Chapter 144 - Following the Footsteps (2)

The view outside the window from the unfamiliar office was filled with a blue sea.

Standing by the window, Peter watched the sunset slowly spreading over that blue and quietly opened his mouth.

"Did you send the dwarves off safely?"

The Family Head of Bayezid stood with his hands clasped behind his back, looking out the window.

The scarred man watching Peter answered his question.

"Yes, sir. There were about twenty of them."

Beyond the window, seen through narrowed eyes, was a ship slowly making its way toward the sunset.

A small ship that would be carrying the dwarves who had been enslaved, and Vulcano, who had infiltrated to rescue them.

"I let them leave as you ordered."

"Good. Well done."

Though Vlad might think he had smuggled them out in secret, the city of Nassau already belonged to Bayezid.

That ship, carrying Joseph's wish, had been able to depart because Peter had permitted it.

"In the end, that boy chooses Joseph, not Rutiger."

A young knight still standing alone at the harbor, watching the departing ship.

As he always had, Peter stood in a high place and watched Vlad, who was looking far into the distance.

"He seemed to have made a firm resolve in his own way. Lord Joseph has certainly gained a good knight."

"Yes."

At Marcus's report, Peter could only smile bitterly.

There was only one whole thing, but two people who wanted to receive it.

Watching Joseph struggle to survive by any means, Peter had no choice but to wrestle with many thoughts.

"... Nassau is warm even in winter."

His son Joseph, clever and considerate, yet born frail by nature.

That was surely not the child's fault.

But the world sometimes placed unfair burdens on someone.

"In weather like this, it would likely put far less strain on his body than being in the North."

Peter quietly looked down at his palm.

His palm, lit by the fading sunset, was stained crimson.

A hand that looked as though it had been soaked in blood.

As he looked at that color, one he would likely never be able to erase for the rest of his life, Peter thought of his siblings, who were no longer in this world.

"... Still, as his father, I would like to offer him at least one alternative."

Bayezid's history, which had to repeat itself once more now that his sons had come of age.

Yet Peter wanted to prepare at least one small emergency exit from the tragedy that would repeat for them.

"Understood, Count."

Peter was endlessly torn between his duty as Family Head and his pity as a father.

Sensing feelings that could be guessed without being spoken, Marcus quietly vanished into the darkness of the office.

"..."

The place where the nameless shadow had departed.

Now standing alone, Peter clenched his palm, dyed red, and raised his head to look at the sea outside the window.

The vast sea that never became familiar no matter how many times he saw it.

But even if that vastness was nothing but unfamiliar to him, it might be a passage through which someone else could breathe.

Peter hoped it could become that.

* * *

A group that looked to be about twenty people was slowly walking on horseback.

The Budaat Tribe led by Age, the Thorn Tree Mercenaries led by Stefan, and Vlad, riding at the front between them.

After leaving Nassau, they were now heading north toward Deirmar.

"The timing worked out well. If we had kept running like this until winter, we would probably have ended up with a good deal of damage to our bones."

Fortunately, there had been no deaths, but there were injuries in their own right.

Since they had been fighting since the fierce opening stage of the war, everyone needed some rest in their own way, just as Stefan said.

"... But you said you people knew."

"Knew what?"

"The Northern Orthodox Church."

Vlad's gaze as he looked at Age was fairly sharp.

How dare a mere lieutenant hide something from his captain.

Facing that sharp interrogation, Age merely blurred Vlad's gaze aside in moderation and grinned.

"Rather than saying we knew, it's more that we had caught on."

Age, who had been casually drinking the beer Vlad had brought, began to widen his eyes.

"What is this? It tastes better cold."

"Just answer the question."

A knight of the North, a mercenary of the Central, and barbarians.

These people, who could not possibly have anything in common, had only one topic they could more or less discuss: the Northern Alliance and the Northern Orthodox Church, which had been the talk of the day lately.

"To be honest, I don't really know the process either. Bayezid gave us a hint, and my father caught on to it. Something like that."

There were worlds that could never mix.

Like the imperial people and barbarians who believed in different gods.

But a hole named the Northern Orthodox Church had been opened in the greatest wall dividing those two worlds, so it must have been something the barbarians could consider at least once.

"They said they would even acknowledge the ancestral gods we serve. If it weren't for that promise, even we would never have cooperated."

The Budaat Tribe's strength had been greatly weakened by the Lindworm's attack and the Dragon Slaying Knights, but even so, they would not have easily cooperated with an empire that did not even treat them as people.

However, the newly made vessel of the North, not the empire, had been created with enough expandability in mind, so from the barbarians' position, it was an alternative worth considering at least once.

"Even so, I heard some tribes are going wild, saying they'll kill even us. So I was thinking of returning to the tribe this winter too."

Even so, there was nothing to be done about the long history of hostility between them.

That was why the Village Head of Budaat had sent his son out into the world in advance.

The decision on whether it was right to continue cooperating with Bayezid would likely begin from Age's mouth.

"Really?"

The question was sharp, but the answer that came back was short.

As Vlad heard about the Northern Alliance, something he had known absolutely nothing about, his head grew complicated.

He had believed he had climbed up to a certain point, but the waves that roamed the world were still surging regardless of Vlad's will.

"Deirmar is up ahead!"

At that moment, someone's report broke the silence.

Once they emerged from the forest path, they saw a grassland where the smell of blood had not yet faded.

Yet regardless of that ominous smell, the sight of the city ahead had somehow become familiar and dear.

"Hm?"

Everyone was excited to see the destination they had finally reached, but Vlad narrowed his eyes hard as he felt an unfamiliar sensation coming from Deirmar.

"What is it, Lord Vlad?"

"... Wait."

