༺ 𓆩 Chapter 24 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
“You both did well.”
The Margrave commended Isaac and Carlson.
Goethe had freed itself from the influence of the Old Faith.
In exchange for overlooking the atrocities the bishop had committed, the Holy See had agreed neither to receive tithes nor to dispatch a new bishop; no one could say how long that pact would hold, but for the time being, at least, Goethe would be able to breathe.
“Carlson, is there anything you want?”
“I wish to continue serving the young master.”
“If you returned to Winterband, you could be promoted to company commander.”
“I want to find the place best suited to my use.”
The Margrave’s fingers, which had been tapping at the desk, slowed for a moment, then returned to their former rhythm.
“Very well. If that is what you say. Isaac.”
“If Carlson guards me, I think I would be at ease.”
“I understand. Carlson will be given the post of Isaac’s guard, along with 200 denarii.”
“Thank you.”
Carlson bowed his head.
Then Margrave's gaze turned toward Isaac.
“Isaac.”
“Before that. What do you intend to do from here on? Have you received the royal court’s permission?”
“……Carlson. Would you step out for a while?”
“Yes.”
Once Carlson had left, the Margrave packed tobacco into the chamber of his pipe and lit it with magic.
“On the way back from Sir Randolph’s funeral, I believed I had spoken plainly enough for you to understand. You have already done more than enough. But from this point onward, this is beyond your province.”
“Father.”
“The tithes we saved thanks to you alone are enough to settle the matter of replenishing the fortress’s supplies. It is commendable that you think of the house, but for now, focus on curing your peculiar constitution.”
“…….”
The Margrave’s expression and voice were unyielding.
It was the manner of a man who would not allow even room for reconsideration.
Isaac still had much he needed to say, much he wanted to say, but he kept his mouth shut.
This was not a matter of persuasiveness.
It was a matter of trust.
He had preserved a full tenth of the house’s tax revenue, yes, but that alone was not enough to win complete confidence.
He had expected as much.
“Now tell me what it is you want.”
“In that case, grant me Pyke’s estate.”
Isaac spoke the words he had already prepared.
***⚜***
“So this is where you were.”
Carlson approached Isaac, who stood silently before the drawing-room door.
But Isaac did not even acknowledge him.
He merely stared blankly out the corridor window.
“Are you truly going to Vinfeldt?”
“Shh. Quiet.”
Isaac raised his index finger to his lips.
From the drawing room came the notes of a piano.
Jonas was playing.
The piece was called, translated into the common tongue, it meant ‘The Weeping Dragon’.
It had been Isaac’s mother’s favorite piece.
It was a melody without any separate dynamic markings, a piece that revealed an entirely different style depending on the heart of the one performing it.
“How strange.”
Isaac murmured.
When he killed the deserter.
When he killed Nias.
When he killed the bishop.
Each time, sleep had come over him like death itself.
And yet when he listened to Jonas’s music, that dimming, faraway sensation seemed slowly to awaken again.
The fatigue that had hung over his whole life like a shadow was peeled away, and his mind grew clear, as though he had woken from some hazy sleep.
In other words, he felt alive.
Was it because he was hearing Jonas’s playing again, playing he had thought he would never hear a second time?
Did Jonas’s performance possess some power of its own?
That much he could not know.
But at least he wanted to make sure that Jonas would never let go of an instrument from this day forward.
“Carlson, spar with me.”
Isaac, who had been sunk in thought, finally spoke.
***⚜***
“Have you ever learned swordsmanship?”
Carlson asked as he looked down at Isaac, who sat collapsed and drawing breath in great gulps.
“Hoo. I have seen soldiers training in the practice yard.”
“Please do not joke.”
“Do I look like I’m joking?”
Carlson stared at Isaac, who was sweating as though rain were pouring from him.
He could not tell whether he meant it.
It was strange.
Isaac’s sword path was graceful.
It was not sharp enough to catch a man wholly off guard, nor weighted with enough power to be truly forceful, nor fast enough to be useful in actual combat.
And yet he knew with perfect clarity what stance allowed an attack, what stance allowed a defense.
His movements were minimal, but attack, defense, and counterattack flowed together like running water.
