Chapter 148 - The End and the Beginning (3)

There were two men facing each other in the sunset light streaming through the window.

It was a spacious and splendid room, yet between them there was only silence, and the only sound to be heard was the clink of teacups.

The first to break that heavy silence was an old man who seemed older than the fading sunset itself.

"... A five-year-old emperor, and a collateral child no one even knew the whereabouts of, at that."

His aged fingers, holding the teacup, trembled as if they could not withstand the weight of time.

But the gaze with which he faced the other man was still sharp and fierce.

"I can never recognize this succession, Duke Sarnus."

The old man's face crumpled with deep wrinkles, twisting hideously.

Within it was a rage that could not be erased by the traces of time alone.

"What can be done, when that child is the closest to Frausen among the remaining blood relatives?"

"You made it so that child would be the closest."

The passage of time had taken much from the old man, but in equal measure it had left him with keen insight.

Court Duke Armand.

Having given up a great family name instead of a ducal title, he had realized that the old dragon before his eyes was the starting point of all this tragedy.

"Well, I suppose it must have been unbearably stifling, holding yourself back for four hundred years. Duke Sarnus."

"..."

The master of the dragon killer knights, who had protected the Empire from the remaining dragons for four hundred years.

The blue eyes that had only now revealed their true thoughts after that long span curved into crescents.

The gradually fading sunset was casting deep shadows across Sarnus's face.

"In accordance with my pact with Founding King Frausen, I am still devoting myself to protecting the Empire. Supporting this child, too, is only for the sake of maintaining the Empire."

"That child has no right to ascend as emperor."

"And what will you do if he has no right? Will you sever Frausen's line?"

"..."

Armand had no words with which he dared answer Sarnus.

If Frausen's line were severed, the one who would rejoice would be Sarnus.

For the loyalty he had maintained for four hundred years existed solely because of his pact with Founding King Frausen.

Along with the pact with the old dragon, only the successor who would ascend to the position of emperor could uphold all of his last wishes.

"That cannot be allowed."

The brows of the old duke, who sensed the end, twitched.

In truth, the bloodline had effectively been severed.

Then what remained was only the will.

"... The Empire began from the tip of a single sword."

There had been a man who rose as brilliantly as a star even beneath the claws of a colossal dragon.

Quijano Frausen.

People called him, who had swung his sword bearing the fate of all races, the master of swords, the Swordmaster.

"If it is the will of the Swordmaster. And if it is the choice of the sword he wielded."

The surname Frausen was being carried on by the imperial family, but the name Quijano would likely be carried on by a single sword.

For the sword that man held had split the most perfect dragon and drawn the line that ended an era.

"That would be better than the feeble bloodline you are putting forward."

"... Armand. Do not do this."

Looking at the old man chasing a faded legend, Sarnus wore an expression of pity.

The tale of the Founding King, which had become legend because its end had never been told, had now become something like a fairy tale believed only by children.

"Even after hundreds of years of searching, that sword was never found..."

"No matter how old it may be, it must surely exist somewhere."

There was clearly a strange sort of conviction in Armand's voice as he spoke of the Swordmaster's sword.

"Just as there is a dragon sitting before my eyes right now."

"..."

There had been a telegram sent by a knight from whom all news had now been cut off.

In that short telegram, written in secret codes, it had clearly been written.

Aushrina. Swordmaster's sword.

Drawn.

That had been the last telegram sent by the former Imperial Enforcer Commander Auguste.

※※※※

The boy born at the far end of the back alley's darkness liked the setting sun.

To the people living along the main road beyond the alley, it was the end of the day, but to people like him, it was the sun that announced the beginning.

Perhaps Vlad had longed for the stars in the night sky from the moment he was born.

"The singing is good, is it not?"

"... It is."

Vlad, who had been looking out the window, quietly closed his eyes at Andreas's words.

The sound of Cade breathing as he lay in bed.

And the splashing sound of water washing away blood and pus.

Mixed between those sounds, the young acolyte's singing was reaching Vlad's ears along with the fading twilight.

"As Lord Joseph predicted, if it had been even a little later, he might have suffered lasting aftereffects. This fellow uses a bow, did you say?"

"Yes."

Andreas said that if he had been even a little later, Cade might have been unable to work as a knight.

The war with Gaidar had left many wounds not only on Deirmar, but also on Joseph's knights, and Cade lying there now was proof of that.

"Thank you, Bishop."

"It is something I have always done, so there is no need to thank me. It has been our practice not to involve ourselves in worldly affairs, but..."

Andreas's troubled gaze was looking at the black mourning flags hanging outside the window.

Flags announcing the Emperor's death.

Because he sensed the countless deaths those flags would bring, the faithful priest could no longer look away.

"This is why I did not want to take on something like the office of bishop."

Now forced to concern himself even with the realm of politics, Andreas let out a small sigh and flopped down into the chair beside the bed.

