A Man Named Rion Elverhart
The pure white light did not last long.
The flash that seemed ready to sear the eyes had swallowed the barrier chamber in a true instant. Yet after that single moment passed, the very air inside the room had changed.
I reflexively closed my eyes and opened them again.
The barrier core was trembling. Black cracks seethed and churned inside the crystal, then began to peel back layer by layer, as if being pushed away. Pure white streams of light bored into the interior, and where the Princess’s golden light had pierced the thorns, the blackness burned away. The Duchess’s ice lines held the empty connection lines beneath the floor to the very end. The reverse-flowing contamination thrashed against the ice walls several times, but could no longer rise upward.
Crack.
Something broke deep inside the barrier core. It was a black thorn. The mark—smaller and more deeply embedded than the one I had seen in the Imperial Palace—twisted half-melted at the center before finally splitting from within. One of its fragments scraped the crystal surface as it flew out and fell to the floor.
Thud.
At that sound, the black cracks spreading inside the barrier core heaved once, massively. Then stopped.
For a very brief moment, the room grew unbelievably quiet. I gasped for breath and stepped back one pace. The palm of my left hand stung. The sensation of having forced the core open still lingered inside my hand—less hot than numb and cold, as if I had been gripping ice bare-handed.
The Duchess withdrew her hands first. The blue-white veins that had spread along the floor patterns slowly lost their light. But the line leading to the eastern outskirts did not die completely. Faint—very faint—but it still lived.
The Princess also withdrew her golden mana and looked up at the barrier core. The black cracks had not vanished entirely. Yet the mass that had covered the center had split, and a pale silver light was returning inside the crystal. It was a weak, unstable light, like the pulse of a dying person barely revived.
One of the kneeling aides muttered with a face that could hardly believe it.
“…It stopped.”
Father said nothing. He simply stared at the barrier core. As always, the change in his expression was small, but the barrier diagram in his hand was crumpling ever so slightly. Looking at that, I knew. That man had been tense as well.
The Princess spoke first.
“We can’t call this a complete restoration…”
The Duchess answered briefly.
“It’s emergency first aid. We stopped the reverse flow and shattered the mark inside the core. But we couldn’t revive the lines that were already emptied.”
I regulated my breathing low.
“The eastern outer line.”
The aide who had been leaning against the wall among the two answered in a trembling voice.
“It’s still… very weakly connected. It hasn’t completely severed.”
If that was fortunate, it was fortunate. But that only meant there was hope of lasting through tonight—not that the problem was over.
I looked down at the black thorn fragment that had fallen to the floor. Inside the half-melted piece, blue lines were tangled like capillaries. The same kind as the one I had shattered in the Imperial Palace. Only this one had been embedded more deeply.
Father finally opened his mouth.
“We succeeded.”
It did not sound like praise. I answered without taking my eyes off the barrier core.
“We barely held on.”
“Still, success is success.”
Those words somehow sounded even heavier.
The Princess picked up the fragment from the floor. On her fingertips, where the golden light had almost vanished, the black thorn piece looked as powerless as an insect’s shell. But the meaning it held was not powerless at all.
“It’s the same mark as the one in the Imperial Palace.”
Father slowly turned to look at the Princess.
“There was something like this in the Imperial Palace as well?”
“Yes.”
The Princess’s answer was short.
“And it came all the way down here.”
At the end of those words, the air in the barrier chamber grew a little heavier again. The Imperial Palace. The northeast. The Elverhart main keep. It was no longer a line that could be bound by coincidence.
Father shifted his gaze toward me.
“Let’s go outside.”
I raised my head.
“Right now?”
“Talk grows long in here.”
That was true. The barrier chamber still mixed with the damp smell of blood and residual contamination, and the two aides looked hard-pressed to hold on any longer. The Princess did not particularly stop us either.
We came out into the narrow corridor outside the barrier chamber. When the iron door closed again, the foul air inside was cut off by a layer. Kyle had been standing by the wall and exhaled as soon as he saw us.
“Young Master.”
I raised a hand briefly to stop him.
“The core will hold for tonight. Let the two aides rest, and leave only the personnel for reinforcing the floor lines.”
Kyle bowed his head reflexively.
“Yes, Young Master.”
Only after I finished speaking did a brief silence flow. The Princess, the Duchess, and even Kyle all heard that short command. In the capital, I had always been the one required to explain, but here, everyone moved as soon as my words ended. That felt fresh somehow.
After Kyle hurriedly disappeared inside to call people, only Father, the Princess, the Duchess, and I remained in the corridor. Father leaned his back against the wall first. He had looked like someone who had only been enduring until just now, but standing like that, his fatigue became much clearer in an instant.
“If you hadn’t come, it would have burst tonight.”
I was silent for a moment. Father opened his mouth again.
“I hoped you wouldn’t return.”
The words were so sudden that my reply came late instead. I looked at Father. He did not look at me. Staring only at the dark stones of the corridor floor, he spoke very calmly.
“I knew your eyes were needed here. Still, I hoped you wouldn’t return.”
The Princess and the Duchess said nothing. Both had faces that had no intention of inserting themselves into this conversation. I slowly opened my mouth.
“…Why say such things now?”
Father twisted the corner of his mouth ever so slightly.
“I can only say them now.”
