55

On the way up from the underground prison.

The first thing he saw was a charred corpse.

The lump of coal that had once taken the form of an old woman was now barely recognizable.

Judging by how it lay collapsed on the stairs, it didn’t even have the strength to make it up to the mansion.

Hamel stared at it for a moment, then quietly stepped around it and went on.

Clank.

When he pushed the iron door, it opened with a heavy sound into the first floor of the mansion.

And the moment they stepped out there.

“….”

They could tell something was very wrong.

The interior was blackened and charred.

The chandelier on the ceiling was rusted and the wooden pillars were rotted and crumbling.

Cobwebs and mold covered the walls everywhere.

“Where… is this?”

Even the girl who had gone in and out of the basement with the old woman several times couldn’t find words at the changed scene.

But Hamel could confirm this was the mansion they had visited.

From the entrance hall to the corridor leading to the reception room.

The layout hadn’t changed from before.

In other words.

“It was an illusion, then.”

This lavish mansion had been an illusion from the start.

Not only Hamel and his party, but the children as well had been under the hallucination from the beginning.

‘No wonder they couldn’t sense the magi.’

Hamel’s party had said they found the problematic fruit near the mansion.

The area around the mansion had already been the domain of Carnosa Vinea and its subordinate, the Trents.

They must have been slowly eroded by hallucination even before they entered the mansion.

‘Did the hallucination break because Trent died? Or because of something else…?’

It was unclear why it had happened.

But at least in this moment, just freed from the hallucination, it felt real.

Hamel continued to speculate as he looked around.

Fortunately, nothing appeared dangerous.

Just old and dirty.

Then a strange sound came from somewhere.

Crack.

At the regular sound, Hamel sensed someone was there.

“Rena, and Ono, stay here with the children.”

“Yes.”

“Sir Daniel, please follow me.”

“Very well.”

Hamel drew the sword he’d taken while coming up from the basement and went forward.

The sound came from beyond a nearby door.

It was the mansion’s garden.

Hamel threw the mansion’s door open without hesitation.

And there stood an unexpected figure.

“…You are…”

“Ah, you’re the priest.”

A gaunt man wearing a kindly smile.

He was the man who had begged them at the hut to find his family.

“How did you come here?”

“I didn’t know the lord had a villa so close. I followed the priest just in case, and it led me here.”

He stopped chopping and wiped the beaded sweat from his brow with his sleeve.

Hamel quietly looked at the axe in his hand.

He had found the source of the regular noise they’d heard in the mansion.

“That is?”

At Hamel’s gesture, the man raised his axe and answered.

“Ah. It’s nothing much… but when the priest left, I wondered. I thought maybe my wife had abandoned me and run off.”

Hamel looked at the man steadily.

The man’s smile twisted.

“That can’t be, can it? That’s not what my wife told me.”

“What do you mean, ‘told you’?”

Hamel asked in a flat tone.

The man nodded.

“Yes. She clearly said she’d leave the children in the woods and come back.”

The man’s bloodshot eyes gleamed with madness.

“Why would a woman who said that be here then?”

The man raised his axe and struck the tree in front of him.

To Hamel’s surprise, red blood seeped from the tree.

On closer inspection, the tree took the shape of a woman.

Branches extended like outstretched arms, and the legs had become roots anchored in the ground.

At a glance it looked like a normal tree, but the woman’s face was still distinctly visible.

Hamel had seen that face before.

It was the mother of the children the girl had carried out from the underground prison on a packboard.

Hamel roughly understood what was going on.

But there was one thing he wanted to ask.

“Why did you try to abandon the children?”

“…Are you going to curse me too, priest? But if I hadn’t done it, my wife and I would have starved this winter.”

“So you tried to abandon them?”

“I’ve left them countless times. They kept coming back on their own. Cunning little brats.”

The man spat the words out.

Only then did Hamel realize the meaning of the bread crumbs scattered along the road.

