135
Mercenary of Twin Swords (2)
Jin Katrin left the battlefield and headed east.
“Aren’t we going to help them?” I asked.
“The war is not yet that urgent. It’s not yet time for the Knights of the Sky to come to the fore,” Jin replied, saying that the existence of the wyverns will only be revealed later.
“We have already flown into the empire. They must know of the wyverns.”
“If Your Highness had not been so stubborn, I would never have taken such undue risks. So thank you, Your Highness.”
Jin responded to me in such a manner, saying that at least I had come to Dotrin to pay off my debt. As we flew on the wyvern, we passed over battlefields several times. At such times, I remained silent as I studied the ground below.
When I listened, it seemed that I could hear the sounds of battle. Screams of fury and death resonated in my mind like hallucinations.
“Hah, relax a little. You’re breathing into my ears,” Jin said as he looked at me. It seems that my breath had become short without my notice.
Then I snapped awake and realized my ass was half-off the saddle. With an embarrassed face, I shifted it back onto the saddle, yet contrary to my will, my ass started to lift once more, so great was my curiosity of the world below.
“How is it that Your Highness is always the same?” Jin said and shook his head. All the while, the wyvern flew east. The sounds of battle, which had set my heart a-beating, faded and then disappeared completely.
I regretted that my appetite for battle had not been sated, yet my mood cleared as the cloud cover cleared. The territories of the Dotrin Kingdom was lush with greenery and high and low ridges that stretched on endlessly below us.
I admired the scenery.
“How is it?” Jin Katrin asked me, his face filled with pride.
“It’s awesome,” I said with a nod, expressing my true feelings.
“It is easy to block passage, making it difficult for the enemy to come through. There are many places to launch ambushes from, so even if they march for a day, they won’t come far. There is no fortress more heavenly,” I added, giving my heartfelt appraisal of the land.
“Why?” asked Jin with a deep frown.
When I asked him if there was something wrong with my answer, he looked tired and told me, “When you open your mouth, you only talk about fighting and killing.”
“I came here to fight. But let’s not talk about war, then. Tell me something else.”
“Wouldn’t the normal response be to admire Dotrin’s great forests?”
“Yes, all those trees look majestic,” I said with confidence, and Jin just kept staring at me.
After that, he shut his mouth and said nothing more. Even after I had praised the forests that his country was so proud of, I couldn’t figure out whether he took it for sarcasm and was hurt by my words, or whether there was another reason.
It seemed like the latter possibility to me.
At a certain point, the wyvern banked around and then started hovering around the same spot.
It was weird that it did this, so I touched Jin’s back. I could see he was more upset than was necessary as he stared at me. Yet, his face looked like a cow that had been led to an abattoir.
When I asked him why we were hovering, he gave no answer. He simply pulled on the wyvern’s reigns and guided the beast into a descent, all in silence.
It was incomprehensible.
The wyvern still had some power to its wings, and normally, we would still have flown on for a while. Yet, Jin Katrin declared that we would rest at the foot of a mountain that was unknown to me.
“Get off.”
When the wyvern touched down upon the ground, the knights who had been drooping, exhausted, raised their heads. After having sat so long a time on the crude saddles that had been installed on the rear mounting, they jumped from the beast in a flash.
“Woah! Wow!” Gwain groaned as he bent his back and massaged it. His two comrades jumped down after him.
“I might be a noble, but after flying so much, I’m just going to spend the rest of my life comfortably beneath this mountain,” said Bernardo Eli, who had constantly been complaining about the journey.
Gunn, whose body has not yet fully recovered, remained silent as she leaned against a tree trunk.
Only Adelia seemed fine as she hustled and bustled, preparing our camp.
Everyone seemed to have had a hard time flying.
I chuckled as I looked at them and then sat down by the campfire.
“Well.”
During the flight, I had grabbed a strand of hair that had strayed into my eyes. It was black hair, not the familiar golden color.
