Chapter 65 - St. Jansk University and the Chamber of Secrets (8)

"Ivan. An enlisted guardsman dozing on his feet? Times certainly have changed."

"Hh...!"

Startled by the low voice at his ear, Ivan looked up. His blurred vision slowly cleared. It was a sunny day, and he was inside familiar quarters.

He swiftly glanced around, as any trained agent should upon finding himself somewhere unfamiliar. First, assess the terrain.

"What...?"

The moment he swept his eyes around the quarters, Ivan was left speechless, save for that dazed murmur.

The emblem of a roaring bear upon a crimson banner. Spacious quarters, a massive solid-wood table, and the tactical map spread across it. An office desk, and the enormous figure seated behind it.

Solid shoulders, thick forearms, and those piercing blue eyes.

"Ah..."

"Ivan? Are you ill?"

"Ah..."

The man set down his clattering utensils and slowly rose. His great shadow stretched out, blocking the light inside the quarters. Ivan's legs weakened. He dropped to one knee and bowed his head.

"I greet... my liege."

"... Yes. You have. What are you doing?"

"I..."

Ivan raised his head, his eyes bewildered. A warm gaze full of concern met him. An enormous hand patted his shoulder before withdrawing.

"The Great," "the Terrible," "the Bear of Krasilof," "the Conqueror," "the Great King"... The man whom friend and foe alike had called by countless names was now looking down at him.

With the same gaze, the same face as back then.

This was a dream.

Ivan quickly collected himself. If this was a dream of those days, he must not make a mistake. The moment the dream diverged from his memories, he might wake.

Think. This must be something he had experienced in the past. Not an ordinary memory, either, but a memorable one.

He could not wake. Not yet.

Then he noticed the dishes on the desk. Ah, that day.

It had been shortly after he began serving as the Great King's guardsman. He remembered. That was the day he first saw what a king ate for dinner.

The question he had asked then was surely...

"I had thought Your Majesty would dine somewhat better."

"Hmm? Ha ha! This? Is it so terrible?"

"Is this not fare for conscripts?"

"It is."

The Great King chuckled and mashed a potato with his fork. He spread it on a dry biscuit, dipped it in water, and chewed for a long while before speaking.

"This is my hypocrisy."

"Hypocrisy... Your Majesty?"

"If the common people heard I ate such things, they would gladly sing my praises. Oh, our frugal king! Ha ha. They would be wrong."

The Great King gulped down some water and set his cup aside.

"Do you know how much it costs for this country's nobles and royalty, those exalted souls, to eat their exquisite meals and shit their exquisite shit? There was a time when feeding ten of those noble bastards cost about as much as feeding an entire division."

"..."

"How many more soldiers would come home alive if those bastards stuffed themselves less? We could give them sturdier armor, another handful of ammunition. Now, Ivan. Do you know what I must do to tell those nobles to stuff themselves less?"

The Great King shrugged and tapped his empty plate.

"Stuff myself less first. If anyone has the balls to eat finer food than his king, well. I could personally recognize his courage by sending him to the vanguard. There, what do you think of my hypocrisy?"

"I fail to see how that is hypocrisy..."

"Because I don't want to eat this crap either."

The Great King roared with laughter and clapped Ivan on the shoulder.

"So isn't it hypocrisy? I'm not doing this because I truly want to. I'm putting on a performance to browbeat those nobles, all to save a few pennies. How is that not hypocrisy, hmm? Now, Ivan. Let me show you the fearsome greed that only a king can display."

With a mischievous smile, the Great King strode to the table and opened a drawer beneath it. Out came a bunch of half-dried grapes, a chunk of smoked ham with congealed fat, and a bottle of milk.

"Truly terrifying, is it not? Behold the dreadful fruits of a king's greed and extravagance."

"Well... Hmm."

"What? Would you dare contradict me? I force dry, tasteless food upon the nobility in the name of thrift, then feast like this behind their backs!"

"I... see."

"Ho ho, you must be too young to understand. How much administrative work do you think it takes to bring milk all the way to the front without it spoiling? Ah, yes. How old did you say you were?"

"Eighteen, Your Majesty."

The Great King frowned as he examined Ivan's shoulders and forearms.

"And yet you're such a scrawny lad."

Ivan had enough common sense not to complain to the king. But he was taller and more solidly built than the average man of this primitive, premodern world.

The man before him was simply too enormous.

The king laughed heartily and beckoned.

"Come and eat."

"... Pardon?"

"I said come and eat. I must add another line to the ledger of my hypocrisy. How can I hold my head high with such a puny guard officer attending me? Eat and grow bigger, 'Little' Ivan."

The Great King smiled contentedly and pushed the plate toward him. Ivan was a patient man, but he could not long resist the temptation of fatty meat and fresh milk.

Growing up as a tenant farmer's son, milk had been a luxury he could never even dream of tasting. There was no way to keep it fresh, and it spoiled in no time, so all the milk left after paying tribute had to be made into cheese or butter. Even preservation was difficult in this primitive world.

By the time he came to his senses, Ivan was already wolfing down all the ham and milk. The Great King watched in silence for a long while, then sighed.

