Turned Away at the Gates
[Who goes there.]
It was a voice of utter indifference and cold, as if the speaker had no interest whatsoever in another living soul.
Simon chose his words carefully for the span of a breath, then opened his mouth. Straight to the point. Fast and short.
"My name is Simon Polentia, from Kizen! I've come to the Northern Kalross on Lady Nephthys's orders."
With that, he respectfully held out the letter bearing Nephthys's seal—but the eyes within the helmet never even glanced at it.
[I have never permitted outsiders to visit.]
Flap!
When the Grand Duke turned her back, her red cloak whipped violently in the wind.
[And the situation in the north is far too dire for me to waste time schooling some greenhorn.]
The Grand Duke pulled hard on the reins.
[Move.]
As she passed Simon by, an endless column of Phantom Dullahan followed in her wake. Caught in the midst of the marching cavalry, Simon could not so much as twitch—he could only stand rooted in place, dazed, until the entire army had departed.
At last, when every undead had ridden out, nothing remained around him but a futile wind whistling through the dust.
Whew.
Watching the Grand Duke and her undead soldiers vanish into the distance, Simon tucked Nephthys's letter back inside his coat. Sweat beaded across his forehead. Merely meeting her gaze head-on had left him utterly drained.
What overwhelming presence.
Their first meeting had gone poorly, but far from being cowed, Simon burned even hotter. What kind of person was the Grand Duke of the North? What kind of life had she lived, what values did she hold? His curiosity only deepened. He had to find a way to speak with that senior Legion Commander, no matter what it took.
[Kwahaha! Rejected at the door, just as I predicted! So what will you do now, Boy?]
Pier, who had watched the whole exchange, was actually grinning in amusement. Simon's own lips curled up in answer.
"I camp out here and refuse to leave until she agrees to see me."
And with that, Simon headed for the Grand Duke's castle.
The castle gate still stood open, the Phantom Dullahan legion having only just ridden out. With no guards posted to speak of, Simon slipped inside the inner walls without difficulty.
Hm.
For the famous hero of humanity—the residence of the Grand Duke of the North—it was strikingly small and modest. It seemed to have been designed purely as a defensive stronghold to repel invaders, without a single trace of the luxury or entertainment that noble dwellings inevitably carried. There were no ornamental statues, no fountains, not even a patch of grass to be seen. Most of the buildings appeared to serve as weapons storehouses, granaries, or shelters for civilians in wartime.
Watching his step to avoid the horse droppings, Simon made his way to the entrance. The thick iron door stood ajar, and he slipped through the gap.
"Pardon the intrusion!"
Unlike the world outside, where sleet swirled in the wind, the interior was warm. He could hear the crackle of a burning fire, and the pelts of monsters lay spread across the floor everywhere he looked.
And there was exactly one person inside the castle.
A surly face, stubborn-looking brows, a hook where his right hand should have been, and an eyepatch over one eye. A thick mat of chest hair showed through a shirt worn ragged with age.
"Who're you?"
That was the man's opening line.
Simon answered politely.
"Simon Polentia, from Kizen."
"What's a Kizen?"
Simon paused for a beat. Everywhere he'd gone as a student, revealing the name Kizen had gotten him gasps of disbelief or flat-out suspicion. This bland reaction was a novelty.
"I've come on Lady Nephthys's orders to see the Grand Duke."
The man smacked his lips with a grunt. Even the name Nephthys left him entirely unmoved.
So the North really is a different world altogether.
Thanks to its geography, news reached the Northern Kalross slowly—and more importantly, the northerners, who struggled day by day simply to survive, had no interest in or curiosity about how the outside world turned. Which was why the classic story of some outsider swaggering around the North on the strength of their title alone, getting thoroughly thrashed by the locals, and being chased out was practically a legend by now.
This barren land crawling with monsters answered to nothing but raw strength. Even a royal of noble blood looked, in a northerner's eyes, like useless garbage—soft with fat, unable to run properly, not worth the food they ate.
The man looked Simon up and down, then picked up a sack of feather dusters with an expression of profound distrust.
"The Grand Duke is not a woman with time to spare. You'll likely never get an audience."
"Then who might you be?"
"Godric. Butler of this castle."
That man is the butler?
He looked like a warrior who might charge onto a battlefield at any moment and smash a goblin's skull in with a perfectly good forearm.
Granted, gripping a sword would be a challenge with that hook for a hand.
"I'd like to know when the Grand Duke might return."
"She marched out not long ago, so she'll be back by evening."
"Would it be all right if I waited here until then?"
Godric heaved a deep sigh.
"I won't stop you from waiting, but waiting won't earn you an audience either."
"I'll wait."
Said Simon, settling onto a nearby chair. The butler Godric, whether he cared or not, simply wandered off to clean another window.
It hardly seemed like a place where he'd be shown any hospitality anyway, so Simon resigned himself to waiting.
The waiting stretched on. After about two hours on the hard chair, his back had begun to ache. He rose from his seat to stretch—
Hm?
Looking out the window, he spotted a woman groaning as she pushed a cart stuck fast in the mud.
The donkey pulling the cart was straining with all its might, but it was hopeless.
Simon rose slowly from his seat.
"Thank you so much for your help!"
Simon had summoned his skeletons to pull the cart free of the mire, and the woman bowed her head to him again and again in gratitude.
