Chapter 24: The Mage's Invitation
Chapter 24: The Mage's Invitation
The eagle-owl flew elsewhere a short while later.
"What about you, Karas? What will you do?"
"I've got too many places calling my name. I'll be leaving for Roman soon. It's somewhere I've wanted to visit for a long time."
Though he hadn't distinguished himself in the duel, Karas was already a famous knight. Even disowned, he still carried the blood of House Cruze. There was no shortage of nobles eager to share even a single meal with him.
"You must have earned quite a lot this time, yet you're leaving already? It wouldn't hurt to enjoy the city a bit longer before you go."
"The world's too vast to see it all in one lifetime, isn't it? While others are tied down to one place shoveling pig shit, I was lucky enough to be born a noble. Shouldn't I be grateful for that freedom and wear out my shoe leather while I'm young?"
Calling his own bloodline mere good luck marked Karas as an eccentric in his own right.
"Then we'll be parting soon. What a shame. They say you always have to say goodbye just when you've grown fond of someone."
"You've grown fond of me?"
Karas turned around with a startled expression.
"Hey, are you being serious? Or is the drink finally catching up to you?"
"I'm not drunk. If I can mourn even someone like Kresi, I'd say we're well on our way to becoming friends. You're skilled, and we get along surprisingly well."
"Hey now, why are you being so sappy, giving me goosebumps!"
Despite waving the words away, Karas looked genuinely delighted.
"I've only seen deserts and jungles in Samur, so now I ought to gallop across grasslands and climb snow-covered mountain ranges. I want to see the dwarves' underground kingdom too."
"That last place is somewhere I'd very much like to visit as well."
If Bonyard was a city born from a quarry, then the dwarves' underground kingdom was a city born from a mine.
The difference was that the latter was far larger and still an active mine.
"Lord Benjamin said an absolute flood of letters would be arriving. I do hope there's a useful invitation among them."
"Don't get your hopes up too high. It'll be full of lip service and requests for you to fight for free. Gather up every letter from anyone below a viscount and burn the lot of them. That's advice from experience."
As though he'd been through it many times, Karas made a face of utter disgust.
After that, the two stood silently in the night breeze and took in the view. The only sound was Karas whistling a song from his homeland.
The next day, Eugene saw off Benjamin, whose face was twisted in misery by a hangover.
"Take this."
Eugene handed him a pill.
"Ugh! What is this?"
"It reduces dizziness and nausea. Take it with plenty of water. You'll feel much better."
"Thank you... I'll take it."
Benjamin was struggling even to speak.
"I-I'm not usually this lacking in self-control."
He was worried he had made a bad impression on a knight he admired.
"I understand. I will take it as a sign of how greatly you rejoiced at my victory. In fact, it makes me proud of myself."
"If you ever have business near Morad territory, you must visit! I insist!"
Benjamin kept a firm grip on Eugene's hand until his attendant helped him into the carriage.
"Of course. I shall gratefully enjoy the wines you gave me as gifts."
He seemed so fond of Eugene that he even handed over all the Morad family wine he'd brought with him.
"Uuughp!"
Or maybe that was simply because he felt he wouldn't be able to drink any of it until he got home.
Eugene waved until the carriage disappeared around the corner.
A few days later, when Panis came to visit, Eugene and Homi were sorting through the proposals that had poured in from every direction after he became an All-Conquering Knight.
"Come in, Chief Magistrate."
"Goodness, Sir, even having you speak so formally to me is starting to make me uncomfortable."
Panis beamed brightly at the sight of the knight, who treated him no differently despite having gained great fame.
"They arrived sooner than I expected."
"There are countless places in the world that need men of force. If they don't want someone else to get to you first, of course they have to hurry. Ah, thank you."
Eugene poured Panis a glass of the Morad family wine.
"I came today to help sort the letters. We need to weed out the freeloaders trying to latch onto you."
Panis picked up one of the sorted letters and read it.
