Chapter 168 - The Golden Knight (1)

After the fog lifted, Moshiam was a place filled only with deep-carved wounds.

Its once-solid walls had collapsed, and the square that had been the heart of the city had been swept away without a trace.

What greeted the Northern Alliance forces that had rushed over in alarm at the upheaval in Moshiam was the sight of a city collapsed so miserably that it could almost be described as half-destroyed.

"... So you're telling me this scene was caused by only two people?"

Looking over the city where every kind of debris was flying about, the Iron Duke quietly scratched his eyebrow.

"Does that make any sense?"

It was a report hard to accept easily.

Even if an army had marched in and destroyed the place, it would have been difficult to do this much, yet this had been done by only two people.

"And one of them was Bayezid's brat, at that?"

"... According to the testimony of Gunther, Captain of the Orthodox Church's knights, yes."

After hearing Volkov Baranoff's report, the Iron Duke let out a hollow laugh as if he found it absurd.

But however unbelievable it was, the Captain of the Northern Orthodox Church's knights had testified to it clearly, so there was likely no room for doubt.

"I don't even know how I'm supposed to take this... I can't get a feel for it at all."

Standing atop the remains of what had once been a building, Timur looked down at Moshiam's square in the distance.

There, upon the wretched ruins, stood a golden tree, steadfast and alone.

In this city that had lost all color, it was the only thing that clearly revealed itself.

Gunther, Captain of the holy knights, had testified.

That in a city where everything had become twisted, there had been a knight who painted his own world.

The name that even the greatest power in the North would now certainly remember.

That knight's name was said to be Vlad of Soara.

※※※※

"So where is Bishop Pierre?"

Vlad was sitting on the windowsill, drinking tea.

His trembling hands looked as though even lifting a teacup was too much for them, but the light in his visible eye had completely returned to its own color.

"Good question. I don't know where he went."

"Weren't you with him until the very end?"

"I was, yes."

SQUEAK, SQUEAK, SQUEAK.

After checking the fumigator he had used one last time, Nibelun answered while putting his magic tools into his backpack.

Even though there was no way that volume should fit inside, the backpack swallowed it down just fine, gulp after gulp, and Vlad began to look at it with suspicious eyes.

"When he saw the Alliance forces coming in, he said he was going to the restroom and disappeared, but he still hasn't come back."

"He ran."

Vlad tossed back the tea that should have been savored, then grimaced.

An old man who looked like a block of wood, yet acted like a fox.

He had felt it during the indulgence incident as well, but the man was not someone he could let his guard down around.

"If we had him, we could have learned the details for certain."

As Vlad said, the crisis that had come upon them could be considered resolved in some way, but even now they had learned nothing at all about the person who had caused it.

Not her purpose in ruining the city to this extent, and not even her name.

Seeing Vlad move his lips as if in regret, Nibelun rummaged through his clothes.

"Actually, something like this had fallen under the tree."

"What's this?"

Nibelun was a mage who chased mysteries.

By nature, mages regarded the clues to mysteries they discovered as treasures and did not easily show them to others, but Nibelun did not do that with Vlad.

"I don't know very well either, but it didn't look ordinary."

What Nibelun handed over were fragments of something that looked like pieces of glass.

The pieces, which looked like shards of a shattered bead, somehow seemed familiar.

"Is it all right to bring this here when they're still investigating?"

"Isn't anything that has fallen on the ground originally without an owner?"

"Well, that's true."

It was a very Beastfolk-like answer, and a very back-alley kind of acceptance.

"You don't know what this is?"

"I could only feel that something had been dwelling inside it. It was too horribly shattered."

There was no way he would know just by looking into it, but bored as he was, Vlad held the glass shards up to the sunlight.

Inside the glittering fragments was a vivid blue.

["It's a seed."]

"Hm?"

A glass shard that had shattered, yet still held a mysterious light.

Looking at it through Vlad's vision, Quijano immediately saw through the fragment's identity.

["Look at it through your world. Other knights might not recognize it, but you should be able to."]

Other knights might not be able to, but Vlad, who had been influenced by Quijano's world, should be able to recognize it.

"..."

At his words, Vlad quietly closed his left eye and looked at the glass shard in his hand through his inner world.

Vlad's world had now taken root firmly enough to stretch out beyond himself.

"Hm?"

