The Winter Gallery
Lawrence took Lurizisa’s handkerchief from his breast.
A roaring golden lion.
The fragrance that had once resembled flowers was gone now, vanished from every corner of the world.
And yet, if he closed his eyes, he could still feel her scent lingering there.
To be honest, she had never been a face easy to remember.
Her tousled pink hair was always a little untidy, and her features, half-hidden beneath her glasses and the hair that fell over them, were ones he had never really seen properly.
Lurizisa was nothing like Agnes or the Valentina sisters, women who became beauties simply by standing in place.
But that didn’t matter.
“I heard from a bard once that nobles, in the end, seek out talented people.”
He deliberately left the rest unsaid.
Still, the meaning must have come through well enough.
“There’s Raynald blood in that lady of yours. He wouldn’t have wanted a gifted raw stone to bloom and disappear without ever being cut. Well, I can’t say that’s the whole story, of course. Better to hear the rest from the lady herself.”
That wasn’t all there was to it.
He knew this was only self-satisfaction.
Even so, he could feel the knot in his chest loosening.
For now, that answer was enough.
But another question had surfaced.
Cedric, the one who had brought him those words, had also regretted seeing talent buried.
Wasn’t that closer to the duty nobles spoke of?
Now that he thought about it, there was more than one suspicious thing about him.
For a bard, he knew the noble world far too well.
And it was strange, too, that he seemed to know every family crest and all sorts of miscellaneous details by heart.
It was easy to see if he compared him with Miriam, who was also a bard.
Miriam had talent for singing.
Cedric had no talent for singing, but he was encyclopedic in his knowledge.
Lawrence didn’t know for sure, but perhaps he was….
“……”
He shook the thought away.
Even if Cedric’s identity was what he suspected, what would change?
Cedric was Cedric.
Their first meeting might have been awkward, but he had received a great deal of help from him since then.
There had to be a reason for everything he kept hidden.
So Lawrence had no intention of prying into that secret.
Not until the day Cedric was ready, at least.
“Still, will that one question really be enough?”
“It will be. Anything beyond that would be bad manners before meeting him in person.”
It was different from the days when he had known nothing.
Noble society began with etiquette and ended with etiquette.
Besides, this was one of the Four Knights of the Promise, the pride of the Raynald family, half a house of swords.
In every way, he was different from a rough man like Caelo.
“I see. Then it seems this old man butted in without thinking. Matters like this are best settled by the young themselves.”
With one foot in the stirrup, the wandering knight swung himself back into the saddle.
“Say, you knew that rat too?”
“I did.”
Faceless Shadows.
One of the organization’s men, exposed alongside Emily at the magic tower.
“Then remember this.”
Rifling in his breast, he drew out a sheet of paper and began to sketch something upon it.
A drawing like a worm crawling along the ground.
A sword and spear crossed over one another, and beneath them something that looked like bread.
For some reason, the emblem felt familiar.
As if he had seen it somewhere before.
But it didn’t quite match the image in his memory.
“Have you seen it all?”
“I have.”
The man set the paper alight.
The drawing vanished in a handful of ash.
“That’s the organization’s crest. Seems it’s been showing up in the Gutter of the royal capital lately. Be careful. Even I don’t know what those bastards are after.”
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
There was no harm in remembering it.
“Then I wish you good fortune, Lawrence.”
“May the goddess’s blessing be with you as well, Sir Ban.”
“Ah, what’s this? I don’t believe in the goddess.”
He tapped the sword at his hip.
“The only thing I trust is this blade.”
Ban, the wanderer, left the relay station with the Black Rose Merchant Guild.
* * *
Kobolds were small monsters that carried a dim, murky light about them.
Slightly larger than goblins.
They wielded rusted weapons and crudely cut wooden clubs, as though they had simply picked them up off the ground.
They lurked at every opportunity, waiting to ambush the party advancing through the gallery.
Overwhelming numbers were violence in itself.
Every clash with the kobolds turned into a drawn-out battle.
“Bind.”
Vines erupted from the earth and wrapped the kobold’s body in a crushing snare.
The club slipped from its hand as the creature froze in place, unable to move a muscle.
Resistance meant nothing.
A kobold’s strength was nowhere near enough to break free of Bind’s restraint.
Of course, it could be used to immobilize them, but not to take their lives.
Still, there was no reason to pour more mana into Bind than necessary.
A flash of light streaked forward.
A dancing spearhead pierced the kobold’s throat.
The instant he confirmed its death, Lawrence twisted his hand.
“Bind.”
There was no time to hesitate.
The tangled vines surged over the kobold in an instant.
“More are coming!”
