Chapter 33

Translator: Willia

The trees of Thunder Forest had grown beneath the sea winds of the North Sea, said to be the roughest sea in the world.

Fir trees raised in those winds grew straight and dense. There could hardly have been better timber.

A sandy beach stretched along the shore, and not far inland, sheer coastal cliffs blocked the way.

Atop those coastal cliffs stood a village with the precipice at its back, enclosed by a sturdy, neatly built wooden palisade. It was a typical Viking outpost.

In fact, this was the village the Nordics had first set foot in and built during the Conquest War some fifty years ago.

Of course, the full-scale invasion had begun when they sailed down the river and landed at Torvik, which was why that region had come to be called Nordlanding.

But the place where they had truly first set foot was this very village, Krisher's Cliffden.

Perhaps it was simply the passage of time, or perhaps it was for the best, but the village no longer served as an outpost.

Then what purpose did the village serve now? At the very least, it gave Valery somewhere to spend the night.

A shallow river flowed northward in front of the village. Nearby was a place where timber was cut and shaped, almost like an open-air sawmill.

Logs prepared for different purposes were piled up, while sawdust and other scraps from working the wood had also been neatly gathered in one place. They were meant to be used as kindling. It seemed they truly wasted nothing.

Yet there were hardly any people at the sawmill now. No one seemed to be working there separately, and children merely used the place as a playground beneath the midday sun.

A steady thunk, thunk echoed from within Thunder Forest. The sound had such a regular rhythm that it almost resembled percussion.

Sure enough, it was the sound of tall, broad-shouldered men felling trees in Thunder Forest.

They worked two to a large tree, with several men taking turns swinging their axes.

Logging was, surprisingly, an extremely dangerous job with a high mortality rate. There were simply too many unpredictable hazards, such as a falling tree suddenly veering in another direction or a heavy branch snapping off partway down.

Even after a tree hit the ground, stones, twigs, and other debris could fly in every direction. A sharp branch might impale someone's stomach, or a stone might strike someone in the head.

That was why logging required far more specialized knowledge and skill than one might expect. A tree had to be cut so it would fall as steadily as possible and in the safest possible direction. It required both precision and strength.

And whenever a tree was about to fall, there was one absolute rule every logger had to follow: shout a warning at the top of his lungs.

“Timbeeeeeer!”

Someone bellowed. The men who had been swinging their axes together hurried well out of the way. Fortunately, the tree fell in the intended direction and crashed to the ground with a heavy thud.

The men headed back toward the fallen tree to begin trimming it. Among them was Valery, his sleeves rolled up and a felling axe in one hand.

Iron was scarce in this age, so people did nearly everything with axes instead of relying on other tools. As a result, they were all remarkably skilled with an axe.

Valery watched what they did, learned, and imitated them. Whether because he was quick-witted or simply talented, he caught on almost immediately and soon handled the work with respectable ease.

It was not particularly dangerous from this point on. It would become dangerous again later, when they moved the timber.

The work was simple and repetitive, and at some point, one of the men began singing a Work Song.

“People of the North, listen. Hear the lament of my father, Sigurd, greatest hero of the North. Mourn him, betrayed, wretchedly betrayed. Let us mourn him with rage, with vengeance.”

The song was sung from the perspective of Sigmund the Avenger, the Founder-King. It was known as the Song of Vengeance, a traditional Nordic folk ballad. Valery did not sing along.

By the time they had cut away all the branches and roughly finished trimming the trunk, Torvald, leader of the loggers and carpenters, spoke to the men.

“Let's take a break.”

The moment he heard that, Valery dropped onto a nearby tree stump and bowed his head. He was exhausted. The muscles across his shoulders and back were so spent that he barely had the strength to lift his axe.

“You have more stamina than I expected.”

Valery raised his head at the deep, hoarse voice. It was Torvald. He handed Valery a Drinking Horn and sat down nearby.

The Drinking Horn contained Mead. Despite its name, it was not sweet at all, but an extremely strong liquor.

Valery tried to take a sip, but before it even touched his lips, the harsh fumes rushed into his nose. He lowered the horn again and inadvertently ended up pretending he had taken a drink.

Torvald, by contrast, took a mouthful without hesitation, swished it around several times, then gulped it down.

He blew sharply through his nose once to clear the burn, then asked his first question of Valery in the day since Gudrun's rescue.

“What's your name?”

“Wid.”

“If you're a Marshal, are you loyal to the Duke?”

“No.”

“Then why follow him if you have no loyalty to him?”

“To bring him down from within.”

“Revenge?”

“Not so much revenge. He's an enemy.”

“What made him your enemy?”

“......I'm not sure.”

Now that Valery thought about it, the reason was that Duke Sven had been making life difficult for Winsloe and was targeting Harold. Ultimately, Valery believed that getting rid of Sven was how he could repay his debt to Winsloe.

“To repay a debt I owe Winsloe.”

Valery answered again.

“You make an enemy and bring him down just to repay a debt?”

“I suppose that's what it amounts to.”

