Holy Relic
Holy Relic
When she returned home late in the evening, Asilie was first startled by the fact that I was there, then gave me a dubious look when I said we might have to go to Ogwen because of Seneran's letter, and then was horrified the moment she heard we'd be flying there on Jagayong.
"You picked up a wy-wyvern? And the royal family authorized it?"
As I explained everything that had happened and we enjoyed a lavish dinner to celebrate my safe return, Asilie displayed quite a range of emotional shifts while drinking.
As her surprise gradually subsided and she grew calmer, I continued the story, trying my absolute hardest to package it and hide things under a "nothing much happened" veneer, but I couldn't fend off the inevitable interrogation from Asilie.
"Now that I think about it, I heard a very interesting rumor."
"What kind of rumor?"
"That Eldi single-handedly broke through Levien's outer fortress and shortened the war. Isn't that amusing? How on earth could that even be possible."
She said 'Ha. Ha. Ha.' but her eyes weren't laughing. Just as she'd said, it was a truly absurd rumor bordering on complete nonsense, but ironically, because of all the bizarre stunts I'd pulled over the years, she was clearly convinced it was already true, and I froze up without even being able to object.
"It seemed like you did everything I told you not to do?"
"N-no, big sis. I didn't charge in saying I'd take on the commander."
"Really?"
"Uh... instead, the commander tried to strike me and charged into the command post so I..."
Asilie nearly grabbed the back of her own neck in exasperation, but somehow dinner continued smoothly enough.
We cleared up a misunderstanding that wasn't even really a misunderstanding, and after finishing the meal while giving thanks for my safe return, Asilie's ears twitched as she read Seneran's letter that I'd handed over.
"I thought I'd searched the nearby forest pretty thoroughly myself. So there was a temple like that there? And there's something significant enough that Seneran says you need to come in person?"
"Yeah. Seeing as she's even arranging lodging in Ogwen while operating there, it can't be that far."
Since Asilie had already heard all the information from Water Buffalo Horn, no further explanation was needed beyond appropriate interjections.
"We're going by wyvern, right? Can I ride too?"
"Yeah. It's on the bigger side, so it'll work if we swap out the saddle."
"Haah... alright. If it were dangerous, there would've been some kind of warning written in there. When do we leave?"
"I was thinking of doing a full maintenance check first, so the day after tomorrow maybe?"
The important matters were sorted out just as quickly as the disappearing food. The now-convinced Asilie told me I must be tired and to rest, then began clearing the dish-laden table with Tie. I didn't refuse the kindness.
As I lay in bed after brushing my teeth, the thought fleetingly passed that with my teacher and Seneran both present, it ought to be a situation with no real danger to speak of... but no one ever knows how things in this world will turn out, so I had to prepare thoroughly.
Who knows? I might get swept up in some weird gate again and this time end up flying all the way to the Demonfolk Territory. Having already tasted the bitter flavor of a Demon King's Army division commander, I absolutely refuse to be in that kind of situation ever again.
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After a brief rest, we finished our preparations to depart for Ogwen and left the house, leaving Tie's send-off behind us.
Unlike traveling by horse, our much lighter luggage made not only me but even Asilie keep tilting her head, but we decided to trust our experience and move out. But that only applied to our own luggage—the load the wyvern had to carry was heavier than what a horse would bear.
Of course, that didn't mean the beast had any right to complain. It was all his own food, after all. After paying the remaining balance, the handler loaded roughly 100kg of meat onto the back of the swapped saddle, secured it firmly, and nodded with satisfaction as he explained to me.
"If you're heading toward Ogwen, this will be enough. Even flying leisurely, you'll arrive in two days, and the area's full of wildlife. If you send him hunting, he'll bring back a deer in less than 30 minutes and eat it on his own. Ah, did you learn how to manage his feeding?"
"Let him hunt voluntarily, but if he comes back having failed, give him less than usual. Right?"
The fact that they could be trained to safely carry people, understand commands, and occasionally cunningly slack off naturally meant they were smart enough to do so.
My Jagayong hadn't shown any such signs yet, but according to the airborne unit members' testimonies, there were quite a few wyverns that, during training, got addicted to the taste of human-provided meat and merely pretended to hunt before returning to collect their feed.
Perhaps their teaching wasn't wrong, as the handler nodded along at my words in agreement.
"Exactly. Some get aggressive when hungry, but... this one listens so well to Sir Ega, I doubt he will."
