Chapter 132
Chapter 132
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 132
Chapter Title: Do Not Seek Tranquility for Yourself (1)
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*
Having skipped even the regular reports that needed to be sent to the Church, it had now been a fortnight since Fernandez spurred his horse toward the borderlands of the Dane Kingdom.
“Cough, kuh!”
For nearly every one of those days, he had skimped on sleep and subsisted mostly on hardtack rations as he raced onward.
His declining body, past forty, and his fogging mind—he had whipped them both with mana, pushing relentlessly without rest.
The Church had sent no pursuers. He had already informed his subordinates with the message that he was “in hot pursuit of a heretic due to an emergency situation.” Fortunately, thanks to his accomplishments over the past three years, the Church harbored no suspicions toward him.
There was no need for suspicion. What he had done were acts no demon spy would ever commit. The forces of the demons had shrunk more drastically than at any point in recent memory.
Thanks to that, it was a time of peace. In truth, it was the calm before the storm. Fernandez surveyed the surrounding scenery as he drove his horse forward.
The Widow Spider Coast sparkled with beautiful scales of water under the winter sun.
In just a few years, this entire coastline would burn to ashes. From the Church’s perspective, it seemed they were making some preparations, but it wouldn’t be enough.
Though somewhat overshadowed by Karadskar’s prestige, the northerners led by Erik the Pitch Black had torched and laid waste to every kingdom along the northern coastline.
Karadskar had an adversary in Kirhas, but Erik had no such thing.
Erik the Pitch Black—his halting the invasion was nothing short of a miracle. It was surely due in part to King Vicente II’s courage and strategy, and the valiant efforts of the Eastern Kingdom Alliance’s knights, but the greatest reason was the fever he had contracted during his southern campaign.
When that mighty warrior fell ill with fever and collapsed before five days had passed, the many northern tribes bound by his charisma scattered to their homes. That was the full story of the Great Northern Invasion.
Fernandez turned his horse toward the lighthouse of Infermer City, faintly visible through the sea mist in the distance. This city too would be trampled and burned in the flames of war. So before that, he had to confirm it.
The anxiety gnawing at his heart. The pounding of his heartbeat rang louder than ever.
*
Infermer, the city of navigators. This massive port city had remained the city of navigators even through the centuries when its masters changed endlessly. Humans, elves, vampires, and now humans once more.
-Clang! Clang!
From afar came the sound of sailors hammering on ship decks. Shouts, laughter, and coarse, dull bursts of noise followed. Fernandez pulled his robe tight and headed from the city entrance through the bustling streets to the slums at its edge.
-Arf!
An old dog barked noisily as it scampered about. It was a lively city. Having become the hub of the northeastern triangular trade, it lay at the heart of the vital trade route between Fairn’s Merlinport and the Empire’s northern Paramarin.
Amid the passing sailors, merchants, and citizens, Fernandez could sense a powerful vitality.
The city, transferred from Franzrit’s hands to the Dane Kingdom, brimmed with the vigor of life wherever one looked.
It was a satisfying sight. The last he remembered of this city, it had been a vampire stronghold, or else the mad elf king’s chessboard.
But it was not the scenery he had longed for. Fernandez sought a place far stickier and more sinister.
A place vividly etched in his memory—one whose ownership he could not recall having been excised. A scar in his mind.
Fernandez walked the path he had seen in his dreams. Toward the gloomy alley leading to the underground sewers, where vampires and black mages had plotted to revive a dragon, and the elf king had schemed to exploit it.
Praying that it all had been a dream—no, perhaps wishing that this very moment was the dream. The her from his lost memories was not someone who deserved to vanish like this.
-Thump.
His heart raced with an agitation that was unmistakably not his own emotion. Fernandez drew deep breaths, trying to steady himself.
‘Not even remembering who she is, and yet my heart races—this is irrational.’
He bit his lip. This was not his emotion. Even if it were, emotions are reactive, grounded in memory. Thus, an emotion from an unremembered moment could not be his.
Was it a dream? Her smile? Or was this moment the dream? What do I wish to be true? Just a little further, within these two hands, lay the happiness he had yearned for all his life.
*
There were no vampire attacks, no threats from elf remnants. The underground sewers were filled only with the occasional beggar with cloudy eyes, rats noisily scurrying past one’s feet, and the sticky whirl of sewage.
It was a dark, damp waterway. Poor maintenance had left stagnant filth seeping from spots in the stone walls that formed it. Fernandez lit a flame in one hand and pressed forward.
Deeper in. Farther underground. When he reached the deep sewers where ragged skeletons of unknown death dates lay scattered here and there, the cavern from his memory appeared.
“Huh...”
It was a cavern with hastily cleared experimental tools and massive traces of destruction remaining.
Damp moss on the walls glistened in light from some unknown source. He slowly walked toward the shattered door at its center.
A stone gate in pieces. A door leading further down. He remembered it. The path where he had forcibly torn open the seal locked by vampires, thrilled at the discovery of the dragon’s remains as he descended.
‘If that memory is correct, Gaimern clashed with the dragon.’
