The Medial Plain
Four days after leaving Carpatia Port behind, the carriage finally crossed the border of the Grand Duchy of Carpatia.
Even at the border, a flash of Ceres's insignia was all it took to pass through in an instant.
"This is what power looks like."
As she swept the insignia into view and preened, shoulders squared with pride, the entire party regarded her with genuine awe.
And how could they not?
Without Ceres, they would have been drained dry at every turn — which village is ahead, where's the inn once we find one, how many in your party, how many rooms... inspection after search after interrogation, until every last ounce of energy was wrung out of them.
But with Ceres in their company, a single flash of her insignia bypassed every checkpoint and search, and when no inn could be found, a word of her authority arranged everything on the spot.
Ceres's promise to cover their lodging and meals had proven perfectly true.
It simply hadn't been paid with her own money.
"Well, now that we're out of the Grand Duchy of Carpatia, I suppose it does have to come out of my pocket."
"Does it, now?"
Ludwig, who had shifted seats and now sat at the newly rearranged round table, downed his fruit wine in one swallow and gazed out the window.
It was a gloriously green day.
For a season already sliding into winter, the sky hung impossibly high and blue, and the clouds drifting here and there were pure white cumulus.
Before them stretched a grassland so vast that not a single mountain broke the horizon.
The harvest must have already ended, for a deep brown tinge now lay heavier over the plains than any trace of green.
An expanse so wide and boundless that the horizon itself was visible.
Nothing at all like Marlene.
Ludwig wore a wry smile as he took in the view. Born and raised in Marlene, where the mountains crowded close, he had never seen a plain so immense.
Even compared to the horizon he'd glimpsed crossing that great desert on his way to Evian, the horizon here carried a vitality all its own.
"Mister, where are we?"
"Here? Er... hm."
Ludwig scooped up Rubina, who had been clambering noisily up his knees, and settled her onto his lap.
Yet when it came to actually answering her question, he found himself at a loss.
He didn't know where here was either. To be precise, he knew it was some plain or other, but the exact name had slipped his mind.
"...The Medial Plain."
Vigrind, seated beside Ludwig, murmured it in a quiet voice.
She had been doing her best to pretend Rubina didn't exist, but with Ludwig fumbling and stalling instead of answering, she had apparently decided to step in.
"Wow, big sister, there's nothing you don't know!"
Rubina gaped in open admiration.
This was hardly the first time Rubina had asked where they were. She'd asked Yona first, and then Alec.
Neither of them had known.
Kayak and James, wedged into the back rows on account of their sheer size, were honestly too much of a trek to bother with — so Rubina, working her way down the line, had finally landed on an answer with Vigrind.
"It's not as if I know everything."
A small, self-conscious cough, and Vigrind turned her face away from Rubina.
But there was no hiding the smile curling at the corner of her mouth.
Beyond this point lay imperial territory.
The Carpatia Imperial Domain — the Medial Plain.
With Lake Cantasia as its rich reservoir and the vast grasslands spreading on every side, the Medial Plain had become the greatest breadbasket of the empire.
Considering that a substantial portion of all grain circulating through the empire was harvested here, the scenery rolling past the carriage windows was a truly magnificent sight.
"She's sleeping so soundly."
Rubina was curled up snugly in Vigrind's arms, snoring clear down to the tip of her nose.
It was the girl's first carriage journey, and at only ten years old, drifting off at every opportunity was simply what children her age did — nothing strange about it at all.
"She is, isn't she. Sleeping like a log."
Vigrind had complained bitterly about the child, yet some change of heart seemed to have come over her, for she treated Rubina with surprising gentleness.
"You've really changed, you know."
"What is that supposed to mean, out of nowhere?"
"Back when we were growing up at the cathedral orphanage. You couldn't stand the other children. All they did was cry, make noise, and throw tantrums."
Yona had spent barely half a year at the orphanage, but Vigrind had been her age, and even in that short stretch of time the two of them had grown fairly close.
And in that short time — as far as Yona could remember — Vigrind had not liked children.
Yona, by contrast, had always been rather fond of them.
"That was then. Things are different now."
"Well, imagine that. You become a Saintess and suddenly you're all magnanimous."
"...People can't stay the same forever. Circumstance shapes the person, don't you think?"
Circumstance shapes the person?
To Yona's ears, those words sounded precisely like — a lowly Healer like you should know your place for once.
"What's that supposed to mean."
"Mean? It means exactly what it says."
At the sudden edge in Yona's voice, it was Vigrind's turn to be flustered.
Just when the two of them had been getting along for once, Yona had bristled at something, and now here they were.
"'Circumstance shapes the person' — is that your way of looking down on me for being a Healer?"
"Wh-what are you even..."
Now that I'm a Saintess too, isn't it only natural that I'd change a little? — that was what Vigrind had been about to say. But the words died in her throat.
