༺ 𓆩 Chapter 32 — Preparation (1) 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
Today as well, the soldiers of the military camp began dawn with physical training, without fail.
Now that the training schedule had been enforced for half a month, the soldiers seemed to have adapted to it to some degree.
And yet today, more than usual, the formation kept breaking apart.
“One, one, one. Align, align!”
No matter how Carlson shouted himself hoarse, it did no good.
The reason was Isaac.
The soldiers, seeking to preserve their lives, kept edging farther and farther away from him.
The sight of grown soldiers fearing a boy of barely twelve and keeping their distance from him would have been laughable, yet no one dared point it out.
Pride was not more important than life.
When word of what had happened in the Baitur village spread through Günter’s mouth,
no one had believed it at face value.
They had thought Günter was exaggerating.
But after one man after another went to Bessemer to confirm whether it was true, the whole camp erupted.
The soldiers braided together every rumor they had heard, and the tale twisted, swelled, and warped.
Among them now, Isaac was called the “Frost Demon.”
“My lord. Why not run a little farther off?”
“All right.”
In a dry voice, Isaac stepped out of formation and put some twenty paces between himself and the others.
“Huff, huff. Young master. You’ve, kgh, come.”
“Are you all right?”
Far behind the main formation, as ever, Hans was running alone.
By now, after half a month, his stamina should have improved at least a little.
And yet Hans was still struggling for dear life.
“I’m, fine, of course, who, khek, do, you, think, urp—”
As always, Hans threw up bitter water.
“You’ll die at this rate.”
“I’m, urgh, fine.”
“Why not head back to the estate already?”
“Absolutely not. I absolutely won’t.”
Even under Isaac’s cold tone, Hans’s resolve did not bend.
Only after the sun had fully risen did the first hour of training finally come to an end.
“One hour of rest. Then we move into combat training. Dismissed!”
Carlson shouted it out in a booming voice.
Though he had run with the soldiers himself, he showed not the slightest sign of fatigue.
The soldiers shook their heads, cursed under their breath, and scattered to their barracks.
They had to steal at least an hour of sleep or rest if they meant to survive the next session.
Complaint was not granted to them.
Any who had resisted had been beaten senseless and made to cool themselves inside iron bars.
“You’re training with them again today?”
“I have to.”
“Aren’t you overdoing it?”
“I need it. Why? You dislike it because training falls apart whenever I join?”
“That too. But in truth, this intensity is too much for you to keep up with. Didn’t you injure your wrist yesterday?”
“Are you worried about me right now?”
“I’m worried about myself. You need to remain in one piece so you can help me when the time comes.”
“I’m trying to become all right now, aren’t I? I’ll be resting in the barracks, so go call Bessemer.”
“He won’t come. How many tribesmen of his did you kill? He’s barely restraining the urge to kill you. Why would he want to see you?”
“Tell him I know a way to kill the King of Wolves. Then he’ll come. Company commander, that’s the commander’s order. Military law should be obeyed, shouldn’t it?”
Isaac patted Carlson’s arm a few times, then headed for the barracks.
“Wash yourself first! You smell worse than Bessemer!”
At Carlson’s shout behind him, Isaac simply waved a hand without turning.
“Ugh.”
The moment he returned to the barracks, Isaac flung himself face-down onto a blanket.
His clothes, soaked in sweat and dried again and again, carried the sour, stale reek of a body long overworked.
“This is lasting longer than I expected. Had I known, I’d have broken it just the right amount.”
The moment he had stood surrounded by the Baitur tribesmen and the wolves,
Isaac had grown curious.
If he pushed himself right to the brink without allowing the vessel to shatter, how much destructive force could he unleash?
But because he had driven himself too far toward the edge, it was taking quite some time for the vessel to repair itself.
And because of that, mana kept leaking constantly through the cracks in it, and the hour when the magician’s melancholy would begin to ease was pushed farther and farther away.
He had not been able to confirm it himself, since he had collapsed unconscious, but Hans’s and Günter’s testimony had been enough.
Frost-hell had descended over the entire Baitur village.
The frozen figures Bessemer had dealt with numbered more than thirty tribesmen, and over a dozen hell wolves.
