Chapter 63

Translator: Willia

The man was short and solidly built, with unusually thick fingers and broad nails. A member of a guild under the Lokir Merchant Company, he was one of the finest goldsmiths and jewelers in the kingdom.

He held up something called a lens, cut from crystal, and used it to magnify the object before him for an extremely close inspection.

Specifically, the fractured edges of the Dragon-Slayer’s remains.

After examining them with painstaking care for several dozen minutes and roughly fitting the pieces together, he finally gave his verdict like a renowned physician delivering a diagnosis.

He lowered the lens and looked around at everyone present. Valery and his companions, along with Lucas, Eirik, and Sigbold.

“They can be put back together with animal glue. They’ll have to dry naturally, so once they’re bonded, it’ll take anywhere from two weeks to a month for them to dry completely. And we can’t glue everything together at once. We’ll have to repair them section by section, then join all the sections together afterward. Altogether, I’d say about three months. We can decorate any gaps with gemstones, and whether you want the whole thing gilded is up to you.”

Perhaps it was one small mercy amid the disaster, but when the jeweler fitted the pieces together, the Holy Relic looked as though it could more or less be restored. If they finished it with gemstones and gold, it might even look better than before.

Did that mean they could finally stop worrying about it? Valery felt strangely conflicted as he stared at the broken skull. He couldn’t understand what was so important about these remains that everyone was making such a fuss over them.

Sigurd had accomplished legendary feats in life, lived carrying pain and sorrow, and above all, he was Valery’s direct ancestor.

But hadn’t all of that already achieved immortality by becoming legend and story? Valery saw no need to project any additional meaning or sanctity onto this skull.

Wouldn’t it be better to care about the living instead? People had been tormented enough by the buying and selling of Tax Collection Rights, yet all this money and effort, along with the finest craftsmanship available, were being poured into a skull like this?

Looking at the shattered skull, Valery felt a profound sense of absurdity.

“Then let’s decide on the design first. Rather than leaving obvious signs that it was repaired, we should make it look as though it was designed this way from the beginning, so the flaws are effectively concealed......”

Lucas was speaking to the jeweler when he suddenly stopped. Sigbold’s huge hand had clamped down on his shoulder.

From the look on Sigbold’s face, the slightest provocation might make the last thread of his reason snap. He was so tall and massive that, no exaggeration, he looked as though he might actually devour Lucas.

“Hey......”

Sigbold growled low in his throat, and Lucas froze stiff, looking as though he might piss himself.

“Sigbold, release him.”

Fortunately, Priest Eirik intervened. Sigbold did not let go immediately, however. He squeezed Lucas’s shoulder hard enough to seem on the verge of crushing it, then abruptly released him. Lucas hunched over in pain.

“Young merchant.”

“Ugh...... M-me?”

“Yes. Who did you buy the Holy Relic from?”

“Well......”

“Let me warn you first. From this moment onward, choose your words with the utmost care. Don’t call for guards or do anything foolish. We’re Jómsvíkingr. We have no desire to lay waste to this peaceful place. I’ll ask again. Who did you buy the Holy Relic from?”

Eirik might have stopped Sigbold, but that did not mean he wasn’t angry himself. His was simply a quieter sort of fury.

He was an old man with little time left to live, barely able to support himself without help, yet all of a sudden he radiated a dangerous presence.

They were no ordinary thugs. If the main force of Jómsborg ever moved, there truly was no power in the world that could stop it.

“J-Jóms... Jómsvíkingr......?”

Lucas’s eyes went wide. Without a word, Yorik quietly moved to the door and closed it.

Then he stood guard there to make sure no one could escape.

Even the jeweler, who had been dragged into all this for no reason, stared around wide-eyed from his seat.

Why me?

“Don’t tell me you didn’t know,” Knut said coldly. “You must’ve known where it came from, or you wouldn’t have trusted that it was genuine. There are fakes everywhere.”

Lucas’s shoulder hurt, and the sudden turn of events had left him too flustered to know what to do. He looked to Valery with an expression that begged for salvation, but Valery seemed almost indifferent, even bored.

The moment Lucas realized he might genuinely die here, all thoughts of lying or somehow talking his way out of the situation vanished.

“V-Vidar. He called himself Vidar ‘Red Eye’. And it was true. The white of one eye was red, as though it had been soaked in blood. His Excellency the Duke himself introduced him to me...... I truly didn’t know. His identity had been vouched for by someone beyond question. I had no idea the Holy Relic belonged to the Jómsvíkingr.”

Lucas spoke desperately, and he did not seem to be lying.

More importantly, Lucas had purchased the Holy Relic solely to give it to the Valkyrie as a gift.

The Valkyrie was staying under the Duke of Nearcaster’s protection, so if the duke himself vouched for the seller, there had been no reason not to buy it.

Eirik and Sigbold exchanged glances. It was indeed the name of the traitor they had been pursuing.

Vidar Red Eye.

“Why did the duke introduce him to you? What relationship does Vidar have with the duke?”

