A Mad Dog Needs a Leash — Episode 5

“Hah!”

Ezra bolted upright in bed, his entire body drenched in sweat. When the familiar scenery of his room swam into view, he let out a long, slow breath.

It had certainly been a dream just now, but he couldn't remember a single detail of what had happened in it.

He raised a hand and pressed hard against the side of his neck. A sharp twinge of pain answered him.

Ezra sat there in a daze for a while, until a knock at his door jolted him back to his senses.

“Your Highness, it is time to prepare.”

“Ah—right.”

He climbed slowly out of bed.

Somehow he had the premonition that today's luck would run foul, but he shook his head and quickly shoved the thought aside.

Contrary to Ezra's worries, today's schedule was hardly anything difficult.

He had been invited to the graduation ceremony of the Academy he himself had graduated from more than a decade ago, at the tender age of fifteen. He received the invitation every year, but he could count on one hand the times he'd actually attended.

There was no particular reason for it.

He'd simply happened to have spare time, and the Emperor had been unusually pestering that day, so on a whim he'd agreed to go. All it would have taken was swallowing his irritation once—and in the end, he'd failed to swallow it, which was how today's tiresome appointment got added to his calendar.

By the time he'd finished sighing and organizing his thoughts, the carriage had already arrived at the Academy's entrance.

Stepping down from the carriage, Ezra absorbed the weight of every gaze directed his way.

But these were things he had long since grown accustomed to.

Ever since that incident, people had called him a hero and showered him with adoration. Blessed not only with immense power but also with striking looks and exalted rank, he was an object of both reverence and envy.

None of it stirred anything in him. Ezra crossed the slightly changed campus and made his way toward Lily Hall, where the ceremony was being held.

A banner congratulating the graduates hung across the marble exterior of the stately old building. It looked very much like the graduation ceremony he remembered.

Recalling the events of ten years ago, he stepped inside Lily Hall.

The moment he entered the great hall, the crowd's attention crashed down on him all at once. Ezra was walking in with his usual effortless composure when he suddenly faltered, halted by a presence he hadn't expected.

The hair on the back of his neck stood on end, and his breath caught in his throat.

What is that?

The feast hadn't begun yet, so the hall was packed with Academy students—including the graduates—and outsiders alike.

Ezra knew perfectly well that he had more than a few enemies who bore him grudges, and he had always dismissed hostile stares as beneath his notice.

But what he'd just felt was a sensation he had never once experienced before.

He deliberately swept the area beneath the podium with a casual air, yet sensed nothing at all.

Is it because of that dream?

He tried to recall last night's dream, though nothing remained of it now, not even the echo of a vision—and gave up with a shake of his head.

Better to focus on the present situation than waste his attention on something so trivial, he decided.

Ezra put on a faint smile for the people approaching him and moved forward.

“It's been a long time, Professor Allan.”

“Ah, yes—it has, hasn't it, Ezra.”

Allan, his former advisor, looked at Ezra with a somewhat dazed expression. If you asked which of Allan's students had been the most brilliant, the answer was Ezra—and if you asked which student he least wanted to run into, the answer was still Ezra.

Worse still, the promising young student of those days was now, by any honest measure, the hero of the continent!

Allan had once assigned him grueling tasks to break the boy's spirit, buried him in impossible assignments, and written exam questions that defied all reason—which made his expression darken all the more now.

Ezra wore a bright, refreshingly innocent smile, but at his core he was a petty man who repaid kindness twofold and grudges a hundredfold.

“I was worried you might all have retired by now, and that I wouldn't recognize a single professor here. What a relief.”

The professors of Allan's generation had all taken part in that 'subjugation' back then, earning honors great and small—or wounds that forced early retirement—or else they were dead.

Ezra knew all of this perfectly well, and he was twisting the knife. Heat rushed to Allan's face, and he ducked his head low.

Just then, a voice of salvation rang out to rescue Professor Allan.

“Grand Duke Akeness! Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine you'd grace our graduation ceremony.”

“Hoo.”

With the young dean's arrival, Allan escaped Ezra's clutches and let out a deep, shuddering sigh. The other professors seated nearby drifted over toward Ezra as well, joining the conversation, and the hall grew lively and noisy.

Allan pursed his lips and thought to himself: if anyone ever appeared who could knock that arrogant, high-and-mighty brat down a peg, he would gladly hand over his entire fortune.

The graduation ceremony was, as always, long and tedious.

At last, after the lengthy congratulatory address and its reply, this year's degree recipients ascended to the podium. Among the climbing graduates, no one stood out.

