Ch 29

It was the end of May in the year 1129, when the summer evenings were windy and sleety.

"D-damn. G-gonna f-freeze to death!"

Shivering, Caron ran past Toad Rock and into a nearby cave. As soon as he entered the cave, the snow on his black hair melted, making it wet. He swept his hair back and threw off his coat. At night, the temperature dropped sharply. If he wore a wet coat, he could freeze to death, despite his strong body.

"Damn just my luck. It’s almost summer, but it's snowing and crap."

It was a high-altitude, mountainous area with severe climate variability, so the temperature sometimes dropped to below zero at night. Still, it was quite rare to have snow at this time. Caron picked up some branches near the cave, piled them up, took flint out of his bag, and tried to start a flame. However, only acrid smoke rose from the wet branch. After continuing his useless efforts for a while, he eventually clicked his tongue and resorted to holding each branch and injecting mana into them to remove the moisture.

"Tch! Even though I need to save my mana in the forest…"

Without a magic potion that restored mana at once, even the Crows had to conserve their mana in the Olympus Forest, which was filled with various dangerous beasts. Caron infused mana into his wet coat and removed as much moisture as possible, hung it up to dry fully, and took out some dried beef jerky and cooked it. The grease melted down and smelled delicious. The beef jerky was hard and tough, but it became soft enough to eat once cooked. Caron chewed on a piece of jerky as he picked up a burning piece of firewood and stuck it outside the cave.

“Ssp! If the snowflakes were bigger, I would be able to boil the snow and drink it, but I can't drink it if it’s like this.”

Feeling regretful that he should have filled the drinking water earlier, he collected some gravel stones and threw them into the bonfire for the night’s ondol. [1] Then, he felt a presence outside the cave. Caron nervously picked up his sword, ready to draw it. Squinting out of the cave, he could see two people approaching through the dark sleet.

"Look, I told you that Caron would be here."

As they entered the cave, Caron saw that it was a young-faced boy and an adult man. The boy looked up at the man with a gentle smile.

"Oh! It’s really true. All the villagers are searching the north, but it seems they're searching in vain."

Caron pondered, thinking of how to escape rather than attack.

"How did you know I was here, Helios hyung?" asked Caron.

Helios replied with a smile, "Was our relationship so poor that you believed I wouldn’t be able to read your thoughts?"

Helios Blade was Caron's eldest brother, who took care of his younger brothers.

It can be hard to make great work when its stolen from bit.ly/3iBfjkV.

As Caron glared at him with a sullen expression, Helios couldn’t help explaining how he had tracked Caron down. "If you, clever as you are, left a trace heading north, of course you would actually be in a different direction. When they find out it’s a false trail, they’d head in the opposite direction, so you’d go in a different direction. However, the east is meaningless since there’s only the sea. That leaves the west, and I knew you would hide your tracks. So, considering the speed and rough weather, I thought of places you’d take refuge."

The boy next to Helios clapped his hands. "Oh! That sounds plausible!"

Caron looked at the boy unpleasantly. "Why are you here again, Hecate Ainsmall?"

Hecate replied with a sly smile, "Hey now, that's harsh. I just came to see you off as a friend."

"See me off? You're not taking me?"

Helios smiled bitterly. "So you know you're at fault."

Caron sulked and pouted. "I'm not doing this because I actually want to run away from home. Father is just trying to put me in that boring sacred place."

The name Caron had been passed onto the keepers of the sacred place. As long as he was Caron, if he didn't resist, his future was already set in place.

"Compared to being the keeper of the sacred place, it's better to be a small chief like you, hyung."

In truth, Caron hated the idea of being a small chief, but he thought it would at least be better than being the keep of the sacred place.

Helios looked at Caron sadly. "I also don't want to become the chief. But you know there are things that we have to do, whether we like it or not."

Caron argued back, "But we don't even need a keeper of the sacred place! It's like that, even now! If you had run away from home, it wouldn't have just been a few dozen people searching!"

"Yeah. Maybe half the warriors and the guards would track me down. If it was severe, all of them might come after me. The small chief position is that important." Helios agreed.

Caron smiled bitterly, “See? There’s not really a need for a keeper of the sacred place."

As Caron spoke, he tried to escape somehow by sharpening his senses, but couldn't see any gaps. He was strong enough to be counted as one of the top three among the young people in the village, but compared to Helios, he was like a firefly in front of the sun. Helios was only standing still, but Caron felt helpless, as if his whole body was being squeezed. Considering he felt from Helios what he didn't even feel from the current chief, Hephaestus Blade, Caron thought maybe Helios had already grown stronger than their father.

"I'm agreeing that the small chief position is important, not that the keeper of the sacred place isn’t... but it’ll sound like nagging to you, so I’ll stop here. If you're unhappy with being the keeper of the sacred place, I'll try to persuade Father to switch our positions. So…"

Caron sighed and cut off Helios. "No, to be honest, I'm not confident that I’ll become stronger than you."

