The North (3)
I quickly sprawled out and assumed the perfect gaming posture. Stacking the pillows just right to support my neck, I settled into a slightly reclined position. This was the ultimate gaming stance.
"Hurry up and load already."
The moment I logged in, the accumulated login rewards greeted me. Even while I'd been offline, the dwarves had been hard at work raking in gold. Between those solid earnings and the gold from running "Beast Extermination" once a day, I had a full five days' worth piled up.
"This should be enough to unlock one A-Grade, right?"
I hadn't actually done the math, but it was probably close enough. If it fell short... well, I'd cross that bridge when I came to it.
—Tap-tap
My fingers flew across the screen as I pulled up the weapon list. I still hadn't decided what to craft. Odds were I'd go for another oversized weapon again.
"Romance lives in the big weapons."
The gunlance had proven it. So had the greatsword and the massive warhammer. Weapons of sheer, crushing mass always made my heart race. A weapon was pure romance. If you wanted to fuss over efficiency, go shoot a gun.
"Among the A-Grades worth unlocking..."
I scrolled down the list, scanning quickly—and then I paused, a little flustered.
"I have way less gold than I thought."
Five days of savings weren't even close. Last time I'd dropped twenty thousand won in real cash just to unlock a single A-Grade weapon. Just how expensive were these things supposed to be?
"Maybe I should drop a rank..."
Part of it was that the gold simply hadn't piled up the way I'd expected. Five whole days, and I still couldn't unlock anything.
"Why am I making so little money?"
A few taps around the interface revealed the problem immediately. The A-Grade weapon I'd unlocked last time—the Greatsword of the Faithful—was sitting unused. Whether the dwarves' ranks or the forge level were too low, they simply couldn't craft it. They were still stuck smelting gold and bronze into daggers and selling those.
"Of course you're not making money when you're selling F-Grade junk, you idiots..."
Should I unlock something the dwarves could actually produce right now? Ideally I still wanted at least a B-Grade or C-Grade.
"They can handle C-Grade, right? That much should be doable."
No matter how hard I looked, the game refused to show me which weapon grades could be auto-crafted. This trash game was ridiculously unfriendly to its players.
"A-Grade is definitely off the table... so it's either B-Grade or C-Grade."
I sank into thought. B-Grade or C-Grade. After a moment, a brilliantly clear answer hit me.
"Right! What if neither of them can be auto-crafted? Then it's obviously B-Grade!"
If both might fail, picking the higher grade was pure upside. If both were going to flop anyway, at least unlocking the better weapon would feel good, wouldn't it?
And if things got truly desperate, I could always whale one last time and live off bean sprouts with ketchup.
Mooooo—
"Where the hell is that cow mooing coming from..."
I dug a finger into my ear and rubbed it at the sudden bovine noise.
I scrolled down the B-Grade weapon list. My eyes swept across the options—then snagged on one in particular.
"Oh. This one..."
Now this had some real romance to it.
—Screeech-kikik!!
—Urgh—gik!!
"You little monkey bastards!"
"I'll boil soup out of your skulls!"
"I'll send you straight back to your mothers!"
Crunch—
—Thwack!
—Splat!!
From the forest the northern warriors had charged into, monkey screams and the wet sound of tearing flesh rang out without pause. Judging by the noise alone, you could have sworn it was a master butcher's shop at full work—the meat-cleaving, bone-cracking kind.
"Good heavens..."
Kenis and the holy knights who had been to the North before remained unfazed. The rest of the party, including the commander, who were seeing the North for the first time, wore expressions of pure shock. What on earth was happening in that forest to produce the sound of meat being stuffed into skins and then burst open?
Eventually the noise from the trees died down. Then the northern warriors emerged, laughing and shouting among themselves.
"Haha! Those monkeys barely even registered as a snack."
"I got two more than you, so you're buying the drinks later!"
"Damn it. I almost had you this time."
They were splattered with bright red blood. Axes still dripping, eyes bloodshot and bulging—if you ran into them at night, you'd burst into tears on the spot and take them for serial killers.
"Kenis... are those people all right?"
Commander David barely swallowed the rest of the sentence—mentally, I mean.
"Ah, Commander. They're fine. They're actually fighting rather politely this time, since we have guests."
"Politely? That is polite?"
"Yes, of course. At least they didn't start chewing on beast entrails as drinking snacks, or come out dangling eyeballs like a string of beads."
"Hah..."
Kenis delivered the explanation with perfect calm. David found himself completely speechless. Was the North a place where people lived—or beasts?
They must have wrestled with magical beasts so long that only those who became beasts themselves survived...!
That was the commander's private conclusion.
Five Gods and the Sixth... grant me the strength to endure this trial!
As if answering his prayer, a single low-hanging morning star twinkled faintly above his head.
The blood-soaked northern warriors and the holy knights set out once more. The northerners chattered noisily among themselves; the holy knights kept an awkward silence. From time to time, only the snorting of the reindeer among the knights broke the quiet.
Everyone's pretty shaken up.
Kenis half-listened to Friga's endless chatter and glanced back. The holy knights wore stiff, slightly sick expressions. For a moment she thought she saw her own self from two years ago—and wondered if it was only her imagination.
Well, they'll get used to it soon enough.
Northerners were rough around the edges, but they had warmer hearts than anyone. Everyone would learn that in time.