They must have been a way for the children to find their way back home alive.

The man, still enraged, lifted his axe again toward his wife.

“…!”

Daniel, who had been watching from behind, drew his sword to stop the man.

Thud.

Hamel stopped Daniel from stepping forward.

“Hamel?”

“Wait.”

Hamel pointed at the man with his eyes and said.

There had been something off about the man’s condition from earlier.

“…Ugh!”

A moment later, the man began coughing and vomited a mouthful of leaves.

“…What is that?”

“That’s mid-stage infection.”

Hamel watched the man thrashing about.

The man’s fingernails lifted as living shoots began to sprout from them in pain.

His legs twisted as roots burst forth and embedded themselves in the ground.

Crackling.

Then, with the sound of flesh ripping, living wood grew from his chest, eyes, and mouth.

In an instant he had become a tree and no longer moved.

Daniel couldn’t help but grimace at the horrific sight.

“…Horrific.”

“It seems the fruit from the hut was also a seed of Vinea.”

For it to have progressed this far, the fruit must have been eaten quite some time ago.

“So how did it work, exactly?”

Daniel asked as if he still didn’t understand.

Hamel approached the tree-man expressionlessly and answered.

“As he said, it’s likely true he couldn’t bear the hunger and decided to abandon the children with his wife.”

“Then why did she deceive her husband and come here?”

“Who knows.”

Perhaps, as the husband suspected, the woman took pity on the children and fled with them.

Or she may simply have found the mansion at the time she planned to abandon the children and gone inside.

Only the woman-turned-tree knew the truth, and by now it hardly mattered.

“So… what will we do now?”

Daniel asked as he looked over the trees in the mansion’s garden.

It wasn’t certain, but many of them were likely humans turned into trees.

Hamel swung his sword and left a small wound on the tree-man.

Then sheathed his sword and replied.

“Vinea’s infection has stages.”

The initial stage is when plants start growing in a living human body.

The mid-stage is when one becomes completely tree-like and human consciousness disappears.

And the final stage… is when they resurrect as a Trent, like the old woman in the mansion.

“A human shape imprints on the tree’s roots. When the time comes they’ll dig through the earth and rise. That’s what you call a Trent.”

Luckily, there were no signs yet of any Trent at the final stage in the mansion.

But the trees heavy with fruit would soon become Trents and be resurrected.

In the early stage, saltwater alone can restore them.

But unfortunately, from the mid-stage onward there’s no way to return them to human form.

They had already become beings of demonic nature.

And Hamel knew only one way to deal with demons.

“They must all be burned.”

With Hamel’s coldly settled murmur he clasped his hands.

Blue flames rose from the body of the man-turned-tree.

The Azure Flame, shining brighter than moonlight and pushing back the night’s darkness, fluttered in the wind and drifted outward.

The blue flames landed one by one on the trees in the mansion’s garden.

Whoooooom.

And in the blink of an eye the blue flames rolled like a sea, pouring out brilliant light.

It was then.

With a screak the front door opened.

Ono, Rena, and the children stepped out of the mansion carefully.

“Waaaah.”

“…Beautiful.”

The girl and boy were enthralled by the scene and let out exclamations.

They didn’t make a sound, but Hamel’s party gaped at the overwhelming sight.

No one spoke; they just watched the spectacle.

Of course, despite the rolling flames they felt no heat at all.

The blue embers that fluttered like petals felt only gentle.

How much time passed like that.

Hamel lowered himself slowly and met the two children’s eyes.

“I have something to tell both of you.”

“Oh, what is it?”

When the two children cocked their heads and asked, Hamel continued calmly.

“I forgot to tell you earlier. Your father asked us to look after you. He said he had to leave the hut for some time due to work.”

“…Oh.”

The boy and girl looked at each other in bewilderment.

Hamel made them an offer.

“We are on our way to meet the lord of Lonelybirch. There will probably be a place for you to stay there. Will you come with us?”

