Chapter 76

Translator: Willia

No one who incurred the enmity of House Vǫlsungr ever survived. The words were an adage, a legend and a myth, a truth proven generation after generation.

A father would die at the hands of an enemy, and his son would seek that enemy out and ultimately take revenge.

Yet those sons were posthumous children who had never even seen their fathers. Vengeance had been conceived in their mothers' wombs.

Thus, it was also said that the men of House Vǫlsungr were tempered by women.

The case of the Founder-King, Sigmund the Avenger, was somewhat different. His father, Sigurd the Dragon-Slayer, had been murdered by the vile Seven Kings of Astria when Sigmund was twelve.

In other words, his father had raised him to some extent.

What mattered was that all the Nordics rose up to aid the young boy and began the Conquest War.

The Nordics were swept up in the sacred elation of taking part in that holy war of vengeance. It became a single ideal that embraced all Nordics, a shared sense of community.

For the first time in an age of hundreds, even thousands, of separate tribes, a united consciousness took root.

The Seven Kings of the Seven Kingdoms of Astria were all captured and subjected to the punishment known as the ‘Blood Eagle’.

Their backs were flayed, their ribs severed, and their lungs pulled out. The Founder-King personally carried out all seven executions before he had even turned fifteen.

Thus was the sacred vengeance in which every Nordic took part completed, and a kingdom was founded.

In time, the first Succession War was fought. There was no vengeance left by then. Even so, the final victor, the king who took the throne after killing all his brothers and nephews, was Helgi the ‘Berserkbane’.

And now his sons were coming of age. Vengeance with nowhere to go prowled the world.

Let someone cross its path. It would butcher them and tear them apart.

Perhaps the wrapping called vengeance had been stripped away, leaving nothing but rage. Like a rabid dog.

At the very least, the Duke of Nearcaster was neither an enemy nor an object of anger to Valery at this point. Merely sending a few assassins was not enough to make him worth Valery's enmity.

It was simply a matter that needed handling.

“I don't intend to cause a major disturbance before I reach Valdene. So I'll just squeeze some money out of him. A prince's life ought to command a high price, shouldn't it? He'll bear a grudge, but he won't dare direct it at me. He'll turn on the Lokir Merchant Company for being associated with me instead. I've stayed here quite a while.”

Valery's companions had gathered in Lucas's office. Brynhildr and Randgríðr were listening to him as well.

“Wait. What did you say?”

Lucas, who had been calmly listening to Valery, frowned slightly. One word had caught his attention. Prince.

“It can make matters complicated in all sorts of ways, so I don't usually go around revealing it. I wasn't trying to deceive you.”

“......”

Lucas remained silent, his expression somewhat grave. Knut looked at him and spoke.

“You don't seem very surprised.”

“......My first thought was that it figures.”

Lucas reflected on Valery's past deeds and found that learning he was a prince made everything fall into place rather than surprising him. Of course. Nothing else would make sense.

“Anyway, back to the point. You could become the duke's political enemy, Lucas.”

Valery warned him evenly. He was not trying to frighten him. It was more a straightforward explanation of the threats and dangers that might lie ahead.

“Hmm......”

“There are two ways to deal with this. I can leave after I get the money. Then you can claim I was merely a houseguest and that you had nothing to do with it. The second is for me to give up on the money altogether. The point isn't really whether I collect it or not. I simply don't want to put you in an uncomfortable position for no good reason.”

Extracting the money itself would not be difficult. Valery was merely considering the aftermath. He did not want to cause trouble for Lucas, who had shown him kindness in his own way.

“The duke...... His family was originally a merchant company like ours. The difference was that while Father supported several princes, they gave their full support to His Majesty, the current king, when he was still a prince. Father chose not to make an enemy of any prince, while the duke's family gambled everything on one.”

Lucas spoke briefly of the past, of the first Royal Succession War. Then he looked at Valery and continued.

“Becoming the duke's political enemy isn't the real problem. The real problem is the Succession War to come. I want to hear what you have to say, Valery.”

Lucas might have behaved rather strangely around Valery, but he was no ordinary man. The fact that he had led this vast merchant company without serious incident after his father became bedridden showed that he was highly capable.

He had put his finger squarely on the heart of the matter. Anyone running a merchant company had little choice but to be well versed in power structures and political struggles.