"My sins run deep indeed."

"Pardon? Ah, forgive me, Your Majesty."

"Enough. Forgive you for what? What have you to apologize for when it is my sins that run deep?"

The Great King cleared away the empty dishes himself as he spoke.

"A world where a lad your age loses his head over a cheap piece of meat like this... is not right. This country was not like that when I was crowned. Once a week, the smell of baking bread and roasting meat filled every street in Prizhenkaya."

At last, the Great King shook his head.

"I don't know what I'm saying to a boy less than half my age. Enough. Pay it no mind. Ivan, from today onward, you will keep me company at my meals."

"Yes, Your Majesty."

"At least I can feed one little brat his fill. Such lofty authority this king commands. Surely one more poor subject caught up in my hypocrisy will do no harm."

The Great King chuckled and waved him away. He was dismissed. Ivan bowed deeply, then slowly backed out of the quarters.

It had been a day in his sixteenth year since possession, his sixth year of military service.

Outside, the camp held nothing but despairing soldiers trudging along with defeat written plainly on their faces.

Krasilof was falling.

No, humanity was dying out.

The hero would not appear until two years after this. And so Ivan sometimes found himself thinking:

If only the hero had found them a little sooner, the Great King would still have been alive. He could have lived to smile at the sight of smoke rising once more from Prizhenkaya's ovens as they roasted meat.

Had that happened, perhaps Ivan might have liked this world a little more. Everything he had ever admired, respected, or looked up to, however slightly, had perished in eighteen years of war.

He wanted kimchi stew.

"Is this all?"

Ivan stood in the middle of the camp and looked up at the sky.

"If you're showing me regrets and lingering attachments, this isn't enough. Is this all?"

The days when he had been fragile enough to fall under a mere dream's spell were long past. Gazing at the sky, Ivan considered this.

He did not know why ancient ruins powerful enough to make a Dwarven excavation artifact vanish in an instant were toying with him through a mere dream illusion. But if they believed such paltry temptation could bring him to his knees, wasn't that terribly foolish?

Ivan rummaged inside his clothes. The essential equipment he always carried came to hand. He acted as soon as the thought occurred: drew his dagger, drove it into his forearm, and poured healing potion over the wound.

With a hiss and a surge of pain—

HISSS.

CRAAACK!!

The dream shattered.

* * *

Ivan restored his senses and took a step forward. The last thing he had seen was the surging mana before the precipice as he leaped through it. He therefore believed he had finally reached the ancient ruins.

"This is..."

His blurred vision rapidly cleared, and his vanished senses returned to his body one by one. He loosened his shoulders and looked around. A polished corridor, enormous stone pillars, reliefs carved in marble, a vast ceiling...

It was a gigantic hall lined with statues he could not make sense of.

"A temple...?"

Ivan carefully stood and began to walk. Alongside the distant sound of wind, he heard faint breathing much closer by. Following the sound, he found Elpihera lying neatly on the floor with her eyes shut.

"Wake up."

Ivan gave her cheek a light slap.

SMACK.

Elpihera jolted upright.

"Mmph?!! Wh-what do you think you're doing...!"

"Shh."

No telling what might be here. Quiet, for now.

At Ivan's gesture, Elpihera closed her mouth and looked around, then suddenly grumbled.

"Shit... That was such an amazing dream..."

"I'm sure it was."

"Humans, honestly. Stupid, dull-witted, and rude on top of it. Where did you learn such atrocious manners, waking someone like..."

"Still half asleep?"

Ivan raised a hand as he watched her grumble. If she had not fully awakened from the dream, he was quite willing to wake her again. Elpihera flinched, covered her cheek, and shook her head.

"Time to start translating the ancient language."

"Where?"

"All of this."

Ivan jerked his chin toward the reliefs covering the ceiling and pillars. Elpihera looked up blankly, then slowly opened her mouth and gave a hollow laugh.

"All... of this?"

"Isn't that what we came for?"

"I'm more of an intellectual. I'm not very good with hard labor."

"Can you read it, then?"

"What do you take me for...! Of course I can. Let's see. Hmm... Hmmm... Hmm?"

Elpihera approached the nearest pillar, frowned at it for some time, then spoke.

"Didn't you say this was fifteen hundred years old?"

"Yes."

"For this kind of translation, I think you should have brought a priest, not a mage."

She stepped back, looking perplexed.

"A priest?"

"Yes. This is ancient Dellenic... The language used in the Bible, I mean. It's an old language, but priests learn it in their basic training."

"And you can't read it?"

"Of course I can. Obviously I know it too. Seriously, what does he take me for? A mere human."

"..."

Elpihera's ears perked up as she scanned the reliefs.

"This... is a victory monument...?"

"A victory monument."

"Yes. It's full of praise for the God of Light. Commemorating a victory... What on earth were they fighting to build something so magnificent...?"

"Hmm."

Did academy "common sense" happen to include something like "ruins from antiquity with an ancient devil sealed inside"?

He hoped not.

Ivan checked his weapons and clicked his tongue.