'Something has changed about him.'
The instant Alfred saw Ian today, that was what he thought.
There was no trace left of the colorless Ian he had known until now. Instead, Ian seemed to be gradually painted over in some color.
It was not that Alfred wanted to say he had become a different person.
Rather, it was as though a blank canvas had been filled with color.
It was an exceedingly abstract answer, but Alfred thought that was the only way to explain the Ian of today.
'That time...'
Alfred recalled it.
The first and last conversation he had shared with Ian the previous night.
##
Ian de Logres.
A young master of the Logres family, born with Logres's Dragon Power.
Because he was the child of a concubine rather than the legal wife, he could not become the heir despite having been born with Dragon Power.
Moreover, Young Master Cassian possessed the greatest talent of any member of the Logres family in its history. There could have been even less of a place for Ian to stand.
And that child...
Had no color.
He lacked the individual color that every person ought to possess.
He was not a genius like Young Master Cassian, but neither was he some delinquent fool.
He was simply an ordinary person who spoke and behaved ordinarily, yet possessed no distinguishing traits to match his appearance.
And he was not self-directed.
The young master I watched got along well enough with everyone in the family, but he had never taken the initiative to express anything.
He learned the sword because the family head told him to, and learned cultivation techniques because he was told to learn them.
He did not refuse what was given to him, but he had never approached anyone of his own accord, nor had he ever ordered a servant to do anything.
At first, I had even thought he was merely being cautious because he was an illegitimate son. That was how little initiative he showed.
Someone spoke to him, and he answered.
Someone gave him something, and he accepted it without refusing.
I continually felt something off about him.
He was clearly conversing with people, yet there was the unsettling sense that his replies were merely preprogrammed answers recited word for word.
I could not shake that feeling.
Yet I deliberately ignored it.
Colorless though he may have been, he was still a member of the Logres family.
He was no more than the son of the lord I was meant to serve.
And just as I had begun to grow accustomed even to that unease...
Yesterday, he...
"Head Butler, Young Master Ian is looking for you."
Suddenly summoned me.
Ian de Logres, who had never sought anyone out before then.
For some reason, my steps felt heavy that day.
I was merely heading to Young Master Ian's room.
Yet even lifting my arm to knock on his door felt incredibly heavy.
When I entered his room with his permission, what reached my ears was his voice, speaking as though to himself.
"Alfred should be good enough."
That was all.
I had only heard that one unremarkable sentence: 'Alfred should be good enough.'
Yet I felt an intense sense of wrongness in that voice.
Far more intensely than I ever had while watching Young Master Ian until then.
It was unmistakably Young Master Ian's voice, the one I had heard continually for twenty years.
So how could that voice make me feel something even more profoundly wrong?
I wanted to ask what this unease he gave me was,
to ask what that unease he had shown me all this time truly was.
But the words would not come past my throat.
For a moment, I wondered whether that young master possessed some compulsive force strong enough to restrain even a superhuman.
But it did not take long to realize that the one preventing me from speaking was myself.
I must not say it.
If I did, there would truly be no going back.
Whether it was instinct or something else, it clearly warned me that this was so.
"Alfred, I have a request."
There was no such unease in his voice this time.
Then what had that strange feeling from before been?
And what had he just said?
That Young Master Ian had a request of me?
"Tomorrow's Ian de Logres will have a dream."
The young master suddenly began speaking of dreams.
"And the me who harbors that dream will no longer be the me I am now."
Unbelievable words flowed from his mouth, and his face as he spoke them was as calm as if he were having an ordinary conversation.
What did that mean?
That he would no longer be himself?
"What do you..."
And he did not wait for my answer.
As though my thoughts did not matter, he simply continued.
"But he, too, will be me—Ian de Logres. So please treat me as you always have. And when he makes a request of you, unless it crosses a line, simply help him as much as you are able."
"Young Master, I believe you must be very tired."
I thought the young master had merely said something strange while half-asleep.