“It looks as if the dye holds.”
I was amazed.
Before leaving the capital, several steps were taken to avoid revealing our identities.
We prepared iron helms that would hide our faces, and we had also changed our hair colors.
In this task, Gunn showed unexpected proficiency. Even if only half an elf, she was still an elf, so she was good at gathering plants and preparing elixirs. Although she did not possess the subtle skills of the elves of Mistletoe Forest, who dealt with the essence of the forest itself, she could make simple mixtures such as hair dye.
And as a result, I now had black hair.
Adelia kept touching her hair, which blazed with an intense red hue instead of its normal light-brown coloration.
I felt that this intense hair color didn’t fit me, but I cared little: So long as it hid my true hair color and looked believable enough. On Adelia’s part, her mild nature was counteracted by her new red head, so it fitted in well with our intention of concealing our identities.
Then I recalled that her ancestor, Agnes, had just the same red her as she.
I laughed at those old memories.
If I came to see Adelia run wild on the battlefield, it would be nice, as if reliving the old days. I laughed by myself, then noticed Jin Katrin, who seemed a bit lost.
Sitting a little further away from the party, he was immersed in a world of his own. It seemed as if he kept scolding himself, non-stop. There were words that weren’t Leonbergian that I managed to understand, like “Tonight is the last night,” or “Even now, I can’t sleep well.”
When I asked him what he meant, he did not give me a single answer.
The sun, which had squatted in the middle of the sky when we landed, tilted down until night came at long last.
“Well?”
The wyvern had been snoring with a ‘Karrrreung, Karrrreung,’ yet it now, all of a sudden, raised its head. I studied the shadows of the forest to see if some mountain beast was stalking us, but I didn’t notice any signs.
Then I suddenly felt a strange premonition and looked up at the sky.
And they appeared: Wyverns with their great wings spread wide. These were obviously Sky Knights.
I frowned.
Ten wyverns were circling our camp – as if surrounding us. I was worried by the faint aura of hostility that I could feel flowing in from the knights above us.
My party also looked at the sky, hands on their swords, also seeming to sense the animosity.
“Stay your blades. These are the kingdom’s wyvern knights,” Jin Katrin cautioned us.
“We may keep our blades, but I’m sensing hostility from them,” Gwain said.
“They are not here to harm you. They just-,” and Jin chewed on his lip, “They came here to get me.”
“What?”
At that moment, a loud shout came from the sky.
“The eldest son of the Duke of Katrin, Jin, accept the royal judgment!”
“They said they would solve it on their own, and I was a fool to believe it,” Jin grumbled and then sighed. He went forward and knelt on one knee.
“I am Jin, the eldest son of Duke Katrin. I give myself to the will of the king!”
“We are dismissing Jin Katrin from all positions at the present time. Jin Katrin will have to appear before a disciplinary committee as soon as possible,” the wyvern knight delivered the king’s decree in an abstracted tone, then added, “We will take you straight to the royal castle.”
The knight’s voice was resolute.
* * *
We arrived there in the deep of night, my knights and me being ‘politely’ guided into Dotrin’s castle. We weren’t even able to see what the castle looked like. And once inside, I met Doris’s brother.
“Nice to meet you. Kislan Dotrin.”
The man who introduced himself as the second prince of the kingdom was a bit short, with light brown hair, and he looked just like his younger brother.
If there was a difference, it was that the younger brother had an impression that was like a lively little boy, whereas the older brother gave of an intellectual and somewhat weak aura.
He stood from his seat and welcomed the descendant of the Dragon Slayer, thanked me for my help in difficult times: In short, Kislan poured out a formal greeting.
Then I asked him why Jin was taken.
“There was a grave error in my brother’s judgment in carrying out such missions in the empire, and he was given a probationary order for his actions. Jin Katrin, as his attendant, will soon be disciplined, forced to take responsibility for failing to prevent it.”
