Chapter 34

Translator: Willia

It was Valery's second day in Cliffden.

He was staying at the Temple, which had no Priest and was maintained by the villagers in rotation.

As a result, Valery had a space large enough to accommodate dozens of people entirely to himself.

Like most Nordic-style buildings, the Temple was made entirely of wood, constructed by fitting the pieces together without using a single nail.

In the center, coals in a long hearth glowed red with heat. A faint tick, tick came from them, almost like the sound of rain.

Beyond the doors came the faint sound of waves. They washed over the shore and receded again in a steady, repeating rhythm.

Like any Temple, it was quiet and solemn, filling him with a sense of reverence.

It was dawn, and Valery lay beside the hearth beneath a blanket. He was fully awake, but his mind was blank as he simply stared at one spot.

The carvings on the pillars and their bases caught his eye. A dragon breathed fire while a Warrior-Hero stood against it.

Turning his head to the side, he could see the Altar. Paintings covered the wall, while weapons and armor such as spears, swords, axes, helmets, and shields either hung from it or rested neatly in place.

All of them were illuminated by the faint glow of the coals, lending the Temple a somewhat eerie atmosphere.

They hardly seemed like suitable offerings for an Altar, but at a glance, Valery guessed they had probably been equipment once used by fallen warriors.

They were men who had been defeated by the King, leaving them unable to offer their loyalty even if they wished to. Perhaps this was meant as a kind of consolation for those who could not enter Heaven.

Valery rose. He folded the blanket, rolled it up, tied it with a cord, and left the Temple dressed only in his shirt.

Quite a few of the buildings in the village were newly built. It had originally been an outpost, but was now being transformed into a place where people could actually live.

They had cultivated small vegetable plots, but the villagers lived mainly by gathering, hunting, and fishing, so no one rose at dawn. The village was quiet.

Valery left the village and went to a nearby river. There he washed his face and gave the rest of his body a rough cleaning. The bitterly cold water shocked him fully awake.

After returning to the Temple and warming himself for a while, he put on his clothes and equipment. Then, intending to leave alone without anyone noticing, he went to the stable and brought out Snow.

"Valery."

Someone called his name. Not Wid, but his real name.

When he turned around, he saw Torvald. Without a word of warning, Torvald threw something at him.

It flew almost straight at him. Valery caught it with one hand, but the weight made his body tilt slightly to one side.

What Torvald had thrown was a kind of logging axe. Judging by the Nordic patterns engraved into the blade, however, it appeared to be intended for battle.

"That was my axe. I don't need it anymore."

It had only been two days, but Valery had worked in the village as both a Lumberjack and a Carpenter.

As a Provincial Marshal, he technically should have done nothing more than inspect the place and move on. For one reason or another, however, he had stayed for two days and helped with their work. Even so, did that mean he could properly handle an axe like this?

Torvald came closer and handed him a small pouch as well. He had thrown the axe at him, yet chose to hand this over personally.

Once Valery heard what it contained, though, he understood why.

"This is Dragon's Blood. Not just any dragon's, either. This blood is infused with the magic of the famous Evil Dragon Fafnir. Your great-grandfather slew him with his own hands and obtained it. After founding the kingdom, the Founder-King bestowed it only upon the Five Founding Clans."

The Five Founding Clans were the clans that had earned the greatest merit and wielded the strongest influence among the countless tribes that participated in the Conquest War.

They were House Elding, House Ylfing, House stáling, House Batung, and House Yording. Two had fallen during the Beast Wars, leaving only three surviving clans.

Torvald belonged to House Elding, and tracing the bloodline back, Vǫlsungr, Valery's Progenitor, had taken a woman from House Elding as his wife. In other words, Valery's great-great-great-grandmother had belonged to House Elding.

But more importantly, Dragon's Blood. Valery had only ever heard of it. This was his first time seeing it in person.

Anyone who drank Dragon's Blood either gained superhuman strength or died. There was no third outcome.

Not every Einheri had done so, but there had indeed been some who drew out superhuman strength by drinking Dragon's Blood.

