Tytania:Volume 1 Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Misfortune and Calamity are Parents of Defiance

I

Mr Fan Hyulick, “the most heroic unemployed person in the universe”, was dining alone at a cheap restaurant in the central spaceport of planet Ementhal. It was the 29th of May, 446 SY.

He wore a carrot-coloured hairband, a khaki combination suit, a jumper draped over his shoulders, and a rucksack at his feet. No one would have guessed that he was the famous commander who had defeated the Tytanian great armada at the Battle of Cerberus.

Generously sprinkling the seasoning called misfortune, Fan Hyulick alternatively shovelled hash browns and ham steak into his mouth. He chewed with his white and healthy-looking teeth through the unpleasant memories as well as the ham steak.

“Good grief, that son of a bitch of a mayor…” he muttered bitterly.

Fan Hyulick wasn’t the kind to crave medals, but he had expected at least some words of praise as well as a pay rise. But upon returning to his home city, Euria, after defeating the undefeatable and ever-victorious Tytania, all that awaited him was the murderous glance of the mayor who had combed his sparse remaining hair backwards.

“You bloody fool! Who told you to win?”

“Huh…?”

Fan Hyulick blinked. He couldn’t instantly grasp the meaning behind the mayor’s words. Was he joking? Confused, he lowered his voice.

“Er, was I supposed to not win at all?”

“Exactly!”

Fan Hyulick was rendered speechless with this assertion. While he stood frozen, the mayor unleashed a rapid-fire barrage of angry shouts, sarcastic remarks, and complaints. Fan Hyulick had apparently ruined the mayor’s painfully devised political tactics. The short-statured mayor, who reached about Fan Hyulick’s mouth, aimed thousands of barbed insults straight at his heart.

“Telling me to wage war but not to win, that’s just heartless.”

Fan Hyulick thought to himself without saying it out loud as he reflected on the recent events.

Indeed, he now suddenly understood. Had the command core been formed of only inexperienced youngsters like himself, only being a ploy to give a “youth running amok” feeling and make their actions easier to justify both to Tytania and the other interstellar cities? It turned out that they hadn’t discerned and plucked Fan Hyulick’s military talent from among a crowd of ordinary commanders.

“For crying out loud, you should have just raised both hands and fled immediately, but you engaged an enemy who had numerical superiority. Furthermore, you won. What the hell were you thinking?”

Fan Hyulick thought that few men had ever endured so unjust a rebuke, but that fact gave him no comfort. The mayor demanded that he leave the city before Tytania’s arrival.

“But you know, our city Euria is not ungrateful.” The fact that he could even say that was a testament to how wretched their relationship was. “We don’t intend to let you starve. We’ve prepared cash and credit cards. It should let you live comfortably for three years or so.”

“I am most thankful.”

That wasn’t gratitude but sarcasm. And yet, the mayor nodded solemnly as if he were determined to receive nothing but thanks from the young tactician. As he prepared to dismiss the Cerberus battle victor, the mayor acted as if he forgot something important.

“Oh, hey, you. Don’t sign any receipt. We need to handle this properly to avoid any trouble later on.”

“Would you prefer a fingerprint?”

That second bout of sarcasm proved just as inefficient.

And thus, after shattering the myth of Tytania’s invincibility during the Battle of Cerberus Sector and achieving a monumental feat as a tactician, Mr Fan Hyulick found himself driven out of his home city, bearing the hatred of the Tytanians, and forced into exile in frontier sectors.

“What a marvellous calamity. Why must I suffer such misfortune?” he muttered.

It was the course of events that led Mr Fan Hyulick to bear aimless freedom and heartbreak as he became a passenger aboard the carrack Try Your Luck. He had originally intended to go to Kafir, not Ementhal, and had declared as much before departure but changed his mind. He realised that the mayor might sell him off to Tytania. After changing ships three times, he finally set foot on Ementhal’s soil.

For now, Fan Hyulick didn’t have any trouble putting food on the table, but he wasn’t yet mature enough in character to add some depth and substance to his spirit during these idle days. In the first place, he couldn’t accept his current situation. Shouldn’t words like “victory” and “endeavour” correspond to terms like “reward” and “gratitude”? “Exile” and “consolation money” were somewhat unsatisfactory, and above all, contrary to social norms. If success isn’t properly recognised, wouldn’t it be detrimental to education?

