Volume 1, Episode 15
“All right, then. Go on and tell me.”
“Hm? Oh—uh. Tell you what…?”
“As I introduced myself earlier, I’m Kisha. This is the Winter Dragon Temple, and I’m the apprentice priest here! Yes, sir.”
The moment Kisha introduced herself as an apprentice priest, her face brightened with pride before she quickly set her expression again.
Receiving the faithful who came to the temple to pray was the girl’s first duty as a priest.
“What kind of wish brought you here, adventurer?”
Her tone was remarkably similar to the one Winter Bell had once used with her when they first met. While Kisha did her best to play the role of a priest, the man who had just awakened from sleep lay on the bed, staring blankly as if he couldn’t make sense of anything.
“A d-dragon… temple? Priest?”
The dazed adventurer turned his head. Beyond the transparent window, a white snowfield stretched out under the sky.
Even now, snow was still drifting down through the overcast heavens.
“Winter….”
At the sight of a strange landscape that could never exist in the outside world, the man’s face gradually hardened.
No way.
When he still hadn’t said anything after a long moment, Kisha grew timid for no reason and began sneaking glances at him.
“I-I mean, if you don’t want to talk about it, you don’t have to….”
“Right now!”
“Eek!”
Startled, Kisha took a step back as the man suddenly sprang to his feet, sending the blanket flopping helplessly to the floor. She flinched, but he paid her no mind and fired off his question.
“You said this place was the dragon temple?”
“Huh? Y-yes.”
“Winter Bell’s dragon temple?”
“Y-yes, yes, y-yes…!”
The adventurer was staring at her with blazing eyes, and Kisha could only keep nodding furiously, on the verge of tears. All the resolve she’d had about properly welcoming the first faithful visitor had already vanished without a trace.
Leaving Kisha frozen like a startled rabbit, the adventurer rubbed his forehead and let out a disbelieving laugh.
“Ha… hahaha. So it really existed.”
“U-um….”
“There was winter. Not just in legends or fairy tales, but real winter.”
“Adventurer…?”
“Winter Bell was alive in the Alferios Kingdom!”
Seeing the man laugh and rave to himself like a lunatic, Kisha’s expression slowly filled with confusion.
He was a faithful whom Winter Bell himself had brought here, so she couldn’t just throw him out. But if she left him alone like this, he seemed a little dangerous, too.
While she was still torn, the man strode up to her first.
“Where is Winter Bell?”
“P-please calm down first, faithful—”
“Please. Let me meet him right now. Where do I have to go to see that damned dragon? The chapel? The altar?”
At the adventurer’s rude, insistent questions, Kisha’s eyes narrowed the instant she heard the phrase that damned dragon.
Her face turning cold, she raised both palms to stop him.
“Faithful!”
“……?!”
At her sharp cry, the man who had been so worked up he nearly looked ready to force his way into Winter Bell’s presence faltered at once.
“First, state your name. And the reason you came here! Only after that can I guide you to Winter Bell!”
Held back by those tiny hands, the adventurer stared down at the girl in a daze. The gold in his eyes, which had seemed so desperate a moment ago—like someone wandering through a nightmare—slowly regained focus.
Staggering back, he eventually sat down on the bed with a thump. Then he ran a hand over his face again and again.
“Ha… I’ve been rude to the Dragon’s apostle. I was just too overwhelmed….”
“It’s all right. Anyone would be shocked to see winter for the first time. I was, too.”
Kisha stood properly before him and added with a small smile, “But blasphemy is forbidden. If you insult Lord Winter Bell again, I’ll have you thrown out of the temple.”
“I-I’m sorry.”
The man drooped and obediently apologized.
A brief silence followed.
For Kisha, it was a silence meant to let him fully calm down. For the stranger, it was time needed to adjust to an unfamiliar place.
Only when a drift of snow slid from the branches outside the window with a soft rustle did the man speak again.
“Ren… is my name.”
“It’s nice to meet you, faithful! I’m Kisha Hartney.”
After a moment, Kisha glanced at him carefully and added in a small voice, “I’m the apprentice priest.”
Ren relaxed at the bright response from the young priestess and lifted the corners of his mouth. It was the first smile he had worn since waking in the temple.
Kisha looked back at him and tilted her head slightly.
Hmm. Is it because he has silver hair? He kind of looks like Seherbian, somehow….
Though the Silver Dragon Seherbian’s hair was actually a deep crimson.
Shaking away the stray thought, Kisha followed the procedure she had learned from the temple guardian and asked, “What brings you to the temple?”
“The reason I’m looking for Winter Bell is, well… extremely personal, so….”
“Everyone comes to the gods for personal reasons. I did, too.”
The stranger, who had identified himself as Ren, looked troubled and seemed reluctant to explain himself. But after Kisha kept gently reassuring him, he finally sighed and stood up.
“The reason is….”
Under hair blessed by the silver dragon, gem-like golden eyes flashed with steady brilliance.
“Because I’m the one who leads the Varzian.”
“Pardon?”
Kisha blinked in confusion.
Varzian?
Not because she didn’t know the name.
Quite the opposite.