But they had not lived long. Whether their bodies had simply been unable to withstand such overwhelming power, or whether it truly was the Evil Dragon's curse as the legends claimed, no one knew.

In other words, Dragon's Blood was a way of forcibly drawing out power through unnatural means.

Then had Torvald drunk this before regression and gained the ability to wield thunder and lightning?

"I have no reason to fight anymore. So it is only right that it go to the descendant of its original owner."

"You've already helped me a great deal. The axe is one thing, but this is too much."

"Take it anyway. You never know what life will bring. Sometimes there are things you absolutely must do, even if you have to give up your heart to do them. Use it carefully, and I hope it proves useful to you."

Give up his heart......

Valery looked down at the small porcelain bottle inside the pouch. There was blood inside it. The blood of the dragon his ancestor had slain.

"By the way, don't you use a Carpenter's Hammer when you fight?"

"What are you talking about? I've used axes and swords my entire life. I guarantee you, once you can freely wield a logging axe with one hand, there won't be anyone in the world who can match you."

A logging axe could be used in battle, but it was far too heavy to wield one-handed. That was why a battle axe was made lighter, so it could be handled with one hand.

But Valery remembered Torvald using a short-hafted Carpenter's Hammer as his weapon.

At Torvald's level, it probably did not matter what weapon he used, but perhaps he had chosen the hammer as a symbol of revenge because the villages he had built had been destroyed.

Which meant none of that was necessary anymore. Neither thunder and lightning, nor any reason to use a hammer as a weapon.

"......Understood. I'll accept them gratefully. Give Gudrun my regards. Tell her I hope she grows up healthy and wise."

"Mm."

Valery mounted his horse. He left the village behind and headed north.

When he looked back, Torvald stood there watching him, tall and unmoving like one of the trees of Thunder Forest.

Valery raised a hand, and Torvald raised his in return. At the village on the eastern edge, the sun was just beginning to rise over the distant horizon.

Valery had first stopped at Belfort, then met the Ranger, spent a day in Hemsley, and finally reached Cliffden, where he stayed for two days.

Afterward, the next place he arrived at was Moltontower, where a Marcher Knight resided.

From a distance, he could see an ancient defensive stone tower atop the mountain. Half of it had already collapsed.

Below the mountain stood a small village. There was a mill with a turning waterwheel, people grew vegetables, and sheep grazed across the fields.

It was well into the afternoon when Valery appeared on horseback along the hillside, and the first person to spot him was a young shepherd.

The shepherd had let the sheep loose to graze and was sitting in the field, merely staring blankly at him. Even as Valery rode closer, the boy did not bother getting up.

"Is this Moltontower?"

Valery asked. The young shepherd merely nodded.

"I am a Provincial Marshal. Where is the Marcher Knight?"

The shepherd raised a hand and pointed toward the village.

"Can you not speak?"

The shepherd shook his head.

"Then speak."

"Yes......"

"Where in the village is the Marcher Knight?"

"At this hour...... I think he'd be working in the fields."

"Doing what?"

"Farm work, of course. You have to work the fields if you want to eat. Don't you farm too, Marshal?"

The shepherd boy looked up at Valery as though Valery were the strange one.

What more was there to say to some little country bumpkin? Valery ended the conversation and galloped across the gently sloping field.

As he approached the village, the people going about their work straightened up and looked toward him. Valery headed for a large field and called out to the people there.

"I am a Provincial Marshal. Who here is the Marcher Knight?"

The villagers looked at one another until one man raised his hand.

"Me. I'm the Marcher Knight."

Valery stared at him. The man looked nothing like someone who trained at arms. He was the very picture of an ordinary country farmer.

For a moment, Valery was at a loss. He glanced up at the defensive tower on the mountain, then back at the farmer-like Marcher Knight.

"What about the tower? Why are you down here farming?"

"What about the tower?"

"No, I'm asking why you're here instead of guarding it."

"Why should I guard the tower?"

What was he talking about? Valery became even more baffled, but calmly stated the obvious.

"......A Marcher Knight is supposed to watch and guard the frontier, and when necessary ride out to fight the enemy, is he not? That tower exists for precisely that purpose. Surely it ought to be maintained and manned."