Fan Hyulick skipped his coffee, which was tasting increasingly appalling as it was cooling. Putting social and educational theories aside, what should he now do? In his home city, Euria, the possibility of being promoted to commander of the city fleet had vanished.

That was fine. He had enough of being some palace attendant. As a civilian he was chasing around menial tasks as a clerk, but as a soldier he had found unexpected talents only to be driven out from his home city with nothing but his clothes on his back. Without a job, a lover, or even a permanent home, and seeing already the twilight of his life on the horizon at the age of 28, even Fan Hyulick could feel a touch of melancholy.

How about starting up a business of his own? If he did that, Fan Hyulick would go from being employed by others to employing others. During the Battle of the Cerberus System, he had commanded more than ten thousand soldiers as a commander-in-chief. It had been a matter of life and death, and the military hierarchy proved invaluable. “Obey my orders if you don't want to die” settled it all.

Recalling a few fellow officers of his own age who had assisted him, Fan Hyulick sighed. There had been no time for farewells; were they safe? They might as well have been sacrifices to Tytania, but since he, Fan Hyulick, the commander-in-chief, had somehow survived, surely they should be able to escape execution. Still, it was deeply regrettable that Fan Hyulick’s tactics, which would surely go down in military history as defining a new era, would likely never receive proper recognition.

His own life seemed destined to be neither golden nor rosy. Fan Hyulick swallowed that thought along with his last potato. As he reached for his cup of coffee, a voice called him out from behind.

“Hey, you carrot-head young man over there, could you move a bit? I can’t reach the counter.”

With his cup still in hand, Fan Hyulick turned his head over his shoulder to see who had spoken.

The figure materialising before him was a girl who was 17 or 18 and who bore neither angel wings on her back nor devil horns on her head. Her hair was a subtle shade of dark, but not pure dark, her green eyes were framed on an oval face, and she haphazardly wore a worn white and orange attire that evoked the uniform of a spaceport labourer. Her head didn’t quite reach Fan Hyulick’s shoulders, although his was mainly because the heartbroken youth himself was quite tall.

Fan Hyulick shifted his tall frame to clear the counter for her. His facial cells didn’t move a hundred times faster than his brain cells, so he must have looked confused. “Thank you” said the girl with a wink before leaning into the counter to ask if they had iced mate tea. When told that they didn’t, she clicked her tongue and brushed past Fan Hyulick, her well-proportioned body almost rubbing against him as she left.

Then, once in the streets about twenty paces from the restaurant, she had a mischievous smile and tossed an object lightly into the air when her victim grabbed her wrist.

“You were almost there, young girl.”

Fan Hyulick’s voice carried a hint of suppressed amusement.

Mr Fan Hyulick’s wallet slipped from the girl’s hand to settle into its owner’s palm. Fan Hyulick carelessly stuffed it into his back pocket. He looked back at the pickpocket with an expression that seemed to say, “Well, what should I do now?” With embarrassment, the girl asked with curiosity:

“How could you tell? Seriously, you don’t seem like the type to figure me out.”

“I’m the type to get easily worried, and I don’t trust luck or beautiful women.”

An expression of annoyance brushed over the young man’s face.

“What an extremely unhappy way of thinking.”

“Experience has made me wiser.”

“You poor thing, dumped by a woman, were you?”

“No… that’s not… Shut up, you have no right to criticise me!”

Struck where it hurt, Fan Hyulick was flushed crimson with indignation. The pickpocket lifted her chin haughtily and gazed up at the young man who had thwarted her plans.

“So, what are you going to do? Take me to the police? Go ahead. I’m not scared of the police.”

Ignoring the girl’s words, Fan Hyulick nonchalantly said something unexpected.

“More importantly than that, could you take me to the employment centre? I need a stable source of income.”

II

The unemployed young man on the run and the pickpocket girl walked side by side along the street going from the spaceport to the employment centre.

“What’s your name? I’m Lira Florentz.”

“I’m Fan Hyulick.”

“Sounds like a name I’ve heard somewhere. You don’t look like someone famous, though.”

