Chapter 48

Translator: Willia

A castle was hardly a good environment for a young child. It was cold and bleak.

In that desolate place, young Knut would sometimes visit his mother's room. But he could never bring himself to call out to her and would simply stand there watching.

Scattered liquor bottles, disheveled hair, her head bowed low. That was how he usually saw his mother. He was far too young to understand her grief.

Knut had been born into a lofty station, yet he wandered the castle like someone with nowhere to go. Every so often, there were people who would call to him warmly.

“Knut.”

When he turned around, he would see his eldest brother grinning like a fool, and his second brother, who wasn't fat, didn't behave strangely, and looked perfectly healthy.

“Look at this.”

His eldest brother pulled out what he had been hiding behind his back. It was a pinwheel woven from twigs and leaves. Knut's very first toy.

“Let's go outside. There's no wind in here.”

His second brother spoke.

“Run, Knut! Faster!”

Somehow, running around with nothing but a pinwheel in his hand was incredibly fun. Whenever he grew tired, his brothers would take turns carrying him on their backs.

The smiles that came naturally, the blue sky, and the wind. They were all things he could never experience inside the castle.

Knut wouldn't let go of the pinwheel even when he slept. If it broke or the leaves wilted, his brother would tell him it was all right and make him another one.

Then, one day.

“Father just needs to disappear. Then everything will get better. Mother won't drink anymore either.”

“Are you sure?”

“I'm sure. I gave some to a rabbit, and it died almost right away.”

Knut simply listened to his brothers' conversation. Something about it felt wrong, but he was too young to understand why.

Maybe the dose hadn't been large enough. Their father didn't die, and he realized that someone had tried to poison him.

“Let's say Mother did it. There's no way he'll do anything to Mother.”

“Huh? Uh, I don't know. I don't think that's right.”

“Idiot. This might not end with a whipping this time. You and I could both die.”

“Knut...... are you okay with that?”

“......”

Maybe it simply hadn't felt real. Something terrible seemed to have happened, and seeing how frightened and flustered his brothers were, young Knut wanted desperately to help somehow.

So he nodded.

“Yeah. I'm okay.”

And from that moment on, everything fell apart.

His mother never offered a single word in her defense. She never protested her innocence. The last thing she said to Knut was this.

“I'm sorry......”

His mother was at least still recognized as a Princess, so she was not subjected to a Public Execution. Instead of an ordinary Executioner, she was beheaded by a high-ranking noble swordsman, using a sword called Ulfberht.

That was when Knut first learned that even Beheading differed according to one's station. Who carried it out, what weapon was used. But none of it was any comfort.

“I am a woman of House Vǫlsungr. Put a weapon in my hand.”

According to an old superstition, the Nordics believed they had to die with a weapon in hand to reach Valhalla. Valhalla no longer existed, but they seemed to believe Heaven must work much the same way.

A wooden dagger was placed in his mother's hand.

She showed no sign of fear. If anything, she seemed almost relieved. Knut vividly remembered the overcast weather that day, the damp wind, and the heavy silence of the crowd.

“With not a trace of personal feeling, and with only the hope that you will reach Heaven, I shall strike, Valkyrie. Please nod when you are ready.”

The swordsman spoke. His mother closed her eyes, her back held perfectly straight. The swordsman took his stance, and after a moment, she nodded.

The blade swept through as smoothly as if it were slicing through empty air. His mother's head fell.

Even after her head fell, her body remained upright for a moment. Red flowers bloomed across the pure white shroud she had donned beforehand.

For a while after that day, Knut stopped speaking.

'Looking back now, I was an accomplice. So there was no one to blame. No one to resent.'

'It was my fault. Mine......'

The wind blew. Lying in the grass, Knut opened his eyes. Above him was a blue sky with white clouds drifting across it.

“Already decided to ditch work?”

It was Valery's voice. Without turning around, Knut merely smiled faintly.

Valery came over and sat down beside him as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

Neither of them spoke. Yet there wasn't the slightest trace of awkwardness between them. All they could hear was the sound of reeds swaying nearby.

Rustle......

Valery suddenly plucked a blade of grass from nearby and put it between his lips. He seemed to be trying to whistle with it, but all he managed were a few weak squeaks.

“I can't get it to work. Yorik's really good at this.”

“Let's ask him to teach us.”

“Yeah.”

After saying that, Valery turned to look at Knut. Knut was still lying in the grass, simply staring up at the sky.

