Chapter 163 - The People Who Returned (2)

The man walked, and the boy followed.

Behind the man's footprints cutting through the darkness, the boy's new footprints overlapped them.

Only the starlight following behind the two quietly illuminated the overlapping footprints.

"I feel like I've seen that sword somewhere before."

["Really?"]

The unfamiliar road had no end no matter how long they walked, and the back of the voice ahead of him strangely never seemed to draw any closer.

Just as even the darkness surrounding them began to feel faint, a sword glittering in the starlight suddenly entered Vlad's sight.

A silver sword, lavishly adorned with jewels of every color.

But the familiar shape hidden behind all that splendor stirred something somewhere in Vlad's memory.

"It looks expensive at a glance. Is that yours?"

["'Yours,' is it? That's a terribly shabby way to address someone."]

"Then what am I supposed to do? I don't really have a name to call you by."

At the sight of Vlad shrugging, the voice could not help but laugh.

Now that he thought about it, they had not even exchanged names yet.

"You still don't remember your name?"

["Who knows."]

"You must have been hit in the back of the head really hard. At this rate, there was no point in going all over the place looking for you."

["Then tell me. Who have you been searching for all this time?"]

The voice walking ahead came to an abrupt stop and looked back at Vlad.

His form was close, yet somehow faint.

At the sight of him flickering like candlelight, Vlad hurriedly began to speak.

"... For starters, you have something to do with spirits. It seems like you moved lost spirits from place to place."

["Go on."]

Following the voice that urged him to answer, Vlad fell into thought and began walking behind him again.

He did not know if it was only his imagination, but the back that had seemed so far away felt just a little closer now.

"You also have something to do with other races. Elves and dwarves. Your traces were connected that far."

["And?"]

"Seeing as the white snake of Deirmar recognized you, you're connected to the first Family Head of Heinal too."

The more Vlad answered, the more his steps slowly caught up to the voice.

But Vlad himself was so focused on answering that he failed to notice the distance between him and the voice gradually closing.

"And..."

Vlad had always been thinking about it until now.

What kind of person was the voice?

Just what kind of person had ridden the black lightning and flowed all the way into him?

"The swordsmanship I use."

["Yes."]

"I heard it's swordsmanship used by the imperial family?"

["Is that so? Did it become that?"]

The swordsmanship taught to him by the unidentified voice was a precious swordsmanship said to be passed down only to imperial knights.

Seeing the voice show little concern even at the words Imperial Swordsmanship, Vlad ended up moving his lips uncertainly.

"Um, by any chance... no, right?"

["What is?"]

One word far too great to bring himself to say was caught in Vlad's throat.

The clues he had gained through his journey so far had all pointed in the same direction, and there was only one person standing at the end of it.

As long as he had not made a mistake, that was.

"Oof!"

["We're here."]

Lost in thought for quite some time, Vlad had ended up bumping his forehead into the man's back, which had drawn close before he knew it.

The distance to the man who had somehow come near was now no more than a single step.

["I nearly got lost too. I don't know who connected this, but they attached it rather roughly."]

Peeking out from behind the voice's back right in front of him, Vlad could make out an enormous tree floating in the air far away.

It was a tree of a bizarre shape, with branches plunging down to the earth and roots soaring fiercely into the sky.

"... I couldn't even see it until just now."

["That is what the existence of another is like. It can be invisible even right beside you, and clear even from far away."]

Having reached the boundary of the world called himself, Vlad could finally peer into the other world touching his own.

That place was Jean's sleeping world.

In reality, he lay right beside him, yet the world of the young acolyte he had followed through their bond was this far away.

["My name is Quijano."]

"What?"

["I would like you to just call me Quijano. I dislike all my other names."]

Vlad looked at the voice extending a hand to him.

The man who had finally found his name was introducing himself as Quijano.

"... I'm Vlad."

["Yes. Vlad. It is a pleasure to meet you."]