“It’s a pretty common name.”

“It’s the first time I hear a name like that, though.”

“My father and grandfather both bore that name.”

Speechless, the girl studied the tall carrot-top youth with interest. Calculations and plans seemed to dance in rhythm in her mind. Lira changed the subject.

“So Fan, where are you staying tonight?”

“I haven’t decided yet.”

“Ementhal is a nice planet, but the hotels are expensive.”

“I’ll look for a cheap place.”

Fan Hyulick shook the rucksack on his left shoulder. In a tone meant to sound casual, Lira suggested.

“If you’re fine with it, how about crashing at my flat?”

Fan Hyulick silently stared at the girl’s face, looking at her cheeks flushing beneath the streetlights.

“Don’t get it twisted. We’ll be in separate beds. I live with my grandmother, and she dislikes dissolute morals. A woman must take care of her body when it comes to men.”

“… Good point.”

With a rather serious expression, Fan Hyulick agreed with the girl’s grandmother.

“A shabby but spacious sofa bed, a shower, and a hot breakfast. I don’t think fifty dakars is too much to ask for in exchange.”

“Would you add some eggs to the breakfast?”

“Fried? Boiled? Scrambled?”

“I’m partial to an omelette with herbs.”

“That would be fifty-five dakars.”

After replying “Fine”, the unlucky tactician had a look of wariness in both eyes.

“Now, just to confirm, you aren’t charging fifty-five dakars just for the omelet, are you?’

“I wouldn’t do something that scammy. Customers need to be treated well. There is such a thing as business ethics in this world, right?”

Though Fan Hyulick felt like asking why this girl who made such sound reasonings had pursued a socially disapproved profession like pickpocketing, he decided against it. He had something else on his mind.

The letters ‘Tytania’ were written in large in various places along the street. While Fan Hyulick’s gaze lingered on them,

“Around here, the most powerful person is someone from the Tytania clan,” the young girl explained. “He isn’t an underling either. He bears the actual Tytania surname. How can I put it? His station is different from ours. Looks like he’s living in extravagant luxury.”

“A million years ago, we were all upright apes. Station and status are nonsense.”

The most primitive form of egalitarism rolled off Fan Hyulick’s tongue. He had no reason to feel kindly towards Tytania. Four years ago he had been forced to live with lice in a Tytanian detention camp, and once he was finally released and returned home, his lover had married another man. Just last month, he had destroyed a Tytanian fleet in a battle with dismal odds of success, only for that very victory to be the reason he was driven out of his home city. Between that and the fact that Fan Hyulick didn’t possess an ounce of masochism, there was no way he could be favourably disposed towards Tytania. This was quite distinct from any objective evaluation or judgement of value.

Tytania wasn’t excessively cruel as a ruler. Not even Tytania could extract wealth from the desert or draw water from a dried-up pond. By enriching their citizens to some degree, they could syphon more wealth through crafty commercial activities while minimising the psychological backlash.

Hostility towards Tytania stemmed mainly from two types of people. The first were those who suffered tangible harm, mainly neglected royals and ruling classes from various nations, and the second were those who had a strong desire for freedom and independence and didn’t tolerate domination from any entity.

Those who were reasonably well-off and had no need to deeply scrutinise matters were likely to accept Tytania’s rule and superiority and live peacefully. Tytanian rule had existed since even before their birth, and as long as they didn’t resist it, they could live modestly without suffering any particular hardship. Considering the great costs that came with resistance, it was only natural that they would seek to maintain the status quo through compromise. Even livestock seemed to possess their own measure of contentment.

While on their way to the employment centre, the pickpocket pressed Fan Hyulick for details about his background.

“So, what exactly have you done?”

She assumed that he must have committed some kind of misdemeanour that made it impossible for him to live on his homeworld.

“I won a battle I shouldn’t have won; that’s it. And now that I’ve upset my sponsors, here I am.”

“So you’re on the run? Are you some kind of gambler? You’re more skilled than you look…”

“A gambler, huh? Well, yes, I guess you could say that.”

He couldn’t bring himself to correct the girl’s misunderstandings. In a sense, war was speculation and gambling. Oddly enough, no matter how horrific a conflict, someone always stood to profit. Tytania, of course, was such a party.

