Chapter 18
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 18
Chapter Title: The Children of Ruoveidra
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Uar, the one Ulrich had summoned, was a peculiar giant.
The giant Uar arrived before Ulrich with his group when the sun reached the middle of the sky. He was neither larger nor smaller than the other giants, but his appearance was unique.
According to the scriptures, giants were creations of the evil god Takna, hairy beasts who had lost their wisdom after being abandoned by their creator. Uar, however, had little body hair. His beard was long enough to braid, but that was all. He was bald, and from his neck to his shins, he was only slightly hairier than a human.
His attire was also different. While other giants wore crudely stitched monster hides, he wore meticulously cut and sewn leather like a suit of armor. Moreover, Ulrich had mentioned that he served not Takna, but Dieus, the Heavenly King.
“Ulrich! You were looking for me!”
Walking from a distance, he spotted Ulrich standing before the tower and shouted with his arms wide open. His voice was so loud it could have shaken the snow clinging to the stone walls.
Leaving his group behind, he strode forward alone. Being a giant, each of his steps covered several times the distance of a human’s, and the ground groaned with a heavy thud each time.
Ulrich also spread his arms to greet him. The difference in their statures was so great that Uar had to bend his knees. At a glance, it looked less like an embrace and more like a bone-crushing grip.
“How long has it been? About ten years?”
Uar, this peculiar giant, did not speak with a slur. Giants were known for their low intelligence, which was reflected in their slow speech and actions, but Uar showed no such traits.
“A little over twelve years.”
“Not long at all. Especially for you, that must feel very short.”
“Well, not necessarily.”
The two released their embrace. Knowing he would have to look far down even if he stood up, Uar kept his knees bent to meet Ulrich’s eye level and asked.
“I heard you’ve been through a lot.”
Ulrich narrowed his eyes.
“You have sharp ears for someone living in a place like this. Who told you?”
“Hmph, I have ears, too. I hear what I hear.”
Averting the probing gaze, Uar looked behind Ulrich. Roberta and the rest of the party had stepped back a few paces. Uar’s eyes scanned them, and his expression grew curious when he saw Roberta.
Roberta, who had been listening quietly, flinched when her eyes met the giant’s. The giant’s face was covered by a monster’s skull, and his bright yellow eyes glinted through the eye sockets.
“Who are they? Did you take a new woman?”
Caught off guard by the sudden question, she could only ask, “What?”
“She is my priest. Alonso raised her.”
At the words “priest” and “Alonso,” his gaze sharpened menacingly, slithering over her entire body like a snake.
“That sly bastard?”
Uar muttered.
Roberta was certain there was some connection between the giant before her and the man who was like a father to her. Alonso must have set foot on the Ice Peninsula when he was appointed head priest.
“Passing on the torch, are we? A human’s time is certainly short.”
“One could also say our time is excessively long.”
“Perhaps,” Uar replied, then threw a jest.
“I thought you might have taken a new woman. This is unexpected.”
“It’s not the kind of relationship you’re thinking of.”
“True, I’ve heard you took in and raised another’s child, but never that you took a woman. Do you plan to keep it that way?”
“As long as I remain Ulrich of Dithmarschen.”
Uar scratched his bald head vigorously.
“Stubborn as ever.”
His appearance was that of a middle-aged human. But the scriptures didn’t specify the lifespan of giants, and he looked like a human with gigantism, so one couldn’t be sure.
“The reason you called me must be Narvakayani, right?”
Ulrich nodded.
“Yes, I need to see him. Guide me.”
“What are you going to do there? If it’s like last time, it’ll be a problem for me too.”
“This time will be different. It’s not about me, but about him.”
“Hm? What do you mean?”
“He’s had a child.”
At the word “child,” the hand scratching his head froze.
“He has a child?”
His eyes widened in surprise. He looked at Ulrich, then scanned the group listening behind him.
“Judging by the looks of these ones, the partner must have been human?”
Uar’s gaze passed over Roberta, scanning each of the duke’s vassals one by one, before stopping on Duke Bailen. Unlike his vassals, Bailen met the giant’s stare. As if finding it amusing, Uar chuckled and stood up.
“A half-blood of human and dragon… a very, very rare thing. Isn’t this the first time since the death of Ruoveidra, the progenitor of dragons?”
“Not the first. There have been a few others in between.”
“Is that so? But it must be a first for him, right?”
The giant strode past Ulrich and approached Duke Bailen. Though they knew he meant no harm, the duke’s vassals instinctively felt threatened and placed their hands on their hilts. The duke waved them back and stepped forward.
A huge, strong hand grabbed Bailen’s head. From Uar’s perspective, it was more of a light touch than a grab, but his hand was so large it looked like he was holding an egg.
“Narvakayani… to think he’d produce a child.”
The giant muttered to himself as he examined Bailen all over. A slight movement of the hand on his head caused Bailen’s neck to twist sharply, and a choked cry escaped his lips.
“Ah, my apologies.”