Before the tree twisted beyond recognition, the man and the boy exchanged names.

They were two who could not overlap in any place, neither time nor space, but at least in the worlds that touched, they could face each other.

* * *

["It will notice the moment we enter Jean's world. You were the same, weren't you?"]

"I only knew because you spoke to me."

["I told you, it's Quijano. Not you."]

The two knights standing before Jean's world took deep breaths and stepped toward the boundary of the world.

Quijano had said it.

Entering a world that belonged to someone other than oneself was an act that carried great danger.

"Let's go."

["Yes."]

But they had to go, so there was no avoiding this path.

Because even now, the strange tree floating in Jean's world was slowly descending and drawing closer.

"... What is this place?"

["Do not be deceived."]

The tips of their feet stepped forward with firm resolve.

It had certainly been a space filled with darkness until just moments ago, yet their surroundings had become a corridor filled with grayish-white bricks before they knew it.

["A church. Well, he is an acolyte, after all."]

"It looks like the church in Varna. I've been here once before."

["Is it a building you know well?"]

"... Only the basement, maybe?"

["Then you don't know it."]

The thing constructing Jean's world was the church in Varna.

For Jean, who had lived his entire life as an acolyte, the clearest place would naturally be the church in Varna.

["When you say church, it would be the chapel."]

"Do you think Jean will be there?"

["We will only know once we go."]

The highest priority for the two of them right now was Jean's safety.

The young acolyte's world, which would be devoured in three days, was still tilting somewhere with a creaking sound.

["Let us go for now."]

"The chapel is on the first floor."

Having realized from the structure that they were underground, the two hurriedly began running down the corridor.

"I'll take the lead!"

["Yes."]

The church in Varna was a meaningful place to Vlad as well.

It was also the place where Andreas had given him the name Vlad of Soara.

Recalling the memory of moving the cursed woman's coffin, Vlad quickly found the location of the stairs.

"Over there!"

["Good."]

Reaching the end of a corridor far longer than he remembered, Vlad kicked open the familiar door.

BANG!

They would already have been noticed, so there was no point in being cautious.

The only important thing was to act quickly.

Along with the door panel flying away, a spiral stone staircase revealed itself.

But its appearance was completely different from what Vlad remembered.

"Why is this so high?"

["It seems the child named Jean was afraid of the basement."]

The stone staircase soaring endlessly upward had become incomparably higher than when Vlad had carried the coffin down it.

At the sight of the stairs seeming to completely separate the first floor from the basement, Vlad could not help but be flustered.

["Let us climb for now."]

The two knights began climbing the stone staircase that had grown as long as the young acolyte's fear.

From the end of the stairs, which seemed as though it would never come no matter how much they climbed, someone's song began to be heard.

-Let's turn, let's turn, let's circle around.

-Until all the matches burn away.

["It does not seem to be a hymn, does it?"]

"I think it's a song I heard in a dream."

Though the staircase was long and long, the two finally reached the end and cautiously began to draw their swords at the song coming from beyond the door before them.

["Will you do it, or shall I?"]

"I've been the one doing it until now."

["For a young man, you have no spirit."]

The door did not budge when he pushed it by the handle.

A door that would not open was no different from a prison, so Quijano quickly closed his left eye.

"Um, Quijano."

["What?"]

"I'm not rushing you, but I'd like you to hurry."

["Why?"]

"Things down below don't look good right now."

While Quijano prepared, Vlad looked down the stairs and ended up clicking his tongue.

Like water rising, a dark fog had begun slowly climbing the spiral staircase.

Following that fog, the familiar form of a woman both Vlad and Quijano knew could be seen.

"I'm sure I even nailed the coffin shut, didn't I?"

["It seems the acolyte's memories of that time were quite intense!"]

There was a woman climbing up from below, shedding black tears.

The woman who had clung to Joseph while searching for her child.

It seemed that, for young Jean, the memory of that day had been a fear too heavy to bear.

"Hurry!"