“Have you ever killed someone?”

“Yeah, well, to protect myself, I guess.”

“How many did you kill?”

“Well, about a hundred thousand or so.”

He answered honestly, but the girl questioning him couldn’t believe it. She looked up at him with an expression of exasperation as if he were suffering from megalomania and shrugged. As if to say he was hopeless. On that point, Fan Hyulick was of the same opinion as her.

The Ementhal employment centre was opened 24 hours a day. He had thought that it was rather commendable for a government office until he learned that they outsourced their operations to the private sector.

“Any special skill? Something that can be useful?”

“Special skills? Special skills, huh?” Fan Hyulick was genuinely struggling with the question. “I’m good at running backwards on the beltway, but I don’t suppose one would call it a special skill.”

The girl was more serious and angry than the one who said these words.

“A special skill is meaningless if you can’t earn your keep with it. Running backwards on the beltway, can you even put food on the table with that?”

It would have been foolish of him to insist that he could, so Fan Hyulick remained silent. The girl placed her hands on her hips and glared at him.

“To keep on living is serious business, right? It’s not sweet or fun. If you don’t earnestly fulfil your role, you’ll surely get your just deserts!”

Why must I be lectured by some pickpocket? thought Fan Hyulick, and yet he obediently nodded. He somehow was inclined to believe that she wished him well.

Eventually, they arrived at the employment centre. Like the Interstellar City League’s kontors, such centres bore the unique characteristic of their planet. In Bargash, which Fan Hyulick had once visited on a business trip, men in grimy overalls would line up, usually with moustaches. Here, in Ementhal, a gentlemanly clerk wearing a bow and tie greeted the young man and asked:

“Do you hold a certification for planetary engineering?”

Fan Hyulick shook his head, remaining silent. Had he possessed such a qualification, he would never have been reduced to the drudgery of clerical work back in his civilian days.

“If you have a qualification, you won’t be short of work. Would you happen to have one?”

“I hold a spaceship pilot’s licence. Only an interstellar class B, though.”

“B class isn’t enough. Even A class is commonplace. If you had a special A class, I would have a dozen job openings to offer.”

If only I had an A class military strategist licence, mused Fan Hyulick as he indulged in an irrelevant fantasy. They could compile data on the number of wars fought, win rates, enemies killed, and allies lost, and then issue licences by grade. Kill more allies than enemies, and your licence gets revoked. That might be actually quite interesting. It would weed out incompetent soldiers and turn the competent ones against one another until the profession of soldier dies out. How great.

“I heard the economy was booming in Ementhal, but it appears it isn’t the case.”

“I don’t know who told you that, but I won’t take any responsibility for such irresponsible claims.”

After this rather cold response, the clerk asked him a rather odd question. If he had any knowledge of arts. Arts, of course, encompassed a wide domain, but in any case Fan Hyulick had no connection to it. He was good at whistling and making kites, but it couldn’t be called art. Similar to running backwards on a beltway.

“Never mind, it’s not as if I absolutely needed to find employment in Ementhal. I’ll be back some other day.”

Let’s decide on everything tomorrow morning after eating an herb omelette. Right as he turned to leave the reception counter, a grey shadow moved within his field of vision. Two persons wearing Tytanian uniforms stood there.

“Admiral Fan Hyulick?”

When addressed thus, the pickpocket girl started the young man with a frown and asked in a suspicious tone,

“What’s an admiral? Your nickname?”

“The essence of misfortune.”

Murmured Fan Hyulick, not entirely evasive. It was indeed precisely because he had been blind-sided by the title of “admiral” that he ended up performing this burlesque farce. Bad choices lead to bad outcomes.

III

Count Arses Tytania, the younger brother of Zarlisch Tytania, was 23 years old with sapphire hair, pale turquoise eyes, and skin as white as chalk. The word “melancholy” seemed written on his face in invisible ink.

It could be said that among those who bore the name Tytania, there wasn’t anyone incompetent. Arses was no exception, as he had a sharp intellect, and his culture surpassed that of his elder brother. He was handsome in appearance, rivalling that of Ariabert Tytania and Idris Tytania.

