Volume 2, Chapter 9
“Wow, the Winter Bell’s guardian is in the shape of a raven?”
“Most of them are avian folk. They usually take bird form.”
“Avian folk!”
Cassio, the monster summoner who was fascinated by other races and monsters, clenched both fists and let his eyes shine.
“But if those guardians have garrulous personalities, wouldn’t the temple be incredibly lively?”
From behind, Cassio, who had been nodding along, suddenly raised a question.
“Guardians are usually assigned to protect their own territories, so they don’t come into the temple very often. Unless I’m— rather, unless Winter Bell summons them, they’re always guarding their designated areas.”
Seherbian hastily corrected the slip of the tongue, but no one noticed anything strange. Only Jin, the sole member who knew the truth, twitched faintly at the corner of his eye.
“A-all right. It seems we’ve exchanged enough greetings, so everyone back to your places now.”
At the captain’s signal, the knights realized their brief break was over and dispersed with reluctant looks.
Some went to the straw training dummies to practice swordwork, some headed to the meditation grounds to regulate their mana, and others crossed weapons in the sparring yard.
And Airen made the rounds himself, offering guidance where things were lacking and trading easy banter with his subordinates. Watching him, one could almost forget he had come from a distinguished house.
“That’s interesting…”
“What’s so interesting?”
Someone’s voice came from beside Seherbian, who had been watching the scene with his chin resting on his hand, lost in thought.
It was Airen, who had come over at some point. Instead of answering, Seherbian shifted his gaze from Airen to the knights scattered all around him.
“Haha, I suppose we do feel quite different from an ordinary knight order.”
“Are there commoners among the people who joined the Varzian?”
“Hm?”
At the abrupt question, Airen clasped his hands behind his head and answered a beat late.
“Probably… most of them are from common backgrounds. There are some from fallen houses, too. Or people who left their families entirely and cut away their surnames.”
In recent years, war had become easy to ignite on the Eastern Continent.
Large kingdoms, mostly after territory, had launched wars of aggression, and in the meantime, small nations were being founded and destroyed with alarming frequency.
That was also why the Varzian, as a free winter knight order, had been able to operate without much interference. Many nations hired mercenaries in preparation for war, and riding that current, guilds and other mysterious organizations had been established one after another.
Countries that had reached the point where they would gladly borrow even a cat’s paw if it could become military strength now sought to bring such armed groups—those not formally affiliated with any state—onto their side. The Varzian, large in scale and strong in unity, was one of the organizations many ruling powers had their eyes on.
“With backgrounds that varied so much, were they really able to accept one another as comrades?”
“Once they’re bound under the same name, their old status is nothing but irrelevant history. Here, everyone has to follow the Varzian’s rules and ranks.”
Of the people who had come to the Varzian carrying their own stories, none wanted to go back to the past.
Airen, who understood that better than anyone, wore a slightly bitter expression.
“Seherbian, you’re the strange one here. I thought a priest would understand that well.”
“……?”
“Because gods love everyone equally.”
Airen lifted a hand and pointed above his head, then glanced up toward the blazing sky where the summer sun shimmered fiercely. It was so dazzling he could barely look at it directly.
“The divine creed: ‘Before the gods, all are equal.’”
“That is true.”
Even those exalted dragonkin could only hope to meet the gods after death.
In the priest’s robes, Seherbian’s face was brushed only by cold amusement.
Because the gods loved everyone, dragons had to bear the duty of being Regulators for the world.
Whether they wished it or not.
“Still, I’m glad. The gods didn’t abandon us.”
The two of them smiled at one another, each holding a completely opposite sentiment.
“That’s strange.”
“Hm? Are you saying I’m strange?”
“Yes.”
Just as Airen was about to bristle at being called strange to his face, Seherbian cut in first.
“I think the side with privilege sees equality as a loss.”
The rich wanted to use money to acquire better things than other people, and nobles did not want to become the same as commoners.
If there was one thing Seherbian had learned from hearing people’s prayers over many long years, it was that equality became a blessing only when it was a restraint on those who held privilege.
The higher a person stood above others, the more true that became.
“I do hope your comrades think the same way, Airen.”
With that, Seherbian gave a light bow and passed by him. Airen, suddenly feeling a strange heaviness in his shoulders, rubbed the back of his neck and watched his retreating figure.
Equality as a loss…
For some reason, whenever Priest Seherbi spoke, it sometimes felt as if he were speaking from an observer’s point of view.
Maybe that’s because he’s a priest?
His usual behavior hardly seemed priestlike, but still, he was a dragon priest—one who served a dragon, no less. So it made sense that his perspective would differ from that of ordinary people.
He roughly accepted that explanation, though some faint unease remained. Airen let out a long sigh.
“Haah, I don’t know. I’ll figure it out once I’ve spent some time with him.”
Since Seherbian had become a comrade, there was no need to rush. He could simply watch and learn slowly.
That was what Airen thought, but unfortunately that mindset would not last very long.
* * *
That day, the first afternoon training session in the Varzian ended with the atmosphere of a welcome ceremony for newcomers.
As for Seherbian, who had joined as the order’s first priest-type member, he was judged to have no reason to train with swords or magic, and so he was exempt from most instructions.
