Chapter 61 - Kids These Days (2)

The quiet crackle of a campfire burning softly.

"..."

Vlad looked at the campfire swaying in the wind and thought.

It was just like him now.

The flame wanted to stand upright, yet swayed with the direction of the wind, looking much like a boy being pushed this way and that by beings far greater than himself.

"What are you thinking so hard about?"

Gregory asked as he looked at the boy, who was staring fixedly at the campfire without actually focusing on it.

"Just, this and that."

Vlad answered Gregory in a small voice.

"... There are too many amazing people in this world."

"Are there?"

"I don't really know if I can keep holding on among people like that."

That night, the boy had lost.

If not for the voice, he probably would have died.

Just as Jorge had, as One-Armed Jack had, and as Anna had.

Like them, he would have been crushed by a vast world he could not resist, and in the end, broken.

"... When you live long enough, a time comes when you worry about exactly that."

Gregory, who could roughly guess what the boy was thinking, threw the kindling he was holding into the campfire.

Given something to burn, the campfire burned with a louder crackle than before.

"Burns well, doesn't it?"

"Yes."

In that dark church that day.

The boy had climbed the storm-lashed bell tower and reached toward the place where the children's breaths had gathered.

Gregory had not been able to watch that sight, but even imagining it, he thought it suited the boy well.

Because he had been born at the bottom, the boy knew how to reach desperately for high places, and perhaps one day he might reach the very edge of the sky.

Perhaps he might even hang a star there with his own name carved into it.

"In the end, what matters is holding on."

Pulled out of the flickering flame, Vlad finally looked at Gregory sitting beyond the campfire.

There, the bristly-bearded knight was looking at him with a broad grin.

"You just have to keep burning. As long as the flame doesn't go out, it can always blaze up again."

There was no way not to sway in the blowing wind.

But what mattered was that one had to keep burning.

As long as the flame that was himself did not go out, he could blaze up again no matter how fierce the wind was.

Feeling as if he understood what Gregory was saying, Vlad nodded and answered.

"That is true."

To stand against the vast world that would suddenly come upon him, he, too, would have to become a vast flame.

Within the boy's world, as he looked at the campfire burning quietly away, a single streak of color began to settle.

The troubled boy, Gregory passing around the bottle, and even the pitch-black horse far off on the hill, watching the boy lit by the campfire.

It was a night in which each of them thought of something they lacked and threw their worries into the campfire.

The final camp before Soara was fading away like that.

* * *

"Good work."

Joseph sat in the reception room, receiving the investigation party that had returned from its mission.

Looking at Joseph, whom he was seeing for the first time in several weeks, Vlad thought the shadows under his eyes seemed to have grown darker.

It could not simply be because he was sitting with the sunlight at his back.

"I want to commend your attitude in faithfully carrying out the mission. In addition, I value highly the initiative you showed in reaching the heart of the problem."

Joseph looked tired, but he calmly assessed the mission the investigation party had carried out.

However, though his mouth was speaking praise, the two eyes with which he looked at the party did not move in the slightest, and everyone in the investigation party felt a strange pressure.

"... However, I cannot easily overlook the fact that you drew Bayezid's sword in another lord's land."

Here it came.

Gregory had already expected that Joseph, who had firm standards for rewards and punishments, would not quietly let this matter pass.

"I apologize."

Gregory drew in a deep breath and tried to speak the words he had organized on the way back.

As the one responsible for the investigation party, he meant to take it all on himself if possible.

"What times do you think these are, acting rashly in another man's land without thinking?"

But there was a sharp voice that cut Gregory's excuse cleanly off.

It was a voice with weight equal to the years it had built up.

"On top of that, I think it was an even worse action because you all knew full well how matters were likely to unfold from here on."

It was an old man Vlad was seeing for the first time, but the force he exuded was no ordinary thing.

Feeling himself pressured by the old man's force, Vlad bit his lip.

Once again, the world far above was pressing down on the boy.

"... That is correct. At a very unsettled time, you touched a sensitive issue in exactly the wrong way and came back."

The atmosphere in the reception room froze solid at the unfamiliar old man's words, but Joseph, who knew his intent well, paused to steady his breath before continuing.

"Even now, large and small territorial wars are breaking out in every region. Since the royal house cannot properly suppress them, everyone is letting loose the things they have piled up and sharpened all this time. There is no law saying that cannot happen here in the North where we are."

There was a reason the old man could sharply rebuke Gregory.

The empire was loosening.

All the lords had gathered their swords beneath the sword of Frausen, the first Founding King and Swordmaster, but that time had already become a tale from long ago.

In such times, giving even one tiny justification was like dropping a spark onto dry straw.

"Now that cursed old things have even appeared at a time like this, even the Iron Duke is watching what is happening now."

Since this was an incident significant enough that even the Iron Duke, another pillar of the North, was watching it, Joseph had no choice but to react sensitively.

At Joseph's reprimand, acknowledging that their intentions had been good but saying they had set far too large a fire, Gregory merely nodded as if he understood.

"That is why you should have pulled out at an appropriate point. I hear there was even a holy knight of San Rosino there. If so, handing it over to that person would have been the natural procedure. Tsk, tsk."

"..."

Listening to the old man's clicking tongue as he asked why they had not followed the established rules, Vlad's heart began to grow hotter and hotter.

It was something like the boy's instinct to resist the vast world.

'You weren't even there!'

There had been the children's shallow breaths and the parents' wails, things that could not be conveyed with a few simple words.

As Vlad saw it, Gregory had truly done his best and made a courageous decision.

It was not a decision some nameless old man had any right to disparage carelessly.

