Chapter 20 - To the Bayezid Family (3)

At the tail end of winter, as spring was drawing near.

It was the season when the warm breeze melted the snow that had been frozen all winter, and the things that had been asleep until now peeked their heads out.

"Shit."

In other words, it meant the roads had turned to mud, and carriage wheels got stuck at the drop of a hat.

"What are you doing?"

"..."

Seeing Jager jerk his chin from atop his horse, Vlad trudged over to the rear wheel of the carriage.

After confirming that Vlad's body had returned to normal, Jager had started making him spar or run petty errands whenever he had the chance.

Harshly, at that.

His attitude was as if he had been waiting for this very moment.

"It's a carriage nobles ride in, so of course it's insanely heavy."

"Still, it didn't sink too deep this time, Boss."

"How long are you planning to keep calling me Boss?"

"You won't let me call you by name, so what else am I supposed to do?"

Though he was covered head to toe in mud as he worked with several servants to get the carriage wheel free, Got merely wore a broad grin.

"You happy?"

"Of course I'm happy."

Got was a man who had every right to smile.

In the end, Got's judgment had been correct.

Vlad was a boy destined to make something of himself, and if one stayed beside someone like that, something was bound to fall into one's hands.

'Then you come along too.'

On their final night in Varna, Vlad had arranged the opportunity Got had been hoping and waiting for.

'Because right now, I don't have any money to reward you with. I'm broke.'

'It is an honor, Lord Joseph!'

After hearing how Got had brought Vlad, who could not ride, back to the encampment at the perfect time, and how he had brought Jager as well to help resolve the situation, Joseph said he would pay him a proper reward too.

That was why Got had now joined the procession heading for Sturma.

"We're going to the house of a count people like us can barely even dare to look up at, and not just any count, but the Bayezid Family, said to be one of the powers of the North. Of course I'm happy."

Got was not going merely for the reward Joseph would give him.

He was a swindler, and that meant he was a man whose mind worked quickly.

"If I show my worth there, maybe Lord Joseph will make use of me. I can't live as a mercenary forever and go on with this unstable life, can I?"

"Can you just shut up and push?"

"A servant of the House of Count Bayezid! Even that much would be a success for a commoner."

"I told you to shut up and push the carriage. Please, before I beat the crap out of you."

Because Got knew the importance of opportunity as well as Vlad did, he could smile even while straining to push the carriage.

That was how difficult it was in this world to obtain a chance to climb upward.

There were piles of people who had skill and were prepared, yet collapsed because they lacked a single strand of luck.

In that sense, Vlad and Got could be called lucky men.

Of course, that result had only been possible because they had paid the price for seizing that chance.

That night, Vlad had prepared himself for death and called forth the white world.

And Got had braved danger to go back the way he had come in order to bring Jager.

All of it had been for this moment.

"You slugs! Are you planning to drag your feet here all day!"

That was why the two of them were now pushing the carriage through the mud while listening to Jager curse at them.

"Heh-heh-heh!"

'This is driving me insane. Seriously.'

Seeing Jager urging them on with curses from behind, and Got laughing unpleasantly beside him, Vlad squeezed his eyes shut.

["Even in a situation like this, you must maintain your composure."]

'I know that too!'

Even with the voice's advice, Vlad could not easily calm his boiling anger.

"Fuck."

"Were you saying that to me just now?"

"No."

"What do you mean, no?"

After being smacked in the back of the head by Jager for the low curse he had let slip without realizing it, Vlad gauged the mood, then immediately struck Got in the back of the head beside him.

"Ow!"

"You think this is funny?"

Vlad was a seventeen-year-old whose blood still ran hot, and he was someone who had lived violently in the back alleys all his life.

"Don't laugh. Push. I don't want to get hit anymore."

"I am pushing..."

For now, Vlad was still only a boy far from becoming a knight.

For now.

* * *

Bayezid County.

The domain of the Bayezid Family, which included three cities and twelve villages.

Soara, the city where Vlad had been born.

Varna, the city that had led this monster subjugation.

"Is this Sturma?"

"That's right. It is where my family home is."

And the place visible before their eyes now was Sturma, the capital city of Bayezid County.

"Oh."

