Chapter 79 - The Blue-Eyed Knight (1)

"What are you thinking about so deeply?"

Joseph, whose mind had gone blank for a moment in the sunlight pouring in, quickly lifted his eyes and raised his head.

In his gradually clearing vision, he saw Peter watching him intently.

His expression seemed to waver for a moment between worrying over his frail son as a father and sternly scolding him as the Family Head.

"You must have been tired."

"My apologies."

A father's gaze began to steal softly into Peter's eyes.

Of course he would be tired.

He had left Soara, rushed up to Sturma without rest, and then had to make preparations to turn Vlad into a knight.

It would have been impossible for the boy named Vlad to be appointed a knight at the youngest age and in the shortest time in the history of the Bayezid Family without Joseph.

"As you wished, I have given the boy the standing he deserves."

"Thank you."

Joseph quickly looked out the window to gather his wits.

Though Peter's figure blocked most of the view outside, the snow clinging to the window frame sent a chill through Joseph.

"Soon, a council will be held where all the lords of the North will gather."

"... Is that so?"

But there was no need to look all the way to the window to wake himself up.

Because Peter's next words brought Joseph a shock.

"The Great Council?"

"Yes."

The northern Great Council, which had not been convened even once in more than ten years.

At the news that it would soon take place, Joseph's eyes began to grow heavy on their own.

'I did not even sense the slightest sign.'

Since it was a gathering of every lord in the North, there should have been signs here and there.

But Joseph had not sensed any of them at all.

That meant either they had maintained security that tightly, or the matter had proceeded so urgently that no one had noticed.

"I want to seat the lord of Deirmar there."

A single sentence laden with many meanings.

When Joseph, momentarily flustered, could not open his mouth, Peter picked up the bottle beside him and began to pour quietly.

Soon, only the fragrance made by the clear brown liquid and the sound of it flowing filled the office.

"Baroness Alicia must know as well that Deirmar can no longer move back and forth between the North and the central region."

The peaceful days were over.

Now was the time for everyone to band together for survival.

And that choice would come all the more harshly to territories like Deirmar, which had maintained neutrality.

"... Will she choose us?"

"I know you have worked hard all this time to make that happen."

Peter looked at his son sitting across from him with deep eyes.

His clever but frail second son, Joseph Bayezid.

But he knew that because Joseph had not been born with sharp fangs, he had struggled that much more desperately.

"I will support you with everything I can. In matters concerning Deirmar, you are Bayezid."

So he, too, had to answer that struggle.

Both as a father and as the Family Head of the Bayezid Family.

"Thank you, Father."

"You have come up here after so long, so rest for a few days before you leave. Long enough to satisfy your mother."

Realizing that the conversation was over, Joseph left the office with a faint smile, and Peter picked up the wineglass beside him with a short sigh.

"What a dilemma..."

Deirmar would not be the only one wondering what to choose.

Peter, too, stood at a crossroads, and within the next few years, he would have to make a decision.

The blood of nobles had to be a cold blue.

Because upon their shoulders rested duties and responsibilities whose weight truly could not be measured.

Peter stood with the wineglass he had filled to the brim and looked out the window.

Winter was coming with the falling snow.

As his advisor Ragmus had said, this winter seemed as though it would be colder than last year.

※※※※

A glossy cloak and gleaming armor.

Having left the estate looking the same as he had yesterday, Vlad now stood atop the walls of Sturma.

"So this is what it looked like."

Vlad spoke as he looked at the sight before him.

The color of twilight sinking beyond the horizon was dyeing the plains of the North red along with the walls of Sturma.

"It was a view I wanted to show you at least once."

Lamund spoke as he looked at Vlad, who was staring ahead with a dazed expression.

He had always gone about in shabby clothes, but his appearance now was completely different from before.

Though he was not wearing full armor, his figure in the surcoat favored by knights and a cloak was so dignified and knightly that anyone would have bowed their head at the sight.

"The walls of Sturma have grown by drinking blood."

At the grave voice from beside him, Vlad turned his head without realizing it.

"The blood of enemies, and the blood of Bayezid."

There stood Lamund, facing the boy with an atmosphere quite unlike any he had shown until now.

"And someday, when the time comes, you too will have to offer up your blood."

"..."

Feeling as though he understood what Lamund was saying, Vlad said nothing and simply nodded quietly.

To protect something, someone's blood was needed.

And knights were those who had sworn to willingly offer up their blood when that time came.

The old knight was telling the boy who had only just become a knight the very foundation of knighthood.

"I understand, old man."

"It is Lamund."

The man who had wandered through the lowest places finally gave his name.

"From now on, call me Sir Lamund."

Having dragged his old body around in search of honors he had failed to gather, he now held only one final honorable coin in his hand.

"Take it."

And at last, the old man was able to escape from being the lowest of men.

By handing the boy the final coin he possessed.

"What is this?"

"Payment for the armor of yours that I destroyed."

The meals I had eaten at your expense, the inn fees I had borrowed from you.

And the price of every possibility you showed me.

A single ducat to pay for all of it.

"With just this?"

"Just that is more than enough."

