The Unending Winter (1)
War had passed, but the snowfields remained unchanged. Everything had happened beyond the snowfields, after all. Nothing had touched the snowfields themselves. They were simply still hungry, and still cold.
"No issues?"
Skadi, returned to her territory, checked the tribe's storehouses every day. There was no other reason. Food was simply the biggest problem.
"No particular problems. Though the food shortage is still..."
There was no need to elaborate. It was a story she'd heard dozens of times.
"...What a headache."
There wasn't much left to eat now. And her tribe was on the more fortunate side; those in even harsher terrain had it far worse. They needed something to stave off the hunger, no matter where it came from. But they could no longer descend to the Empire, and the snowfields offered no more solutions. It was truly a dilemma.
"Khan. A report."
At that moment, a warrior came running toward her. He was one of those normally standing guard on the outskirts, watching for monster incursions. The warrior, rushing in breathless, immediately told her what he'd seen.
"Carriages. Carriages are heading this way."
"?"
"Carriages bearing Agehis banners are approaching our tribe's territory."
There were no carriages in the snowfields. It took her a moment to even picture one. And upon hearing Agehis and recalling what a carriage was, she couldn't help but question it again.
"Them?"
Just as her mind filled with questions, a distant rattling sound reached her ears, accompanied by the presence of numerous people. Following the sensation outside, she found many already gathered, staring at something. Pushing through them to the front, she finally saw it too.
"..."
Black carriages. Dozens of them, at least, approaching with Agehis banners fluttering.
"..."
The long procession seemed endless, only halting when it reached the tribe's territory. Dozens of carriages, their contents unknown. Skadi waited before them without a hint of agitation, expecting them to reveal their purpose first.
"Pardon the intrusion. Is this indeed the territory of the Khan's tribe?"
The man leading the procession stepped down from his carriage. After scanning the surroundings, he approached her and posed the question.
"...Why ask?"
"Sir Ian sent us to the Khan. We must deliver these goods to your Khan."
"Ian..."
She remembered. No, she couldn't forget. It was the name of the Swordmaster who had challenged her tribe to a duel that day and claimed victory. Recalling his inscrutable eyes, she answered the man's question.
"I am the Khan. State your business."
Hearing her response, he bowed slightly in greeting, then drew something from his bosom. What he pulled out was a small glass bottle—more precisely, the tiny note inside it. He extracted the note from the bottle and presented it to her with both hands, adding an explanation.
"A letter and supplies from Sir Ian. All addressed to the Khan."
This should be enough to endure this winter. It is for you.
The hides of the snowfield frost beasts fetch a high price in the North...
A letter and supplies? Supplies—what could that mean? Tilting her head at the puzzling words, she unfolded the note he'd sent.
It was a short message in the Empire's common tongue. The crawling script was worse than most scrawls, but she read it carefully nonetheless.
"..."
Two brief sentences, but their meaning was clear enough. The carriages held supplies. The North's Swordmaster had gifted them to the snowfields.
"All of them?"
"Yes. That's what we were told."
"Why...?"
The carriages were large, numbering in the dozens. She hadn't counted precisely, but as he said, it seemed enough for all the snowfield tribes to survive the winter. In a word, abundant. From their perspective, her people were mere invaders. They'd sent her back without demanding recompense, and now this—lavish supplies as a gift. It was hard to comprehend.
She posed the question to the man who'd delivered the note, but he merely shook his head, offering no real answer.
"We weren't informed on that point."
Having unloaded all the supplies from the carriages one by one, they reformed their procession, turned their horses, and departed. Skadi alternated her gaze between the retreating Northern caravan and the supplies they'd left behind, then silently turned to the last line of his note.
'The hides of the snowfield frost beasts fetch a high price in the North...'
Frost beasts were special monsters unique to the snowfields. Fierce and powerful, but no match for the snowfield warriors. He hadn't brought it up out of mere bragging.
'Trade with them.'
Frost beast hides held no value in the snowfields, but in the North, they were priceless rarities. He was showing them a path. For the next winter, when the cold became unbearable—a way forward.
