Chapter 156 - The Black Horse and the Young Donkey (1)

Round and round, let us circle the match.

Let us circle the match that sings so merrily.

Until its bright-red head turns pitch-black.

Until the song it sings comes to an end.

Round and round, let us circle the match.

Let us circle the match until everyone falls down.

* * *

The winter road was frozen hard.

The sound of hooves racing over it and the creaking of the carriage rang out loudly.

The northern wind, as dry as the hard road underfoot, was freezing the already heavy mood of the party.

"It seems the time has come for us to part."

Joseph, who had insisted on keeping the window open despite the cold, looked at Vlad and gave a faint smile.

At Joseph's voice breaking the long silence, all the knights looked ahead.

Two roads split off from the straight highway ahead.

Once they reached the fork approaching from up ahead, the party and Vlad would have to part ways.

"Take care of yourself."

"You take care of your health too, Lord Joseph."

Joseph and the knights had to return to Sturma.

It was only natural for Joseph, who had lost the competition for Family Head, to return, and the knights who had followed him would likely receive new assignments and scatter in every direction.

Regret at parting could not be helped, but for the party as they were now, it was also inevitable that the end would feel heavy.

"I'm begging you, please don't go rampaging around like you usually do. Like you did at the convent this time."

"... I'll do my best."

In the midst of it all, Jager's unchanged scolding was almost welcome.

Being made into someone's laughingstock was not welcome, but the quiet chuckles coming from here and there seemed to brighten the mood a little.

"By the coming spring, I should be able to settle somewhere. Let us meet then."

"Understood, Lord Joseph."

Joseph, promising a next time with pale lips, looked almost pitiful, but Vlad believed Joseph's words were not empty.

Because the Joseph he had seen was always a man who prepared for the worst.

"... And don't forget what I told you."

"Yes."

At Joseph's final words, spoken almost in a whisper, Vlad quietly nodded.

The advice Joseph had given him in a low voice had come from a strange rumor that the Vatican was said to be spreading.

"I hope you achieve what you set out to do as well, Acolyte."

"May God's peace be with you on your way home, Lord Joseph."

After exchanging those final farewells, Joseph quietly gave a look, signaling that it was time.

Gregory, Maksim, and Cade.

Vlad, carrying his final goodbye in a single meeting of eyes, soon broke away from the party and turned onto the opposite fork.

A black horse and one small donkey gradually moved farther away.

Even in the blowing winter wind, Joseph and the knights stood still for a moment, watching their retreating backs as they grew more distant.

The wind was cold, but the sight of Vlad guiding the young acolyte's path no longer looked awkward at all.

* * *

"You probably didn't know, Sir Knight. Every time the name Vlad of Soara was heard, Lord Andreas's shoulders would rise with pride."

The old donkey he rode was the picture of indifference itself, but the young acolyte riding on top of it was chattering away vigorously, as if he had finally found his own world.

"It was a guarantee that could have been sold for a high price, and everyone criticized him so much for throwing it away on the ground. But I bet no one says that anymore!"

The young acolyte chattering even now was named Jean.

The boy with a one-syllable name, something hard to find in the North, was looking at Vlad with pleased eyes, as if Vlad were his own source of pride.

"A name... You can sell a guarantee for money?"

"Of course. Everyone was selling them through connections. Especially the people who came from the Vatican."

Perhaps because he was Andreas's direct acolyte, Jean did not hide his hostility toward the Vatican.

Jean knew better than anyone the circumstances of Andreas, who had great renown yet wandered only through the wilderness.

"Come to think of it, the Mother Superior of Soara sold something too."

At Jean's words, Vlad recalled the convent in Soara and ended up frowning.

It had been a convent built for those who had nothing, yet the women inside had all been children of powerful people.

Pure virgins close to God.

The Mother Superior of Soara was nothing more than a merchant who borrowed God's name to sell that title.

"... For now, use this to buy jerky instead."

"Pardon?"

Jean's eyes widened at the sudden bundle of papers Vlad handed him.

On top of the somewhat thick-looking bundle of papers, the name Kannor was engraved.

"This is from the Kannor Family, isn't it?"

"I have a small connection with them."

Even a young acolyte knew that the meat of the Kannor Family was excellent.

And just as expensive.

And Vlad was one of the knights heavily sponsored by that very Kannor Family.

"It's your first long journey, so you should eat well. If you were to fall ill somewhere, that would make things difficult for me, since I was asked to look after you."

"Ah. Ah. Thank you!"

Jean tried hard to hide it, but his reddening cheeks revealed how he felt.

Since meat had been placed in the hands of a boy at that age, there was no need to explain his joy.

Under Andreas, who lived a life of poverty and simplicity, he likely had not even had a chance to see jerky like this.

"If anything is uncomfortable, tell me at any time."

He had vaguely known it already, but the grace of Andreas that he came to realize through Jean's mouth was greater than he had thought.

Watching Jean already take out a piece of jerky and chew on it, Vlad hoped that through this young priest's path of penance, he might repay Andreas even a little for the value of his name.

* * *

"Oh..."

"What should we do, Acolyte?"

The road to Moshiam, the capital city of the Barony of Uthman.

Whether the map was strange, or the person holding the map was strange, Vlad and Jean only managed to find a small village after several days of camping outdoors.

