Chapter 192 - The Flag Is a Red Rose (2)
11 min read ·
In the deep sea, where it seemed light had never once reached.
There were pale bubbles rising from that place.
The bubbles burst the moment they touched the surface, scattering the breaths they had held and melting into the fog of the same color.
-...
If one looked up from beneath the deep sea, the rippling surface would likely look just like the night sky.
Just as it did to the one watching now.
At the sight of the golden cluster of light it was meeting for the first time in so very long, the eyes sleeping in the deep sea began to stir little by little.
Bubbles were rising from the darkness.
Following the light visible up above, on and on.
Without stopping.
Perhaps the fog had grown thicker than usual because of the bubbles that kept floating up without rest.
※※※※
“Ooooh...”
Nidavellir’s forge was filled with sweltering heat.
As he looked at the brass pipes ceaselessly spouting steam, Nibelun let out an exclamation as if entranced.
“I cannot understand by what principle these things move.”
“Calm down a little.”
“How do they move on their own?”
“No matter how I look, I cannot see any mystery.”
When Vlad and Nibelun moved their gazes along the brass pipes, they found a long row of bellows that looked as if they might be the size of an ordinary ship.
The bellows, blowing air on their own without anyone moving them, truly gave even Vlad a strange sense of pressure.
“Why in the world did you bring that cat with you?”
“... It is not as if I particularly wanted to bring him either.”
Perhaps a little embarrassed by Nibelun making such a fuss beside him, Vlad ended up letting out a sigh.
In truth, he had already been feeling somewhat uncomfortable because the blacksmiths had been giving him looks for a while now.
“The new armor you gave me is really good.”
“I thought the increased bulk would get in the way compared to before, but it didn’t at all.”
“Hmph.”
“Young brat, and you’ve already learned how to flatter.”
“No good can come of you.”
“I only said it was good because I liked it, but you sure are making a big deal out of it.”
Entering Rukhta’s workshop, Vlad winked his left eye toward the old blast furnace.
Seen through the world, just as Varadis had said, there truly was a young lizard there looking at Vlad.
“By the way, can nothing really be done about the actual sword?”
“I don’t think anyone but you could handle it, old man.”
“You brat.”
“Did you leave something in my care?”
“Be satisfied with the armor.”
“I haven’t left anything in your care, but hasn’t Jorge left quite a bit with you?”
It was a little cheap of him to bring up an old connection, but Vlad did not want to let this chance slip by.
Because right now, standing before him was the finest craftsman among all the blacksmiths he had ever seen.
Vlad vaguely guessed that if not now, he would never be able to have the blade sharpened.
“... Damn brat.”
When the old dwarf silently held out his hand, Vlad grinned and placed his sword on top of it.
The young lizard watching the sight seemed to recognize the sword it had ridden in on, and its eyes began to sparkle.
“A life debt is a stubborn thing.”
“I can’t stop paying it even at this age, old enough to become a corpse.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Still, I thought there would be no one but you who could look at it.”
His tone was curt, but the hand that accepted it was careful.
Rukhta examined Vlad’s sword with a sharp gaze, then ended up letting out a small sigh inwardly.
'So that’s why.'
Seen with a craftsman’s eye, the blue sword’s blade was indeed so ragged that Vlad had every reason to be impatient.
It was a blade so dulled that it was a wonder he had managed to cut down enemies with it until now.
“You only need to sharpen the edge.”
“I’ll find a way to get the material you mentioned before.”
“... Even if you had the material, this edge can’t be sharpened.”
A blacksmith who had spent his entire life beside fire was saying he could not sharpen a single blade.
Looking at Rukhta, Vlad froze in place as if bewildered.
“You can’t even sharpen it?”
“Is meteoric iron that hard to handle?”
“That’s not it.”
“I don’t mean difficult in that sense.”
The sword the Divine Maiden of the World Tree had made by calling an old blacksmith from beyond the threshold of the afterlife.
Because both the material and the process of making it were far from ordinary, he had thought it would not be easy to handle, but he had never imagined even Rukhta would shake his head.
“What do you mean, in that sense?”
“I’m saying that, apart from the question of skill and materials, no one would be able to sharpen its edge.”
“Because...”
Rukhta quietly looked down at Vlad’s sword, then flicked the flat of it with his finger.
A sound spread through the forge with a low hum.
It was a ringing so clear that it could be heard distinctly even amid all the noise around them.
“Because this is not a sword.”
“... What?”
“I mean the one who first broke it in merely made it look like a sword.”
At the slow-spreading sword ringing, the young lizard began shaking its head as if delighted.
With his left eye closed, Vlad could see faint clusters of light leaking from his sword along with that ringing.
“... I don’t understand what you mean.”
“You’re still a little too young to understand it properly.”
Before Vlad knew it, Rukhta had turned away from him and was holding the hammer he had set down.
Then the dwarf craftsman struck the red-hot lump of metal without a word.
Vlad simply stared blankly at Rukhta’s back as he brought the hammer down in silence.
“You cannot force a shape first onto a young possibility that does not know what it will become.”
CLANG!
CLANG!
Within the indifferent hammering, the lump of metal that had only been glowing red gradually began to take form.
An ingot born as a meaningless lump of stone, reborn into a new shape before fire and hammer.
Yet there was no way to know whether that gradually changing form was truly the one it had wanted for itself.
“Take care of yourself.”
“Perhaps today may be the last time you and I see each other.”
With those words, Rukhta simply immersed himself in his work in silence.
