Chapter 164 - The People Who Returned (3)

-Even when I cross the dark valley, I am not afraid, for I know He guides me.

Their voices were each different, but the prayer they recited was one.

There was incense spreading faintly along with the sound of the Orthodox Church priests reciting their prayers.

There was only a single stick of incense set in the censer, but the smoke it created was thick, and even now it continued to fill the area around the beds where Vlad and Jean lay.

As if trying to push away the fog that filled the surroundings.

"...!"

In that instant, Gunther, who had been reciting the prayer for some time, snapped his closed eyes open.

'This is!'

An ominousness that could not be described in words.

Before he knew it, the fine hairs on the backs of his hands, clasped tightly for prayer, were standing on end.

It was a warning shouted by the instincts he had built up over a lifetime.

"... Captain!"

Breaking through the orderly sound of prayer, Gunther's adjutant approached with a low cry.

He had been assigned to guard outside the door for the ritual, but now he was looking at Gunther with a deeply anxious face.

"Things outside are not normal. I think you must come out at once."

"..."

He was an adjutant who always faced situations calmly, but now the end of his words was trembling.

He looked as though he had seen something he could not handle.

"... Understood."

Although the report was spoken softly, Gunther was not the only one who heard it.

Justia, who had been praying right beside him, was looking at Gunther as he rose to his feet with a bewildered expression.

"Take my place. Right now, you are the only one who can do it in my stead."

There was starlight that had followed Vlad all the way into Jean's dream.

It was a signpost showing him how not to lose his way, and a tether he must not let go, but now that starlight was trembling little by little.

The fog in the city of Moshiam was growing thick.

Along with the small shadows that suddenly came pouring out from inside the carriage carrying the woman.

-Go. To your homes.

The children who had rushed out of the carriage were rejoicing at seeing Moshiam again after so long.

This place was the children's hometown, and also the place they had missed.

* * *

THOOOM!

"Ugh!"

Vlad staggered at the sudden vibration he felt.

"What was that?"

[It has come down.]

Quijano, who had been blocking the chapel door with his back, began clicking his tongue as he watched stone dust fall in a shower.

"What came down?"

[You saw it earlier too. The tree floating in the air.]

Jean's dream was being slowly encroached upon, and above it, the heaven-defying tree that was the source of the curse was floating.

And the branches of that tree, entirely upside down, had finally touched Jean's dream.

"They said it would be fine for three days, though?"

[Things in this world do not all go according to calculation.]

BANG BANG BANG BANG BANG!

Vlad wanted to spit out at least one complaint at the situation that had suddenly worsened, but at the impact he felt behind his back, he had no choice but to grit his teeth again.

"Just how many of them were in there!"

[I told you, physical numbers have no meaning.]

It was a sound like hail pouring down.

Countless small palms were still pounding on the chapel door.

To come outside, or to snatch the two of them.

"If I get out of here, I am definitely going to kill the bastard who made this curse."

[... Anger can sometimes be an excellent motive.]

Even without being well-versed in curses, he could tell.

That children must have died in numbers equal to the sound of palms spreading into his ears.

Feeling each and every vibration ringing through his back, Vlad's eyes were slowly growing fiercer.

[For now, the acolyte you are looking for was not there. Then where would he be?]

"..."

However, even burning anger was only effective when unleashed at the proper time.

At Quijano's question, which pointed to the essence of the situation, Vlad quickly turned his head and looked here and there wherever his gaze could reach.

But unlike the first floor or the basement, Vlad had never been to the other spaces of the church, so he could not properly say where.

[Right now, that acolyte named Jean is very frightened and exhausted. If you were that child, where would you go?]

Quijano already knew whom they had to find, but the one connected to Jean right now was Vlad.

In order to find the young acolyte in a pathless dream, they had to call to mind the tether that connected them.

"... If it were me, I would go to Lord Andreas."

[Good.]

And Vlad clearly remembered why he was standing here.

Inside Jean's dream, which was twisting horribly, there would only be one person who belonged where he should be.

"But I don't know where he would be..."

[Since you have already thought of him, the rest will be shown by the acolyte's dream.]

"What?"

Quijano's fingertip was pointing at Vlad's chest.

"Huh?"

There, where he looked down following Quijano's finger.

On Vlad's chest, something was giving off a small light before he knew it.

[Vlad of Soara. Follow your name.]

A precious name that had been given to him by a true priest, with a young acolyte serving as its witness.

In this place where everything was twisting, Vlad's identification tag was slowly shining.

It was a name he had placed deep inside his heart because it was precious.

* * *

"Bring out every torch! We have to drive away the fog!"

Along with the loud voice ringing out through the fog, the church of Moshiam began to glow as if it were burning.

Inside the torches burning brighter than their original firepower should allow, there resided holy power the priests had shaped with prayers.

'Goddamn it!'

Gunther was one of only two knight order captains even in the Northern Orthodox Church.

But even for him, what he saw now was a wave of malice unlike anything he had experienced in his entire life.

-Dad, Mom! I'm home!

-Open the door! Mom! It's me!

There were pitch-black shadows wandering through the thick fog.

They were small and faint, but with what strength they had left to knock on doors, they lingered at doorways following the memories of when they had been alive.

Waiting for their parents to open the doors.

Expecting them to embrace their curled-up selves.

"Pure malice... You vile bastards."

He could not see it, but he could hear it.

The sounds of doors as parents, hearing their children's voices, hurriedly opened them.

Each time a door opened, the lights shining beyond the fog began to go out one by one.

"So you have finally crawled out."