Valery looked at Lucas. Lucas's gaze no longer seemed to chase illusions, but to seek the essence of things. The look in his eyes brought a smile to Valery's face.

“I look beyond becoming king. I don't live for power. I'm sorry if that disappoints you.”

Valery focused on the source of the wounds within him, on his deprivation and the shackles of fate. He had no interest in worldly things like money or power.

He would make full use of them as tools when necessary, but they were not goals in themselves.

His words might have sounded somewhat vague, depending on how one heard them, but Lucas now understood them intuitively. Now that his sister and father were dead and he had realized what truly mattered.

“Just what did you lose to make you look at something like that from the very beginning?”

“Who knows? I do know that people can feel the loss of something they never had. Perhaps that loss can feel even greater.”

That was what the absence of parents felt like. Unlike Yorik, I could have had them. I wanted to grow up with good parents like Harold. That kind of festering resentment.

A sense of loss for something he had never possessed had ultimately given birth to tremendous rage.

Now that he understood it, the deprivation and wounds remained, but they no longer consumed him.

“All right, then. Since things have come this far, I'll support you even more openly. Whatever happens, I'm on your side. If you need anything, just tell me. I'll give you all the support you need. And if it's the Duke of Nearcaster rather than some other duke, I have nothing to fear.”

Valery nodded.

“Thank you.”

Lucas rose, walked around his desk, and extended a hand. Valery readily shook it.

It was hardly a military operation, but to handle matters as quietly as possible, Valery and his companions decided to visit the duke at night.

Brynhildr and Randgríðr would return first and assist them from inside Hill Town if anything went wrong, by opening the gate or doing whatever else was necessary.

Valery and his friends left the Lokir Merchant Company estate around sunset. They reached the city of Nearcaster just as its outer gate was about to close.

Knut and Yorik carried the assassins' heads in a box of salt. They intended to present them to the duke as a veiled threat.

In truth, it hardly even qualified as a threat. The duke had sent the assassins first, so he was hardly blameless.

Valery and his companions had stayed in the city during the joust before, so they were reasonably familiar with the roads. As they passed the tournament grounds, they saw few people about, even accounting for the evening hour.

Had they stopped holding matches after that feast? He did not know, and for now they simply kept moving. Their horses' hooves went clop, clop along the paved road.

City streets were dangerous at night, so everyone had returned home and fastened their windows and doors securely.

Valery and his companions headed straight for Hill Town. It had a gate of its own, but it was firmly shut.

Brynhildr had agreed to help from inside, so they gave a whistle. There was no response. Something was wrong.

“I don't see any guards at the gate, either.”

“There aren't any lights.”

There should have been men keeping watch atop the wall beside blazing bonfires. Yet not a single one was in sight.

After thinking for a moment, Valery went to the inn where they had stayed before and left the horses in its small stable. It was owned by the Lokir Merchant Company, so it could be trusted.

They returned after leaving the horses and examined the gate again. Yorik blew another loud, clear whistle, but there was still no response.

Valery considered what to do, then remembered that the gate and wall had been built long ago and were not perfect defenses. They walked along the wall from the gate and managed to find a fairly low section.

Valery sprang up and scaled the wall with ease. From atop the wall, he then received the box of heads, after which Knut leaped up as silently as a squirrel.

The two of them hauled Yorik up, though Knut nearly fell back down in the process. Valery practically had to support both men as they pulled Yorik onto the wall.

“You should lose some weight.”

Knut gave Yorik a gratuitous glare as he spoke. Yorik scratched his head.

“Wait.”

Valery spoke in a rather grave tone. By now the bonfires should have been burning, but not a single light was visible.

“Something is strange. We agreed that woman would help us from inside, but she isn't responding either.”

Knut had noticed that something was wrong as well.

For now, Valery headed up the gentle slope he had walked when attending the feast. The other two followed.

They saw the first corpse upon reaching the castle where the duke resided. There were no other visible wounds. The man's throat had been cut precisely deep enough to kill him. It was the work of an extraordinary master.

The fine hairs all over Yorik's body rose at the sight. It was not the corpse itself, but the fact that this had happened in the duke's castle and that the place remained as silent as death despite it.

“What the......”

“You stay here.”

“No. Stay close to me.”

Knut had told Yorik to remain behind, but Valery overruled him. He judged that Yorik would be safer at his side.

As they crossed the courtyard toward the inner keep, they came upon a long streak of blood across the ground. It led toward an open entrance that was pitch-black, without a single glimmer of light.