While he was still alive, his father seemed to hesitate about whether to choose between Zarlisch or Arses to succeed him. But Arses’s intelligence and sensitivity were mainly dominant during twilight and night. He also lacked the willpower to master his own talents. So his father had no choice but to entrust his family’s future to the sturdy Zarlisch. And also because above all else, Zarlisch was his eldest son.

It is said that originally, the surname Tytania didn’t exist in human society. It was a name that was bestowed upon the Queen of Fairies, and word has it that an ancestor some ten generations before Neville Tytania had abandoned his surname for this one, aristocratic in tone, and yet strangely pagan.

Anyhow, Tytania’s central power slipped from Arses’ grasp. Zarlisch had no desire to keep his younger brother close, nor did he place any real faith in his worldly talents. He granted him a pension sufficient for a lifetime in extravagant luxury and banished him to Ementhal. It was said that the pension amounted to 50 million dakars. Moreover, Tytanian assets were exempted from taxation.

On a side note, on the affluent planet Ementhal, the average annual income of middle-class citizens was around 40 thousand dakars, including taxes. With 50 million dakar, Fan Hyulick could have eaten omelettes at Lisa’s home around 900,900 times.

The fragrance of subtropical flowers seemed to thicken the salon’s atmosphere. Arses’ hand grasped a guinea pig from a golden cage and dropped it into a hardened glass tank.

“They are carnivorous fishes.”

Murmured Arses with a touch of tropical melancholy. Without a word, Fan Hyulick averted his gaze from the tank. The water had turned a murky dark red, with ripples and bubbles rising to the surface. Entranced Tytanian eyes were fixed on it.

Fan Hyulick had averted his gaze towards a statue. It was carved from Ementhal marble and depicted two figures embracing. Sensing that something was amiss, Fan Hyulick observed the statue one more. Once he realised what the source of his unease was, he grew gloomy. The two figures embracing were both male.

Turning his sight back at Arses Tytania, he saw the young nobleman was laughing in silence and wriggling the cushions.

That guy must be some self-proclaimed aesthetic pervert, concluded Fan Hyulick. After living some twenty-eight years, he understood that it was impossible to comprehend every soul in this world. To Fan Hyulick, Arses was a man for beyond the other shore.

From that other shore, Arses turned towards his guest and spoke in an offhand voice.

“I heard you defeated the Tytanian armada. In some battle in a star system called ‘Cerberus’ or something. We recognise that talent, and Tytania wishes to welcome you as an admiral.”

Tytania valued talent. Useful and capable individuals would either feed on Tytanian grain or be erased from society and die in freedom. Tytania seemed to think more highly of Fan Hyulick than the Ementhal employment centre. He was very grateful for that, but in the end, no matter how grand, it was but a palace.

“So, how about it? As hard as it is to believe, you won, didn’t you? Against Tytania.”

“It was a mere blunder. I would be unable to do it a second time.”

“So by blunder you won, did you? Against Tytania.”

Abusing the inverted syntax, Arses had a thin smile and looked at Fan Hyulick with a strange glance. Though it was warm enough to make him sweat, the victor of the battle of Cerberus felt a chill.

“Tytania may forgive being defeated by a genius, but she won’t suffer losing from a blunder.”

Isn’t that your own preference? Retorted Fan Hyulick inwardly. A discordant sound echoed from the tank.

The carnivorous fish had finished devouring the guinea pig and were leaping to the surface to signify to their keeper that their appetite was not fully satiated. Throwing an affectionate look towards the aquarium, Arses continued:

“You are going to have to choose a privilege. A life with Tytania, or a death apart from Tytania.

The expression that was lingering on the Tytanian youth could be described as bewitchingly beautiful, but Fan Hyulick lacked any aesthetic sensibility and didn’t feel the slightest emotion from it.

Arses’ voice grew more emphatic.

“Should you choose the former, Tytania shall bestow upon you a portion of her abundant wealth and power. Should you choose the latter, your death shall be inevitably adorned with splendour, and you shall be buried in jewelled tears. Now, which shall you choose?”

