Who Are You, Mister? (3)
"It's dangerous."
The boy, who had grown so composed of late, objected once more, but Cariel's resolve did not waver.
"No one in this whole region can stand against us properly. In that case, we ought to make the rounds—even as far as the neighboring territories."
"It's dangerous."
"…Some risks must simply be borne. What worries me most isn't what lies ahead—it's what might spring up here while I'm gone. That, above all, is what troubles me."
"I will defend this place with everything I have."
"……I can only pray you'll never have to."
Of the handful of horses the village had once owned, only a single one remained now.
Even that one was a precious creature, tended jointly by the whole village.
You're the only one left now.
He saddled the brown horse, and in the very moment he swung himself up onto its back—
the boy's two eyes were drowning in unease.
"I will return. Whether it's the antidote, or a priest who can see this plague ended."
"……Then there's nothing more to be said."
In the end, the boy could only pray for his safe return.
◇◇◇
There had been dangers along the way, more than once.
He cut down the bandits lying in ambush, but his horse died in the fighting, and from then on there was nothing for it but to go on foot.
When the rain came down in sheets, it was a disaster outright. The sodden mud clutched at his ankles like a swamp with every step.
Yet somehow he overcame it all and pressed forward—
…and not a single soul was there to welcome Cariel.
The priests and clergy demanded money.
Some of them cursed him outright—calling the plague the work of demons, a divine punishment, and asking whether he'd come all this way to spread the sickness himself.
Why?
Had word truly traveled this far already?
It was bleak, but what good would giving up here do?
He wandered the village empty-handed. He came to look a beggar soon enough, but he did not give up.
With every day that passed, the dying grew in number. The suffering stretched longer, and hope guttered little by little.
The sick would only keep multiplying. The harvest was failing, too, and before long the simple problem of eating and surviving would rear its head as a crisis of its own.
The village he had labored so hard to build… was collapsing.
Collapsing walls he could endure. But the people's home—the hope, the will, flickering out inside them—that he could not.
◇◇◇
"You're struggling, I see."
He had collapsed somewhere in the forest, and an old man prodded him with a wooden staff, clicking his tongue.
"What could possibly be so desperate that you wander these forest paths for days without rest?"
"…Has it truly been that long?"
He hadn't noticed at all. The forest was so dark he hadn't even registered the sun rising and setting.
"You've enough trouble worrying over yourself—why worry over others? You could have died right here."
"I can't die. I still have things I must do. I can't shirk my duty like this."
"Steady resolve, that. Unlike those fools who fling themselves headlong under the banner of vague self-sacrifice, believing it will amount to something—so you're not half bad."
"…Elder?"
"Keep going straight along that way and you'll come upon some yellow mushrooms. Gather only the pale ones, then be on your way. Take those with you, and you'll get what you desire."
What a trial this has been.
"Elder…?!"
His body shuddered from head to toe.
When he woke from the dream, he found himself drifting, as if bewitched, toward the spot the old man had pointed out.
And there it truly was—a cluster of mushrooms.
"What in the world…?"
Should he believe in a dream?
It was nothing more than a dream.
And yet, he could not let go of even the faintest thread of hope that might be buried in it.
So Cariel did as the old man had bidden him, and at the last, walked toward the place where he felt the old man's finger had finally rested.
―Aaargh!
A scream rang out in the distance.
Dragging his exhausted body, he made for the sound at speed, and there, amid a ravaged valley—
he came upon a handful of soldiers locked in a desperate struggle against monstrosities whose hide was as hard as tree bark.
The humans were plainly losing.
Without a moment's thought, he hurled himself into the fray.
◇◇◇
"To be saved by you twice—surely that must be fate."
The wretched, bedraggled figure was gone. The accumulated exhaustion still clung to his face like grime, but simply washing and putting on fresh clothes had transformed Cariel's bearing entirely.
And more than that—
the young man with the golden hair deferred to Cariel with an almost eerie reverence.
"Twice, you say?"
The young man was the one who had, before his time, become master of this whole region.
And once—
he had been the lord of the very territory that had risked death to stand against Cariel's own lord.
"When my father moved to invade a village some time ago, you stood in his way there, did you not?"
And I was there, in that moment.
"……"
"I was but a son cast off by my father, so had I been captured, I would surely have been used and discarded one way or another—worked to death, or killed outright."
And yet, strange to say—
his father died falling from his horse.
And his brothers, one after another, lost their lives to illness or to war.
…And so, by some turn of chance, he alone remained as the legitimate heir.
