Beneath the warm sunlight of the Imperial Capital, the main road was bustling.
“Goodness, how can his skin be so white?”
“Those eyes like the night sky look just like pure obsidian.”
A beguiling fragrance began to fill the air around Riyan, who was dressed in his neat uniform.
From women of some age to fresh-faced ones who seemed to have only just had their coming-of-age ceremonies.
Each hiding her mouth behind something like a fan, they giggled, their faces glowing.
When Riyan offered praise, the women answered with compliments, and following those compliments, Riyan discreetly mixed in the questions he wanted answered.
Even so, the laughter didn't stop.
Other women passing by joined the unexpected gathering. Soon a huge circle had formed around Riyan, and the main road became crowded with the attendants they had brought along.
A while later, having achieved his intended purpose, Riyan bowed to take his leave, and only then did the women, sorry to see him go, wipe away their tears.
“Regardless of his station, how noble he is! Truly a gladiator of the Empire.”
“Gladiator Riyan, the beautiful, pure-white White Wolf. Please remember the promise you made me. And if the chance comes, please visit our family's mansion too.”
The one who greeted Riyan as he emerged from the crowd was Haral. Frozen stiff like a stone statue, Haral asked, dumbfounded.
“You...... what the hell are you?”
“What do you mean?”
“Y-you brat, I'm asking what you are! How on earth.......”
At the sight of Haral stammering and unable to finish his sentence, Riyan let out a faint laugh.
“What else would I be? A slave of the proud Rhodus Gladiator School.”
“.......”
“Let's go. I've found out where we need to go.”
“R-really?”
Haral had lived his whole life as a mercenary, and was now living as an instructor at the school.
He had prided himself on having been through most of the world's ups and downs, but it was the first time since the day he was born that he had come face-to-face with the daughters of high-ranking noble families, and so many of them, this close.
Smooth, milky-white skin, flowing dresses, pure white silk gloves, and eyes like lakes peeking out between fans and parasols.
The illusion of falling headfirst into a flower garden, perhaps because they had bathed in expensive rose oil, and even the experience of whispers boring into his ears like the chirping of mountain birds.
‘I-it was like goddesses had gathered in one place.’
Leaving that powerful impression, Haral soon snapped back to his senses and stuck close to Riyan, who was walking ahead.
“You brat, I don't know where on earth you learned that trick, but fine. You pass. I'll gladly take you as my little brother.”
“.......”
Little brother?
Considering his past life, it didn't seem like he was someone who should be called that.
When Riyan walked on indifferently, a flushed Haral cleared his throat.
“No, no. In the mercenary world, skill is everything. Well, you're not a mercenary, but still. Anyway, then...... right! Friends, how about friends?”
“How could I, a mere slave, become friends with an Instructor as lofty as the heavens?”
“You brat, I can't very well serve you as my big brother either!”
At the plaintive voice, Riyan smiled faintly, and Haral made a tearful face.
“Beautiful flowers have thorns. And weren't you the one who told me it's off with my head if I take nobles lightly, Instructor?”
“......A man sometimes has to put his life on the line.”
His intentions were so transparent they were practically naked.
Of course, Riyan understood how Haral felt. If you gathered such beautiful women in one place, what man wouldn't be tempted? Especially since the women Haral had encountered so far would have been of a limited sort.
But Riyan's thoughts were different. Because of what Eldred had preached until Riyan's ears grew calluses whenever he drank, back in his past life.
What was it he had said?
‘The difference between a monster and a lady of a noble house is perhaps only whether it walks on two legs or four? Both will carve out another's life over a mere amusement or the slightest grudge, so one could call them the same breed.’
‘Speaking from experience?’
‘Do you want to die?’
That was why, even while dealing with the noble ladies just now, wariness and tension had reflexively risen up in Riyan first.
Anyway, letting out a light sigh, Riyan decided to rescue Haral.
“Well. If you knew where Trangest District 4 was, I might feel like making a new friend.”
“Trangest District 4?”
Haral jerked his head up and looked around, then spotted a carriage in the distance.
Its driver, perhaps taking a short rest on the main road, was sprawled on the driver's seat, puffing on a pipe.