Though he wished to decline both, Fan Hyulick didn’t immediately voice his thoughts. He feigned indecision as he surveyed the chamber covered in lace, flowers, and precious metals. If he thought that it must have cost a fortune, Arses would have retorted that it was the thought of a wretched philistine.

“As the old saying goes, men are divided into two types. Those who rule, and those who are ruled. Would you not prefer to be among the rulers, even if at the bottom?”

Fan Hyulick clicked his tongue.

“This view of humanity is far too shallow. Beyond the rulers and the ruled is a third type.”

“And what is that?”

“Those who dislike being ruled.”

He had intended it as a clever line, but it didn’t seem to weigh even half a gram of impression on the Tytanian scion. With an exaggerated shrug, he resat himself on his cushion.

“Fan Hyuren, I think that…”

“I don’t recall changing my name to Hyuren.”

Fan Hyulick was greatly annoyed. And yet that anger seemed to go past the nobleman’s ear. Such people existed. People for whom illusion mattered more than facts.

“So, in the end, what do you desire?”

“Life apart from Tytania.”

He didn’t voice it out loud. The moment he would have done so, Arses Tytania would have surely forced upon Fan Hyulick a death tailored to his own tastes.

Fan Hyulick sensed that Arses was secretly wishing for him to reject the offer. It’s as if the impurity of Tytania’s blood had accumulated over generations into this young scion. He didn’t particularly hate Arses. He just wanted for him to be happy somewhere far away. He didn’t want him close or to get close to him.

Fan Hyulick was deeply regretting his decision to come to planet Ementhal rather than Kafir.

Perhaps not noticing his state of emotional turmoil, Arses Tytania rose to his feet with a vicious smile at the corner of his lips. Fan Hyulick had heard about the Five Families of Tytania and how they incorporated the blood of exceptionally beautiful women into their lineage over the generations, producing handsome men and beautiful women. It appeared that it was true. Of course, sculptural beauty and inner beauty were completely unrelated.

He had fed a guinea pig to carnivorous fishes right in front of his guest. That was some twisted taste, though it might have been partly for show. Fan Hyulick contemplated a way to avoid becoming the carnivorous fish's meal. It seemed like there was only one possible method.

An old saying stated that “an alliance under duress needs not be honoured”. Promises between equals must be kept, but there was no obligation to uphold agreements forced on others through threats or coercion. For example, if a kidnapper demanded to “not say anything to the police”, there was no moral duty to comply with him.

Fan Hyulick resolved to engrave this old saying upon his heart. In the circumstances he found himself in, false promises were unavoidable.

“Very well, I’ll take the opportunity. I shall accept Tytania’s offer to scout my talents. We’ll discuss salary and paid leave more properly at a later date.”

Arses narrowed both eyes. He pierced Fan Hyulick with a gaze that was like a thorn dipped in salt water and scorched over a flame before muttering.

“Are you being sincere?”

What an annoying bastard, thought Fan Hyulick once more, saved by his acquired trait of not voicing his thoughts immediately.

At best, while looking back at the young noble, he could only muster the expression of a shallow sycophant. It reminded him of precisely the kind of expression he wore during his days as a fledgling clerk when he reported failures to his superiors. That only made him more disgusted with it.

“Your features aren’t too bad, but they aren’t to my tastes.”

Arses’ comment was focused on his guest’s face. Fan Hyulick found it to be entirely none of his business.

“My palate leans towards more refined tastes, such as the subtly alluring, the richly shadowed, or otherworldly beauty. You are quite crude. At the very best, you are some borderland kind of handsome.”

Arses’s assessment was probably accurate, but it didn’t mean that Fan Hyulick could pat his head and say, “Yes! Good girl!” When it came to sex, Fan Hyulick was an uninteresting man with healthy and simple tastes.

Holding his silver cup, Arses noticed that it no longer contained any wine and rang a bell to summon an attendant. That silver cup was no mere ornament for Arses but followed an ancient royal custom of using silverware to guard against poisoning. Although Fan Hyulick knew nothing of this, he once again felt a sense of unease when the attendant entered the room.

He appeared to be male, and yet his features and voice carried an unnerving feminine quality. Seemingly sensing Fan Hyulick’s suspicions, Count Arses Tytania explained with a rather smug expression.