Vlad let out an exclamation without realizing it as he looked at the view of the new city.

The first thing that caught his eye was the tall and massive wall.

"It's really big."

Soara had walls too, but they were not as large or as high as this place's.

"Hmm."

Like someone from the back alleys, Vlad was naturally thinking about where one would have to break through that city to make an incredible little crawl hole.

"There is a reason the wall is that large."

As Vlad stared at Sturma's wall with a thoughtful gaze, Joseph began explaining it from beside him.

It was a story that began from a small misunderstanding, but for Vlad, who lacked learning and experience, everything he heard was worth listening to.

"That wall was built out of necessity, and it also serves to show the strength of the Bayezid Family."

The history of the Bayezid Family was so fierce that it could be called an unbroken succession of struggles.

Monsters and barbarians that poured out whenever the time came.

And, true to the harsh character of the North, wars with other territories that erupted without end.

The wall that had endured all of that stood there.

"It looks different from Varna too."

"That city has a strong religious character. Though that was my father's intention."

Vlad was a city boy in his own way, but every city he had seen so far had possessed a different atmosphere.

For a young bird that had only just come out into the world, everything he saw could not help but be fascinating.

"Close your mouth, brat."

"Please call me Vlad of Soara."

"Not a chance."

"..."

Seeing Vlad staring at Sturma with his mouth hanging open, Jager sneered at him.

"From now on, you're just a brat."

"Priest Andreas will be saddened if he hears that."

"You are my squire, not the priest's acolyte. I can call you whatever I want."

"..."

The interest Jager poured into Vlad, his first squire, was quite special.

"If you go to the Bayezid Family and do something stupid, expect a beating."

"I get beaten every day anyway. It would hardly be anything new."

Seeing his bold squire, who refused to lose a single word to him, Jager smiled and stroked his eyepatch.

'At the very least, his spirit is certainly useful.'

His lord, Joseph, always suffered from a shortage of usable knights, and the brat before his eyes was clearly one of the pieces that could fill that gap.

'And on top of that, aura.'

Though Vlad had not explained the details, calling it a secret passed down to a single successor, according to Joseph, Vlad had definitely emitted aura for an instant.

He had ended up bedridden as a result, but what mattered was that he had done it in the first place.

'I'll have to work him hard once we arrive.'

Whether one could use aura.

Or whether one had mastered that aura completely enough to use it in actual combat.

This accounted for a large part of the talent a knight possessed.

And the boy before his eyes had splendidly proven his talent and his potential.

"Let's go."

At Joseph's words, the group began walking toward Sturma's city gate.

"The young master has arrived!"

"Open the way!"

The wall was high and solid, but such things did not apply to Joseph.

There had been a long line waiting at the entrance to enter the city, but with the single name of Joseph, a path opened as though waves were parting.

"Ohhh."

Seeing that, Got let out an exclamation without realizing it.

For someone who had spent his entire life waiting and being pushed aside, an experience like this was a first.

Vlad, too, confirmed from the sight before him that he was setting foot in a place different from the one he had lived in until now.

"Welcome back safely to Sturma, Lord Joseph!"

"I feel reassured seeing the soldiers of Bayezid guarding the gate so reliably."

"Thank you, sir!"

Even at Joseph's customary praise, the gate captain answered in a loud voice and opened the way.

"Everyone, salute!"

Until Joseph's carriage had completely passed, the guards held their salutes.

It was an expression of respect toward the noble bloodline of the Bayezid Family, and a natural ceremony toward the one who ruled this city.

And Vlad was passing through their midst as well.

"You idiot! Will you not put that away right now? Lord Joseph's very presence is the pass in the first place."

"..."

Jager was growling from atop his horse, but Vlad pretended not to hear.

Because it was something he had truly wanted to try.

"We'll settle this once we're inside."

No matter what Jager said, Vlad was walking proudly.

While holding out a small wooden piece in front of the guards saluting Joseph.

That wooden piece had been made by Priest Andreas, and it was an identification tag that symbolized Vlad's existence.

"Aren't you going to inspect me?"

It was the small act of defiance of a boy who no longer needed to come and go through crawl holes.

And who could now stand proudly anywhere.