Watching Haral run toward it without delay, Riyan organized his thoughts.
‘The first button seems to have been fastened properly.’
From what he had heard, salons were extremely closed social gatherings of their own. Places where when, where, and who would gather was passed along only through secret channels.
And that exclusivity seemed to draw envy and longing from those who didn't belong to the group.
The women he had just met weren't from the prestigious, influential families that belonged to that salon. But there was one who had a faint connection to it.
‘Perhaps I could introduce you.’
The daughter of the Baron Vinos family.
The woman who had invited Riyan to her mansion just before they parted. She had tipped him off that there would be a gathering at a mansion in Trangest District 4.
Along with a request that he be sure to mention he had come on her recommendation.
Riyan read a faint calculation in her eyes.
She probably wanted recognition for having won over Riyan, currently the hottest topic in the Imperial Capital. As a special gift that no one had unwrapped yet.
“Hey! Riyan!”
Woken from his musings by the voice from afar, Riyan raised his head and saw Haral standing in front of the carriage, waving his arm.
“He says he'll take us there himself if we pay!”
What kind of place it would be, and whether his plan would work out, he didn't know.
But sitting still wouldn't produce any bright ideas either.
***
“Haral, did you lie?”
“Lie about what?”
“You said a salon would just be some neighborhood teahouse where people sip drinks, chatter, and put on airs.”
“I did.”
“Is this a neighborhood teahouse?”
“......Fine, I was bluffing. Sorry. Happy? It's my first time in this district too, shit.”
Riyan had scraped by in a mountain valley and then rolled around nothing but battlefields until the day he died. Naturally, he had no real standard for what an ordinary city looked like. The Imperial Capital still often felt like a world apart.
Yet even so, the scene spread before his eyes was a place for which the phrase ‘a world apart’ truly fit, even by that vague standard.
“More importantly, Riyan, am I crazy? That thing there, is it actually floating in the sky?”
“It seems so.”
“Are you and I both crazy?”
“.......”
Ignoring Haral, Riyan slowly examined the scene spread before him.
A huge mansion was floating.
More precisely, the upper floors of the mansion, which seemed to have been built by a master of great skill, were sitting right where they should be.
But there was no first floor.
Beneath the upper floors lay only a garden stretching across vast grounds, full of well-tended greenery. Gardeners walking about here and there and servants watering the plants could also be seen.
‘Magic?’
There was no other way to explain the sight.
And what else was there?
Every time the butterflies circling the garden flapped their wings, golden powder scattered and adorned the surroundings.
The five-colored, dazzling rainbow created by the water shooting out of the fountain stretched out and ran straight through the mansion.
The scenery was so unreal that the sight of golden-furred rabbits and squirrels playing tag among the greenery didn't even make an impression.
“Goddamn it, it's like a fairy tale.”
For once, Riyan had no choice but to agree with Haral's coarse words.
In truth, things had been strange ever since they entered Trangest District 4. The Rhodus Gladiator School was located relatively far out on the outskirts of the Imperial Capital, and naturally, the scenery familiar to Riyan was from that side.
‘So this is the real Imperial Capital.’
Not just this mansion—every building occupied enormous grounds, including a sprawling garden.
That was probably because it was an area packed with the mansions of the Imperial Palace's high officials and the detached palaces of provincial great lords.
“Truly a world of its own.”
As Haral kept exclaiming in admiration and fidgeting about, someone who seemed to be a guard of the mansion began approaching from afar.
“Halt for a moment.”
In appearance, the one guarding the mansion was on a completely different level from the Imperial Capital guards they had seen.
Over tightly woven chainmail, he wore a silver breastplate on the vital areas, and a long cape hung down his back.
The halberd in his hand was splendid enough that one could say a master had crafted it with his name on the line, and the face visible through his open-faced helm was handsome as well.
“This is not a place outsiders may freely come and go. What is your business?”
Haral's face twisted as he agonized over whether to reveal his affiliation.
Even without the guard's warning, he already felt keenly that he didn't belong here.
“Um, well, you see.......”
As Haral, already daunted by the man's gleaming arms, hesitated, the guard's expression was gradually hardening when—
Riyan stepped forward.