I tried to think so.
Even though I knew he was staring straight at me with his usual expression.
I could not understand what he was saying to such an extent that I could only dismiss it that way.
I could not comprehend this situation in which someone who had lived passively, like a marionette suspended by strings on a stage, was making a request of me.
But...
"Please ask him about that dream. Ask what dream that Ian de Logres harbors. I ask this of you, Alfred."
As though he intended to disregard my opinion, he kept speaking.
His voice and expression were no different from usual.
Yet his words were incomprehensible.
And it was the first request made by someone who had lived colorlessly for twenty years.
All of it came crashing down at once, leaving me unable to say a word.
As though he knew my thoughts—or perhaps did not—he suddenly held out his pinky finger.
It felt rather strange for a giant of one hundred ninety centimeters to suddenly hold out his pinky.
"And please keep what happened here a secret."
But that was not what drew my attention now.
What seized my gaze was that single gesture.
He held out his pinky as though asking me to keep a promise that could be broken as easily as turning over one's palm, like the sort children make.
Lightly, as though he were not attached to such things.
It was neither a contract nor an order.
It was only a promise like a child's wish, one it would not matter if I failed to keep.
Even if I ignored him and reported this to my lord, or simply dismissed it as the sleep-talking of a young master, there would be nothing an illegitimate son like him could do.
Even so...
"Yes. I, Alfred, give you my word."
I hooked my pinky around his.
Perhaps because it was the first request he had ever made after living colorlessly for twenty years.
Or perhaps because the promise he offered seemed as though it might be his first and last, like a promise that could vanish like foam and still mean nothing.
Or perhaps because it seemed like a dream that would vanish like foam by tomorrow.
After hooking my pinky around his and seeing the smile he gave, I left his room.
And the next day...
Just as Ian had said, the colorless him was gone.
The interior beneath his colorless shell was being painted over in a single hue.
Just as he had said that the Ian de Logres of tomorrow would not be the Ian de Logres of yesterday, the young master before my eyes was no longer that colorless young master.
And the persistent unease I had felt had vanished cleanly as well.
As if everything had returned to where it belonged.
'But he, too, will be me—Ian de Logres. So please treat him as you always have.'
I only had to treat him as usual.
For everything had returned to its proper place.
......
But...
His manner of speaking, his mana, and everything else...
Though he was no different at all from the colorless Ian of yesterday,
I felt a new sense of wrongness from the one who had regained his vivid colors.
Then what had become of the colorless him until now?
Had the colorless him been painted over and become the young master before me?
Or had the colorless him disappeared?
So...
"Young Master, do you have a dream?"
I asked the young master who had found his color about his dream.
It was the first and last request the colorless young master had left me with, but now I had become curious as well.
What dream could the young master, who had regained his vivid colors by harboring one, possibly have?
And his dream was...
"I want to become a knight."
A knight.
Though his tone trembled slightly, that was certainly what he said.
A knight.
He wanted to become a knight.
#
"I want to become a knight."
That was how I brought up my dream.
I had no idea what the penalty was, so disregarding Alfred's words would be a bad move.
In any case, the Stars of Knights were judges watching what I said.
I didn't know their tastes, but I needed to say something they would like to hear.
It looked like I would have to cram for this, but it couldn't be helped.
I decided my future dream would be becoming a knight.
If I was to practice chivalry, it only made sense to first set my sights on being a knight.
And then...
9.8%
■□□□□□□□□□
The gauge at the bottom increased.
"A knight. A knight, then."
Alfred stroked his mustache as he mulled over what I had said.
"Do you wish to join the Drayg Knights?"
The Drayg Knights.
That was Logres's direct knightly order, right?
This was a fork in the road.
They say that to guess the right answer, you have to understand the test-maker's intent.
But I had a feeling that if I nodded here, those Stars of Knights bastards would not like it very much.
What kind of knight would they judge favorably?