Valery asked.

“Powerful people always need strong, dependable bodyguards. I heard he was hired specifically to guard the Valkyrie. They say an Einheri was assigned to escort her when she first came to Nearcaster, but wouldn’t she need more people if she wanted to live there comfortably? I never gave it much thought, but that’s what I know.”

“A bodyguard for the Valkyrie......”

That made things somewhat more difficult.

If they attacked the Valkyrie’s bodyguard without restraint, they might end up fighting the Valkyrie as well.

And considering that the man had already stolen the Holy Relic and fled, it was doubtful he would politely accept a formal challenge to a duel.

For that matter, now that they had recovered the Holy Relic one way or another, Valery wondered whether there was any real need to punish the traitor at all.

But to a true Nordic, vengeance was identity itself.

The tragedy of House Vǫlsungr made that plain enough. One of the reasons House Vǫlsungr was regarded as sacred was that for three generations, despite each heir being a Posthumous Child, every one of them had avenged their parents.

If anything, even if the Holy Relic had never been recovered, the vengeance still had to be carried out.

Eirik thought quietly for a moment before speaking. The unsettling aura that had surrounded him earlier was gone.

“Young merchant. Lucas, was it? I’m sorry, but from this moment on, the Holy Relic belongs to the Jómsvíkingr. Once we’ve punished the traitor, we’ll take spoils from him and compensate you with those. You have no choice in the matter. That’s how it will be.”

“......Well......”

Lucas started to speak, then stopped. Partly because Sigbold was glaring at him so fiercely, and partly because he did not want to offend Valery.

From Lucas’s perspective, he had bought the thing without knowing what it was and had disaster dropped into his lap.

Still, he wasn’t entirely blameless.

The Holy Relic had been broken, after all.

He couldn’t protest that Lucilia had been the one to do it, because Lucas had repeatedly claimed that he was the one who ran the Merchant Company.

Which meant that if someone belonging to the Merchant Company did something wrong, the responsibility ultimately fell on him.

“You’re not a Nordic. We are. The world has become a much better place. Much better. I hope you understand what I mean.”

Priest Eirik threatened him with impeccable manners and genteel dignity.

And it wasn’t as though what he said was wrong. In the old days, they probably would have started by splitting people’s heads open and gone on to massacre everyone.

In any case, from the king downward, Nordics made up much of the kingdom’s ruling class.

There had been many policies aimed at integration, but each people’s traditions and customs, along with the rules and principles that came with them, were still very much alive.

“By the way, when is this Valkyrie supposed to get married?” Knut asked. “She’s been here for two years, right? Shouldn’t she have picked someone by now?”

“How should I know the whims of a woman?”

“Aren’t you one of her suitors? I’m asking if you’ve heard anything.”

“It’s only a guess. But if you ask me...... perhaps she’s enjoying it. Men risking their lives fighting over her and bringing her the most precious treasures in the world.”

“What? Then isn’t she just a whore?”

“Ivy.”

Knut hurriedly stopped Ivy and glanced at Valery. Fortunately, he did not seem particularly bothered.

“She’s not wrong.”

“......A-are you people insane?”

Lucas was the one whose eyes went wide in shock. Insulting a Princess, a Valkyrie, could be considered a grave crime.

When Valery’s gaze, which always seemed to look down on the entire world, appeared to hold even the Valkyrie in contempt, Lucas found himself wondering whether this was going too far despite his admiration for the boy.

“There’s nothing wrong with looking for a husband. But dragging it out for two years is bullshit. How many suitors have died in that time? Didn’t the Count of Westlanding even sell his Tax Collection Rights just to buy a single treasure? How many people suffered because of that? And now a Holy Relic has been bought, sold, and even damaged. There are probably plenty of other tragedies we know nothing about. Can anyone really say the Valkyrie bears no responsibility for that? I don’t know whether that stupid bitch is agonizing over her decision or enjoying herself, but it’s time she stopped.”

“......”

Lucas was left speechless by Valery’s cold judgment. Who in the world could point at a Valkyrie and tell her she was in the wrong?

Whether it was this audacity or his willingness to say and do whatever he pleased regardless of consequences, it wasn’t something a person could imitate simply by trying.

Of course, part of the reason Valery could act this way was because he was a Prince, but more fundamentally, it was because he had the strength and ability to back it up.

Before his regression, he had killed all his other brothers and nephews. Compared to that, a Valkyrie was trivial. And if something so trivial was spreading misery, then as the bare minimum duty demanded by his bloodline, he ought to put a stop to it.

“So what are you going to do?” Knut asked.

“First, let’s go to Nearcaster. If necessary, I’ll take this Trial of hers too.”

“That’s a bit......”

Knut knew Valery was a Prince, so having him participate as one of the Valkyrie’s suitors seemed rather inappropriate.

They were brother and sister.

On the other hand, openly revealing his identity before going to see her would cause all sorts of repercussions and would do his current course of action no favors. Their final destination was still the Royal Capital, Valdene.

“I’m just going through the motions.”

