Chapter 184 - A Mother's Smile (2)

Joseph's office was located at the very end of the third-floor corridor.

It was out of the way, but quiet, and for that reason, a place where one could unravel one's thoughts alone as much as one wished.

Vlad had liked that place, where sunlight lingered the longest even within the Bayezid estate.

"Lord Joseph. I'm here."

After knocking on the familiar door, Vlad looked toward the window in the corridor as he waited for a moment.

The afternoon sunlight shining through the window was still the same color he had seen back when he had been a squire.

"Come in."

And the scene revealed as the door opened was the same as well.

Jager stood there with his usual indifferent expression, and even Vordan was seated at the guest table, leafing through documents.

"You did well coming all this way, Vlad."

Many things had happened, but as Vlad looked at the still-unchanged scene inside the office, he could feel one part of his heart settling calmly.

"I'm back, Lord Joseph."

There were many greetings he could have offered, but before Vlad knew it, he was saying he had come back.

Because though the scenery around him changed frantically with every step he took, this place alone looked exactly as it had when he first saw it.

"Yes. You did well."

However, in this place where everything seemed to have stopped, there was one scene that had changed.

The man sitting ahead of him, his back to the sunlight, looking the same as before.

Yet as Vlad saw Joseph, far more gaunt than he had been when they parted, he could not help hanging a trace of sorrow at the edge of his smile.

* * *

Joseph, who had been about to take tea from the cupboard, tilted his head for a moment, then took out the bottle of whiskey beside it.

It seemed he had remembered that Vlad had liked this whiskey.

"To think you're already going around with a mage in tow. You're better than me."

"My name is Nibelun, Lord Joseph."

Joseph, who had brought over the liquor bottle, showed curiosity toward Nibelun, who sat before him.

Though from the start, the way he sat there sniffing was bound to draw attention.

"Are you from the South? A mage, and yet blue fur and amber eyes..."

Joseph's eyes narrowed as he looked at Nibelun.

Though he had grown gaunt, Joseph's black eyes had become that much brighter.

"You must be from the main island."

"... That is correct. You could tell at a glance."

"No, I just took a rough guess, but it seems I was right."

Joseph did not handle mystery, but he knew how to deduce things through visible information and intuition.

Though Vlad had spent an entire season with Nibelun and had only just learned where he came from, he could only stare at Joseph with his eyes wide and round.

"I've heard all about your exploits. I hear you made a name for yourself in Bastopol this time."

"I didn't do anything all that impressive."

But there was no need to envy what he did not have.

Because Vlad, too, was someone who possessed things Joseph did not.

From the beginning, the two of them each had what the other lacked, and so they were people who could fit together like pieces of the same whole.

"Driving off Mircea Dragulia was nothing special? That goes beyond humility."

"Does it?"

Looking at Joseph as he smiled, Vlad needlessly met Jager's gaze.

The way he seemed to puff himself up a little, as if asking him to look at this, seemed to retain the traces of when he had still been a boy.

"What are you looking at?"

"... Nothing."

If it had been before, Jager would have struck Vlad across the shin once, but he did not do so this time.

Part of it was because Vlad had now become nobler than himself, but more than that, it was because he knew Vlad was acting spoiled with him.

Boys might want to believe they had grown up, but to an adult's eyes, they were still full of clumsy edges.

"Yes. Thank you for coming all the way back to where I am."

Joseph poured Vlad a drink, then looked at the knight before him with those deep eyes.

If everything until now had been greetings, then from here on, it was time to speak of the purpose for which he had come.

"We did say we would meet again when we parted, but there was no real need for you to come back. Seeing you now, I think that is even more true."

He had brought him in thinking he would grow, but he had never imagined he would grow this much.

Looking at the blond knight he could no longer handle, Joseph raised his glass with a bitter expression.

"I will say it once more, but our contract has already ended. I have nothing more to give you, and you have nothing more to receive from me."

At Joseph's words about their former contract, the atmosphere in the office began to grow heavy.

The contract between the two, formed not through an oath of loyalty but through trust, had come entirely to an end when Joseph lost the competition for Family Head.

However, Joseph saying first that the contract had ended was likely his final consideration for Vlad.