“I have come on the introduction of Lady Marienne Vinos, beloved daughter of the Baron Vinos family. I have also heard that the glorious radiance of the Imperial Capital gathers here today. Might you kindly send word inside?”
Having finished speaking, Riyan held out a scarf clearly stamped with the seal of the Baron Vinos family. He had received it directly from Marienne.
“Is that so?”
Smiling at Riyan's words, the guard politely accepted the scarf and examined the seal.
Then, after also checking the identification tag Haral awkwardly held out, the guard nodded and spoke.
“I will inform them that Gladiator Riyan and Haral, an instructor of his school, have come to call. Please wait here a moment.”
Riyan hadn't introduced himself in particular, but the guard recognized who he was as a matter of course and said so.
After the guard disappeared inside, another guard who had been on duty with him smiled and gestured.
“Would you like to view the garden while you wait?”
“Would that be all right?”
“Lady Sevanne Eisenhart, mistress of this villa, has permitted all who are qualified to view it without separate permission.”
“Qualified, you say.......”
“The new star of the arena, the noble pure-white wolf, has come to this mansion to broaden his horizons. What further qualification could we possibly ask for?”
He still couldn't get used to that goosebump-inducing epithet, but Riyan nodded.
It was puzzling that they permitted viewing so easily, but thinking about it differently, they didn't seem to need to pay any special attention to security.
How would anyone storm a mansion with no first floor in the first place? There might be a way if one looked for it, but they weren't fools; that would be guarded against too.
In any case, the garden was quite beautiful, so Riyan saw no need to decline and began to walk.
“Why aren't you coming?”
Sensing no presence behind him, he glanced back and saw Haral muttering something.
Then Haral suddenly ran over, grabbed Riyan's arm, and whispered loudly so the guard couldn't hear.
He literally whispered loudly. His face was scrunched up as if he were shouting, while his words came out as faint as a mosquito's whine.
“......Salon or whatever, let's just get out of here. Or find somewhere else.”
“What's this all of a sudden? Did you suddenly get embarrassed?”
“You think I'm some bashful adolescent? That's not the problem.”
“Then what is the problem?”
Haral shook his head again and checked his surroundings.
The guard paid them no attention, steadfastly guarding only the main gate.
Having confirmed that, Haral pressed him.
“You brat, you don't know who Sevanne is?”
“Do you know her? You seem more interested in nobles than you look.”
“I'm not in the mood for jokes, Riyan. Anyone who lives in the Empire can't not know the Ducal House of Eisenhart. Why, you ask?”
“Why?”
“Because it's the house of the Minister of Military Affairs, you brat!”
Minister of Military Affairs.
Among the seven Standing Members of the Arcana Council, a titan considered second only to the Grand Speaker.
Then Sevanne, the host of this salon, was.......
‘Sevanne Eisenhart. The daughter of the Minister of Military Affairs.’
Riyan's brows drew together.
Tab 16
He opened his eyes in an era when knights had fallen, as the one and only ‘true’ knight.
The one who beheaded the Demon Dragon that had plunged the continent into war,
Riyan, the hero hailed as the Brightest Star.
Yet all that came back to him was betrayal......
“Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to become a real traitor in this life.”
Tearing apart a history riddled with lies, to pass judgment on the wrongful throne, the White Wolf's hunt begins!
Genres
Action, Adventure, Drama, Fantasy, Seinen
Tags
Alchemy, Aristocracy, Betrayal, Calm Protagonist, Clever Protagonist, Corruption, Discrimination, Dragon Slayers, Dragons, Empires, Fantasy World, Former Hero, Gambling, Gladiators, Gore, Handsome Male Lead, Hiding True Abilities, Kingdoms, Knights, Magic, Male Protagonist, Master-Disciple Relationship, Medieval, Mentors, Military, Monsters, Nobles, Past Plays a Big Role, Politics, Reincarnation, Revenge, Second Chance, Secret Organizations, Slave Protagonist, Slaves, Special Abilities, Strong from the Start, Sword And Magic, Sword Wielder, Time Skip, Tournaments, Tragic Past, Transmigration, Wars, White-haired Protagonist, Wizards