Chapter 249 : Chapter 249
Chapter 249: Harein (4)
She felt as though she were looking at a lion.
The impression was correct.
“A lion…!”
The six warriors who had been about to lunge at Harein all reined themselves in at once. Shock replaced the vile glitter in their eyes.
“We pay our respects to the Wise Norbu.”
As one, they dropped to a single knee.
Aura could sometimes serve as unmistakable proof of status.
Serzila’s jet-black Aura was one example. That fire-like Aura was another. It was the Aura of Norbu.
That was why Norbu did not believe in gods.
Deep within the desert there burned a fire that never went out. The desert’s Aura resembled that fire.
In his previous life, Harad had lived far removed from the desert.
This was his first time seeing Norbu with his own eyes.
Harein stared at that Aura of Norbu.
It was not the first time she had seen Aura related to heat, and yet—
‘It’s hot.’
The Aura of Norbu was more direct.
It was Aura, but Harein felt that it was closer to fire than to Aura. That vague impression came over her.
“Becoming a slave is not disgraceful.”
The man said it.
His voice was full of authority. His bearing even more so.
“I trust that, in the end, you will choose wisely.”
The desert was a land that rejected stupidity and pursued wisdom.
Becoming a slave was not, in itself, proof of lacking wisdom.
But becoming a slave, then knowing you would be executed and still throwing yourself into immediate pleasure—that was utterly unwise.
There was no undoing it now.
If so, they had to make the next wisest choice.
“Now then. Die at once.”
The man ordered them to kill themselves.
The six warriors flinched.
Only for an instant. Then each turned their Aura toward their own heart.
Just as Serzila’s word was law in the North, the word of Norbu was law in the desert.
“I believe he said killing them was not allowed.”
That was when Harein spoke.
The Norbu man tilted his head.
His tangled yellow hair swayed like a mane.
“Do you think death too severe? Softer than you look.”
“You foolish Norbu.”
The warriors who had been about to kill themselves coughed awkwardly.
The Norbu man, however, grew interested.
“Speak.”
“If they die, why would they die?”
“Because I willed their deaths.”
“That is from your point of view. Speak from the auction house’s. Naturally, the cause would be me. The only thing that changed was that I entered this place.”
“You interpret too much.”
“Do you truly think so?”
Harein theatrically shook back her hair.
The Norbu man stared at her for a long moment, then nodded.
“It is not excessive.”
“So long as you understand that now. Conduct yourself properly.”
In Serzila, they would have ignored it and killed them anyway.
Ellen would have knocked them unconscious.
That place, unlike ordinary Serzila, had Harad’s influence mixed into it.
What would Norbu do?
“Dina.”
The Norbu man spoke.
Harein quickly realized it was a person’s name. The lovely woman trembling in the corner dropped to one knee before him.
“Yes. You kill them, and you get thrown out.”
The woman stood and walked toward the six warriors.
Her fingers were her weapon.
Thud.
She drove them through chests and punched holes through hearts. The warriors did not resist. They quietly awaited death, and then they died.
After killing all six, the woman forced the iron bars open and stepped outside. Not long after, there was a brief disturbance in the corridor. The sound of the woman who had turned herself in being driven out from underground.
“Do you think that was proper conduct?”
The Norbu man asked with a smile.
Harein smiled back.
“You move between wisdom and stupidity. I like that.”
Appropriately foolish, appropriately wise.
The desert’s Norbu resembled the sort of knight Harad had wanted.
“So then, Harein, does that mean you are mine now?”
“Spare me your nonsense.”
“Not yet, then.”
“…….”
And yet that Norbu man was strange.
***
Come to think of it, Serzila tended toward the pretty side.
She was not referring to Elaine. That one was fake.
Grand Duke Aratus, if one looked closely, was handsome.
Now he was like a Magical Beast, but once he must have resembled Elaine.
The Norbu man before her was manly.
She did not know whether all Norbu were like that, but at least that man was.
His body was well-tanned and thick with muscle. His yellow hair, yellow eyes, and confidence-filled face truly belonged to a lion.
‘A lion.’
Serzila’s symbol was the white lion.
That did not mean it wished to become a king like a lion.
The white lion had been the quarry hunted by the first Serzila, the one who built the Wall.
He had slain a 6th Rank Magical Beast and made that legend the symbol of his house.
Perhaps that was why Serzila had a custom of showing off one’s prey. The reason Grand Duke Aratus displayed his prey in the ducal residence was likely tied to that.
—It is the ones who lack things who boast.
Grand Duke Elaine of his previous life had ignored that custom.
In Harad’s view, only that Grand Duke could have said such a thing.
‘The North is a honey badger. The desert is a lion.’
That absolutely did not mean the desert was greater.
The North was the continent’s wall. That was why the continent feared it and still secretly looked down on it at the same time. It had never experienced it directly.
Because the North had never pointed its sword at the continent.
The continent, on the other hand, had already experienced Norbu.