In the glass fragment as seen through that world, there was a single scene dwelling within.

The sight of waves surging over a deep-blue sea.

A tree standing atop a cliff at the end of the sea was watching young spirits swimming beneath the waves.

They were spirits shaped like the creatures Haven had told him about, called squid.

"This..."

A fragment's memory came to him in a brief but intense blue.

Facing that scene, Vlad could tell that it felt very similar to what he had felt back then from the Heinal family heirloom.

["I thought it was no ordinary tree, and this was how it was done after all."]

Hearing Quijano's words, Vlad was able to realize what it was that he was now holding the fragment of.

The hill of Deirmar where the white snake had been.

The yellow amber that had been the Heinal family heirloom.

And the place in the forest of Dobrechiti where the headless troll had stood.

In all of those places, there had always been a single tree standing.

"... I really have to catch that woman."

"Pardon?"

Like the trees that had embraced spirits, the upside-down tree had also been embracing the souls of children.

Even if its direction had been wrong.

Looking at the miserably shattered core of the spirit tree, Vlad carefully clenched the pieces in his hand.

KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK.

"Come in."

Though he was not even the owner of the room, Nibelun told them to come in, and the door opened a crack.

"Are you feeling all right?"

The one who had knocked was Jean, Andreas's young acolyte.

Seeing Jean dressed in pure-white robes, Vlad hurriedly loosened the frown on his face.

"And how are you, Acolyte?"

"I'm all right. It isn't as if I did anything."

He lowered his head bashfully and said he had done nothing, but Vlad remembered Jean standing against the woman's song.

"I came to tell you the funeral has been prepared. If your body is still uncomfortable..."

"No."

With a groan, Vlad rose from his seat.

Reaching toward the armor standing beside the bed, Vlad smiled at Jean, who was waiting for him, and answered.

"It will be my last chance to see Lady Justia, so I would very much like to see her off."

"Understood."

The young acolyte approached Vlad, who had said he would go but was still groaning, and helped him put on his armor.

Bright yellow sunlight coming in through the window settled behind the two of them.

Watching the two of them quietly, Nibelun looked toward the church in the distance and raised his teacup.

※※※※

DOOONG... DONG.

The bell of Moshiam was rung by a holy knight neatly dressed in armor.

Though it had fallen from the bell tower and been dented, it was still fulfilling its original role.

"It's all been blown away."

"Even so, the first floor remains intact. That's fortunate."

The church had been completely blown away from the second floor upward, but as Jean said, the first floor with the chapel had miraculously remained intact.

-Line up slowly!

-The injured to the side!

That was why there was no other place for people to gather.

The soldiers of the Alliance forces could not hide their surprise that so many survivors still remained in Moshiam.

"This is Lord Vlad of Bayezid. Please open the way."

Hearing Jean's words, the soldiers began to look at Vlad in surprise.

So did the residents of Moshiam around them.

"It is an honor to meet you!"

The soldiers' movements as they opened the way were disciplined.

For the people who had been here, it had been only one night, but for those outside, it had been two long months.

The soldiers, who did not know the full details, were now misunderstanding Vlad as the hero who had protected Moshiam from the demonic evil throughout that long time.

"You've come?"

"It is an honor to meet you, Your Grace."

And Timur Baranoff, the Iron Duke, who was waiting for Vlad in front of the church, did not bother clearing up that misunderstanding.

Because to heal a deep wound, there had to be joy to match it.

At a time when the city of Moshiam had collapsed and the North's prestige had fallen greatly, the only breakthroughs that could calm the badly shaken public sentiment were the holy knights of the Orthodox Church and the name of the knight Vlad.

"So I finally get to see the much-rumored new star of the North in person. Of course, Volkov has already talked my ears off about you."

Recognizing the knight standing beside Timur, Vlad gave him a small bow.

The man attending Timur now was Volkov of the Javelin, whom he had seen in the past during the subjugation of the lindworm.

"Let us go in."

"Yes."

Timur wrapped an arm around his shoulders without hesitation, but Vlad was not flustered at all.

Because Vlad's head was already filled not with the favor of a noble duke, but only with the final image of Justia, who had blocked a sword for him.

-Duke Baranoff is entering!

The chapel they entered through the debris that had not yet been fully cleared was already filled with armored people.

The knights of the seven families gathered under the name of the Northern Alliance.

