Volume 1, Episode 21
“Is there an injured man?”
If someone carried a comrade who had collapsed on his own and came toward the crowded barracks, they might simply be here to ask for help.
With a frown, Jin pushed past the guard and strode forward.
“Halt!”
Without drawing her sword, Jin lifted the scabbard itself to block his approach for the moment.
“This camp has been granted permission for our group’s use in Rosaria Castle for today only. If you wish to enter, state your identity.”
“……”
The outsider, who had been approaching with his hood pulled low, came to an abrupt stop.
“Ugh.”
Then, with an air of obvious annoyance, he dumped the person he had been carrying over his shoulder onto the ground as if he were tossing down luggage.
Jin, who had stepped forward, and Cassio behind her both looked puzzled.
So he isn’t his comrade?
She had thought he must be deeply loyal to drag an injured man this far, but instead he looked downright bothered. After setting the unconscious person down, he even dusted off his hands with total indifference, looking almost relieved to be rid of the burden.
Feeling uneasy, Jin stared at the outsider—and then, when she finally recognized the face of the injured man sprawled on the ground, her eyes flew wide open.
“...Commander?”
It was the Winter Knight Order’s leader, the man they had waited for all night with nerves stretched thin: Airen Varzian, returned at last. He was unconscious, slung over the outsider’s shoulder like a sack.
The scabbard that had barred the way lost all strength and slowly lowered.
“The comrades you were supposed to meet in Rosaria?”
At that moment, the suspicious outsider spoke. Jin fixed him with a hard stare.
“You’re his comrades, right? The person named Ren is here.”
All Jin could tell about him was that the hair slipping out from under his hood was a vivid crimson, as bright as a blazing campfire.
The hooded boy pointed lazily at Airen, sounding thoroughly put out.
“Take him.”
Ding.
A clear little chime rang from the staff in his hand.
* * *
“Ahem, ahem! You were a priest?”
The misunderstanding was cleared up quickly.
Part of it was because Airen had come to his senses almost immediately. The rest was because the knights, upon confirming the priest’s robes and pendant hidden beneath the grimy cloak, quickly let go of their suspicions.
Priests, who borrowed the power of the gods to wield divine strength directly, were always respected, no matter their nation or race.
As daylight brightened the sky, the sharp tension melted away like snow.
“B-but why is a priest who should be at the temple here...”
Seherbian answered the bewildered crowd with casual indifference, openly confessing to neglecting his duties.
“There was nothing left for me to do there.”
“...I-I see?”
“If it becomes truly necessary, someone else will fill the vacancy.”
At Seherbian’s shamelessly brazen answer, everyone lost their words and only rolled their eyes in silence. And in the middle of all that, one person suddenly burst out laughing.
“Pfft, ahahaha! That’s our priest for you—so magnanimous, I love it!”
“Please stay still, boss.”
Cassio grumbled without looking up from the bandages he was wrapping.
It was a relief that their leader had regained consciousness, but he kept flailing about too freely, making treatment difficult. Airen, who was lying there with bandages wound around every inch of him, abruptly sat up.
“That’s right, exactly! It must be hard, working alone in some temple where nobody appreciates you.”
“Good grief! Could you spare a thought for how I feel, being dragged here as your strategist and now stuck slapping medicine on my boss? If you keep moving around like some baboon, the bandages will come undone.”
“S-sorry, Sir Cassio.”
Only after his subordinate had called him a monkey did Airen finally settle down, and the atmosphere became quiet again.
It was only because the priest had used divine power to restore his shattered body enough for him to move that he was able to sit up at all. Otherwise, those injuries would never have been fixed by medicine and bandages alone.
Just as the treatment was nearing its end, Jin, who had remained silent and kept watch without asking a single question, finally spoke.
“Commander.”
“Hm?”
Airen, who had been sitting with his mouth turned down in sulky silence, lifted his head at once. But at Jin’s next words, he wilted like a man deflated of all pride.
“So you were driven away without even meeting Winter Bell?”
“Uh...”
“After going all the way to Blanconia alone?”
“No, that’s not exactly—”
Airen tried to defend himself, but his gaze drooped.
“...Well. Yes.”
Cassio, who had just finished his work and gotten to his feet, began tidying the scattered medical tools while mercilessly driving the knife in.
“Didn’t you say you had to meet him no matter what? That this time, you’d meet Winter Bell and either bring winter back or disband the knight order!”
So he had even planned to disband it.
Seherbian thought this to himself and gave a small nod.
Well, if he hadn’t been that desperate, he never would have gone looking all the way to Blanconia in the first place.
Blanconia, the brutal snowfield, was a place people avoided. As for the Winter Guardian Dragon Winter Bell, whatever expectations they might once have held of him had long since faded.
“Everyone, calm down. It wasn’t a total loss.”
“What do you mean, it wasn’t a total loss? Getting lost and wandering around helplessly the whole time counts as a gain?”
