Volume 2, Episode 7
Seherbian turned his gaze to Kisha.
“How have the people of Hartney been lately?”
“Oh….”
Kisha blinked her gentle light-green eyes, then quickly gathered herself.
“They, they’re doing well!”
Of course, Seherbian already knew, from the Guardians’ reports, that things had been peaceful there. When he merely stared at her blankly, Kisha hurriedly added everything she knew one piece at a time.
“No one’s been sick recently, and there haven’t been any fights. Outsiders do come by, but everyone’s busy working—ah! Of course, it’s winter, so they can’t farm.”
“What kind of work are they doing?”
“They’ve been cutting ice and selling it to other regions, or carving it. The ice in Blanconia is wonderfully clear, and it doesn’t melt easily, so it’s apparently very popular.”
The ice sculptures were displayed all over the village, and the whole trend had begun when travelers who came to see “winter” bought them after having preservation spells cast on the ice. Now, she said, orders came in from all over the Alferios Kingdom. When she added that the most popular item of all was a silver dragon statue carved in the likeness of Winter Bell, Seherbian found himself in an odd mood.
How strange.
Winter Bell was a dragon who had never once received praise from humans in his life, let alone popularity. People had always feared and shunned even the very fact of his existence, and yet they preferred an ice carving of him? He couldn’t begin to understand human tastes.
“I-if that upset you, I can tell them to stop making dragon statues right away—!”
“It’s fine. I don’t mind.”
When Kisha misunderstood the lingering silence and looked ready to dash off at any moment, Seherbian lifted a hand to stop her.
“It’s just a statue. Besides, they probably couldn’t make it look exactly the same anyway.”
“U-um, Lord Seherbian. The truth is, I made one too….”
Only then did he realize why Kisha had been so terribly fidgety.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to offer it as a sacrifice—ah, no, no! As a gift!”
“……”
His one and only dragon priest had also carved a dragon statue modeled after him.
So Hartney really was a village with good hands for this sort of thing.
Seherbian remembered the village stretched out beneath the snowfield, a place with an unusually quaint and charming air.
The people of Hartney were skilled with their hands; they liked tending flowers and making things by hand. Even before Blanconia was opened, they had lived their everyday lives surrounded by lovely crafts carved from wood and stone.
It seemed that talent and passion had simply found a new direction in ice carving, now that winter had returned.
When Seherbian granted the priestess’s wish, Kisha brightened at once and led him eagerly into the temple.
It was already after sunset, and the sky beyond the windows had sunk into darkness.
Only after they passed down a long corridor, through the dining hall where the braziers still burned, and then around the circular tower where the priests slept and ate, did they finally arrive.
In the temple’s central chamber, full of Winter Bell’s blessing.
“Here it is!”
There, under the clear moonlight of a winter night, stood a silver dragon that glittered without pause.
Seherbian was truly impressed.
It’s pretty close.
Come to think of it, Kisha Hartney had once faced the true form of Winter Bell in the very moment she was on the brink of death.
And in that dreamlike instant, the girl had reproduced him exactly.
The weary dragon who looked down at humans from a high place.
Each scale had been carved with exquisite care, capturing the silver dragon’s signature brilliance, while flower dye had been worked into the transparent ice to vividly depict the deep crimson mane.
Although it was much smaller than the real thing and not perfectly faithful in appearance, it was still close enough that any dragon race member who knew Seherbian would have recognized him at once.
When Seherbian only stood there in silence, staring at the enormous dragon statue, Kisha once again clenched both fists.
“Do you like it? If it makes you uncomfortable, Lord Seherbian, I can destroy it at once—!”
“No, it’s fine. Really.”
Afraid the impetuous priestess might actually rush off and fetch a hammer, Seherbian quickly stopped her.
Then he smiled gently, with real sincerity.
“It’s beautiful.”
Under the night sky, his crimson hair gleamed like embers that had swallowed the moon.
Kisha stared at him in a daze. It had a vitality utterly unlike the block of ice she herself had carved. The dragon priestess, gazing blankly into those sunset-colored eyes filled with kindness, fidgeted with her fingers in embarrassment.
I want people to know just how magnificent Lord Winter Bell is.
But she was still far from being skilled enough to capture him in his entirety.
I need to practice harder!
From that day on, one more task was added to Kisha’s busy life.
Later, it would become the first step of Kisha Hartney, the last dragon priest to communicate directly with Winter Bell and the genius sculptor who would one day be renowned for her art.
After finishing up at the temple, Seherbian returned straight to the Varzian quarters using Door.
It had been such a brief outing, and he had made no conspicuous movements, so no one noticed he’d gone out at all.
In fact, even after that night passed and the next day’s sun rose, no one came looking for him.
Seherbian, who had always tended to stretch idly when left alone, stayed awake until he could resist no longer, then flopped onto the bed like a straw doll. After that, he did not move a muscle.
The knight order’s lodging was old, but it had been designed with the members’ comfort in mind, and the bed alone—meant to restore exhaustion—was made of surprisingly good material.
Oh, this is way more comfortable than I expected….
Lying atop the especially plush mattress and wrapped up in the blanket like a caterpillar, Seherbian was thoroughly pleased.
