Chapter 107

A large, shoulder-high stone marker stood on a low mountain pass. Rough letters carved into its flat face read:

<All who pass this marker must show respect and abide by the rules of the Viola clan.>

It read more like a warning than a simple notice. Yet Ricard, cloaked and with a sword at his waist, smiled as he looked at it.

"Riki."

Marie called from some distance away. He turned to see the others standing at the crest of the pass, looking down the far side.

Ricard, who had fallen behind while admiring the marker, walked over to join them. When he reached the crest, a pastoral scene fit for a dream unfolded before him.

A village nestled beside a great lake, with white wisps of smoke rising from the chimneys of houses here and there, promising good food. Cattle grazed lazily in the fields, and people fished or worked the land.

It was not a particularly large village, but it seemed to have everything. The sight alone made him want to live there.

A strip of land extended into the lake, perhaps artificially shaped, with a small castle on it. Like Stormhertz, it looked less like a castle than a manor house with a defensive tower attached, but that was the sort of castle commonly found in the countryside.

"It's safe here. We can rest without worrying. Come along," said Bremen, their guide.

He led the way, and the others followed. Ricard walked at an unhurried pace, taking in the lake, the fields, an individual tree, and the mountains, one by one.

As they walked along the embankment between the lake and the farmland, the farmers showed little wariness at the sight of strangers. Instead, they greeted them with smiles. What a remarkable place.

The migrants could not even return the greetings. They simply stared, looking stunned. A world like this actually existed?

"Over there. That's the clan headquarters."

Kaspar spoke. When they had first met, he had been sullen and silent, but he had apparently grown comfortable enough around Ricard and the others to speak up on his own.

"We'll look for somewhere to pitch our tents," Bremen told Ricard and Marie, who had ties to the Viola clan. Ricard had also promised to introduce Blatter to the clan, so he had that business to attend to.

"Oh? You're not allowed to pitch tents here anymore," Kaspar told Bremen.

"Hmm?"

"So many outsiders came and started living in tents that it caused all sorts of problems. Now outsiders have to rent lodgings in someone's home or stay at an inn. Otherwise, you might be thrown out."

The rules seemed to have changed while Bremen was away from this route. This was an autonomous domain, so the clan's rules were effectively the law of the land. What constituted a crime and how offenders were punished were up to the clan.

"Are the inns expensive? I suppose we'd be better off lodging with someone?"

"It's one silver coin per room at the inn. That includes meals and bathwater. Maybe they'd give you a discount for a longer stay? I'm not sure."

That was quite expensive. A fairly decent inn in a major city would charge that much.

On second thought, this place did not seem particularly welcoming to outsiders. It was using indirect means to quietly pressure them into leaving.

It put them in a difficult position. Yet those very rules made the clean, pastoral landscape and the smiling farmers possible. The clan protected the people and screened outsiders for them, sparing them any unpleasant confrontations.

"What if we only stay for a day or so? Several of us could share a room."

They were not completely penniless. They had a little money, but they needed to spend as much of it as possible on food.

"Let me speak to them. They might do us a favor. Don't unload your things yet. Just follow me for now," Ricard said.

Ricard had never left the clan. He had simply gone away. That meant he was still one of its founding members, so calling it a favor was not quite right.

He had only put it that way to be safe. Besides, he had not been here while his friends built their lives, so he could hardly insist on having everything his own way.

To be honest, he was a little nervous too. Would they resent him for leaving without a word? Would they think him heartless? Would they dislike him...?

Since the castle stood on land jutting into the lake, a gateway guarded its connection to the mainland.

People walked about near it in matching outfits reminiscent of academy uniforms. Unlike the expensive uniforms of Beringen Academy, though, these were simply identical gambesons, cloaks, trousers, and shoes.

They looked young, ranging from their teens to their early twenties. Some wore swords at their waists, while others worked unarmed, carrying loads.

As Kaspar and Yulia approached, the clan members seemed to recognize them, but none came over to greet them or strike up a conversation.

"You aren't particularly close?" Ricard asked.

"These are apprentices and probationers. A lot of them quit before becoming trainees, so we're not that close," Kaspar replied.

Kaspar and Yulia were trainees, and direct pupils of a Sword Master at that. Their relations with the others were generally distant.