“We’ve destroyed his pineal gland with chemicals to prevent the development of secondary sexual characteristics. Since he can no longer secrete male hormones, he’ll remain a young boy forever. This makes him perfectly suited as a royal attendant.”

Basically, the equivalent of the eunuchs of the ancient Eastern civilisations. Every second in this mansion raised Fan Hyulick’s disgust for its master by one extra centimetre. His chest was already brimming with the urge to beat him up.

Fan Hyulick started calculating the odds of successfully knocking him out and escaping safely but abandoned solving that equation midway. He had noticed the presence of laser guns linked to surveillance cameras. There were many of them. Fan Hyulick had no intentions of becoming so self-absorbed in the aesthetics of destroying Arses Tytania that it would lead to his own destruction.

Unaware of the imminent danger of being knocked out, Arses had his attendant pour him a drink and turned his back to Fan Hyulick. He raised his silver cup to his lips. Whether intentional or not, until now he had offered neither a beverage nor a seat to Fan Hyulick and left him standing there.

“In any case, Tytania must comply with His Clanner Highness’ wishes. Lord Fan Hyuren, I shall greet you as my guest of honour. I guess I should say that I look forward to working with you.”

Fan Hyulick ironically wondered when he became a lord. He hadn’t been particularly fond of Tytania to begin with and was growing increasingly disgusted with the decadence oozing from Arses Tytania. Though he didn’t feel directly concerned about it, Fan Hyulick felt uneasy about the current state of Tytania, who would grant such excessive power to such a man.

“Well, since these matters are settled, I shall take my leave. Tonight I hope to have the same dream as the beauties of Ementhal. Should you require my presence, just summon me and I shall appear.”

“By beauty, you mean women, right?”

Obviously you pervert! is what Fan Hyulick restrained the urge to shout, simply nodding silently.

If one followed the principle of seeking shelter under a mighty tree, there could be no tree more dependable than Tytania. But if Fan Hyulick had ever harboured such opportunism, at that very moment it flew some 145 light-years away. His personality as an adult was surely distorted due to never having joy in being employed by others, and he intended to settle things for the time being with, “The circumstances aren’t right!”.

“Then have that beauty brought here. While it is beyond my comprehension, tolerance is a virtue of Tytania. You may stay here and drink. I shall send a subordinate, so inform me about the address of that beauty.”

“Ah, no, that won’t be needed.”

Fan Hyulick waved his hands, somewhat flustered.

“I’m a poor man by nature; how can I settle in such a grandiose mansion? I am more at ease in a cheap lodging house. I can’t leave Ementhal anyway, so may I be allowed to do as I please until things are properly settled?”

His loquaciousness was that of a swindler scheming, but Arses Tytania only responded with a small yawn.

“You are more at ease in a cheap lodging house? I see, I can understand this well. Quite reasonable.”

I’m gonna strangle that bastard, thought Fan Hyulick, picturing that scene in his mind. Anyway, they had reached a compromise, and Fan Hyulick decided to leave the residence of Count Arses Tytania for the time being. However, he could not travel alone, for two Tytania soldiers clad in grey military uniforms had to accompany him, which was a matter of course.

Now presumably a member of Tytania’s retinue, he left the salon escorted by the two soldiers. Without seeing him off, Arses Tytania tilted his silver cup as his attendant poured some wine and puffed on his opium pipe.

“Not yet? Contrary to expectations, he’s quite slow on the uptake,” he murmured some thirty minutes later, as he glanced at his watch.

Then came hurried footsteps as his butler came to report. The two soldiers had been found unconscious in the streets, and Fan Hyulick was nowhere to be found.

“Excellent, the chase is only more enjoyable if he flees.”

Arses Tytania waved dismissively as he laughed. His expression and the tone of his voice were bordering on malice.

Everything was going on as he planned. Now, he was freed from his obligation to show favour to this disagreeable Fan Hyulick. Fan Hyulick wasn’t the only one who had found the other to be unpleasant. With his morbid sensitivity, he had sensed that they were fundamentally incomprehensible to the other.