“Your heart doesn't hurt anymore?”

Knut asked.

“Yeah. The Rune Mage treated it properly.”

“That's a relief. I thought you were going to become something else, Wid. Someone who wasn't the friend I knew.”

“Well, I guess. But from where I'm sitting, Knut, you seem a little different too.”

“Me?”

“Yeah.”

“Hmm...... I don't know.”

“What were you going to say back then?”

“Back then?”

“You were about to tell me something before the final battle, but you stopped.”

“......Ah.”

Knut seemed to remember what he had hesitated to say.

He closed his eyes again, then opened them after a while and spoke.

“I was going to ask if there was any way you could spare my brother. If he died in battle, there would've been nothing we could do, but there was a chance he might be captured. It doesn't matter anymore.”

“Does it really not matter?”

“Hmm. I don't know.”

“You know, Knut.”

“Yeah.”

“As you go through life, you end up making choices, and every choice comes with regret. They're like two sides of a coin. But there's one thing I've realized for sure. You regret the things you didn't do far more than the things you did. If you're going to regret it either way, it's better to do it.”

What Valery had said was something he had come to understand after his regression. If only he'd been a little braver. If only he'd shown a little more of what he truly felt. If only he'd done just a little more, just a little more. Those kinds of regrets.

Knut mulled over Valery's words for a while. Only then did he turn toward Valery and smile. It was a smile like the sound of reeds rustling in the wind.

Wailing could be heard across the fields near Torvik, where the Ducal Army had made camp. It wasn't just one or two people. The sound of so many women crying at once carried a grief that made it feel as though the world itself had collapsed.

The death of the head of a household meant the collapse of an entire family. It was common for a single man to provide for his wife and children, as well as his parents and even his cousins.

And even if the dead man had not been the head of his household, those who had fallen in battle had still been someone's brother or son.

That was simply what war was.

Still, whether it could truly be called fortunate or not, the fact that they were able to grieve was proof that life was still bearable. There were fates far more terrible than this, times when there truly wasn't even time to mourn.

The Ducal Army had numbered roughly a thousand men when it was first mustered. Only around six hundred returned, and a hundred of those would effectively have to live as cripples.

Losing a few fingers or having some teeth broken wasn't even enough to qualify as being wounded.

Two hundred had died in the battle to seize Grinnen, with too many wounded to count, and another two hundred had been lost to the Marquis on the journey back. Some were still wasting away from infection and dying even now.

Those who had survived were hardly in good condition either. They had gone hungry, been exhausted, and had their minds worn down by horrific fighting.

Naturally, the atmosphere inside the command tent was grim. Nobles, knights, commoners, every one of them looked like defeated soldiers.

And in the middle of it all, Duke Sven alone was raging and shouting. More precisely, he was shouting at his Eldest Son, Gunnar.

“You goddamn moron! We should've waited for the mercenaries from the very beginning! What made you think you knew enough to start Siege Warfare!? Huh!? We failed because you pulled that reckless shit! What are you going to do about this!? What are you going to do!? How are you going to take responsibility for it!”

Duke Sven hurled things and slapped him around, making an enormous scene. Gunnar sat silently in his chair and took every blow.

“What!? A Dead God came back to life!? You call that an excuse!? You come crawling back like this because you couldn't even beat one damn Bastard!? You're the problem! That's why this whole family is such a fucking mess!”

There had been plenty of witnesses, but to anyone hearing the story secondhand, it still sounded unbelievable.

And it was difficult for anyone else to step forward and defend Gunnar with the Duke this furious.

They would probably have to wait until he calmed down a little before saying anything. But then Gunnar, who had silently endured the beating until now, opened his mouth.

“......I don't think that's right......”

“What did you say?”

“I don't think the family's like this because of me......”

Apparently never imagining that Gunnar would talk back, Duke Sven fell speechless for a moment, his eyes widening.

But a moment later, his eyes bulged with fury, and he began roaring even louder than before. Then he grabbed a riding crop and started lashing Gunnar with it.

“Now you're talking back to me too!? Useless bastard! Parasite! You piece of vermin! You're no son of mine! I don't need you! Get the hell out! Get out! Get out......!”

At this point, it was less a scolding than outright abuse.

Then, without warning, Gunnar suddenly grabbed a nearby shield and swung it.

Thud!

Whether he had aimed deliberately or not, the shield struck Sven squarely in the head, and the Duke collapsed with his arms and legs splayed out.