“Or maybe fighting the Harteis until you ended up a wreck counts as a gain?”
“Hey, now, that’s enough. Haha.”
Alone among the serious faces, Airen gave an awkward laugh and looked toward a corner.
“Because we came all this way, we were able to meet the priest of Winter Bell, weren’t we?”
Seherbian, who had been blankly clutching his staff, blinked. The surrounding noise had suddenly gone very still.
“Winter Bell...?”
Someone murmured it under their breath.
“Wait, this priest was Winter Bell’s dragon priest?”
“Good heavens!”
“There’s still a priest serving Winter Bell?”
The last remark was almost blasphemous, but since it was true, Seherbian didn’t particularly care.
At present, the only person left in the Winter Dragon Temple was the apprentice priest, Kisha.
“I didn’t get to meet the dragon, though.”
Amid the commotion, Airen stretched long and rose to his feet.
“Still, I did get an answer from Winter Bell: if I go back and wait in my place at the temple, he’ll respond. And...”
Now it was Seherbian’s turn to be confused. Airen had walked up to him and, with a grin, held out his hand.
“Allow me to introduce myself properly. My name is Airen Varzian. I’m the commander of Varzian. Would you come with us? Priest of winter.”
Clerics did not fight for ideology.
They did not throw themselves into just any organization, and they did not lend out their strength lightly. That was because they followed not human will, but the will of the gods. Unless there was a special religious justification, priests were the sort to refuse wasting even a drop of divine power carelessly.
And yet he was inviting such a priest to travel with a group that was little more than mercenaries under another name?
Seherbian was surprised, and so were the other members.
“Commander! That’s—”
“Jin Veronica.”
At the call of her full name, the vice-commander stopped mid-protest and clamped her mouth shut.
The summer empire across the sea, Hestalion.
Jin Veronica had been born there as an illegitimate child of the famous Veronica family, and from the time she could barely walk she had been sold off to other countries as a tribute girl. For about six years, she had drifted from place to place as a glossy product of noble blood. Then, when she was about half her current height, she had been taken in by Varzian. And Airen, who was already part of Varzian, had practically raised her himself.
To Jin, Airen was not merely a superior. He was her teacher, her family, her commander, and the lord she had sworn the rest of her life to.
So when he called her name, she could not say a word. As she held her tongue, Airen continued in a brighter voice than before.
“In our Varzian, anyone with nowhere else to go is welcome to join. Isn’t that right?”
Varzian, the Winter Knight Order.
Although they belonged to the Kingdom of Alferios, they ultimately moved under the pretense of following not the king but the guardian dragon. Within their ranks, regardless of status or birth, anyone could become a comrade. For that reason, not turning away the abandoned and the homeless was one of the highest duties they were meant to uphold.
Jin seemed to want to say more, but in the end she swallowed her objections and bowed her head.
“...Yes.”
As Seherbian watched them in silence, the soft chime of bells rang faintly in his ears.
Varzian has a greater than 70% chance of collapsing within the next two years. The freedom they believe in is antagonizing the royal family, and the symbol of winter has long since lost the people’s recognition. These are highly unfavorable conditions for the survival of any organization.
Yes, I think so too.
This time, Seherbian replied with a telepathic thought.
Airen Varzian seems like a good person.
And alongside the praise came a cold assessment.
But if the leader is a good person, then Varzian can’t help but collapse before long.
While Seherbian carried out his duties as Winter Bell, countless people had passed through the temple.
Among them, he occasionally met those with kind hearts—people who considered others and reached out first. Seherbian liked good people, but apart from that, excessive kindness in human society was poison. There were always plenty who would exploit it, and unless one was clever enough to notice and cut them off quickly, one’s footing would be severed before long.
Wherever one looked, the kind broke early. Sadly, that was the world Seherbian had seen.
So...
With his white staff resting loosely across his shoulder, he finally spoke.
“All right.”
“I understand. It’s not an easy decision, after all. Still, if you’d just think about it for a— Hm?”
Airen, who had been certain he’d be refused and had steeled himself to persuade the priest no matter what, froze.
“Huh?”
“I said all right. Like Saint Ren said, I hadn’t really decided where to go anyway.”
“Y-you had not?”
“I’ll join.”
At that simple answer, color rushed back into Airen’s bewildered face. For a moment, he forgot even his injuries and threw his bandaged arms into the air, then shuddered and silently cheered like an earthworm doused in salt.
And Seherbian, receiving the stunned stares of the Varzian members, folded his arms with complete calm.
That should be enough repayment for protecting the Hartei clan.
It had been a problem easily solved in the first place, if Airen had not interfered. But he had intervened in the situation, recognized the problem quickly, and made what he believed was the best choice even with his life on the line.
A human who sacrifices himself so that no one else has to.
Since good people did not live long, Seherbian decided to give such a man a chance instead.
It was the second whim Winter Bell had chosen since meeting Kisha Hartney.
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