Coldon, Winterhome
It was only natural that creatures which formed packs enjoyed higher odds of survival in the wild, and humans shared the same principle.
For the villagers scattered across the territory to gather in the cities and endure Iceland’s brutal winters was only to be expected. And while more people meant more noise, Coldon thronged with life no matter the season.
The outer districts of Coldon, easily several times the size of Borderster, bustled several times louder still.
Iona, who had spent long years in the city, wore a fond expression as though he had finally come home. Catherine, by contrast, who had been trying to focus on a scroll, finally abandoned her reading to the racket.
And Karem was pinching his nose shut, breathing only through his mouth.
It was an embarrassingly childish act to perform in front of an elder of the Three Gods Sect who was also the duke’s chief seneschal and his great-mage employer—yet Karem was utterly serious.
As the saying went, first impressions were half the battle, and the city had already dashed Karem’s hopes once.
The majestic sight glimpsed through the carriage window had left him awestruck, but he snapped back to his senses the moment he saw the crowds parting of their own accord before the gates.
When people multiplied, everything else multiplied with them.
The moment the ghastly scenes from Borderster’s outer walls—sights only those of peculiar tastes could enjoy—flashed through his mind, Karem recoiled like an elephant that had spotted a mouse. He slammed the window shut and began breathing through his mouth alone.
The carriage was relatively sealed, yet outside air still flowed for the sake of minimal ventilation. He would grow short of breath—but for Karem there was no other choice.
Better a little breathlessness than the rotting stench of toilet sewers.
“…Kid. What exactly are you doing?”
Catherine shot him a look of pure disbelief at the solemn intensity so utterly out of place.
“Mouth breathing.”
“Mouth breathing?”
“Breathing through my mouth—”
“No, it would be stranger not to know what that is. Why?”
It was a perfectly reasonable question. He had been sparkling like a child who had just received a birthday gift, only to wither on the spot and start gasping like a fish hauled onto dry land.
“I already lived through it in Borderster. I’m not getting caught again. I’ll keep this up until we reach the inner castle.”
“Lived through what? Ah. That.”
“You know why I’m doing this, Lady Atanitas.”
“Hmm. If you’d seen it for the first time…”
Karem answered in a nasal mumble, deadly serious, and Catherine decided there was nothing for it. Even so, flinging filth from high windows had been far too violent a spectacle for a country boy making his first trip to a real city.
“Lord Atanitas. What are the two of you chatting about so merrily?”
It was only natural for Elder Iona to ask.
When Karem explained the situation in that same stuffed-nose voice, the elder shook his head slowly.
“True enough—most cities that grow too fast suffer from inadequate sewers. It’s a problem the Felwinter lands themselves can’t simply laugh off.”
“Borderster’s inner castle wasn’t as bad, but the outer districts smelled worse than the village’s communal livestock pens.”
“Well, you needn’t worry about that here.”
“Pardon?”
“I mean Coldon has no such stench to fear.”
Elder Iona waved a reassuring hand. The confidence in his tone and the authority of a man of high station made Karem carefully lower the hand that had been pinching his nose.
“Uh… really no smell?”
“Iceland may be barren, yet its history and tradition run longer than the kingdom’s itself. If a place like that lacked proper sewers, that would be the real scandal, wouldn’t it?”
“Sewers for a city of this entire size?”
“Vast sums of money and dwarves tend to know the answer.”
Ah—dwarves. The short-statured race famed for metalwork and architecture.
And a bottomless budget to match.
“Kid. It’s ‘Long live the dwarves who go mad for money and craftsmanship,’ that’s what it is.”
“But you said Iceland is barren.”
“So I did. One of the worst even in the Seophon Kingdom—no, on the whole of the Europa continent.”
“Then where does the money for that kind of construction come from?”
Barren land meant poor harvests, and poor harvests meant scant taxes. Yet the faces outside the carriage window showed none of the despair-soaked sorrow he had seen a thousand times in Moston Village. Only a lively heat—the energy of people determined to live—could be felt.
“Wait… it really does feel somehow warm, doesn’t it?”
“Coldon was built atop a hot-spring zone, so it’s milder than the rest of Iceland. That’s the reason.”
“So that’s why it feels so balmy.”
