Chapter 18 - To the Bayezid Family (1)

A dark night.

Across the river.

The loyal knight did his best.

He sent Vlad to add even the faintest possibility, then mercilessly cut down the old comrade trying to bind him.

"Guuugh! Gah!"

Then he found the one controlling death behind it all and tore out his heart.

"..."

Seeing the one who controlled death collapse far too easily, he sensed that the man, too, had merely been someone else's puppet, but instead of agonizing over it, Jager chose to run for his lord.

He swam across the river where the ice had broken and ran back along the path he had come.

Even as low-hanging branches whipped harshly across his face, Jager ran on without batting an eye.

"Sir Knight!"

On the way, though he did not know why, he found Got, who had returned, hurriedly mounted the horse, and rode for hours.

At last, the scene reflected in Jager's eyes when he arrived at the encampment was, as expected, the encampment left in shambles by the attack.

"You've come?"

And Joseph, sitting on a rock, gazing toward the distant mountains.

Only after confirming that Joseph was unharmed did Jager finally feel relieved and let out the ragged breath he had been holding in.

"Are you all right?"

Perhaps because he had been through such a rough ordeal, the shadows under Joseph's eyes, already dark to begin with, had sunk halfway down his face.

"It was better than dying."

Joseph gave Jager a faint, drained smile, then turned his head back toward the distant mountains.

Dawn was breaking.

"This subjugation is a complete failure."

"... I have no excuse."

Jager lowered his head and dropped the things he had been holding in both hands to the ground.

A strange man's head, and the black wooden box he had been carrying.

"Was it him?"

"Most likely."

It was a question and answer with much left unsaid, but for Joseph and Jager, who understood each other deeply, it was enough of a conversation.

"It did fail..."

Joseph spoke while staring blankly toward the distant mountains.

"Still, our steps on the way back will be light."

"Was that boy useful?"

"Useful?"

Joseph smiled at Jager's question and answered.

"I may have found him."

"Found what, sir?"

Jager looked at Joseph's smiling face.

That smile, smiling together with the rising sun, reminded him of Joseph when he had been young.

"The person who will become my sword in my place."

Joseph, who had before he knew it become a young man with deep shadows under his eyes, looked at Jager and said,

"That greenhorn is a sword that shines brighter than any other."

With those words, Joseph smiled brightly, as if he had not a single worry.

Today's sun rose over his smiling face.

It was the sun of tomorrow he had longed for so desperately through last night, when everything had been too much to bear.

"It's cold. Let's go back."

"Yes."

Jager supported Joseph, who was limping on one foot, and guided him toward the tent.

With the rising morning sun at their backs, the two men walked on.

The subjugation had failed.

Even so, Joseph was smiling.

Because though he had failed today, he was certain he would succeed tomorrow.

* * *

"Ugh."

Vlad had lain in bed for three full days.

"My whole body still aches."

["I'll have to be careful next time. I didn't know the backlash would be this severe either."]

The unqualified boy had forcibly borrowed someone else's world and dragged it out into the world outside.

"Couldn't be helped."

As the price for that, he had to humbly accept this much backlash.

If he had not, he would be lying on the ground right now, cold and stiff.

"I'm glad I didn't end up loaded into a wagon and rolled all the way back."

["That man Joseph seems to care quite a bit about you."]

For Vlad, who was bedridden, Joseph held back the mercenaries who were about to leave and kept the encampment in place.

Since there had been an attack too difficult to handle, it might have been right to leave as quickly as possible, but Joseph did not think so.

"If they are after us anyway, they will come upon us again even on the way back to Varna. In that case, it is better to regroup here, make every possible preparation, and then move."

During the three days he had bought that way, Joseph did his best to restore the encampment and finished investigating the scene.

It was the bearing of one who had failed, but had not given up.

As a result, Joseph was able to find several clues worth reporting to his father, Peter Bayezid.

Perhaps the report Joseph was about to bring back now was more valuable than the monster subjugation mission he had originally been entrusted with.

