Chapter 152 - As You Sow, So Shall You Reap (4)

The red wine the man held in his mouth was dark.

A viscous thickness that did not move easily even inside the swaying wineglass.

Yet Sarnus was smiling, as if he liked how weighty it felt going down, precisely because it was so rich.

"In the end, Duke Armand moved exactly as we wanted."

Sarnus tilted his glass leisurely even before the rising morning sun.

His oiled blond hair, neatly swept back, and his old-fashioned clothing untouched by trends made him the very image of a typical nobleman to anyone who saw him.

"Scattered Territory Wars are breaking out all across the Central region. It seems everyone had a great deal pent up, even aside from Duke Armand."

"They were bound for far too long. Humans are creatures who follow their desires by nature."

At Mircea's report, Sarnus merely nodded, as if he had expected as much.

The knight who had established the vast world called the Empire might have thought there would forever be only one, but the being known as a dragon was, in truth, much like something that slept within everyone's soul.

"The more one tramples, the higher one rises, and the more one devours, the greater one grows, so who could refuse?"

They must have crouched low for as long as there had been peace, gathering strength and justification.

If one keeps pouring water into a tiny cup, it will overflow one day.

Expansion into a broader world was not a goal only the West longed for.

"Anyone would do as I do."

Sarnus drained the last of the wine and quietly set the glass down on the desk.

In the mirror he turned to face, there was only the noble aristocrat Sarnus Dragulia.

It seemed impossible to find in him now any trace of the old figure that had hidden in the dark, shrunken and small.

"This one is not pure."

A single red strand of gray hair showed amid the brightly shining blond.

After discovering it, Sarnus smiled with a grimace and began combing through his hair.

Unsatisfactory as it was, it was trouble to the very end.

"It returned in a ridiculous state, but it did carry out the matter in the Barony of Uthman well enough, so it was worthy of praise."

"... Is that so."

A single strand of hair pulled out without much thought.

The hair that had sat among the blond was a red that brought someone to mind.

"I hope the child said to be in the North is a little darker. It is time to reap that one as well."

Since he had sown, it was now time to reap.

What possibilities would my seed, which I had gone all the way to that distant North to plant upon the mire, show me?

The empty wineglass and the plucked red strand of gray hair.

As he waited for them to be filled anew, the old dragon was smiling.

* * *

"Hmm, hmm."

Sigurson was concentrating, but Vlad, standing beside him, looked somehow anxious.

It was because Sigurson, wearing a bizarre monocle Vlad had never seen before, was examining his sword as if licking it over.

Watching the blue sword being stripped bare by another man's hands, Vlad felt like he wanted to snatch the fellow back at any moment.

"... I think that is correct."

On the morning after the night of frenzy ended, the dwarves had even thrown aside the cups they liked so much and were all gathered around Sigurson.

The sight of long-bearded men pressed close together was rather ridiculous, but the looks they gave were solemn and careful.

"... It is a spark."

At Sigurson's low declaration, the dwarves all clenched both fists.

All manner of clamor was sweeping among them, but the reason not a single sound came out was probably because of the young lizard swishing its tail atop the sword.

Because no one there must startle this young spirit.

"Where did you say you brought this one from?"

"I told you earlier. Aushrina."

At Sigurson's question, Vlad took back his sword as if snatching it away.

Sigurson's eye, strangely magnified inside the monocle, watched with regret as the young lizard slipped into the sword.

"But how can such a young spirit exist? To begin with, the most perfect dragon should have eaten all the spirits..."

"I do not really know what you mean, but why not ask the elves for the details?"

Vlad growled as he shoved away the men creeping closer as if possessed by something.

The prickly sensation of the beards he felt from the men was making Vlad's mind feel wild.

"The people who made this were elves. Seriously, stop clinging to me!"

When Vlad shouted that there was a distance one had to maintain with a knight, the dwarves finally began clicking their tongues and backing away.

Yet even after they returned to their places, the word lingering practically dripped from their gazes.

