Chapter 55 - The Village of Fog (1)

Her long hair began in a blue sheen and ended in black.

Her gait was smoother than anyone's, yet she never touched the ground.

The heart she kept tightly shut was so cold it could no longer embrace anyone.

She arrived with death.

"... Can you truly save my son if I do that?"

"Of course, my lord."

A weary man, a weeping woman.

And a dying child.

Everything around the man was stained with despair.

He was trapped in pitch-black darkness.

"I will do it. Please."

"I will make the preparations, my lord."

Despair comes upon us like an accident and gnaws away at our lives.

And it chooses only the brightest parts.

Baron Uthman had always been a coldly rational man, but despair was gnawing away at his shining reason.

The fading breaths of his only son and the agonized sobs his wife let out made him so.

"Please do not suffer too much."

Baron Uthman looked at the woman before him with tearful eyes.

Though she was pale, the woman whose smile was warmer than anyone's was looking at the baron.

"People like me exist because God cannot look upon every place."

The man sunk in despair had been hoping for salvation, but in the end, God's hand did not reach him.

Only the woman who had come with death was smiling.

Fierce wind and rain were battering the windows of the mansion.

* * *

Raindrops were scattering on the fierce wind.

The party crossing a ridgeline with not a single place to shelter from the rain had no choice but to take the downpour with their whole bodies.

"... Those clouds don't look normal."

Just as Gregory said, it was still daytime, but the rain clouds had covered the sky, making it as dark as night.

It was impossible to push any farther through this rain and darkness.

"Cade!"

"... Let us go there!"

Sharp-eyed Cade had spotted a tree in the distance even through the driving wind and rain.

The tree's leaves were sparse for summer, but it seemed better than standing in the rain with nothing to lean on.

"We won't get struck by lightning or something, will we?"

"Even if we do, we must go for now."

Gregory muttered out of needless unease, but that did not mean they could simply stand there and keep getting rained on.

With the weather looking so ominous, the party had no choice but to stop their journey and prepare camp.

"Shitty weather."

After making it safely beneath the tree through the wind and rain, the party quickly shook off the water clinging to them and immediately began tying up the horses they had ridden nearby.

SHAAAA...

Before they knew it, rain clouds had swallowed their surroundings, covering the sky like surging waves and pouring down thick drops of rain.

Seeing that, Gregory let out a relieved sigh.

"At least it's a good thing we brought the carriage."

They had not meant to bring it along on purpose, but there was someone in the party who needed a carriage.

Considering this mission, he had worried it might be cumbersome baggage, but now it was instead proving a great help to the party.

"Shall I prepare camp?"

"Do it."

Got, who had accompanied them on the mission as both coachman and handyman, moved diligently and began taking camping equipment from the carriage.

Using the carriage roof as a support, he attached oiled cloth to it, tied that to ropes, and drove the ropes into the ground, and soon a fairly decent awning was complete.

It was an awning more than capable of blocking the raindrops still lashing fiercely around them.

"That's a shame. We would have reached our destination if we'd gone just a little farther."

Vlad, who had helped Got put up the awning, clicked his tongue regretfully as he looked at the light visible in the distance.

There were traces of people there, shining faintly like a torch illuminating the darkness all alone.

"Life never goes according to plan."

The plan to enter the village today had gone awry, but Gregory, who at least wanted to keep his plan to have a drink, opened the small flask at his breast and began drinking.

"A little is fine, isn't it? It's chilly out."

"..."

What could a mere member of the group say when the leader of the party said he was going to drink?

Vlad nodded and decided to finish the last preparations for camp.

"I'll go gather some branches at least."

"They're wet, so they won't catch well."

"We should still try to get them lit."

Got was setting up another awning on the other side of the carriage to make a temporary stable, and Cade was checking the surroundings for anything suspicious.

Between them, Vlad could not simply drink and idle away like Gregory, so he gathered nearby branches and prepared to build a campfire.

"... These should do. They're hollow inside."

"Thank you."

Cade had somehow come over beside Vlad, who was searching the area in the rain, and began helping with the work.

It looked as though a knight was helping with the work of a mere squire, but Cade did not seem to care much about that.

"I never really had a chance to say it on the way here. Thank you for back then."

"... I only did what I had to do. Please don't worry too much about it."

Though Vlad and Cade had never formally met, they knew each other's faces.

That was because the two of them had been in the same place during the monster hunt assembled in Varna last winter.

"Are you all right now?"

"I would rather have had something cut off."

Cade answered Vlad with an awkward smile.

The woman who had shed black tears as she searched for her child.

While Jager was away, the two knights who had remained at the garrison to protect Joseph had hovered at death's door because of her attack.

If the boy had not borrowed the World of voices back then, Cade would not exist now.

"Seeing this now, I chose the people well. There are plenty of bastards who call themselves knights and refuse to do things like this."