But their joy at seeing the village lasted only a moment, and the two soon stopped at the strange scene visible below the hill.

"What should we do? Shall we go down?"

"Wait... Just a moment."

Jean frowned with a face that had not yet shed its childishness, agonizing over what to do.

As Jean thought hard, Vlad merely stayed still.

The one undertaking this path of penance was, in the end, the young acolyte, and Vlad knew well that the boy's growth through that road was what Bishop Andreas wished for.

"Let's go down. We have to stop it."

"Understood."

At the young acolyte's words, Vlad nodded.

Looking without turning away was the first step of penance.

Below the hill, down the difficult path rather than the easy one, a festival was now in full swing.

It was a small village whose name was not even written on the map Vlad held.

But even though it was such a small village, perhaps every villager had come out, for the square seen from the hill was packed black with people.

"Save me! I'm telling you, it wasn't me!"

A festival, by its nature, needed a fitting sacrifice.

Someone captured for the festival was struggling and shouting at the top of his lungs.

The mask stuck tightly to his face, as if someone had put it on him, looked rather bizarre.

"I'm telling you, I didn't do it! You're making a mistake!"

Not only was he wearing a strange mask, but the man was also covered head to toe in black clothes, and though he shouted without pause, the villagers merely shoved in firewood and fed the flames.

Among them were even people plugging their ears with their fingers, as if they simply did not want to listen.

"Do not be deceived, everyone! Wicked things are by nature creatures that wag their glib tongues and deceive people!"

A man in a pure white vestment stepped forward before the people and shouted loudly.

Vlad did not know what group he belonged to, but judging by his appearance alone, he certainly looked like a priest.

"You all know of the wicked being that originated from Moshiam!"

When the word Moshiam burst from the priest's mouth, the people's gazes began to turn toward him.

A city branded with an ominous and fearful name.

Even in this distant village, they were shuddering at anything related to Moshiam.

"Why would a perfectly fine barley field rot, and why would perfectly fine well water dry up? It is all because of that thing that came crawling out of Moshiam!"

The priest's fingertip began pointing at the man tied to the pillar and struggling.

"Therefore, he must be burned!"

"You crazy bastard! Why are you burning a perfectly innocent man!"

The strangely dressed man screamed with all his might, but he was already tied up, and red-hot smoke was slowly rising from below.

Seen from afar, he looked like a crow being roasted over a fire.

"... Ah, this is fishy."

Having slipped into the center of the village while avoiding the eyes of the few militiamen, Vlad scratched his head as he looked at the middle of the burning festival.

"It's not him, is it?"

"No. It isn't."

Right now, Jean was sitting on Vlad's shoulders.

Jean, too, was wearing a pure white vestment, but the villagers' gazes had long since fixed on the priest up ahead.

Taking advantage of that opening, Jean pulled out a small magnifying glass and was now focusing it on the man just moments away from being burned at the stake.

"No matter how I look, I can't see anything. Of course, it might be an existence that even this magnifying glass can't find..."

"If it were at that level, it wouldn't have been caught like that in the first place."

Since he was only an acolyte, it was possible he could not recognize it, but if it were an existence of that level, the villagers would never have been able to capture it in the first place.

"But, well, I think I can tell even without confirming it."

Vlad and Jean, who was riding on his shoulders, were looking at the same place at the same time.

"The smoke must be made greater! So that even the God above can see it!"

Each time the firewood's flames spread brighter red, offerings piled up before the priest.

The villagers, drawn out by the mad shouts, placed the valuables they had brought before the priest and kept bowing their heads in prayer.

What they cried out was God's name, but what they looked to was the false priest.

Listening to the priest's voice grow louder and louder each time the mountain of offerings before him grew higher, Vlad ended up frowning.

"That guy's a fraud."

Like recognizes like.

Whether he truly was a priest or not, Vlad saw through his shallow trick and grabbed Jean from his shoulders to set him down.

"What should we do?"

"We have to stop it. We can't simply watch a tragedy carried out in God's name and pass it by."

Jean hurriedly pulled the Bible from his breast and looked at Vlad with resolute eyes.

The boy who had been delighted over a piece of jerky just moments ago was nowhere to be found.

"Understood. Do as you wish, Acolyte."

Perhaps gaining strength from Vlad's nod, Jean hurriedly opened the Bible and turned the pages.

It was a Bible that Bishop Andreas had carefully written, one letter at a time, for his young acolyte.

The place where the young acolyte's hand stopped as he turned that Bible was a page on which a hymn for God was written.

-Casting aside the vain idols of the world.

-Casting aside all human falsehood and injustice.

-Having answered the call, I shall go wherever I must.

The villagers had begun slowly circling the pyre to the screams of the nameless man.

But the people circling the bright-red fire all turned their heads at the refined voice that suddenly rang out.

"You there."

"W-what is it?"

As the young acolyte's voice made a path, one knight walked out along that path.

In the knight's left eye, there was a golden light anyone could see.

"Are you really a priest?"

"... Uuuh..."

The false priest, seeing the vivid forms striking his ears and eyes, bit his treacherous tongue.

The piled offerings, the speechless priest, and the innocent sacrifice still struggling above the flames.

"How about we put out the fire first and then have a talk?"

Those who stood where they ought to stand and did what they ought to do.

Bishop Andreas's sword and the young voice were seizing the false flames.