Suddenly, Valery sensed a presence at the entrance. He drew his sword like lightning before his mind had even registered it.

Clang!

The ring of metal shattered the silence. Valery immediately spun around. At that moment, the attacker landed on the ground.

The figure was slender and had short hair. Valery wondered whether it was a woman or a pretty young man, but the voice that followed was a woman's.

“Huh?”

She held a weapon called a jamadhar in each hand. Gripping its handle made a short, broad blade appear to jut out past the fist.

One of those blades was broken, and she stared at it in bewilderment.

She immediately discarded the broken weapon and drew a dagger. Just as Valery hastened to attack her, he sensed another presence near the entrance.

This time, it was a massive rectangular shield large enough to conceal the person standing behind it. The wielder charged like a bull, and Valery hurriedly shouted as he met the shield with his shoulder.

“Knut!”

Thud!

Valery's feet gouged the ground as he slid backward. He retreated about a meter before barely managing to stop. A deep voice sounded from behind the shield, apparently just as startled.

“Huh?”

The woman holding the dagger and jamadhar tried to attack Valery from behind, but Knut swiftly struck at her from the side. She was far faster than Knut, however.

She twisted deftly and knocked Knut's dagger aside, but her jamadhar broke this time too.

Crack!

The shock threw off her movements, and she flung herself high into the air like an acrobat, retreating a considerable distance. With even the blade of her remaining jamadhar now broken, she spoke.

“What in the world is going on?”

At that moment, Valery aimed his sword forward and thrust deep into the shield. Another weapon might not have managed it, but his Dwarven steel sword pierced the thick shield.

He felt it punch through the arm beyond the shield and slice into the wielder's side.

“Argh!”

He immediately pulled out his sword, gathered his strength, and kicked the shield hard.

Bang!

Only then did the shield-bearer tumble backward, revealing himself. He was not short, but he had an extraordinarily broad build.

Valery cast one wary glance at the woman who had retreated, then rushed in to finish off the shield-bearer. Yet he sensed another presence in the pitch-black entrance and hastily fell back.

“What happened?”

The person who walked out of the darkness was more conventionally armed than the first two. He merely wore a sword at his waist.

“Karli, I'm hurt.”

“What?”

“Look at this. It went through the bone.”

The man who had charged with the shield raised his arm to show him. Blood streamed from his arm and side, yet even after suffering such injuries, he did not seem particularly alarmed.

The newcomer was a scholarly-looking man with his hair parted down the middle. He appeared to be in his mid-to-late twenties.

He looked at Valery, then turned toward his companion standing some distance away.

“Both my ‘Claws’ broke. Those aren't ordinary weapons. I think they're Dwarven steel. Be careful of his sword and that one's dagger.”

The scholarly-looking man turned back to Valery. After seemingly looking him up and down, he spoke in an even tone.

“So you're the newly chosen Einheri.”

“What?”

The shield-bearer asked in surprise. The person standing farther away was equally startled.

“Rita, treat Ronnie first.”

The woman appeared to be Rita, and the man who had fallen with the shield seemed to be Ronnie.

“I'm Karlek. All three of us are Einheri. It seems we made a mistake because we're in the middle of an operation. Forgive us. I'm sorry.”

His unexpectedly ready apology cooled Valery's rising fighting spirit. After sweeping a cold gaze over the three of them, Valery sheathed his sword.

Yorik had somehow ended up near the castle gate and was watching wide-eyed, while Knut rotated his wrist, which apparently hurt from the clash of weapons.

Both were unharmed, but it would have been a close call if Knut's dagger had not been made of Dwarven steel. At the very least, he would have lost an arm.

“What operation?”

Valery asked.

“Before that, do you have an insignia?”

Valery drew back his cloak slightly and revealed the Valknutr tucked into his belt, the golden insignia of an Einheri. The gold and the quality of its craftsmanship made it easy to distinguish a genuine one from a fake.

Upon seeing the Einheri insignia, Karlek nodded and answered Valery's question.

“The duke crossed the line. Even though House Stáling gave him money to maintain the Valkyrie's dignity, he repeatedly abused the royal family's authority for his own sordid schemes. We were ordered to conduct a brief investigation, and if we found that he had damaged the royal family's authority, to kill everyone in the castle before the night was over. We also came to retrieve the king's horse while we were at it, and to collect someone named Randgríðr.”

