Chapter 56

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Siegfringer was a region in the central north of the Empire, ruled by the ducal House of Siegfringer. It contained one large city and several smaller ones. Ricard and Boribori had worked with the Nameless mainly in about four of those smaller cities, including Runenberg.

Over the past winter, they had avenged the Nameless there, wiping out several thieves' guilds and criminal organizations in the process. So even before the recent fighting on the Kaitz heights, Ricard and Boribori had been fairly famous throughout Siegfringer.

Here, they were generally called the Heroes of Siegfringer, or the Siegfringer Trio: Red Cloak Riki, Boribori the Quarterer, and X the Nameless.

As Ricard followed Sandy past a small town, a sense of familiarity came over him. It brought back memories of the winter he had spent with the Nameless. They were not simply happy memories, though. They carried something closer to a wistful ache.

Because the Nameless was gone now. Winter had passed before he knew it, and even spring was drawing to an end.

He could almost see them walking this road together again. Despite the winter cold, Boribori had laughed so much back then. Now the weather itself was warm.

He felt neither empty nor depressed. He thought white mourning clothes suited the Nameless's death better than black.

The man had found salvation. There was no need to be gloomy about it. That was how Ricard saw it, and Boribori felt the same.

Now, in a new season and with new people, he was passing through places steeped in memories of last winter. That did not mean covering up or erasing the past. New memories would simply settle over the old, layer by layer.

Of course, he had yet to learn whether what lay ahead would become cherished memories or things he would rather forget.

"Riki."

Marie's voice roused Ricard from his thoughts, and he turned toward her. She shyly held something out to him: a few bright red wild raspberries in her palm.

"Thanks."

Ricard picked one up and ate it. Its tiny, bumpy beads burst on his tongue, filling his mouth with a sweet, tart flavor.

Then, sensing something odd, he glanced back. Volka, Delphi, and Boribori were staring at him and Marie. So they had put her up to it.

"Hah... You people. Seriously."

"We're just watching."

"I'm sure you are."

Volka spoke as though it were nothing, but anyone could see how intensely interested he was in what was happening between Ricard and Marie.

Sandy, who had watched the whole exchange while walking nearby, spoke as though she found them pathetic.

"That's not how you win a man's heart. Why does it feel like you two have it backward?"

"How do you win it, then?" Delphi asked.

"You have to seduce him. Riki's still too young to understand. Time will take care of that. Don't be so impatient. You'll only drive his heart further away. Seduce him once he's properly grown hair down there. He'll fall for you in no time."

Whether she was shameless or simply did not care if he heard, Sandy said all this quite casually in front of the boy himself.

"Ugh..."

Ricard could not help groaning. Surprisingly, though, Marie seemed to be listening intently. Once he had properly grown hair down there...

For now, she held out the raspberries again, inviting him to have more.

Ricard was thoroughly embarrassed, but he did not reject the berries too. Awkward as this was, he did not want to trample on the girl's innocent feelings. Nor was he hardhearted enough to draw a firm line between them.

Contrary to Sandy's advice, he could only hope Marie would naturally move on with time.

"But Riki," Sandy called.

"Hm?"

"A woman's courage disappears once her first love is over. So treat her with care. Not that I can tell you what to feel."

Though she was only six or seven years older, Sandy offered advice like a venerable elder.

"I get it, but isn't that something you shouldn't say with her right here?"

"Why shouldn't I? We could die at any time."

"... True."

He remembered meeting Sandy's clan two years earlier. His first impression of adventurers had been that they were insular, yet also open and honest.

Underlying those contradictory traits was the knowledge that they could die at any moment. They had to be wary of other people, which made them insular. Yet they were open and honest because if they did not act now, there might never be another chance.

Was Marie's confession much the same? Perhaps anxiety and fear that those might be their final moments had driven her to it. But that did not mean she had invented feelings she did not have, or expressed false ones.

Marie's feelings were pure. Ricard knew that better than anyone. That was why, even if he could not accept them, he could not trample on them either.

"I won't say I'm sorry. Thank you."

"... Okay. But you know..."

"Yeah?"

"You're not going to change your mind, are you?"

"About what?"

"You said you don't believe in love. So that means you can't love another girl either, right?"

In that instant, Ricard felt that something had gone wrong. A chill ran down his spine.

And yet Marie's eyes looked innocent. That made it all the more frightening.

"R-right..."

"I'll trust you."

Had the words "I'll trust you" always been this terrifying? Ricard had a feeling he had gotten himself into something dreadful.

