Chapter 175
Chapter 175
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 175
Chapter Title: Remnants Alliance
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*
[How dare you treat a goddess like luggage! I cannot tolerate this rudeness! I am the Goddess of the Earth, and this earth is my very life!]
Freyja flailed about on Fernandez's shoulder. Finding it annoying, Fernandez set her down on the floor. Her snow-white bare feet touched the rough steel ground.
"It's hot."
[Do you know what flows in the depths of this underground? The blood of the earth is magma itself. The heat does not harm me!]
Freyja shouted proudly and strode ahead confidently. Hazat Ashin was an ancient city long abandoned by its organic inhabitants, but thanks to the dwarves' obsessive cleanliness, it had perfectly organized districts. Thus, aside from the occasional small pebbles or dust on the roads, there were no major hazards.
Fernandez shrugged and followed behind her. That was fine. Up until they left the city.
*
[How dare you make a goddess walk on her own two feet! This insolence is beyond what I can tolerate with open eyes! Until you find my chariot and ship, you ought to become my chariot!]
After passing through Hazat Ashin's gates and reaching the abandoned mine, a north wind came howling. The biting northern gale whipped into the mine entrance. Freyja huddled behind Fernandez's back, panting as she spoke.
Fernandez sighed and wrapped his cloak around her. He was starting to wonder if he was dealing with a child or if he had picked up a useful minor goddess.
'I want to leave her behind.'
-Northern intel is worth its weight in gold. Can't abandon it.
'That's why I picked her up. Starting to regret it.'
Fernandez hoisted the shivering goddess onto his back, cloak and all. She crowed triumphantly from within the folds of his clothes.
[That's right! Learn to submit!]
"Do gods feel the cold too?"
[I am the goddess of spring! Winter is poison to me! And, and when I escaped the pantheon, I took on a material body in this world... It's unavoidable! If I had wandered as a spirit like that foolish clown, this wouldn't have happened!]
"Why didn't you?"
[Is that clown of any use?]
"...No."
[Exactly. For a god to wield power in the material world, a material body is necessary. That clown is just a babbling idiot ghost. But I, the greatest of the great Vanir, possess the eyes and ears of all things in the world!]
Freyja proclaimed proudly. Fernandez, who had been walking for a while while listening, suddenly stopped.
"Didn't you say the grasses and flower buds are your eyes, and the breaths of new life are your ears?"
[...That's true, but?]
Fernandez gazed at the northern wilderness swirling with snowflakes and fell into thought for a moment.
"In this season, grasses and flower buds...?"
[Ah.]
You figured out the goddess's secret! The moment he heard Freyja cry that out, Fernandez nearly flung her off his back. He growled a whisper over his shoulder.
"You'll have to prove your worth. Witch. I don't trust you yet, and one of my friends knows how to rip divinity right out of a god."
[H-H-How dare you threaten a god?]
"Hope you take it as me just stating facts."
[It's not fear, it's indignation! Very well, behold the power of a goddess!]
Freyja shuddered once on his back, then thrust her arms up high. The cloak fluttered off.
-Plop.
In the middle of the snowy field, flower buds burst open. One, two... Like pink and yellow dots dotting the pristine white wilderness. A long dotted line of flowers stretched out before his eyes.
[If I recovered all my true power, I could carpet the path entirely in flowers... But it's winter!]
"...At least tell me what you did."
[I lit the way! Straight to where those southerners like you are gathered! No need to worry about getting lost!]
"Bit flashy for a compass."
Fernandez readjusted Freyja on his back and grumbled. When drawing up operational maps and grand strategies, information was the most urgent resource. There was no land in this season where new life wouldn't be born. Even half-baked intel meant she wasn't entirely useless.
But this annoyance was unavoidable. The goddess chattered on energetically, like a ten-year-old girl yelling and running about.
"I don't need a compass with a mouth."
[Insolent fool!]
Freyja shrieked and clamped her mouth shut. In the welcome silence, Fernandez followed the flower buds through the snowfall.
*
Ships were docking at the shattered harbor of Hazat Palan. Four swift galleys were pulling in alongside. Hazat Palan's warriors glared at the approaching vessels, gripping their weapons.
Life-or-death battles naturally drained three times more stamina than routine activities. The warriors were exhausted, and the recent victory celebrations had sapped their tension—they weren't in any shape to fight right now.
Kirhas walked among them. The warriors instinctively submitted to her authority. A path cleared, revealing the ships approaching the harbor.
"They're not enemies."
Kirhas quietly told the man standing beside her. The man, who knew a bit of the southern common tongue, shouted to his comrades. Not enemies! Not enemies! Sighs mixing suspicion and relief escaped the warriors' lips.
"No hostility, and there are old folks and women mixed in. They look more like refugees."
"Refu... gees? Flee?"
"Yeah, fugitives."
The man haltingly repeated Kirhas's words several times before relaying them to the warriors. Only then did they lower their weapon hands and exhale.
Now the ships were close enough to clearly see the decks. In the distance, someone was waving.
"Yarl!!"
The warriors shouted as one. Their yarl, Shieldmaiden Aeren, had arrived. Had she brought reinforcements from Hazat Turan? The warriors rushed to help them disembark.
"It's not aid—they look like they're fleeing. The Silver Lord will be disappointed."
Kirhas watched coldly. She couldn't grasp all of Fernandez's grand plan, but his strategy surely started with swelling allied numbers.