Helios shook his head, "No way, you can definitely become stronger than me. That's what my instincts tell me."

There was sincerity in Helios’ voice, but Caron thought his brother was just trying to comfort him.

"Well, even if that's the case, I don't want you to sacrifice yourself."

Caron remained stubborn, so finally Helios sighed and sat in front of the bonfire. "I knew you would say that. Now, you couldn't pack properly because you were being careful not to show any signs of running away when you left the village, right?”

Helios handed over a bag containing appropriate supplies.

"Oh...? Didn’t you come here to catch me?”

Helios smiled as Caron accepted the bag with a stupefied face.

"I'm not so bad that I would try to block the future of my beloved brother."

"Hyung!"

Helios warned in a gentle voice, "I respect your choice, but the political situation outside the forest is unusual. Father isn’t being wary, and he is reducing exchanges with the outside world for no reason. In particular, be careful in the Holy Kingdom that you’re headed to. It is said that they have constant disputes with the Witches' Sabbath and the Giant tribe."

Caron paid Helios no mind and checked the luggage Helios brought.

"All right, all right. But why did you follow me, Hecate?"

"If you're going to go to the Holy Kingdom, there's a famous druid there. Get me that druid's magic book." Hecate answered nonchalantly.

"Why a druid's magic book? Are you going to switch from the spirit magic you're learning?"

"No, I'm going to make a barrier around the village, so I want it as reference."

The current Crow tribe village was not very stable because it was exposed to the mana storm of Olympus Forest. Hecate Ainsmall wanted to improve that situation.

"With a barrier, other people will be able to learn simple magic easily. Then using magic will become normal."

Olympus Forest was called the magician’s hell. Very few crows learned or were learning magic thanks to their proximity.

"Jeez, aren’t you worried someone will think you’re a weirdo for learning magic tricks?"

"Hey, it's all for the village."

Caron smiled playfully at Hecate's silliness. "Lies, you just want everyone to know magic so you don’t get called a weirdo."

"So you’re not going to get it for me?"

"What are friends for? I'll get it for you if I can.”

Caron and Hecate lightly bumped their fists. The three spent the night in the cave and went their separate ways when dawn broke and the sleet stopped.

"Are you sure it’s okay to just let him go?" Hecate asked Helios as he looked back at the disappearing Caron.

"Of course. Caron will be more motivated when he is free. I hope he'll become stronger and soothe my boredom one day." Helios answered with a smile.

Hecate felt that Helios’ gentle smile was somewhat terrifying.

* * *

As Arietta opened the window and leaned outside, a breeze blew through her icy blue hair. The early morning summer air had a pleasant coolness and a nostalgic smell after a day of rain.

"It rained yesterday and today is sunny. Isn't that right?"

“…” the boy with sky blue hair standing behind her nodded silently.

The boy's outfit looked similar to the priest's uniform of the temple, as well as the uniform of the imperial court of the Holy Kingdom. His clothes were traditional clothes worn by the collateral descendents of the Holy tribe, who had aided the Holy tribe in the past.

Arietta appeared to be in a good mood when she saw the boy's nod. "I see! Euss, you're happy because the weather is nice, too."

Euss was close to expressionless, but Arietta saw that the corners of his mouth were slightly raised.

"Why am I so excited though? I must feel too good right now because of the weather." Even before Euss could answer, Arrieta started thinking out loud about how she felt. "It's like... should I say that I feel like there's going to be a big event soon that will turn my fate around? To borrow Sir Merlin's expression, yes! It feels like the attraction of the stars!"

It felt like something inherent in her blood was whispering in her ears. That a fate-changing event was approaching. However, she couldn’t tell whether the pull of the unknown fate would lead to happiness or despair.

* * *

"Wow, was the world always this quiet?”

Caron, who was walking along the road after leaving the Olympus Forest for the first time in a while, took a moment to adjust to the calm mana outside the forest. He felt a little anxious, like a person who had only lived in a noisy space entering a perfectly silent room for the first time. But soon after, Caron took a big breath and shouted excitedly, "Yahoo~! I’m free now!"

When the forest looked small in the distance, he finally realized that he had left his hometown, left the future forced onto him by others. He became so excited that he couldn't resist doing some martial arts, releasing his energy through his strikes.

"Hiiing-!"

Then, a dozen horses could be heard crying at once from a little off in the distance.

"Whoa! Whoa! Calm down!"

The coachmen leading the carriage procession, which appeared to be from a market, tried to calm the panicking horses. The men, who appeared to be guards, looked around warily for a possible monster attack when they saw the horses shaking with anxiety.

Caron murmured softly, "Ah, is that my fault?"

1. Ondol is an underfloor heating that uses direct heat transfer. In this case, he is heating up the stones so he can use them as a source of heat later. ☜