Frederick Byron.
The second son of the Byron Viscounty and a prodigy with talent in Aura.
But at the same time, he was nothing more than that.
“It’s been a while, but I see you still haven’t fixed that disrespectful way of speaking. Your temper’s as sharp as ever.”
“Not as sharp as yours.”
“You haven’t forgotten that I’m… your older brother, have you?”
“I forget sometimes. Honestly, with the way you’ve acted since the old days, you seem more like a brat than an older brother.”
“…You bastard.”
He had talent in Aura. He was smart enough. And his looks weren’t bad.
If he had inherited the family, he probably could’ve led it fairly well.
But unfortunately for him, Frederick was the second son, and he had an older brother.
An older brother who was a genius in both magic and Aura.
“…Well, looks like it’s time for some good old bonding between brothers. How about we keep things fair and use Aura?”
“You don’t remember getting chewed out by old man Charles the last time we tried that?”
“…….”
In the end, Frederick realized that no matter what he did, he could never inherit the family head position.
And so, he redirected his resentment toward me.
The third son, the younger brother, the one with no talent. He vented his frustrations on me.
Of course, I didn’t cower and let him have his way. I used my wits to give him a hard time in return. But in the end, because of his Aura, it always escalated to the point where I had to endure a physical beating.
If it hadn’t been for old man Charles, who was also Frederick’s instructor, taking my side, I probably would’ve had at least one arm or leg broken by now.
Sending Sally to the annex was a good decision.
I hadn’t sent Sally to the annex for no reason. Frederick had grown craftier over time, pretending to apologize to Father and old man Charles while slowly revealing his true colors. Eventually, he only showed his real nature when it was just the two of us alone.
Father probably only knew about Frederick’s gambling problem and wasn’t aware of this nasty temper of his.
That was why, despite his personality, Frederick’s reputation wasn’t all that bad.
And that was also why I always spoke to him informally whenever we were alone. He was easy to provoke with things like that.
“As much as I’d love to teach you some respect for your older brother right now…”
“Go ahead, try it.”
“…This time, I’ll let it slide. I have business with Father anyway. Besides, you’re nothing but an incompetent bastard who can’t do anything, aren’t you?”
Tap. Tap.
Frederick clicked his tongue and pouted in that annoying way of his as he tapped my shoulder a couple of times and walked past me.
Of course, while it sounded like a casual tap, the force I felt was entirely different.
Great, now I’ve got a bruise.
What a miserable bastard. Did he really just use aura to rattle my muscles beneath the skin in that short moment?
What the hell did he even learn during his studies abroad? Just this kind of underhanded nonsense?
Fine, laugh while you can.
I didn’t plan on seeing him much longer anyway.
Whether he packed his bags tomorrow or ended up under indefinite house arrest, I’d make sure he paid the price.
I stared intently at his back as he snickered and headed toward Father’s office, then turned and made my way to the training grounds.
“…Oh? Young Master Kyle? Have you returned from the Everts Duchy?”
“It’s been a while, Commander.”
The training grounds.
This was the place I was so sure about… and yet—
Clang! Clang!
“Haha! I win again!”
“How is that Shorty bastard so good at this…?”
“Hey! Go get Bald Spot! We need him here!”
“Victor’s hand’s fractured, you know. He hurt it while practicing swordsmanship alone.”
“…How does someone break a hand practicing swordsmanship alone?”
…They were playing “Kyle Galli” in broad daylight.
Aside from the Knight Commander, who had separated himself for a break, nearly all the knights were passionately engaged in Kyle Galli.
As I watched the knights, drenched in sweat and sprawled on the ground with their armor discarded, I turned my gaze toward the Knight Commander.
“Isn’t this supposed to be training time…?”
“It’s just a short break. But even during this brief pause, they’re still at it. It’s all the rage these days, Young Master.”
“…Really?”
Thud! Crack!!
From the sound of it, it was no different from a full-on brawl. Was it really like that in practice?
When I looked at the knights playing what was supposedly a board game(?), it didn’t seem like they’d truly discovered the charm of board games at all.
Is this even a board game?
The rules were, at their core, supposed to follow Halli Galli, but the knights had maximized the physical elements as they saw fit. The result was something that looked more like an intense sports match than a traditional game.
I briefly wondered if it might have been better to teach them an actual sport instead.
Well, whatever works, I guess.
In any case, this was a special rule set designed exclusively for knights who used Aura. It was a hybrid created when board games couldn’t satisfy those who disliked sitting at a table.
When I made that house rule, board games were just allowed, and it ended up like that because I used Kyle Galli as the basic framework to satisfy knights who said that the original Kyle Galli wasn’t fun.