At any rate, one could not stand against Tytania with nothing but his bare hands. Did Fan Hyulick escape due to the help of some comrades? If Arses managed to capture not only him but also his accomplices, who were likely an anti-Tytania faction, it would surely earn him the praise of the overlord Ajman. And his elder brother, Zarlisch, who had banished him to Ementhal, would no longer be able to remain complacent.

Arses hated his brother. Once, his elder brother had told him these words:

“Aestheticism is just your self-justification as a pervert. You are a disgrace to Tytania. Without Tytania’s backing, you’d be nothing but a social vermin.”

The elder brother despised the younger brother’s aesthetic sensibilities, and the younger brother despised the elder brother’s sense of values. Arses knew that his tastes were a minority within society, as well as Tytania itself. His hatred for Fan Hyulick was in the same circle as his hatred for his elder brother. The very idea of his elder brother being one of the Four Dukes was laughable, and Arses would hate the entire world and deem it good for destruction if his brother ever became the next overlord.

Having escaped Arses’ mansion, Fan Hyulick met the girl named Lira on a backstreet road some two kilometres away. In Lira’s hand was a needle gun, and it had been a needle fired from its barrel that had set Fan Hyulick free. The needle was a frozen-solid, fast-acting anaesthetic that vaporised almost instantly from body heat upon piercing flesh, only leaving a trace mark on the skin’s surface that was barely larger than an injection needle.

“I’m grateful for your help, but I’ve changed my mind. I won’t be going to your flat.”

“Why not!?”

“I told you that I didn’t trust luck or beautiful women, didn’t I? Coincidences fall in that category.”

Fan Hyulick was plainly declaring his mischievousness. Lira fell silent, unable to protest. To sum it up, the young man with carrot-coloured hair had known all along. That she wasn’t a pickpocket.

“I don’t know who it is, but tell this to the guy who wrote the script. He needs to work on the details a little more or he won’t be able to compete with Tytania.”

He was putting on airs as if he were a critic. Fan Hyulick had been considering taking Lira up on her invitation but changed his mind. As much as he despised Arses Tytania, he didn’t underestimate his abilities and considered that it all might be a part of his plan. If he went to Lira’s flat, her companions might all be wiped out by Arses.

“Very well. As expected from the man who defeated Tytania, you’re a clever one. I’ll tell you the truth.”

Lira told him that she and her group, as well as her “grandmother”, were the remnant loyalists of the Principality of Casabianca that had been destroyed by Tytania some thirty years ago. “Was there even a country by that name?”, he wondered. There were at least thirty nations, both large and small, that had been destroyed by Tytania and a similar number of royal families overthrown, so he honestly couldn’t remember every single one.

“That’s why we wanted you to help us. We didn’t mean to deceive you. I know that expecting you to trust us would be asking for a lot.”

“Indeed, you’re quite a single-minded person.”

The name Fan Hyulick had cast the flash of a supernova into the hearts that hated Tytania. His military genius and the unity of anti-Tytanian forces made it seem that the prospect of overthrowing Tytania was possible. The information had been secretly relayed, which is why he had been discovered in Ementhal.

“We aren’t aiming to restore our Principality. We are striving for a universe without Tytania.”

“A universe without Tytania is all fine and dandy, but shouldn’t you be thinking of what might replace it?”

Fan Hyulick’s words were undeniably reasonable, though he wasn’t the kind of person who’d lecture others on such matters. He had spent a year in a Tytanian detention centre with nothing to occupy himself but deep reflection, although to be fair he thought more about women and food than politics and history.

“Wanting revenge is fine. But the majority of people live rather comfortably under Tytania’s rule. Should you turn them into your enemies, or should you rather take some time to push for a change in their minds? Well, I think you should rethink the whole plan.”

For Fan Hyulick, being elevated to an idol of the anti-Tytania faction was the last thing he wanted.

Tytania itself probably wasn’t unified by a singular will down to the molecular level. Even within their highest level of leadership there must be some hidden struggles over who would take the lead. There had to be. He wanted to believe so. It wasn’t because of some profound historical insight that Fan Hyulick thought that, but because the notion of a monolithic organisation made him feel uncomfortable.

These minor discordances and tiny fissures might expand and shatter the colossal diamond that is Tytania. But even if that were to happen, it seemed like it would be in the distant future, possibly decades after Fan Hyulick would have died of old age.