Having clashed with the dragon, the elves lost their dominion over Infermer and the northeastern seas to Franzrit, who exploited the opening. But that was mere supposition. Until he confirmed it himself.
-Tap, tap.
A stone fragment caught underfoot tumbled down the stairs leading underground. The sound of gravel rolling echoed long. From below came a sensation as if the boundary between dream and reality was slowly crumbling.
‘Sound and light...’
He recalled Kadan’s ordeal. The illusion magic that cleverly manipulated sound and light. Just like then, his sense of reality was dulling bit by bit.
The only things he could trust now were his wildly beating heart and the mana circuits writhing vividly with power.
One step forward, into the underground passage.
*
He remembered cold, delicate fingers. Fingers that wrapped his rough hand, infusing strength beneath it.
Warm mana had flowed through his empty mana circuits, gently supporting him. The moment when, as his hand fell powerless, she had cupped it, lifted it again, and given it strength—
[You need only lead. I shall follow.]
And so, with the final hand seal completed, he remembered the moment when divine power pulsed beneath his hand. Here, off the coast of Infermer City. Aboard King Gaimern’s flagship.
Thus, as if time had frozen, softly. Warmly. Those blue eyes gazing down at him—
*
Like puzzle pieces slotting into place between volatilized memories and the empty scar in his brainstem, the recollections began to return. With each step, her outline grew sharper.
-Step.
Strength entered his stride. It was a light gait unimaginable for the body of a middle-aged man who had ridden without sleep for a fortnight. Fernandez’s graying hair began to grow fuller, and life returned to eyes clouded by fatigue and confusion.
-Step.
With every step, shedding layers. Like sloughing off years. As if time itself veered aside!
*
The playful arc of a sword had effortlessly deflected his heavy greatsword’s path. He recalled her then, supporting his lost balance with one arm, smiling.
Under a clear sky, likely in the Inquisition’s training grounds. Amid countless brothers, debating swordsmanship, she had shone radiantly.
“Do not sink into your own potential. Always aim higher, hold a broader view. Without ever stopping. Is that not what you humans are?”
Her gentle voice flowed quietly under the late summer sky, and in her eyes—noble as an aristocrat, mysterious as a fairy—a childlike mischief flickered for a moment.
“Dragons are carnivores.”
She loved venison. Personally, venison was tough and chewy, not the most delicious meat. Fernandez wasn’t skilled in cooking, but if he could, he wanted to show her the advanced cuisine of the modern era compared to ancient times.
She loved food.
*
As the memories sharpened, thinking of her grave deep underground made the pulse in his chest surge even fiercer. It was King Dane’s emotion. Now he could vividly feel the sensation writhing beneath his heart.
He sensed King Dane’s karma, melted and flowing within his soul. It might be an illusion, or his own delusion. Yet even amid such doubts, his heart pounded wildly.
-Clack.
A massive cliff loomed below his feet. How had he descended last time? He searched for a railing. The railing was rotted and crumbling.
‘Can I do it?’
Gazing at his scar-covered hand, he paused. Strangely, power overflowed through his entire body. His vision was clear, even the distant drip of waterdrops sharp.
‘I can.’
He soon lowered himself down the cliff face. Crunch, crack. His fingers gripped cracks in the solid cliff. Slippery and steep, a fall would likely cost his life—
Yet his life remained expendable,
And he would never settle complacently into reality.
*
From horseback, looking down at him, fingers stroking the rain-soaked mane of the horse—those fingers felt distant. Her slightly wet hair gleamed brilliantly even amid the humid sunlight.
Her blue eyes gazed down at him, curving warmly.
“Ah, Fernandez. We are drifters, aren’t we? Cast from our own times, come a long way.”
What had he replied then? He had not answered her words. It was evasion. A moment when silence stood in for denial. Knowing her goodwill, yet exploiting it. Feigned ignorance.
A childish charade. Fernandez knew in that instant that she had seen through his mask. Even then, she had smiled softly.
“Fortunately, you have a lighthouse.”
“I hope you do as well.”
His heart, chilled cold—not due to King Dane’s soul, but truly his own heart might have raced achingly for a moment. With such a smile, her back to the sunlight, she said,
“I already do.”
Was that me? Was that moment truly a dream? Is now the dream?
Fernandez looked at his hands, scraped by rocks, cut and caked in blood. The firm sensation of the ground was too real to dismiss as dream or illusion.
Did he wish it a dream? Because he didn’t want to forget? A feeling like a pubescent boy enamored with the woman in his dreams? He had a happy, peaceful, perfect future ahead. Could he dare let it go?
Even after scaling this sheer cliff barehanded, power still surged through his arms and legs. That was strange. It was not the strength—or youth—befitting a middle-aged man who had gone a fortnight without proper rest.
He felt his muscles tense firmly. Slowly, he rubbed his palms on his pants. The wounds had already healed.
His eyes gleamed sharply. Fragmented memories assembled like a puzzle in his mind. The empty cavern, countless traces of destruction, swirling mana, and ahead—
Beyond the hazy mist shrouded in mana flow. Toward the truth.