Chapter 48
Chapter 48
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>Translator: Lord First
>Chapter: 48
>Chapter Title: Stalker vs. Stalker (3)
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*
“Oh, Miss Einarsdottir. It looks like you’ve gotten a new violin?”
“Ah, yes…”
“My goodness! Isn’t this from the Prauschlitz line?! Something this expensive… Wait, wasn’t your last violin just as fine?”
“Yes… M-my uncle bought it for me.”
“I’m so envious!”
Eyes filled less with envy than with jealousy, and more with contempt than anything else.
It was a gaze both familiar and sorrowful to Esidis.
Their attitude suggested they had no memory of the day she’d stood against the Knight Division freshmen, even sacrificing Squeaky III in the process.
Within the orchestra department, Esidis had always been treated this way.
Perhaps it was to be expected. Droan was a powerful nation in the Allied Kingdoms, but it hadn't earned its place through culture or the arts.
Uncivilized and brutish barbarians. That was the extent of the country's reputation.
And yet, here she was in the orchestra department, having enrolled with a talent that was nothing remarkable.
Despite this, the instruments she carried were always of the highest quality, and even those she frequently managed to break.
She wasn't good with words, and a strange man she called ‘uncle’ had enrolled as a freshman and constantly came to see her.
Esidis had always been a beloved girl. Her father was the king, after all, and one of the strongest warriors not just in their country but on the entire continent.
To her, this environment was unbearably harsh.
"*Ugh... sniff... sob...*"
For the next class, she locked herself in an empty ensemble room and wept.
No one had informed her of the change in the lecture hall, so she was left to tremble and sob alone.
The hand holding Squeaky, which had drawn the bow across the strings a few times, fell limply.
"*Daddy... Uncle...*"
She clutched Squeaky and whimpered, then with a trembling hand, she placed it in its case and lifted it.
It was a moment where she wanted to give up.
In truth, every moment had been like that. Every moment she held her instrument and sang.
To the citizens of Droan, the violin was a rather unfamiliar foreign instrument. It was ridiculously expensive to acquire a proper one, and fragile to boot, breaking all too easily.
Droan was a dry place. Even a brief exposure to the outside air could warp the fingerboard and body, ending its life as an instrument.
Tuning it every day changed nothing. A string instrument was, by its nature, a luxury item requiring the delicate care of a skilled hand.
The Huscarls saw the king’s daughter as extravagant, and the teachers they managed to find were no more than common minstrels.
Because of that, she had spent a long time painstakingly finding sheet music and teaching herself.
How overjoyed she had been when she later succeeded in gaining admission to the world-renowned music conservatory, the orchestra department of Saint Yansk University.
“…*Sniffle*.”
Esidis gently stroked the bag slung over her shoulder.
Her whole life, she had always wanted to give up. She thought it might not be so bad to let it all go and live a quiet life as a princess.
But to live as the king’s daughter meant being displayed like a high-priced, preserved product.
Weaving to enhance her value, singing to cultivate a beautiful voice, and occasionally practicing martial arts.
The result would be marrying the warrior most suitable for continuing the royal bloodline. That would have been her destiny.
She didn't want to live like that.
She wanted to learn an instrument. She wanted to learn music. Especially the violin.
It all started ten years ago, with a story shared around a campfire.
A story told by a man whose face was now a blur in her memory.
*
Einar was a logical man. Though it was the logic of Droan, he was nonetheless a rational thinker and a good father.
Therefore, he brought his entire family with him to the battlefield. There were several reasons for this.
First, his children must experience the air of battle firsthand.
Second, the Jarls of Droan could not be trusted.
The latter reason was more critical. Einar was a great warrior, and even back then, he had no equal within Droan.
If he returned safely after the war, it was highly likely that one of the Jarls would take his wife and children hostage.
Therefore, Esidis knew war.
And she knew the Hero’s Party of that era.
She remembered the backs of the heroes who always returned wounded. Their limbs broken, sometimes missing, or shattered.
She remembered the people who would wipe away the blood, bandage their wounds, and sit exhausted around the campfire, sharing drinks.
That was why, back then, she had asked a question to the man who was always the most grievously injured, an outsider to the party.
“Uncle, why don't you run away?”
“Hmm?”
He was a good dozen years younger than her father, yet still at least ten years her senior.
Because he was the youngest in the party aside from the Saintess, Esidis often struck up conversations with the stoic man.
The man gazed at the campfire for a moment before offering a faint smile.
“Where would I run? The world is turning into a hellscape.”
“Still, it’s better than going out to fight. Every single day, to a place where you could die at any moment.”
“This isn’t a story for young ears.”
This man sometimes used words she couldn't understand. She found it quite cool and secretly admired him for it.
Young children, after all, tend to think difficult words are impressive.