Torvald's question cut straight to the heart of the matter, and for some reason, Valery felt himself shrink.

Duke Sven was not a good man, but whether he was truly someone who deserved to die was another question.

It was hardly admirable, but couldn't trying to abduct Harold, or simply taking him away, be considered part of governing?

Torvald remained silent for a moment before speaking.

“I'm about two years younger than the Founder-King. So when I was very young, I actually saw the Dragon-Slayer with my own eyes. No one could meet those shining eyes head-on. Not the bravest warrior, not the Chieftains who possessed wealth and power, no one. Truly, no one without a Divine Bloodline could possess eyes like those.”

Torvald was not ordinarily a talkative man. Perhaps this was his way of showing gratitude for the rescue of his granddaughter, because he seemed inclined to speak at length.

“That Dragon-Slayer died here in Astria through a vile betrayal, and the Founder-King cried out for vengeance. He was twelve years old then. What power did a boy alone have to take revenge? He appealed to the entire North, and everyone answered him. But looking back now, those people didn't cross that brutal sea for vengeance. They crossed it simply to survive. The gods had died, and the Blizzard of Death had swept over our homeland until it was no longer fit to live in. You could say vengeance was a convenient pretext. Or perhaps it was the moment everyone had been waiting for. That was the reason. The reason we made enemies and killed them.”

“......”

“We won that war because we were desperate, not because of anything like bravery. The Astrians weren't as desperate as we were. More than half of us died crossing the sea. And the adults back then were all so gaunt that more than a few were little more than skin and bone. But that mad hunger to survive in their eyes...... Even at my age, I still dream of it sometimes. That madness ran so deep that they were willing to defy death in order to survive. Does that even make sense? Dying in order to live. Every one of us was a Berserker. That was my first battle.”

In other words, the Nordics of the Conquest War had nowhere to retreat from the very beginning. Perhaps it had never truly been a Conquest War or a war to found a kingdom at all, but merely a mass migration undertaken for survival.

Torvald poured himself another Drinking Horn of Mead and drained it in one gulp. This time, he did not swish it around his mouth.

“My second battle...... was fought so I wouldn't be abandoned. Helgi chose the Astrians over us Nordics. He accepted their culture and institutions, their laws, their clothing, their hairstyles, everything. He said it was the Founder-King's dying wish, but we couldn't accept it. Yet looking back now, that too was a choice made for survival. We couldn't go on plundering, killing, and taking whatever we wanted forever. So we lost. Because all we were fighting for was not to be abandoned.”

Torvald neither approved nor disapproved of Valery's actions. He merely told him about his own experiences. It was sincere advice.

And though he did not say it aloud, Torvald had lost his entire family in that second battle, the Beast Wars. His brothers and sisters, his sons and daughters, all of them. His granddaughter was the only one left.

“Then why are you a carpenter? There must be plenty of other things you could do.”

Valery asked a question he had wondered about even before regression. He had never understood why a man who once commanded thunder and lightning would settle for something as humble as carpentry.

“A bastion. The last bastion.”

“Are you preparing for your last battle?”

“No. The last bastion where a human being can still live as a human being. Have you ever seen Wildlings?”

“Yes. I saw some on the way here.”

“Why do you think they became that way?”

“Because they went mad?”

“Do you think they were mad from the beginning?”

“Probably not.”

“Because they lost. To themselves. Once, then twice, defeat after defeat, until at last the beasts inside them devoured them.”

Something about those words struck Valery. His situation was different from that of the Wildlings, but in a way, he thought what had pierced his throat before regression had also been defeat. A defeat to himself. To emptiness, futility, and rage.

“I may have lost the war, but I did not lose to myself. I don't pillage, and I don't take things from others by force. Instead, I build houses and villages, and when I see people living in them, I am grateful that I was able to give them somewhere to live. That is how I fight myself. I haven't lost yet. I'll fight until the day I die. If I die fighting to the very end, then I've won.”

It was the battle he had reached after being born in that frozen land and living through two great wars.

Torvald did not try to teach Valery or correct him. He simply revealed what he believed. Whatever Valery gained from it was up to him.

For a moment, Valery was left speechless by the greatness of the man's spirit. It was almost the first time in his life that he had found himself thinking, What kind of man is this? Admiration took root in him naturally.

Before regression, Valery had cared only about Torvald's martial prowess. That was why he had devised all manner of schemes to lure the man out and make him his subordinate, and the memory now filled him with shame.

He had succeeded in drawing Torvald out, but only now did he think he understood why things had inevitably gone wrong in the end.

Torvald had not been someone the Valery of that time was fit to have beneath him. He had simply been too great a man.

And because he was such a great man, Valery asked him a fundamental question, partly out of faint hope, perhaps even desperation.

“Then...... what should a man who doesn't want to live fight for?”

Torvald stared silently at Valery. It was as though he were trying to look into the very depths of his eyes.

“You've told me a mixture of truth and lies. Because of that, I can't give you the right answer.”

Perhaps a man with senses honed through countless brushes with death and a profound spirit of his own could see truth and falsehood for what they were, even without making any conscious effort to doubt.