"Though all I have left is this threadbare pride..."
Gripping the note he'd sent, she watched her tribesfolk rejoice over the piled supplies.
"I will remember you, Swordmaster."
Skadi bowed her head wordlessly toward some distant point, paying her respects in her own way.
Not long ago, the North had been gripped by tension on the eve of war. But with the emergence of a new hero and an overwhelming victory, the situation had flipped entirely. As a result, the North was now filled with peace and laughter.
"Unbelievable."
Yet amid the general mirth, some couldn't smile. While servants and retainers alike basked in it, in the top room of a mansion steeped in silence, a man alone glowered out the window with displeasure. The peace unfolding before him clearly grated; his stony face showed no sign of softening.
Then, at the faint sound of laughter drifting by, he couldn't contain his rage. He hurled the wine glass in his hand and bellowed.
"It was war. War, I said. On a destructive scale, no less."
His anger unrelenting, he flailed his arms wildly, smashing everything within reach. He'd invested heavily in this war. To ignite it. To escalate it. To ensure it dragged on. All in hopes the North would crumble as miserably as possible.
"Ha... And it ends like this?"
But his plans had gone up in smoke in an instant. Some unknown Swordmaster had popped up out of nowhere and proposed a duel. No war, not even a pretense of battle—and everything he'd prepared lost all meaning.
"Where the hell are those bastards?"
After raging and shouting for a while, he suddenly roared into empty air. Naturally, no response came. Undeterred, he bellowed at his surroundings once more, his voice laced with fury.
"I know you're there—come out!"
At that instant, a hazy distortion rippled in the air. It gradually sharpened into the form of a person. A man in a jet-black cloak over a dark suit. Entering the baron's room as if it were nothing new, he casually approached the window where the baron stood, peering out just as he had.
"...A truly regrettable turn of events..."
"Regrettable? That's all you have to say?"
The man knew well how much money and time the baron had poured in—they'd planned it together for so long. After all, he was the one who'd proposed the plan to the baron in the first place. Still, needing an outlet for his fury, the baron unleashed it on him.
"We were almost there! Just a little more and...!"
"...Please calm down."
"After all I've invested, and it's all for nothing!"
"Baron. Calm down."
"Do I look like I can calm—...!"
The baron, reason fled, began raving like a madman. The man repeatedly urged him to calm, but his frenzy showed no signs of abating. Growing irritated himself from watching, the sly man's face hardened slightly. Yet he neither raised his voice nor used force.
"I said, calm down."
He merely met his eyes. In that moment, cowed by the eerie violet gaze, the baron snapped back to his senses and retreated. Flashing a satisfied smile, the man straightened his attire and began laying out his thoughts methodically.
"...First, my condolences. We did our best to prepare for variables, but..."
He too yearned for it desperately. The day the impregnable Northern Barrier would fall, and the bird would finally spread its wings. To bring down the North, he'd allied with the baron, laid groundwork to keep the plan on track.
"We never anticipated a new Swordmaster appearing."
The extreme imbalance of power between North and snowfields had cracked their plan wide open.
"As you know, Masters are calamities. You saw it yourself—no stopping that. It was inevitable."
The baron's scowl deepened. If the man was right, as long as the new Swordmaster sided with Agehis, his plans could never come to fruition. But sensing this, the man offered a faint smile and a new proposal.
"But no need to worry. We have a backup plan."
The word "backup" perked the baron's ears. No, for him who'd staked everything on the original, it was essential. As the baron leaned in attentively, the man smiled in satisfaction and spoke.
"First, halt all your current activities. They're pointless now."
"All of them...?"
"Yes. We'll handle the cleanup, so don't concern yourself. Instead, I'll ask you to take on something new."
He stepped closer and whispered into the baron's ear. Hearing it, the baron's eyes gleamed with interest, and he nodded vigorously several times.
"This should suffice for the plan, right?"
"And the rest?"
"I'll handle that."
"You can be trusted this time?"
"Of course. No reason to fail."
With exaggerated yet dignified flair, the man swirled his cloak, bowed, and said,
"Just trust this Pistorious."
With those words, he vanished.