After all, he too was a true son of the lawful wife—a rightful successor in his own standing.
"My father was greedy. He meant to seize on this hour when the Berck Kingdom trembled, and dreamt of crowning himself king."
But the throne is not a seat one may simply climb because one wishes to be king. And he had neither the talent to lead an army, nor the overwhelming might to cut down his enemies alone.
"I joined the alliance by offering a portion of our lands, tying our house to the Enjul family, who have now begun to lead the Berck house."
"The Enjul family, you say…."
"Yes. Led by the Great Warrior Iland, the five holy swordmasters whose names rang throughout all of Berck. And soon, they say, the Pope himself will consecrate the head of House Enjul. The Berck royal line has… fallen—but no doubt that one will take up the throne in its place."
So that's how far it has gone.
The Berck Kingdom in the north and this southern land were separated by a vast distance. If one rode hard it was a matter of days, but a mountain range stood between them, along with lakes and marshes. Individuals and small merchant caravans could pass without great difficulty, but an army on the move would inevitably be hampered.
"I see."
They're changing the world, it seems.
Unlike me.
"And yet, in the south of Berck, there is you—Lord Cariel, are there not?"
"…You mean me?"
"Long ago I beheld Lord Iland with my own eyes. I saw his divine bearing for myself."
And yet.
"I could not say, with any confidence, which of the two of you stood higher—him, or you."
"That's…."
Impossible. Utterly impossible.
On one side, himself—a nobody who had raged about the southern lands, ignorant of the world.
On the other, the warrior of the century, who had swept across countless battlefields and bent the world itself to his grasp.
How could he be spoken of as an equal?
"…The warriors of the south have a resilience forged in standing against the barbarians, generation after generation. That confidence is what fed my father the empty dream that he might wear a crown."
There had been renowned warriors beyond counting.
"Lord Cariel. When you cut down more than half of them, we could not keep ourselves from trembling."
What was so extraordinary about the warriors of one petty lord? If only that man had served under me! Why would the heavens not grant me such a vassal?!
"My father's lamentations, even then, were prodigious."
The young man went on.
"Did you know? Even your own lord feared you."
"……"
Cariel thought of it.
The reason his old liege had let him go so completely. The reason he had never laid a hand on the village even afterward.
And those days when they had stood shoulder to shoulder.
…And even when they had faced each other at the very end—
he had, in the end, never treated Cariel with coercion, as he had his other men.
He had only acted as though he did.
…It wasn't that Cariel had been blind to it.
It was because the man had respected him, he had thought.
Because they had read each other's hearts that well, leaned on each other that much.
…But seen from the outside, was this how it had looked?
And perhaps—perhaps that was closer to the truth.
Deep within, Cariel found his heart knotting in confusion.
"I know you wish to leave quickly. Even so, I dread the thought of you riding through the dark and coming to grief on the road."
"…Are you saying you'd give me a horse?"
"Did you not save my life? And surely that is not all. I will not begrudge whatever support I can offer—not only now, but hereafter, as well."
I heard everything, you see.
"What you call knighthood is not the same as a warrior's spirit, or the oaths they swear—and I find myself drawn more to your way of it."
Please.
"I will pray, with all my heart, that whatever you set your hand to may go smoothly, and go well."
As of that moment—
Cariel truly believed that everything had finally come together.
He let out his breath.
And like snow melting away, exhaustion came flooding in. For the first time in over ten days, he slept in genuine peace.
◇◇◇
"They say the barbarian army is sweeping across the whole of Varonens Territory."
The next day.
Right up until the moment that word reached his ears—
Cariel had given thanks, truly, that all had gone well.
He rode a single horse until it foamed at the mouth.
Even that had been provided for—a spare horse besides, for which he could only be grateful to the young lord.
And when the second horse, too, was lathered in foam, he began to run.
Running was familiar to him.
From his earliest boyhood, the young Cariel had run—building his endurance, tempering his body, exactly as the knights commanded.
He had run mountain trails, climbed the ascents, plunged down the descents.
He had flown across flat ground as though on wings.
In the end, the self of the past had laid the ground for the place where he now stood.
Had he not been accustomed to running, he would have had no choice but to wait quietly for the horses to recover.
Because that would have been the correct thing to do.
And so the very fact that he could discard that option and run—that he could stake everything here on a single possibility—
…this, too, was the fruit of the effort he had piled up in days long past.
His body was old now, and he no longer trained with the desperate intensity of before. And yet he had never, for a single hour, truly stopped.
