Episode 59
Even with a fine cart, transporting heavy goods over a road that is no road at all presents no shortage of hardships. Wheels fall into potholes, or the cart itself gives out from being overworked. Every time the cart rattled and shook, the refugees aboard groaned. Some could be seen retching up their empty stomachs, whether from motion sickness or something else.
Still, they did not complain.
Not only was Prince Ash among them, but the refugees—having suffered every imaginable humiliation—were simply grateful to have a cart at all.
Ifrit frowned at the sight.
‘You certainly get up to all sorts of things.’
Salret looked at the Ifrit who had appeared out of nowhere and asked.
“What?”
‘So this time you’re traveling with this unidentified force?’
“So… what of it?”
‘Does it not occur to you to be uneasy?’
Salret looked at the Berserk warriors.
Honestly, they were a frightening sight.
Moreover, the cruelty they had displayed was utterly terrifying. But somehow…
“They don’t… look dangerous.”
To be precise, she felt safe because Loki was by her side.
Ifrit shook his head as he looked at Salret.
‘You’re out of your mind.’
He worried for Salret.
Because she was still trying to trust and rely on others with such naivety. Obviously—
At that moment, Ifrit felt a strange gaze.
He tilted his head, searching for the source.
Could it be…? He looked at Loki, but he was in the middle of a conversation with Aum.
‘……?’
Then who?
When Ifrit turned his gaze elsewhere, a face the size of his diminutive frame was right beside him.
‘……?!’
Startled, Ifrit tumbled backward in midair, landing on his rear as he looked at the woman staring straight at him with bright, gleaming eyes.
“…Is this a doll?”
Even Salret, who was sensitive to sounds, wore a bewildered expression, having failed to detect her approach.
Kankun made an expression full of curiosity.
At her blatant staring, Ifrit broke into a cold sweat, his eye muscles twitching.
‘Y-you’re joking, right? How can a human see me…?’
“It even talks?”
‘Can she understand what I’m saying too?!’
Kankun tapped Ifrit’s head with her finger.
It was soft and squishy, like touching a taut balloon. And it was even warm.
‘Stop! Stop it!’
Ifrit raised both hands to block Kankun’s finger.
“Is this toy yours?”
“…….”
How dare she call Ifrit—a being treated as a king among fire spirits—a toy?
Salret could only offer an awkward smile.
Salret looked at Loki, who was standing far away. Though she did not know the details, she recalled that the woman before her had been having quite a friendly conversation with Loki.
‘Can she be trusted?’
That was her first thought.
Every human she had seen until now had been of malicious character.
The slave merchant Azar had treated her as merchandise, and the mercenaries had treated her as a toy.
The woman before her possessed a dignified beauty, but Salret was not foolish enough to judge based on appearances alone.
Salret pulled up her hood and glared at Kankun.
“W-what?”
“……?”
Kankun tilted her head at Salret’s wary appearance. Then, as if remembering something, she clapped her hands and pulled something out of the leather pouch at her waist, offering it forward.
“Tada! Want to eat this? It’s spicy fire-flavored jerky!”
“……?”
Spicy?
Not knowing what ‘spicy’ meant, Salret tilted her head.
‘Meat?’
And the smell of dried meat, at that.
“I make this for Lord Loki sometimes when he’s bored. Ah, but it might be a strong flavor for someone trying it for the first time….”
Kankun took a big bite of the jerky. Soon after, her face turned red.
“Spicy! I can’t believe Lord Loki eats this as a snack….”
Tears welled in Kankun’s eyes. She took out a waterskin and gulped it down.
Still, as if the heat wouldn’t subside, she stuck out her tongue and fanned her mouth.
“…….”
Salret blinked, looking at Kankun, when the cart jolted violently and a fierce wind blew.
Thanks to that, her light body bounced once, and the hood covering her head was blown off.
Silver hair fluttered softly.
Long ears flickered before Kankun’s eyes amidst the snow-white hair.
Salret hurriedly pulled her hood back on in a fluster, but Kankun merely stared blankly at her.
