A Bigger Fire (3)
Ironically, it was an old church priest who presided over Randolf's funeral mass.
"……You laid the sinner to rest peacefully, and he took his peace in that place."
A considerable crowd had gathered in the chapel of the old church cathedral. Randolf's family and relatives. The guards who held him in fondness. His friends. Adding the Count, Yonas, the steward, and their escorts brought the total to well over forty souls packed into the small worship hall.
Randolf lay in his coffin clad in the chainmail and surcoat he'd worn in life, his sword cradled in his arms. All traces of blood had been meticulously cleaned. Preservation magic had kept decay at bay. He looked almost comfortable in there.
"An imperial noble nearly ran down my son with his carriage. Everyone around was trembling in fear, but it was the knight who saved him."
Those speaking of the departed all looked utterly grief-stricken.
"He must've been well-liked."
"Ralph was that kind of man."
Carlson replied to Isaac's remark. There was no sorrow or agitation on his face.
"Why don't you go say a few words? At least tell them how Sir Randolf died."
"Death is just death. No matter how grandly you speak of it, it's still death. I'll go first."
Carlson swept a hand over his parched features and stepped out of the chapel.
Randolf's body was interred in the old church's cemetery—the plot reserved for clergy and knights. It even came with a proper headstone.
Scoop after scoop.
As Isaac watched the coffin sink into the earth, his gaze shifted to the family Randolf had asked him to protect. A woman clutched her young siblings close. The children wept, but her face remained expressionless. As if it hadn't truly sunk in yet.
What must she be thinking right now?
Isaac wondered.
Even without a mana rampage, an innocent bystander had died unintentionally. If she learned her husband perished because of his plan, would she rage? Curse him?
If he'd anticipated the bishop bringing holy knights. Prepared for it.
Could Randolf have lived?
Was Randolf one of those he had to protect? Or a pawn to sacrifice for the sake of those he must protect?
Today's sunlight pierced unusually bright, stabbing through Isaac's eyelids. He wanted nothing more than to collapse and sleep. Yet the rays bore down sharply, as if demanding he confront the death before him—and all the deaths yet to come. No dozing. No rest. Eyes wide open.
Urging him on.
That guilt. That melancholy.
Isaac knew it for what it was: the mage's gloom. He'd drawn too much mana to overwhelm the bishop, and the ensuing exhaustion was seeping into his mind. He understood that much. But there was no shaking off the weight right now.
"Brother, can I ask you something?"
Yonas had slipped from the Count's side to Isaac's.
"……What?"
Isaac's voice cracked as he replied.
"What does it mean to die?"
The nine-year-old's eyes sparkled with curiosity.
"Well, it's……."
Isaac started to answer, then closed his mouth. A moment later, he rested a hand on Yonas's head.
"It's like sleeping for a long, long time. A sleep no one can wake you from."
"No one?"
"Yeah."
"That's why they bury you like that—so no one can disturb you."
"……Yeah."
Yonas nodded, seemingly satisfied.
"Then don't die, brother."
"Huh?"
"It's fine if you don't play with me anymore, but I don't want you sleeping forever."
"……Got it. I won't die."
Isaac ruffled Yonas's hair. Then he squinted up at the blinding sky.
It had started when he killed Niers. No, even before—from the deserter in his past life.
He'd already set foot on this path.
To protect his family. His house.
To repay the debt he'd incurred in his heart.
Soiling his hands. Forsaking peace.
Accepting it all.
The step was already taken.
"……?"
Suddenly, a small hand grasped his left. Yonas's.
Randolf's wife had begun to sob, her children with her. Yonas had taken Isaac's hand without thinking.
"I wish no one had to die."
Yonas murmured.
Isaac stared at the hand holding his. The right one—the one mana rampage would have claimed once.
The hand he'd sworn never to grasp again, lest he see Yonas wailing in agony once more.
Slipping free—
"Brother?"
"Got something to take care of."
He had no time for a mage's gloom.
As Isaac wandered the cemetery, he pondered his next moves. He had to.
No weakness allowed. None permitted.
His aimless steps halted at the rear gate.
Carlson stood there.
"Were you following me?"
"Just happened by."
A massive monument loomed at the gate, densely engraved with names in the common tongue.
"Know any?"
"Names of those whose bodies went unrecovered from Winterband. Erected by order of the supreme commander—His Excellency. Truth be told, there are far more than this."
"……."