Just like rallying the Great Wilderness catfolk alliance, uniting northern clans would be straightforward... but information was lacking. Enemy numbers, positions of other clans that could be recruited as allies later.
"It'll be a long winter."
"Worried?"
"...Abel."
Kirhas looked at the approaching woman. Since using her as a shield on the battlefield, Kirhas had deliberately avoided her. Sure, any of them could have been in harm's way, but as the commander who had thrown her into the fiercest frontline—the place closest to death—as a fire brigade, she had no right to say that.
Objectively, her tactics back then weren't anything extraordinary. Infantry holds a phalanx until cavalry strikes the enemy's rear.
A textbook hammer and anvil, but textbook maneuvers are always the hardest. To hold the line even briefly while outnumbered and outmatched in quality, overwhelming asymmetric power was needed.
Kirhas had proposed Abel's active involvement. Asymmetric power didn't just mean superior combat ability—it meant drawing enemy focus to lower attack density on other allies, acting as a lightning rod. That meant throwing her into the jaws of death.
It was a battle where one slip could kill them all. Just a skirmish of a few hundred, but far from safe. Yet Abel accepted without protest and fulfilled the role perfectly.
So Kirhas wanted to avoid her. The gnawing guilt only proved her sincerity and earnestness.
-Pat.
A hand rested on her head. As she looked up, Abel smiled warmly.
"Your heart is kind, Kirhas."
"Abel..."
"But it's excessive self-doubt. It worries me instead. Look—even in battlefields clashing with thousands, you've never been defeated. And today's fight wasn't the worst of my life either."
"But you, and I..."
We're not immortals. Kirhas bowed her head saying so. In this moment without the man who had always been her compass and lighthouse no matter what. Without Kadan's protection, without the Great Wilderness elite who worshipped her.
Amid unfamiliar land, language, and rugged foreign warriors, the pressure to save them all and keep pace with her lord.
That was the veil clouding her vision. Abel stroked Kirhas's hair and said.
"Yes, we're not immortals. We can't advance by expending lives like fodder, and our fragile bodies are easily wounded by blind blades and stray arrows. But Kirhas..."
Rustle. Abel's hair cascaded before her eyes. Kirhas stared blankly into Abel's sky-blue eyes right before her.
"Humans shine because they are mortal. Do you know of an immortal's life?"
"...No."
"Immortals are nailed to time and ages, rotting away as concepts. They can never shine on their own. Those who struggle to live, to survive—clutching the world, burning themselves—yes, mortals like humans, how beautifully they gleam in our eyes? A flower bud in the garden is beautiful because its fall is fated; the sunset dazzles because it's but a fleeting moment."
Abel pressed her forehead to Kirhas's. Warmth gently enveloped her mind.
"And the reason I love this world right now, in this moment, is because I'm not eternal."
"Abel..."
"So don't worry. Fernandez and I believe in you."
Kirhas nodded at her words. Abel smiled brightly, ruffled her hair once, and stepped forward.
Aeren, who had disembarked at the pier, was looking at them. Beside her, a hulking man with a two-handed axe slung over his shoulder eyed them askance.
*
"Wahaha, so then. You charged in with these sorry lot?"
"Don't laugh like that. This child's assault was perfectly timed."
"From where I'm sitting, without those guys over there, our alliance would've been smashed already?"
The man guffawed and downed rough mead.
"Alliance, huh. If we're splitting hairs, isn't it the remnants alliance?"
"Urk, fine. Revenge is sweeter than a crushing victory anyway."
When Kirhas shot him a sharp glare, the man burst into raucous laughter. Kirhas was slightly surprised that the bear-like man used sophisticated southern common tongue so fluently.
Mastering another race's vocabulary across the great ocean barrier—and wielding it so smoothly—meant he wasn't just the big, dumb, savage northerner he appeared.
"Right, our southern stranger friends. Let's call our alliance the remnants alliance from now on."
"Enough chit-chat. Gunnar."
Aeren frowned and sipped her drink. The man flinched with exaggerated cowering.
"Whoa, Shieldmaiden. Mountains of things to celebrate, and we're jumping straight to business?"
"What we have to celebrate is fewer than our enemies."
"Well, take it as there being no shortage of glorious battles. No one lives forever anyway."
"Right. No one lives forever."
Clink. The two toasted. Abel tilted her head at the sight. They looked quite a bit apart in age—too familiar, no?
"You two seem close."
"Hmm, having two same-age friends both named yarl isn't common. Haha."
"Sa... me age?"
"Yeah, this Gunnar here. He's a hot-blooded nineteen-year-old youth. You, southern beauty. How old are you?"
"...Older than you think."
Abel sipped her tea, unable to hide her fluster. Gunnar roared with laughter, drank, then his eyes suddenly sharpened.
"So where's your yarl?"
His jovial drinking mood vanished like a lie—cold, piercing gaze. He wore the eyes of a clan head, protector of his people.
"No matter how I look, no leader among you. That guy sitting alone joined midway from what I hear, and you lot who don't speak a word of northern tongue couldn't have convinced Aeren."
"Sharp eyes."
Abel chuckled and nodded. This was why she couldn't hate humans. Such shining figures popping up out of nowhere.
"He's on his way."
Fernandez had headed straight for the enemy's heart, and his struggle today was surely no easier than the battle she fought—but she had no doubt he would return.