I could intuitively see that I was also being blamed for the actions of Doris and Jin, so I checked with Kislan.
His response was neither negative nor positive. He only asked for patience, saying that he could not tell outsiders the details of the kingdom’s internal affairs.
“When the day dawns bright, Your Highness will find out such things, so let us all rest for the night.”
Doris’s brother left the room, and I spent my first night in the royal castle with a troubled mind.
The day did dawn bright, and soon enough, a messenger came.
“His Majesty has invited you to breakfast.”
Bernardo Eli, who was killing time in my room, frowned. He spoke.
“It has been said that it is sufficient to serve a meal only once the sun has set, for then all can freely share their hearts and hearths. So if your guests will only be in your hall for a short while, you serve them their meal once the sun has bestridden the sky.”
Even after living for centuries, it was the first time that I had heard such a proverb.
“It is an informal visit and one that should be kept confidential. It is also the case that we have been brought here like sinners. If this matter is not resolved, we might not be esteemed in their considerations. It has been made clear that the King of Dotrin ignores our kingdom. Even so, aren’t we the people who have come to aid Dotrin?” I asked.
“Then you respect their royal family so much that you held back?”
“No. But why do you know old parables and proverbs so well?”
Bernardo coughed, turning his head away and saying that he didn’t know.
I thought about it as much as I could and said that he only gave me a pinch of something greater. I got up from my seat and chuckled as I watched Bernardo snarl.
“Guide me,” I said to the messenger, who had turned his head away as if hearing nothing of our exchange. He bowed his head and opened the door. I followed the messenger as we made our way through the castle.
On the way to the dining room, I saw no common attendants in the hallway. Thanks to this, I was able to reach the hall without anyone’s notice.
“Your Majesty, he has arrived,” the messenger said as he stood by the door.
A heavy voice came from within, “Enter.”
The door was opened.
The interior was quite dark, and there was a long, rectangular table. And the King of Dotrin sat at its end. He had broad shoulders, his mouth was stubbornly set, and his eyes were strong.
He did look a bit embarrassed, yet he was dignified, and though he did not flaunt his authority, his was a presence that none could ignore.
The king was ferocious rather than mild, a general who commanded his realm rather than a monarch who ruled from a throne.
He was a giant and a superman.
And he was the strongest man I have met since waking, having reached the highest place than any other I knew of. The nape of my neck grew stiff as energy rose in my body.
Only then did the king turn his head toward me.
Our gazes met.
‘Sha,’ he gestured with his hand, footsteps sounded, and the dining room’s door was closed.
‘Thud-‘
The king stared at me. Anyone would have lowered their head by just encountering his overbearing presence, but I wasn’t just quite anyone. Already, I was a usurper who had overthrown a king and claimed his throne.
If this man was a king, then so was I.
If he was a superman who had crossed the barrier, then I was also a superman.
I provocatively raised my chin and looked at the king.
The king’s thick eyebrows wriggled.
He jumped up from his seat, stepped up to me, and said, “I thought the name of the lion who commands the north was an ancient, long-gone name.”
There existed a deep admiration for me in the voice of this king.
“Now I know that’s not the case.”
He reached out to me, and I clasped his hand.
“Nice to meet you, young lion of the Leonberger family.”
‘Graok,’ his grip seemed to be made of iron as we shook his hands, and then I realized something, now that I stood facing him: The king was much shorter than I had expected.
When I had first seen him, he looked so big, like a giant. In actual fact, he was barely tall enough to reach the tip of my nose. Nevertheless, he was looking down upon all the world.
I was amazed: Here was the ideal figure that I wished the descendants of the Lion, of Gruhorn, to be like, standing right in front of me.
“Amazing. It’s incredible,” he muttered.
And as much as I admired the king could I see that he was also impressed by the sight of me.
“The Leonberg Kingdom has raised a monster,” came his compliment.
I laughed at that. In truth, the kingdom didn’t raise me.
No, I was raising a kingdom.
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