A short silence. And then he finally looked my way.
“When you first noticed the anomaly in the barrier lines as a child, I couldn’t rejoice.”
Those words sank low inside the corridor.
“The Elverhart family needed eyes like that, but those who possess such eyes usually don’t live long in comfort.”
I looked down at my bandaged hand. Strangely, those words did not sound like comfort in the least. Yet they did not sound like a lie either.
“…So that’s why you sent me to the capital?”
Father did not deny it immediately this time.
“Half right.”
He spoke very slowly.
“I thought that if you were far from here, at least you wouldn’t be consumed by this work right before my eyes.”
I swallowed a breath that was almost a hollow laugh.
“In the end, you failed.”
“Yes.”
Father admitted it very briefly.
“But I still think it would have been better if you hadn’t returned.”
Those words were so cold that they felt even more real.
“Because I want you to live longer than your mother.”
I couldn’t say anything for a moment. A strange emotion that was neither anger nor bitterness caught in my throat. From childhood, this man had always been like that. Neither holding on nor pushing away, only trying to distinguish the share he would bear from the share others would bear. Yet that never quite worked out properly.
In the end, I raised my gaze first.
“But I have already returned.”
Father’s eyes moved ever so slightly.
“I know.”
“And if it collapses here, it is no longer just my problem alone.”
“I know that too.”
After the short answer, the air stopped for a very brief moment. And then, for the first time, Father spoke in a slightly different voice.
“That’s why I left it to you.”
I narrowed my eyes. Father looked once toward the far end of the corridor, at the iron door of the barrier chamber that still held residual vibrations.
“Just now.”
He added lowly.
“If it hadn’t been you, it couldn’t have been done.”
That was one fact he had put off for a very long time. Acknowledging it in Father’s own way. I did not reply further.
Then the Princess quietly interjected.
“…If the two of you are finished talking, we should check the state of the main keep now.”
It was good timing. Father did not continue any more personal words either. He immediately turned his body toward the stairs inside the main building.
“Kyle!”
The butler’s answer came from afar.
“Yes, Viscount!”
“Bring the ledger summarizing the damage reports. Everything—eastern outskirts, southeast palisade, well contamination reports.”
Short footsteps grew busy again. We moved to the office on the first floor of the main building. Maps and ledgers were already spread out inside the room. On the wall hung a map of the entire Elverhart Viscounty, with red pins and black ink spots stuck here and there. It was different from the clean Imperial Palace maps I had seen in the capital. Here, the traces of people actually running around and marking remained as they were.
The first thing Kyle brought was the damage map. Partial collapse of the eastern outer line. Contamination of three wells near the southeast palisade. Two empty villages. Seven missing persons. Fifteen livestock dead. Even written only in numbers, it was stifling.
The Duchess said lowly while looking at the map.
“The contamination points aren’t spreading along the lines.”
The Princess noticed right away as well.
“They’re dotted sparsely.”
I looked down at the black ink spots on the map. That’s right. Not spreading continuously along a single barrier line, but certain points rotting first in between. Wells and supply depots, palisades. Finally the outer watch posts. As if someone knew where to collapse first to shake the people most quickly and chose them.
Father said shortly.
“Even a child would know this isn’t a monster attack.”
The Princess raised her gaze.
“I agree.”
“Someone’s hand is in it.”
I slowly placed a finger on top of those words.
“Here.”
Below the eastern outer line, near the ranch where the dead livestock had come from. And a little further inward, the long-closed waterway management office.
Kyle’s face hardened.
“Young Master, that place has been empty for years.”
“Being empty makes it good to use.”
When I spoke, the gazes of Father, the Princess, and the Duchess gathered at once. I pointed alternately at the two spots on the map.
“If the contamination is jumping across to wells, waterways, and even palisades, an intermediate connection point is needed. A place that isn’t conspicuous, and can touch both the waterways and the underground lines.”
The Duchess took it immediately.
“The closed management office.”
The Princess nodded shortly.
“Good. Then the first site is there.”
Kyle hesitated.
“But it’s night now.”
Father cut him off firmly.
“We go anyway.”
And he looked at me for a moment.
“Rion.”
“Yes.”
“You take the lead.”
There was no hesitation now. I nodded while looking down at the map.
“Understood.”
Outside the window had already grown completely dark. From beyond the main keep, the sounds of people running and a very low wind continued. We had barely held the barrier core, and the main keep was still enduring. But this was only the beginning. From now on, we would see for ourselves how the line that began in the Imperial Palace had dug into the very breath of the people of the territory.
I slowly clenched my bandaged hand. Strangely, it trembled less than before. One who has returned ends up going inside. And once one has seen the inside, one can no longer act like an outsider.
“Your Highness.”
I said while looking at the map. The Princess answered.
“What is it?”
“It will be different from the investigations we did in the capital.”
The corner of the Princess’s mouth moved ever so slightly.
“Good. It feels like I’ve become a mana investigator from a novel.”
The Duchess added while fastening her coat.
“I find that side rather more comfortable myself.”
I looked at the two of them alternately. The Imperial family and the north, the capital and the frontier. People who originally had no reason to stay long in the same room. Yet now, all were looking at the same black spots.
I pressed the closed waterway management office on the map once with my fingertip.
“Then let’s go.”