"I intend to leave for the city of Nassau before long. The only place I can still place any hope in now is the dwarves of Nidavellir."

From Sturma back to Nassau.

Joseph, who could no longer lean on Bayezid, had to head not for land, but for the sea, in order to build a foundation of his own.

And that unknown world, where nothing could be promised, would surely weigh heavily on Joseph.

"..."

In the quiet office, the quiet sound of a plate being pushed came to him.

Vordan was silently offering refreshments to Vlad.

The plump knight was looking at Vlad with eyes that seemed desperate for something.

"... I intend to try standing on my own now."

Vlad spoke as he looked down at the plate piled high with sweets.

"Lord Joseph recognized me, and Bayezid took me in, but now I know well that I am a free being."

He had been Joseph's knight, but his contract with him had ended, and though he had been a knight of Bayezid, he had been able to become independent from the moment he received the surname Aureo.

And all of this had been a rightful freedom carried out with the consent of Joseph and Peter.

"But... if you permit it, I would like to be with you this time."

Vlad's hand moved toward the plate Vordan had offered.

Vlad still remembered.

He remembered that Vordan had deliberately pretended not to notice the sugar cubes he had secretly taken to give to Zemina.

"You said our contract is over, but I believe I still have things left to repay."

To establish his name in full, he had to be able to face himself without shame.

And what could prove that clear conscience would be nothing belonging to anyone else, but only the conscience within himself.

"Very well."

Joseph listened to Vlad and quietly nodded.

Vlad was saying he would go now not by someone else's command, but by his own will.

At the words that he would not let his own life simply flow along as it would, Joseph could finally let go of his lingering attachment to Vlad for certain.

"Then shall we prepare?"

Joseph said as he looked at Vlad, who had now completely left him, and though it would be a lie to say he did not feel regret, he was not disappointed.

Because the knight before him now was likely the brightest of all the results he had created.

"This time, it is the sea."

After confirming that the person he had waited for until the very end had come aboard, Joseph raised the glass he held high.

Since he could find no opportunity on the land where he had been born, he would go to the sea.

Having decided to burn himself to the very end, Joseph resolved to leave for the sea in order to fulfill the last duty he could.

* * *

It had now been three days since they arrived in Sturma.

However, the reason they could not leave immediately despite having decided to depart was likely because, since they were leaving in the middle of winter, they had to make absolutely certain preparations.

Even now, the yard was filled with luggage piled up for Joseph's departing procession.

"Nidavellir... Nidavellir. Nidavellir."

"Yes. Nidavellir."

Nibelun seemed excited at the thought of going to an unknown land that had never been revealed before.

Vlad, however, unlike Nibelun, was filled with unease.

"... Those arrogant bastards."

"Pardon?"

Vlad, who had been looking out the window with his arms crossed, began to head outside as if he could no longer endure it.

His bristling footsteps seemed to show just how angry he was.

"... So that is why he was angry."

Nibelun, wondering what was going on, looked out the window and could understand Vlad's feelings when he saw the scene below.

The servants were showing a halfhearted attitude even despite Vordan's scolding.

Joseph was of Bayezid blood and the Countess's son, but as if that was now a thing of the past, the servants' attitude was simply indifferent.

"I just need to carry this?"

"Pardon?"

"I'm asking if I just need to carry this."

One of the servants, who had been lazing around to his heart's content, was startled when he saw Vlad growling before him.

"No, sir. I will, I will..."

"No. It looks like everyone is tired, so go rest."

A noble knight and aristocrat.

Yet as they watched Vlad sling his sword behind his back and personally carry the luggage, the servants were screaming in silent shock.

"Once this is over, I'll let you rest for good."

"I'm sorry, Lord Vlad!"

Every time he moved a piece of luggage, the chill in Vlad's gaze grew even colder than the snowstorm blowing over Sturma's walls.

Vordan, who saw Vlad carrying luggage from afar, let out a sigh as if he had been left speechless.

He looked flustered, as though a shabby sight he had tried hard to hide had been exposed.

"It was not originally this bad..."

"Let's just get it done quickly. Before Lord Joseph sees."

Vordan was embarrassed at having the current situation discovered, but Vlad quietly continued moving the luggage as though nothing was wrong.