["Wait a moment. It has been so long since I did this that it is a little difficult."]

Quijano tilted his head once, then smiled as though he had finally found the feel of it.

CRACKLE—CRACKLE!

Afterimages of lightning began flowing from his closed left eye.

From the silver sword he had drawn, a color to match it began to flow.

A brilliantly shining white world.

It was a light that even the woman crawling up while shedding tears had no choice but to turn away from.

["Hup!"]

With Quijano's deep breath, the massive door was cut away.

Seeing the sharply severed surface, cut without even a speck of dust stirring, Vlad's eyes went wide.

"I don't think you taught me a technique like this."

["This is not a technique. It is simply skill."]

Amazed at seeing Quijano's sword for the first time, Vlad looked back just in case the woman with the black tears might follow.

"...!"

But there, before he knew it, a newly formed door stood blocking the basement.

At the sight of it standing there as if the strike just now had never happened, Vlad could finally realize for certain that he was inside a dream world.

["Chapel, chapel. Where is the chapel?"]

"Follow me!"

Though it was a building he had entered only once, Vlad had grasped the layout out of habit from the back alleys, and the corridor leading to the chapel was still clear in his mind.

"Here!"

["Good. If the acolyte is here, that would be perfect."]

From inside the chapel came the strange song they had heard earlier, but the two of them had no choice.

They could only hope Jean was here.

"Ugh..."

But beyond the door they flung open, Jean, whom the two had been waiting for, was nowhere to be seen.

There were only countless gazes dyed pitch-black.

"Why are all these kids here?"

["It seems the curse has already dug in. Naturally, they are children who should not exist in the acolyte's world."]

Inside the chapel were countless children.

Their neat clothes and finely combed hair left an impression, but the eyes looking at Vlad and Quijano were empty.

["... Why is it so obsessed with children?"]

Facing the children's pitch-black eyes, Quijano lifted his gaze toward the highest place in the chapel.

The highest seat of the chapel, lavishly adorned with stained glass.

There, where the children must have been looking all this time, the church's symbol hung upside down in an ominous form.

Its appearance brought to mind the symbol they had seen in the village filled with fog.

* * *

Before the city gate of Moshiam, filled with fog.

There was a procession approaching it.

A single carriage escorted by dozens of people.

It was a procession that looked as though it served some noble, but the strange thing was that none of the guards there had ever heard them coming.

"Halt! The procession up ahead, halt!"

The fog was growing thicker and thicker.

As if the procession before their eyes were exhaling the fog.

In the dense fog, now so thick that it was difficult to make out even the soldiers right beside him, the guard captain decided to step forward personally and stop the unidentified procession.

"Where have you come from?"

"..."

When he drew closer, the carriage he could see was painted entirely black, as if it were a coffin.

But unlike its ominous color, every joint that made it up looked extraordinary.

"If you do not state your affiliation, I cannot allow you inside."

At least one of them should have stepped forward to answer, yet the procession was strangely silent.

Sensing the suspicious atmosphere, several guards slowly began tightening their grips on their spears.

"... They are all happy to have returned home."

At the faint sound coming from inside the carriage, the guard captain listened closely.

It was not the answer he had expected, but the woman's voice carried through the fog was so clear and beautiful that anyone would have lent an ear.

"Yes. Shall we get down now? This is Moshiam."

"Wait..."

At the sound of someone preparing to get out of the carriage, the guard captain hurriedly tried to stop them, but the strange sense of wrongness he felt in that instant made him hold his breath.

CREEEAK.

The sound of hinges came from within the fog.

But the guard captain was looking beneath the slowly opening carriage door rather than at the door itself.

"This is..."

Lowering his gaze to the ground, the guard captain finally realized how they had reached the city gate without a single sound.

The wheels of the carriage should have been touching the ground.

But the carriage wheels visible beyond the thick fog now were merely floating in midair.

And soon, so were the tips of the woman's feet as she stepped down.