Chapter 175 - The Iron Duke's City (2)

Winter was not a good season for traveling anywhere.

The weather was cold, the roads were hard, and sometimes the falling snow blocked the way.

But for lords who were busy all year round, winter was the only season when they had even a little leeway, so holding the northern council at this time of year was unavoidable.

"It's cold as hell out here."

Feeling the cold cling all the way down his throat, Vlad finally let a curse slip.

The group was headed for the Iron Duke's city to attend the northern council.

The procession, moving with Rutiger of Bayezid and Baroness Heinal together, certainly looked solid and sturdy, but even so, there was no way to block the approaching cold.

THWACK! THWACK!

As everyone walked while even conserving the warmth of their breath, there was one person striking something alone with his fist.

The person who shattered the icy silence and drew the group's attention.

It was Nibelun, the beastfolk advisory mage serving Vlad.

"... What do you keep beating like that?"

"It is a warmth pouch."

Vlad narrowed his eyes and began quietly watching Nibelun's actions.

Because he knew full well that whenever Nibelun took something out of his backpack, he worked some strange mystery.

"A warmth pouch?"

"Yes. It is warmth brought from the far south. This fellow is so lazy by nature that he will not wake up unless you hit him."

"... Oh. Is that so?"

Vlad did not understand a single thing Nibelun was saying, but he merely nodded quietly.

It was a mystery because it could not be explained.

And he was a mage because he could not be understood.

"Ah. It is awake now."

Along with Nibelun's words, the little pouch that had been getting beaten began to wriggle as it gave off a faint red light.

Would it be a mistake to say it looked as if it were being forced to get up from beneath a warm blanket?

"Is it going to get warm now?"

"For about half a day. Once you wake it, it will move that long."

Wondering if there might be a spirit inside the pouch, Vlad closed his left eye, but what he saw was not a spirit, only a hazy shimmer that was hard to make out.

It was also proof that Vlad's world still did not deeply understand the existence called mystery.

"Do you have one more of these?"

"No. This is the only one."

"Is that so?"

No sooner had Nibelun finished saying it was the only one than Vlad's eyes began to flash.

Together with that, Vlad's hand shot out sharply.

"Huh?"

"Then let me borrow this for a moment."

It was a pickpocket's skill that could not be avoided even when one knew it was coming.

Nibelun ended up looking flustered as he stared at the warmth pouch that had somehow passed into Vlad's hand.

"... Is this perhaps magic?"

"No. You just got taken."

In the sense that you had to experience it to understand it, perhaps they were a little similar.

Leaving Nibelun behind, still staring wide-eyed, Vlad drove Noir toward the carriage up ahead.

"Lady Alicia. It is Vlad."

If he had something like this, he should have taken it out sooner.

Clutching Nibelun's pouch, Vlad went to Alicia's carriage as if there were nothing to think about.

"Are you all right? Can you endure it?"

Through the slightly opened carriage window, Vlad could see Alicia curled up tightly.

As he had worried, the cold of the North was harsh for Alicia.

Unlike this place, her territory of Deirmar was warm enough for lemons to grow.

"I am all right. Still, it is more bearable than the chill blowing through my heart."

"... If so, that is a relief."

But even though she was shivering from the cold, Alicia's eyes still seemed filled with a strange heat.

At the end of that heat, slowly burning through a clinging sense of defeat, Vlad was certainly there.

"Please take this. It is a secret art my mage brought forth."

Rutiger was the person responsible for this procession, but the one escorting Lady Alicia was Vlad.

Alicia quietly looked at Vlad's hand as it reached through the cold air.

"What is this?"

"He called it a warmth pouch. I do not know much about it either."

Because of her wounded pride, she did not want to accept it, but the warmth coming from Vlad's fingertips was hard to ignore.

It was a warmth that made even the cold expression she was forcing while pretending to be angry crumble.

"... If you pay this much attention to me, will Miss Zemina back in your hometown not be worried?"

"I do not know why Zemina's name is coming up now."

Worried that she might refuse, Vlad heard Alicia's sulky remark and began smiling as if relieved.

"Right now, I am thinking only of Your Ladyship's well-being."

"... You have quite the silver tongue."

Right now, he was Lady Alicia's knight.

Hearing those words, Alicia tried to respond coldly, but she could not help the chill melting from the corners of her lips.

For Alicia, who had little experience with men, Vlad's way of approaching without hesitation at the moment she needed it most was also hard to resist.

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

With those words, the carriage window quietly closed.

Feeling Vlad's presence leaving again after saying only what he had to say, Alicia quietly looked at the pouch Vlad had given her.

Indeed, he had called it a warmth pouch, and just as the name said, she could clearly feel the warmth it gave off.

"... Urgh."

Duncan, who had been listening to their conversation from right in front of her, ended up letting out a groan like a pained moan.

'She has no resistance at all. No resistance to men.'

The old knight looked at his young lord with a pitiful expression.

Alicia probably did not even know what sort of expression she was making right now.

Until just a moment ago, her eyes had been fierce enough to devour someone, but seeing Alicia smiling loosely just because she had received a single pouch made Duncan feel as if his insides were boiling.