Did joining a knightly order automatically make someone a knight?
Was a bodyguard who protected one lord a knight?
Or was it someone who unleashed sword aura and swept through the battlefield alone?
Were those truly knights who practiced chivalry?
I shook my head.
At that, Alfred's eyes narrowed.
"Then the Imperial Knights?"
"Not that either."
19.1%
■■□□□□□□□□
It increased again.
The gauge at the bottom did not tell me whether this was the right answer or not.
It simply kept rising.
"Then what sort of..."
What kind of knight did I want to become?
I needed to dig through the words spoken by knight characters in the web novels I had read and in Dawnstar Academia.
Even if I had only done twenty-nine playthroughs,
I had met countless knights in this world.
And so my conclusion was...
"I want to become a knight-errant."
"A knight-errant... you say?"
A knight-errant.
A knight-errant like Don Quixote.
Alfred stared at me with an expression of utter disbelief.
Of course he did.
"Are you planning to run away from home?"
A knight-errant was a wandering knight—one who left their territory and roamed around fighting without a lord.
Put simply, they were homeless people.
"No? Why would I run away from home? Leaving home is nothing but suffering."
"Young Master, forgive me, but that does not follow."
As if I were giving him a headache, Alfred closed his eyes and rubbed the bridge of his nose.
The gauge bar had fallen to...
12.4%
■□□□□□□□□□
It seemed to be saying that was not the right answer.
Good grief, you're impatient.
Wait a second. I haven't even greased up my tongue yet.
"A knight-errant can be a wandering knight, but a wandering knight cannot become a knight-errant."
Knight-errant included the meaning of wandering knight,
but wandering knight did not carry the meaning of knight-errant.
If wandering meant drifting about without a destination...
"A knight-errant does not simply wander. They have the goal of freeing themselves from all affiliation and practicing their own chivalry."
Because errantry means traveling here and there, gaining experience.
Going to countless places.
Meeting countless connections.
Accumulating countless experiences.
And someday reaching the stars.
That was what a knight-errant meant to me.
So I said...
"I want to become a knight. A knight who dreams the impossible dream of becoming a Sword Master, who sets wrongs right by beating down villains, who falls in love with women, and who races toward those unreachable stars. That is my dream."
#
That was...
"Nothing more than a delusion, Young Master."
I shook my head and denied his dream.
The age when knights cried out for chivalry, wielded romance, and wrote tales of love had long since been buried in the past.
The knights of today were no more than weapons bearing the name of knight.
Even if they claimed to fight for honor, most fought for themselves, not for others.
Of course, there were those like the Sword Lord who carried through with their own convictions, but that was possible only because they were strong enough to do so.
Such delusions would merely be crushed and devoured by this world until they disappeared.
But...
"Then I merely need to turn that delusion into reality. Who am I? Am I not Ian de Logres, son of the Northern Grand Duke?"
"........."
Ian de Logres spoke with confidence.
I could not tell whether he was confident or shameless.
It was clearly bravado.
It was subtle, but his legs were trembling badly.
Even so...
'Tomorrow's Ian de Logres will have a dream.'
The sensation of his finger still remained, making it impossible to extinguish that fantasy.
So, because of that...
"I see. I, Alfred, will support your dream, Young Master."
Rather than extinguishing his fantasy once again, I chose to evade the matter.
I merely bowed my head in greeting.
'I will indulge you just this once.'
There were things I wished to say.
It was as plain as day that his dream would become not an ideal, but an empty delusion.
But I did not deny it.
For I had promised him I would treat him the same way I had treated him when he was colorless.
After finishing my greeting, I grasped the doorknob.
And this time, I turned it.
Still, what a pity.
That I had not asked him.
I regretted that fact deeply.
Had he possessed this same dream when he was colorless?
Or had he dreamed of something else?
Though I knew this would happen,
I had not asked him about his dream.
And so regret remained.
Like the sensation of the pinky fingers we had linked that night.
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