“Could it be….”
“…….”
“Y-you’re the Winter Dragon Knight, sir?”
Dragons were a sacred race.
There were plenty of kingdoms and knight orders that used dragons as their symbol.
And among them were the free knight orders that moved under the banners of the seasonal Bells. They did not follow king or country; they pursued only the dragon they had each chosen as their emblem.
It went without saying that kings and nobles did not welcome them.
In name, they were the only organization that could stand against class and rank under the pretext of serving dragons.
For that reason, the spring, summer, and autumn knight orders were revered across each nation as dragon knights.
But the winter knights, the Varzian, were different.
There hasn’t been winter in this world for a very long time.
Winter Bell had, at some point, become an illusion that no longer existed.
The winter knight order that had taken Winter Bell as its symbol was a knight order in name only. In truth, they were little different from mercenaries.
“When winter disappeared, the Winter Dragon Knights became a name that only showed up in fairy tales. Still, we waited. We kept waiting, believing that someday winter would return.”
The dragon knight order revered and loved their guardian dragon more than anyone else did.
But the more the world cursed Winter Bell, the more the knights who followed winter were looked down on as well. Useless, worthless, knights who had even lost the blessing of their guardian dragon.
“I want to reclaim the reason we exist.”
The leader of the Varzian brought his words to a quiet close.
His face was lean and dry as the winter sky.
* * *
“……Again?”
Seherbian lowered his pure-white staff in disbelief.
The image magic showing Kisha and Ren’s conversation crackled and cut out.
He sat at the top of the tower and stared dumbly down at the snowfield below.
A winter landscape where white flakes drifted through the air.
The biting wind carried snow endlessly, and this land buried beneath eternal frost was so barren that no life could survive here.
“They want winter back again?”
The whole thing was so absurd that even a bitter laugh escaped him.
Seherbian rested his head against the staff with a vexed expression.
“Why?”
「If you’re going to eavesdrop and then complain, I recommend going in person and asking for the answer, Master.」
“I’m not eavesdropping. They’re praying to me anyway, so I might as well listen properly.”
Seherbian answered with utter confidence, then lifted his head from the staff again and frowned.
“It doesn’t make sense.”
「What would you like me to search for?」
“Forget that nonsense, Mimir. Tell me what you think.”
Seherbian waved away the search window that had formed in the air and asked Mimir seriously.
“Why are people suddenly looking for winter now?”
「…….」
Ding.
Even the branch of the World Tree, capable of seeking the world’s knowledge on any subject, could not answer this question.
Only the faint chime of a bell continued intermittently in the long silence.
“No one wanted it. For a hundred years after winter disappeared, not a single person complained about it. Rown said that a hundred years is a long time to humans.”
「Rown W. Priest. Died at 99.」
“And yet, while winter was gone, there was only one person who called for me.”
「Titania Chene L. Alferios. Died at 26.」
Mimir rattled off the information on the person Seherbian had recalled.
「Cause of death: usurpation of the throne by a blood relative.」
“Right.”
Even then, she hadn’t sought him out because she wanted winter.
Please save the child I carried and protected.
Remembering the face of the blood-stained woman for a brief moment, Seherbian let out a long sigh.
“Anyway… I can’t very well ignore the little brat I saved with my own hands. But I also don’t want to start working hard all of a sudden just because that brat wants it.”
The cold wind cut fiercely across the tower, yet not a hair on his head was harmed. Cold could never wound the people of silver.
On the contrary, Seherbian, looking lazy and languid, even yawned extravagantly.
“What should I do….”
While he worried, snow piled up everywhere except where he sat. The flakes spun around him like living spirits, circling playfully before settling down.
“Lili.”
Flutter!
Even at his quiet call, Winter Bell’s guardians reacted with sharp precision.
Liliana, in particular, was always on edge, watching Seherbian’s every move.
In the blink of an eye, she crossed the space and appeared before him, giving a long, high-pitched cry.
「Yes, Master!」
“Go to the visitor and tell him that his wish can’t be granted right now.”
「Yes! Uh… yes?」
About to take off like lightning at the order, Liliana froze in midair with a frantic flutter.
「Master, you’re refusing his prayer? But you already granted Kisha Hartney’s wish, didn’t you?」
“That girl wanted flowers to cure an epidemic. She did hope for winter, but only as a wish limited to Hartney Village, which borders Blanconia. This stranger is different.”
Snow falling over one village was one thing; bringing winter back in its entirety was on another scale entirely.
Returning winter to the world would require sacrifice and responsibility to match. If there were people who wanted winter, then there would also be people who didn’t. Seherbian still couldn’t tell which side carried more weight.
Liliana agreed with that, so she couldn’t answer recklessly either and simply spun in place, flustered.
“……But.”
She perked up.
“Tell him to wait a little longer. I’m going to confirm for myself whether this world truly needs winter the way he says it does.”
With a soft tap, the white staff touched the ground.
Seherbian rose and pulled his hood firmly over his head. It was the priest’s robe Rown had left behind. The holy pendant hanging from his neck gave a light jingle.
“For now, it’s on hold.”
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