Ending Maker Chapter 55
Ending Maker Chapter 55
Chapter 16 - Winter Flower
About three hundred years before the present, there was a king who would later be known by the epithet the King of Civil Works.
To block the invasions of the northern barbarians, he constructed a great wall spanning the entire northern border.
It was a colossal undertaking.
Construction began in the fifth year of the King of Civil Works' reign and continued for more than thirty years, finally ending three years after his death.
The northern wall and the ravens who guarded it.
But neither the wall nor the ravens were perfect.
Because it covered the entire border, the wall did not have uniform height, thickness, or defensive strength throughout.
The ravens were limited in number, making it impossible to maintain dense patrol coverage across the entire border.
Inevitable gaps emerged as a result.
Zones where defense was entrusted solely to the wall.
"This way."
The place where Red Wind crossed the border was exactly such a spot.
Yuder followed Red Wind's guidance without question, while Cordelia, sharing a horse with Red Wind, dozed with her head resting against Red Wind's back.
After another half hour or so of that.
In a place so remote it seemed completely deserted, Yuder decided to take a short break.
"If a patrol comes by, we'll be spotted right away."
Because their footprints were clearly visible on the snowfield.
But there was no helping it.
Yuder swept away the snow under a suitable tree and made a place to sit.
"Cordelia, I need a favor."
"Huh? Yeah."
Cordelia was still half asleep. She nodded sluggishly, then heated the water flask enough to turn the cold water lukewarm.
No matter how remote the place was, they were still within the ravens' surveillance area.
If they lit a fire and produced even a little smoke, they risked being discovered immediately.
"Here, jerky."
"The jerky's tough."
Cordelia grumbled, but she knew there was no other option. After sharing some with Red Wind, she began gnawing on the tough jerky.
How long had they continued their meal in silence?
Suddenly, Red Wind tugged at Cordelia's sleeve.
"Hm? What is it?"
When Cordelia asked with a smile, Red Wind hesitated for a moment as if choosing her words, then spoke again.
"Cordelia, I have one thing. Curious."
"Yeah, yeah, what is it?"
"Fuck? F**k? What is that?"
"......Huh?"
When Cordelia asked back with a blank face, Red Wind spoke again.
"Cordelia does that often. When sharing secret words with Yuder. Words of love."
Something that was not even the continental common tongue.
A secret language of love used only by the two of them.
As she listened, one particular word came up again and again: 'fuck.'
"Ah, no. Wait, wait a moment."
Cordelia was flustered. So flustered, in fact, that she didn't even register the part about words of love.
'H-how do I explain this?'
It was just that her old habit had resurfaced after conversing in Korean for the first time in a while.
Cordelia, groaning inwardly, turned to look at Yuder, and Yuder answered with his eyes.
'This is karma. Karma. Who told you to swear so much?'
'It's not a swear word, okay? It's an interjection.'
But it was a pointless quarrel.
Instead of the unhelpful Yuder, Cordelia looked back at Red Wind and spoke as calmly as she could.
"That... f**k, you see."
"Yes, that one."
Red Wind said it with a smile, and Cordelia flinched. It felt as though Red Wind, whom she adored, had just sworn at her.
"Ah...... anyway, that. That's...... an interjection."
"An interjection?"
"Yeah...... an interjection. Like, wow! Amazing! Incredible! Something...... like that?"
It was a flimsy explanation, but thinking about it, Cordelia herself had actually used it in that way too.
After hearing Cordelia's desperate explanation, Red Wind's eyes sparkled, and then she beamed and said,
"Cordelia f**k. Yuder f**k. Both of you f**k!"
Red Wind shouted brightly and gave Cordelia an eager look that made her squirm.
It seemed like a look demanding an answer.
"Y-yeah... Red Wind is f**k too."
"Cordelia f**k, I like it very much, f**k!"
As Red Wind hugged Cordelia and repeated the profanity—no, the interjection—Yuder ultimately couldn't hold back his laughter.
"Heh heh...... heh...... haa, haa...... So this is karma."
Red Wind's bright profanity was shocking, but it seemed like it would be helpful in various ways.
Because now, if only for the sake of education(?), Cordelia would also reduce her use of interjections.
And indeed, when Cordelia reflexively started to let loose another string of 'interjections,' she clamped her mouth shut and suffered in silence.
"Ah, this is so fun. So enjoyable."
"Is Yuder enjoying himself?"
"Yeah, I'm enjoying myself because the two of you get along so well."
Yuder brushed the question aside, watched Cordelia glare at him, then turned back to Red Wind.
