Volume 1, Chapter 17
“So you were with the Varzian.”
“Hah! A Winter Dragon knight and a Winter dragon priest—now isn’t that an amusing pair?”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
It wasn’t particularly amusing, but Seherbian let it pass. That only seemed to excite the other man further.
“If this is fate, then it’s fate—so why don’t you introduce me to Winter Bell?”
“Sorry, but—”
The words were cut off as neatly as a strand of noodles snipped by scissors.
“I already left the temple, so I’m afraid I can’t grant that wish.”
“Ah…”
Renn’s gaze lingered on the priest who had refused him so gently, almost wistfully. But Seherbian remained firm.
“...And if you really tried to kick his ass, you’d die. The guardians there don’t exactly have good tempers.”
Seherbian clicked his tongue, thinking of the countless silver crows that embroidered the skies above Blanconia.
“If this is fate, then it’s fate, but I can’t exactly make you die for it.”
Renn stared blankly at him, as though he couldn’t quite believe Seherbian had just turned his own words back on him. Then, suddenly, he doubled over with laughter.
“Pfft—hahahaha! The priest’s right. There’s no need to throw your life away over a butt.”
“You seem awfully fixated on butts.”
“Hey, Priest. Since this is fate, why don’t you travel with me?”
The invitation came so abruptly that Seherbian blinked in response.
“Travel with you?”
“I mean, you must’ve come here after hearing the rumors, right?”
“Rumors?”
Renn had been talking nonstop, but when Seherbian failed to react as expected, he hesitated, sensing something was off.
“...You didn’t come because of the rumors?”
“No. I just came to take a look.”
A lukewarm silence settled between them for a moment.
“Ahem, cough. Y-you didn’t know? Well, that’s possible. You were just visiting, then. Hah hah.”
“What rumor?”
“There’s a huge rumor sweeping through the Alferios Kingdom, right alongside the rumor that winter has returned after a hundred years. And that rumor is—”
When Seherbian finally showed interest, Renn perked up again and clenched a fist as if announcing something grand.
“‘A spirit has appeared in Rosaria Lake!’”
“A spirit?”
Yet even after learning the truth of the rumor, Seherbian’s lazy expression didn’t change.
It was just a nuisance. So what of it? To a dragon like him, spirits were hardly the sort of thing that inspired awe.
Only one question was answered.
Ah. So that’s why there are so many people here.
It wasn’t normal for Rosaria, even a tourist town, to be this packed with crowds standing in long lines.
And the reason was understandable: in the Alferios Kingdom, spirits were a rare and precious race. Perhaps in a forest habitat ruled by druids and pixies they might be seen more often, but for most nations, naturally occurring spirits were astonishingly rare.
Rosaria Lake Spirit. Recently, rumors have spread that on moonlit nights, a spirit taking the form of an animal has been seen near the lake. Tourists are flocking to Rosaria in hopes of catching a glimpse of it.
As soon as Mimir noticed Seherbian taking an interest, it neatly condensed the surrounding rumor into a brief summary.
Moonlight, night, lake.
The instant those three keywords clicked into place, an image began forming in Seherbian’s mind.
No way?
He narrowed his eyes and turned to Renn, who was still rambling on and on about the rumor.
“Renn.”
“—and if you go out at night, the spirit wakes under the moonlight and runs across the water like an adorable little puppy, and—huh?”
“Let’s go see it. That spirit.”
He was accepting the travel invitation. Renn planted his hands on his hips and laughed heartily.
“Hah! So you got curious after hearing the rumor too, huh, Priest?”
“Next!”
While they’d been talking, it had already become their turn at the checkpoint.
“Well now.”
Seherbian let out a small sigh as he watched the back of Renn’s head while the man stepped forward to be inspected.
“...If that really is a ‘spirit,’ then yes.”
Renn didn’t catch the rest of the sentence and simply passed through the checkpoint with a bright expression.
Seherbian followed after him and quickly confirmed his identity with the priest’s pendant infused with holy power, after which he too was allowed into Rosaria Castle.
As befitted a tourist destination that sustained its artificial lake through cutting-edge magical engineering, the streets beyond the walls were broad and spacious.
Carriages rolled freely along the neatly packed roads, and even the sidewalks reserved for pedestrians were paved with multicolored cobblestones, making everything easy to take in at a glance.
The shops lined along the road were generally small, mostly one or two stories high, and sold fruit drinks and handcrafted goods made from materials salvaged from the lake.
Especially popular were the imitation “spirit stones” sold as souvenirs.
Seherbian stopped in front of one shop and ran a hand over a translucent figurine carved in the shape of a puppy.
“Welcome, welcome! That there’s a spirit stone modeled after the spirit of Rosaria Lake. It’s got the lake’s energy packed right into it, so if you carry it on your person, it’ll keep you healthy! And if you decorate your home with it, why, you’ll live a long life!”
Long life, my ass.
It was nothing more than an ordinary pebble scooped from the lake. Seherbian clicked his tongue at the fake spirit stone, one that couldn’t even muster a trace of magical power, let alone spiritual energy.
What idiot would fall for that?
Just as he was about to walk on, the companion he’d nearly forgotten picked up the imitation spirit stone. Watching Renn pay for it right there and then, Seherbian stared in disbelief—only for Renn to notice his look and give him a thumbs-up.
