Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 139
Never Mind the Heir, I’ll Focus on Healing — Chapter 139
“…It seems we have nothing further to discuss. Let us adjourn here.”
Petrick rose to his feet.
The fact that the Archbishop had gone this far clearly meant he had caught on to something about Lion.
‘If so, the best move is to settle this swiftly.’
Dragging it out would only let that insidious mind of the Archbishop’s run wild with imagination.
“…!”
Meanwhile, Tylearius was cheering inwardly.
He’d been certain Petrick would hold him hostage for hours on the pretext of being in a foul mood, but he was getting away far earlier than expected.
“Ah, a fine notion. I shall, as the Archbishop so aptly put it, take good care of my august health. Farewell, then.”
Commending himself for enduring the interminable ordeal, the Emperor hastily rose and vanished at speed.
He had a gift for seizing an opening when he saw one.
‘Tsk, tsk…’
Petrick clicked his tongue inwardly as he watched the Emperor flee in undignified haste.
For a man seated upon the imperial throne, could he have been any less dignified?
Still, the man did move as intended… so Petrick resolved to let it pass this time.
Pulling his gaze from the Emperor’s retreating back, Petrick seated himself once more.
“And so, what did you come all the way here to say to me?”
“Haha. Lord Petrick’s perceptiveness never ceases to astound.”
The Archbishop, who had not stirred so much as an inch the entire time, allowed himself a faint smile.
As expected—he did have something to discuss.
“We are both busy men. Let us come to the point.”
In truth, Petrick had anticipated this to some degree.
The boy Lion had reportedly caused a major incident at the temple; this was most likely a probing visit concerning that matter.
God’s Messenger.
He must have worked out that identity.
In the course of investigating one thing and another, he had clearly also learned of the attack on Lion.
‘No matter how well we concealed it, the Archbishop’s information network is formidable… Still, I have no intention of showing any gaps.’
The Archbishop had been asleep all this time, and even if he had acquired intelligence on Lion, he had nothing conclusive, did he?
“Are you in such haste?”
“It is you who are slow, I suspect.”
“Haha. Is not all of it for the sake of hearing God’s voice? It is nothing of great import. Merely…”
The Archbishop curled his hand into a fist, chuckled, and turned his head.
“Merely that when I behold young master Lion Asteri, someone seems to come to mind.”
“…”
“His conduct—as if he were God’s Messenger… No.”
As if he were the Hero who accompanied the Saintess, I should say.
Their eyes met in a moment of taut tension.
‘I cannot tell how much he has learned.’
But if the Archbishop was speaking to that degree, it plainly meant he possessed firm conviction or evidence.
The Archbishop had been astute from childhood.
Moreover, he had always kept a close watch on the Hero, so arriving at such a conjecture was not entirely strange.
Since this was within the scope of prediction, Petrick was unruffled.
For all the Archbishop’s eminence…
‘The man has never seen the Hero in person.’
His intelligence fell short.
When it came to his own grandson—that might be another matter—but where information on the Hero was concerned, Petrick held the advantage.
Even if the Archbishop had grown up hearing the Saintess’s vivid accounts, he could not compare with Petrick himself or the Elder Elf Boaresia.
Anyone else might have been shaken, but the Archbishop’s opponent was the 8th-Circle Archmage, Petrick Asteri.
And his skill in verbal sparring was every bit as sharp as his magic.
“What is your opinion, Lord Petrick?”
“An intriguing perspective, but—”
Petrick calmly raised one corner of his mouth in a faint smirk.
“—even assuming so, is it not the case that he is not the Hero you seek?”
“I am afraid I do not follow.”
“It means precisely what it says: he is not ‘that person’ who accompanied the Former Archbishop.”
“…”
At the mention of the Former Archbishop and the Saintess, a faint gleam kindled in the Archbishop’s eyes.
An assortment of emotions. Petrick did not avoid those eyes, glistening—likely with obsession.
If anything, he merely spoke with greater calm.
“Quell your emotions, Archbishop. I am only telling you the reality of the matter.”
He had harshly denounced him as a madman only moments ago, but Petrick did feel a very small measure of pity for the Archbishop before him now.
Had he himself been in that man’s place, it was not a situation he could have easily let go of either.
After all, the Saintess, to whom the Archbishop had been devoted as though to a parent, had suddenly died one day.
‘At that time…’
It had been the period of aftermath and recovery once the war ended.
Everyone was devastated and grieving, yet it was also a time when people were trying to rise again, sustained by the hope that they need lose no one more.
In such an era, the Saintess’s death was more than enough to plunge all into shock.
“The Saintess— I mean, her Grace the Archbishop—has passed away!” “But she was in good health; why so suddenly?” “Rumor says accumulated curses within her body were the cause…” “No, there’s also talk that she was always destined for a short life.” “Perhaps she was so saintly that God called her early to heaven.”
The lives she had saved with her aid numbered in the hundreds and thousands, and through her devotion the Great Barrier had been completed, so naturally everyone mourned.
However… the truth was.
‘This death is riddled with oddities.’
Petrick had swiftly stepped in to tidy up the affair, which was why it was not widely known, but the death raised a great many questions.
First: the person the Saintess met the day before she died was none other than the Hero.
And that meeting had been conducted in such secrecy that merely calling it a discussion of future plans did not suffice.
The second problem was the day of her death.
The Hero had vanished without a trace or a word.
Afterward, and ever since.
He had literally evaporated, leaving not so much as a footprint.
This point, too, left Petrick with many lingering doubts.
However—Petrick, who had stood alongside them and fought as their comrade, could speak with certainty on one matter.
At the very least, the Hero could not possibly have killed the Saintess.
