Chapter 41 - Moonless Night (1)

The convent was utterly quiet that morning.

Sunlight streaming through the windows shone over the dining hall floor made of gray stone.

"They say there's a squire making a name for himself in the Bayezid Family."

"I heard he drew out aura in Deirmar?"

Though the convent was made of dreary gray stone, the atmosphere itself was not so heavy, perhaps because of the chattering of the young girls who had not yet become nuns.

On top of that, the rumor currently circulating inside the convent was more than enough to warm the mood.

"But they say that squire is incredibly handsome."

"Blond hair and blue eyes, apparently. He might even be of noble birth."

It was because they were in the middle of talking about someone who stirred the rosy fantasies of young girls.

'Blond?'

The red-haired girl, crouched low as she scrubbed the floor, heard a word she missed in what the girls beside her were saying.

"If he even drew out aura at such a young age, he'll definitely become a knight, won't he?"

"He might become a knight who represents the North someday."

'... Then it isn't him.'

Zemina had pricked up her ears just in case, but soon lost interest at the absurd stories that followed.

Blond hair and blue eyes.

And a boy who had dreamed of becoming a knight.

They were certainly words close to Vlad, but the moment all of them came together, the possibility dropped sharply.

There was no way that boy, who had only barely escaped the back alleys, would already be doing that well.

She only hoped he was alive and healthy.

DROP.

Zemina had been smiling for a moment while thinking of the blond boy.

Something fell beside the girl.

"Hey, redhead."

"..."

One of the girls who had been chattering away approached Zemina, dropped one of the brushes she was holding, and spoke.

"You do the rest. We've done enough, haven't we?"

"Yeah, exactly. You're not even paying any sponsorship money. You eat for free and everything."

"You should work your whole life to pay back the fact that they took you in that day. If anything, be grateful to us for giving you a chance."

The girls giggled as though they had landed a blow.

But Zemina did not react in particular and simply went on doing what she had to do.

'They're right.'

Because what the girls said was true.

It was true that she had no one who could pay sponsorship money so she could live comfortably here, and it was true that there was no telling what would have happened if the convent had not taken her in that day.

At the very least, it would not have been better than now.

"You're going to spend your whole life here anyway. You have nothing to do outside and no one to take you out. So it isn't bad to get used to this work ahead of time, is it?"

"..."

This, too, was true.

Even if Zemina left this place, she had nowhere in particular to go.

The shattering of their nest had not been a tragedy suffered by that boy alone.

Like someone else, the girl who had stubbornly survived in the back alleys was not the kind of person to yield to bullying or exclusion like this, but for now she decided to endure it.

"Then we're leaving."

"Have it all done before lunch!"

If she acted according to her usual temper, she would end up being thrown out of the convent.

If that happened, she would have no face to show Madam Marcella, who had sacrificed herself for them that night.

"... Good thing I learned this ahead of time."

Zemina, who had been in charge of odd jobs even at the brothel, merely crouched alone in the dining hall and wiped the floor as if nothing were wrong.

But there was a memory of that day that would not be erased no matter how much she scrubbed.

The sight of the woman pushing them inside the convent wall while she herself was dragged into the darkness by her hair.

They should not have let her go like that.

"Sob..."

And so the girl pushed the brush harder.

Because she wanted to push away the memory that would not be erased no matter how much she tried.

The girl swallowed back the tears rising once again in her large eyes.

The girl's red hair, not yet properly settled, swayed awkwardly over her shoulders.

* * *

"Did you really use aura?"

"..."

It was a clear, ringing voice, but for the person hearing it, it was not a particularly welcome sound.

All the more so if that voice kept needling him without pause.

'Does she never get tired?'

Vlad was barely managing to steady himself on the swaying cart.

Beside him was a woman riding a horse and constantly talking to him.

"How can you draw out aura and still not ride a horse? Isn't the order of things way too backward?"

"... All sorts of things happen in life."

Vlad turned his head and looked at the woman speaking to him.

Pitch-black hair, pitch-black eyes, and even pitch-black ears twitching upright.

"What are you looking at?"

White fangs showed between her raised lips.

They were far too sharp to be called human canines.

Vlad did not like those fangs.

Rutiger's knights were snickering beside him as they listened to the provocation.

It seemed he had gotten on their bad side after the peanut incident.

'Endure it.'

So he had to endure it.

It had not been his intention, but in a way, he had brought this upon himself.

The boy had spent his entire life enduring amid mockery like this.

'This is what I get for coming on a vacation that isn't even a proper vacation.'

But there was nothing he could do about the sigh boiling up from within him.

Currently, Vlad and Portly were following Rutiger around.

It was because when Vlad said he had come to spend his vacation, Rutiger had suggested they go falconry together.

["If you refuse to come along again, I'll send two boxes of peanuts to Joseph."]

["..."]

It was a threat that did not even sound like a threat, but Vlad, who had a prior record, had no choice but to accept.

The Family Head of the Kannor Family, who had fed him plenty of meat, had also been looking at him with desperate eyes.

From his point of view, it must have been a golden opportunity to connect Portly with Rutiger.

"Are beastfolk always this talkative?"

"Are you engaging in species discrimination right now?"

If she had been an ordinary maid, he would have quietly told her to shut up, but she was not that kind of person.

Beside Peter, the Family Head of Bayezid, there was the mage and adviser Ragmus.

And beside Rutiger, there was her.

The woman twitching her black ears was a mage.

"Don't scratch at him too much, Dorothea. He's borrowed goods."

"That bastard makes a face like he bit into shit every time he looks at me."

"Anyone would if you harassed them that much."

The way she answered Rutiger while swaying her black tail, the complete opposite of how she treated Vlad, was extremely unpleasant to watch from Vlad's perspective.