“Esidis. The reason your father and I wield axes, the reason Maximilian and Gilles Vert draw their swords, why the Saintess somehow keeps us alive, and why Enrique risks her life infiltrating enemy lines—it’s all for one single reason.”
“What is it?”
“Because we hope to be the last.”
The man held his axe blade up to the campfire, inspecting it. The edge was so dangerously chipped it was on the verge of breaking.
“Living a life where you must kill an enemy's day just to live your own. We hope that kind of life ends with us. So that you, your siblings, and the many children who will come after us—and their children, too—will hold plows, not weapons.”
The war could not drag on any longer. The Allied Kingdoms’ statehood would not be able to endure any more of it.
No war should last longer than a generation. Even if victory came after that, it would not be a victory in the truest sense.
Their generation was the final line, the last chance for people to have lives and for nations to still function as nations.
With that meaning in mind, the man quietly set down his axe.
“So, don't be like your father.”
“W-well… then what should I do? I’m, uh… I’m good with an axe!”
“I know. I’ll be amazed once you’ve grown a little more. Still, if you can, try to hold something other than an axe.”
“I’m not very good at sewing…”
“You don't have to sew. Hmm.”
The man looked at Esidis with a troubled expression. Not being good with words, he wasn't confident he could explain things to this little girl at her level.
He stroked his chin for a moment before speaking.
“If you must hold something, an instrument would be better.”
“An instrument?”
“A weapon kills people, but an instrument can save them.”
Transcending borders, cultures, and languages. Great music itself can become a bridge connecting people.
When an age of peace arrived, one of the most needed things would be instruments.
Esidis stared blankly at the man. His ashen hair and piercing blue eyes, the composed gaze he fixed on the fire.
The young girl admired this steadfast man.
“What’s your favorite instrument, uncle?”
“Well, I don’t really know the instruments of this world.”
He stroked his chin, looking troubled. It was a habit of his when deep in thought.
*Ah, but I think there was one instrument that's common to both worlds.* The man tilted his head, thinking. Having spent ten years on the battlefield since his conscription, he hadn’t encountered many instruments…
He probably saw it at the victory banquet held by the Great King. He remembered it was an instrument that existed in this world too, with the same name.
“Was that… a violin…?”
“A violin?”
“Mm.”
Esidis rolled the name over in her mouth several times, committing it to memory.
Ten years had passed since then. In that time, she had gone from the daughter of a great warrior to the daughter of a great king.
An era had come where the Great King no longer needed an axe to rule his kingdom. It was an age where words were mightier than axes, where written treaties were mightier than words, and where gold was needed most of all.
Just as her uncle had said, a world where weapons were no longer needed had arrived.
Esidis took up the violin. She did so steadfastly, despite her parents’ worries and the criticism of her other uncles. She pressed the fingerboard until her hands were raw, and drew the bow until her wrist gave out.
She did it with the hope of one day visiting her uncle, who had ultimately fallen in the war, and playing the most perfect requiem for him.
She had heard that her uncle's remains were interred at the Pritzenkaya National Cemetery in Krasilov.
And Krasilov was home to the continent’s most prestigious music conservatory.
Her admission to Saint Yansk University was nothing short of fate.
So, she would not give up. Never, ever.
*
Esidis wiped her tears clean, stood up, and left the orchestra department's main building.
She had effectively skipped class today, but she had plenty of space to practice at home.
She would never give up.
“An instrument is a bridge that connects people…”
Never.
*
“Mord.”
“What.”
“You can stop coming now.”
“…What?”
Ivan spoke quietly, his gaze fixed on the numerous articles of laundry Mord had shredded.
“During your time volunteering at my orphanage, its financial losses have risen significantly.”
“*Kugh…!*”
“Are you aware that 'laundry' refers to the act of cleaning clothes, not tearing them to shreds?”
“*Guuh…*”
Mord bit his lip and avoided Ivan’s gaze.
But he had a rebuttal.
“I… I’ve never done laundry in my life!”
“Even someone who's never done laundry before should be able to wash a child's undergarments after two months.”
“*Kheuuk…!*”
Ivan ignored the wounded Mord and walked away.
He was canceling his plan to keep this man here to monitor the movements of spies dispatched by Droan.
Now that he had information that one of the ‘spies sent by Droan’ was after Esidis’s life, there was no reason to hold onto Mord.
Mord was a fool, but he genuinely cared for Esidis and was one of Great King Einar’s trusted confidants.
For Esidis’s safety, Mord needed to return to his duties. He hadn't enrolled in the university just to take classes in the Knight Division, after all.
His role was to be Esidis’s escort.
‘And if Mord is by Esidis’s side, someone is bound to approach him.’
With Mord protecting her, Esidis would be safe. To separate her from him, someone from Droan would attempt to contact Mord.
The plan was to watch Mord, find whoever made contact, and follow the trail to eliminate the source.
Ivan watched the middle-aged man leave the orphanage with a sorrowful expression for a long moment before turning his head away.
*