"It's only right to help."
Simon said this while quietly studying her. Northern women were built impressively too—whether their skeletons differed or not, she was tall, with broad shoulders and thick, sturdy arms. She wore a long apron and a white cloth wrapped around her hair.
She smiled brightly.
"You must be an outsider."
"Ah—yes. How could you tell?"
She made a sweeping motion with her palm, as if tracing his face from top to bottom.
"Your face is all clean and smooth. One look and I can tell you're some nobleman's young master. Around here, they say a man who won't grow a beard might as well be a girl, and they'll nag you half to death about it."
"...Ahaha."
So that was why every man in this region looked like a walking thicket.
I should have grown a beard before coming.
"I'm Grayson."
"Simon Polentia."
Walking side by side with Grayson, Simon traded all manner of small talk with her. Perhaps because of the help he'd lent, she was the first person in the North to treat him with any warmth.
The cart had been carrying milk. She and her father, it seemed, ran a reindeer farm nearby.
Simon, as if he'd been waiting for the chance, asked her the questions that had been on his mind.
"You want the northerners to accept you?"
She thought for a moment before answering.
"Grow a beard?"
"...Aside from that."
"Hahaha! Just kidding. Hmm, let me think. I was born and raised here, so I've always taken it for granted—hard to explain to an outsider. Umm, how do I put this..."
She pondered a moment longer, then opened her mouth.
"Pride!"
"Pride?"
"Yes! Every northerner carries pride."
She raised her index finger.
"It's called the Pride of Protection! I defend my land, my family, my home! Even a newborn baby gets no exception—there's a custom that once a cradle has been used, it is never replaced. Even an infant must defend its own territory: the cradle."
Northerners do not run. For them, daily life is war—everyday existence and combat are bound together, impossible to tear apart. Even something as simple as hanging laundry by the riverside frequently meant drawing the dagger at your hip and fighting off a monster. Cutting down two or three beasts on the way home was just part of an ordinary day.
If, at every brush with death, they had refused to gamble their lives and chosen to flee instead, the North of today would never have endured. What was given to me, I guard without wavering. That duty was handed down as tradition through long generations, and in the carrying out of that duty, it had grown into pride.
The Pride of Protection bound the northerners together.
"Every single northerner is respected by the others as a 'Protector.' Anyone who runs because their life is too precious, or who leaves after losing what they were meant to guard, gets pointed at and called a coward. When you spend every day staking your life and fighting for your pride, outsiders wandering around sniffing for something to pluck out of the North for their own profit aren't going to look good to you—no matter how you slice it."
Simon nodded slowly.
The Pride of Protection.
He understood what it meant now. But how was he—an outsider here and now—supposed to prove it? Simon's brow furrowed deeper into thought.
After parting with Grayson, Simon returned to the Grand Duke's castle. The endless waiting continued. Godric the butler clearly couldn't have cared less what Simon did with himself, so Simon decided to wander the castle and have a look around.
Creeeak—
With every step through the old castle, the worn floorboards groaned like a chorus. From its aged, weather-beaten state, it was easy to guess how dire the North's finances were.
Oh.
As he wandered, he came upon a stretch of wall lined end to end with portraits of the successive Grand Dukes of the North. Every one of them had black hair, a hard and rugged face, and a full, heavy beard. Their hawk-like, piercing gazes—eyes fit to command those unyielding northerners—left a strong impression.
I suppose the Grand Duke's face must look something like theirs.
She'd been wearing a helmet when he saw her earlier, so he hadn't caught her features. Continuing his wander, Simon stepped into a room that stood open.
It was the Grand Duke's office. There was nothing personal in it. Training equipment alongside the weapons and armor the Grand Duke used were lined up in a row.
The armor was uniform—identical sets of pitch-black plate armor. Apparently she wore the same design every single time.
Simon was walking over and running his fingers over the helmet when—
"Grand Duke! It's—it's terrible! Terrible news!"
A frantic shout rang out from outside.
"What is it now? The Grand Duke only just departed for the front."
Came the butler Godric's voice. Simon stepped out of the office as well, and there he saw a messenger, snow piled on his head, reporting breathlessly between gasps.
"Barsdale territory is under attack! The invading undead number at least five hundred by rough estimate! There are named-class ones among them!"
"Five hundred?"
Godric's mouth hung open.
"How could an army that size move without a single soul noticing?"
"They seem to have come in through a route we didn't know about! We need the Grand Duke and her knights!"
"The Grand Duke left for Dondra mere hours ago! Barsdale is where the Grand Duke's own kin live. Issue an evacuation order at once!"
"The people of Barsdale won't obey it! They'll fight to the last man before they let themselves be slaughtered!"
And then—
"I'll go."
Both heads turned upward.
On the second-floor railing stood a blue-haired boy, his hand raised. The messenger exploded in irritation.
"This is no place for some kid to butt in—!"
"I may not look it, but I'm a necromancer from Kizen."
Simon lifted the Grand Duke's helmet he'd just brought with him and slowly settled it onto his head.
It fit as though it had been made for him all along—as if it had always been his helmet.
Tap!
Simon leapt from the railing and landed lightly on the ground below. The butler and the messenger flinched and stepped back.
"I have an idea."
Between the slits of the helmet, a deep jade gleam flashed in his eyes.