But then, without warning, that same feeling from earlier returned.

At the gaze clinging to him like something viscous, the Grand Duke broke out in a cold, prickling sweat.

Absurd.

This was a man who hadn't trembled even before an A-Rank monster. And yet this hall was stuffed with nothing but rabble—not worth even a B-Rank, let alone an A.

And here he was, feeling fear.

Yes.

This sensation was fear.

His gaze wavered, unable to find a place to rest. Feigning nonchalance, he swept his eyes over the graduates.

There were perhaps twenty of them, standing stiffly at attention in their black gowns and mortarboards, visibly nervous. And at the very end of that line, his gaze landed on a small-statured woman who seemed especially tense.

With long, wavy brown hair and ambiguous eyes that might have been green or might have been brown, she was by no means a strikingly beautiful face.

Pleasant enough to look at would be the most accurate description, rather than beautiful.

And yet Ezra found it strangely difficult to tear his eyes away from her. As if something had been branded into him, he kept sneaking glances back at her, again and again, just to confirm she was there.

“Then we shall now have His Highness Grand Duke Akeness confer the diplomas.”

It was the final turn.

Only Ezra himself and the administrative staff knew how many times the Academy had invited him over the years for the sole purpose of assigning this last honor to its most illustrious graduate.

With a vaguely disgruntled expression, Ezra took the diplomas and handed them out one by one, shaking hands with each graduate.

And the closer he drew to that woman, the faster he felt his heart pound.

His body stiffened and his breathing grew ragged. But the graduates receiving their diplomas from him had no idea of his condition.

To their eyes, Ezra was solemn and a man of few words. And then, at last, he stood before that woman.

He unfolded the diploma and checked the name.

Truly, it was a name that showed exactly how little effort her parents had bothered to put into naming her. He idly wondered whether the rest of her family bore names like Rose or Lily.

But then he decided they probably didn't. Daisy was a wildflower, and roses and lilies were flowers raised in greenhouses—so it would feel like unmistakable discrimination.

Then again, maybe they named her without ever even thinking that far.

He was lost in a flood of thoughts over that one short name when a cough sounded beside him, snapping him back to reality.

“Miss Daisy, congratulations on your graduation.”

He forced the corners of his mouth upward and handed her the diploma. Then he extended his hand in congratulation.

Daisy took her diploma, then cautiously reached out and clasped his hand.

The heat spreading from her palm into his made the world swim before his eyes. The soft, enveloping shape of her fingers—the pleasant press of her grip—sent the fine hairs on the back of his neck standing on end.

Startled, Ezra tried to pull his hand free, but the strength in the woman's grip was such that it wouldn't come loose easily.

“Th-this—”

The words let go wouldn't come out. Some rising fever had climbed into his throat, leaving it parched. For an instant, her hazelnut eyes met his—and flashed a bizarre, vivid green.

In that moment, Ezra's body collapsed.

“Your Grace!”

The world plunged into darkness.

Daisy couldn't make head or tail of how things had come to this.

She was being hauled off to the Grand Duke's residence right now, both arms bound behind her back.

Before her sat the Grand Duke's aide—a hulking, brawny man with a face like a thundercloud.

“Listen here, missy. Start talking about what exactly you did to our lord. Our lord, you see—outwardly he seems so gentle and kind you'd think he couldn't bring himself to pluck a flower, but in truth his life is tougher than any monster's.”

So that's the kind of master who raises that kind of subordinate.

This aide's coarse, unbridled mouth didn't fall a single step behind the Grand Duke's own. No—if anything, this one might be even more impressive.

The Grand Duke was one of a handful of people in the world who could defy the Emperor—but this man held no such position, did he?

And yet here he was, spitting insults at his own employer. The sheer audacity.

“Hey! When we came face to face with an A-Rank monster and everyone was crying and screaming about running away, this was the man humming a tune while swinging his sword—so what kind of poison did you use on him to knock him out cold?!”

At the word poison, memories of her past life surfaced, and Daisy's shoulders hunched unnaturally.

The aide caught it and shrieked at her, sharp as a blade.

“Not going to talk? If you don't hand over the antidote, we can't promise what'll become of your family, missy.”

Daisy felt very much like she was about to lose her mind completely.

“All I did was shake his hand, I swear!”

Who could have known that a healthy, powerfully built man would fail to shake off her grip, flounder helplessly, and then simply fall over?

If she'd known this was coming, she wouldn't have pushed herself so hard and killed him outright last time.

It could have ended with a mere handshake, just like this!