Vlad hurriedly closed his left eye and began drawing up aura.

The men, who knew Vlad's senses were sharp, hurriedly began guarding their surroundings.

Because they had worked together all this time, the mercenaries and barbarians blended together in an instant and took up a firm defensive posture.

"What the hell is that?"

But in spite of their sharpened vigilance, Vlad had not drawn up his aura with that intention.

Deirmar felt familiar, yet somehow different.

"Are they holding a festival or something?"

"Pardon?"

Beyond the deepening twilight, the Heinal tree visible in the distance was flashing noisily.

On top of the tree, which was flashing nonstop as if in a merry mood, the white snake had raised its head high and was opening its mouth wide.

"Hm?"

After watching the white snake's bizarre antics for a while, Vlad felt a drop of water fall onto his shoulder.

"... Ah, shit. It's raining."

Deirmar was only a little farther away.

But as though unable to wait even that long, the surroundings had already begun to darken.

The last rain of summer, summoned by someone, was falling.

The rain that fell before autumn arrived still held a warm air.

* * *

"... Saffron, saffron."

Alicia's eyes, seen through the magnifying glass, had grown bizarrely large.

The spice called saffron that the elves had handed over.

They said they mainly used it as a spice when cooking, but its fragrance was so good that it would not be strange to use it as perfume.

"Could this perhaps be something like that too? They said the elven tea called Apsilon was actually a drug..."

Rather than rejoicing at the sudden stroke of good fortune that had come to them, the seasoned Duncan was on guard.

It was only natural.

He had heard that the series of purges that had taken place far away in Brigantes had begun with Apsilon, the elven tea.

"They said they didn't know, so for now we have no choice but to believe them."

It had been ordinary tea to the elves, but a drug to humans.

Varadis's explanation that it had acted that way because their body structures were different was convincing enough.

Though no one knew what their true intent had been.

"We can test it among ourselves before distributing it. This is an item worth bearing that much burden for."

What Varadis had brought was not only a gift.

Aushrina sincerely wanted a relationship with Deirmar, and as proof of that, they had brought not only processed saffron but also the bulbs of that flower and placed them in her hands.

Along with the puzzling words that it would likely bloom in Deirmar, if nowhere else.

"Do you truly intend to grow this?"

"Is there any reason we cannot?"

The water-colored eyes that lowered the magnifying glass were sharp.

"In a tiny territory like ours, growing cheap things only brings losses. It is only enough to barely keep the people of the territory fed."

Through this war, Alicia had felt it deep in her bones.

That Deirmar was truly a small territory.

"We are completely broke right now. We have no money."

Looking at Deirmar, which had only been shaken this way and that while wedged between enormous houses, Alicia had no choice but to swallow her anger inside.

All of these humiliations had ultimately happened because they had no power.

"My father must have known that too, which is why he focused on the lemon business, but we need a crop more valuable than that. Only then can we earn money and gather knights."

Alicia's father, the previous Family Head, had also made many efforts to break through this situation, but there were limits to what could be done with Heinal's strength alone.

Yet now, before Alicia, lay a crop that might be worth ten times more than lemons, so there was no reason to hesitate.

"... Bayezid will not simply stand by and watch this. They are also people who know how to smell money."

Alicia had not been the only one surprised by the elves' visit.

Even Joseph, who had been lying sick in bed, had sprung up and wanted to meet them, but no matter how much it was Bayezid, this was one matter she could not yield.

"That doesn't matter."

That did not matter.

Alicia had already made up her mind, and if she was going to take a gamble, it was right now.

"I cannot yield this, at least."

Surely she had heard that the Vitskaya Family far to the east had also expanded its family fortunes in an instant through trade with the elves.

There was no law saying Deirmar could not do the same.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

A polite knock reached Alicia's ears as she continued wrestling with her thoughts.

It was a sound so orderly that it could not even be compared to when the elves had arrived.

"Lady Alicia. Sir Vlad has just arrived in Deirmar."

"Is that so?"

At the butler's words, Alicia's eyes began to shine.

Now, when everything was uncertain, the person most welcome to her could only be Vlad after all.

"Please tell Sir Vlad to come to me at once."

A man who always brought back more than what she gave him.

If not for Vlad, this opportunity likely would not have come either.

"... Last time, I was so busy I didn't even get to tell him thank you."

Alicia hurriedly offered excuses under Duncan's suspicious gaze, but even so, her order to bring Vlad remained unchanged.

What lay before her was saffron.

Those roaming the hill were elves.

And the person who had just arrived was her knight, Vlad.

As Alicia looked at the pieces that seemed to be taking some kind of shape, a smile appeared on her face.

* * *

"Are you that happy to see him? Are you?"

Before the city gate, where rain had begun to fall beneath the darkened sky.

Varadis, who had hurried inside the city gate, was smiling as he looked at the cat-shaped spirit chattering on his shoulder.

The cat-shaped spirit, which looked healthy no matter who saw it, showed that the white snake had been caring for these children with utmost devotion all this time.

"Yes. He is coming, just as you said."

Just as the meowing spirit said, the name Vlad began to be heard among the guards' shouts.

Deirmar's city gate slowly began to open.

Confirming the brilliant blond hair visible through the dark gap, Varadis took out a letter he had been carefully keeping in his arms.

"It would be best to deliver this quickly, just as that child said."

The letter, which even now gave off the thick scent of maple leaves, had been given to him by his younger sister, the Divine Maiden of the World Tree.

A letter sent by the Divine Maiden, without even a seal.

But inside the letter, instead of words, there was only a childish drawing that looked as if it had been drawn by a child.

The Divine Maiden's prophecy, which could only be understood when that time came, depicted a blond knight looking worriedly at a young canary.