'They all passed away far too early.'

Duncan sincerely wished the former Family Head were sitting where he was now.

If that person had been here, he would have struck that brazen bastard's face as Alicia's father.

* * *

One ducal house and one comital house.

And five baronial houses, making seven houses in total.

These houses were the pillars of the Northern Alliance that currently supported the North.

"Maringen, Romnie, Podmills, Harkita..."

Noir was staring wide-eyed in surprise at the shapes wriggling in front of him.

Crests that seemed to be alive and moving.

That was Dorothea's mystery, expressed through dyes and paints.

"Don't other knights usually memorize the crests of other houses as soon as they receive a title?"

"I did learn them."

But her mystery had now become a mere teaching aid, drifting before Vlad's eyes.

"Then why don't you know them?"

"I said I learned them. I did not say I knew them."

He had learned them, but did not know them.

At Vlad's shameless excuse, Dorothea was left speechless.

"Still, all the other knights will know them. How embarrassing would it be if you went there and you were the only one who could not recognize the flags of other houses?"

"That is why I am learning them now. I can learn them now and use them."

"Eek...!"

When she had first seen him, he had been a young squire who could not even ride a horse properly.

But now, seeing Vlad even talking back openly, Dorothea could only tremble.

"Right. Like Vlad says, he can learn them now and use them. It is better than strutting around with empty airs like those other fellows who act like they are knights."

"... You say that comfortably because you are not the one teaching him."

Rutiger, who had been listening to their conversation from the side, began butting in with a grin.

"In any case, he only has to avoid any major mistakes there. The northern council is a gathering of lords to begin with."

Though he spoke in jest, Rutiger was judging the situation accurately.

Vlad was attending the northern council by none other than the Iron Duke's invitation, but even if he went, there would not be anything in particular he could do.

"He just needs to go, greet people properly, and come back. That is all he has to do well."

What Vlad could gain from the northern council would probably amount to making connections.

Of course, that too was extremely important, but the northern council was not exactly a social gathering to begin with, so just as stated, he only had to greet people properly and come back.

"It is finally in sight. The Iron Duke's city."

"Where?"

At Rutiger's words, Vlad hurriedly cleared away Dorothea's mystery.

Dorothea complained about him handling her mystery carelessly, but Vlad simply focused on the sight before his eyes.

"Wow..."

A tall cliff stood upright over the white plain covered in snow.

The cliff, rising so majestically that it could almost be called a mountain, was showing off its presence as it looked down on the flat plains around it.

"You see the fortresses nestled between those cliffs?"

"Yes."

Vlad, who had been marveling at the grandeur of the cliff for a while, turned his gaze to where Rutiger was pointing.

Was it because of the nature of the rocks that formed the cliff?

The human walls visible between the steep cliffs were a dull grayish-white, yet they glittered in the sunlight.

"That is Bastopol, the Iron Duke's city. The oldest city in the North."

"... Bastopol."

A huge wall that seemed impossible for anyone to break through easily.

A vast city sat atop the cliff that rose high as if defying gravity.

"And according to the founding legend, that city was the one that resisted the dragon until the very end."

Baranoff, the only ducal house in the North, was a family that had existed even before the founding of the Empire.

And the city of Bastopol they were said to have built was also mankind's last bulwark, the place that had kept its flag raised against the most perfect dragon until the very end.

"... It is magnificent."

Looking at the grayish-white cliff glittering in the distance, Vlad began to smile.

The shape of the cliff rising alone with nothing around it somehow stirred some part of Vlad's world.

THUMP!

A city that thrilled him because he was seeing it for the first time, yet for some reason seemed to be calling him.

The city on the cliff, which he had never seen in his life, was certainly making Vlad's heart beat.

* * *

GRRRIND.

GRRRRRIND.

"... Hmm."

The Iron Duke's estate in the city of Bastopol.

In the basement located in its deepest part, an old man was letting out a low groan.

"It is reacting far more violently than it did back then."

Fernand, the Iron Duke's mage, was staring at two caskets trembling as if an earthquake had struck.

Two caskets, tightly sealed by chains containing divinity.

One had originally been held by Baranoff, and the other had been held by Ravnoma, which had now been destroyed.

"... What dragon has awakened this time?"

A sealing casket containing a fragment of the most perfect dragon.

The old mage's eyes wavered as he looked at that casket.

It had reacted even when the Lindworm, the fastest dragon, appeared, but it had not vibrated as intensely as it did now.

For it to react this much, perhaps the dragon potential it possessed had to be dense.

GRRRRRRIND.

Or else it had to be that close.

"I must report this."

As the vibration of the sealing caskets was no ordinary matter, Fernand quietly began unfolding his mystery.

When the hand seals formed by his fingertips created a formation in the air, waves that looked as if the Milky Way had been melted down began pouring out from there.

A huge door located in the very deepest part beneath the estate.

The dark corridor leading to it began gradually lengthening in accordance with the old mage's incantation.

The corridor, growing narrower and stretching longer as if it had been pulled taut, naturally began increasing the distance from the world above.