More than the trouble of carrying the loads himself, he was simply hurrying in case Joseph might see this sight.

"I told you bastards to just rest!"

"Your temper's the same as ever, Vlad."

Vlad had been flying into a rage at a servant who tried to take the luggage from him, but the voice he heard was extremely familiar.

"... Portly?"

"Heh heh. Have you been well?"

His only friend and patron from Sturma.

Portly, the youngest son of the Kannor Family, was carrying luggage, his cheeks trembling after having grown even plumper.

"What are you doing here?"

"I heard you came, so I stopped by... Urgh!"

But perhaps the load had proven too much for him even after he lifted it, because Portly soon put the box down.

"I didn't think you'd be doing this here."

"I didn't think I'd be doing this here either."

Looking at Portly, whom he had met again after so long, Vlad's stiff expression eased, but he did not let go of the chill engraved in his gaze.

The servants were hesitantly approaching to move the luggage, but their faces were still pale white.

"... How long has it been like this?"

"It's been a while. To tell the truth, Lord Joseph fell seriously ill once as soon as he arrived here."

Not only had Joseph lost his foundation because of his defeat in the competition for Family Head, but he had also fallen seriously ill as soon as he arrived.

Perhaps among Bayezid's retainers, there might even have been a few who would rather he die like that.

"The priests came too, and it seems it was a rather serious matter. Though now he does seem to have regained his strength."

"Is that so?"

Though Portly was somehow carrying luggage while answering despite how hard it must have been, Vlad's feelings as he listened to him were simply complicated.

Watching a person who had been like a tree blocking the front for him gradually fall into ruin was surely a difficult sight for anyone to see.

"I'll be going along on this journey too. I think I'll be serving Lord Joseph with you until then."

"Why?"

"A new branch opened in Nassau this time. I think I'll be working there now."

With those words, Portly took a bundle of paper from his pocket and waved it in front of Vlad.

"What's that? Sausage?"

"Something like it."

When he unwrapped the paper packaging, what was revealed was not a bright red sausage, but a yellow lump of meat with an unusual shape.

"It's something like a sausage made from fish meat. Bayezid now touches the sea, doesn't it? I think there will definitely be demand."

"Oh."

At Portly's gesture for him to try it, Vlad bit into it without hesitation.

Then the salty flavor that spread through his mouth was indeed completely different from any sausage he had ever eaten.

"They say there's something called squid on the western coast. I think it might work well if we use that."

"Squid? I've seen that once too."

As Vlad stuffed the new sausage into his mouth, he listened to Portly and remembered the strange creatures that had chased after the ship along the night sea when he escaped Nassau.

He also seemed to recall Haven saying that though they looked strange, they tasted good.

"Do you have more of this? If you do, let's go to my room later and eat a little more."

Watching the servants now moving briskly, Vlad took out a familiar liquor bottle from a nearby box.

"So this was here."

"What's that?"

A liquor bottle full of a dull brown color glittered in Vlad's hand.

At the sight of the bottle, which somehow seemed sticky, Portly unconsciously frowned.

"On a shitty day like today, this kind of liquor suits it."

Joseph had probably remembered the dwarves who had taken a liking to Captain Q.

Looking at the liquor bottle that had been specially brought along for their journey to their land, Vlad nodded.

"Let's just finish this quickly and go."

"You're going to keep doing this? There are servants."

"How do I know what these bastards will do after I leave?"

Worried about Vordan, who would be left alone, Vlad decided to finish the work he had started before going.

It seemed he had already marked a few of them to deal with between moving the luggage.

"..."

The work resumed in the murderous atmosphere Vlad created.

The servants, unable even to breathe properly, began moving Joseph's luggage while standing rigid with tension, unlike before.

Seeing how they poured care into each and every piece of luggage they put down, Vordan nodded repeatedly as if he was finally satisfied.

"... Thank you so much."

There was a gaze quietly watching Vlad as he moved the luggage from above.

The noblewoman with green hair simply watched endlessly as she looked at the knight who was personally carrying luggage for her son.

A knight who had returned to her son even as everyone else was leaving.

Though what she had given him had only been a few sets of clothes and armor, it seemed that attention from back then had been that warm to Vlad.