"At any rate, young people these days never think about what comes after and simply..."

"The children would have died. If we had not stepped in."

You, who know nothing, have no right to say that.

The blue eyes of the boy glaring at the nameless old man were saying just that.

"... What?"

Looking at the boy who had cut straight into his words, the old man was briefly left speechless.

If he had followed his feelings, he would have shouted at him at once, but the boy's wavering blue eyes briefly brought the old man's force to a halt.

"Sir Gregory did his best for the children. San Rosino guaranteed that best effort. And."

After glancing sidelong at the old man, Vlad began to spit out the heat he could not bear to keep in his chest.

"Of course, I would have done the same. I believe the decision Sir Gregory made was an action that deserves praise, not reprimand."

Because it was immature, it was an unrefined lump of heat.

Yet rather, because it was unrefined, it could come across in the shape of sincerity.

Looking at the boy who had poured out his honest feelings without a single embellishment, everyone in the reception room was left speechless.

"..."

However, reality was not something that could be moved by sincerity alone.

Looking at Vlad, who had made an unauthorized statement, Jager squeezed his eyes shut, and Gregory had to lower his head even further.

His intent had been good, but the boy had just crossed a line.

"Vlad."

Joseph Bayezid.

The man who cherished the boy more than anyone, but who, for that very reason, had to set him straight sternly, rose from his seat.

"Stop. Do not test my patience any further."

Joseph could not wield a sword, but the force coming from him was overwhelming everyone present.

Such a force could not be held by the Bayezid bloodline alone.

"... Yes."

At Joseph's grave warning, Vlad bowed his head.

Jager's heavy gaze, telling him not to step forward any further, was also pressing down on the boy's boiling force.

"... I trust Sir Gregory understands as well. The second rule of the Swordmaster is an especially sensitive point."

Joseph naturally shifted the center of the conversation to Gregory, but those who knew him well could tell that he was now forcibly holding back his anger.

The sight of Joseph quietly undoing one button at his neck proved it.

"That is correct, Lord Joseph. It was my mistake."

Gregory quickly admitted fault so that no more sparks would fly toward the boy who had defended him.

"Several sensitive issues overlapped. Before that side sends a direct protest, we must show action first."

Joseph glared at Vlad for a moment, then clasped his hands behind his back and went to the window.

Looking at the view of Soara outside, Joseph opened his mouth.

"I sentence Knight Gregory to indefinite confinement. During that time, no salary will be paid, and he will not be able to enjoy any rights of a knight guaranteed by Bayezid."

"I understand."

Praying that it would end here, Gregory bowed his head.

"..."

However, after finishing his words, Joseph this time turned his head and met the eyes of the boy looking at him.

All things had procedures and regulations, and those had to apply to the boy as well.

"Squire Vlad."

The boy who looked at him at a slightly subtle angle when he was called still had the same rebellious look as back then.

"..."

He had fed him so much, clothed him, and treated him well all this time, and yet the boy still had not been tamed.

Looking at the boy, who had not changed in the slightest from the way he had first seen him, Joseph, too, felt an unavoidable hurt rise in one corner of his heart.

"I express deep regret toward you for displeasing me with an unauthorized statement."

Vlad looked at Joseph's deep eyes and bowed his head.

The young man had always shown him a comfortable face, but right now he was nothing but the sharp figure of a sovereign.

"I order you confined for one week as well. For the time being, you are not to appear before my eyes."

"... I understand."

Raising his head with his answer, Vlad deliberately avoided Joseph's gaze as he looked at him giving him a cold order.

He had done his best after receiving an order, yet what came back was an order of confinement, so it was unavoidable that hurt rose in the boy as well.

"Everyone, leave. From now on, I must write a letter explaining the situation to Baron Uthman."

Having finished their report and received their punishment without complaint, the investigation party bowed to Joseph and began to leave.

However, the old man watching them laughed as he looked at the blue eyes that had not lost their force even then.

So it is you.

I can tell without being introduced.

"Are you the fellow called Vlad?"

"..."

Vlad, who had just been about to step out the door, came to a dead stop at the old man's words.

A brief silence wrapped around the reception room.

"An elder calls you, and you do not even answer. It seems you were not taught manners."

At the old man's sneer, Vlad's eyes began to waver more and more.

He had been taught manners well enough.

By a noblewoman with his mother's eyes.

Turning toward the old man who judged him carelessly, Vlad introduced himself with a manner more courteous than at any other time.

"That is correct. I am Vlad."

The sight of the boy greeting him properly while pressing down his force was like the tension just before drawing a sword.

"May I also ask your name?"

Looking at Vlad, who was courteous yet exuded a ferocious force, the old man felt a thrill rising from deep in his chest.

It was enough to make him feel as if they were asking each other's names before beginning a duel.

"So you are curious about my name."

The old man smiled as he looked at the boy, who exuded a raw feeling he had truly not felt in a long time, the sort difficult to sense from young people these days.

"But unfortunately, right now I have no name I can tell you."

"..."

Toward the boy, whose face had furrowed as if asking what that meant, the old man answered while stroking his beard.

"I am one who walks the lowest road, you see. I have not yet fulfilled my duty."

At those incomprehensible words, Vlad's expression hardened, and only then did he see the old flag planted behind the old man.

It was similar to his own flag, but unlike his, which had only two crests engraved on it, the old man's flag had more than ten crests engraved upon it.

There were knights who had grown old because they had failed to die.

Because they had not retired on an honorable battlefield, they had to follow the lowest places and pick up the honor they had spilled along the way.

Just like the final figure shown by the first Swordmaster.

The nameless old man Vlad was looking at was now holding an honorable retirement ceremony.