“Haha! There’s no knight who can beat me, Hanson, at an over-the-shoulder throw!!”
“Hey, old man! That’s against the rules!!”
“Didn’t I already pay the penalty? The fact that this game lets you throw someone legally if you pay a penalty… it’s brilliant!”
Well, as long as they seemed to be enjoying it, that was what mattered.
Nobody else would bother using these rules anyway, so perhaps I should go ahead and make custom equipment and cards just for them.
As I watched the knights enjoying something that was somewhere between a sport and a board game, something unusual caught my eye.
“Commander? What’s that under your feet?”
“Oh, that’s an additional rule we came up with. Since everyone starts the game from the same position, those who are good at short sprints or grappling tend to have an advantage. To even things out, we added a penalty that forces some players to start farther away. The platform underfoot is there to lock in starting positions so they don’t shift during the game.”
“…So you came up with your own house rules?”
“Yes.”
Board games come with predetermined rules. But as I had learned myself, those rules were never absolute.
If it had been an official competition, it might have been a different story, but when it came to board games played purely for fun, sometimes breaking the rules or changing them arbitrarily made things even more fun.
Especially when the knights themselves created house rules and developed the game further. It was quite a… heartwarming sight.
Was this how a parent felt watching their child grow up?
I’d never even been in a relationship, yet here I was feeling this kind of emotion over a board game.
“Anyway, there are other changes to the rules. For example, when there are only two players left, the cards can be lowered so that everyone can see them, sliding is prohibited, and for violations like over-the-shoulder throws, the violator has to give up half of his cards. Oh, but what brings you to the training grounds…?”
“Ah.”
I had gotten so caught up in watching the knights play their version of Kyle Galli that I’d forgotten why I was here in the first place.
I took a moment to glance at the knights, who were so engrossed in the game they hadn’t even noticed my arrival, then stepped closer to the commander and whispered quietly.
“You’re aware that my second eldest brother is back, right?”
“Yes, I’m aware.”
“Let me ask you directly. Are there any knights here who’ve been gambling with my brother?”
“…How did you find out?”
“Anyone who’s done it once is likely to do it again.”
During the Yacht game incident, only one knight had been dismissed for gambling. It was the one who had first introduced the idea of using a yacht for betting. The others had gotten off with reduced pay, which meant they were still part of the order.
One of the knights reportedly bet not only the deed to his house but also ten years of his future salary.
These were men who had set up gambling rings on such a large scale. Even if they’d been scared to death of my father and kept their heads down after the incident, what would happen if my second brother who just recently got back from his forced exile started sweet-talking them?
I couldn’t say for certain that none of the knights had taken the bait.
The commander seemed to have already grasped the situation, as he clenched his teeth silently.
“…I don’t know exactly how many were involved. I can’t just go around asking every knight if they’ve been gambling. That would cause unnecessary unrest among the ranks…”
Since the Yacht incident, a new condition had been added to the order’s recruitment requirements: “No prior history of gambling.” Clearly, the commander was treading carefully here.
It was true that openly questioning everyone would only spread strange rumors.
But to me, it was as clear as day.
I had to figure out who had participated in the gambling.
“There’s someone I’m fairly certain about. Can I interrogate him?”
“………The head of the family has already given orders regarding that. Just… please handle it as quietly as possible.”
“Don’t worry.”
I reassured the knight commander, who looked worried about strange rumors spreading through the order, and then headed toward the place I had already had in mind from the start.
Under the tree, sitting there with a miserable expression while everyone else was playing Kyle Galli.
Bald Spot Victor.
“Hey, Victor.”
“Y-Young Master…? O-Oh, it’s been a while.”
“Yeah, it has. But it seems you’ve changed a bit since I last saw you.”
“Wh-What… do you mean by that…?”
Victor was one of the knights who had helped create Kyle Galli, the game exclusively for the knights, back in the beginning.
It had been a long time since I’d seen him, and his bald spot had grown even larger since the last time.
…And his right hand was wrapped in bandages.
“What happened to your hand?”
“Uh, well… I was practicing swordsmanship alone yesterday and…”
“Let me ask you again.”
“Y-Young Master…?”
I had played a lot of Kyle Galli, or rather, Hali Galli. So I knew a thing or two.
In Hali Galli, where many hands reach for a single bell, injuries are common. However, the types of injuries that occur are almost always predictable.
Fingers getting tangled and broken.
Scratches on the fingernails that bleed.
Bruises forming.
Or the ligaments in the wrist getting strained.
