Volume 2, Chapter 12
Two days passed.
Airen and his group were still stranded at the port, because no ship bound for Soltis Sea had come in yet.
“Still no ships today?”
“They say the rainy season hasn’t ended on the Hestallion side, so what can we do about it?”
The ship manager, who sat guarding the office, waved away the visitors with a tired flick of his hand.
The sea was the kind of terrain most affected by weather, so even if people wanted to launch a ship, it was impossible unless the sky cooperated. Every port maintained real-time communication with the harbor cities of each nation.
When the weather turned foul, or when a special sea creature appeared, the management office would forbid all ship operations.
“Sir. Then about when do you think one might leave?”
“Ah, well now, that’s anyone’s guess—could be tomorrow, could be the day after. Best to wait patiently, I say.”
The manager pointed a long finger toward the temple in the center of the village.
“If you’re in a real hurry, you could always pray to Asubell and ask him to stop the rain.”
Storms were not something human power could do anything about. If they wanted to cross the sea, they had no choice but to wait until the dragon who governed the summer rainy season changed his mind.
In the end, Airen, Casio, Jin, and Seherbian left the ship manager’s office with no real gain.
“Ughhh, this blasted summer. Every other minute it’s the rainy season, the rainy season, the rainy season! Hestallion may be a land where honey flows, but it’s seriously inconvenient.”
“It’s because Asubell is blessing it. Thanks to that, there’s no risk of being invaded.”
“A territory that’s only good for its own people. It’s enough to make foreigners weep.”
Casio Drake grumbled as he kicked at a stone that had done him no harm whatsoever. Airen patted the shoulder of the surly subordinate and curved his lips into a small smile.
“We’re not in any rush, so what’s the problem? We can just take it easy and wait.”
It was a nuisance every time they had to go back and forth between the two countries, but that was all. It wasn’t as though they were suffering any great loss, so Casio had no real grounds to complain further.
“Right, priest?”
“……”
He had asked for agreement, but no answer came. Airen turned around, puzzled.
“Priest Seherbian?”
Seherbian had come to a stop in front of one of the alleys.
The narrow lane was dusty and sunless, its corners piled high with garbage. And against that heap of trash, eyes closed, leaned a child.
Caw, caw.
Black crows circled the sky overhead, crying out as they went.
Buried among the trash was only a black-haired boy who looked to be no more than ten years old. The clothes on his body were filthy with grime, and through the torn fabric there were bruises and scraped wounds everywhere. Blood had run down his cheek, leaving a trail like tears.
“That’s strange.”
Seherbian tilted his head slightly, and his dark crimson hair shifted lightly in the hot wind.
“Do they usually throw people away like trash in this country?”
Airen, who had only just noticed the boy buried in the garbage heap, also hardened his expression.
“Ser Casio!”
“Yes, sir.”
At the call, Casio ran over and pulled the child free.
The water that had seeped from the garbage gave off a foul stench. It was so close to the smell of rotting corpses that his brow creased on instinct, but Casio still examined the child’s condition with practiced ease.
“He’s lost a lot of blood, and his breathing is very weak, but...”
Casio reported with a grim face.
“He’s still alive.”
“Heal him right away.”
The order came down, but none of the knights stepped forward.
“But Boss. This kid...”
“I know. I’ll take responsibility. Don’t worry about that—just save the child first.”
Airen gave a small smile and nodded as though to reassure them. Casio, who had been flustered and at a loss, finally summoned a rabbit-shaped monster with healing power.
Wooooong.
“Damn it, that’s exactly what I’m worried about. Stop taking responsibility for everything whenever you feel like it.”
Despite his rough muttering, the pink healing power spilling from Casio’s monster seeped into the child’s body. The wounds quickly closed, and the pallor that had made him look like a corpse began to improve visibly.
“Phew. The serious injuries have been healed. His life shouldn’t be in danger anymore.”
“That’s a relief. Thanks, Ser Casio.”
It was not proper healing arts, but Casio finished the emergency treatment with the help of his monster and released the summon before straightening up. But then, a shadow reached toward the child.
“No, Boss? What are you doing?”
“I’m taking him with us. Leaving him here is no different from telling him to die.”
Just as Airen bent down to lift the child into his arms, Jin knelt beside him.
“Lord Airen. That goes no further.”
“I said I’d take responsibility.”
“Even saving his life can already be a punishable offense. If you go so far as to take this child with you here...”
Jin Veronica raised her bright blue eyes and said firmly, “A noble report will be filed, and they’ll send pursuers after you. If that happens, the Varzian Knights themselves will be put in danger.”
It was an argument that could not be refuted.
They might be called the Winter Knight Order, but in the end, the Varzian Knights were a band of unaffiliated wanderers.
There were already plenty of countries that had begun to regard them as a thorn in their side. If they drew attention now through a noble’s report, it would cause serious trouble.
“Can you truly take responsibility for that, Lord Airen?”
Those two words, take responsibility, now carried even more weight than before.
Airen shed the playfulness from his face and met her gaze head-on. He wasn’t silent because he had nothing to say. In his clear golden eyes lay a firm determination not to back down, even with the Varzian situation hanging in the balance. In the dark alley, a taut stillness settled over them, and not one person was willing to yield easily.