“Well, if that’s what you want. Anyway, you’re not going to punish that woman?”

He meant Lucilia.

“I spoke with her briefly yesterday. She seemed to be of rather limited intelligence. It’d be ridiculous to hold someone like that to the same responsibility as an ordinary person.”

“How limited? As bad as my brother?”

“I think she’s worse.”

“Then it can’t be helped.”

“I will take the Trial as well.”

Sigbold, who had been quietly speaking with Priest Eirik, joined in.

He needed to participate because the traitor he had to kill was currently serving as the Valkyrie’s bodyguard.

Valery turned toward the window.

It was still morning. Nearcaster was half a day’s walk away, so if they rode, they could easily arrive before sunset.

“You. You’re coming with us.”

Valery pointed at Lucas as he spoke.

At this point, he wasn’t even bothering with the polite manner of speech he’d used before. He now addressed Lucas bluntly and familiarly.

There were various practical reasons for taking Lucas with them, but he was also, in no small part, a hostage.

Lucas himself was beginning to think that something about this situation was seriously wrong, but he couldn’t bring himself to resist.

He had thought they were merely a remarkably skilled swordsman and a wandering Warrior Monk, but ever since hearing the word Jómsvíkingr, his heart had been pounding like a little rat’s.

After leaving the Holy Relic with the jeweler, Valery immediately departed the manor with his companions and Lucas.

Everyone rode.

Originally, Valery’s group had possessed only Snow, the horse Knut rode, and two packhorses, but they simply led several good horses out of the Lokir Merchant Company’s stables.

It was little different from outright robbery, but once Valery had made up his mind, he stopped worrying about such details and simply pressed straight ahead.

Valery, Knut, and Lucas each rode their own horse, while Sigbold shared with Eirik and Yorik shared with Ivy.

Sigbold and Yorik weren’t good at handling horses, so they did not ride hard and instead traveled at an easy pace.

Even so, they reached Nearcaster in the afternoon.

A vast river cut through the city, and from a distance, Nearcaster looked as though it had been built in terraces.

But that was only the city center. Buildings spread out in every direction below the hills.

Compared to Nearcaster, Torvik felt like a genuine backwater. Nearcaster was far larger and much better developed.

Most striking of all were the brightly colored tents covering the fields outside the walls. They belonged to people who either couldn’t get into the city or couldn’t afford lodging, and so ate, slept, and lived outside.

The sight looked almost like a festival.

As they took it in, Lucas spoke to the others.

“Ever since the Valkyrie arrived, it’s practically as though an entirely new social class has appeared. Put simply, unless you’re ‘someone people take seriously’, even a noble can’t hold his head high in Nearcaster.”

“Someone people take seriously?”

“People who’ve passed the Valkyrie’s Trial. Even if you never manage to marry the Valkyrie, simply passing the Trial changes how people treat you. Plenty come here just for that prestige.”

In other words, anyone who wanted to throw their weight around in Nearcaster needed to pass the Valkyrie’s Trial first.

With an environment like this, people inevitably started overreaching without even realizing it, just as the Count of Westlanding had.

Lucas himself wasn’t much different.

Strictly speaking, he wasn’t a noble, but after passing the Trial, he had felt as though he had become one for real.

That was why Nearcaster had also become a land of opportunity for wandering swordsmen, Wandering Knights, Mercenaries, and the like. A suitor did not have to personally participate in the Trial of Valor. He could put forward a Champion in his place.

Naturally, hiring someone skilled enough to pass the Trial was not cheap.

On top of that, winning the Joust or Melee allowed the victor to claim the defeated opponent’s equipment and ransom as spoils. And since anyone with sufficient skill could continue participating as a Champion, it was possible to keep accumulating money.

Of course, if luck turned against you, you could also die.

Plenty had.

In any case, the Valkyrie’s search for a husband offered both an opportunity to make a great deal of money and a chance to build one’s reputation.

For a moment, Valery wondered whether the Valkyrie, his own sister, had intended for all of this to happen.

He soon abandoned the thought.

Whether she had intended it or not, it was time for it to end.

With Lucas leading the way, the group entered the city. They secured rooms at the finest inn in Nearcaster, then registered for the Trial.

Naturally, Lucas paid for everything.

Since Valery and Sigbold could not risk facing each other as opponents, Valery entered the Joust while Sigbold entered the Melee.

A name was written on the entry list.

Valery.

“Don’t you have an epithet or something?”

The registrar asked because an epithet made for a more dramatic introduction.

“You’ve got Salt Prince, don’t you?”

Knut said from beside him while munching on a snack.

“Not that one.”

“Then call yourself the Frog Prince.”

At that, the registrar took it upon himself to write down “Valery the Frog Prince”.

The sight of Valery’s handsome face had inspired a little petty spite in him as well.

“I’m busy. Move along. Next.”

“Huh? Wait. Excuse me.”

“People behind you are waiting. Next!”

It had happened in an instant, and that was that.

Valery would be competing in the Joust under the epithet Frog Prince.