Episode 34. Bruno City
“Ch-Chief... kuhk!”
The pressure crushing his throat made it impossible to speak.
Ozwin resisted the invisible force and barely managed to answer.
“Where is the chief?”
Binaeril asked, slightly loosening the mana that was choking his throat.
“Hurk, hahk. The chief lives in the house across from the inn.”
Ozwin was appalled. Did all those called mages possess such power?
However, Binaeril himself had no awareness that he was freely wielding mana at this moment.
“Lead the way.”
The other men were already all unconscious.
Ozwin was at least armed like a proper warrior, so he had not passed out.
He could not tell if he should be happy or sad about this fact.
The boy mage looked like a devil straight out of a wandering minstrel’s song.
From his strangely unfocused gaze to the cruelty of bursting a man’s head in an instant.
Ozwin looked down at Rick’s corpse, whose head had been destroyed, and trembled.
How could someone with such an innocent face commit such acts?
It was a situation where, if he did not obey willingly, he might end up the same way.
“F-Follow me.”
Silvia, too, could not hide her shock at Binaeril’s cruel handiwork.
The current Binaeril did not seem like the boy she had known.
“Wait inside.”
He spoke with a blank expression.
“Do you really have to go this far?”
Binaeril repeated in a flat tone.
It was an innocent voice, as if asking what was wrong.
He was like someone in a dream.
Feeling a sense of wrongness at those words, Silvia fell silent.
Binaeril lowered Ozwin from the wall and made him take the lead.
When they stepped outside the inn, a few villagers were peering about, having heard the commotion.
As Ozwin walked out first, the people saw him covered in blood and cried out in surprise.
“Ozwin, what happened!”
“What’s with you at this hour? And what’s with all that blood!”
Ozwin could not answer. Because Binaeril came out right behind him.
Binaeril was completely unharmed, without a single wound or drop of blood on him.
To the people’s eyes, it looked as though Ozwin had threatened and dragged out an innocent young boy.
“Did you lay hands on the mages?”
“This fool’s lost his mind. Hey, call the chief!”
Rumors that young mages were staying there had already spread far and wide through the small village.
“What is this commotion!”
The chief of Rostock appeared from among the crowd.
Ozwin’s face brightened as though he had met a savior.
For a man who would receive punishment in his stead had appeared.
“That man is the chief.”
“I can tell.”
He wondered how someone who had been carried in unconscious would know, but for now, Ozwin slipped away.
“Are you the chief of this village?”
The chief felt suspicious seeing the Ozwin fellow fleeing.
The mage who should have been unconscious was unharmed, while Ozwin, who had been hired, looked terrified.
He realized things had gone wrong, but there was no evidence anyway. The chief resolved to brazen it out.
“Yes. I am the chief. What is this commotion in the middle of the night?”
“Did you order the village youths to commit robbery and murder?”
It was a blunt question.
Caught off guard by such a brazen question, the chief could not deny it immediately.
Exclamations of surprise rose from the crowd.
“W-What are you talking about!”
“So it is true that you ordered them.”
The chief’s words did not matter. Veritas was already revealing the truth.
Binaeril had merely wanted to gauge the chief’s reaction.
He looked around at the people and shouted.
“We hold no grudge against this village. Even when you charged us absurd prices, we endured and paid. Is this how Rostock treats its guests?”
It could not be.
“You are the kings of a kingless land in this territory, are you not? You command people with a single word, and if things go wrong, you silence the villagers. And once you had buried our bodies, it would have all ended quietly. Am I wrong?”
With each of Binaeril’s words, the villagers’ gazes grew cold.
“Slander! It’s slander!”
“If a person commits a crime, the king punishes him. Then, Chief, who punishes the king?”
“What nonsense are you spouting!”
“To one who has no one to punish him, I shall give the punishment. Receive it—this is your punishment.”
Binaeril’s eyes were sorrowful as he lifted the chief into the air.
Since leaving Elfenbein, they had not harmed a single person.
But people were different.
Simply because they looked young, because they seemed ignorant of the ways of the world, because they looked wealthy.
While showing kindness on the outside, they held knives behind their backs.
Through today’s events, Binaeril learned one thing.
That humans do not respect those they do not fear.
So Binaeril sought to engrave fear into their hearts.
Cracking sounds came from the suspended chief’s limbs.
The people could not bring themselves to stop the young mage.
Covering their eyes, closing their ears, they anxiously comforted themselves with the fact that they were not the ones receiving that punishment, while simultaneously feeling relief.
Just as Binaeril’s imagination was soaring toward increasingly cruel methods.
Someone called his name.
It was Rike’s voice.
“Stop.”
Rike appeared, opening the inn’s main gate in a disheveled state.
It seemed Silvia had informed her of the current situation.
The moment Binaeril saw her frightened expression, the darkness in his heart felt as though it were lifting.
Rike approached with eyes that looked about to cry and spoke firmly to Binaeril.
“Let him down.”
“But...”
Binaeril lowered the chief to the ground.
The chief had already fainted from the unbearable pain, one that would be hard to endure while conscious.
