander" by Talmo and Yurgen, but it seemed I'd pushed a button I shouldn't have. When Alf came looking for me, I hadn't returned after going to get lunch, I latched onto him and escaped the office, grateful for the opportunity. As I left, Talmo gave me a can filled with candy.
...There isn't some weird rumor going around among the Black Knights that you absolutely must bring candy when greeting me, is there?
Every Black Knight I met brought a candy can, so I was a bit worried.
Jean-Jacques had been full of energy lately. He'd finally been allowed out of bed, and the itching seemed to have completely subsided. Now, following the Sedovara Church's instructions, he was spending his time with bandages wrapped over all his former affected areas to keep the pox marks and scabs from falling off. Jean-Jacques, whose condition had worsened the most, to the point he was once moved to the basement to avoid others' eyes, his affected areas boasted the largest surface area among the infected, and as a result, he'd turned into a mummy man covered head to toe in bandages. And as for that mummy man...
"Look~, it's the Franken man~. Raaar~"
He was running around chasing children in the quarantine section while repeating this mysterious statement. Yes, the children in the quarantine section. In other words, he was chasing me around in his mummy man style saying "It's the Franken man."
...I don't get it.
I couldn't understand the meaning of his actions at all. He was truly a "Marcel the Second" at this rate.
"...Ah, Leonyaldo-san!"
As I was running away from the persistent mummy man, I spotted Leonardo's black hair at the end of the corridor around a corner. He had his bangs up in work mode, but if it meant escaping the mummy man, even his somewhat scary face was worth using.
"Leonyaldo-saan~"
After confirming that Leonardo turned around at his name and caught sight of me, I spread my arms and ran toward him. No further words were needed. When a little girl comes running with her arms spread, the adult whose name was called should open their arms and pick her up.
"What's wrong, Tina... no, it's fine. I get it now."
Before Leonardo, who'd picked me up as intended, could ask the reason, the mummy man calling himself Franken appeared around the corner.
"Gah!? Commander...!"
"You seem healthy enough to bully my little sister."
"No, I wasn't bullying her... right? I was just playing with her, yeah?"
It was hard to read Jean-Jacques's expression through the bandages, but I felt he was pitifully lowering his eyebrows seeking agreement from me. I understood the atmosphere from Jean-Jacques saying "Tell him I was letting you play with me," but I had no obligation to read the room when I'd been the one chased around and inconvenienced until just now.
"I went to the washing area to wath the sheets, and Jean-Chack came out of the mountain of sheets, and he chased me."
As a bonus, I whispered, "It was really scary," and buried my face in Leonardo's neck. The effect was outstanding.
...I've never seen Jean-Jacques standing at attention and speaking crisp polite language before.
As I watched Jean-Jacques slink back to his sickroom under Leonardo's glare, I asked Leonardo what a Franken man was. I was curious whether the "Franken" from my past life's knowledge and this world's "Franken" were different things.
According to Leonardo, it was apparently one of the stories from another world that served as the Menhishimi Church's funding source. It seemed mixed up with the mummy man, but Franken was Franken. The book-loving reincarnator who apparently spread the other world's stories seemed to have done a fairly sloppy job. I heard from Alf that while The Tale of Genji apparently features a male character resembling Hikaru Genji, the protagonist is Lady Rokujo and the heroine is Lady Aoi, it seems to be a girls' love story.
...Once I can read, I definitely want to read it.
The successive lords of Grenore Fortress apparently made large annual donations to facilities like the Menhishimi Church and the Sedovara Church, and in return, a book sold at the Menhishimi Church was always gifted to them. Leonardo himself didn't seem interested in stories, but this was why there was a fair number of books in the Fortress Lord's Residence.
"Now then, Jean-Jacques. A messenger from the royal capital came earlier."
Leonardo spoke anew to Jean-Jacques, who had returned to the basement room he was still using, though he could almost be considered recovered. The infection along the highway was the merchants' doing, but Jean-Jacques was the one who brought the infection into the city of Grenore. It wasn't intentional, but it was negligence that could have been avoided with a little thought, bringing back small animals from a village wiped out by disease without realizing they were infection sources. Jean-Jacques himself was aware of this, so he made no particular objection on this point.
"Salary reduction, demotion, suspension, hard labor, three years' transfer to Virloope Fortress, seizure of assets... what else was there?"
The penalties being listed as he remembered were numerous. It seemed the view was to pile on as many punishments as they could think of.
"Wouldn't it be fasster to just kill him?"
At the endlessly added penalties, I couldn't help but interject. At my rather unfiltered comment, Leonardo gave a wry smile.
"Jean-Jacques is valued for his skill, so that won't happen. Rather, they probably prepared as many punishments as they could think of precisely to avoid that."
"Is Jean-Chack that strong?"
"In Grenore Fortress, he's third strongest."
Of course the strongest is me, Leonardo said, puffing out his chest, so I flattered him saying "That's amazing." For Leonardo, who was far beyond just being the strongest in the fortress, this was old news.
"...Huh? Then who's the second sstrongest in the fortress?"
"Second is Alf. That's why he's the adjutant."
I see, so that's the meritocracy of the Black Knights. Positions within the fortress seemed to be determined by individual strength.
"Alf-san looks like a prince, but he's sstrong, isn't he."
"He's second in Grenore, but I think he'd be the strongest if he went to Restham or other fortresses."
"If he's the sstrongest, could he become a commander?"
"He's second across all four fortresses, so he serves as my adjutant in Grenore."
That was surprisingly strong. I'd vaguely heard about Leonardo before, but this was the first I'd heard about Alf. I never would have thought that Alf, who didn't have particularly noticeable muscles compared to other Black Knights, was the second strongest across the neighboring fortresses.
"Um, Commander. Could you hold off a bit on the asset seizure..."
There's something I want to buy back, Jean-Jacques said, with an unusually solemn expression.
"Something to buy back?"
"Don't ask what it is. Also, if you'd lend me the Tina kid when I go shopping..."
"Denied. I haven't even shown Tina around the city yet myself."
As Leonardo rejected Jean-Jacques's proposal, insisting that the first date with Tina was the right of her guardian, I silently retorted in my head.
...I've been left waiting for about two months now, you know.
I looked up at Leonardo with a thousand feelings of "even a guardian would be exasperated," and Leonardo, perhaps aware of it himself, quietly averted his eyes.
That day, Leonardo finally made his second return home since I'd come to the city.
Incidentally, in the other three knight orders, the vice-commanders handle the commander's work, so they seemed to be functioning without much trouble. The people calling themselves vice-commanders are the former commanders.