"For instance, this one is from the House of Baron Gareum, requesting you to exterminate a bugbear."
Unlike the muscular builds of most monsters, bugbears carried so much fat they looked morbidly obese.
But weight meant strength. A club swung by something two heads taller than a man was terrifying.
"Bugbears are notorious among knights. Blades and arrows don't penetrate all that fat very well, and even when you do cut them, the blade gets caked in grease and loses its edge."
"For men who treat their swords almost like lovers, of course they'd avoid it. I don't know why they're all so fond of kissing their blades."
Panis laughed at the way Eugene spoke as though knights were some entirely separate group.
"Even so, it is fairly close and the pay is decent, so I kept it. Better than the requests that appeal to nothing but honor and ask you to fight for free."
In any case, smashing a bugbear to death with a flail would settle the matter, so from Eugene's perspective, it wasn't particularly troublesome.
"Please don't go. Baron Garm is deep in debt and notorious for not paying on time. His villages have been looted by mercenaries cheated of their wages more times than I can count."
"...We'll have to throw this one out."
Homi tossed the bugbear hunting request into the wastebasket.
Unpaid wages, of all things! Goffrey had told him it was common, but to think he'd nearly become a victim himself—it was absurd.
"I'm quite knowledgeable in these matters. I'll pick out only the worthwhile letters for you."
"I don't even know how to thank you."
Gulp.
Panis drained his wine and smiled contentedly.
"Is there anything I wouldn't do for you, Sir? Besides, this wine is truly delicious. This alone is more than enough."
While filtering out letters that were all show and no substance, he found a sender he had not expected at all.
"Count Andar? Isn't he the instigator of this duel?"
"The nerve of that man!"
Panis trembled with fury at the seal of the letter in his hand. In his heart he wanted to tear it to shreds on the spot, but he dared not do so before Eugene had read it.
"If you want, Chief Magistrate, go ahead and tear it up or burn it."
"I'll just appreciate the thought."
The audacity of picking a fight and then sending an invitation to the opposing knight. Amid all this, Panis was profoundly grateful that the knight was so mindful of his feelings.
When Eugene broke the seal, the contents were just as expected: Count Andar wanted to invite the great warrior to his estate and entertain him.
"He must be setting some kind of trap."
"He didn't seem the type for that."
The image of the noble warrior who, even in defeat, had laughed heartily and offered a toast.
His instincts as a fellow warrior told him so. This was a man who would sooner curse you to your face and pick up an axe than hatch a petty scheme.
"I've no intention of going at the moment either."
For now, it was better to make Bonyard firmly his ally.
'He doesn't seem the type to sulk if I visit him later, either.'
Count Andar was a simple and magnanimous man, so he would welcome him whenever he called.
"Yet Count Andar showed no sign of ill temper even in defeat."
"The tribute we send him is pocket change. Thanks to the rivers running through his lands, he makes vast sums through trade. It is the other minor nobles allied with him who are desperate over those interests."
It was also the reason why the sea raiders of old had targeted Gord territory more intensively than Barsia.
Large and small rivers leading to the sea spread across the land like the veins of a leaf, allowing trade by boat to flourish.
Those rivers also served as barriers against Barsia's powerful cavalry whenever it tried to push across the border.
There was even a joke that if you scraped the bottom of any river in Gord, you'd find at least one skull with protruding fangs rolling around.
They continued sorting the letters, looking for something more valuable than a one-time payout—an invitation that might reward him with land or something equivalent.
"Hmm."
"H-huh?"
But when they sorted by that standard, not a single letter remained.
"A powerful family will surely call for you soon! I am certain!"
To think there wasn't a single invitation from a count-rank noble.
Panis's gaze drifted toward Count Andar's letter. His expression suggested he was weighing whether he ought to change his stance right this moment.
"That may be it. And since this is tied to the Margrave of Gord's defeat, plenty of nobles may be waiting to see how he reacts."
