Episode 41
Rurik eventually left the detached palace before the sun even rose.
His adjutant, Jesus, happened to be coming up the stairs.
It seemed he had been on night duty.
“You’re already awake, sir?”
Although he said that, Jesus wasn’t surprised at all to see the Commander awake since the crack of dawn.
Rurik also replied indifferently.
“Were you on duty? Anything to report?”
“Nothing special, sir. However, the Magic Tower Lord entered the palace late last night, and there has been no report of him leaving yet.”
Rurik furrowed his brow just enough that it would only be noticeable if one looked very closely.
The Magic Tower Lord, Ren Daphte, appearing here and there unexpectedly was not particularly newsworthy.
“Understood. Get some rest.”
High-ranking knights like Jesus often stayed in the same detached palace as Rurik.
Rurik moved his steps and headed towards the main palace.
The excited atmosphere from the banquet, which had lasted late into the night, still floated in the dawn air, mingling with it.
It felt wrong.
At the very least, the victories he had witnessed were not something to be enjoyed so merrily.
He resolved anew that once he finished his current business, he wouldn’t even pass near the main palace until the thanksgiving ceremony was over.
“Where is the Magic Tower Lord?”
Rurik asked the imperial guards standing watch on the upper floor.
“We believe he has been in His Majesty’s office since last night.”
“You mean he’s still there?”
He asked again in puzzlement, but the guard’s answer remained the same.
“To my knowledge, yes.”
The Emperor, perhaps because his stamina was gradually waning, had recently been strictly adhering to his bedtime.
‘Then, does that mean the Magic Tower Lord stayed all night in the Emperor’s unattended room?’
But when he went to the Emperor’s office, the guards stationed at the door answered about the Magic Tower Lord’s whereabouts as follows:
“His Lordship, the Magic Tower Lord, just left.”
“Just now?”
“Yes.”
Rurik glanced through a corridor window at the dark sky where the sun was just about to rise.
Seeing his displeased expression, the guard cautiously added,
“He was sitting at the innermost desk all night. I believe he used the stairs via the western corridor a short while ago.”
The guard was testifying that the Magic Tower Lord had not used magic recklessly within the imperial palace, while also explaining why he and Rurik had missed each other.
After a moment’s thought, Rurik said,
“…I will step inside for a moment.”
The guard flinched reflexively but couldn’t bring himself to say ‘no’.
The second prince’s momentum was immense after this recent victory.
Having newly expanded territory amounting to one-seventh of the empire’s total land area, it was only natural, wasn’t it?
Knights and soldiers even called him the God of War among themselves.
To those who had seen and experienced him up close, the nobles’ talk of the Emperor ‘using’ him sounded utterly absurd.
Just who was using whom?
The old Emperor, using that fearsome war demon?
Regardless, Rurik entered the Emperor’s office, leaving the guard standing there dumbfounded.
He then turned his gaze to the innermost desk where the Magic Tower Lord was said to have sat.
‘What did he do all night in this spot?’
His red eyes carefully scanned the nearby objects.
Documents piled mountain-high on the large desk, relatively neat bookshelves, chests left neglected and covered in dust…
Suddenly, he felt a strange sense of incongruity from those chests.
‘Was something here?’
He saw a square dust mark.
Rurik shifted his gaze, looking for the chest that had been moved recently.
It was placed fairly deep inside, but it alone was spotless, without a speck of dust.
Clearly, it bore the traces of a mage’s touch.
‘Would Ren Daphte leave such a mistake?’
No, it couldn’t be a mistake.
If he had wanted to hide his tracks, he would never have left any traces.
Rurik glanced furtively at the office door he had left slightly ajar, conscious of the guards.
However, it was still far from the time the Emperor would wake, and allowing him into the unattended room was not something the guards could boast about either.
‘So, it probably won’t be reported to His Majesty.’
Therefore, Rurik opened the lid of the wooden chest.
He was merely afraid that the Emperor and the Magic Tower Lord might have schemed to spirit Louise away right before his eyes; he certainly had not intended to find ‘that’ kind of object.
What emerged from the wooden box was a single, slim, old book.
Unintelligible ancient script was written on the cover, but he was certain it was a book about the demonic sword.
Because the sword he had carried for half his life was depicted largely on the cover.
‘Belih…’
Like a magnet drawn to iron, Rurik reached out as if entranced and grabbed the book.
Instantly, an electric sensation ran through his palm.
He flinched and tried to let go, but it wouldn’t release.