Salret’s eyes trembled.
Frightened eyes turned toward Kankun.
Elves were a race possessing beautiful and mysterious atmospheres. Because of this, elves were known as fairies who aided heroes in the continent’s fairy tales, and received much praise in the poems and songs of many bards.
But that was a story from fifty years ago. After the Demon Lord incident, the Hanes Empire branded them heretics and descendants of demons.
People would often lose themselves in their beauty.
But the Holy Church—claiming that ‘elves used black magic to bewitch humans’—publicized false information on a massive scale.
Afterward, the followers of the Azelan Church came to fear elves.
In fact, the slave merchant Azar had been so afraid of her that he locked her in a prison, and not even that had eased his mind, so hadn’t he even put shackles on her?
The mercenaries had been terrified the moment they saw her, calling her a demon.
Even though she had experienced such things countless times over the years, her heart still ached all the same. Her fear of their ugly gazes was a given.
Salret carefully looked at Kankun.
What reaction would she show?
Would she tremble in fear? Scream? Or send a look of revulsion?
When Salret studied her expression and eyes…
“…….”
Salret froze.
Kankun’s eyes sparkled brilliantly.
Like a child who had seen something mysterious, lost in a world of innocence.
Those twinkling eyes looked at Salret intensely. Not only that, but she seized Salret’s shoulders with terrifying force.
Salret flinched, her body trembling.
“A fairy! A fairy!”
“……!”
For a different reason, Salret was frightened by Kankun.
It was a reaction she had never seen in her life. It was extremely unfamiliar. No, perhaps it was a gaze she knew. It resembled the eyes of the servants, maids, and her father from fifty years ago.
It was…
“So pretty! Oh my!”
…affection.
Kankun embraced Salret, rubbing their cheeks together.
When she did that, Salret pushed Kankun’s face away as if distressed.
Realizing she had lost her composure for a moment, Kankun cleared her throat and asked her.
“Are you an elf? You are, right? So fairies from fairy tales really exist! Ah! If you look at it that way, is Mister Leran a fairy too? But his skin is brown? Why is that?”
Under this tremendous barrage of questions, Salret cast a desperate glance at Ifrit, but Ifrit had long since vanished, afraid sparks might fly his way.
“I’ve heard of them! Fairies living in the forest! Elves! Then was that tiny, cute flame from earlier a spirit? Is that what it is? Huh? Come to think of it, they say elves can talk to animals! Can you do that with bugs too? Ah! Can you talk to trees too?”
Kankun fired off words like a machine gun.
“…Th-that’s… I can only share simple feelings with animals, but bugs and trees are too difficult….”
“Like pulling a sword from a lake and giving it to a hero? Or singing a song that puts dragons to sleep…!”
“Th-those are just stories from fairy tales….”
“Then! Then…!”
Salret’s eyes spun as she suffered under Kankun’s questions.
“…So you’re a Dark Elf. Lord Loki certainly attracts strange people.”
Aum, who had only now seen Salret, spoke to Loki.
Loki pointed at Aum.
“Don’t you know that you’re one of them?”
“I am the most normal among them.”
Just as Loki muttered, ‘Is that so?’
“It’s the Roden Territory!”
It was the cry of a refugee riding in the cart.
***
The cart atop the hill was heading toward the massive city in the distance—the Roden Territory.
The scale of the city was considerable.
Thirty-meter-high walls encircled the entire territory, with soldiers stationed above and below.
They were not equipped with crude gear; all wore chainmail and blue surcoats bearing the crest of East Lonia.
Among the soldiers, a mounted cavalryman cried out upon seeing the group that had appeared suddenly.
“Who are you! Refugees from out of nowhere… no, you’re not?!”
The soldier’s face hardened as he looked at the Berserk warriors rather than the refugees loaded on the carts.
They wore helmets of beast bones and full plate armor that looked like knight’s armor designed purely to threaten enemies, no matter how you looked at it.
“Enemies?!”