The result repeated itself again and again.
Each time the black cloak fluttered, blue blood burst into the air.
But the kobolds swarming around them seemed endless.
Deep in the dark gallery, an ominous presence writhed.
How many kobolds had they brought down?
One by one, the creatures began to turn tail and run.
There was no need to chase the ones fleeing.
Killian, drenched in blue blood, raised a hand.
“Hold. Report injuries first.”
“Two minor injuries. Nothing that will affect the mission.”
“Good. After you’ve checked your equipment, record the terrain around here.”
While the Watchers of Winter took care of their gear, Lawrence sat down.
Even though the stench hung thick in the air, there was no chance to rest far from the others.
The dark gallery was full of dangers you couldn’t see.
It was truly no easy place.
They had been searching the Winter Gallery for a full month now.
He had grown used to this endless search, at least to some degree.
Speed, to be honest, was not their strong suit.
The Watchers of Winter had cooperated in the first place because of the search of the gallery.
The Winter Gallery lay beneath the northern mountains.
It was still an unknown place, untouched by human feet.
Killian recorded the chambers connected along the way and slowly expanded the area of their search.
The potions Lawrence had brought at his belt were all gone by now.
They had no time to tend to wounds properly while pushing ever deeper into the gallery.
The only comfort was that there were fewer ice trolls.
The darkness of the gallery was their domain.
Even with Shadow Light, there was no way to predict an ice troll’s attack when it struck from the dark.
“Ghk!”
“It’s an ice troll!”
The armor didn’t even have time to resist.
Before the creature’s massive body, a Watcher of Winter was crushed flat on the spot.
“Martin!”
“I’ve got it!”
Even in the face of a brother’s death, the Watchers of Winter did not waver.
The tactics that had worked on the surface would not be enough here.
They had to confront the ice troll’s regenerative power head-on.
“Russell. Krati!”
They never let the thread of their assault loosen.
The search party, seasoned by repeated coordination, pressed the attack without pause.
“Mage!”
“Shadow Spear.”
He had been waiting for this.
No matter how impressive the ice troll’s regeneration, it could not restore a severed leg in an instant.
Lawrence hurled Shadow Spear like a javelin.
For a moment, the Watchers of Winter scattered.
There was no missing.
Speed. Power. It was a specialty spell without a single flaw to it.
Shadow Spear pierced the ice troll clean through.
The body, with its upper half blasted apart, twitched.
It wasn’t over yet.
Under Killian’s command, the search party converged and hacked the body to pieces.
“Fire.”
Lawrence burned the chunks of meat as well.
Only after the cleanup was finished perfectly did they lower their weapons.
“Recover the bodies first.”
“I’m not sure there’ll be any bodies left to recover.”
“I’ll offer Kesa’s belongings to the Heart of Winter myself.”
The vacant places in the search party were replaced by new Watchers of Winter.
Agnes had kept her promise.
Supplies needed for the gallery search had been prepared at the relay station, and the minimum number of personnel required to support it were also waiting there for the search party.
Because of that, even though their pace was slow, the search continued steadily.
“Honestly, at first I thought I was seeing things.”
“Seeing what?”
“Well, come on. A civilian climbing the Gangama Mountains without even a sherpa. Normally you’d have to be crazy, or want to die, to try something like that.”
“Yeah. Who the hell would climb those mountains? And especially the Gangama Mountains, the Watchers’ own territory.”
Russell and Krati, chewing on their preserved rations, each tossed in a remark.
“And the reason was even crazier. You came looking for the northern holy site on foot? That’s basically suicide. I can’t even imagine it.”
“You’re one to talk, aren’t you? A guy who became a Watcher of Winter because he stole a piece of bread.”
“Why bring up the past?”
“I’m just repeating what you bragged about yourself.”
“Fine. I don’t regret it. If it hadn’t been for that bread, my little brother would’ve died. Well, the real problem was that he was killed by that bastard noble prick afterward. Fucking hell. What a dog.”
No one lived without a story.
Just as Lawrence had once wandered the back alleys and done whatever he had to do.
The Watchers of Winter, too, carried unspeakable burdens in their hearts.
“He told me he was taking me somewhere good. Turned around and sold me to a slaver. I managed to run, somehow, but what good is that if you have nowhere to go?”
“When I went home, my older sister was hanging from the rafters. It was because of some fine lord who’d come to inspect the territory. Later I heard he had forced himself on her. Bastard. So no, I don’t regret coming here. I smeared my sister’s blood across that bastard’s face.”
Even if those were events long past, they were hardly light stories.
Still, the fact that they could speak of them with laughter might have been a measure of their strength.