The knights of Bayezid and Heinal, whom he had met before, nodded proudly as they saw Vlad entering with Timur, the Iron Duke.

"Stand beside me. You have the right to."

"..."

At Timur's words that he had the right, Vlad could not answer and lowered his head.

Vlad had always sought the right to stand proudly, but at this moment, he felt ashamed at those words.

Because the ones who truly had that right were surely the people lying neatly up ahead.

-Today, we stand here to send those who acted with noble purpose to His side.

The person beside him was the only duke of the North, and the old man before him was the noble pope of the Orthodox Church.

They were enormous connections anyone would desire, but Vlad simply looked toward one coffin lying up ahead.

Her platinum-blond hair, glittering in the sunlight, had not changed at all from when he had first met her.

-We will forever remember those who fulfilled their duties even before a great evil.

The funeral of the holy knights and priests was being conducted under the pope's officiation.

But the pope's voice, slowly spreading outward, would surely reach even the people outside the church.

Because this place today belonged not to any one person, but to everyone in Moshiam.

"..."

The pope was saying something up ahead, but Vlad simply stared blankly at Justia's coffin.

The noble holy knight who had died while holding him in her arms.

They had not built many ties, but Vlad had received much from her, and now he had forever lost even the chance to repay those debts.

"Let us go."

"Yes."

Because the carved wound was deep, the consolation offered for it was made as formal as possible.

Once the knights of the North had finished their remembrance for the dead, the only ones left were the Iron Duke and Vlad.

"Don't be too surprised."

"Pardon?"

As he climbed the steps, Vlad asked back at Timur's casual words, but Timur merely smiled and looked at the pope ahead.

"Since His Holiness says he will give it to you, accept it gratefully."

Leaving behind words Vlad could not understand, Timur carefully set down the flowers he was holding and began to bow his head toward those who lay there.

"..."

The priests who had prayed for Jean and Vlad, and the holy knights who had raised their swords toward the wicked woman.

After placing flowers one by one for them, Vlad finally stopped before Justia's coffin.

"Thank you, Justia."

When he had wiped away Anna's black tears, she had stood behind Vlad as well.

But now, for her lying before him, Vlad had to carefully lay down the flowers he held.

It felt as though the salty taste of the apple she had once peeled for him lingered on the tip of his tongue.

"Vlad of Bayezid. Knight who protected Moshiam."

After carefully laying the last flowers he held before Justia, Vlad saw the pope approaching him.

Wrinkles had settled naturally on his face, as natural as a smile worn for a long time.

"Are you sad?"

"Pardon?"

Looking at Vlad's eyes, which even now were ceaselessly rippling, the old pope smiled.

"All of us must leave someday."

The pope came up to Vlad and quietly looked at his chest as he spoke.

"Though we must leave someday, the reason it need not be empty is because we leave something behind, is it not?"

"Pardon?"

The pope's fingertips were now stroking Vlad's armor.

The place his fingertips touched was where Vlad's pride hung, something he had insisted on attaching even after changing his armor.

"Justia told me I absolutely had to pass these words on to you."

Knight who protected the breaths of children.

The inscription gifted by San Rosino was still engraved on Vlad's chest.

It was the inscription Justia had gifted to the boy who had climbed toward the bell tower through the fierce rain.

"Though Justia went to His side, in the end, she too left something behind."

SSSSS.

White smoke began to rise from the pope's palm as it covered the inscription.

"...!"

Vlad panicked as he felt his armor grow hot, but the expression of the pope creating the miracle remained peaceful.

"I pray that you will become proof for all those who died."

The dead departed, but those who remained had to bear the weight.

For those who were like his own children, Pope Conrad began engraving another inscription on Vlad's chest.

Certain that their deaths would shine brilliantly beneath this name.

"I believe you will do so. Vlad of Soara."

"... Your Holiness,"

Vlad looked down at his heated breastplate and widened both eyes.

When the white smoke cleared, what he saw were two new words engraved below the inscription Justia had gifted him.

Knight who protected the breaths of children.

Vlad.

Vlad Aureo (áureo).

"Your born name may be Vlad, but beneath His name, you shall be Aureo."

There had once been a boy who could not even properly call out the name he had been given.

But now, one word that would always shine brilliantly had come to follow after his name.

That word, with the knights of the seven families as witnesses, was a name that would continue forever through Vlad's blood.