What, after all, was a priest?
One could call it a very special profession: borrowing the power of the gods to bestow blessings, drive away disease, rapidly heal wounds, and sometimes even prophesy. Priests were such excellent support that their mere existence could raise the stamina, mana, and even mental fortitude of countless soldiers.
And if one was a dragon priest serving the Winter Bell, then of course the most famous thing about them would be…
Curse.
But there was no brave soul willing to volunteer to be experimented on by the winter curse firsthand.
In the end, Seherbian found nothing to do and shut himself up in his room under the pretense of prayer.
The way priests trained divine power was through meditation and prayer, so he had no need to sweat through the training grounds like the others.
Mimir added, with characteristic precision:
「Master, if you’re going to remain alone like this, then there’s hardly any point in having left Blanconia in the first place.」
“There’s nothing else for me to do even if I go out.”
「Are you dissatisfied with the Varzian?」
“It’s not that.”
Seherbian sprawled lazily on the bed like a cat basking in the sun.
Yes, he liked the atmosphere.
It was rough, as befit a mercenary band that had spent so long wandering battlefields while carrying so many pasts, but it was also free, and yet it did not trample the order of rank.
There was a cool, pleasant feeling here, like a quaint stream where smooth pebbles had been rounded and polished by years of rolling water.
For a moment, Seherbian recalled the eyes he had met that afternoon—eyes shining with overwhelming curiosity and goodwill—then buried his face into the pillow.
“……Troublesome.”
He had never been good at caring for others.
Or rather, not so much bad at it as unaccustomed to it.
Winter Bell had always sat in his own domain of Blanconia, attended by guardians, listening to prayers stained with the desire to harm others.
It would have been easier if he were dealing with someone like Kisha Hartney, who had volunteered to become a dragon priest, or with people living in his territory—there the line between what had to be said clearly and what did not was easy to draw. But in this case, the position was rather ambiguous.
Here, he was Winter Bell, but he had to not be Winter Bell.
I’m not going to do anything here.
At first, he had come all this way pretending to be a priest simply out of curiosity about what those winter knights might want from the dragon of winter.
Now he was supposed to relax, have fun, and just observe.
Seherbian let out a long sigh with his face still buried in the pillow.
And yet I can’t just stay still.
The problem was that he kept worrying about them.
Had he grown attached without realizing it? Or was it pity as Winter Bell toward the title of “winter knight order”?
Seherbian found the plainly visible ending waiting before these people oddly uncomfortable.
「Shall I search for a way to help prevent the dissolution of the Winter Knight Order?」
“No, it’s fine. Let’s not intervene.”
After refusing Mimir’s suggestion, Seherbian rolled over again. A slightly faded ivory ceiling came into view.
“Since when did I start taking care of people?”
Merciless winter that stole life and warmth.
A devilish dragon that laid curses upon humans.
The epithets attached to Winter Bell were generally negative. And Seherbian had no intention of denying that point.
It was true that the winter he had brought had become a curse and swept over people.
“They’ll make their own choices. I came here to watch that.”
「Understood.」
Unlike usual, even Mimir did not tack on a lecture today, and obediently accepted its master’s wishes.
Fortunately, contrary to Seherbian’s worries, a calm routine continued for two full weeks after he officially joined the Varzian.
With nothing in particular to do during training hours, Seherbian would wander out every afternoon, lean his head against his staff, and doze off with his eyes half-closed. Since he preferred cool places over warm sunlight, the shade beneath the hundred-year-old giant tree that had grown in the center of the Varzian camp was the perfect spot for him.
At first, everyone had found him fascinating and came by to stare, or worried that something might be wrong with him, but by now the members had grown used to him and passed by him so naturally that he had become part of the scenery.
At some point, Airen spotted Seherbian melting into the center of the camp like a patch of natural terrain and burst out laughing.
“You’re in this spot again today, Priest?”
“……”
Blink.
Opening his eyes slowly, like a lazy koala, Seherbian nodded a beat later.
“Yes.”
“Aren’t you bored?”
“Yes…”
He was so lazy even in his replies that the ends of his sentences kept stretching out. Noticing it, Airen scratched his chin with a look of helpless amusement and dropped down beside him.
The scent of the old giant tree drifted on the wind and brushed past the bridge of his nose.
“We’re planning to head out on a mission soon. Once we leave camp, it’ll take at least a month, so Priest, you should make proper preparations in advance.”
“A mission?”
Seherbian, who had seemed on the verge of dozing off again, was now staring at him with clear eyes the color of dusk. Airen flinched for no reason at all, then answered with a puzzled expression.
“We can’t just keep lounging around while the royal house doesn’t come looking for us, can we? Whenever there’s an opening, we have to bring in work from wherever we can.”
“So you really do mercenary work.”
“We have to make money if this many people are going to eat and live.”
Plucking a blade of foxtail grass that had grown nearby, Airen flicked it back and forth with a wry smile.
If one counted the years since the Alperios royal house had cut its contract with the Winter Knight Order and stopped supporting them, the number had already rolled back across several generations.
That was why the Varzian always had to take on commissions and run all over the place as combat mercenaries.
“Disappointed? That a dragon knight order that worships Winter Bell spends its days going abroad just to earn money?”