As the soldier turned his horse in fear, Ash—overjoyed at the sight—hurled himself from the cart. He shouted at the approaching cavalryman.
“Wait! It’s me! I, First Prince Ash Lonia, have come!”
At Ash’s cry, the soldier flinched in surprise and stopped trying to turn his reins.
Then he observed Ash’s face and outer garments closely.
His face was caked in dust and haggard with fatigue; his luxurious clothes were torn to rags, barely recognizable.
Anyone who saw him would think he was a nobleman who had met with bandits and suffered a terrible ordeal.
Normally, he would have been chased away with a ‘What madman is this?’ but the soldier felt confused by the sight of the Berserk warriors surrounding him.
“…Your… Highness?”
The soldier frowned, unable to recognize Ash’s face.
A mere soldier could hardly be expected to recognize a prince.
The soldier pressed his lips tight, looking from Ash to the Berserk warriors.
They were clearly no ordinary people. Allowing someone who called himself a prince to enter Roden Territory with such individuals was far too dangerous.
“…Please wait a moment. I shall report this.”
“…What nonsense?! You cannot recognize me?”
“The situation is what it is.”
As far as the soldier knew, the prince was reported dead. News had spread that Worm Plague had broken out in the army camp.
“I ask for your understanding.”
With that, the soldier went inside the castle.
***
“Dad, where are we going?”
The father shook his head at the child’s question.
“I don’t know. We simply follow where that person goes.”
“……?”
The child turned his gaze in the direction his father was looking.
There stood the woman who had saved his father’s life.
The unique woman exuded a very mysterious atmosphere.
Above all, the group following her was far from ordinary.
They all wore lightweight chainmail that allowed easy movement, but the surcoats draped over them were patterned after the woman’s hair—half white, half black.
The child’s father was the same.
He donned the armor they offered without hesitation, threw on the surcoat, and wore a mask and helmet like the others.
The child wondered if they might know each other, but it didn’t seem that way.
The child quietly watched the unidentified procession, then scampered up to the woman at its center.
“Miss. Where are we going?”
At those words, the child’s father stiffened.
He rushed out, grabbed the child’s head, and pressed it against the ground.
“Aaack!”
“You brat! How rude!”
“……?!”
The child looked at his father with a terrified face.
His eyes were strange.
The kind and gentle father he knew was gone. His eyes glared at the child, bloodshot as if drunk on something.
“S-scary. Dad! It hurts!”
“I shall atone for the child’s rudeness.”
The child’s father drew his sword.
At that, the child’s face turned deathly pale.
What was he going to do with that sword!?
The woman who had been watching raised her hand.
Power entered the gauntlet clad in pitch-black armor, and she struck the man’s cheek with the back of her hand.
With a loud smack, the father went flying and rolled several times.
It would have been enough to shatter an ordinary man’s skull, but the man only had a slight wound on his cheek; otherwise, he was unharmed.
“What…?”
“Please do not sully my eyes any further.”
“……?!”
The father fell to his knees. He bowed his head as if he had committed a grave sin.
“I apologize!”
The woman reached out her hand and helped the child up.
“Are you alright?”
It was a cold, emotionless voice. Yet it was also a word that somehow felt strangely kind.
The child looked into the woman’s eyes.
They were golden eyes, extremely clear and sparkling, like looking upon gold.
The child looked upon them in wonder.
“Your eyes are very pretty.”
The woman’s eyes widened slightly.
‘Your eyes are very pretty.’
Words a man had spoken in a fragment of memory faintly came to mind.
A strange longing made her frozen heart ache.
“…Yes. Thank you.”
The woman dusted off the child’s clothes. Then she placed her hand on his head and softly chanted a spell. Light flowed forth and seeped into the child’s body, new flesh rising over the wounds until they healed.
“Magic?!”
The child’s eyes sparkled brightly, and she gently patted his head with her rough gauntlet.
“Did you ask where we were going earlier?”
When the child nodded, the woman pointed into the distance with her finger.
“We are going to a nearby territory from here.”
“Where?”
“The Roden Territory.”