“….”

The children’s hesitation didn’t last long.

“Yes. We’d like that. If it’s the priest, of course we will come.”

The two children smiled at each other with a maturity beyond their years.

Their composed reply somehow made his chest ache.

Perhaps the children had noticed Hamel’s lie.

They had noticed their parents’ attempts to abandon them and had returned home several times.

Hamel placed his hand on the children’s heads, patted them, and asked.

“Very well. I swear on my life to keep you safe. What are your names?”

The boy, realizing he hadn’t even said his name, let out a small “Ah.”

Then he looked at the girl and smiled as he introduced himself.

“I’m Hansel. And this is Gretel,”

“Pleased to meet you. Hansel and Gretel.”

“We are the ones who should say that.”

Hansel and Gretel bowed, then raised their heads.

“Wah!”

In the children’s eyes the sky was covered in blue flames.

Truly a cerulean sky blossoming in the darkness.

The blue flames showed no sign of dying and bloomed gloriously.

The scene, as if from a fairy tale, was genuinely beautiful.

On the road toward the manor of Lonelybirch.

As always, Daniel rode at the front.

Behind him, Hamel and Lena rode with the children in their arms, and at the very rear Ono followed, keeping watch over the surroundings.

Fortunately, nothing else happened behind them.

They’d left at dawn, so they’d likely arrive before sunset.

The children, their tension eased, heard their stomachs rumble.

“How about we eat around here?”

“Sounds good.”

As Rena’s suggestion received a nod from Hamel, it happened.

“Wait. There’s someone up ahead.”

Daniel halted the horses and said.

Hamel, who had the keenest eyesight in the party, rode up beside Daniel.

Sure enough, under the shade of some trees slightly off the road, a group of people had gathered.

They fed hay to their horses and ate simple meals themselves, all clad in plate armor.

“Knights… no, at that size it’s an order of knights.”

Hamel looked for a banner but found none.

If it were an order, there should have been flags; strange.

But only for a moment.

They began to stir over there as if they’d noticed them.

“…What shall we do?”

Daniel asked Hamel cautiously.

Being a knight himself, Daniel knew the sort of people knights could be.

Knights who chased honor and justice—the kind children admire in stories—were rare.

Most knights were killing machines who would take money regardless of right or wrong.

At least those bound to a lord fought under orders.

But penniless wandering knights with no master sometimes pillaged freely, so meeting knights on the road was never pleasant.

“Let’s go.”

Hamel said plainly and urged his horse forward.

It wasn’t baseless confidence.

For one, their armor looked expensive and well-maintained for mere wandering knights.

Their numbers were considerable too.

They were likely not the kind who roamed robbing people.

‘And another reason is…’

Even if they fought, he was confident they could flee.

If they used the dragon’s blood, they could buy enough time for their companions to escape.

Moreover, the party included Daniel, one of the top senior knights, Ono, an elite of the order, and Rena, the top graduate of the Magic Tower.

With that force, they weren’t likely to be outmatched anywhere.

‘Well, even so, it would still be risky to fight an order of that size.’

So Hamel and his party approached cautiously, slowly closing the distance.

The knights on the other side seemed to lose a bit of their swagger as the party drew near.

They relaxed even more when they got closer and saw Hansel and Gretel.

One of the knights sheathed his sword and asked.

“Who are you?”

Hamel took out the emblem of an Exorcist priest and showed it to them.

“We are from the order.”

“An Exorcist priest? What brings you here…”

The knights glanced at it and murmured, eyes wide.

“Stand aside.”

One of the knights rode forward and blocked Hamel’s path.

The other knights pulled back and bowed their heads.

Hamel looked at him and asked.

“Who are you?”

At that question, the man who had been staring at Hamel slowly removed his helmet.

White skin and black hair.

A young man with a masculine face slowly spoke.

“I am the ruler of Dekan and the defender of the empire’s north: Rupert Glenval of the Glenval family.”