Watching the men naturally find work to do and move without even being ordered, Gregory tipped his flask.

"Let's keep going just like this. From here on, we're not knights but mercenaries."

Everyone in the party nodded at Gregory's words.

It was that kind of mission.

A mission to infiltrate secretly and look inside the village rather than proudly reveal themselves.

If the village the party was heading for now had been within Bayezid County, they would have mobilized soldiers and investigated it at once, but this was a village owned by Baron Uthman's house.

For Joseph, who had found their trail but had not secured solid evidence, this was the best support he could provide.

Having begun camping with their destination right before their eyes, the party decided to conserve their strength and wait for tomorrow.

The sound of the wind blowing fiercely, the sound of rain striking the awning.

Looking at the campfire he had barely managed to light, Vlad wrapped his cloak around himself.

The cloak, made of high-quality wool, took in the heat of the campfire and warmed Vlad's body.

"Why are you grinning like that?"

"It's nothing."

"Tch, how bland."

Vlad found himself smiling for no particular reason as he looked at himself lying comfortably beneath the cloak.

He wondered if Oksana would be proud if she saw him like this.

A day like night was passing.

Though she was not his mother, Vlad, who clearly understood the affection she had given him, lay down in the warmth of the campfire.

Hoping that the sorrowful cries he had heard that winter day would not be here.

* * *

A village built of gray stone.

In the village after a round of rain had swept through, something like a thick water mist was rising.

Looking at the fog that heavily obscured his vision, Gregory clicked his tongue.

"Feels like something might jump out at us."

"..."

Aware that people connected to black magic might be hiding here, the party could only guide their horses carefully along the road.

Was it because it was still morning, or because the weather was bad?

Even though they had come fairly deep into the village, no people could be seen out and about, and that made the atmosphere of the town grow more and more dreary.

"That is an inn up ahead."

"That's the best thing I've heard."

Perhaps because it was not a very large village, they only barely spotted an inn once they entered the center.

Perhaps they were fortunate there was an inn at all.

"Let's go in."

The four men led their horses and carriage into the inn.

With the creak of the carriage, Gregory opened the door of the inn.

"Innkeeper?"

"... You are rather early guests."

"We got stopped by yesterday's rain with the village right in front of us. Give us a bowl of hot soup, at least."

While Gregory talked with the innkeeper, pretending to be a mercenary, Vlad was looking at a girl who had only poked her head out from the passage connected to the kitchen inside.

"..."

A small child who would not even reach his knees.

A girl who looked about three or four, still at an age when she was endlessly adorable.

Looking at the girl, who reminded him of Zemina when she was young, Vlad gently waved his hand.

The plump child's pink cheeks seemed to redden a little more.

"... There have been too many unsettling things happening nearby lately..."

"We plan to stay a few days because of the weather anyway. Are you going to send us away like this? We intend to eat here too."

While Gregory and the innkeeper haggled over the price, Vlad was slowly walking through the inn and checking his surroundings.

It was an action born from an old habit, but the child seemed quite displeased that Vlad had taken his eyes off her, and she began leaning little by little, edging out toward the place where the party was.

A large pot was bubbling over the hearth in the middle of the inn.

Just when Vlad was smacking his lips as he looked at the pot, not knowing what was inside but finding that it smelled good.

["Vlad..., Vlad!"]

The voice, usually quiet, urgently called the boy to a halt.

'What is it?'

When Vlad placed his hand on the sword hilt, there was a sound that became even clearer.

["... It seems this is the place after all."]

With a gloomy tone, the voice told Vlad to turn his head and look at the girl approaching him.

Following the voice's advice, Vlad quietly turned his head.

"..."

On the other side of the hearth where Vlad stood, he found the little child who had somehow come out and was now staring at him.

Perhaps embarrassed by something, the girl was hiding behind a chair and looking at Vlad, and she was adorable no matter who looked at her, but...

["I will lend you my world."]

That could not be all there was to her.

With a tense heart, Vlad opened his left eye.

'...!'

Seeing Vlad close one eye, the girl seemed to think he was winking at her and smiled brightly, but Vlad instead felt a chill creeping up his back as he looked at that smile.

["It is a curse."]

In the world he saw with his right eye closed and his left eye open...

The girl's neck was seized by a black hand like that of a corpse.

It looked as though it might twist the girl's neck at any moment.

'... Damn it.'

Vlad felt as though he could hear in that sight the woman's cries he had heard that winter day, and he hurriedly closed the World of voices.

DONG-DONG-DONG!

The church bell announcing the time rang out through the middle of the damp village.

It should have sounded reverent, but to Vlad, that sound felt like the sticky fog surrounding him.

Having closed the World of voices and returned to reality, Vlad carefully looked at the girl's neck, which had been seized by a black hand only moments ago.

There was a necklace hanging around the young girl's neck.

It was a necklace engraved with the church's emblem.