"You're back already? I heard the guardian had given you a quest."

A young man wearing a black cloak, unlike the others, approached Kaspar and Yulia. He had a sword at his waist. Though he looked older than Kaspar, his tone was deferential.

"I think we've done enough to complete the quest. And we met someone we call sir along the way."

"Sir?"

"This is Sir Riki. And this is Mistress Marie."

As Kaspar introduced them, looking toward Ricard and Marie, the young man in the black cloak turned to them.

"Who...?"

"What do you mean, who? Hunts, don't you even know the people who founded our clan?"

Kaspar frowned at him reproachfully. Some of the younger members did not know who Ricard was.

"I didn't," Marie corrected him.

The clan's founding members had been Volka, Bori, Delphi, and Ricard. Marie had joined later, when she enrolled at the academy a year after them.

After chiding the swordsman who appeared older than him, Kaspar asked, "Is the Master inside?"

Volka was the Clan Master. The title meant something slightly different from what it once had. Now, it quite literally referred to the person in charge of the autonomous domain and the clan as a whole. Volka was the first to hold the position.

"Yes, he is."

"And my master?"

"He went to Adelorn. Apparently, a codex was discovered there."

"What's he want with a codex?" Ricard interjected. He did not have a particularly favorable impression of codices.

"I'm not really sure..."

"Master goes looking for codices from time to time, to burn them or collect them. I don't really know why, either."

He sought out codices to burn them? Bori had witnessed their terrible side effects too, so perhaps he was trying to rid the world of them, while keeping the relatively safe ones separately.

So that was what Bori was doing. The thought left Ricard with complicated feelings. Somehow, he imagined Bori must be lonely, doing it all on his own.

"Shall we head inside?"

Kaspar gestured toward the already-open gateway. With him leading the way, everything went smoothly. Even with a group of beggarly-looking migrants trailing behind, people merely gave them odd looks. No one tried to stop them.

The road to the castle resembled a natural bridge across the lake. They followed it to the castle.

The outer walls were scarcely more than boundary walls; calling them ramparts felt like a stretch. But they let in plenty of sunlight, and the site was already a natural fortress, so high walls hardly seemed necessary.

Once through the castle gate, Ricard was a little surprised to find the interior tidier than he had expected.

The courtyard was free of weeds and kept neat with frequent sweeping. Trainee lodgings stood on either side, while the keep, where the clan's full-fledged swordsmen apparently lived, was the building he had seen from afar.

Vigorous shouts came from somewhere, suggesting that training was in progress. It sounded as though someone was teaching the basic stances.

Ricard and Marie gazed around in something of a daze. What their friends had built felt unfamiliar, yet deeply impressive. Then a familiar voice rang out.

"Riki?"

Ricard turned from his survey of the grounds toward the voice. Volka stood there, staring at him with wide eyes.

"My God, it really is you!"

Volka looked as though he had been reunited with someone he thought dead.

Suddenly, he threw his arms around Ricard and pulled him into a nearly bone-crushing embrace, without a word. Though he could barely breathe, Ricard felt an inexplicable relief. Volka did not hate him.

They drew apart and looked at each other. Only then did the corners of Volka's mouth lift. He pulled Marie into an embrace too, and at last his face broke into a broad grin.

"Hey, what's the deal with you two?"

"What do you mean? We heard about you on the way and decided to drop by."

"What on earth have you been doing all this time?"

"Herding sheep."

"Sheep? What, golden sheep or something?"

"Nothing like that."

Ricard burst out laughing at his unchanged way of speaking.

"By the way, Volka, you've really built something incredible here."

"It's all thanks to you. I mean, you're the one who made the operation a success."

"..."

What had happened at the church's sanctuary was hardly a pleasant memory. Volka had not witnessed Ricard with his sword drawn, but he had seen the horrific aftermath himself.

No matter how evil those people had been, the sight of hundreds of corpses strewn across the ground had inspired an indescribable horror. The blood had risen to his ankles.

As he stood there speechless, Bori, who had been present, had only told him that Ricard and Marie had "left."

No wonder his eyes had widened at Ricard's sudden appearance.

"I hear Bori went looking for a codex?"

"Yeah. Those things don't sit right with you, do they? We don't have to get involved, but after seeing what we saw..."