It didn't end there. With a somewhat dazed, expressionless face, Gunnar rose to his feet, shield in hand, and began smashing it down onto the fallen Duke Sven's head.

Everyone inside the command tent froze in horror at the shocking sight. Count Winsloe, Count Winddale, Count Levi, the Captain of the Guard, and everyone else.

Gunnar kept bringing the shield down on Duke Sven's head until a lifetime of pent-up anguish seemed to burst from him, and he began shouting like a wounded animal.

“I! I! TOLD YOU! IF YOU WERE! GOING TO BLAME ME LATER! YOU SHOULD’VE! TAKEN CHARGE! FROM THE START! GUTOERM TOO! YOU! KILLED HIM! MOTHER! STEPMOTHER TOO! YOU! KILLED THEM! THIS FAMILY! IS LIKE THIS! BECAUSE OF YOU! IT’S YOUR FAULT! NOT MINE!”

No one could tell how many times he brought the shield down. The Duke was unquestionably dead, his head crushed beyond recognition.

“MY WHOLE LIFE! NOT ONCE! DID YOU! PRAISE ME! WHEN DID I! EVER SAY! I WANTED THIS!? DID I! START! THIS WAR!? YOU! DID ALL OF IT!”

Only after smashing the shield down for a long while did Gunnar finally stop, panting for breath. He tossed the shield, stained with his father's blood, onto the ground.

Clatter.

Then he dropped heavily back into his seat. His face felt itchy, so he wiped at it with his hand and came away with droplets of blood on his fingers.

A flood of conflicting emotions washed through him. There was relief, something heavy pressing down on his chest, and worry as well.

Eventually, they all converged into a single feeling. Regret. Not regret for what he had just done, but regret that he hadn't done it sooner. And emptiness.

“I should've killed him sooner. I waited too long...... None of it matters anymore......”

Everyone was so stunned by what had happened that they were left speechless, unable even to think.

At that moment, Count Winsloe, already allied with Count Winddale, turned to look at him. Count Winddale looked back, and something passed silently between them.

The Duke had been murdered. But with the Duke dead, who would succeed him? What were they supposed to do now?

Count Winsloe was the first to speak quietly.

“Count, you should take control of the army first.”

Count Winddale understood his meaning perfectly and hurried out of the command tent. He mobilized his retainers to seize control of the army, while Count Winsloe used his knights and personal troops to take control of the command tent.

Once they made up their minds, everything moved quickly. The two Counts began by subduing the Duke's closest retainers and personal forces.

“Captain of the Guard, please come quietly.”

“I, I......”

Whether they were guilty of anything or not, the first priority was to dismantle the ducal family's power. Through it all, Gunnar simply sat there in a daze.

The sound of mourning could still be heard throughout the camp, but when the soldiers hurriedly began gathering their equipment and moving about, the wailing stopped. The women, too, sensed that something serious was happening.

“Disarm them first!”

“Unfasten your belts! Put down your swords!”

The Duke's Household Knights had no will to fight in the first place. They had just been told that Gunnar had killed Duke Sven. What were they supposed to do about that? They were too shocked to think straight themselves.

Count Levi, who had been responsible for developing the swamps, had achieved nothing in this war, but that was precisely why he had managed to preserve his forces intact.

But with the other two Counts apparently working together and moving so quickly, he seemed to realize that the balance had already tipped. He hurried to join them as well.

Only around twenty of the Duke's Household Knights remained, with roughly two hundred troops in total. Every one of them had been disarmed and gathered together off to one side, looking almost like prisoners of war.

Some were bewildered because they still hadn't heard what had happened, while others looked utterly dejected, as though all the fight had gone out of them.

Count Winsloe returned to Gunnar last. Gunnar was still sitting there in a stupor. He was muttering something to himself, but it was difficult to make out.

“I, I should've done it...... should've increased the dose...... because of me...... no, it was all because of Father...... no......”

“As of this moment, Young Lord Gunnar, you are being placed under detention. The matter of the murder of His Excellency the Duke will be discussed at a later date, at which time your guilt will be determined. Until then, please follow our instructions.”

Gunnar remained silent for a while, then merely nodded weakly.

He was not bound. Count Winsloe took the lead, surrounding him with knights, and they headed toward Torvik.

The aftermath of the defeat in war, followed by the Duke's death. The entire city fell silent as though drenched in cold water, even its breathing stilled.