When the two men stopped speaking, there was a faint song that could be heard.

The sound that had soothed the woman who shed black tears. It was a hymn.

"... If we had not fallen out with the Vatican, I had planned to send that boy to the Tramash choir. I wanted him to feel the traces of her, who was said to be the voice of God, but that has become quite a shame."

"I see."

Though he did not say it aloud, Vlad sincerely sympathized with Andreas's regret.

In any field, young people capable of unfolding their own world were precious.

But the young acolyte now had no proper teacher to help him unfold that world.

For Andreas was certainly an excellent priest, but he did not possess the same individuality as the young acolyte.

"Still, it is remarkable. I have never heard of healing people through song."

"Ho ho. Now my comforts are only you and that boy singing right now."

The manifestation of an ability might be an individual's uniqueness, but the fact that healing had been placed within the song was surely thanks to Andreas's guidance.

Because there had been someone to guide the child, that song was resounding now.

"Am I also a comfort to you, Bishop?"

"... Of course you are."

Hearing Vlad's voice, somehow grown downcast, Andreas turned his head.

Before he knew it, the fading twilight was wrapping Vlad's face in deep shadow.

"Vlad of Soara is certainly my comfort and my pride. I am sure all the knights who taught you think the same."

"Do they?"

Vlad's face, lingering in the shadow of sunset, was smiling.

Even if he paused for a moment and could not be certain of the path he had looked back on, if those who had gone before him nodded, he would not be afraid to walk through the dark night.

"Of course."

The night sky settled thickly along with the young acolyte's hymn.

At being told that his name had now become someone's pride, Vlad's smile, dyed in the night sky, shone brightly.

He hoped the voice would think so too.

※※※※

Somewhere beneath a dark night into which not a single point of light entered.

On a night when even the starlight floating in the sky could not pierce the clouds, there was a group racing down a forest path known to no one.

Though it was clearly a procession moving on horseback and in carriages, strangely, no sound could be heard around them.

"It is here."

"..."

Because there was not a single point of light, all that could be seen was pitch-black darkness, but the woman who stepped down from the carriage wore a veil darker than even that.

As though she wished to hide her face from everything in this world.

"We discovered it while searching for the cores of the spirits, as you commanded."

The armored knight placed a shining orb in her hand and pointed toward the tree before them.

For a brief moment, the clouds passed by, and the moonlight that slipped through them illuminated the knight.

Though he was clearly speaking, there was nothing attached above his neck where something should have been.

"Guide me."

"Yes."

Unlike the grotesque appearance of the group, the woman's voice was like a bird's.

It was a clear and beautiful voice, enough to make one want to tear off her veil at once and confirm her face.

Following the command that voice had given, the knights entered the forest and soon discovered a wide expanse of grass, unlike the dense forest that had filled the area until then.

"..."

And what waited for them there was a single rotted tree.

The sight of it fallen with its great trunk stretched out looked like the corpse left behind by something enormous.

"Inside."

Following the headless knight's guidance toward the base of the tree, what came into view was the hollowed-out interior of the tree.

Because it was so enormous, the inside looked like a vast clearing, and within it, a single shaft of starlight was falling even through the thick clouds.

"... He is dead."

Though the clouds were thick, beneath the starlight leaking in as if through the prick of a needle, the corpse of an unnamed man lay all alone.

The corpse of a man leaning against a small rock as if exhausted.

After confirming the corpse, the woman took off the black veil she had been wearing, as if her interest had been piqued, and slowly approached.

Slowly. Floating.

Without setting foot on the ground.

"He has been dead for a long time..."

Looking closely, the roots of the already dead tree were supporting the man's corpse as if holding him up.

From the way it looked as though they had made him a coffin, the woman could tell that the corpse lying there now was someone with no ordinary history.

"But the corpse has not rotted."

The corpse had not rotted, but the dust piled upon it was thick, as if to show that a long time had passed, and the clothes he wore scattered into dust at the slightest touch.

What was revealed from the clothes gradually scattering from the woman's cold fingertips was a very old imperial crest no longer used.

"And the sword he is holding..."

Though the corpse had a mystical appearance, the sword he held was utterly ordinary.

But rather than the sword clutched in the corpse's hand, the woman saw the powerful trace contained in his fingertips, and her lips rounded.

"Dragon blood...?"

After confirming the man's history through the corpse's fingertips, the woman wore an expression of great surprise, unlike her heart, which did not beat.

On his fingertips, as if he had crushed a dragon's heart in his grip, there was engraved a powerful trace of dragon that could not possibly be ignored.

"This man is... No, who in the world are you..."

At the edge of the Empire where no one came, deep within a dense forest.

There was a corpse that a giant tree where a spirit had dwelled had carefully preserved.

On the fingertips of that corpse, which had collapsed as if exhausted, there clearly remained a strong trace of dragon unlike anything she had ever felt before.

It was a trace so deep and dense that one could not possess it even after killing every dragon in this world.