He said, but his hand did not stop.
“Is it because you’re young? No scales either. Are you sure you’re his child?”
“I-I am. Narvakayani is my father.”
“Well, if you say so.”
When the hand released him, Bailen staggered, clutching his neck. His face was beet red, and his breathing was ragged. Uar apologized again at the sight, but Bailen could only glare back, his face contorted in pain.
“Why are you looking for him?”
“Does a child need a reason to seek his father?”
“Considering his personality, I doubt he was even there to see you born. And you’re calling that bastard ‘father’ and risking your life to meet him?”
“Of course—”
Uar cut Bailen off.
“You think I’m stupid just because I’m a giant? I know exactly what you’re thinking! And it’s not a very good thought, either.”
Bailen couldn’t say anything and bit his lip.
“If you’ve come here not for some other reason, but simply because you’re dissatisfied with your life, you’d be better off complaining to that human over there than to the dragon.”
“...What do you mean?”
Bailen asked, his voice still strained with pain.
“Because the reason for your birth lies with that human.”
A thick index finger pointed at Ulrich.
“Why would someone who doesn’t even mate with his own kind choose to mate with a mere human? It must be because something made him take an interest in the human race.”
“......”
“And as far as I know, that human is the only one entangled with Narvakayani. They traveled together before he started using the name Ulrich, so he must have been influenced back then.”
Bailen wasn’t surprised. He knew of the existence of ‘Laurent.’ Besides, the very fact that Uar knew Narvakayani implied a connection between them.
However, his eyebrows rose slightly, perhaps surprised that the relationship was significant enough to be described as an ‘influence,’ as Uar had put it.
“We traveled together for a time. Quite a long while ago.”
Ulrich said, looking at Bailen.
“If you ask how much of an influence it had, well, I don’t know. It wasn’t my intention, and he’s not one to reveal his thoughts.”
Uar snorted, “Hmph,” and scratched his chin.
“That’s how dragons are. If they were the type to show their emotions and change easily, they would have ushered in their own era, not be hiding in a place like this.”
“That’s true.”
Ulrich nodded and unslung his pack.
In front of him, Uar sent him a questioning look, muttering in a voice too loud for a soliloquy, “How did a stubborn dragon come to be interested in a human?” Instead of explaining, Ulrich took a bundle from his pack and tossed it.
“This should be enough for payment, right? It’s from the wood elves.”
Uar caught it and unfolded it, revealing tobacco leaves.
“It’s enough. More than enough.”
He held it to his nose and inhaled the scent. It was but a handful compared to his size, but he beamed with a wide grin. Then, Uar gestured to the giants who had come with him.
The giants each lifted one member of Ulrich’s party onto their backs. Roberta and the others were startled by the sudden reach of their hands, but they soon realized they couldn’t escape the giants’ grasp and were carried towards the mountains.
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Roberta thought about how one often feels a sense of futility when seeing others effortlessly achieve what one has struggled so hard for. She felt that way now.
Carried on the giant’s back, she felt the cold wind on her face and watched the mountains grow larger before her. Their party, which had started with eight, was now down to six. It had taken them ten days and four more to reach the tower built by humans from before recorded history.
The straight-line distance between their starting point and destination was short, relatively speaking, but they had to take detours to find safe paths.
The distance and path from the tower to their destination were similar. By eye, it seemed they could arrive in a day or two, but the actual journey would take much longer.
But the giants were not human.
The giants simply ran straight ahead with all their might. If a human had tried the same, they would have been attacked by monsters or blocked by cliffs, but before the giants, monsters fled, and cliffs were just something to climb.
“We’ll wait here.”
Less than half a day had passed by the time they crossed two peaks and reached their destination. Uar’s giants set the humans down at the foot of an unnamed mountain in the Kaldorekai range.
“How long do you think it will take? Will a day be enough?”
Uar asked.
“I’ll send word if it takes longer.”
“Good! Let’s do that.”
He looked over the party, then slapped Bailen’s shoulder with his massive hand. Bailen bent at the waist and bit his lip. Seeing this, Roberta thought that the blood of a dragon certainly seemed to flow through him.
“Bailen, was it? I pray in the name of Lord Dieus that things are settled well.”
“Th-th-thank you...”
“You’ll be disappointed when you meet him, though. Just remember one thing: the reason for your birth, and that nothing stays the same forever. It might help a little.”
Then, just before turning to leave, Uar bent slightly at the waist and handed something to Ulrich. Ulrich gazed at it for a moment, closed his eyes as if in silent prayer, then opened them and tucked it into his coat.
“——.”
The giant whispered in a voice too soft for his size. Ulrich listened without a word and nodded. Roberta sent him a questioning glance, but he looked at her and shook his head as if to say, ‘not now.’
“Well then, see you later.”
The ones who had appeared with a rumble left with a rumble.
After declaring they would wait for days, hunting in the middle of the Ice Peninsula, a land rife with disasters and monsters, the giants disappeared into the blizzard.