* * *

Under Jager's sharp gaze, Vlad and Got entered the mansion of the Bayezid Family.

"Huh..."

"It really is amazing."

At the highest point of Sturma.

There stood a huge gray mansion overlooking every part of the city.

The two commoners walked through the mansion of a true noble, something they had never seen even in their imaginations, their eyes wide with wonder.

"From now on, you are Lord Joseph's guests. If you do anything stupid, you will bring dishonor upon Lord Joseph."

"Yes."

"Just keep your eyes lowered as you walk. Don't look around like bumpkins."

Listening to Jager's warning, who became dead serious whenever Joseph was involved, Vlad closed his gaping mouth, lowered his head, and walked quietly.

'Is this a carpet? Is it silk?'

Of course, even if he was only looking at the floor, there was plenty to see.

Stepping on the soft carpet laid over white marble was a luxury a boy from the back alleys would not even have dared to dream of.

Vlad was seriously wondering whether he truly had the right to walk on such expensive-looking things.

"Wait here."

Jager growled as he gave the two bumpkins a reception room.

From now on, Joseph had to report his safe return, as well as the curse that had occurred at the encampment, to Peter Bayezid, the master of this mansion and his father.

"The maids will bring tea and refreshments. That... no, just don't eat anything and wait. If you eat in some vulgar way for no reason, bad rumors might spread."

"Still, maybe just a little..."

"Shut up."

And there was absolutely no reason for Vlad and Got to be present at the moment of that report.

They did not have anything like the right to dare face Count Bayezid, and they were people who could move only under Joseph's guarantee.

"..."

"..."

Even after Jager, who had threatened them, disappeared, Vlad and Got could not easily relax.

Everything was too clean, too large, and most of all, too quiet.

It was a sight and scenery they were seeing for the first time since they were born.

That was why they did not notice.

That the white curtain beside them was fluttering.

"Faces I have never seen before. Who are you?"

"...!"

Nor did they notice that there was someone else in this reception room besides them.

Beneath a slightly open window, a man walked out from between the white curtains hanging there.

"I was trying to slack off here in secret."

The man approached the two while shrugging his shoulders.

A powerful air.

A confident posture.

And a heavy presence that could not be hidden.

He looked as though this was what a black panther said to live in the eastern jungles would be like if it became human.

"I-I'm a fellow called Got, and this time Lord Jose, Lord Joseph gave me..."

"..."

And the instant Vlad saw the man before him, he realized it.

Because the man looked very much like another black-haired man he had seen.

"I see. So you are Got."

The black-haired man looked at Vlad and asked.

"And who are you?"

The sharp look in his eyes seemed capable of cutting a person down by force of presence alone, but Vlad clenched his teeth and resisted the man's air.

One of the things he had learned while living in the back alleys was that if you avoided someone's gaze, they would look down on you.

And the back alleys of Soara were a place where those who were looked down on were devoured without mercy.

Resisting someone else's presence was like a survival instinct for Vlad.

"My name is Vlad of Soara."

"... Is that so? I have never heard that name before."

The black-haired man smiled with interest as he looked at the blond boy who answered proudly even before him.

He liked the boy.

His eyes were alive, and he was not cowed even before his presence.

'It seems Joseph found someone useful somewhere.'

Rutiger, who was broad-minded by nature, liked men with such a proud attitude.

"Want some peanuts?"

And Rutiger was generous with anyone he liked.

Rutiger took a handful of peanuts from his pocket and offered them to Vlad.

However.

"I was told not to eat."

"Hm?"

Vlad was tense in the unfamiliar environment he was seeing for the first time, and he was doing his best to resist Rutiger's presence.

His mind had no room to spare, and his head was not working smoothly.

That was why he answered mechanically without realizing it.

"I was told not to eat anything here."

"... Really?"

Rutiger, who had not expected anyone to dare refuse his kindness, was briefly flustered by Vlad's response.

"These are good, though..."

"..."

Got, who had his head lowered, knew that something about the current situation had gone wrong, but he did not dare step in.

Vlad of Soara.

The first thing he did after coming to the Bayezid Family.

Was to refuse the kind peanuts offered by Rutiger, the count's eldest son.