Fifty lives had frozen to death in an instant.
Because of that, Isaac had not been able to use magic for nearly ten days, and in order to endure the magician’s melancholy he had been forcing himself to participate in the soldiers’ training with dogged desperation.
When he moved his body, at least, it gave him the feeling of still having his feet planted in reality.
And yet the magician’s melancholy did not lift easily.
Powerlessness, futility, emptiness.
The numbness that let him feel neither weight nor guilt even after killing dozens.
Nias, Bishop Levonius, both dead by his hand.
Was he any different from them?
Was he not, in the end, the same sort of monster?
Those hollow thoughts tormented Isaac without distinction between day and night.
Most of all, the whisper of fate and inevitability, telling him he would continue to witness such deaths without end, threw his mind into disarray.
It felt as though some human thing within him was being worn away.
“Damn it.”
Isaac shook his head, pushed himself upright, drew the blade from the scabbard lying carelessly on the floor, and began working it with abrasive compound.
Simple, repetitive labor was well suited to driving away useless thoughts.
Shrrk, shrrk.
He honed the blade.
Inhale.
Exhale.
Inhale.
Exhale.
The clamor within his head quieted.
With each breath, he felt the flow of mana resonating within the vessel.
‘Still the same.’
He could feel frost mana moving through the mana circuits.
The Frost Runestone had already shattered into fragments during the mana explosion.
And yet the density of frost mana contained in Isaac’s vessel had not changed in the least.
It was strange.
Was his vessel itself somehow producing ice mana?
That gave rise to a new hypothesis.
If one could make use of the peculiar constitution called , then perhaps the qualities held by special Mana Stones he acquired in the future could be made to belong to the vessel itself.
If that were possible, Isaac could absorb rare Mana Stones and drastically shorten the stages required to manifest many kinds of magic.
‘If only I could get rid of this damned melancholy somehow.’
A magician’s melancholy was little different from a defensive mechanism.
If, in a weakened mental state, a magician forced himself to use magic recklessly, then his mind itself would collapse.
To prevent that, the mechanism called melancholy came into play.
It was a warning signal born of a magician’s instinct for survival.
So until that signal ran its course, the only thing to do was endure, swallowing impatience and suffering alike.
“You called for me?”
Bessemer’s voice came from outside.
‘That one’s sunk deep enough into melancholy himself.’
Quite unlike his first impression, when he had butchered hell wolves with mad laughter spilling from him, Bessemer’s voice now was low and dark.
“Yes. Come in.”
Isaac said it without pausing the hand that still worked the abrasive over the blade.
“You’ve become fairly skilled at sharpening an edge.”
“I got used to it after coming here.”
“I heard you know how to kill the King of Wolves.”
“I do.”
“Then say it.”
“Sit down first. It’s a little uncomfortable with you looming like that.”
Bessemer was so tall that even the ceiling of the barracks sat low over him.
Because of that, he remained standing with his head slightly bent.
“No need. It isn’t a long enough story to sit for.”
“It is. Sit.”
“…….”
With a thoroughly displeased look, Bessemer lowered himself to the floor.
“Be brief. I don’t have much patience I can permit you.”
“We’re going to lure the King of Wolves to the camp.”
“And how exactly do you propose to lure the King of Wolves?”
“With you.”
“……?”
“You. Can you act?”
***⚜***
“Your arm’s wide open.”
“Ack—”
“Your head’s wide open.”
“Aagh!”
Under the succession of wooden-sword blows Isaac delivered, Hans had no time for anything but screaming.
Block here, and the next blow came from there.
Guard there, and the strike flew in from here.
It seemed like Isaac would hit one side, then struck the other.
Hans, today as ever, was the village drum everyone beat.
“Go a little easier, young master. If not Hans, you don’t even have anyone suitable left to spar with.”
It was combat-training hour.
Because none of the soldiers wanted to spar with Isaac, Hans had been his opponent for the full ten days running.
After training hours Carlson would sometimes spar with him too, but during official training time Carlson had to instruct the other soldiers and had no such leisure.
“You learn by being hit. Hans, up.”
“Ugh. Yes, young master.”