"It's cold."

Sniffling, Vlad stepped outside and looked around.

The sharply reduced number of tents, the hollowed-out encampment, and the strange silence hanging over the mercenaries made him think of a defeated army.

"Boss!"

There was a voice calling Vlad from the quiet encampment.

A long-jawed man was approaching from far away, waving his hand.

"The guy who wanted to run away is sticking around the longest."

"Of course. They said they'd raise my pay if I stayed until we returned to Varna."

The cowardly swindler had not run away that night.

Instead of abandoning the danger alone and fleeing, he had turned the horse around and headed in Jager's direction.

"You know I risked danger and went all the way back to where Sir Knight was to save you, right, Boss? You really have to put in a good word for me later."

"... Fine."

Got was clever, as befitted a swindler.

The reason Jager had hurriedly sent even Vlad back to the encampment had been to buy time until he himself arrived.

Got, who had realized this, had seen through the fact that Jager's quick return would be needed to resolve the situation, and had ridden back to bring him.

Though he had not gone all the way to the riverbank full of the dead, and had merely lingered on the road partway there.

"You won't ignore and trample on my goodwill this time too, will you? No matter how bottomless the bottom is, your character can't be that completely ruined, can it?"

"I said I got it."

Since he had sins he had already committed, and since it was also true that Got had exerted himself for his sake, even Vlad, shameless as he was, found it hard to openly ignore what he was saying now.

"I'll at least bring it up. No idea how much it'll work, though."

Only after hearing that Vlad would tell a child of the prestigious Bayezid Family about his contribution did Got nod in satisfaction.

"So go take care of your business."

"Hah. Still cold as ever."

Got watched Vlad's back as he walked away and sank into thought.

'I smell money.'

In Got's eyes, Vlad was like a bundle of potential.

Young, capable, and receiving the attention of someone in power.

In other words, he was someone who would make it.

'Whoever gets in first gets to claim him.'

The most important ability for making money was recognizing value.

Got had a hunch that the boy named Vlad was not someone who would stop here.

"I've put him in my debt, too."

With those words, Got turned around.

Because there were still more pits to dig to bury the corpses of the mercenaries made last night.

"Hm?"

As Vlad walked through the encampment after parting with Got, he saw someone beckoning to him.

"Priest."

It was Priest Andreas.

"What is it, Priest?"

"There is something I would like you to help me with."

Priest Andreas smiled awkwardly and pointed to the coffin behind him.

"No one will move the coffin."

"..."

Because of the sudden attack last night, there had been no small number of deaths, including Sir Roderick.

Those who at least had someone to recover their bodies would be loaded onto wagons and buried in a cemetery, but those who did not would be buried here and forgotten in loneliness.

And here, there was one more coffin that no one came looking for.

"... I'll do it."

"Oh. I knew you would."

The coffin Priest Andreas pointed to was the coffin where the woman who had been like a terrible nightmare that night lay.

"It was no ordinary curse. So we must take her to Varna and investigate as well."

Perhaps because he felt sorry for asking him to do something unpleasant, Priest Andreas's words were growing longer.

"And as you know, is she not far too pitiful?"

"I know."

Vlad waved off the young acolyte who said he would help from the side.

"This kind of work should be done by someone with strength."

"But..."

The young acolyte, whose voice cracked as though his throat had not yet healed, stepped back at Vlad's refusal.

"With the song you sang that night, Acolyte, you already did everything you needed to do."

At Vlad's words, the young acolyte smiled sheepishly and stepped back.

"Ugh!"

Though his body was not in good shape, Vlad pushed the coffin around by himself and loaded it onto the cart.

She had been a pitiful woman.

He did not know who she had been, nor did he know how she had come to suffer such a thing, but Vlad truly pitied her.

"Come here. Just in case, I will bless you."

Worried about the remnants of the curse that might still remain, Andreas tried to take his hand, but Vlad spoke.

"Wait a moment, Priest."

Hands already dirtied.

It would not matter if he used them one more time.