Given Isaac’s age, it was skill that should only have been possible if he had held a sword since he was five or six.
What was stranger still was that, if he truly had trained from that age, his stamina was far too poor.
“What is the purpose of asking me to spar?”
“To seize Vinfeldt.”
Leaning on the wooden practice sword, Isaac rose to his feet again.
Then he took his stance once more.
Tak—!!!
The two wooden swords struck each other; the roughly nailed crossguards trembled under the force pressing them apart.
“And what do you intend to do after seizing Vinfeldt?”
“You do not need to know that much. It is enough for you to know it will help your revenge.”
“With skill at this level, you will not stand a chance in Vinfeldt.”
Carlson twisted his wooden sword at an angle, swept Isaac’s line aside, then kicked him.
“Khk.”
Bitter water spilled from Isaac’s mouth.
But he did not complain.
“That is why I’m asking you to teach me.”
“It is not something you can learn in a short time.”
“I’ll deal with that myself.”
Isaac staggered back to his feet.
Carlson’s eyes narrowed.
“You can use magic, can’t you?”
“…….”
Carlson’s voice dropped low.
“The deacon did not possess the skill to defeat the bishop.”
“And how would you know that?”
“Whether it is magic or aura, once you reach a certain level, you can tell roughly how capable an opponent is.”
“And you think it is wise to admit so easily that you yourself have reached that level? You said you intended to hide your strength.”
“When I slaughtered the Holy Knights, you already knew, did you not?”
“Hoo.”
There was no listening ear in the garden yard.
Isaac calmed his ragged breathing.
His arms, his legs, the side of his ribs where he had been kicked.
Every part of him throbbed.
“If you were to reveal your magic, there would be no need for something like swordsmanship…….”
“It would be convenient for a little while. But Goethe would become politically isolated. My peculiar constitution is the same as Zeke von Goethe’s.”
“……?”
“You should know that much too, if you are the son of a mercenary.”
“What kind of joke is this now?”
The relics said to have been used by Zeke von Goethe were sought by countless people.
The first and last 10th-Class in all recorded history.
Overwhelming magical power.
Some coveted them out of a collector’s hunger, some out of a thirst for inquiry, some out of sheer desire for power.
They were treasures that sometimes fetched astronomical sums.
For a mercenary, they were the sort of dream one chased in hopes of clutching a mountain of gold.
And for that same reason, many had been swept up in wild rumors and lost their lives like moths rushing into flame.
“The reason the royal court and the other nobles leave Goethe alone is because I cannot overcome that peculiar constitution. But if it became known that I had controlled it without any relics…….”
“It is unfortunate to hear that you are not joking.”
Carlson grasped the meaning of Isaac’s words at once.
If Isaac could use magic, then it meant he had brought his peculiar constitution under control.
And because of that, Goethe would come under the scrutiny not only of other lords, but of the royal court as well.
Some would try to assassinate Isaac. Others would try to exploit the matter politically.
Above all, among the many members of the royal house who had suffered most in the era a century ago when the capital had burned, there would be no few who would seek Goethe’s annihilation.
“Do you regret it? Joining Goethe, out of all the houses there were?”
“I do regret it. But I am not the sort to look backward. Raise your sword again. You will be the one to regret this, young master.”
“Mm?”
“You are the one who asked me to spar.”
Tak—!!!
The wooden swords struck each other again.
***⚜***
A month passed.
“Are you truly going to leave like this?”
Spring had come, but the wind that burrowed into the carriage still sounded sharp.
Schiller, who had ridden in the carriage with Isaac to see him off, wore a face sunk in worry.
“You are asking that now, when I am already leaving.”
“You did not even mention to Hans or Gisela that you were going.”
“They will find out soon enough.”
“They will be hurt.”
“That does not sound like you, Schiller. You are not the sort who cares about things like that.”
“They are people the young master cares about.”
“…….”
At Schiller’s words, Isaac turned his gaze toward the carriage window.
At some point the road to Vinfeldt had become nothing but dry grass and dead trees no matter how far they went.
Desolate plains and stretches of silver grass.
Only frozen ground and hill after hill where patches of snow still had not melted.
