Chapter 31
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Translator: 8uhl
Chapter: 31
Chapter Title: The Meyer Clan
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#
“I’ll be taking my leave now.”
The music in the banquet hall ceased. All eyes turned to a young man. It was Ulrich, using the alias Armin, who had been seated at the head table and was now the first to rise as the night deepened.
Count Willem Meyer tried to hold him back, asking him to stay a little longer. But Ulrich simply smiled, placed a hand on the count’s shoulder, and shook his head.
The guest of honor had departed. As the young man whom the host had been attending left, the musicians stopped playing, and the jester slipped away. Sensing the end of the feast, the butler cleared away the firewood that had been set by the hearth.
‘I should get going if I want to leave first thing tomorrow.’
Roberta set down her glass and looked to her side. Fritz was nodding off. The fatigue from the journey, coupled with a late-night banquet, was surely too much for him to bear. She called a servant over and instructed them to take the boy to his chambers before he face-planted into his plate.
“Priest, might I have a word with you?”
The count called out to her as she was about to follow the others out of the hall.
“Yes, of course.”
Roberta sat down across from Willem, the table between them. The reek of alcohol from him was strong; he must have had a lot to drink. His speech was slightly slurred, a sign of his intoxication.
“How is Lord Alonso doing?”
“He is well… but have you met him before?”
“We met often. Back when he was the head priest.”
Ah, she let out a short sound of understanding.
Fritz had mentioned that the Meyer family often stayed in Dithmarschen. Although they had recently been barred from the territory, travel must have been unrestricted when Alonso was appointed, so it was only natural they were acquainted.
“I see. The resemblance is there. It’s something to be envied.”
Watching the count mutter to himself, she tilted her head.
“What is it you envy?”
“I say this because it seems you and Lord Alonso have both found favor in his eyes. I, on the other hand, have not. We have served him for generations, yet he keeps you, whom he has known for but a moment, by his side.”
The count dismissed the remaining servants from the banquet hall before continuing.
“There was a time I dreamed. I wished to travel the world with him. But when I was young, he would not leave his domain, and now that I am old, he will not permit me to accompany him.”
“Perhaps… His Grace feels burdened by it.”
The count sighed, saying it was a familiar story.
His own brother Bernhard, King Richard of Osnover, and the Duke’s other adopted sons had all told him something similar, he revealed.
“It can’t be helped. Other things I can change, but not this. Just as we cannot bend his will, I too have a will that cannot be so easily bent.”
“…I see.”
She gave a sheepish smile.
“You look like you don’t understand.”
Wasn’t this a case of forcing one’s own desires on another, even when they’ve expressed their dislike? It was hard to readily comprehend his stubborn insistence on his own position, even when it was pushing the other person further away.
“It’s likely because you haven’t been in my situation, Priest. And there is still much you don’t know. Or perhaps, like my brother and my son, you are a person of strong reason.”
Willem set down his glass and took a rolled leaf from his coat, offering it to Roberta. When she waved her hand in refusal, he placed it between his lips and conjured a flame at the tip of his index finger to light it.
“Have you ever seen an elf?”
“I’ve seen long-eared elves on occasion.”
“Then you must have also seen the humans who serve them.”
She nodded. Osnover was so remote that it had virtually no non-human races, but in other regions, one could occasionally see dwarves and elves.
The proportion of other races increased significantly in areas where the human empire’s rule was weak, and they even had their own nations. They had only lost their ancient power; they hadn’t gone extinct like the dragons.
Humans born and raised in such places had no qualms about serving non-human races like dwarves and elves. In fact, they considered it natural and took pride in it. Roberta had witnessed such scenes several times at the Grand Temple of Nua.
“I have seen them too. An elf once sought him out.”
“An elf… you mean a long-eared elf?”
“Indeed. Most other types of elves have died out.”
At the time, Willem said, he was twelve years old.
A boy who longed to serve his master by his side.
On a day when snow fell in thick flurries, a group of a thousand humans arrived in Dithmarschen. The Osnover civil war had just ignited, and the boy had thought the flames of war had reached their lands.
But he was wrong. This group of humans was a clan that had served a single elf for generations, and they had followed her because she was headed for Dithmarschen.
“The elf’s name was Yudebora. She was said to have been born when the second empire, the Isturia dynasty, was at its peak. She was a person who had lived through two millennia.”
The young Willem saw an elf with his own two eyes for the first time in his life. It was the first time he learned that elves could live for so long. And it was the first time he learned that a bloodline could serve one person for such a long time.
To a boy who had just turned twelve, the three-hundred-year history of the Meyer family seemed immensely long, yet these visitors boasted of serving for several times that period. How could it not be wondrous?
Willem wondered what kind of elf this Yudebora truly was.
“She was a truly aged elf.”
But when the elf Yudebora stepped out of the carriage, she was not young.
She was old. So old she looked as if she might crumble to dust. She couldn’t even get out of the carriage on her own and had to be carried out in the arms of an attendant.
“She had a certain grace. Though time had weakened her body, it seemed her innate character remained unbroken. That must have been why such a large following accompanied her.”
As the harsh cold of Dithmarschen gnawed away at the elf’s remaining lifespan, she stood before a human. He was Ulrich, but she called him Selim.
Standing in the frigid snow, Yudebora pressed a kiss to the unchanging human’s cheek.
“Selim, you haven’t changed at all. I have grown so old, and my mother long ago became a spirit of the forest you planted, yet you are no different from then.”
Everyone present realized why she had come to the northern lands. Anyone who had thought there was some other special reason was wrong. She had simply wanted to see him one last time before her life ended.
The only reason Yudebora had set foot in the north, burning the last embers of her life, was just to see a single human.