Isaac scanned the names wordlessly. None were familiar. All lost to the back alleys of Winterband's history.
"……He could have been saved."
A flutter of wings—birds alighting—as Carlson spoke.
"Ralph could have lived. If I'd given my all."
"You didn't?"
"Until that man was dead, I had to remain just a soldier. A man with fearsome skill and fearsome repute draws equally fearsome trouble."
The words omitted much, but Isaac grasped it quick enough. He couldn't reveal his presence until vengeance was complete.
"The bishop's holy knights were no slouches. With even one escaping alive a possibility, I had no choice but to be Carlson, not Kyle."
"If you'd gone all out, you could've saved Randolf and killed them all."
"That's in the realm of possibility. And……."
Carlson trailed off, face clouded.
"You didn't trust Randolf either."
"……It's not that I didn't trust him. It's just that what I have to do next matters more."
His vengeance outweighed a friend's life.
Isaac couldn't condemn him for it. He'd sacrificed others for his goals too.
"Why tell me this?"
"A heads-up."
"For what?"
"If a similar situation arises with you, young master, I'll act the same."
"Even knowing your origins, your purpose, your abilities, I shouldn't expect anything more."
"Precisely."
Carlson nodded gravely.
"Even as someone aiding your revenge."
"Precisely. The day I lay myself bare—the real me—is that day alone."
The day he'd strike as Kyle, not Carlson.
"……Understood. Neither of us deserves to see Randolf's funeral through to the end."
"……."
Isaac and Carlson stood silent, gazing at the monument until the sun dipped low. Ample space remained to carve more names.
"You've been keeping a lot hidden, haven't you."
Only Isaac and the Count rode in the carriage. The steward rode with Yonas ahead, alongside the escorts.
"……."
Isaac didn't reply at once to the Count's idle remark from the window.
The Count had heard the full account from the old church priest. It matched Isaac's version.
But it didn't sit right with him.
"I never knew heretic rites were so brutal. Holy knights, sure—but thirteen of them? I didn't know the bishop not only made heretics but sanctioned such deviance. Or that he'd earned the Holy See's enmity. Or that a deacon was involved. You knew so much I didn't."
"……."
"What happened to you? Before I left for the fortress, you were just a boy tormented by your unique constitution. Now you're……."
The Count paused, then continued.
"Inscrutable."
"I'm just doing what's best for the house."
Silence fell after Isaac's answer. Only the creak of wheels on stone, the hoofbeats ahead, the whisper of wind through the window.
"Schrader said as much."
The Count spoke again. Crimson sunset spilled through the window, gilding his face.
"To other lords, family is no different from private property. Something to summon, replace, or wield as a tool at will. But I can't do that."
"……."
"That's why Goethe stalls—and why Winterband endures. I married Adel at fourteen. A wild girl whose language, customs, mindset—all alien. Hellish times for us both. We were tools to end a war."
Isaac looked at the Count. He still stared out at the sinking sun cresting the ridge.
"Back then, Adel and I promised: Our children would never be tools for the house. Life's mysteries remain, but we'd let them live their own."
The Count sighed.
"Thought I'd have years before telling you this. You've grown too fast."
Isaac didn't know what to say. His father's final moments in that past life—hobbling with Valerich and his pack, clipping his hair. Turning away, frail and old. No words then.
Just like now. Books offered no balm.
Was he always this talkative?
Isaac felt off-balance at this new side. Not a man for idle expressions or words.
The funeral's impact? Sunset sentimentality?
It felt foreign.
"I'm not asking for that complicated a look."
The Count, brows furrowed in concern, placed a heavy hand on Isaac's head.
"You can stay a child a bit longer. Throw tantrums if you want. No need to rack that brilliant brain over house matters yet. Understand?"
Concern from a father not yet half through his own life.
Isaac wanted to reply. But the lump in his throat defied words—decades of knots too vast for mere sentences.
So out came something simple, concise……
"……Yes."
"Good."
The Count tousled his hair. Dimmed sunlight slanted low, right into Isaac's eyes. Squinting, he caught a faint smile on his father's face.
Bitter, yet somehow warm.
Maybe a trick of the light. By the time his vision cleared, the Count's face was impassive as ever.
But the pale blue chill that had gnawed at Isaac melted away in the dying sunset—like wax before a greater flame.
Things will get busy from here, Father.
Isaac smiled, gazing out the same window as the Count.