Because he had given all the advice he could give.
Whether that advice would be understood or not depended only on Vlad, the master of the sword.
“... The last time, he says.”
“What an unlucky thing to say.”
Watching Rukhta’s back as he said nothing more, Vlad slowly began walking back the way he had come.
The blacksmiths in the forge he saw on his way out all looked busy enough to have no time to breathe.
Perhaps they were all preparing for the coming storm and putting edges on steel.
※※※※
“Barbosa’s fleet has entered our waters.”
“According to reports, it is a fleet of at least more than forty ships.”
At the reports coming from beside them, the chieftains’ faces began to darken.
Forty ships was one thing, but the fighting force aboard them would number at least more than a thousand.
Yet Nidavellir had only seven warships and several hundred dwarves capable of opposing those forces, so it was only natural that the atmosphere in the conference room darkened.
“... What had to come has come.”
Yet even now, as the crisis drew closer by the minute, there was not the slightest wavering in Great Chieftain Olmukar’s eyes.
Because not only Olmukar, but everyone here knew that something like this would happen one day.
They had merely hoped that day would not be today.
“When will Barbosa’s fleet arrive?”
“If they come straight without losing their way...”
“Probably within three days.”
“Three days.”
They had been this close.
The distance between humans and dwarves.
Even now, a few of the chieftains were saying in hushed voices that they should hold their breath and wait for the typhoon to pass, but Olmukar sensed that they could no longer avoid the Golden Duke’s threat.
“Joseph of Bayezid.”
“Is the proposal you mentioned still valid?”
“Of course, Great Chieftain.”
“We of the North still wish to form a close relationship with Nidavellir.”
“Then can the North provide any support at all against the present threat?”
“We could, but time would be the problem.”
The enemy was right before their noses, and for the North, the nearest harbor was only Nassau.
It was effectively impossible to send the ships there sailing all the way here within a mere three days.
“I know that much.”
“I only want to send the children and the elderly somewhere safe, at least.”
“Would that much be possible?”
A last stand with no way to flee was a concept that applied only to warriors.
As the leader of Nidavellir, Olmukar, who always had to think of what came next, intended to send at least the old and the weak away from this island.
“I respect your choice, Great Chieftain.”
“For that much, Bayezid’s discretion alone should be enough.”
“Thank you.”
An old saying of the dwarves held that only one who extended a hand in a moment of crisis was a true friend.
Although the North and Bayezid did have something they wanted from them, with goodwill of this degree, it would be fair to judge them as humans completely different from those of the West.
“From now on, requisition every ship except the warships.”
“Even fishing boats with nothing but planks laid over them will do.”
“Understood, Great Chieftain.”
From the age of the most perfect dragon to the current age of the Empire, there had always been beings trampled beneath the vast world, in every era.
Only the names of those doing the trampling had changed, and in a reality that had not changed at all, the powerless once again had no choice but to leave the island that had been like a homeland to them.
“Why is the mood like this!”
“Since what we must do is clear, is that not all the better!”
BANG!
The Great Chieftain, who had once again told his people to prepare for a distant evacuation as if from a time long past, did not try to hide his lips trembling with anger.
“If they come, we drive them off, and if they threaten us, we smash them!”
“That is the only way, so there is nothing to agonize over!”
From Olmukar’s mouth, as he prepared for the final resistance, poured a fervent speech like molten iron.
“This island is our last!”
“If we lose even this place, our descendants will wander all their lives like the beastmen who lost even the homeland to which they could return!”
They could not repeat the same mistake as before.
At Olmukar’s words that they should prepare for the final resistance, the elders nodded.
The only one who could save oneself was oneself.
The dwarf liberation front Nidavellir was a gathering of those who had vowed to do exactly that.
※※※※
Unlike yesterday, Lemnos Island began to grow busy.
Because everyone here knew well that there was not much time left to leave the island and avoid the coming storm.
“I’ve never seen an evacuation line in my life.”
“I have.”
“Where?”
“There’s a place called Wisteria Village.”
It was the same sight as back then.
The sight before him now, of old people laboriously carrying packs on their backs and women hurrying along while holding children’s hands.
The harbor, where everyone forced themselves to take steps their feet refused, was filled only with a heavy atmosphere.
“How many do we have?”
“About fifty?”
“Surprisingly, not that many.”
“The people here all know the Zemina needs repairs too.”
Haven seemed thoroughly deflated by the reality of carrying unexpected refugees, let alone receiving the payment he had been expecting.
Even so, the reason he did not show it was probably out of consideration for the children passing by him.
“Put all those people on other ships.”
“Hm?”
“I’m telling you not to take even a single refugee.”
While Vlad watched the refugees for a long while, he saw in the distance a group of blacksmiths boarding a ship while carrying a familiar blast furnace.
In the old blast furnace he looked at with his left eye closed, a young lizard had poked out its head, drooping as if dejected.
“Why?”
“There aren’t enough ships to carry them as it is.”
Vlad nodded as he looked at Varadis, who was watching him from aboard the ship.
The Divine Maiden’s revelation that he would recognize it only when he encountered it.
Having already experienced a revelation once before, Vlad decided not to ignore the warning his intuition was giving him.
“I have a bad feeling about this.”
Behind the harbor where the sunset was falling, small boats leaving the island filled the water.
Following behind them, the Zemina also slowly began to unfurl the sails it had kept folded.
Only the fluttering rose flag above the swelling sails faced Lemnos Island.