Whether in religion or in love, faith carried madness within it. The sweet fragrance of raspberries still lingered in his mouth, but he could no longer simply enjoy it.

Whether his friends knew what he was thinking or not, they watched with pleased smiles. They all seemed insane.

Was it the times they lived in, or just his friends? They seemed to think it was fine as long as two people ended up together, even if they had to be stitched together with a needle.

Ricard gave up and closed his eyes. Just as he could not accept Marie's feelings, he could hardly tell her not to like him. He would have to bear it. What else could he do?

At any rate, they followed Sandy into a forest outside town. After about an hour of walking through the trees, they heard water trickling somewhere nearby. Around then, they came upon a cabin.

A few adventurers were scattered around it. Some looked familiar, though Ricard did not know their names. He had seen them during his frequent visits to the guild building at the foot of the hill.

A few touched their hats or raised a hand slightly in greeting. Ricard acknowledged them with a glance.

Sandy approached a woman with bobbed black hair who was squatting beside the cabin and spoke to her. Ricard and his friends stayed back for the moment and watched.

The woman rose. She wore black clothes that were not skin-tight, but still revealed something of her figure. A scarf covered the lower half of her face.

After listening briefly to Sandy, she walked over to Ricard's group. Pointing at Volka and Ricard, she said,

"You and you. Only you two. Come with me."

The woman in black led Volka and Ricard away. Apparently, the Guild Master was not inside the cabin.

As they followed her, the trickle of water grew louder, until they reached a clear little stream in the forest.

Three people were beside the stream. Two were standing, and one sat on a portable chair. They seemed to have been cooking over a fire; a delicious aroma drifted all the way to Ricard.

The woman beckoned them closer with a flick of her hand. As Ricard and Volka approached, the seated man turned to look at them. To their surprise, it was Dunkel.

"Huh? What the... Dunkel?"

"Hahaha. That's right. I wasn't trying to deceive you. But our line of work does have a few things in common with a thieves' guild, wouldn't you say?"

Dunkel spoke with a laugh. The Guild Master of the Beringen Guild was none other than Dunkel.

"I'm a little surprised, but now that I think about it, it's not that shocking."

Ricard took the revelation with unexpected calm. Volka, on the other hand, was wide-eyed. He had actually known Dunkel longer than Ricard had, yet had never dreamed of this.

"Have some of this first. It's a delicacy."

Dunkel ladled red soup from a bubbling pot onto platters. Curiously, it contained crayfish, corn, and various fruits. He cut a lemon in half with a dagger and squeezed it over the two platters.

"Here, watch. This is how you shell them."

He demonstrated with a crayfish, twisting the tail away from the body, removing the first segment of shell, and pressing the end of the tail to slip the meat out.

Still somewhat bewildered, Ricard and Volka sat on the pebbly bank and began shelling crayfish. Their hands were soon covered in sauce.

One bite of the meat was astonishing. Lavishly seasoned with expensive spices, it was the first truly fine dish Ricard had ever tasted. How could anything taste like this?

Even in his previous life, he had lived on dry rations, unbearably salty preserved meat, jerky, and pale, watery porridge. The shock made his eyes widen.

Dunkel watched with a satisfied smile as Ricard and Volka ate a couple of crayfish each. Then he washed his hands in water someone poured from a kettle and spoke as he dried them with a towel.

"I knew things would go well if you joined the war, Riki."

Ricard, who had been absorbed in eating, paused to think before answering.

"But I feel like I've been used."

"You haven't been used. I didn't tell your Clan Leader Volka to do anything. All I did was casually let slip that the academy students might be mobilized."

"Hmm... Sounds an awful lot like a devil whispering in someone's ear."

"Hahaha. I'll take that as a compliment."

"So why did you want to see us?"

"All right. I'll get straight to the point. Is there anything you want?"

Dunkel asked from his portable chair, elbows resting on his knees. The look in his eyes suggested he already knew exactly what they wanted.

Ricard turned to Volka. He was the Clan Leader, after all.

"I'd like to be a branch head. Ideally, the branch would have farmland attached, but it doesn't have to be farmland. I'd like some land we could clear."

"Yes, yes. You should start preparing for retirement while you're young. Leave it until you're old and it'll be too late."

"You'll make him a branch head?" Ricard asked.

"Do I have any choice in the matter?"

"You're the Guild Master."

"I know you're a noble, and I know the old gentleman is backing you. So no, I don't have the option of refusing."

"A n-noble? What are you talking about?"

Volka turned to Ricard, eyes wide once again. Just like Dunkel, Ricard had been concealing who he was.

He gave an awkward smile.