“It says it keeps you healthy. If I buy one as a souvenir, that’s good for my health, right?”
“... ”
He really was an idiot.
Seherbian could only shake his head.
* * *
Rosaria was an artificial lake created by collecting the waters formed from Blanconia’s eternal snowfields, purified and maintained through magical engineering.
Its scale was the greatest in the kingdom, and its beauty had long been the subject of word-of-mouth praise.
People were drawn to the strange allure of caging nature by borrowing the power of magic. Rosaria Lake was already famous as a tourist destination, and the rumor of a spirit’s appearance had only made it even more crowded.
“Whew. There are a lot of people here.”
Renn whistled in amazement. Seherbian, walking behind him, had long since grown tired.
“You must see this kind of thing often, Priest. Temples are always packed, aren’t they?”
“... ”
No.
Seherbian had never seen this many people gathered in one place in his entire life.
Even temples varied, after all, and very few people ever came to pray at the Winter Dragon Temple.
“At this rate, we’ll need to leave the donkey at some kind of shelter.”
Seherbian agreed with that, given the overwhelming crush of bodies ahead of them, close enough to bump shoulders every time he took a step.
It certainly wasn’t a place you’d want to drag a donkey through. Unfortunately, the timing was bad, and every stable or baggage depot in the area was completely full.
After glancing around, Seherbian eventually found a suitable spot.
It was under a sturdy tree that cast a deep shadow far off to the side.
“Mimir, stay here.”
“Hee-haw!”
The white donkey strongly objected when Seherbian ordered it to wait tied to the tree.
I cannot leave the master alone in a place this crowded.
“And you can’t exactly transform into a staff in a place this crowded, can you?”
Seherbian stroked the donkey’s neck as if soothing it, then leaned close and whispered in its ear. Since Mimir couldn’t find a real counterargument to that, it quieted down. Seherbian smiled faintly.
“I’ll be back soon. Behave.”
Behind them came the forlorn chime of the donkey bell.
Leaving that behind, Seherbian walked lightly back to his waiting companion.
“Is it really all right to just tie it up like that?”
Watching from the side, Renn voiced his concern.
The donkey was pure white, pretty, and sturdy-looking, so tying it to nothing more than a tree trunk instead of a proper holding area seemed deeply unsettling.
Renn kept glancing back over his shoulder as he added, “What if someone steals it?”
“Mimir will be fine.”
At that utterly carefree answer, as if he truly believed nothing could go wrong, Renn scratched his head.
Ah, what a young priest. He doesn’t know the ways of the world yet.
Seherbian looked even younger than adulthood.
Which meant, in Renn’s eyes, he was clearly just a naïve novice—someone who’d studied in the temple after being inducted as a priest and had probably never set foot outside it before now.
Priests might possess holy power and hold a position respected by the world, but to Renn, the boy still looked like nothing more than a child with very little experience of life.
After worrying over how he might speak without offending him, Renn finally opened his mouth cautiously.
“I’ve always heard that most clergy view human nature as fundamentally good. But Priest, there are quite a few people in the world who’ll commit crimes without a second thought if it serves their own interests...”
“Yes, there are.”
Just as many humans as there were praying for the sake of cursing others.
Seherbian swallowed the mutter in his throat and answered in a lazy tone.
“If someone tries to lay a hand on my donkey out of greed, they’ll regret it.”
“Huh?”
“That thing’s temper is absolutely horrible.”
Renn blinked in confusion and looked back at the donkey, which was standing there obediently tied to the rope.
With its snow-white fur and delicate, doll-like build, the donkey had a strangely elegant air about it.
As Seherbian walked farther away, the donkey’s long eyelashes trembled.
Its red eyes, somehow seeming innocent and pure, stared endlessly after the back of its master.
Somehow, it even looks a little tragic...
It was too small to feel threatening, and at a glance it didn’t seem to have any real bite to it. But if the priest who owned it said so, then Renn had no reason to argue.
The two of them left the tree where the donkey was tied and headed for the lake.
By then, the shoreline was already packed with people eagerly waiting for the spirit.
Seherbian squeezed through the crowd and crouched down.
Splash.
The moment he dipped his hand into the water, a cool freshness surged up at once.
Just as I thought.
His sunset-colored eyes narrowed slightly.
There really is a spirit in this lake...
At the exact same moment Seherbian reached that conclusion, Renn let out a sigh beside him.
“Hm. Shame. So it was a false rumor after all?”
“...?”
If the rumor was true, the spirit was supposed to appear on moonlit nights. It was daytime now, and they had only just arrived at the lake.
To look at it once and immediately decide there was “no spirit” required one of two conditions.
The first was being a special race capable of distinguishing spiritual energy, like dragons beloved by the gods.
“Renn, are you a spirit sorcerer?”
“Oh? You’re sharp, Priest.”
Renn grinned and opened his palm.
A yellow lump sprang up with a pop, then scattered on the wind like dandelion fluff.
Lightning!
Because he had dismissed the summon so quickly before anyone else noticed, its shape had only barely caught Seherbian’s eye.
Renn looked a little embarrassed as he introduced his ability.
“Haha. I’m not that impressive. It’s just that I borrow the spirits’ power a little when I fight.”
Airen Varzian.
He was a buff-type spirit sorcerer who could strengthen his body or weapons with spirit power—in other words, a spirit knight.