Chapter 89 - As Much as the Vessel Had Grown (3)

Even if they had been appointed to the same post of mayor, the former mayor's position and Joseph's were clearly different.

If the former mayor's purpose had been to keep Soara running smoothly and secure tax revenue, Joseph was someone who needed firm achievements of his own.

"Do you think that fellow Age will properly bow his head to Vlad?"

"... At the very least, he must understand his situation now."

He had raised a promising boy named Vlad and secured firm control over the territory of Deirmar.

What Joseph planned next after producing such results was none other than the matter of the barbarians above the northern boundary line.

"Age must understand that the offer I extended was one made with the greatest sincerity possible."

Until now, Bayezid had had its authority challenged by many families, and now the time had come to show its answer through action.

And before that, removing the unstable factors behind them by any means would be the prerequisite Bayezid had to accomplish.

"... So he must also know very well what will happen after rejecting my offer."

The Budaat Tribe, which had suffered a blow so great that the foundation of the tribe had been shaken by Mircea, had no choice but to take Joseph's extended hand.

And Joseph intended to use them from now on to try controlling the barbarians.

"It would be good if they moved as intended."

"Indeed."

It was worth attempting, but it would not be easy.

Knowing that, Joseph poured warmed wine into a glass and let out a small sigh.

"... I wonder when they became this divided."

Though they were people of the same North, the barbarians and the northerners had long stood opposed to each other.

He could not know when this chain of hatred had begun, but Joseph did not think the current situation would ever benefit the North.

Your world and mine touch, but they cannot become one.

Because countless differences, too many to count, were dividing each other's worlds.

"I hope that fellow does well again this time."

Still, if there was a reason Joseph had attached Age to Vlad, it was because he had glimpsed a very small possibility in the boy.

A boy who rode a black horse the barbarians held sacred.

And a boy who had saved the barbarians by riding that horse and hunting the dragon of the North.

Unlike the northerners who had come before him, Vlad was earning at least a tiny sense of kinship among the barbarians.

Joseph could only hope that this time as well, Vlad would show him results that surpassed what he had expected.

* * *

From the evening Vlad had torn through it until now, Dice's gambling house had been unable to open its doors.

Outwardly, it was said to be closed for repairs to the interior facilities, but in truth, it was because Vlad had ordered it to suspend business for a week.

"Will this be enough?"

"Hard to say. I'll know once I look."

Arriving at Vordan's office, Vlad set down the bundles of paper he had carried in both hands onto his desk.

"I couldn't understand a single thing it said."

"It's impressive enough that you recognized there were words written on it."

The papers Vlad had brought were all financial documents from Dice's gambling house.

He had confiscated them to estimate the profits from the fraud they had been committing, but Vordan, who was supposed to do that work, merely pushed the documents quietly aside.

"... Should I give you a cut?"

"No."

He did not know exactly what was written there, but even Vlad knew that they were meaningless documents.

For Dice's gambling house to open its doors again, glittering gold coins would be the answer rather than some perfectly clear explanation.

"My friend told me not to take bribes yet."

"Who did?"

"My friend."

Vordan heard Vlad's answer and shrugged.

"I don't know who they are, but they're a sharp friend. They've got the basics of getting by in the world down."

Haven had told Vlad that now was the time to sow seeds rather than harvest.

He had advised him to aim for the fruit higher above, rather than scrambling for the profit right in front of him.

"Go see Sir Gregory later."

"Why?"

Vordan found Vlad, who had somehow managed to find the right path, admirable.

The boy who had been unable to even read an order properly and had needed him to read it for him had, before he knew it, taken on the rather plausible appearance of a knight.

So giving him a little help should be fine.

"Because what the two of you want lines up exactly."

"...?"

As Vlad gave him a look asking what that meant, Vordan rummaged through a drawer and tossed him a piece of candy.

It was truly a fitting dessert for a greenhorn who knew nothing.

"I've told you everything I need to, so get out."

Seeing Vordan wave him away along with those strange words, Vlad had no choice but to go outside.

"What was that?"

Coming out into the corridor with those puzzling words, Vlad could only scratch his head.

Jorge had judged Vlad to be the sort of fellow who could become a leader in any alley, but the problem was that his way of thinking itself was still shut inside an alley.

Leaving aside whether he was smart or not, Vlad had only just climbed upward and had not yet had enough time to understand the world of knights.

"Vlad, Vlad."

But it would be fine.

"Sir Gregory?"

Because Vlad had always found what he needed to do, even in unfamiliar surroundings.

"Here, here, take this."

Following Gregory, who was beckoning to him from the end of the corridor just in time, Vlad accepted the item he handed him.

An item wrapped in luxurious paper.

It was the salted meat of the Kannor Family, which Portly had often handed him back when he was a squire.