Vlad frowned as he looked at the terribly rusted coin, but Lamund only smiled at the boy who knew nothing.

"More than enough."

The old man had owed the boy many things all this time, and that had not come from his ill-mannered attitude, but from a thoroughly deliberate intention.

The boy, who had naturally become the patron of the lowest man according to Lamund's intention, was merely bewildered by the old coin now being brought out at last, but he could not exactly voice a complaint.

Because the old man before him was no longer some nameless old man, but someone who had become his senior.

"Come visit my manor sometime."

"Right. I can collect the rest there."

Lamund smiled as he watched the boy grumble quietly.

"Your visit will be welcome at any time, Sir Vlad."

"... What?"

Vlad was momentarily flustered as he looked at Lamund calling him Sir.

Because he had never learned what one was supposed to say in times like this.

"It has been a pleasure."

Looking at Lamund offering him a handshake, Vlad could only make a subtle expression.

The unadorned sword had parted from the boy because it had fulfilled its purpose.

The old knight had fulfilled his duty, and now he, too, was trying to part from the boy.

"..."

Looking at Lamund as he said farewell, Vlad only rubbed the coin he had handed him.

Because to the boy, farewells were still only awkward moments.

The setting twilight was shining red upon the two of them along with the walls of Sturma.

As slowly as the evening sun tilted down, Vlad's hand rose to take Lamund's handshake.

※※※※

A man with blue eyes was walking through the estate.

Seeing his gleaming armor and fluttering blond hair, the servants nearby hurriedly bowed their heads.

There was not a single place in the estate through which the man walked where light did not seep in.

Sunlight shone from windows opened on every side, and statues and ornaments glittered beneath that light.

The ornaments, old and boasting an elegant beauty, clearly showed how refined their owner's taste was.

"I have just returned, Father."

Mircea, who had walked into the lobby with confident strides, knelt respectfully on one knee and bowed his head toward the person seated at the highest point of the hall.

"... You have come."

The twilight giving its final breath shone upon the place where he sat.

A hand like a completely dried old tree was dyed red by the light shining through the window.

"... Report."

His age and vitality could be glimpsed in the dry, cracked voice that rasped like metal.

The man Mircea called Father could not withstand the heavy years and was merely sitting in the chair with difficulty, as though he had been set upon it.

"I apologize, Father."

At the strained voice coming from above, Mircea lowered his head even further as if ashamed and began to report what had happened in the North.

The white dragon Lindwurm.

The dragon of the North, which the dragon fragments had lured out because it had realized its own potential, had been subjugated not by the dragon killer knights, but by the knights of Bayezid.

"... Barbarian bastards. They do not know their place."

The old man, lumping the men of the North together as barbarians, could not hide his disappointment as he raised a bony finger and tapped on the armrest.

The prejudice against the North that had begun long ago was still alive and breathing within the old man's soul.

"I apologize."

Mircea knew very well that his failure would bring his father great disappointment.

But there had been a major variable in his failure, and that variable would surely bring great joy to the old man now steeped in disappointment.

"However, Father. I discovered a welcome boy in the North."

"... A welcome boy?"

The dried-up old man twitched his brow at Mircea's sudden report.

Everything in his body had been bleached white by the weight of the years, but the blue eyes he possessed still flashed sharply.

"Have you ever visited the North? There, I found a young dragon that has not yet opened its eyes."

At Mircea's words, the old man closed his eyes deeply.

As though rummaging through old memories, his closed eyelids twitched without rest.

"Do you think I have only been to the North? I am a man who has taken every place in this world into my eyes over the course of my life."

A seed was an existence of possibility, not yet knowing what it would become.

To sow those possibilities, the old man had roamed all across the continent over the past years.

That had been the old man's conviction and wish, and it had also been a task worth staking his life upon.

"Did your heart resonate when you saw that child?"

"It did."

"And what of his color?"

At the old man's words, Mircea raised his head and looked at him.

Blond hair and blue eyes.

The colors passed down by the blood of the Dragulia Family were there.

"The same as ours."

"... I see."

At Mircea's words, the dried-up old man formed a deep smile.

Along with that smile, the twilight that had barely been clinging to the horizon began to disappear.

"Still, judging by the fact that the dragon fragments did not call him, it seems he has not yet opened his eyes, just as you said."

Along with the old man's voice, now somehow moist, darkness began to seep throughout the estate.

It was a different sight from the estate lit by sunlight.

The elegant statues looked only ominous once dark shadows seeped over them, and the paintings of beautiful scenery gave off a desolate air no matter who looked at them.

"Sowing seeds is always arduous, and the time spent waiting for them is painful, yet humans ceaselessly repeat it all the same."

At last, inside the lobby where darkness had fully settled.

At the highest place there, a man no one had seen until now rose to his feet.

"I, too, have done so."

Abundant blond hair.

Clear blue eyes.

And a middle-aged man with a dignified build and air.

The man who had absorbed the moisture given by darkness was descending the lobby.

"I would like to see that child."

Brigantes, the capital of the Empire.

A mansion in the very heart of that city.

There, where Duke Dragulia, the Dragonblood Duke, was said to reside, the oldest blue eyes shone.