He said it, yet his breath still clouded white. Even so, compared to the blade-sharp winds beyond the walls that seemed ready to slice flesh and tear skin, it felt almost gentle—like stepping indoors after a full day of winter labor and finding even cold water strangely warm.
While they spoke, the escort procession parted the crowds that yielded at the sight of the carriage banners and rolled on into the inner castle—Winterhome, the ancestral seat of the Felwinter family.
Karem had only a brief glimpse of Winterhome’s exterior, yet that alone was enough to tell him the castle was something alien.
Coldon’s walls, roofs set aside, brought to mind a square in pure geometry and the single adjective “sturdy.” Since dwarves had raised them, perhaps that was simply the dwarven style.
The Winterhome now rising before his eyes looked the exact opposite.
Tall cylindrical spires that promised a nightmare to assault, and a web of complex walls linking spire to spire.
Up to that point it was the classic fairy-tale noble fortress of popular imagination.
The difference was scale. The place was enormous.
“Lady Atanitas. This is Winterhome?”
“It is. Not a stone has changed since I last saw it.”
“Just the outer walls look big enough to swallow an entire large village—no, a small city.”
Even the rough mass visible beyond the encircling ramparts was that vast.
Once the inner spires, halls, and facilities were added, Karem’s claim was no exaggeration: a small city could have fit inside with room to spare.
Coldon’s history ran longer than that of any successive unified dynasty of the Seophon Kingdom.
More than that, it had been the foremost bulwark that halted the Demon King’s army—the host that, in ages past, had burned nearly every civilization on earth.
Because of Coldon the hero had been granted the time needed to slay the Demon King; every nation on the Europa continent acknowledged the fact.
“The Demon King who set all of Europa ablaze, and his legions?”
“Yes. More precisely, ‘nearly.’ From the Grand Duchy of Lecherus in the north to the desert realm of the Adobis New Kingdom on another continent in the south. I even heard the far east was in chaos as well.”
“Then isn’t this place essentially a holy land?”
“In strict terms, yes—it would be.”
“But you called it a barren backwater people are reluctant to visit?”
If a place like that stood here, why was it treated as a frozen hinterland den? Confused, Karem turned to Catherine.
“Well, human perception can’t be helped in the end. Even if the land is barren, milder weather might change things—but who would willingly live in such a cold corner unless they were born to it?”
And what of the sage-class mage who had accepted employment and come to exactly such a cold, barren corner?
At Karem’s silent, expectant stare Catherine fixed her gaze on the window and closed her mouth.
No—wait. With the chief seneschal of the very duke who ruled this land sitting right beside them, was it wise to speak so freely?
“There’s nothing to worry about. Lord Atanitas’s words are entirely accurate.”
As the carriage passed through Winterhome’s main gate, Iona opened the window, returned the guards’ salutes, and soothed them with an easy tone.
“Well then, Lord Atanitas. You already know which tower is yours. I’ll accompany you only this far.”
“Elder Iona.”
“I’ll see you at the evening banquet.”
Catherine stepped down; Karem followed. Elder Iona simply turned and led the troops away.
Left alone with his employer in the very heart of the castle, Karem spun toward her at once.
“Lady Atanitas. An evening banquet?”
“The Felwinter family keeps a tradition of gathering everyone for dinner each evening. Given the numbers, it simply looks like a banquet.”
“And since Winterhome is both the main castle and the main house… just by scale it is a banquet.”
Karem tilted his head back. Towers and halls rose around them like giants before a lamb. The staff alone who worked here must number well into the thousands.
Catherine glanced sideways at the boy already brimming with anticipation at the word “banquet.”
“It’s only a banquet in size. Don’t expect every delicacy under the sun to come pouring out. It’s simply a rather large dinner. The duke—no, I should call him my lord now. My lord is a frugal man.”
“Hmm. I was honestly looking forward to it.”
“Well, for a noble, that is. Compared to the wild drinking feasts, yes—but plenty will still appear.”
Besides, while some sat down to dinner, others still had work to do; it was never the case that every single soul in the castle ate at the exact same hour.
“The dishes that come out are tasty enough, mind you—but I guarantee you, kid, your skill will never fall short of theirs. I give you my word.”
“Aww, you don’t have to praise me that much.”
“…Well, you’ll know once you taste it yourself.”
Unable to grasp the peculiar temperament that made him refuse praise—leftover from a previous life—Catherine simply started walking. Karem hurried after her with quick little steps.