"What business brings you looking for Hugo all of a sudden?"
"I've got a reason. Where is he right now?"
"......Hugo began his work only recently, so I believe he is learning the trade at the stables at present."
"Good. Lead the way."
Ethan started walking off as he pleased.
"Did you know of Hugo?"
"No. Today will be the first time I've seen him?"
"Then why, all of a sudden......"
"I've got my reasons. Save the chatter and show me the way."
'First button fastened.'
By rights the man would have joined the protagonist's party, but Ethan intended to take him first.
'Hugo the Feral.'
A male character, so his weight in the original had been slight, but his ability was the real thing.
If anyone could make his presence felt in this subjugation operation, it was him.
***
The Blante clan's stables were on a very large scale.
The number of stables was no small thing, and each of them was large besides.
The number of horses housed in any one of them was high, and every horse was fine enough to be called a prized steed.
Perhaps that was why Blante's stables were always noisy.
But the stable where Hugo worked was very quiet.
A strangely bleak air hung about it, even.
'Hm. Odd.'
He stepped inside, and the horses paid Ethan no attention.
'Their nutrition looks fine.'
Judging by the gloss on their coats there seemed to be no problem on that side.
But Ethan was no expert. Getting an accurate read on their condition was beyond him.
"Well, do the horses look all right?"
"Yes. Their condition is excellent. They appear to have been well kept. Only, there is one strange thing...... the horses are frightened."
"That's what I thought too."
Having said it, Ethan looked around at the horses once more.
'Because of his trait?'
Hugo the Feral.
The man was not wholly human.
Another blood ran in Hugo.
'Is that what has the horses frightened?'
Beasts are keener than people.
Their instinctive senses are keener than a person's, if anything, and never duller.
Then he saw a man in the distance, busily putting the stable in order.
The robe covering even his face made it impossible to be certain, but the horses nearest him were especially frightened, so it was likely Hugo.
"Is that him?"
"I believe it is."
'Not a sturdy build, that's certain.'
At a glance the frame looked almost slight.
Ethan let his footsteps sound as he approached the man.
"Wh-who......?"
The hooded man turned and looked at Ethan.
Then he caught sight of the formal dress on him and bowed his head in a scramble.
"I-I am sorry! I presumed far above my place......"
"I'm the one who came without notice, so there's nothing to apologize for. You're Hugo, right?"
"......Yes, that is right. Is something the matter......"
Ethan ran his eyes over the place.
It was quiet.
A stable of this size, and Hugo was the only one working in it.
"Nade."
At Ethan's call, Nade answered with his head bowed, as though he had no face to show.
"Yes, young master."
"Is it always run like this here?"
"No."
"Overseeing the staff is your job, isn't it?"
"......It is."
"Then do it properly."
"I shall take care."
With that short exchange finished, Ethan looked at Hugo.
Hugo still had no grasp of how he was supposed to behave.
"Take the hood off, will you?"
Hugo hesitated a moment and then, reluctantly, pushed the hood back.
'A big scar, all right.'
A large cut ran diagonally across Hugo's left cheek.
On someone still as young as Hugo it would likely work as a considerable trauma.
But Ethan did not care.
Counting his years as Ryu Tae-sin as well, he was long past the age of being squeamish over a scar.
And fighters often tattooed their whole bodies to show their individuality.
'A scar like that is nothing.'
If anything, a scar can become a man's trademark.
"Do you work here alone, normally?"
"......Yes."
Hugo answered with his head bowed low, and Ethan clicked his tongue.
"Since when?"
"It has not been long."
"And you know why?"
"......They said the horses only go quiet when I am the one who comes in......"
"Nade."
"Yes, young master."
"Dismiss every servant assigned to this stable."
"It shall be done."
"We're not short of manpower, are we? I'm not going to stand and watch the clan's resources go to waste."
Having said it, Ethan stood and looked at Hugo.
'Hard to tell as things stand.'
Ethan believed his senses were as keen as anyone's, but from the Hugo in front of him he could feel nothing at all.
"Well, I can't just call you in right now. Come to my annex tomorrow."
"Yes...... what?!"
Hugo asked again in confusion, but Ethan had already turned.
With his back to him, Ethan was flapping a hand in the air as he walked out of the stable.
***
The next day, Hugo came to Ethan's annex.
"Found it without getting lost, I see."
"Thank you......"
"Then let's go to the training ground."
Ethan led Hugo off toward the training ground.
Hugo followed with a bewildered look on his face.
'Why am I going to the training ground? Have I done something wrong?'
Unease stirred in one corner of him.
However he turned it over, no reason came to mind for a mere attendant like himself to be going to a training ground.
And he could hardly presume to ask Ethan why.
So in the end Hugo followed Ethan along in a state of fretting dread.
Arriving at the training ground, Ethan looked at Hugo without a word and then threw a bundle of clothing at him.
"Change into this first."
"This is......"
Hugo stood blankly looking at what he had caught, and Ethan spoke.
"Training garb."
"Training...... garb, you say?"
"Yeah. Got to see your conditioning first, haven't I."
The baseline state of Hugo's body.