"Y-yes, certainly. Whether in wealth or military power, he has enormous influence throughout this region."
The man directly involved, Count Andar, didn't mind in the slightest, but others might mistakenly believe the count was in a rage.
Eugene patted Panis on the shoulder and sent him back.
There was plenty of time, and with his capabilities, he could surely seize another opportunity. There was no need to rush.
"Was I expecting too much? I thought people would be scrambling to recruit me."
'We're in a corner of the continent. It will take time for your fame to spread.'
Homi's consolation could not keep Eugene from feeling bitter.
Was it to comfort Eugene in this state? As night deepened, one more letter arrived.
But the courier was highly unusual.
Whooosh—!
An eagle-owl perched on the windowsill with a letter tied to its ankle.
"You're the one from back then?"
It was the same bird that had glided over the balcony on the night of the banquet.
He had never even heard of delivering letters by a bird of prey—an eagle-owl, no less—instead of a pigeon or crow.
The bird calmly hopped into the room and up onto the table.
Tap, tap.
Then it tapped the table with its talons, as if telling him to take the letter.
"What on earth is this fellow?"
Its yellow eyes held no trace of wariness, only obvious impatience for him to hurry up.
'Be careful of its talons. They're strong enough to crush a fox in an instant.'
Homi warned in sign language.
Having lived in a hut, Homi knew how dangerous eagle-owls could be. This one was also much larger than an ordinary specimen.
"It doesn't seem to want to attack."
Eugene raised both hands as if to show he meant no harm and approached slowly.
The bird looked at Eugene with half-lidded, almost pitying eyes.
Tap, tap.
Once again it rapped its letter-bound foot against the table. The impudent gesture told him to stop being scared, trust that it wouldn't scratch him, and take the letter already.
"All right, all right."
When he reached out his hand, the owl even lifted its leg to make it easier to untie. Who on earth had trained it this well?
The answer became clear soon enough.
"This is an unusual seal."
In this era, letters were completed by dropping red wax onto the envelope and stamping it with a signet.
But the seal on this letter was shaped like a pair of lips. It looked as though someone had kissed it.
When he touched the seal with his finger, those lips moved.
< O knight who bears mystery. >
A voice like the whispering of the wind.
'!!!'
Homi started in alarm and rushed over.
"It's alright. Relax."
Because it was not produced by vocal cords, the voice sounded distorted. Even so, he could tell it belonged to a young woman.
After the short greeting, the seal scattered away like dandelion seeds and vanished.
"Was it sent by a mage? How fascinating."
Whooosh—!
Having completed its delivery, the eagle-owl departed. It melted silently into the darkness without so much as a flutter of wings, truly a monarch of the night.
Eugene perched on the edge of the bed and opened the letter. The content, written in the continental common script, was as follows.
'I, Varda of the Emerald Forest, send word.
I have heard your name praised throughout the city. I shall pay my respects to your splendid victory and honor.
Yet this was only half of your true nature. I am certain you were the one who prayed in that remote village not long ago.
I speak of the Eucharist, so majestic it seemed capable of bringing the flesh and blood of a god into our world.
Someone precious to me has grown terribly weak. Neither medicine nor magic has helped, but your blessing may be different.
With that last hope, I invite you. Come to the mansion at the heart of the Emerald Forest.
I will reward you in proportion to the aid you render.
I eagerly await our meeting. Time is short for my precious one.'
The letter ended there.
The direct, no-nonsense tone and elegant handwriting made her seem like a strictly educated young lady.
The great Eucharist mentioned in the letter must refer to the time he blessed the field mouse's blood and handed it to Maria.
Yet only Eugene and Homi, whom he had told about it himself, knew what had happened.
'How could a mage living in the forest have known that?'
"I don't know either. But one thing is clear: this is undoubtedly an exceptional mage."
Eugene's heart pounded with excitement.
The mage had not come to the city herself, but she had invited him to her home. His wish had come true in an even better way.