—It's not my fault.
Alone in his room, Gordes was crushed by humiliation and terror.
"It's not my fault."
Muttering that, Gordes drank down an entire glass of alcohol while trembling, trying to deny his own blunder. The taste of the expensive alcohol placed on his night table wasn't that good. It was a bitter taste that pierced his tongue. Not only was the taste bad, but he also couldn't get drunk on it—it truly was a fraud product.
"Yes, it's a fraud. That damn hero... as if that could be Siegfried."
He stopped drinking—wasn't what he did. He drank and drank, but—his head hurt, and he remembered the gaze of that annoying swordsman.
Just remembering it made his thoughts, his heart, regain calm.
It hadn't been ugly or beautiful. It hadn't been filled with coldness or killing intent either. It had just waited.
"What should I do?"
If it had held expectations for Gordes' answer, he might have had the time to think. If that gaze had been cold or angry, he would have complied out of fear—even if he was its Master.
If it had calmly given a proposal with merits and demerits—Gordes might have refused, but he wouldn't have been that enraged by it.
That's not what it did. It had just waited robotically. It had waited for him to choose Yes or No.
That wasn't the bond between Master and Servant. I was just a pebble—Gordes thought.
Gordes was a pebble on the path to achieving his objective. Gordes was in the way, so he kicked him away to the side of the path. That was probably the level of recognition he had given Gordes.
"As if that could be a hero."
Even as he grumbled those complaints, he understood—but he averted his eyes from it. He just continued to avert his eyes. Because that would force him to face his own foolishness as well.
You don't understand anything.
The terror, shame and sorrow of his Servant realizing that and saying it to him. To prevent that, he acted that way. He didn't speak to him and wasn't spoken to either. Because Gordes tried to treat him as a Servant (tool), Saber could only treat Gordes as a Master(tool) as well.
That was only natural. Gordes treated everything besides himself as tools. His objective was the restoration of the proud alchemist Musik family. Even becoming part of the Yggdmillennia clan was a mere stepping stone for the sake of that goal. That was what he was taught. His father and mother said that, and his grandfather and grandmother said that.
...He knew that wasn't right. He knew that, but he couldn't think of a way to bring about change. Following the rules imposed on him made his heart feel at ease. We'll triumph one day. That sworn revenge was pushed upon the next generation by his grandfather, grandmother, father and mother.
He had also of course intended to push it upon his son. Once this war was over, he planned to start the incremental transplant of his Magic Crest to him.
His son also saw him as a tool. He had immediately understood that from his son's obscure eyes that seemed to rebel at him without trying to hide it... After all, he was the spitting image of Gordes who was reflected in those eyes.
If, he suddenly thought.
If he had recognized his Servant not as a tool, but as a hero with his own personality like the Forvedge siblings had.