Valery had nothing to say to that. Fortunately, Torvald did not appear offended, nor did he reproach him. He seemed content to assume Valery had his reasons.

Watching Valery sit there lost in thought, Torvald spoke.

“Let's get back to work. Or you can rest if you'd rather.”

Torvald rose from where he sat. Valery remained still for a moment, then threw back the strong Mead in one gulp.

He could not swish it around his mouth the way Torvald had. Instead, he held his breath as best he could and forced it down. It felt as though flames were running down his throat.

“Ghh......”

A pained groan escaped him before he could stop it, and Torvald gave a faint smile at the sight.

Valery rose as well and returned to work.

They finished trimming the logs, bound them together with ropes, and began hauling them as a group.

One cup of strong liquor followed by dangerous, grueling labor allowed Valery to forget his troubles for a little while.

The loggers and carpenters under Torvald's command stood watch even at night, guarding the timber that was both their property and their livelihood. Valery wondered whether there was really any need. Who was going to sneak away with something that heavy in the middle of the night?

But even when the times changed and the world changed with them, some people could not discard habits carved into them through a lifetime.

Deep in the night, Torvald sat alone beside a Campfire, keeping watch. Seen vaguely from behind, he almost resembled a great bear hunched over in the dark.

Beyond rage, beyond regret, where had he finally arrived?

Perhaps what Torvald guarded was not the timber at all, but the habit itself. Perhaps it was how he kept himself from forgetting who he was.

From beyond the darkness of Thunder Forest came the cries of beasts. The mournful hoot of a scops owl, as though longing for something, mingled strangely with the chirring of night insects that sounded as though they were holding a feast.

Rustle.

An artificial sound broke the perfect harmony of nature. Footsteps.

Torvald was not startled. He could tell from the footsteps alone that whoever approached had deliberately made no effort to conceal his presence.

He turned his head naturally and saw someone standing there, beyond the reach of the Campfire's light, within pitch-black darkness.

The person watching him from there had a faint glow in both eyes. It was Valery.

At the sight of the Royal Eye-Light, Torvald's heart lurched despite being old enough to think there was nothing left in this world that could surprise him.

From Sigurd to Sigmund to Helgi, most of his life had been intertwined with House Vǫlsungr. He had admired them, been loyal to them, and shared friendship with them.

“This time, I will tell you everything without a single lie.”

Valery spoke. The mere sight of those shining eyes seemed to convey a multitude of truths.

“There was once a man. He was born a Prince, but until the King died, he never knew his own identity. When the King died, the man he had believed to be his father tried to kill him. He barely escaped with his life, and from begging to theft, robbery, and murder, there was almost nothing he hadn't done. Then he seized an opportunity, gained an army, won every battle he fought, and expanded his power. Along the way, he once burned an entire city to the ground and massacred its people. He also sought out the man he had believed was his father and brutally killed his entire family. Strangely enough, none of it bothered him. That Prince brought misery to everyone around him, punished the world that had made him what he was, killed all his brothers and their children, and finally became King. But the moment he did, he drove a sword named Gramr through his own throat and died. That way, the cursed bloodline would end with him.”

It was an absurd tale of events that had never happened. And yet it did not sound absurd.

Torvald could not have said why, but through some instinct, some visceral sense, he felt that every word was true. Though nothing showed on his face, it had been a long time since he had felt so overwhelmed.

It was not because the young man before him was powerful, but because of the tragedy and desperation that saturated his story.

Valery walked forward slowly. The Campfire's light touched his feet, climbed gradually upward, and finally illuminated his face.

“I'll ask you again. What should a man who doesn't want to live fight for?”

Valery's gaze was utterly calm, yet intense. And within it lay a profound emptiness.

Torvald's eyes wavered slightly. Only now did he see in Valery the image of someone he had once admired.

“......What was his name? That man's name?”

“Valery.”

“......Forgive me, Valery, but I dare not answer that question. I am only a common man. How could I even begin to fathom the weight of the fate carried by one born of a Divine Bloodline? Still, if I may make one small request, no, if I may express one hope, do not think yourself worthless. Even if others deem you worthless, you must never deem yourself so. That is the only faith left to me, a man who has lost both his family and Heaven.”

Torvald was a man who had lost nearly everything to which he had devoted his life. The honor and wealth he had built since the Conquest War, his loyalty and friendships, even his family and his hope of reaching Heaven.

To lose Heaven meant that no matter how hard he tried, after death there was nowhere for him to go but Helheim.

And yet he did not live recklessly because of it. He still did everything he could until the very end and refused to consider that effort worthless. That was Torvald's faith.

“Faith, then.”

Valery accepted the answer halfway. No, he accepted it completely, but he doubted whether he himself could ever possess something like faith.

Even so, one thing was certain: Torvald's words gave him great strength. If he could not believe in himself, perhaps for now he could try believing in Torvald's words instead.

Even if there was no one in this world who would shed tears for him, he must never consider himself worthless.

Chapter 9 – What a Man Who Wants to Die Must Have. End.