"If he acts up, I'll just smack him around a few times. That's what I did when I first captured him anyway."
The handler laughed as if I'd just cracked a pleasant joke for the first time in a while, but unlike him, Jagayong tensed up and shrank his neck way back, as if he'd actually understood me. The more I looked at him, the more fascinating the creature was.
While we were talking, Asilie, who had been examining the wyvern with eyes full of curiosity, stroked under his chin and asked me.
"Now that I think about it, Eldi, did you name him?"
"Nope. Haven't decided yet."
"Still? You named Laika so quickly."
That was because a pitiful dog who'd suffered misanthropy at the hands of misanthropic humans in my past life had stuck in my memory. Wyverns don't have anything like that going on.
"No name really came to mind."
I couldn't tell the truth, so I answered with a casual shrug. Maybe she hadn't asked out of having some candidate name in mind, because Asilie just nodded and accepted it.
After receiving advice on winter flying precautions that I might not have known about, I led the wyvern outside without much trouble, loaded Asilie aboard, and flew into the sky with Laika in my arms, following the handlers' guidance.
Since this beast had been mysteriously faster than the other wyverns even back in Levien, the capital quickly began shrinking away. As we soon settled into maintaining a proper altitude, Asilie, who had kept her mouth firmly shut, spoke up with a slightly strained voice.
"Aren't you more skilled at this than riding a horse?"
"Maybe. I flew around constantly in Levien."
I only rode horses when necessary, but I'd ridden Jagayong with desperate, all-out effort for combat, so it was a plausible enough statement.
Though we had a history of getting attacked from the sky, fortunately no such mishap occurred on this flight. Even without deliberately hurrying, the landscape spread out below us and raced by in an instant. Despite taking adequate rest breaks along the way, by sunset we'd already covered nearly half the distance.
"Wyverns really are nice. It's on a whole different level from galloping on a horse."
Unable not to marvel at Jagayong's power, even though the beast had successfully hunted a deer, I tore off a huge chunk from the meat we were carrying as cargo and tossed it to him. I'd often been warned to be careful because it could spoil him, but I had an odd certainty that no bad wyvern existed in the face of tough love, so I didn't hesitate.
After spending a peaceful night free of even bandit attacks, we departed early the next morning and reached Ogwen well before lunchtime.
In my final memories, Ogwen had been a backwater village that didn't even have a wyvern station, so contrary to my slight worry, Ogwen had now nearly completed its transformation into a proper city. Perched in one corner was a wyvern station, built in the exact same style as every other city's, making it easy to spot from the sky.
Unlike in the capital, the station's handler took Jagayong's reins, casually handed me a wooden tag, and led the beast straight into the stable. We marveled at that cool, swift handling, then looked around the familiar and beloved city we'd returned to after so long, heading for the inn where Seneran was staying.
Honestly, I'd always prided myself on living a life worthy of being called an Ogwen native, but I had absolutely no idea where the lodgings she mentioned were tucked away. It seemed it wasn't just me—even Asilie was flustered, apparently Ogwen had undergone a great deal of change.
In the end, by mutual agreement, we gave up on finding the lodging ourselves and decided to seek help from a true Ogwen native, Big Sis Alisha.
"You little shit!!! If you're alive, you should've sent word that you were alive!!"
"With all the cursing I've taken from you so far, big sis, how could I die."
After trading vicious profanity with me and sharing a warm embrace with Asilie, Big Sis Alisha calmed the wide-eyed children who were staring back and forth between me and Asilie, then swung her characteristically large palm and smacked my shoulder.
"You've really become a proper swordsman now. No chance you'll go out somewhere and die screaming."
"It's not quite that simple, big sis. The Demon King's Army bastards are filthy strong. The one called a division commander, I barely won even with around fifteen knights piling on him together."
"...What the hell have you been doing out there?"
Even her dumbfounded reaction was pleasant and warmly familiar, but since finding Seneran's lodging was the priority, we decided to continue the conversation later. Fortunately, Alisha knew where the inn we mentioned was, and on the condition that we absolutely come back and tell our stories before leaving, she showed her resourcefulness by attaching a little kid to us as a guide.
The reunion with her was already delightful, but watching the boy who'd been firing up endless flights of imagination after seeing my and Asilie's gear guide us with the most serious and solemn expression in the world was even more entertaining.