"Red Wind, we're entering the valley this way, right?"
"Correct, but the valley is rough. Narrow. Horses cannot go."
At Red Wind's words, Cordelia's eyes widened in surprise, but Yuder nodded.
Because it was something he had already roughly anticipated.
'It was a place where the ravens' surveillance was lax, so of course it would be.'
"Yuder, then what about the horses?"
Cordelia spoke at the exact moment the thought crossed his mind.
Yuder shrugged as if there were no other choice and answered.
"We'll have to release them."
"Release them?"
"Yeah. They'll either become wild horses... or some lucky person will take them in."
Cordelia looked deeply unhappy at Yuder's answer, but there really was no alternative.
"Let's release them around here. If we take them deep into the valley, it'll be hard for them to get out too."
"......Okay."
Cordelia, who had answered in a gloomy voice, stood up and unfastened the saddle of the horse she had ridden up to here. She had grown quite attached, and regret lingered in her every touch.
'She's so soft-hearted, seriously.'
Yuder, who had been watching with satisfaction, also stood up, unfastened his horse's saddle, and gathered the miscellaneous baggage into one pile.
And then, at last, the time for farewell arrived.
Yuder and Cordelia simultaneously slapped their horses on the rump and sent them running across the snow.
Two horses running across the white snowfield.
"Goodbye, Yuder."
"Goodbye, Cordelia."
They spoke at the same time, turned to stare at each other, and immediately spoke again.
"Cordelia? You named your horse Cordelia?"
"And you named yours Yuder?"
"No, mine was a stallion."
"By that logic, so was mine. Mine was a mare."
At the two's words, Red Wind giggled.
"You two understand each other well. Truly fantastic f**k."
A bright, innocent, pretty smile.
'Do something about her, seriously.'
'I-I'll try.'
After finishing their silent eye-contact conversation, Yuder and Cordelia stopped Red Wind from repeatedly using her newly learned vocabulary and hurried onward.
* * *
Time passed.
By afternoon, after pushing through the snowstorm that had begun to rage, the party reached the entrance to the valley.
"Once we pass through here, it widens. We just have to endure a little more."
Red Wind spoke as they passed through a narrow path that seemed barely wide enough for one person, and Yuder deliberated whether to camp tonight or keep moving through the night.
And then Cordelia stopped.
"Cordelia?"
Yuder noticed only after taking a few more steps and turned back, but Cordelia did not answer immediately. Frowning, she looked over her shoulder.
"Hey, this might sound strange, but...... I have a bad feeling."
She had been feeling an ominous sensation for a while now. It was as if someone behind her was thrusting a spear at her back.
If anyone else had said it, Yuder would have dismissed the warning.
But these were Cordelia's words.
'Cordelia's intuition is special.'
This went beyond simply having good instincts.
In Pleiades, the world of Hero Legend, all sorts of supernatural abilities existed.
In fact, though he had never told Cordelia, Yuder's memory and calculation ability had already grown far beyond what they had been on Earth, even before he opened the second gate of the Nine Heavens Nine Gates and awakened his martial comprehension.
Wouldn't Cordelia's intuition be the same?
Could it be a supernatural ability bordering on precognition?
In fact, Cordelia's intuition had become far more accurate than before after she acquired Witchification.
"I don't see anything."
Red Wind said.
With Winter Elf blood in her veins, Red Wind had eyesight superior to a human's. If she could not see an enemy nearby, there probably was none.
But Yuder trusted Cordelia's intuition.
"Let's hurry."
Yuder broke into an almost-running pace, and Cordelia sped up as well. Seeing them accelerate, Red Wind had no choice but to run after them.
The narrow passage ended and opened into a broad basin enclosed by cliffs.
There was still no one around. The place was so quiet it felt as though the three of them were alone in the world.
But Cordelia kept looking back.
The ominous feeling was growing stronger and stronger. The sensation of something stabbing at her back was also only intensifying.
"Grrraaah!"
At that very moment, a beast's roar thundered down from above.
Above the valley.
Three large dogs came down the steep wall. Their dark red fur and yellow-glowing eyes were not those of ordinary wild animals.
"Hellhounds!"
Demon dogs.
There were more than three. More demon dogs appeared along the top of the valley.
"Run!"
Yuder shouted, immediately discarded the baggage he was carrying, and hoisted Red Wind onto his back. Cordelia likewise instantly activated Witchification and cast Haste on herself and Yuder.
"Grrraaah!"
"Grrr!"
More than ten hellhounds poured down the wall.
