Fimbulvert (4)

‘That Messenger Clan bastard. I should have cut him down when I still could. He has grown seasoned.’

Back when Azadine had merely been a member of the Messenger Clan, he could be attacked at any time as a heretic inquisitor of the King’s Church.

But now that he had become a Holy Knight of the Rescue Knights Order, he could no longer be cut down so recklessly.

“Fine. Let us go meet Karna together. I am curious what sort of man he is as well.”

Prince Kalintz, apparently unaware of Sir Ject’s state of mind, had already taken Azadine’s company for granted.

“Even if we are to meet Sir Karna together, I do not think there is any need for us to travel together on the way there.”

Sir Ject refused to accompany either Azadine or Prince Kalintz. From his point of view, both Azadine and Prince Kalintz were men he could not stand the sight of, so there was no reason to go together.

“If you are no longer Prince Kalintz’s advisor, on what pretext do you intend to meet him?”

“My position as a heretic inquisitor of the King’s Church is more than enough to arrange a meeting. Have no concern.”

“Well then, let us go separately and act on our own once we arrive. Sir Ject, even if you resign your advisory post to the Fire Guard, would it not still be better for us to move together at least when meeting Sir Karna? Or do you intend to meet Sir Karna separately as well?”

“I shall meet him separately, Sir Azadine. Then… you have worked hard all this time. If fate permits, let us meet again in Saint Mallory.”

Sir Ject formally submitted his resignation from the advisory post at Fireglyph and left his seat.

As the cold blight spread severely throughout the world, everyone came to suspect Fimbulvert.

However, the King’s Church did not officially acknowledge Fimbulvert.

When the rightful king keeps the throne, the Light of the Crown protects the world.

In other words, if something like Fimbulvert was occurring, it meant the current kings were unworthy, so there was no way the King’s Church would acknowledge such a calamity.

But at this very moment, ice was floating in the Southern Sea and hail and cold blight were striking place after place, so to say it was not Fimbulvert was simply a lack of intelligence.

They could not officially acknowledge it, but they still had to prepare for it. That was the policy within the King’s Church.

And that method of preparation was to take possession of the fertile lands of the Rescue Knights Order through cooperation with the Northern Emperor.

But if the Northern Emperor’s grandson had become the commander of the Celestial Fire, did that not mean the Northern Emperor had been deceiving the King’s Church all along?

That was why Sir Ject threw aside his advisory post to the Fire Guard and left.

“How rash. You could have maintained the position, at least.”

Azadine made that remark after Sir Ject threw down his resignation and walked out.

“Hm. What will you do, Sir Azadine? Do you need the position of Guard Master?”

“…Is it really all right for you to offer that to me?”

Azadine was left speechless by Prince Kalintz’s offer of the post of captain of the Fire Guard.

“Hmph. Why should I care? To begin with, I do not even remember my father’s face. I am one thing, but as for him, if he saw me on the street, he probably would not recognize me either.”

“What had the original plan been?”

“When Fimbulvert drew near, there would be a struggle over this place, rich in food, the lands of the Rescue Knights Order, so the idea was to plant many of our own people here in advance.”

“That is rather blatant, is it not? Is it really all right for you to tell me that? Weren’t you saying we should speak after becoming closer?”

“Let us not waste words. Thinking it over, I realized there was no particular reason for me to be that loyal to my father’s will. It is not as though I alone will inherit the kingdom, and there are many other princes besides me.”

Prince Kalintz seemed to have been deeply wounded by Karna’s appearance.

It must have shocked him that, not just anyone, but a son of the family, had all this going on without his even knowing, and he must also have felt a sense of crisis that no matter how loyal he was to his father, he would never be able to leave a proper impression now.

His loyalty toward a father with whom he had no point of contact other than having begotten him must also have been shaken.

But this was also the kind of man who might later turn back at any time for the sake of blood ties. Azadine decided to let Prince Kalintz’s words, spoken in his hurt, pass by unheard.

“Then, as Chapter Master of Fireglyph, please write me a pass, Your Highness.”

The Chadra Plateau was a place of exile, so once one was assigned here, even a Holy Knight without any particular trouble could not easily leave the Chadra Plateau.

Azadine, moreover, was a person of interest even within the Rescue Knights Order, being from the Messenger Clan.

Of course, he had already taken control of the Southeast Rock Wall Fortress and had begun trading with the lands outside the Chadra Plateau through it, so if he wished, he could leave the Chadra Plateau whenever he wanted.

But that was a different matter from having the Chapter Master grant permission personally.

Would Prince Kalintz truly issue Azadine a travel pass?

“…Fine. I will write it for you.”

Prince Kalintz wrote Azadine a permit stating that he was being allowed to operate outside the Chadra Plateau for work-related necessity.

Having obtained the travel permit, Azadine went first to find Selim.

“Could I borrow a hippogriff? I have reason to go to Saint Mallory this time, but if I travel overland, that inquisitor may come after me.”

The heretic inquisitor Sir Ject, who had come as Prince Kalintz’s advisor, believed that Azadine still possessed a copy of the True New-King Scripture.

‘Sir Sok is an example too, so I should not be overconfident in my abilities. It is better to avoid a fight that can be avoided.’

So Azadine was planning to fly there on a hippogriff.

“What do you mean, borrow, Sir Azadine? That is disappointing. I shall give you one of my fastest and brightest.”

Selim offered Azadine the best of his hippogriffs.