“You’re no different, are you, mage?”
“My name is Lawrence.”
“Right. Mage. If we’d lived ordinary lives, what business would we have had coming all the way up here to the north? We came because none of us could do that.”
But then Jullibar added, “Still, I’m satisfied with this life in my own way. However the capital may see us, we’re respected in the north. If I’d stayed back in the village as a shepherd, I’d never have felt a thing like this before I died.”
“And what if you die doing it?”
“Even if I die, my brothers will remember me. I’ll offer my keepsake before the Heart of Eternal Winter, and just like the brothers who went before me, I’ll become a spirit guarding the wall even after death.”
As if agreeing with him, Killian said, “Well said. That’s what makes a proud Watcher of Winter.”
“Ha! You’ve got a way with words. Too good for a mere search party, that one.”
“Oh? Then are you aiming to become a Watcher Commander? That’s fine. Challenge me whenever you like, Jullibar.”
“…I’m not ready to die yet.”
Jullibar averted his eyes awkwardly.
The search party burst out laughing.
Lawrence smiled with them.
There was no need to look at them with prejudice.
The Watchers of Winter were people too, with red blood flowing in their veins just the same.
* * *
Deep within the Winter Gallery.
At last, the party stopped before the door they had reached.
A massive door that looked as though it would never budge by human strength.
The search party kept watch around them in case any enemy might be waiting nearby.
“This is the gallery’s inner depths. A few advance teams made it here before us, but I’m told none of them could get past this door and had to turn back.”
Killian said, stepping away from the door.
“There’s no mechanism to open it. What do you plan to do?”
“Only what we can. This wasn’t made with human entry in mind.”
It felt strangely moving.
Standing before a door of such overwhelming size, Lawrence looked around.
At one corner of the door, sunk in shadow, he saw a pile of broken stone.
Though badly damaged, there was no mistaking it.
It was the same statue that had always been present at the holy sites.
They had found the right place.
But there was no visible way inside the holy site.
No gap wide enough to squeeze through.
And not a door that a human could possibly open by force.
He knew how it was supposed to be opened.
Yerina herself had opened a door like this before his eyes.
Only, he wasn’t sure whether he could do the same here.
“They say there’s still a palace inside, built by the northern people. The exact size of it is unknown. We can only judge by the portions visible through the cracks in the wall.”
“Is there another entrance?”
“None that we know of.”
“None that you know of….”
“That’s just our way of saying it. There’s a rumor that if you fall into a crevasse, you end up tumbling in here.”
It was an adventure where you staked your life, Killian added.
“Do you believe in miracles, Sir Killian?”
“Miracles? You mean the holy power the Church talks about? Or do you mean those events that happen when one accident piles on top of another?”
“Both.”
“If miracles existed, I wouldn’t be standing here.”
That was right.
Miracles were miracles precisely because they did not happen.
“I’ll tell you just in case.”
And yet a miracle was also something that had to happen at the right time.
“If something incomprehensible happens here, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t panic. I’m very used to things like that.”
“I thought I just told you I don’t believe in miracles.”
“This has nothing to do with believing in them or not.”
This wasn’t that kind of question.
“If something truly incomprehensible happens right in front of you, that itself is a miracle.”
Lawrence placed his hand upon the door.
“The little lamb said: within the courtyard of the goddess’s house, one day is better than a thousand. Better to stand at the door of the goddess’s house than to dwell in the comfortable house of a heretic.”
It was a saying Yerina had recited.
A prayer meant to bring about a miracle.
But just as it had been with her, the door did not move.
“If words like that worked, we wouldn’t be suffering through this in the first place,” Killian said flatly.
So it really wouldn’t work?
No. It was too soon to give up.
Lawrence recalled Unlock.
In his mind, he pictured a key that suited this door.
It was far more intricate than the key to a workshop.
The corresponding image refused to settle into place.
No matter how he tried to insert it, all he could see was the key spinning uselessly in the lock.
How long had he been clinging to Unlock?
At last, Lawrence spoke the activation word.
“Unlock.”
The spell activated properly.
And yet the door remained firmly shut, unmoved.
Just as disappointment began to shadow Lawrence’s eyes, a dark light like a shadow seeped into the door.
It was not light he had created.
It was an unfamiliar force leaking from his bag.
There was no need to wonder what it was.
Among the things in his bag, there was only one tied to the Spirit World.
The Key of the Spirit World.
Lemegeton and Codex Gigas were syncing with the door.
Rrrrummble.
With a thunderous groan, the seam in the door opened.
The eyes of the search party, still on guard around them, all turned toward it.
At last, the holy site hidden within the Winter Gallery revealed itself.