Chapter 121 - About where do you stand? (2)

The sound of children's laughter filled every corner of the village.

It was the kind of day when the cloudless sky was bright blue, and the flowers decorating the village looked especially vivid.

As though it were a world seen through the voice's eyes.

Amid the people bustling about like that, Vlad sat still by himself.

'...'

Watching the people whose faces were full of smiles, Vlad scratched his cheek for no real reason.

Vlad was far too alien a presence to enter their world, where they blended together as if they were one body.

And he had not wanted to step inside it himself, either.

"Boss. Thanks."

"For what?"

Drawn out of his private thoughts by Got's voice, Vlad turned his head.

Until yesterday, they had been companions wandering the road together, yet before he knew it, Got seemed to be standing in a different world.

Got, inside the fence called family, looked that unfamiliar to him.

"The pig."

Vlad turned his head in the direction Got was winking.

A whole roasted pig, turning ceaselessly with an apple in its mouth.

The village children, bobbing their heads along with the direction the pig turned, looked delighted.

"... The Village Head gave it to me. I knocked off one gold in return."

Watching today's wedding, Vlad thought of Jorge from the past.

Whenever something worth celebrating happened to one of his men, Jorge would send a bottle of liquor in the boss's name, and the men who received it would be so happy.

"Marie loves it. It means she received a knight's blessing."

"... Does it?"

Then that was enough.

So Jorge's way had been right after all.

The first grown man he had ever had who was worth watching and learning from was still showing Vlad how he ought to act.

"You said the groom has relatives in Marcina, right?"

"Yeah."

"Then once this wedding is over, send your family over there for a while."

Hearing Vlad's words, Got nodded heavily.

Vlad was not unable to fit into this atmosphere simply because he was an outsider.

It was because, unlike the villagers enjoying the wedding, Vlad was looking somewhere else.

"Go on. Looks like it's starting now."

It was a wedding that Vlad had pushed forward by two days, but it was still a relief that it was beginning safely.

"Yeah. I should go."

With those words, the village half-wit and swindler began hurrying toward the front.

Yet for today at least, he would be a man prouder than anyone.

Having proven himself through Vlad, Got hurried into his place to brighten his younger sister's future.

"Thank you all for attending today's wedding..."

The wedding began with a blessing from the priest they had brought in from a nearby village.

The bride and groom waited to enter, standing on red cloth.

"... Damn."

Sadly, however, what Vlad's eyes saw first was not the sight of someone's happiness, but an omen of the threat to come.

In the distance, Stefan was looking at him with a troubled expression.

"Hey, kid."

"Yes?"

"Give me one flower from that basket."

Calling over the child holding the flower basket, Vlad quietly chose and picked up a flower from it.

There happened to be one flower that caught his eye.

Congratulations, Marie!

Live well!

At the priest's call, the bride and groom walked forward hand in hand.

The knight who would soon have to leave threw a single red rose toward them from afar.

Leaving behind congratulations, cheers, and a beautiful sight.

"It was a good thing we spread the scouts wide, just as you said, Sir Knight. They say armed men of unknown identity are headed this way."

"How long?"

"They should arrive within two hours."

Listening to Stefan's report, Vlad quietly left the wedding venue with his face hardened.

"What should we do about the wedding? Shall we end it now?"

At Stefan's words, Vlad quietly looked back.

People who were in the same place, yet standing in different worlds.

Vlad wanted to let them finish the wedding, at least, if he possibly could.

Perhaps protecting something meant protecting a sight like that.

"... We'll end it in ten minutes."

Behind Vlad as he stepped outside, the cheers of the people gradually grew distant.

And so Vlad walked forward, leaving behind the single red rose he had thrown.

* * *

'... Fuck.'

Colin spat, holding back the curse that surged up from his gut.

Faced with a sight he had never expected, Colin's two eyes were flushing red.

"Are the bastards hanging there our boys?"

"... Yes. They are the scouts we sent."

He had thought it would be an easy mission.

To be precise, it had merely been a trivial mission he had not wanted to take on.

But the sight before his eyes was far removed from what Colin and his subordinates had expected and imagined.

"... Looks like they were hiding a knight or something."

A wooden palisade that looked as though it had been thrown up in haste.

It was a shoddy palisade that seemed like it could be broken any number of ways, but the corpses hanging before it sent a powerful warning.

The palisade from which death had been hung seemed to be saying that this place would not be crossed easily.

"What should we do?"

"What do you mean, what should we do? Are we supposed to retreat from here?"

He had sent three scouts, but not a single one had escaped, and all had been caught.

They were soldiers beyond what the forces of a mere village could handle, so there was clearly something unexpected inside the village.

"I'll take the lead."

Yet even before the blatant warning someone was sending, Colin did not hesitate.

An easy mission also meant a mission that must not fail.

Colin, whose position had already narrowed because of the duel of honor in Deirmar, was also a man who could no longer back down.

"Come out!"

A fierce presence that could not be seen as that of a mere bandit.

As if he had no intention of hiding his identity any longer, Colin began revealing his presence as he shouted loudly.

"Who dared cut off my men's heads!"