None of the humans worried about their carefree attitude. On the way, they had seen Uar chase down and trample fleeing monsters. If anything, they should have been worried about their own situation, left alone at the entrance to the mountain.
“What do we do now?”
Roberta asked.
This must be the destination Ulrich had spoken of, she thought. But all she could see was a towering, snow-covered mountain and snow swirling in the wind.
When climbing the mountain, Ulrich had found a cave in a seemingly empty place to use as a shelter. And dragons lived in nests. Where could a cave be hidden that she couldn’t see?
“Let’s wait. He’ll have noticed our arrival.”
Noticed?
Roberta followed Ulrich’s gaze. He was looking straight ahead, at what appeared to be the steep entrance to the snowy mountain. But if one looked closely, focusing one’s senses, the flow of mana shimmered like a heat haze.
The concentration of mana was thick and its flow chaotic everywhere on the Ice Peninsula, so such a sight was common. But Roberta’s intuition told her something was different.
- *Come in.*
Just then, a voice echoed in her mind.
She and her companions jumped in surprise and looked at each other. *Did you hear that too?* their expressions asked. When they looked back at Ulrich, he was already stepping forward.
The space Roberta had been watching just moments before rippled like water. She quickly followed him. As her body touched the ripple, she felt a pulling sensation and her eyes closed. When she opened them again, she was no longer on a snowy mountain.
“Where is this...?”
It was a garden.
A garden where the fierce wind and snow were gone, replaced by a spring-like warmth. It wasn’t a mountain covered in pure white snow, but a garden with deep, jade-green leaves, multicolored flowers, and the chirping of insects.
As the biting cold vanished in an instant, her body temperature rose sharply. Dressed in several layers of cold-weather clothing, Roberta thought she would soon start to feel hot.
Is it an illusion?
“It’s not an illusion.”
Ulrich stated firmly.
“He has created nature, bending mana to his will.”
“But aren’t we on the Ice Peninsula?”
“To be precise, the mountain entrance we saw just before was the illusion. He carved out a part of the mountain, decorated it like this, and hid that part within the whole so it couldn’t be seen from the outside.”
“Impossible,” one of the vassals muttered unconsciously.
“Dragons are also mages who hold fragments of myth. From the perspective of this era, which cannot distinguish between myth and illusion, it’s only natural that you wouldn’t understand.”
The group followed Ulrich. There was no hesitation in his steps. Like someone who had come to a familiar place, he found his way and headed to one side of the garden.
They stopped in front of a man. A round table and chairs were set up in the garden. He was seated as if he were a nobleman enjoying a cup of tea in leisure.
He wore clothes of a fabric so thin his skin was visible through them, and the color was pure white. He was young and beautiful. He sat with his legs crossed, hands clasped on top, and spoke to Ulrich with a smile.
“Last time you came while I was sleeping. What is it this time? Ulrich of Dithmarschen, or is it another name now? At least it doesn’t seem to be for thievery.”
Roberta was suddenly reminded of what Elder Brase had said on her first day in Dithmarschen.
*‘So it was true.’*
He had said he’d met a sleeping dragon. He’d also said he’d defeated a giant with a whip. With this, two of those stories were proven true. There were a few other tales, but she couldn’t recall them.
“Unfortunately, not this time.”
“This time?”
The young man—no, Narvakayani—tilted his head. His black eyes, the same as Ulrich’s, moved from Ulrich to scan the rest of the party.
A flicker of interest appeared on his emotionless face. He rose from his seat and walked toward Bailen. Though no one had introduced the duke, his father seemed to have sensed something unknown to others.
“So there was another who thought as I did. This form… did you choose to be human? Or has your time simply not yet come?”
Two white, soft hands touched Bailen’s face.
“Who are you? Whose child are you?”
Bailen hesitated, about to speak his mother’s name.
“Who else besides me has had a child with a human? The father, or the mother?”
“He is your son, Kayani.”
“My son?”
At Ulrich’s words, the dragon in human form blinked.
“Whose son?”
“Penelope’s.”
Bailen raised his hands, took hold of his father’s, and answered.
“Penelope.”
The dragon stopped blinking and repeated the name.
“You don’t remember.”
“Impossible. I am a dragon. Unlike that human over there, time does not bring me forgetfulness. Penelope, Penelope of Kabonihar, human, female. There is no way I would forget.”
“Then—”
“Why have you come?”
“My mother left a will and a keepsake.”
“That human woman told you to find me?”
The dragon asked again.
“Why?”
Bailen opened his mouth to answer, then stopped.
The dragon in human guise was looking at him. The smile he had shown Ulrich, the flicker of interest and the blinking he had shown Bailen—all such adornments were gone, and he asked with a face that was simply beautiful.
“You didn’t come to become a dragon?”
It was a pure question. An act of asking because he genuinely couldn’t think of another reason, because he truly did not understand his son’s. *Dragons do not form groups,* Roberta recalled Ulrich’s words, *they are too arrogant to tolerate even their own progenitor.*