“You killed the entire ducal household?”

“The title was given to someone easy to replace in the first place. He should have known his place.”

Nearcaster was a prime territory in its own right. Entrusting such land to someone capable would have been burdensome, but neither could it be given to someone utterly incompetent, so the ducal title had been granted to a mere merchant family.

It had not truly been granted in recognition of their support for the current king during the Succession War. That had merely been a pretext.

In a way, the reality of it was terribly hollow and frightening.

“What happened to Brynhildr?”

“Brynhildr? Who? Oh, the Valkyrie? You know her?”

“......”

“We kept her for a while to confront the duke during the questioning. How would she have gotten hurt? She's a Valkyrie. We don't care whether she sells her body or dies, but we did leave her a warning. If she steals the king's horse or displeases him one more time, she'll be expelled from the family.”

Judging by the fact that he did not even know Brynhildr's name properly, he truly seemed to have no interest in her at all.

More importantly, Valery could tell that this had only been a brief investigation in name. In truth, they had intended to kill everyone from the outset. The confrontation had been a mere formality.

“My turn to ask a question. What house are you from?”

Most Einheri came from among the most exceptional practitioners of the secret arts handed down within their houses.

Einheri could arise elsewhere, but they were difficult to discover unless war broke out and forced such hidden talents into the open, like an awl piercing through a pouch.

That was why Karlek asked which house the newly made Einheri Valery belonged to.

Valery regarded him with a calm yet somehow chilling gaze and answered.

“House Vǫlsungr.”

“......”

Karlek looked slightly flustered by Valery's answer, then examined him closely once again. In one corner, Rita and the man she was treating also turned toward Valery with wide eyes.

Karlek briefly studied Knut and Yorik as well before speaking.

“Well......”

“I'll warn you now. I only answered because you asked. Don't go spreading it around. If you do, I will kill you.”

Valery had not entirely shaken off the resentment from their exchange of blows. More than anything, he was quietly furious at the thought that something could have happened to Knut. Furious enough to explode if provoked.

Karlek fell silent for a moment at the murderous warning, then gave a faint smile.

“You decided to become stronger yourself instead of gathering power around you? That's unusual. Even so, there won't be much you can do when an army comes for you. An Einheri is still only human. Getting battered from every direction makes for a hard life, too. Remember this. You'd do well to be less overbearing. It'll help you survive, rookie.”

Even after learning that Valery was a prince, Karlek had merely shown a little surprise and was not intimidated in the slightest.

“You remember this. No one who incurred the enmity of a man of House Vǫlsungr ever survived.”

“Is there anyone who doesn't know that? Why don't you worry about the other princes instead of me? Anyway, we're leaving. It was good meeting you. Hey, if you're patched up enough, let's go.”

Karlek turned toward his two fellow Einheri as he spoke. Ronnie, who had administered first aid by freely pouring the rare and costly troll potion over his wounds and drinking it, rose along with Rita.

As though offering a challenge that was not quite a challenge, Karlek walked past within Valery's striking distance.

“Sorry. I didn't know who you were when I attacked you, Your Handsome Highness.”

The woman named Rita apologized as she passed, but she did not look apologetic in the least. Not when she winked and flirted with him so shamelessly.

“Me too. I couldn't see you from behind the shield.”

“Would you have recognized who you were looking at?”

“Well, no......”

There was not a trace of tension in any of the three Einheri, despite the horrific bloodbath that had befallen the ducal household.

A short while after they left the castle, Brynhildr and Randgríðr emerged from within. Brynhildr did not look frightened or anxious, but her face was blank and half-dead. It was from helplessness.

Randgríðr looked distressed and deeply troubled. She spoke to Valery.

“The family head has summoned me, so I must go. Please take good care of Hild, Your Highness.”

Randgríðr seemed unable to make herself leave, but this time she truly had to go. As an Einheri, she was more valuable than a Valkyrie.

She had followed Brynhildr of her own accord out of personal affection. The king had not assigned her as Brynhildr's bodyguard.

She stroked Brynhildr's shoulder one last time and held her hand before walking away. In the end, she left the castle without looking back.

A heavy silence descended. It was a silence like death. Apart from the distant sounds of the city at night and the cries of scops owls, not a sound came from the castle.

Only after a long while did Brynhildr finally manage to speak. She relaxed her rigid expression and smiled awkwardly, seemingly trying to force herself to act as though it were nothing.