The cry of a boar, filled with excitement and rage, began ringing out toward Wisteria Village.

The village, which had been filled with laughter just moments before, was now filled only with anxiety that stifled even breath.

"If you don't open the gate right now, I'll cut off every last one of your heads too!"

Open the gate, and I will at least spare your lives.

Colin shouted proudly, as if the initiative was his and his alone, but the answer that came back was calm.

"Knight of Philos. Colin the mud boar."

With the man's voice, the gate of the palisade began to open.

Only a tiny gap, just wide enough for a single person to pass through.

"It has been a long time, but I am not glad to see you at all."

"... Who are you?"

A blond man walked out of the village alone.

The man, who looked like a knight at a glance, threw what he was holding at Colin instead of answering the question.

THUD.

Heads rolled to Colin's feet.

Seeing the heads of his subordinates roll in with their eyes wide open, Colin could not help but frown.

'They were all taken down in one stroke.'

The wounds cut into their necks showed no hesitation.

It meant they had been cut down in a single slash, without a single deviation.

He did not know who the knight before him was, but he could roughly gauge his skill.

"Today is a good day, Colin. So if you turn back now, I will not fault you for your rudeness."

"Did I not ask who you are!"

Blond hair and blue eyes.

A knight with a splendid bearing that made him look like a noble, yet whose presence was as vicious as a beast.

There was no way Colin would fail to remember a man who left such a powerful impression.

"That hurts. Did you not draw your sword for me that day?"

"... What?"

That strangely relaxed smile provoked his anger.

It had not been the bastard before him, but Colin remembered a knight who had worn a smile like that.

"Vlad of Soara."

Bayezid's one-eyed bastard.

That son of a bitch who had inflicted a humiliating defeat upon him.

"I am the man who was Sir Jager's squire."

Now that he looked, he resembled that bastard perfectly.

The things he did, the way he shook someone.

Even that smile that seemed so at ease.

"You bastard..."

Only now recognizing Vlad, Colin's eyes began to turn bright red with fury.

He remembered the ground where the scent of lemons had lingered.

The one-eyed man who had laughed at him, Jubert clicking his tongue.

And even the shining Pablo, and the blond brat as well.

"You damned Bayezid dog!"

Now he remembered.

The disciple of the knight who had brought him defeat.

It made sense that he had not recognized him at a glance.

For the boy who had become a knight in his own right had left his former shabby self behind as nothing more than a trace.

He looked so proud, as though he had been that way from the moment he was born.

"I'll kill you! You northern bastards!"

The mission that had only been trivial had before long become a red-hot stage for revenge.

That day, I drew my sword to protect you, but not today.

Today, I will kill you and erase the defeat from that day that I could never gather back up.

"Sir C-Colin!"

The enraged boar had fixed his target in both eyes.

Colin, the mud boar of Philos.

The assault commander who knew nothing of retreat began charging toward Vlad with the best possible movement.

"Damn it! Follow him in! Attack right now!"

"Follow Sir Colin!"

The soldiers of Philos, who had been disguised as bandits, also hurriedly began charging after their knight.

Like men who had received training, the soldiers rushed toward the palisade while maintaining a formation of sorts even in the sudden situation.

"Aaaaargh!"

"It's a trap, a trap!"

But Vlad had not wasted the time given to him.

The traps he had made by hounding the experienced mercenaries and villagers began swallowing the soldiers of Philos all over the place.

CLANG!

"Die, you son of a bitch!"

"It's... Vlad of Soara."

Having stopped the boar's charge with his entire body, Vlad gritted his teeth and smiled with difficulty.

Though he had not been able to completely kill the momentum of the charge and had ended up allowing him to enter the inside of the village, this would not be bad either.

"Stefan! Close the gate!"

"Understood!"

The gate of the palisade, shoddy but faithful to its function, began to close.

Between the wooden gate that blocked off commander and soldiers, screams and blood began to fly.

"I'll kill you today and take your head to my lord!"

"... If it is my head now... is it worth taking?"

He truly deserved to be called a boar.

Though isolated, his eyes were raised as if he had no intention of looking behind him.

There was no finesse, but his innate strength mercilessly pressed down on Vlad.

"... Then that is a relief."

Colin's eyes went wide as he looked at Vlad before him.

The smile he had thought resembled Jager's until just a moment ago had, before he knew it, twisted viciously and revealed its true form.

A smile that belonged to no one but Vlad.

The smile of a predator whose beginning was noble, but whose end would be cruel.

"Then how much would your head be worth?"

"What?"

A cruel smile that only a predator could wear was rising on Vlad's face.

"I'm asking where someone like you would stand."

He had stabbed the fastest dragon, Lindworm.

He had cut down the sharpest dragon, Nidhogg.

Yet Vlad, who had never once fought a life-or-death battle against another human, had always been curious.

How far he had come.

How far he had reached.

"I'm asking where I stand, the man who will kill you!"

Vlad was still chasing the shadows of the men who had guided him.

Because he wanted to resemble them, and because he wanted to surpass them.

Where he was.

How far he had climbed.

The knight who had once been a boy had now reached the time to confirm it.

Through his closed left eye, Vlad's world began to blaze brilliantly.