"I was going to come see you anyway."

"You were?"

It had meant that he would follow Vordan's words, but Gregory seemed to interpret it a little differently and began to look greatly pleased.

"Well, that's good. I knew we were of one mind."

"Is that so?"

Gregory was Portly's uncle on his mother's side.

In other words, he was someone with close ties to the Kannor Family.

"They called him Black Bear, was it? The organization that runs the butcher business in the back alleys."

"Yes."

The Kannor Family was famous in Bayezid County for its livestock business, but its reach was limited strictly to Sturma and the nearby villages.

"Lord Joseph seems to dislike those fellows too, so what do you think? Shall we sweep them away together?"

"..."

For the Kannor Family to smoothly expand its influence into other regions, the best option would be to seize an existing commercial sphere.

And in the city of Soara, there happened to be a young knight sponsored by the Kannor Family.

"So that's what this was about."

"Hm?"

A knight was a sword, and a sword was power.

Behind knights who opened the way with just cause, there were always people who came along seeking profit.

"Fine. I was planning to deal with them anyway."

Vlad held the salted meat Gregory handed him and nodded with a smile.

"You'll lend me men, right?"

"Of course. If you want, I'll step forward myself."

Dice of the gambling house and Captain Hoover of the smuggling business were fine, but Black Bear was not.

He was someone who had crossed the line.

And knights were beings who had the authority to punish people who had crossed the line.

Vlad thought he could finally finish avenging Anna's death now.

* * *

CREEEAK-CREAK.

On the white alleyway that had covered the filthy things for a little while, Vlad quietly breathed out.

The dockside road that led to Haven.

And the alleyway that led to the smithy.

Only when he walked these two roads could Vlad forget reality for a moment.

Perhaps he felt that way because, chaotic as his reality might be, the paths to those two places were at least straight lines.

BANG!

At last, Vlad flung the door open with a rough sound and entered the dark smithy, where not a single light was burning, along with the cold winter wind.

"..."

The first things that came into view when he stepped inside were the dust-covered workbench and the small furnace that had gone cold.

It was a furnace that should always have a fire lit in a smithy, but now it was filled only with pale ash.

"I must have come too late."

The snow outside the door, which had not been cleared for a long time, had piled up and hardened into a solid lump of ice.

It stood there blocking the shabby door, as if showing that no one had come by all this time.

"There was something I wanted to ask you."

Vlad had something to ask the old man, and something to show him, so he had come here.

But even though a guest had come, the old blacksmith merely lay on the worn bed without moving at all.

Vlad looked at him, motionless, then pulled over a nearby chair and sat down.

"I came to ask you to attach this to the pommel."

Vlad held the yellow amber he had received from Alicia in his hand and quietly looked down at it.

He had thought the old man would be pleased to see this.

Though he had never been able to leave the back alleys in his life, the old man who had longed for the outside world had always enjoyed Vlad's stories, which came along with the wounds on his sword.

"..."

And Vlad, too, had liked the old man's laughter that came along with the sound of his hammer.

Vlad suddenly raised his head and looked at the ceiling of the smithy.

A wooden beam deeply gouged by something.

It was the place where the unadorned sword had always hung.

"Seeing it after so long, it looks unfamiliar again."

The old man's dream had hung in the back alleys for a long time, and the boy had been able to look at that dream and not lose his hope.

Perhaps the old man had been saving Vlad since even before that night when he escaped to Soara.

"Actually, I came to give you this."

Rising with a heavy sigh, Vlad took out the item he had carefully wrapped in cloth and kept inside his coat.

The unadorned sword.

The sword of the back alleys, now reduced to only a hilt that could no longer be called a sword.

Vlad placed the unadorned sword in the arms of the old man lying cold.

"Thank you."

There were many things he wanted to say, but in the end, it would be just one sentence.

Thank you for saving me.

Vlad lit embers in the old man's furnace one last time and rose from his seat.

The warmth spreading from there lightened Vlad's heart a little.

"Have good dreams."

The cold winter wind came in with a creaking sound, and soon after, the door closed along with the boy's back as it grew more and more distant.

The boy leaves, and the old man remains.

That is how time flows, and no one will complain about it.

"..."

After the boy left, the shabby smithy was now empty of everyone.

There, the old blacksmith quietly held the hilt of the unadorned sword as Vlad had placed it in his hands.

He was dreaming together with the unadorned sword.

In his dream, there was a white snowy mountain he had never once visited, and a dragon he had never once seen was running across the field.

On his face, now finally free of the back alleys, a small smile seemed to linger.

The unadorned sword, begun in the old man's dream but completed in the boy's hands.

The star he had hung up toward the sky had finally returned to the old man's arms.

Shining brighter than anyone.