"Being a noble doesn't make me special. I had to leave my family anyway. My real name is Ricard. Ricard von Kaldebern."

"Good grief... That sounds like some foreign language."

"Everyone says that. That it sounds like a foreign language."

"Who else knows?"

"Sandy and Bori."

"But did you really have to keep it secret?"

"Would we have become friends otherwise?"

"Hmm... Fair point. If I'd known you were a noble, I couldn't even have picked that first fight with you."

"You there, knave! Is that any way to address me?"

"...?"

"Kidding."

Ricard and Volka grinned at each other. Thinking back, theirs was a rather funny relationship. At first, Ricard had simply beaten him up. Even he had never expected them to become friends.

But he had been drawn to Volka's concern for the other students, and the things they had gone through together had brought them closer. Eventually, they had become a clan—another word for family.

"Anyway, does that make him a branch head?" Ricard asked, looking at Dunkel.

"It does. But nothing in this world comes free. Friends, family, money—none of it is truly yours until you have the strength to protect it, and actually do so."

Ricard considered what that meant. Naturally quick-witted, he soon understood what Dunkel was saying.

"So you're going to give us a branch somewhere the war has made unstable."

"Exactly. Hold it, and it's yours. There's nothing much to what I do. I just align adventurers' desires and clans' dreams with our own objectives."

"And if you can't align them?"

Dunkel answered only with an inscrutable smile. Well, he would either eliminate them or throw them out. One of the two, Ricard supposed.

Still, even if Ricard was the better fighter and more skilled in combat, Dunkel seemed better at running an organization and managing people. He had to admit that.

"Is Ice doing well?" Volka asked.

His platter was already piled with crayfish shells and stripped corn cobs. Dunkel took it, tipped the scraps straight onto the ground, and served him another helping as he spoke.

"You're better off not getting too close to him. One day, his path will diverge from the guild's—and from yours."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, since I've already revealed who I am, I might as well tell you. Ice comes from the Church of Judgment. He's not merely a believer. He holds a position within it. He came to the academy with an agenda of his own from the start. I've left him alone because he was useful, but in the end, he'll choose the Church."

"What?"

Today seemed full of surprises for Volka. His eyes widened yet again. This time, though, Ricard was also considerably surprised.

He had known Ice followed a somewhat cultish heresy, but had never imagined he was such an ardent devotee. If he was involved that deeply, he could truly end up facing a heresy trial.

"Didn't you two know? He's such an amateur that it's painfully obvious. He's obsessed with becoming a Sword Master for the Church. That's why he's trying to reach special grade. But that's not a matter for me to judge. It's up to the elders."

"Who are these elders? Are there more besides the one I know?"

Once again, Dunkel merely smiled at Ricard's question. When he did not intend to answer, he seemed to keep silent with a smile.

"That's all I have to say. You might run into Ice along the way. I'm not the sort to tell people what to do. Make your own decisions."

Dunkel rose from his seat. Apparently about to leave, he offered Ricard one last piece of advice.

"Riki, being one of the Nine Swords of the Empire is like winning a jousting tournament. There are always challengers, and there's no guarantee you'll win the next tournament too. If a lance knocks you from your horse, you can be badly hurt or killed, champion or not. Just like you killed Steiner."

"Oh, that reminds me. The Ehrenberg Five. I heard the emperor was backing them. Is that true?"

This boy still did not listen to a word anyone said. With that thought, Dunkel let out an incredulous laugh.

"They were like whores. They didn't discriminate between customers. They walked the line well enough that the people above were still fingering their swords, deciding whether or not to kill them, when you did it yourself. You certainly made life easier for quite a few people. I'm off. See you next time. Take care of yourselves. Sally will tell you about the branch."

Dunkel strode across the pebbles with his companions. Only Sally, the woman who had guided Ricard here, stayed behind and approached the two boys.

"Are you going to eat all that?" she asked, pointing at the pot.

"Pardon?"

"Are you going to eat it all?"

"No. I've had enough. You, Riki?"

"Me too."

Sally immediately sat beside the pot and ladled some of its contents onto a platter. She must have been desperate for a taste. It did smell incredible.

The crayfish dish was undeniably delicious, but perhaps because of everything he had learned, it left Ricard with an unpleasant aftertaste.

How could he put it? He felt as though he had been made to dance like a puppet without even knowing it. Still, they had gotten what they wanted. Was that enough? He was not sure.

And thinking of Ice left him with all sorts of conflicting feelings. The Church of Judgment...

Something Ice had once said in Griffinswald echoed in his ears.

["Even you can't save me. Just let me die..."]