“It is the finest among the hippogriffs I own. Originally, the bishop had demanded that I hand it over, but….”

Selim thumped his chest.

“You, who were the last to be knighted by wise Sir Plank, bring a new wind to this old and ailing order together with this fellow. Ah, but even for you, Sir Azadine, a hippogriff would require some practice, would it not?”

“Hmm, how does one ride it? I did at least see you riding one.”

Selim taught Azadine how to ride a hippogriff and also conveyed the precautions in detail.

Azadine wrote it all down in his notebook and received the hippogriff from Selim.

It was a stylish-looking hippogriff with red and blue feathers mixed around its neck.

“Its name is ‘Firewinter.’ It suits it, does it not? If you have something else in mind, you may give it another name.”

“It suits it well. Since it has a mane like flame and ice. And if Fimbulvert is drawing near, I will like the name Firewinter even more.”

Azadine cautiously held out a hand to Firewinter. At once, the hippogriff tried to swat Azadine’s hand with its foreleg.

As befitted a beast, it moved at a speed a human could not have reacted to, but Azadine, whose reflexes were anything but ordinary, lightly dodged the hippogriff’s foreleg strike and gave a bitter smile.

“Say, Sir Selim. This is….”

It was fortunate that Azadine had dodged, for an ordinary person’s arm would have been ripped open.

“Ah, it likes pranks a little.”

“A little?”

“It does. Even I get like this….”

Selim showed scratches here and there on his own body. Since he wore leather armor and was a minotaur with exceptionally thick fur to begin with, even attacks like a hippogriff’s foreleg strike only left him with slight scratches, but for a human’s bare flesh, they would have been fatal wounds.

“Haa. All right. Well, I suppose I will have to try.”

Feeling anew the gulf between Selim and humans, Azadine climbed onto Firewinter’s back.

Once he was seated on its back, however, it obediently listened well, and there was no problem in circling once around Fireglyph.

Firewinter was certainly, as Selim had recommended, an intelligent and lively hippogriff. Realizing that its earlier attempt to rake his arm had not come from malice but truly from playfulness, Azadine came to like Firewinter.

“Then may you have a pleasant journey. Show the other Holy Knights what you are made of.”

“It is not that I intend to show anyone what I am made of…. I am simply going. Do not expect anything strange.”

“Ahaha. Sir Azadine. You are flame and lightning and wind. If lightning strikes a dry field, it is inevitable that fire will rise. Even if you try to stay still, you will not be able to stop the blaze from coming.”

“That is praise so excessive it feels as though it may become poison. I really am going quietly. Quietly.”

Azadine felt bewildered by Selim, who had such strange expectations of him.

Having finished preparing for the journey, Azadine mounted the hippogriff Firewinter, flew into the sky, and headed for Saint Mallory.

A hippogriff was strong enough to carry even Selim, a minotaur, but in exchange its endurance was poor.

It could only be ridden for short flights at a time, so in the end the distance it could cover in a day was about the same as a horse’s, or even less.

But since it flew through the sky and was not restricted by terrain, it could in practice travel far greater distances than a horse.

“However….”

Flying above the forest south of Fireglyph, Azadine sensed an ominous presence within the woods.

There were living beings moving between the shadows of the forest.

At first, he suspected that Sir Ject might be lying in wait to launch an ambush, but it did not seem to be that. It looked more like a military force of considerable size was on the move.

‘What is it? Should I go down and check?’

But he feared stirring up trouble for nothing if he did.

“Kiiii….”

But then Firewinter began complaining that it was hungry.

“…So I had to go down anyway.”

Azadine searched for a place nearby where he could land and began descending carefully.

Though it was summer, a cold wind unbefitting summer was blowing from the south.

In the small village south of Fireglyph, Big Well Village, the farmer Digan shivered at the unsettling cold wind.

“Father. Will this be enough?”

Digan’s son Duns gathered some wooden planks and showed them to his father.

They were not boards sold by the lumber mill, but rough planks made by cutting nearby trees, so they would split once they dried, but that did not matter. They merely had to endure the hail somehow this summer.

“Yes. Those carpenter fellows charge too much just because they have smoothed the wood a bit.”

“Ah, but Mr. Delover from the lumber mill says some of the young laborers there have gone missing lately. He said something about seeing dryads….”

“What? What are you talking about?”

“They say beautiful women in the forest are luring woodcutters and lumberjacks.”

As Duns said that, his eyes gleamed. In his head he thought it was an absurd story, but the passion peculiar to an adolescent boy made him believe it.

And the young apprentices at the lumber mill were the same. Duns had no reason to leave home because his father Digan was with him, but the apprentices at the lumber mill, little different from serfs of the Rescue Knights Order, had no sense of duty nor blood ties to restrain them at all.

The harsh scolding of the overseer at the lumber mill must have been outweighed by the passion and curiosity common to teenage boys, driving them onward.

“They say the forest has been ominous lately, and now dryads? Good grief, you fools. Why is it that everyone does the same thing?”

“The same thing?”

“Yes, that is, well. Ahem, anyway….”

Digan trailed off. To young men living near the forest, the legend of the dryads was always bound to be alluring.

Until they wandered foolishly through the forest and came face to face with wild beasts or monsters and trembled in fear, it was hard for their passion and desire to settle. Digan had already experienced that himself in his youth.

But now was a bad time for it.

“Even so, they had to go into the forest at a time like this, when things are so ominous? They will be lucky if they do not become wolf feed before they ever meet a dryad.”