—Fliiip, flaaap.
Inside the windless room, the pages began to turn on their own.
‘What…’
While his fingers twitched, the movement of the pages abruptly stopped in one particular place.
Immediately after, a voice he had never heard in his life, yet felt intensely familiar, echoed thump, thump inside his head.
“Offer victory to the starving sword.”
Just as he involuntarily drew a sharp breath, the book fell from his palm.
—Thud.
Yet, the opened page remained spread out, unmoving, as if fixed in place.
The book fallen on the floor recited in a resounding voice:
“Your blood, your groans, your sacrifices shall awaken it. Pain shall turn to victory, victory to glory, and glory to death!”
A splitting headache surged, and his vision repeatedly turned red then black.
Rurik managed to exhale and picked up the book again.
Each time it touched his fingertips, a tingling sensation surged up, piercing something sensitive deep within him.
“Offer victory to the starving sword.”
It felt as if the book was roaring at him.
“Offer victory to the starving sword!”
Feeling nauseous, Rurik picked up the book and threw it back into the chest.
He hastily closed the wooden lid and left the Emperor’s office without looking back.
Meanwhile, at the Imperial territory of Geoffroy Coast.
The first group of the Imperial religious order heading towards Goldie was setting up camp tents.
It was a rather windy day, but the movements of the monks, busy driving in stakes and hanging canvas, looked quite skilled.
“This is my first time seeing the ocean on this pilgrimage, you know.”
Brother Zarya, from the inland region of Signac, whispered while pulling the edge of a tent to balance it.
“I guess that’s why, no matter how much I look, it’s still wondrous and I love it so much.”
Zarya was one of only two women in the group, along with Helena.
Helena, who had been organizing her luggage, smiled faintly.
“You’re the opposite of me. I’ve lived by the sea all my life, so this is my first time leaving the coast. Although I haven’t actually left the sea behind yet.”
The Imperial religious order heading to Goldie was moving in three separate groups.
The first group, to which Helena belonged, was moving along the coast following the northern border; Helena had joined them when they passed near Caesarea.
Zarya beamed brightly.
“Caesarea! That was the first sea I ever saw in my life.”
Helena said teasingly,
“Caesarea is famous for having the most beautiful sea in the Empire. Your standards are too high now, Zarya, you probably won’t be satisfied with any other sea, will you?”
But Zarya, staring blankly out at the sea with her russet eyes, replied,
“No, Helena. I love any sea. Just look at that horizon.”
At that moment, a strong wind suddenly blew.
One of the iron stakes fixed to the ground to pitch the tent couldn’t withstand the weight of the leaning pole and was pulled straight out.
“Zarya…!”
Helena urgently called out, but by the time Zarya turned, it was already too late.
“Ahh!”
The iron stake, unluckily, deeply grazed Zarya’s nape, and the tent, which had been barely taking shape, came crashing down.
“W-what happened?!”
Helena shouted, frantically clearing the collapsed tent from Zarya.
“Over here! Zarya is injured! She’s bleeding… bleeding a lot!”
“Oww…”
As Zarya moaned, monks came running from all directions.
“Bring something to stop the bleeding!”
“The first aid kit!”
But Zarya’s wound was clearly too deep, even at a cursory glance.
Her beige monastic robes were instantly stained red.
Helena grabbed some clean-looking pieces of clothing nearby and hastily began trying to stop the bleeding.
Zarya gasped and asked,
“I… I’m badly hurt, aren’t I?”
Helena quickly shook her head.
“No. You’ll be fine soon. Don’t speak.”
It was a lie.
The camping stake was heavily rusted, and monks with healing abilities only existed in scriptures now.
Although this pilgrimage path, which they had embarked on knowing it would be a living hell, was different from actual ‘death’… wasn’t it?
Moreover, Zarya was even younger than her.
Tears welled up in Helena’s eyes.
“Ah, it… hurts so much.”
Helena looked down at her own hands.
The cloth she held was already soaked with blood.
“Step aside, please.”
Someone approached, took the cloth, and sprinkled a hemostatic agent.
Blood gushed forth from the deeply cut wound even at that moment.
‘The wound needs to be stitched.’
Swallowing her tears, Helena looked around, but no one seemed capable of such a task.
And of all places, they were on a sparsely populated coastline.
Just then, an unfamiliar old man appeared among the monks in grey robes.
“It seemed the tent had collapsed, so I came to offer help… Is there an injured person?”