Everyone who had seen the human experimentation facility during the campaign had been traumatized by it.

They lived in an age when people were publicly beheaded in squares and sometimes flayed under torture, but the experimentation facility had gone far beyond even that.

"Anyway, who are these people?"

Volka looked at Blatter and the migrants behind Ricard. They could only stand there awkwardly, looking ill at ease.

"We're heading for the eastern frontier together. We were passing through, but there wasn't really anywhere suitable for us to stay. Oh, and this is Blatter. He went to the academy before us. I thought he might join the clan... I'll vouch for him."

Ricard felt a little embarrassed now that he had said it. Blatter stepped forward to introduce himself, but Volka was as exuberant as ever.

"Oh, come on! You don't need to vouch for him, Riki! What do you take me for? If he's here with you, he's already family. And welcome to the rest of you too. Anyone traveling with Riki is an honored guest of mine. I'll see about rooms, so make yourselves comfortable and stay as long as you like. And you two—didn't you have a quest? Back already?"

Volka turned to Kaspar and Yulia.

"Oh, well, we dealt with Ringwald's Sword Brotherhood. We thought that might be enough to complete Master's quest to 'make a name for ourselves as swordsmen.'"

"Ringwald's Sword Brotherhood? You? I'd have trouble dealing with those bastards myself, and you're saying the two of you did it?"

"Ah, well, we had help. From Sir Riki... Quite a lot of help."

"You met him on the way? Hmm, I see. Well, luck is a skill too. Anyway, I'm glad you're safe. You should have known better than to get so full of yourselves. How bad do you think it had to be for Bori to give you a quest like that?"

"We're sorry. We learned that lesson the hard way."

"All right, all right. Glad to hear it. Anyway, why are you going to the eastern frontier?"

"Well... Volka, can we go somewhere and sit down first?"

"Oh, right. Of course. What are we doing standing around? Kaspar, Yuli, show these people around. Riki, Marie, come with me."

Volka strode ahead, waving heartily for them to follow. But he was limping on one leg. Huh?

He must have faced so many hardships and dangers while building all of this in their absence. A sudden pang pierced Ricard's heart. Marie felt much the same.

Yet Volka was still so hearty and spirited. Seeing him like that, Ricard felt tears threatening to well up, but he fought them back.

The moment they entered the keep, Volka bellowed, "Delphi! Delphi! Hey, wife!"

Delphi shouted back from somewhere inside.

"Hey! I told you not to shout in here! It echoes like crazy!"

"How am I supposed to keep quiet? Get out here!"

"You're dead when I get out there!"

"Then I'll die! Just get out here!"

"Why, you!"

An enraged Delphi came storming out, only to freeze at the sight of Ricard and Marie.

"It's been a while, Delphi," Ricard greeted her with a gentle smile.

She stood in a daze for a long moment, then rushed over and threw herself into his arms. The three of them embraced, Marie included, but unlike Volka, Delphi sobbed openly.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."

She had nothing to apologize for, yet she kept crying and saying she was sorry.

Caught up in her emotion, Ricard and Marie began to cry too. Even Volka's eyes grew wet.

None of them knew why. Perhaps simply meeting again alive in this harsh world was enough to move them. It was an age of short lives, especially for those who earned their living by the sword.

Passing clan members stared in bewilderment, unsure what was happening, while some turned and went back the way they had come.

The four of them wept for a long time, as though overcome with sorrow. There seemed to be more to it than the joy of reunion, though they could not say exactly what. Their hearts simply stirred with feelings their minds could not comprehend.

Looking back now, it was hard to imagine how they had made it through all those hardships. Knowing nothing, they had stumbled into one ordeal after another, been battered and bruised, and gritted their teeth until somehow they made it this far.

Even Ricard had nearly died several times, and the same was true of his friends.

Growing old did not frighten them. Nor did they regret the years gone by. Only a fragment of wistfulness, an inexplicable sense of loss, and a handful of relief soaked their hearts.

They were still only in their late teens and twenties, yet this cruel world had pushed them beyond their limits since childhood.

Perhaps their tears were an expression of gratitude for the people they had been back then—for themselves and their friends, who had laughed in their innocence, held together by trust, and somehow survived this far.

Even if their paths diverged, friends remained friends. Everlasting friendship. That was the Viola clan.