'Catlike bitch.'

The way she acted and the way she looked were exactly like the cat he hated, so Vlad merely frowned.

"This should be enough."

"The surroundings are wide open, so we should be able to see clearly in every direction."

"That is certainly true."

Perhaps they had finally arrived at their destination, because Rutiger was looking around and surveying the area.

"...?"

He was only surveying the area.

Without even taking the falcon he would use for hunting out of its cage.

"There they are."

"Indeed."

Rutiger and his knights, who had been constantly turning their heads as if searching for something, finally seemed to have found their target and raised a finger to point there.

'Hmm.'

Vlad also naturally looked in the direction they were pointing.

Though it shimmered faintly because it was far away, there were people walking across the grassland.

People dressed in white from head to toe.

They were priests.

"We are fortunate to see a pilgrim's party."

"Indeed. This, too, must be fate."

'... It looks to me like they came here on purpose.'

Listening to Rutiger and the knights talk among themselves, Vlad realized that this falconry outing had another purpose.

"Raise the flag. Show them our intentions so they will not be uneasy."

"Understood, Lord Rutiger."

As soon as Rutiger gave a look, a knight beside him took out a flag as if he had been waiting and hung it on the falcon's perch.

It looked as natural as if the pole had been brought for that very purpose.

"Shall we slowly search for prey, then?"

Though he said they would hunt, not a single person here was preparing to hunt.

They were merely walking along the low ridge as if protecting the pilgrims visible below.

The pilgrims walking down below also seemed to have seen the flag Rutiger had hung up, for they too hung a flag on a pole and began moving.

The emblem hanging high on the pole.

It was the same emblem engraved on Vlad's identification plaque.

As the party slowly began to move, Vlad quickly jumped down from the cart and moved away from Dorothea.

If he could not deal with her, avoiding her was the best option.

"Ugh. I'm dizzy."

"Are you all right, Vlad?"

Perhaps because he had ridden in a violently shaking cart rather than a carriage, his chest continued to pound.

"Do you feel like throwing up?"

"Not that."

Still, since he seemed to be in poor condition, Vlad plucked a blade of grass nearby as the voice told him and put it in his mouth.

["Remember this grass too. It has a mild stimulant effect."]

'Who the hell was he, really?'

Whenever he heard what the voice said, Vlad often found himself newly amazed.

Because the knowledge and insight he possessed surpassed even Joseph and Jager.

Insight greater than that of a well-educated noble and an experienced knight.

'I'll find out someday.'

Thinking that the voice's identity was a problem time would solve, Vlad chewed the bitter grass and looked out at the open grassland below.

Not everything had gone smoothly, but at least he liked the scenery.

A wide-open grassland where the horizon could be seen.

Vlad took a deep breath as he looked at the scenery that felt refreshing just to see.

"Hm?"

At that moment, in Vlad's field of vision as he looked far into the distance, he began to see a certain group moving in a writhing mass.

They were things moving very quickly.

THUMP.

"A herd of wild horses."

Rutiger seemed to have noticed them as well, and he narrowed his eyes as he fixed his gaze on the herd of wild horses running toward them.

It was a magnificent sight, but from Rutiger's perspective, they were not welcome.

When escorting something, nothing was as burdensome as a sudden unexpected situation.

"But why are they moving south?"

"... Indeed. At this time of year, a herd of wild horses should be going north instead."

The knight was right.

When the weather warmed and the grassland filled with grass, the animals of the plains naturally went north, not south.

Because that was where the tender shoots, just beginning to poke their heads out, would be.

But the herd of wild horses was coming down south, where the party and the pilgrims were, instead of north.

And at a full gallop, at that.

THUMP.

As the herd of wild horses grew closer and closer, Vlad's heart also began to pound wildly.

"Hmm..."

Vlad thought it felt like a sensation he had experienced someday before, and like Rutiger, he stood on the hill and watched the herd of wild horses running toward them.

They were full of life.

The sight of their bulging muscles and the wild horses racing across the grassland without restraint was enough to draw admiration from anyone who saw it.

"..."

But not a single person here was admiring the wild horses now.

They were merely watching where the horses were moving with worried expressions.

"They are getting closer and closer to where the pilgrims are."

"Their movement is strangely frantic. As if they are being chased by something..."

THUMP. THUMP.

Vlad had been clutching his chest to calm his heart, which was beating on its own.

"...?"

Their eyes met.

Though it was so far away that even its shape shimmered faintly, Vlad felt as though his eyes had met those of the one running at the very front, a creature like the leader of the herd.

A creature completely black.

It was a distance at which their gazes could not have met in the first place, yet the two of them clearly exchanged looks.

"..."

Vlad could not explain it, but he felt as if that creature were speaking to him.

That was how it felt.

"Lord Rutiger!"

One of the knights, who had sensed something suspicious in the wild horses, hurriedly pressed his hand to the ground and urgently called for Rutiger.

"What is it?"

"The ground is shaking!"

THUMP.

The boy who had met its gaze could tell as well.

The wild horses were terrified.

RUMBLE...

No sooner had the knight's shout ended than the ground shook as if in an earthquake.

And the group of pilgrims out front, startled by the tremor, collapsed to the ground.

ROOOOAR!

A massive roar rang out from the middle of the grassland along with the earthquake.

The ground split open black.

And from there, something enormous that had been waiting with its mouth open burst out.

WHINNY!

Faced with the reality that it had finally been caught, the black creature running at the very front let out a mournful cry.

"It's a death worm!"

The wild horses were brutally torn apart by savage teeth.

The poor creatures' blood poured down like rain.

"...!"

The boy's heart alone pounded without rest, but what coursed through his whole body was not hot blood, but a chilling sensation.

The herd of wild horses had been fleeing.

They had been asking for help.