"Oh, for heaven's sake. What a frustrating thing to say. Just going up and down that rough mountain is miserable enough. And the tower's so old and decrepit that staying inside is a torment. We're all doing this to make a living, so why would I go up to a place like that? My father was the first to stop going, and I could count on one hand the number of times I've climbed up there in my entire life."

"......"

Valery's brain nearly ground to a halt. It was absurd enough that the man was neglecting his duty, but his sheer shamelessness left Valery speechless.

Still, rather than getting angry too quickly, Valery thought it through. This place had originally existed to watch for Viking invasions.

Long before the Conquest War, Vikings had carried out intermittent raids. The tower had probably been built either to repel them or keep watch for them, but now that Viking raids were no longer a concern, the villagers had apparently settled into living like this.

By the letter of his duty, the Marcher Knight before him was a man who had failed to fulfill his obligations. In practical terms, however, he was simply a man doggedly eking out a living.

That made Valery wonder whether there was any reason for him to remain a Marcher Knight, but at the same time, there did not seem to be much reason to strip him of the position either. In this village, Marcher Knight seemed to mean something closer to Village Head.

Valery concluded that this was for Duke Sven to decide, not him.

"Where is your horse?"

"Horse? You think I own a horse just because I'm a knight? My father sold it when I was a boy. With the money, he bought farming tools like plows and hoes, along with livestock. See those sheep over there? We started with five lambs. We raised them on human milk. A few died, a few survived, and eventually they multiplied into that flock. If we hadn't sold the horse, people would've starved to death first. If you intend to hold me accountable, report exactly what I just told you to His Excellency."

To a knight, his horse was both his pride and a symbol of his status. Valery could hardly imagine what it must have felt like to sell it, but the horse seemed to have been traded for something worthwhile.

More importantly, if this was the reality of things, then the force of forty-two knights Duke Sven boasted about was probably smaller in practice.

About twenty knights stayed in a guest wing of Torvik Castle. The rest consisted of Viscounts, Barons, the knights serving beneath them, and Marcher Knights like this man.

And conscripting soldiers from places like this? Valery could see little point.

"I wasn't asking because I intended to hold you responsible."

"Then may I get back to work?"

"What would I say to stop you? I was only asking what I needed to ask. I understand your circumstances."

"Don't take offense. It doesn't happen often, but every now and then some Marshals come around and make trouble for us in one way or another. Thank you for understanding. If you need somewhere to stay, just use any house you like."

"How many people are in your family?"

"Why?"

"If there are a lot of you, I'll just stay at the mill."

"Let's see...... How many are there? Hey, how many people are in our family?"

"Twenty-four."

A young man who might have been his son or grandson answered.

The family was so large because not only immediate relatives but cousins as well all lived together.

"I'll stay at the mill. I'd like you to provide hay and provisions."

"All right."

Valery turned his horse around again. He reached the mill, dismounted, and went inside. There he found a man and woman hurriedly pulling their clothes back on after hearing the approaching hoofbeats.

"Well, you two are something."

"W-Who are you?"

"The Marshal. I'm staying here, so go take care of your business somewhere else."

"Ah...... Yes."

The man and woman scrambled out of the mill in a hurry.

Having shattered their romance, Valery spent the night there.

The villagers were considerate enough to block the channel that fed the waterwheel, so it was not noisy. All he could hear was the quiet trickle of the nearby stream.

The next day, Valery stocked up on cheese, dried mutton, vegetables, hay, and other supplies before setting out.

He had inspected every place he needed to inspect. All that remained now was to return to Torvik.

Staying only in the city had felt stifling, but now that he had come out into the countryside, there had certainly been plenty to leave his head spinning in one way or another. Even so, he thought quite a few good things had happened.

Valery went back over those memories and recalled what Torvald had told him.

Then, just as he was nearly back in Torvik, he saw the tall watchtower of Torvik Citadel in the distance.

An iron cage used to imprison people hung from that watchtower, and someone was locked inside it.

It was Knut.