It was a landscape barren beyond all measure.
“It is better that they feel hurt than that they die.”
“They are people prepared even to endure the young master’s mana explosion. They are people who would care for you with the utmost devotion.”
“You talk too much. If this was how it would be, I should not have let myself be seen off at all.”
“Young master.”
“The fact that Hans and the nurse are prepared to endure my mana explosion does not mean that I am prepared to endure their sacrifice.”
Watching Randolph’s funeral.
Isaac had been unable not to think of the nurse and Hans at their end.
He had never once attended the funeral of anyone who had cherished him.
He had not had the face for it, and he had not had the courage.
If he could not protect even one person standing at his side, then what meaning could there be in his resolve to protect his house and this land?
But at least not now.
He still did not have the confidence to control completely.
When he had raised those violet flames to face the bishop,
he had felt that his vessel would not endure much more.
“I do not want to leave even the slightest possibility behind.”
“Young master…….”
Schiller opened his mouth as if to say something, then closed it again.
What leaked from the old chamberlain was only a low groan.
It was a long while before he spoke again.
Outside the window, the landscape was growing steadily harsher.
“Vinfeldt, which was once Pyke’s estate…… is a place polluted by the blood of demonic beasts. Nothing grows there, nothing can flourish there. It is also the first place to meet the enemies that bypass Winterband. Pyke, too, did not receive that land because he hoped to gain anything from it. He merely accepted the grant in order to obtain the rank of lesser noble.”
Caw, caw—!!!
“Does Vinfeldt begin from here?”
“Yes.”
The chamberlain answered with a displeased face.
On the bleak land there were now bones everywhere, turned white and bare.
Some looked human. Some looked like beasts.
Perhaps scraps of rotten flesh still clung to them, for now and then wild dogs and crows prowled near the heaps of bones.
‘It looks like the last view of that estate I saw.’
Isaac forced away the image of that final estate which kept rising before his mind.
He had come here in order to change.
There was value in reflecting on one’s mistakes, but the habit of forever looking back was not a good one.
Isaac hardened his heart.
“Young master.”
“That is enough. Father gave his permission.”
“That is only because you insisted to the bitter end. His Excellency wishes for this matter to make you realize reality.”
The Margrave had granted Vinfeldt to Isaac.
But it had not been bestowed as a simple reward.
He had not wanted Isaac to grow arrogant merely because he had succeeded in driving out the Old Faith.
He wanted him to understand how cold reality was, and what Goethe’s reality truly looked like.
“The only people who live here are the soldiers stationed to stop the demonic beasts, and a few small tribes.”
“I know.”
“Young master, I can see the military camp.”
Riding alongside the carriage, Carlson spoke through the window.
“No one here will welcome you. You will be treated far more coldly than you ever were at the estate.”
“I know that too.”
“If you know even that, then what more do you mean to do in a place like this?”
Schiller asked, sounding stifled with frustration.
“Change.”
“Pardon?”
“From here on, many things in Goethe will begin to change.”
Isaac answered in a low voice.
Bwooo—!!!
Just then, the distant sound of a horn rang out.
“It is the demonic beasts.”
Carlson warned him.
Black creatures were surging toward the military camp ringed in wooden palisades. Some among them turned and rushed toward the supply column where Isaac’s carriage stood.
“Battle positions!”
A shout rose from the vanguard of the supply convoy.
“Young master! Young Master Isaac!”
At that moment, an urgent voice burst out from the rear of the convoy.
A soldier wearing a gambeson and holding a spear.
It was a face Isaac knew.
“Hans? Why are you here?”
Isaac turned to look at Schiller.
“Ahem. How was this old man supposed to endure it, when he harassed me every single day without fail?”
Schiller coughed dryly and turned his eyes elsewhere.
“What kind of master abandons his servant and leaves? I will protect you. Do not leave my side.”
Hans spoke with a grim and resolute face.
But his legs, and the arm with which he held the spear, were shaking without mercy.
“Haa.”
Isaac pressed a hand to his forehead and let out a sigh.
All the while, the growling of the demonic beasts was drawing closer.
END σϝ CHAPTER