Even the fact that it was a cramped single room with only one piece of furniture—a bed—counted as a plus in his eyes.
This was far more comfortable than the temple, which was needlessly spacious and let cold drafts whistle straight through it.
Master Airen Varzian finds the master’s absence puzzling.
Casio Drake intends to use beast taming to locate the master.
Jin Veronica is concerned about the master’s absence….
“……Fine, fine, I get it. Stop.”
Seherbian, still burying his ears under a pillow, surrendered weakly and let his arms drop.
The lodging was more comfortable than the temple, yes, but the downside was that here, he had to answer all the people looking for him.
Of course, the reason they were searching for him now was very different from before.
But before he could even move, a guest had already come looking for him first.
Kwaang!
“All right, where is he! Find him, Doglet!”
“Chirrrrk!”
A massive shadow burst in, tearing the door apart like paper, while its long snout made a strange scraping, chittering noise. It was an eerie cry, impossible to tell whether it came from the nose or the mouth.
The beast, its pointed ears perked high, suddenly opened its muzzle wide.
Screeeeeech—
At that instant, an ultrasound-like wave rippled outward, flowing through the room as though dolphins were crying out all at once.
Behind the beast that had planted itself atop the wrecked doorway, someone appeared.
“Heh-heh, so Father Seherbian’s location is none other than—!”
The man gave the creature’s head a quick pat and shouted, “Bingo!”
“He’s in this room!”
“Yes, because this is my room?”
“Just as I thought! That means, wait, huh?”
The man, who had been brimming with excitement, closed his mouth with a dazed expression.
Seherbian brushed the drifting dust away with one hand and wriggled out from under the blanket.
“What can I do for you?”
The noisy intruder was none other than Casio Drake, beast tamer of the Varzian Knights. And the beast he had summoned, Doglet, was a bat-type beast specially suited to searching out life energy. It looked rather like a dog, but it possessed the special ability to generate bat-like waves and detect things hidden from sight, making it extremely useful among beast tamers.
Doglet, with its highly capable detection ability, had spotted Seherbian one step ahead of Casio and was already lying flat on its back with its belly up against the floor.
Seherbian glanced down at the panting, tail-wagging Doglet, then shifted his gaze again.
Only then did Casio understand what was going on, and with the expression of someone thinking, Oh no, did I screw up? he swallowed nervously and began to make excuses.
“Th-that is… cough!”
“I’m sorry to interrupt your rest. During this morning’s muster, the commander asked whether anyone knew the priest’s location.”
And Deputy Commander Jin, who had caught this fool by the back of the neck and dragged him here, bowed her head toward Seherbian.
“This idiot immediately summoned a beast and ordered it to search for your location, which led to this mess. My negligence in failing to manage him properly.”
“Ah. I see.”
Seherbian nodded, feeling that things had probably gone as expected.
Anyone could tell this had been Casio’s solo act, with Jin only following behind desperately trying to stop him.
“Looks like this happens often.”
“……I apologize. I’ll make sure to discipline him thoroughly.”
With her subordinate tucked behind her back and her posture perfectly straight as she apologized in case she had somehow offended Winter Bell, Jin stared blankly at Seherbian as he slowly approached her.
“Deputy Commander.”
“Yes.”
“A room can be cleaned, and even if one door’s gone, it doesn’t really make life any harder.”
With Winter Bell right before her eyes, those normally unwavering blue pupils lost their direction and trembled.
Seherbian gave the stiff, frozen Jin a small, harmless smile, as though to help her settle down.
“It’s fine.”
“……I’m sorry.”
“No, really, it’s fine.”
“I will correct this!”
Jin had gone rigid, bowing over and over like a wind-up doll, and Seherbian was at a loss. The more he looked at her, the more awkward he felt.
Having people who know the secret inside the organization is kind of uncomfortable.
And of all people, it was the Winter Knights; naturally the other side would be even more uncomfortable.
But they couldn’t keep living in this awkward state forever. In an organization made up of a commander, a deputy commander, and its members, respect that ignored rank was simply an imbalance.
Casio, who had also sensed something off, scratched the back of his head and casually wedged himself between them.
“Ahem. But, Deputy Commander, the priest is one of our members now, right? Isn’t that a little too formal?”
“……Strictly speaking, he’s still a dragon priest. He hasn’t come to headquarters to receive his formal appointment yet.”
“But that was supposed to happen at this morning’s muster! Come to think of it, Father, didn’t you get the newsletter?”
Setting aside the door smashed to pieces by the beast, the blanket rolled up on the bed and the wardrobe that showed no sign of being touched.
The room was as calm as could be, and Seherbian had just woken up.
Anyone would have thought he was simply a jobless layabout lazing around in his room.
“Newsletter?”
The “mailbox” outside the window exists to deliver news through carrier pigeons.
As soon as Seherbian voiced his confusion, Mimir helpfully retrieved the information.
Peering out the window, he indeed saw that each room in the knight lodging had a square box mounted beside the window like a mailbox. Pigeons were flying busily in and out of them, delivering newsletters all the while.
And when he finally checked his own mailbox, it was so stuffed full that there was no room left to fit another thing inside.