“The Meyers have served for three hundred years, and Yudebora’s humans for a thousand. But Yudebora herself was said to have served since before her mother’s time, serving a single, unchanging human…”
That man was Ulrich.
His other names were Laurent and Oscar, and now Selim was added to the list.
“This was sent by the descendants of that elf, Yudebora.”
The count threw the finished rolled leaf to the floor and tilted his glass.
“They send him tobacco leaves every year, as if offering a tribute. In return, he sends but a single letter, but they say they still revere him.”
He took out a new rolled leaf and offered it to her. This time, she accepted it. She didn’t smoke it but held it in her hand, examining it for a moment.
— The forest elves sent them.
A memory suddenly surfaced of the ice peninsula. The moment they met the giant Uar to get to Luoveidra’s lair, Ulrich had offered tobacco leaves in exchange for passage to the nest.
“But tell me. Do you think Yudebora is the last?”
The last? Her eyes questioned his meaning.
“I’m asking if you think his connections are limited to just the Meyers and Yudebora.”
A single human had lived long enough for an elf to serve him across generations. If he had descendants, how many would there be? Even if he had none, if he was a man of virtue, how many lives had he saved?
The count drained the last of his wine.
“Our three hundred years are nothing. The thousand years of the humans who served Yudebora are nothing, either. Even Yudebora’s descendants are the same. To him, the Meyers and Yudebora are but a chance encounter, a fleeting moment.”
Whether from the alcohol or his agitation, the count’s face turned crimson, and his voice rose.
“He is but one man, yet his children are all over the world. Even if not by blood, they were taken in by him, and they each still remember his names. So if… if he were to reveal himself… if he were to declare that he would take the world as his own, who would dare refuse him?”
After he finished speaking, his head dropped limply, like a deflating balloon. Roberta listened quietly and then asked with concern.
“My lord?”
“…You were right. I shouldn’t have forced something he didn’t want.”
But he mumbled on, as if he hadn’t heard her.
The heat that had filled him moments before vanished in an instant. His shoulders trembled. At first, it looked like he was laughing, but it soon turned into sobs.
“I was the fool for being deceived. He must have been so disappointed. That’s why he’s leaving.”
#
Ulrich was walking alone atop the inner castle wall.
The sky was clear, and the moonlight shone brightly upon the ground, but the city of Witten glowed with a light of its own, making the moon’s illumination unnecessary. Orange lights rose densely throughout the city, brightening even the alleyways.
After leaving Count Willem in the care of a servant, Roberta left the banquet hall and spotted Ulrich’s back. She quickened her pace to catch up and stood beside him.
“Is the conversation over?”
“Yes… well, I mostly just listened.”
At her trailing answer, Ulrich spoke while gazing at the night view.
“What did that child, Willem, have to say?”
Roberta took out the rolled leaf Willem had given her.
“I heard you used to smoke these a long time ago.”
“I did, until I met Hilde. I quit because she disliked it.”
Ulrich took the rolled leaf and examined it.
“This is from the elves. Children who settled in the far east. I took them in when the Isturia dynasty was fervently hunting non-humans.”
“Took them in… like the Meyer family?”
“Something like that. Just as the founder of the Meyer clan was a slave, they too were slaves. I bought them and relocated them. Do you know of a place called Cuiania?”
She replied that she did.
“You mean the jungle in the far east?”
“It was a desert back then.”
A desert?
“It wasn’t the best place for elves to live, but effort and time took care of it. Time can turn a forest into a desert, and a desert into a forest, after all.”
“……”
“This rolled leaf is made from leaves grown in that Cuiania. They grow only in the elven forest, and even then, they don’t grow well, so they’re extremely rare. If you find someone who recognizes it, you could probably sell it for a handsome price.”
He placed the rolled leaf back in Roberta’s hand. She looked down at it and swallowed hard.
It wasn’t surprising that Ulrich, the strange lord, had a connection to elves. She had seen dragons and giants, so what were elves? It was plausible. But he had saved elves and settled them where?
Cuiania, the largest jungle in the world. And he said it was originally a desert. That the elves had cultivated the desert and turned it into a jungle.
“…That’s incredible.”
“Just think of it as a piece of history.”
He added that she shouldn’t think too deeply about it.
Was that even possible?
She suppressed a sigh and scratched the back of her head.
“Is that all you heard from Willem?”
“No. There was more, but… did you already know?”
“I can tell from your expression. Your thoughts are easy to read.”
Haven’t we known each other for over a year? he said.
“I still don’t think I know you at all, my lord…”
“It would be arrogant to claim you already know me. The time you and I have lived through is different, is it not? Keep asking questions. That is how we can close the gap.”
“Doesn’t it bother you?”
“No, I like your questions.”
He likes them? Roberta blinked.
“People who meet me are usually one of two types. They either laugh at me and call me a liar, or they believe in me so much that they never harbor any doubts. People like you are few. Truly rare.”
When conversing with someone who leans heavily to one side, it sometimes feels like talking to a wall, he explained.
“Conversation requires a process of getting to know one another. Don’t you agree?”
“Well, yes.”
“So always ask. I like that sort of thing. I can’t answer everything, but I promise you I will at least never lie.”
Ulrich smiled faintly and patted Roberta’s shoulder. Roberta awkwardly smiled back before turning her gaze away. Silence fell between them, stretching on for a long moment.
“…Count Willem was talking to himself.”
After a while, she broke the silence.
“He said he was deceived. That you were disappointed.”
“He was still holding on to that.”
Ulrich said, still looking at the night view.
“The Pantheon—no, the Cormillius family tempted that child. To make the throne pass to me, in a way I couldn’t refuse. And he fell for the temptation.”