It had not been merely for the sake of teaching the children.
Perhaps, in truth, he had thrown himself into training as a way of fleeing from reality.
For whenever his body was allowed rest, the nightmares always came—wave upon wave of despair, of poisoned feelings and dark thoughts.
The sun was sinking.
Even so, he did not stop.
His breath was so ragged it seemed it might gutter out at any moment.
It's fine.
I know this.
Compared to those four days on the battlefield, denied a wink of sleep while the enemy ground him down, this was nothing.
Nothing at all.
No one was even hunting for his life.
This is hard? On me?
Ridiculous.
Utter nonsense.
Even as his whole body soaked through with sweat—
even as his consciousness began to blur at the edges—
he instead sharpened his mind all the more fiercely.
Steadied his breathing, drew it deeper and more even.
Dragging his limbs—heavy as lumps of iron—his body, his head, he drove himself forward.
Move. Run.
Keeping his body from breaking down entirely was impossible; but collapsing limp and helpless must never be allowed. So he managed his state, walked the razor's edge between them.
Desperate—and yet he must not be desperate. If the enemy fell upon him the very moment he arrived, spent and hollow—
was he planning to stand there and simply watch?
To charge in and die for nothing?
Neither could be tolerated.
Even exhausted, think. Prepare for the worst.
The venomous feelings came clinging at his ankles, one after another.
He shook them off.
And so, as the sun rose once more—
the village finally came into view.
…Thankfully, it seemed the village had not yet burned, nor yet fallen.
From this distance, he couldn't be certain. Perhaps he had only been hasty.
…And if it were truly so—wouldn't that be something to be grateful for?
Swallowing his impatience, he somehow made his way to the village, and—
"Lord Cariel?!"
Men in rough, improvised armor came out to meet him, their faces brimming with anxiety and fear.
And then—
"Where is Ruel?"
At Cariel's question, one of the young men stared back at him with a stricken expression.
No—it wasn't just him. All of them wore the same look.
"Don't tell me…?"
"He's… fallen ill. His condition is… not good."
"……"
For an instant the world went black before his eyes—
but Cariel seized hold of his mind, again and again.
"Take it."
The young man who received the pouch from him looked at it in puzzlement.
"What… is this?"
"Not much, but grind it down fine and feed it to them. To all the sick. And… tell them help is coming soon—tell them only to hold on, and keep their hope."
"D-did you hear that news as well? That the barbarians are leading an army into this region…"
"Yes."
That's exactly why I ran here.
"L-look over there!"
On the plains far from the village—
the lawless ones appeared, drawn up in ranks as though tracing the horizon itself.
"……"
He had, it was true, caught his breath for a moment—but his body was now at its absolute worst.
More than ten days of wandering hostile country, battered by wind and rain. He had only barely, by what seemed a miracle, won himself a chance to breathe—
and then he had pushed himself beyond all reason to reach this place.
And so, he was grateful.
…At the very least, he had managed to stand in the way of that most terrible kind of calamity—the kind that unfolds in a place where he is not, just as it had before.
What had already happened could not be undone.
But if it was something that had not yet come to pass—
"We begged the lord of the territory for aid, but… he wouldn't even grant us an audience."
"…It's all right."
Cariel received their fear calmly, quietly.
"I am here. There is no need to worry."
He told them to look after the sick and the survivors. Then, running his eyes over the village's battered signboard, he turned—
and walked out toward the horde that watched over this place.
When he had come running, he had long since cast away everything dispensable, however small, to lighten his load.
And so—
all he had left were clothes drenched in sweat, fouled from stumbling and falling and rising again.
Even so, two swords still remained to him.
One he had given up for the village's sake.
But the other—he had never, not even then, been able to bring himself to part with, not while it still had a village to protect.
Even that one, in the end, had gone for a pitiful price when he bought the medicine, swallowed bitterness down as he traded it away to ease his people's suffering.
…And yet.
For reasons he could not fathom, a man who had once been his enemy had given him a better sword than any he'd owned before.
And so nothing at all remained in his hands.
But all of it had been tools—pieces of a means to an end.
Even the precious sword his master had given him long ago—
had it not been lost, so easily, so meaninglessly, wandering one battlefield after another?
And so—
what remained to him now was—
this one body, and nothing more.
"I beg of you."
O God.
If you truly exist.
If, by any chance, you are watching this place even now—
"Let this one body of mine be enough for you."
Then gladly—
without a single handful of regret—
with a heart full of gratitude—
he would crawl, this one body, into that pit of fire.