Vlad picked up the black wooden box Andreas had wrapped neatly in white cloth.

The ominous-looking wooden box that everyone was reluctant to even look at.

That wooden box had been the source of the terrible curse, and it was what the woman had so desperately searched for last night.

"Vlad..."

"It just feels like this is the right thing to do."

CREAK...

The coffin lid, which had not been properly sealed, opened with a powerless sound.

"If this can offer even a little comfort."

The woman's corpse, split in half.

And her face, covered in black tear tracks.

"This much is all right, isn't it, Priest?"

"Do it. You have the right."

Vlad placed the black wooden box on the back of the woman's stiffened hand.

Inside the wooden box carried by the one who had controlled death was a tiny corpse.

"Here. Your baby."

A woman and child murdered as mediums for a curse.

Though it was after death, the woman was able to regain the child she had searched for so desperately.

Was that why?

He felt as if the expression on the woman's stiff face had softened, if only a little.

"... Should I nail it shut too?"

"I would be grateful if you did. I will bless it properly."

As Andreas watched Vlad, who was still not fully recovered, see off the pitiful woman's final departure, he silently recited a prayer for him.

For the woman everyone else turned away from, a faithful priest and a boy who had kept faith were seeing her off at the end.

TAP! TAP!

Like the sound of a bell for the dead.

In the middle of the encampment, the sound of Vlad's hammer quietly rang out.

* * *

"I'm here."

On the last night before leaving the encampment, Joseph quietly called Vlad.

"Sit."

Vlad sat in the chair, facing Jager, who was wearing a faint smile before him.

"Do you know how to drink?"

"The place I used to work was a brothel and tavern."

"So you do know how to drink."

Joseph poured clear brown liquor into the cup set before Vlad.

"Is it whiskey?"

"It's my favorite liquor."

As Vlad smelled the sweet vanilla scent spreading from the liquor, he was certain this was no ordinary expensive drink.

"First, I want to thank you."

Joseph naturally took the seat of honor and continued speaking.

"You could have run away."

"Didn't we make a contract?"

"Yes, you made a contract with me to offer faith instead of loyalty."

Joseph swirled the glass set before him and spoke.

"Though it was only a contract in words."

Joseph had been surprised not only by Vlad's skill, but also by the straight core the boy possessed.

'A talent I cannot afford to lose.'

He had judged him a useful talent, but Vlad's actions last night had easily surpassed that judgment.

Absurdly enough, a boy who had not even held a sword for very long had emitted aura.

And he had swung it for Joseph's sake.

At the cursed woman who had been like death itself.

The boy named Vlad was not merely useful, but a talent he absolutely had to have.

"..."

Even with precious liquor before him, Vlad could not bring it to his lips and sat there looking tense.

Watching Vlad, Jager teasingly downed the expensive-looking whiskey in one gulp.

"In that case, now it must be my turn to fulfill that contract."

The vassal relationship between king and noble.

The loyal relationship between lord and knight was, in the end, also a relationship of giving and receiving.

And Joseph's life had been saved by Vlad.

"My father taught me that what I receive must always be returned. No matter what it may be."

Joseph tilted the glass he was holding toward Vlad and spoke.

"I would like to invite you to the Bayezid Family. There, I want to pay the proper price for what happened this time."

"..."

Vlad silently looked at the glass Joseph offered and thought.

There was no reason to refuse.

He only needed a little resolve.

"It is an honor, Lord Joseph."

"Drink."

And the boy had always been waiting for the day he would make this resolve.

Someday, he would go out into a wider world, not the back alleys.

When Joseph gave permission, Vlad held the glass in both hands and drank the whiskey.

I will not end my life with cheap rum sold in the back alleys.

There had been a day when he had made that vow, and today that vow had come true.

"It's good."

"It's a nobleman's liquor."

Properly aged whiskey with a fragrance was the sweetest liquor Vlad had ever tasted.

Just like the taste of whiskey he was experiencing for the first time, the boy's world, too, was growing wider.