Because of the urgency, Rike’s imagination failed to manifest properly and kept getting tangled.
Nevertheless, the imperial princess did not give up.
Even if it was a land abandoned by the empire, they were still her people.
Cold sweat formed on her pale forehead.
Biting her lower lip and chanting desperately, she healed the chief’s mangled limbs.
Having finished the treatment, Rike looked up at Binaeril.
Her eyes were impossibly clear.
“Rike, I...”
“Binaeril, I’m glad you’re better. Let’s go now.”
The princess asked nothing.
Too many things had already happened in this village for them to stay any longer.
Binaeril looked around.
The villagers were staring at the two of them with terrified eyes.
Only then did Binaeril truly realize.
That he had killed a person.
“...Yes. Let’s go.”
Amidst the people’s silence and awe, surprise and fear, curiosity and malice.
The three left Rostock.
After leaving Rostock, they bought clothes at the nearest village.
They were shabby, worn garments—the complete opposite of what they had worn when leaving Elfenbein.
Silvia wore a rusted longsword stuck in its scabbard at her waist, and Binaeril hung a flute with a string around his neck.
As for Rike...
“No matter what we do, she stands out too much.”
“Should we rub some dirt on her face?”
“Not until dirt gets in my eyes.”
Silvia took the joke Rike tossed out with a straight face.
Truly a loyal guard.
Since her golden hair stood out, Rike decided to simply wear a long robe with a hood.
Rike, who had worn a hood for the first time in her life, said the clothes were very comfortable and to her liking.
Whatever the reason, it was not bad to see her looking pleased.
“How much further do we have to go?”
Since leaving Rostock, the party had minimized the time they spent in villages.
They chose to camp whenever possible, and unless it was unavoidable, they did not interact with people.
Before they knew it, the scent of travelers had permeated Binaeril and the others.
“We’ve passed through quickly so far, but there is one place we absolutely must stop.”
Silvia unfolded a map and pointed at a spot.
“Here. Bruno City.”
Bruno City was the name of a city located at the foot of a mountain.
To the west of Bruno City lay the Hohenberg, a massive mountain range that seemed to divide the empire.
“If we were not in a hurry, we would go around the Hohenberg range. We are going to cross the mountains in a straight line to Edenbere.”
The Hohenberg range was quite large, so going around would certainly take a considerable amount of time.
“The problem is that Hohenberg is too harsh a place to cross unaided. So we need to make our final preparations in Bruno City before ascending the range.”
“Mm. I see.”
“What do you think? Does anyone object?”
There was no way anyone would object.
Silvia was the most knowledgeable about the empire’s geography among the party, and she was solely in charge of the travel schedule.
Binaeril and the others walked diligently and were able to arrive at Bruno City before the sun set.
The low sun illuminated everything as far as the eye could see.
The city perched at the edge of the mountain slope was ethereal.
With high western walls at its back and bridges stretching out before it, the city resembled a comrade’s shield welcoming visitors.
The wanderer ascending toward Bruno City wiped his sweat at the sight of the old-fashioned city and exhaled.
“We’ve finally arrived.”
It was a place with little traffic, so the city’s scent was more than welcome.
The wanderer turned to the short-term companions he had been walking with in the same direction for the past few hours.
“Are you heading to Bruno as well?”
The companion, who looked like a wandering minstrel with a flute around his neck, raised his head to take in the sight of Bruno.
Only then did the wanderer get a good look at his face, and he was a little surprised.
He had not paid attention before, but the minstrel seemed considerably younger than expected.
“Yes. We are going to Bruno.”
“I suppose you have family there? Or perhaps you’re going to perform. Bruno City isn’t what it used to be, so it will be hard to receive alms. You’ve chosen the wrong path.”
The wanderer gave a bitter smile.
“There’s always a way to make a living.”
The wanderer examined them a bit longer and felt a sense of incongruity.
Only the one in front carried a musical instrument. The other two were suspiciously wearing hoods and swords, so they were hard to see as minstrels.
‘Well, it’s none of my business.’
“Then let’s greet each other if we pass by. Have a good journey. I’ll go on ahead.”
But he did not pry deeply.
He had deeply internalized the unwritten law of wanderers: not to dig deeply into others’ affairs.
Watching him hasten away, Binaeril turned and looked over his party.
Clothes stained and worn from frequent camping.
Now, even to strangers, they looked like nothing more than beggars—no, travelers.
“Puhaha.”
“What’s so funny?”
“Nothing, just.”
In the classrooms of Elfenbein, Binaeril had long been a ghost-like student.
Back then, he had wanted someone—anyone—to recognize him.
But now, he wished no one would pay him any mind.
Like the wanderer just now.
Binaeril found this gap endlessly amusing.
He had not known that hiding behind anonymity could be so comfortable and pleasant.
“Later.”
“Later what?”
“Nothing, I just thought it might not be bad to live as a wandering mage later on.”
“...What kind of nonsense is that all of a sudden?”
He earned Silvia’s scorn for the idle remark, but Binaeril smiled anyway.
Bruno, the city at the mountainside with its erected walls, was welcoming them.