"Oh, we're here."
Just as Friga said, a magnificent wall began to rise through the blizzard in the distance—a barrier of human triumph, raised against snow and ice.
"Whoa..."
Awe-struck voices rose from behind. Anyone who saw that wall standing tall against the cold would have felt the same.
"Come on, let's get inside! I'm freezing my ass off!"
Friga rubbed her arms theatrically and hurried the party along. Beyond the thick walls lay rough main roads and buildings of dark gray stone, built without polish—architecture that seemed to mirror the northerners' own character.
Just then a pack of children came thundering toward them.
"Waaah—!"
"Friga unnie! Did you go hunting? What'd you catch this time?"
"Friga unnieee! Pick me up!"
The children swarmed around Friga, chattering at the top of their lungs. She grinned wide and ruffled their hair with both hands.
"You little brats! Been good? I'm busy right now, so talk later! Take this and go buy yourselves something tasty over there."
"Eek! You're messing up my hair, unnie!"
"Tch, fine! But you better tell us the hunting stories later, okay?"
"Let's go get bread!"
The children snatched the coin pouch and tore off with a cheer. Friga waved big after them.
"Don't trip while you're running! Be careful!"
Commander David watched her with a strange expression—as if he had just discovered an unexpected side of the violent woman who greeted people by swinging axes.
One-Eye sidled up and murmured,
"Hmm. Those kids are all the children of our commander's subordinates."
"Is that so? Looking after her men's children like that... Lady Friga truly has a warm heart."
One-Eye gazed at Friga's retreating back with an unreadable look.
"More precisely... the children of men who used to be her subordinates."
"Used to be?"
"...They fought beside the commander and went to sleep under the ice."
"Th-that's..."
"She's a woman with a lot of scars. She's only this bright now thanks to Lady Kenis."
David's face went blank. Children of fallen warriors. One-Eye quickly added under his breath,
"I'm only telling you because you're the commander. Don't go making a fuss about it in front of our boss."
"Mm. Understood."
David nodded with a heavy expression. Looking at Kenis's back ahead of them, he suddenly saw her in a new light.
"What are you all dawdling for? Hurry up!"
Friga was already ahead, impatiently waving them on.
They followed her short temper to a small temple. A few northerners sat inside offering prayers—rare enough in these parts. Montegras territory had never been strongly under the Pantheon's influence, yet steady missionary work and the dispatch of holy knights had slowly increased the number of believers.
"Tch—"
Friga clicked her tongue softly at the sight of the praying people. Her brows knit as if the whole scene displeased her.
"Hey. We've guided you this far—that's enough, right? We're out of here."
She and the northerners were already turning to leave when Friga suddenly remembered something and bellowed,
"Ah, right! Hey, Kenis! You and your commander—my father wants to talk tonight! Show up at dinner time!"
With that, Friga led her men away like a storm blowing through. The holy knights gathered their packs and headed into the temple.
As Kenis moved inside, Commander David approached her.
"Hero Kenis."
"Yes, Commander. Please, just call me Kenis."
"Hm. Very well. Then, Kenis—did something happen between you and Lady Friga?"
He was asking about the matter One-Eye had only half-explained. Kenis's expression turned awkward, the look of someone who found the story too embarrassing to put into words.
"W-well, you see... um... what happened was... it wasn't anything major, but it's just... how do I even explain this..."
Her eyes spun in circles. David let out a short laugh.
"Well, if it's hard to talk about, never mind. It wasn't anything serious, was it? Like killing someone, or beating them up."
"Ah, no! Murder? Absolutely not! I swear it wasn't murder!"
"Then that's fine. Go rest and I'll see you at dinner."
"Y-yes! Understood! I'll see you this evening!"
David finished speaking and strode off toward his own quarters. Kenis likewise collected her things, entered her room, and quietly spent the remaining hours shaking off the travel fatigue.
The northern sun moved quickly.
In the Holy City of Civitas the sky would still have been bright, but the land of Montegras was already tipping into dusk, the light fading.
Kenis and the commander finished preparing themselves and set out for the ducal mansion of Montegras.
"Lady Kenis and Commander David—confirmed!"
Massive gates and guards awaited them. The heavy steel doors slowly swung open.
Creeeak—
Inside the castle the halls were bleak and bare—so stark it was hard to believe this was a duke's residence. The only decorations were portraits of successive dukes hanging on the walls.
"His Grace seems a rather austere man."
"...It's less that he's austere and more that he simply has no interest in decorating."
David and Kenis whispered as a servant led them toward the great dining hall.
Knock-knock—
"Your Grace. I have brought Lady Kenis and Commander David."
"Enter."
At the servant's polite knock, a deep male voice answered from within. David swallowed hard without meaning to.
What presence...! This man is no ordinary fighter!
Already overwhelmed by the sheer force carried in that voice, the commander broke into a cold sweat.
Creeeak—
The door opened. At the far end of a long banquet table sat a massive man in silence. Jet-black hair and eyes identical to Friga's. He sat with perfect composure, yet the savage aura he could not fully suppress pressed down on David.
"Welcome, Commander David. I am Lucian Nix, Duke of Montegras."
And then—
Duke Lucian turned to Kenis and grinned. It was the same fierce smile Friga wore.
"It's been a long time, my daughter."
"No, I'm not!!"