He had to check that before anything else could move forward.
Hugo changed as he was told.
The body the changing exposed was covered in old scars.
Ethan had known about them already, and even so his face drew tight.
'Not injuries, then. Abuse?'
The original had carried no description of it.
Then again, the characters the original put under its light were, the protagonist aside, mostly the female ones. Hugo was one of the protagonist's companions in his own way, and the book had still been merciless about his page time.
Hugo finished pulling on the clothes and looked at Ethan with uneasy eyes.
'Thin.'
Hugo's body was scrawny to the bone.
It looked as though proper nutrition had not reached him for a long time.
Ethan's face screwed up.
"What's this. They discriminate on food too?"
"......"
Hugo seemed to find the question hard to answer and shut his mouth, so Ethan called Nade.
"Nade."
"Yes, young master."
"You don't see this?"
Ethan said it with a finger pointed at Hugo. At the sight of Hugo's gaunt frame, Nade's brow drew together as well.
"I shall look into it."
"Good. Make certain of it. You want a rumor going around that the great Blante clan can't feed its boys?"
At that, Nade bowed his head and left the training ground.
There was frost in Nade's expression as he went.
"Well, you can still move, can't you?"
Hugo nodded at the question.
"Touch that wall and come back. Full speed."
Ethan put out a hand and pointed at a wall.
Reckoned by eye, roughly 200 meters.
Allowing for touching the wall and returning, a time anywhere in the mid-20-second range would be excellent.
"What are you waiting for? Run."
Ethan glared at him, and Hugo startled badly and began to run.
Tap-tap-tap.
'What's that. That form is a shambles.'
The start fell short of expectation.
Hugo ran with an awkward, uncertain posture, as if he had never run before in his life, and Ethan felt a small disappointment.
But the disappointment proved groundless.
Hugo's body began, gradually, to get faster.
The form was still a mess, but his stride opened up and his time in the air lengthened.
Watching it, Ethan lifted a corner of his mouth.
"If you're slow, things get a lot harder for you!"
Ethan bellowed it, and Hugo's feet turned over faster still.
SLAP!
Hugo's hand hit the wall.
In that instant, Ethan's eyes widened.
Because the shift of Hugo's center of gravity had gone past the human level.
Hand on the wall, Hugo came off it like an animal.
'Even a black sprinter with real spring isn't that good.'
Those with the finest spring in the world. Even American football players, said to be where the greatest monsters on earth collect, did not have spring like that.
This was the territory of instinct, and the territory of talent.
It could fairly be called talent lying dormant inside a Hugo who was still clumsy with his own body.
Hugo came running back to where Ethan stood in no time at all.
'Under 20 seconds, by the look of it.'
A time hard to credit from form that shambolic.
Hugo did not even look short of breath.
The breathing that had quickened a little was already settling back down.
'I ignored everything else because the name was Hugo the Feral.'
The man's fundamental physical ability was outstanding in itself.
The corner of Ethan's mouth went up.
"Hey. Quit being a servant."
"Y-yes?"
Hugo's face turned the color of dirt.
He abruptly dropped to his knees.
"......Have I committed some breach of manners? Please forgive me."
Watching Hugo plead with a look as if he were about to weep, Ethan creased his forehead.
"What are you talking about? Quit being a servant and be a soldier under my direct command. What, you don't want to? At minimum I'll see you fed properly."
Hugo blinked up at Ethan.
"Is that...... really true?"
"Yeah. I'll feed you till you burst. All you have to do in exchange is follow my word."
Hugo wore the look of a man deliberating for a moment, and then nodded as though he had resolved it.
"If someone like me will do...... I place myself in your hands."
"Good."
Ethan put out a hand and clasped Hugo's.
'The hand of a beast.'
Ethan could feel it instinctively. The feral nature in Hugo's hand.
"Right. Then before we eat, we finish what's left, don't we?"
"......Yes?"
"Push-ups first."
Ethan smiled a devil's smile.
***
"He took a stable servant? Why?"
Morun asked it with his face screwed up, and the servant shook his head.
"I am afraid I do not know the reason either. I understand that all the servants who had been working in that stable with him were expelled from the clan."
"Hah. You're telling me Ethan drove them out? And who does he think he is?"
Dumbfounded and burning with indignation, Morun considered going to find Ethan, and then changed his mind.
'Is he so short of men that he's using servants? Then again, who in this situation would go under him. Anyone with the sense to read a room.'
Especially with himself, the brother holding the largest force, keeping a sharp, wakeful watch on the whole business.
Morun sat in thought a while and then wore a satisfied smile.
"Leave him to it."
"Yes? But......"
"He's got a servant at best, you said. I can't be bothered picking at that. We just prepare this subjugation properly and we'll never have to watch Ethan strut again."
A thread of wariness remained in Morun because of the other day, but seeing that Ethan had secured nothing but a servant, there seemed no further need to think about it.
'Go on and try, then.'
The rumors were already going around under the surface.
Any knight or soldier with his head screwed on would never consider going under Ethan.
'Once this is over, you're finished.'
Morun thought of his insolent brother and laughed.