The gap between Isaac and Hans was immense.
However much Isaac might still be a twelve-year-old child, the swordsmanship Lucas had drilled into him for nearly ten years underground had not vanished anywhere.
In physique and raw strength Hans held the advantage by far, but that could not make up for the gulf in skill between them.
“Ack!”
“Aagh!”
“Uwaagh!”
All through the spar, only Hans’s screams rang out.
“So Bessemer says he’ll do it?”
When combat training ended, Carlson asked.
“He says he’ll think about it, but he’ll do it.”
“It’s not far from tricking his own father into his death.”
“That’s why this is the chance to end that rotten bond of fate.”
The fragments of Vinfeldt’s history Isaac had pieced together with Carlson, along with Bessemer’s testimony.
Once those fragments were sewn together, the history of the Baitur tribe from thirteen years ago rose onto the stage in full.
Back then, Goethe had been wholly occupied with repelling invasions from the tribes beyond the frontier and subjugating them.
Then the previous Count of Goethe died of an endemic illness and sepsis.
It had seemed as though a great crisis had come down upon Goethe, but the tribes too were in no good state.
Among them, worn down by long conflict with Goethe, those who wanted peace began gradually to increase.
At their head stood the Granak.
A great tribe, the largest and strongest among them all.
By cruel chance, after the death of the previous Margrave of Goethe, the Granak High Chieftain also suffered a mortal wound fighting demonic beasts and lingered only in waiting for death.
Worried for the future of his people, he proposed marriage between his daughter and the new Count of Goethe.
The new Count, whose own circumstances allowed him little room, accepted, and many tribes made peace with Goethe.
But the warlike minor tribes of Vinfeldt opposed that peace.
Foremost among them, and the fiercest in their opposition, were the Baitur.
Their reason was simple: they must not forget the blood of their kin once shed because of Goethe.
But the tide had already turned, and the strength of a few minor tribes could no longer drive Goethe back.
Driven to the wall and facing one last battle, the Baitur made an extreme choice.
Using the forbidden sorcery of beastification, they turned their warriors into wolves.
The stronger the warrior, the stronger the wolf he became.
For a while they went from victory to victory.
But forbidden sorcery was forbidden for a reason.
The warriors who underwent beastification could never return to human bodies again, and as their raging ferocity devoured their reason, they became demonic beasts.
And yet the Baitur chieftain,
because he possessed a soul of uncommon strength, retained his reason.
That was the silver wolf.
The King of Wolves.
He was the sole control that kept the hell wolves in line.
According to the law of the wild, he suppressed the other hell wolves by force.
Put another way, the moment he vanished, the hell wolves would become nothing more than ordinary demonic beasts.
“But will the King of Wolves truly move as you intend, young master?”
“According to Bessemer, the King of Wolves has had dozens of chances to kill him, and spared him every time. If the King of Wolves still recognizes his own son, then yes, it will move just as expected.”
“Then it may be worth attempting. But quite a few soldiers will be sacrificed.”
“…Your role is to keep those sacrifices to a minimum. Better that than having them annihilated by a legion of hell wolves.”
Attempts to track down and kill the King of Wolves had already been made by Bessemer over the course of more than ten years.
Every time there had been heavy casualties, and every time it had failed.
But they could not go on merely preparing and waiting either.
As time passed, the number of hell wolves would only increase.
Because the Baitur prophet would make sure of it.
Isaac wiped the sweat from his chin and looked up at the sky.
Since yesterday the weather had been dreary.
His heart felt heavy.
But what would happen would happen, and what must be done must be done.
“So all that remains is Bessemer’s resolve.”
“That’s the shape of it.”
Just then, from one edge of the training ground, a huge man began striding toward Isaac.
In one hand he carried a double-bladed axe, and the pitch-black edges of its blades, along with the amber jewel set in the butt, looked valuable at a glance.
The giant’s manner was so fierce as he came forward in great strides that the soldiers shrank back from him without thinking.
Even Carlson moved Isaac behind him and laid a hand on his sword.
Thud—!!!
The giant came to a halt right before Isaac.
“I’ll do it.” Bessemer said.
END σϝ CHAPTER