And finally…
Cracks forming on the back of the hand.
A knight swinging a sword and ending up with a fracture on the back of his hand instead of a finger? Surely, the other knights and even the knight commander must have been thinking, Does that even make sense?
However, it seemed they had yet to connect it to gambling involving Kyle Galli.
It wasn’t entirely strange. Knights often got injured while training alone, so the idea of getting hurt wasn’t unusual. The only thing that puzzled everyone was that the injury was to the bones on the back of the hand.
On top of that, Kyle Galli hadn’t even been around for a month yet. For someone who had played it extensively like me, the connection between Kyle Galli and a back-of-the-hand injury was obvious. But for others, it was still too early to make that link.
Given more time, someone might figure it out eventually. But since it hadn’t even been a full day since Victor had injured his hand, it was something only I could discern right now.
So I gave Victor a smile as he struggled to hide his discomfort.
“Where did you get injured?”
“………….”
I simply asked again.
And again.
And again.
***
Late at night, with the moon rising high.
At a time when I would normally be fast asleep or playing a board game, I quietly slipped out of my room.
It was all thanks to wringing every last detail out of Bald Spot Victor.
The gambling happens every night at 12:20, in Frederick’s room.
It hadn’t been hard to get the information out of Victor. After making a casual remark about the fracture in his hand, asking if he’d been stressed lately, and pointing out that his hair loss seemed to be getting worse, he finally caved.
Once he started talking, it all came pouring out.
– I swear I didn’t know it was gambling! Why would I go when this bald spot of mine started during the Ycht gambling incident? And now I’ve even fractured my hand there…
According to Victor, the knights had suggested playing Kyle Galli together, so he naturally assumed it was just under standard house rules. But before he knew it, he found himself sitting in the middle of a gambling den.
The moment he first saw the gambling den, he knew something was wrong, but once he actually started gambling for the first time in a while, he admitted he lost himself for a moment.
Within two days, however, he had lost all of his savings and it was during a game of Kyle Galli when his hand collided with Frederick’s, causing a fracture, that he said he finally came to his senses.
– Young Master Frederick told me he absolutely had to keep it a secret if I wanted to keep my position as a knight…
But since his fractured hand prevented him from working as a knight for the time being, he started feeling uneasy, worrying that if he continued gambling like this, his career as a knight might truly be over.
Of course, he begged me repeatedly to keep it a secret that he had told me.
Still… for something as serious as a secret gambling den, wasn’t Frederick’s attempt to silence people a bit careless?
Does he have some kind of reason for this?
Either way, it wasn’t something I could figure out by dwelling on it now.
To make sure I resolved this once and for all, I prepared myself thoroughly before heading to Frederick’s room.
That’s when it happened.
“………Sally?”
“Heh, hehe……….”
Something dark was crouched in front of my room, and when I got closer, I saw that it was Sally who was forcing a sheepish smile on her face.
“Sally, you…?”
“I-I’m sorry. I know you’re worried, Young Master, but even so, I……….”
“…………….”
“I learned magic for you, Young Master… I-I learned it so I could use it at times like this.”
“…Sally.”
She must have known from my warnings that this could put her in danger as well, but her actions showed she cared about me even more than her own safety.
Hearing her speak so earnestly, there was no way I could send her back without asking her to do anything.
“Alright, come with me.”
“Y-Young Master…!!”
Since Frederick’s room wasn’t far away, it would only take less than a minute to walk there.
Even so, Sally looked genuinely overjoyed, which made me feel a little awkward.
After avoiding the patrolling maids and arriving near Frederick’s room, I stopped Sally in her tracks.
“Sally, you know you can’t follow me any further, right?”
“…B-But I can’t just let you go a-alone…”
“Who said I’d be alone?”
“…Hug?”
“If you really want to help, then I’ll ask for one last thing. Just cast a soundproofing spell for me. There’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”
“O-Okay, I understand. If anything dangerous happens, please call for me right away.”
“Of course.”
Sally recited the incantation for the soundproofing spell, then nodded to let me know it was ready.
I gave her a smile of thanks, walked up to Frederick’s door, and—
BANG!! BANG!! BANG!!!
“What the….what’s going on!?”
“Kyle…!?”
“Frederick, why are you so startled? It’s just your little brother stopping by your room for a visit. Relax.”
I kicked the door repeatedly with all my strength and forced it open. Ah, that felt so satisfying.
Inside the room were Frederick, a few people I didn’t recognize, a knight I’d seen a couple of times at the training grounds, and…
A familiar Kyle Galli set and a considerable pile of gold coins.
“You bastard.”
Caught red-handed.
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