“Mother often told me that someone like me, who wasn't a prince, should never have been born. She said I made her miserable. Then sometimes she'd treat me well on a whim. But what I still don't understand is why she never bought me underwear when my breasts started growing. I was a Valkyrie, but I couldn't get money to buy underwear. Funny, isn't it? Hehe......”

Because rune mages took princes away as soon as they were born, a mother could not know who her son was, though she knew that she had given birth to a prince.

When that happened, her family could be granted all manner of positions and honors, and if they were fortunate, even a fief. Their fortunes could be transformed overnight.

Valkyries, meanwhile, were supposedly given all the support they could need, but a closer look revealed that many lived in misery.

The royal family did provide child-rearing expenses and various other forms of support, but there were many Valkyries and the king himself had no real interest in them, so much of the money disappeared along the way. All manner of vicious struggles arose over those funds.

It helped to have a powerful maternal family, but the wealthy were often greedier and took much of the money even when they had no need of it.

In other words, when a Valkyrie's maternal family was poor and insignificant, she could still end up living like a beggar.

Brynhildr had suffered the worst of all. Her mother had been a prostitute.

“Whenever I happened to catch the king's attention, Mother treated me much better than usual. But I didn't think I could beat men at swordsmanship like Randy, so I practiced for the joust over and over. All I had to do was borrow a good horse somehow and charge ahead while desperately wishing someone would kill me. But Mother herself never caught the king's attention. I suppose it made her so bitter that she'd fly into a rage by herself and hit me. She'd ask if a bitch like me thought she was something special. She'd tell me not to act so proud. I never did. Isn't that strange? What did she expect me to do? Was I supposed to attract the king's attention or not? She beat me in every way imaginable, but what I remember most was being stripped naked and thrown outside in the middle of winter. I crouched in front of the door for hours. Then one day she suddenly died. Brown liquid came out of her nose. It wasn't blood or mucus. I don't know what it was, but she was still my mother, and I was afraid of being left alone, so I wiped her corpse clean for hours. Mother, please wake up. Please. I kept saying that. Well, she never did. Then not long afterward, I stole the king's horse and ran away. Funny, isn't it? I think you were right. I am stupid. I'm sorry......”

Brynhildr was sixteen years old. Two years older than Valery.

She kept trying to smile. She lowered her head to hide her face behind her hair, then forced herself to lift it and meet Valery's eyes before lowering it again. She repeated this several times.

In the end, she bowed her head and wept. Even then, she clenched her teeth and tried desperately not to make a sound.

Valery merely watched her calmly. Only after a long while did he ask.

“Do you want to kill them?”

“......Yes.”

“Who?”

“All of them. The king, Mother, the sisters who laughed at me. Everyone.”

Though Brynhildr's mother was already dead, she still wanted to kill her. At the same time, part of her yearned for the affection she could never receive.

Brynhildr struggled between those conflicting feelings while forcing herself to act cheerful in front of others.

Valery saw his own pre-regression self reflected in Brynhildr. He pitied her because he understood how she felt.

In some ways, however, her circumstances had been worse. Valery himself had not really been abused. The man he believed to be his father had merely tried to kill him.

The sense of betrayal, his suppressed jealousy of Harold, and the loss he felt for things he had never possessed had all erupted into rage.

But he could not now encourage her vengeance or fan the flames of her rage. That pained him deeply.

There was only one thing he could do for her now.

“Stay with me. I'll protect you, Sister.”

Valery took his sister into his arms. Her tears soaked her younger brother's chest.

At first she sobbed softly, but later she wept without restraint. She even pounded Valery's chest as though purging the bitterness inside her. Valery accepted it all against his broad, solid chest.

He still did not truly understand what family was, but he could not be yet another person to abandon her—he was her younger brother. Or perhaps, as Priest Eirik had said, Valery was not truly a cold person after all.

Whatever the case, the people of an age that had lost its vengeance had to endure the tragedies that befell them with their entire being.

Whether they grew like Lucas, looked beyond fate like Valery, or struggled like Brynhildr.

Yet Lucas had found a way to live through the deaths of his sister and father, and Valery through the death of Priest Eirik, while Brynhildr still seemed unable to bury her mother.

A funeral held at the proper time was essential, if only so the living could go on living.

Chapter 17 – A Funeral for the Sake of Living. End.