With a savage expression and his left eye closed, Gunther saw a bizarre shape rising from beyond the fog.

What rose, writhing, was a tree split exactly in half.

A heaven-defying tree, entirely upside down as though ignoring every law of this world.

Just as in Jean's dream, the tips of the branches of the rising tree slowly began to descend toward the city below.

As what should have stretched toward the sky sank down to the earth, the laughter of the children who had finally found their parents began to spread.

* * *

As time passed, Jean's dream grew more and more distorted, throwing the church of Varna into ever greater disorder.

Chandeliers that should have been on the ceiling jutted up from the floor, and stairs that should have been quietly attached to the walls were writhing like living snakes.

"I think I'm going to get motion sick!"

[I told you, physical things have no meaning!]

Vlad had never once grown seasick even on the black sea, but the stairs squirming like a snake's back were an exception.

Even Quijano, who was the one saying that physical things had no meaning, was staggering in a way that was the spitting image of Vlad.

"Just how many floors do we have to climb!"

[Do not shout! It makes my head hurt!]

Vlad and Quijano, who had climbed upward following the golden thread indicated by the identification tag in his hand, were only able to jump down from the stairs after they spotted a corridor connected ahead.

"Whoa... shit."

[... I suppose I really have gotten old. I was not like this in my prime.]

Shaking his head, Vlad lowered his gaze and looked down at the first floor where he had been until just a short while ago.

He had clearly climbed the stairs for a long time, and yet the gazes of the children looking up at him from down below were close enough to take in at a glance.

"Urk."

Swallowing back the sourness rising all the way to his throat, Vlad looked at the corridor right in front of him.

"This place is fine, at least."

[It has not been encroached upon yet.]

CRRRRK.

However, no sooner had Quijano spoken than black cracks began to form in the walls of the corridor.

"..."

[...]

The two, who looked at each other with pale blue faces, began running toward the direction indicated by the golden thread without either of them needing to go first.

"You and your damn mouth!"

[... The timing just happened to be unfortunate.]

CRAAAACK!

The cracks in the walls were opening wide as if they were spreading a maw.

Nestled inside the pitch-black cracks were branches that had, before they knew it, burrowed into Jean's dream.

From the branches that had descended from the sky, bizarre leaves began to bloom.

[There!]

A small door began to appear ahead of the two as they ran, avoiding the cracks.

On the polished door where the golden thread was connected, there was a nameplate that read Priest Andreas.

"If this door does not open this time either...!"

Remembering what had happened in the basement, Vlad hurriedly closed his left eye.

As Vlad's world began to swirl from inside Jean's dream, the cracks following behind them began to slow little by little.

[Wait!]

But this time was different.

The door in the basement had been a door blocking Jean's fear.

-Come in, quickly!

And the door before their eyes now was the door where a true priest was.

When the small room door opened, inside stood an old priest wearing white vestments.

As always, he was beckoning to Vlad to come in quickly.

"Ngh!"

At the end of the corridor, toward the small door the priest had opened, gold and white figures that looked exactly alike began to charge.

The black cracks following behind stretched out their branches with all their might, but in the end, they could not catch those unexpected variables who could read a battlefield.

Gold entered first into the embrace the priest had opened.

[Hup!]

When even white, who had followed behind as if protecting him, came inside, the old priest locked the small door as though he had been waiting.

BAAANG!

A massive impact, one the small door could hardly withstand, struck it.

But as Quijano had said, physical things were of no use at all inside this place.

-It is all right. It is all right.

The memory of Andreas embracing the trembling Jean.

It was small, but firm, and it was splendidly protecting the final bastion the young acolyte possessed.

It was a warmth even the black cracks surging in like waves could not easily break.

-You came all the way here.

Vlad, who had slid in and was still sprawled on the floor, looked at Andreas smiling at him.

Wearing not a bishop's robes but white vestments, he looked exactly as he had on that cold winter day when he had handed out white wheat bread.

"I said I would protect him."

Andreas smiled at Vlad's answer.

Behind him, Jean could be seen clutching his white vestments.

For some reason, the young acolyte, who seemed to have grown a little younger, was smiling faintly as he looked at the knight who had returned for him.

They had finally found him.

My young acolyte, whom I was asked to protect.

The knights who had returned into the dream for the sake of young Jean, full of possibility, were smiling faintly.

* * *

Corpses were scattered here and there around the city gate of Moshiam.

On the cut surfaces of the corpses, sliced so sharply they looked as though they would join together if pressed back together even now, writhing entrails could still be seen.

Before those corpses, a man stood with his head quietly bowed.

At the tip of the sword that held not technique but skill, not even a single drop of flowing blood had gathered.

"... There is a dragon."

There was something ahead that had to be killed.

"And spirits..."

There was something beside it that had to be protected.

The man, who had been standing as though lost in a place filled with fog, began slowly moving his feet as he looked at the brilliant blaze of light from the church up ahead.

And knights began to follow behind him.

Headless men.

A woman whose hair began blue but ended black watched them and clasped her hands as if in prayer.

"If there is something left unfinished, then you must come back."

Like the tree that had risen in the fog, the white-haired man and the headless knights were walking an upside-down path.

To finish what they had left undone, or to set right what they regretted.

"All of you are fully qualified to return."

Listening to the sounds of children running and playing all over the city, the woman of unknown identity was smiling.

A fog-filled city where pure beings, free from life and death, pain and anguish, ran and played as much as they pleased.

This was the world she had dreamed of until now.

Not a village that had burned crimson like the end of a match under God's will.