Yuder gritted his teeth and focused solely on running. Intercepting multiple enemies was Cordelia's specialty, not Yuder's.
"Get lost!"
Her dark red hair flying, Cordelia unleashed her mana. More than ten Magic Missiles struck the hellhounds between the eyes like guided projectiles.
It was an extraordinary feat. In all of the Saelun Kingdom, only a handful of people could show that level of control while sprinting under Haste.
The hellhounds struck between the eyes went tumbling. Cordelia spread Grease over a wide area, then caught up with Yuder and blurted out something even she thought sounded strange.
"Something... I feel something else!"
A sensation that even she found hard to explain.
Yuder looked back while running. Thanks to the Grease zone, the hellhounds' feet were bogged down, and the distance had widened considerably.
'Those are the advance party.'
No matter how remote the place was, they couldn't have brought ten hellhounds from the start, so they had clearly been summoned nearby.
And what that meant was one thing.
Soluzia had moved.
The branch leader herself was practically on top of them.
How had this happened? It was something that normally couldn't occur.
Even if the enemy had realized that they intended to cross the border, it should have been impossible to attack them here as though they had been lying in wait in this completely deserted place.
Unlike the Sunflower Herb incident, the location hadn't been specified, nor was there any clue from which their objective could be inferred.
There was something. Something Yuder himself did not know.
Yuder cut off his thoughts there.
For now, the important thing was the fact that Soluzia was nearby.
Yuder continued running and thinking.
Cordelia's intuition.
The other thing she had felt.
It wasn't Soluzia.
Soluzia and the hellhounds belonged to the same hostile presence, after all.
Cordelia's intuition had been vague from the start, but it was not pure chaos. There were distinct presences within it.
The other one.
What Cordelia had felt.
"Caw!"
Yuder and Cordelia looked at the sky at the same time.
A crow came into view.
At that moment, Yuder understood. Cordelia sensed it too.
That was it.
The other thing Cordelia had felt.
To escape this crisis, they had to follow that crow.
"A jackdaw?!"
Red Wind, spotting the crow a moment late, cried out fearfully.
For her, a northern barbarian, jackdaws were an ill omen among ill omens.
But it wasn't one.
That bird, entirely pitch-black without a single blemish, was different from a jackdaw.
A pure crow.
What that signified.
"Grrraaah!"
The hellhounds that had barely escaped the Grease zone picked up speed again and barked.
Instead of looking at them, Yuder looked at the sky. The crows were increasing.
One crow became two, then more, until before long there were enough to cover the sky. Their wingbeats alone sounded as though they might tear the heavens apart.
Red Wind shrank back in terror. From where she was, she could see where their path ended.
"It's a cliff!"
It was a sheer drop. Yuder did not stop; he ran faster. The hellhounds' howls rang out behind them.
"Grrraaah!"
"Grrr!"
Yuder looked at Cordelia. She met his gaze, nodded, and grinned.
Because characters with such a spectacular entrance scene could be counted on one hand in all of Hero Legend.
No, because from the start, there was only one person symbolized by crows!
"Hold on to me!"
Yuder reached out his hand. Cordelia threw herself at Yuder, and Yuder, with Red Wind on his back, embraced Cordelia. Together, they threw themselves over the cliff.
"Aaaah!"
Red Wind screamed, but it was brief.
The wingbeats of dozens—hundreds—of birds swallowed every other sound around them.
The flock of crows engulfed Yuder and Cordelia. Cordelia squeezed her eyes shut and clung tightly to Yuder's neck. Yuder closed his eyes as well.
And time passed.
The sound of wingbeats, which had seemed like it would never end, gradually subsided.
Solid ground.
A place where they could plant their feet and stand.
Yuder staggered for a moment, then regained his balance. Feeling Cordelia still held tightly in his arms, he slowly opened his eyes.
It was still a place covered in white snow. The crows that had flown up into the sky scattered in all directions and vanished.
And straight ahead.
Someone stood ahead, watching Yuder and Cordelia as they leaned on each other and breathed hard.
He had snow-white hair, a face just as pale, and deep blue eyes. Everything else about him was pitch-black.
Yuder recognized the man beneath the long black robe, its hood pulled low over his head. He spoke the man's name first.
"Yuder Bayel pays his respects to Kamael."
Kamael the Sword Demon.
One of the six division commanders of the Guardians of the Holy Cross.
The protagonist of Hero Legend 1, who stood shoulder to shoulder with Landius.
"Landius's disciple."
Kamael answered in a low voice and stepped toward Yuder and Cordelia.