But there was one who did not get swept up in the seriousness and instead voiced a question.
“Why would saving a person be a crime?”
“……Priest.”
“If we’re speaking of responsibility in this situation...”
It was Seherbian, who had merely been watching with a blank expression.
“Shouldn’t the person who threw a child into a garbage heap be the one punished?”
“That’s...”
His tone was so calm it was clear he was asking from genuine curiosity rather than censure. Airen paused for a moment, then gave a bitter smile.
“I think so too. It’s just that the ‘crime’ Jin mentioned is under the law of the Alferios Kingdom, Priest.”
“The kingdom’s law?”
Seherbian, as a dragon, was hardly likely to be well-versed in legal matters.
He only understood law in the basic sense of ethics and doctrine, so he had no real idea what this so-called kingdom law meant.
Seeing that Seherbian still did not understand, Airen exchanged a troubled glance with Jin.
“Here.”
Carefully, Airen turned the collapsed child over. The clothes the boy wore were a sleeveless outfit that exposed his waist. The larger wounds had been treated by Casio with the help of his monster’s power, but the scars already set into place and the smaller bruises could not be erased, leaving the child’s body a wreck.
Among them, one scar stood out far more than the rest.
“Because of this.”
The red line cutting across the left waist was deeper than any other scar.
Seherbian saw at once that it was not a scar left by injury, and narrowed his eyes.
A tattoo?
A pair of red eyes.
A tattoo of butterfly wings with an eye set in the center had been branded deeply into the boy’s left waist.
“Citizen Rank, Sixth Grade: Red Eye. They’re recognized as the property of nobles, a class with a price tag on its life.”
Airen lowered his voice to a whisper as he named the child’s identity.
“In other words, he’s a slave.”
“Red Eye” refers to the lowest class in the Alferios Kingdom. It may be legally owned only by nobles of Citizen Rank Second Grade or higher. Any other act of touching a slave without the master’s permission is a grave crime.
At the mention of slave, Mimir added the necessary information.
Seherbian thought with a detached expression.
So they’re treated as nothing but objects.
The pupil carved into the middle of the butterfly wing looked almost like a warning that there was no escaping it, no matter where one went.
Even the act of kindness that saved a child who had been tossed into the trash and left barely breathing was a crime in this country.
“We’re not even part of the Alferios royal knight order, anyway. And we’re not exactly being treated well as it is.”
“It would only become more dangerous.”
“Still, I want to save him.”
“No.”
The side arguing against it and the side pushing forward were locked in a stalemate. Caught between them, Casio looked awkward and helpless, unable to intervene, his eyes darting back and forth.
After being met with his subordinate’s opposition, Airen finally ground out the words in a slightly sharper tone.
“If I... leave this kid here in this garbage heap, then what am I any different from the Alferios military?”
“If something happens to Lord Airen, everyone who follows you will collapse with you. For now, please turn back, and later you may blame me, Veronica, for weighing lives against one another.”
Jin Veronica’s resolve was unshakable. She was even willing to cast herself as the villain, so it became difficult for Airen to keep up his stubbornness any longer. Unlike his tightly clenched fists, there was no strength left in his lips.
In the end, Airen let out a sigh and looked away.
That was when it happened.
“If we just take him with us, that’s enough?”
The dragon priest, who had been watching like someone with no particular interest, tossed out the question. Everyone’s gaze turned to him.
“Pardon?”
“Let me say this in advance: even if you take him out of here, that doesn’t mean you can save him.”
Seherbian lifted Mimir and pointed at the slave boy.
“I haven’t heard a wish from the boy himself yet—one asking to be saved.”
It was a brutally objective, unflinching statement.
Airen froze as if he had been struck, then murmured, “I see.” If they left him like this, the child slave would certainly die. The one who had dumped the battered boy into the trash like a used-up object had surely been his master. If the owner decided it so, then even if his wounds were treated immediately, he would only end up in the same state again.
Facing that clearly visible ending, Airen wanted to save the child. He wanted to steal even from the cruel master who had abandoned the slave and preserve that tiny life.
But the child’s own will was missing from that process.
Did everyone want to live?
No. Airen understood better than anyone that there were lives that did not.
“...Still, I can’t just leave him here like this.”
“Lord Airen!”
Jin shook her head, meaning absolutely not. Just as a second clash between lord and retainer was about to break out, that dry, unhurried voice cut across them once more.
“I’ll take care of it.”
It was the dragon priest.
“You said it would be troublesome. For the leader of the Winter Knight Order to move openly like this.”
As he said that, Seherbian lowered himself into a crouch like a languid cat.
“So I’ll be the one to do that criminal act.”
“W-well... Priest, you’re one of our comrades now too, aren’t you? Wouldn’t it be the same no matter who does it?”
But there was, in fact, a clear difference. Those sunset-colored eyes, devoid of even a dust mote of seriousness, looked up at them and blinked slowly once.
“I’ll just borrow the name of Winter Bell, then.”
At those words, every one of them dropped their jaws.