'Have the dwarves here never seen something called a spirit before?'

Geronimo, the Great Elder of the elves, had told him that the Swordmaster had gone to the dwarves.

Yet the dwarves now were greatly delighted even by the sight of a single young spirit, so it seemed the traces of the Swordmaster had not reached them after all.

The way they confirmed the spirit through records on parchment was clearly quite different from the elves.

"... As I said yesterday, I would like to take a look at your armor."

It was talk of armor out of nowhere, but anyone here could probably guess Sigurson's intention.

Sigurson's eye, enlarged by the monocle on its own, was still looking at Vlad's sword regretfully.

"In any case, I also want to take this chance to fix up some of the equipment on our ship."

"... You were serious about that?"

Seeing Sigurson hurriedly nod, Vlad smiled inwardly.

Handing over his sword had been an unpleasant experience, but an opportunity to have dwarves inspect his equipment was certainly rare.

It seemed he would get to see for himself this time why the West had worked so hard not to let dwarves leak out.

"There is an empty smithy nearby, but..."

It was small and shabby, but there was one smithy lodged in Vlad's memories.

Now there was no one who used it, so it had cooled cold, but perhaps simple work could be done there.

"...?"

But Vlad turned his head at the hand that urgently grabbed his clothes.

There stood Zemina, her eyes wide in surprise.

'No. Not there!'

She was only looking at him quietly, but Zemina's eyes were speaking to Vlad without rest.

It seemed the red-haired girl did not want to hand over the precious smithy that held memories of the two of them to those drunkards.

* * *

"... That is going to last a while."

"It cannot be helped. That is the only empty smithy."

Haven whispered to Vlad while looking at Zemina, who was still wiping the table with her lips pressed tightly shut.

She had been like that ever since the dwarves went upstairs, saying they needed to sleep for a while.

"Even so, you could have said no in front of them."

It probably was not simply because of the smithy.

She must have become angry because Vlad, who shared the same memories, had answered carelessly.

She had endured many things until now, but even Zemina could not yield when it came to memories connected to the unadorned sword.

"By the way, since when were you here? Did you not know this place had been off-limits since yesterday?"

"You should not take your anger out on me. The two of you should resolve your own fight yourselves."

Haven tried to slip out of Vlad's question with a sly smile.

As he had just said, Rose's Smiles had been off-limits yesterday, but even so, Haven had wanted to arrange a place with them.

Because he wanted to ride their ship, which still shimmered before his eyes, just once.

"... So. Did you get anything?"

"I did not get anything, but I heard a few things."

He had come in despite knowing, and Vlad had not particularly chased him out despite noticing.

The two had been in the same boat since a very long time ago, and there was such a thing as a shared interest that passed between them without words.

"I mean the ship the dwarves came on."

"Yeah."

Haven lowered his voice as if he had heard some tremendous secret.

Following Haven's lead, Vlad also began to listen closely.

As much as the beings called dwarves themselves, the ship they had come on was one of the topics shaking Soara, and it was an object that could steal even Vlad's gaze despite his ignorance about ships.

"They say they heat water inside it."

"What?"

But though he had been full of anticipation, the answer he heard was completely absurd.

They heated water.

Then the waterwheel turned, apparently.

"What kind of bullshit is that?"

"... Right. Now that I say it, it is bullshit."

There were times when something sounded plausible inside one's head, only to become very strange once spoken aloud.

Haven suddenly made a face as if this was not it, but a great many steps had been omitted between heating water and the waterwheel turning.

"What, did they put a bathhouse inside the ship or something?"

"No, it was steam... and then they said something happened after that?"

Seeing Haven, who had been given the opportunity and yet had ended up drinking for nothing, Vlad clicked his tongue.

If he had managed to uncover even one secret about the ship, they could have gained a great profit.

"Move. I have to go report to city hall."

"I will, I will organize my thoughts by today. I can do it."

"You drank with the dwarves yesterday, and even drank the liquor Hoover made. You will never remember."