Thus, while their meeting might serve as a crucial piece of evidence in some sequence of events, it did not make the Hero her murderer…
But the mind of the Archbishop—the Saintess’s closest aide, a protégé like a son, and still a mere child at the time—could not grasp that.
And so even now, he was still searching for traces of the Hero.
Petrick felt a pang of commiseration.
He could sympathize, but he did not concur.
Far too many people of that era had witnessed the unjust deaths of those around them.
It was a time rarer to find anyone who did not know the sensation of burying someone in their heart and feeling a blade driven into it—aching, endlessly hollow and futile.
Yet people still entombed their loved ones within their chests and lived on as their gravediggers.
Because only thus could they care for those who remained.
…He himself had done the same.
And yet, here was this Archbishop, even now, still searching for the Hero with that glistening gaze, was he not?
Worse still, the object of that search had now become corrupted in its meaning,
no longer seeking that particular Hero but fixing his attention upon anyone who possessed the potential to become ‘the Hero.’
And of all people, the target was his own grandson.
“Already fifty years have passed.”
“Some things must not be forgotten, no matter how many years go by.”
“I am not telling you to forget. I am telling you that if you mean to do it, then remember properly.”
Finishing his words, Petrick rose from his seat once more and gazed silently at the Archbishop.
The sheer effrontery of dragging his grandson into this was galling, but knowing the man’s circumstances, he decided to let it go just this once.
“Take my words and reflect on them carefully.”
Besides, madman or no, was the man not, after all, the son-like protégé of an old comrade?
Petrick even found himself hoping that the Archbishop might, in future, live in the present.
Furthermore…
“It seems you have also recently acquired a bright little successor.”
At those words, the Archbishop’s body flinched.
Pretending not to have noticed, Petrick moved his steps.
Thinking to himself that whatever one’s age, everyone suffered their own growing pains.
* * *
“…What did you just say?”
“I said I would be obliged if you could vacate the smithy for me tonight.”
Mudu was experiencing a rare sensation that went beyond fluster into sheer incredulity.
I mean, of course—since it was none other than that eccentric, Lion Asteri, saying so—he could perfectly well vacate the smithy in the dead of night.
He could even do it in broad daylight!
Granted, it was the finest smithy in Asteri Territory, and closing it even for a single day brought significant loss, but that eccentric young master had done so much for him that he could lightly disregard such concerns.
Even if he thought only of the blazing, vigorous fire and the lively spirit right then, he was in the young man’s debt for a lifetime.
The problem was…
“What are you going to make?”
“That is a secret.”
“Tch, fine. Then why are you making it?”
“That is also a secret.”
The young master had chosen this occasion to go completely unhinged and offer not a shred of explanation!
“This is maddening.”
Mudu roughly scrubbed his face with his calloused hands. His nose, perpetually red-scorched by the heat of the forge, was chafed by the rough skin until it turned into a positively crimson strawberry.
How could just a few exchanges have been this exhausting?
‘What is he up to now?! Why won’t he tell me?!’
Yes.
Mudu decided to be honest with himself.
The truth was, he was dying to know what this eccentric was going to produce!
More precisely, he wanted to witness the eccentric’s growth with his own two eyes!
He did not mean merely the striking of metal with a hammer.
Where on earth did he keep picking up these skills, one by one—and every time he learned something, didn’t he grasp the principles in a flash and go knock-knock-thumping it into existence?
‘And what in the world were those wooden blocks?!’
Some time ago, the block toys that his own children, Golden Branch and Jade Leaf, played with had also been a gift from Lion Asteri.
He had received them as thanks for lending out expensive dye.
Not only that—hadn’t Lion sent over a generous supply of pigment that seemed as though it would never run out, even if the children used it until they reached adulthood?
Now that he thought about it, playing with the children was another thing to be grateful for… no, that wasn’t the point!
What he meant was, he wanted to stand by and watch whatever Lion was making.
But this time, Lion showed not the slightest intention of allowing that.
“…Fine. All right.”
“Thank you.”
“Thank me, nothing.”
Mudu waved a thick hand dismissively through the air.
“Still—I could lend you the forge for a day or two in the daytime as well. Why borrow it at night?”
“There is a reason.”
“Hrmm.”
He had tried to slip that question in at the end, but that failed too.
Which meant Lion was probably aiming to use it for something secret.
‘Given that fellow’s nature, he’s not about to use it for anything suspicious.’
Wasn’t he the type who hated getting tangled up in incidents?
“Fine. You little wretch. Go do everything you want to do!”
Smacking his lips in regret, Mudu turned and went back inside the smithy.
“Son! At least set up a place for the eccentric lad to sit and rest!”
“The talk’s over? I had it ready long ago!”
The apprentice blacksmith Son waved from where he had already prepared a spot in the area with the least heat.
‘That’s settled.’
He could stay there until nightfall and then get straight to work.
* * *
And so time flew swiftly, until it became the deep, unfrequented hour of night.
After hearing Mudu’s list of precautions and warnings to be careful what felt like dozens of times, Lion finally rose from his seat and surveyed the smithy.
“There’s really no one here, right?”
“Peep-peep.”
Nature covered its eyes with its wings, checked the surroundings, and let out two short chirps as if to confirm no one was there.
“Good.”
Only then did Lion draw out from his clothes Elvia’s Obsidian and the complimentary melting agent he had received as a gift.
The reason he had chosen the nighttime hours was simple.
“Because whether other people could endure that sweetness is an open question…”
Elvia was not one to speak nonsense.
Sure enough, the obsidian was emitting a low, humming vibration—as if to seduce anyone who passed nearby.