Why — why should she have to explain herself?
There was no need. They'd be parting ways once they reached Infula anyway. There was simply no reason to argue.
"...Think whatever you like."
"Ha. Honestly. Unbelievable."
"Oh, come now. Why are you two fighting?"
"Hey, hey, what's with picking a fight with the Saintess?"
Ludwig and Alec jumped in at the same time — Ludwig toward Vigrind, Alec toward Yona.
"She's the one talking nonsense—"
"She's the one hearing nonsense—"
With their words oddly overlapping, Yona and Vigrind locked eyes in a glare.
The sparks flew back and forth for a long moment — until at last the two of them snorted a dismissive hmph and turned away from each other in unison.
The air inside the carriage turned positively glacial.
Things got so bad that even Ceres tried cracking a few jokes, gave up, and retreated to her seat with a book.
"Alec, have you been this way often?"
Ludwig, seated beside Alec, gestured out the carriage window.
"No, this is my first time as well."
Alec followed Ludwig's gesture with a glance outside.
That endlessly spreading plain was a marvel even to Alec, who had been born and raised in the far distance and drifted all the way to Evian.
How could anywhere be so utterly devoid of mountains? He'd heard the Great Forest lay somewhere beyond, yet the land was so flat — not a mountain, not even a hill — that it was hard to believe.
And cutting straight across that great plain—
"Oh. There, look."
Alec narrowed his eyes and stared hard in that direction.
That tiny, distant speck, so very far away — to Alec's eyes, it was unmistakably a person.
"What is it?"
"Over there, in the distance."
"Huh... well, isn't that a person?"
At Ludwig's words, every head in the carriage turned that way.
"Commander Regent, have a look over there."
The moment Ceres drew near, Ludwig pointed out the window. In the time it had taken her to cross the carriage, the speck had grown close enough to make out clearly — and there was no doubt about it now. They were people.
"Their condition seems... rather less than dignified, if I may say."
Alec was right — the people were an utter wreck.
They wore clothes, technically, but nothing properly fitted — clearly stitched together in haste — and their backs bowed under heavy packs. The children were gaunt, their faces filthy and battered; these were people who had very obviously suffered some catastrophe.
More than twenty of them came on in a single ragged file, drawing toward the carriage from the opposite side.
*
Ludwig climbed down from the carriage, and Sir Lewis — the commander of the cathedral knights, who had been riding escort alongside on horseback — dismounted as well and approached the procession.
As they drew closer, the wretchedness of the travelers' condition became all the more apparent; they looked as though they hadn't eaten in days, utterly drained of any strength.
Yet the nearer the two men came, the more a flicker of color — of hope — returned to the travelers' faces.
"Good day to you."
"Ah, y-yes! Yes, sir!"
The man at the head of the line bowed and scraped repeatedly toward Lewis. It was no strange behavior — everything about the knight radiated authority at a glance — but they seemed to want something more than that.
"Might you be... the one in charge?"
"Please, speak casually, m'lord! We're all of us humble worms of the dirt!"
"Oh. I see."
Ludwig shot Lewis a mildly incredulous sidelong glance at how instantly his speech had dropped to the vulgar. So this was how it worked the moment someone called themselves a worm of the dirt, was it? A noble is a noble, through and through, Ludwig thought to himself. A cathedral knight commander would be nobility, after all.
"Where do you come from?"
"We, we're from just ahead — two days' walk, m-more or less..."
But the man couldn't answer right away.
There was something he wanted to say — something he couldn't quite bring himself to voice.
"Tell me what's the matter."
After a moment more of dithering, the man finally opened his mouth, hesitant and careful.
"M'lord, I beg your forgiveness most humbly, but — might we perhaps be given a little food? The children, and the rest of us, we've been walking for days on empty stomachs, and—"
"Now, hold on, food—"
Ludwig flung out an arm to stop Lewis just as the knight's temper was about to explode.
"Oh dear, is that so? Well then, of course. Do wait just a moment, please."
Having said this, Ludwig took Lewis lightly by the arm and turned him aside.
"Look at them — the children and the grown folk alike are clearly starving. Relieving the poor is the very teaching of the Heavenly God, so how can you be so heartless? We can simply eat a little less and share out some rations. I'll speak to the Commander Regent myself and smooth things over, I promise you."
"Even so, that food was purchased with the faithful's own offerings. I cannot allow it to be handed out on private whim—"
Ludwig cut him off mid-sentence, a bright, easy smile spreading across his face.
"Oh, come now. Why must you be so inflexible? Who said anything about giving it away?"
He pressed his thumb and forefinger together into a little circle and waved it slowly back and forth.
"What I'm saying is, let the Commander Regent pay for it. Not the Head Elder — the Commander Regent. She's loaded, isn't she? Wouldn't you agree?"