"... Ah."

At Vlad's words that he had drunk even the liquor he should never have touched, Haven quietly clutched his head.

Based on the few times he had tried it before, just as Vlad said, he would not remember what had happened yesterday.

"I am leaving."

"Ugh."

Leaving behind Haven's groan-like words, Vlad stepped out of Rose's Smiles and headed for city hall.

The hospitality ordered yesterday had ended splendidly, and lodgings that would satisfy them had been arranged, so the only thing left now was to report to Joseph.

"... I should go take a look first."

Though with a slight detour.

Now that the subject had come up, Vlad decided to stop by the old man's smithy for the first time in a while.

It was a path he had walked almost his entire life, but the back alley in broad daylight felt utterly awkward.

The sights shown by night and day were clearly different, and the same was true for the old smithy whose door had closed.

The sight of his hometown after so long had become as awkward as it was welcome.

"There are no signs anyone came in."

It was an empty house, but also one no vagabond had dared approach.

It had not exactly been managed, but anyone who had rolled around the back alleys a little would never recklessly invade this place connected to Vlad.

"Cough, cough. Guh."

Like on that cold winter day, the door to the smithy, opened as if twisted aside, was thick with dust that had gathered all this time.

The chair where the old man had sat, and the old anvil that had once been filled with noisy sounds.

And even the little hearth where a fire had always been lit.

"This much should be usable... I suppose?"

Vlad looked around with a gaze as complicated as the dust piled there and could not decide whether it would be all right to hand this place over to the dwarves.

To the point that he thought perhaps it really would be better to leave it as a place of memories, just as Zemina had said.

----!

Unlike Vlad, who was sighing, however, the young lizard that had poked its head out from the sword at some point had both eyes sparkling.

Though it had cooled cold, it was a familiar furnace.

The young lizard that had hesitated atop the flower of the World Tree clearly remembered the old furnace that had burned together with the old man.

"Well, if it did not like it, it would have asked me to find another smithy."

The friends who had ridden together with him on the sword all this time had left one by one after finding places that suited them, but only the young lizard had not found a suitable place to its liking.

Yet that small, unimpressive old furnace was more to its liking than any place it had seen until now.

CREAK.

Between the gap of the door closing quietly, one young seed silently descended from the sword.

As its twitching rear disappeared into the furnace, a warm energy began to be felt from the smithy that had been as silent as death until just now.

* * *

It was a familiar wheat field, no different from any other, yet somehow it looked as though a single drop of black paint had been added to it.

Was it merely her imagination that not only the wheat field, but everything in this territory felt that way?

"Lady Justia. Here."

"..."

Holy knights who had once belonged to San Rosino but now belonged to the Northern Orthodox Church.

They had now come to the territory once called the Barony of Uthman and were examining the signs of a wicked being.

"They are all rotten."

"They have not merely rotted."

As if telling her to look at this, the knight began rubbing the wheat grains wildly between his palms.

The ones among the black-rotted wheat that had at least retained their proper color.

Yet inside that wheat, the things that should rightly have been there could not be seen.

"Even the ones still alive have all become empty husks."

"..."

Justia looked at the remnants of wheat scattering weakly from his palm.

Broken grains of wheat drifted powerlessly along the wind.

"Why did only this place become like this?"

It was the worst drought in history.

Yet what was strange was that every other place except the Barony of Uthman had shown an ordinary yield no different from previous years.

At the sight of only the fields here looking as though they had been stamped by ink-stained fingers, not only Justia but the other holy knights as well were left speechless.

"We must investigate more deeply. Let us request support."

"Understood, Lady Justia."

Even now, behind them were farmers weeping that this year's farming had been ruined.

For people with no lord to protect them and no land to accept them, the wheat fields that had died black must have been like a death sentence.

"..."

Justia's thin brows, as she looked at them, were carving deep marks between her eyes.

The Barony of Uthman that had caused such an uproar in the North had disappeared, but the wounds they left behind still seemed to remain here.