Norbu, once an empire, had been defeated and reduced, but it had left a powerful impression on the continent. There was a reason the desert still revered Norbu.
“I am Parus al Norbu. If said in full, it would be much longer.”
Norbu emphasized paternal bloodlines.
There would originally have been countless names between Parus and al, starting with his father and going back quite far.
“What is your question? Speak, and I will answer.”
Parus said it with a downward gaze.
Harein found the attitude familiar.
‘So he really is Norbu.’
Bahav Enverque had been the same. Those born to rule were usually like that. Compared to them, the Grand Heir Elaine, rumored to be the next tyrant, was humble.
“I doubt you would know.”
“I am Norbu.”
“So what.”
“…….”
Parus’s eyes widened.
That too was a trait of those born to rule. Having been indulged all their lives, rejection was unfamiliar to them.
“I am not a slave. Like you, Harein, I infiltrated this place because there is something I seek.”
It was a line of thought much like this side’s.
“Wise Harein. You know this. I can help you.”
That was true enough.
He had arrived at a similar plan and infiltrated first as a fellow slave. In a sense, Parus was Harein’s senior.
“I am looking for a child.”
“An obedient girl around eleven years old.”
Parus said it.
It seemed he had eavesdropped on Kubel’s conversation with the old man.
That was not surprising.
Rather, it would have been stranger if he had failed to hear it. The Aura Parus had shown was formidable indeed.
“Is she your daughter, Harein?”
“She is.”
Harein nodded at once.
“She will become my daughter soon enough.”
“…….”
So much for the desert being open-minded.
“I already have someone.”
“Seizing what one wants is common. The more difficult it is, the more exciting it becomes.”
Parus was even more deranged over women than she had expected.
“My daughter was captured as a slave? That should be illegal… no, that is meaningless. If she was captured, that is why you came.”
“She was captured. But I do not know whether she was brought here.”
“So she was captured, but you do not know whether she was taken as a slave.”
Parus understood at once.
For Harein, it was a fresh experience.
A desert warrior—by continental terms, a knight. It had been a long time since she had met one who was so easy to speak with.
‘Because he’s someone high up?’
Now that she thought of it, Bahav Enverque had used his head well too.
That was how no one realized he was less insane than he seemed.
‘Are we the strange ones?’
Well, Ellen could be clever sometimes too.
“There are five underground sections in this auction house. This is the center. There is one each to the east, west, south, and north. I placed my people in all of them.”
Unlike Harein’s improvised approach, Parus seemed to have prepared for this properly before infiltrating.
“The youngest girl was thirteen.”
Harein frowned.
There was no slave named Shura in this auction house.
That meant one of two things.
Either the Tower of Earthquakes and the auction house were unrelated, or the auction house was hiding something.
What Harein had to investigate was the latter.
Kubel and Ellen would be looking into the former. Cassion would be out making a mess of Akuldag.
“Then it must be one of two things. Your girl was not taken as a slave. Or she is related to the purpose I seek, Harein.”
Wise Norbu.
Harein was impressed in spite of herself. She did not show it.
“It must be the former. I came for nothing.”
Harein clicked her tongue and looked at the bars.
Her meaning was clear: she had no more business here and meant to leave.
“Is it hard to speak of? Then I’ll go first. What I’m seeking is a mage.”
A mage.
Parus’s purpose matched Harein’s.
“A devil. The Church will go mad. I heard Norbu was wise.”
“That is why I say this. It seems the wise course now is to seize you, Harein.”
Parus did not mind the criticism at all.
“I have spoken honestly. Now it is your turn, Harein.”
“My daughter is a mage as well.”
“You mean to cling to my explanation?”
“It is the truth.”
Eyes like a lion’s gleamed silently.
Harein did not look away. Then she realized she had been seen through. He was even wiser than expected.
“She is a mage. But not my daughter.”
“There.”
Only then did Parus nod.
“Fate?”
“You have an astonishing number of ways to spew nonsense.”
Harein wanted to rip off the Magical Item then and there.
But she had to endure it.
All the more so if this auction house was related to the Otherworld.
***
“The Margrave of Akuldag has betrayed the Empire.”
“Of his own will?”
“Does that matter?”
Parus answered with a question.
“It is Enverque’s land now, but that does not change the fact that he is pathetic.”
Even if his spirit had bent beneath outside pressure, betrayal was still betrayal.
Norbu did not forgive bending in the first place. Wisdom was something built atop an unbowed neck.
“It has been two days since I made myself a slave. I learned of Akuldag’s betrayal a week ago.”
He had spent five days preparing, and on the fifth he had begun.
Wise Parus also possessed decisiveness. Or perhaps the wiser he was, the quicker his preparations became.
“Why become a slave yourself? Why not use others?”
“Norbu leads from the front. That is why it is a lion.”
Because it stood at the head.
Norbu was suitably wise. When stupidity was required, it did not hesitate to be stupid. Knowing when to be stupid was part of wisdom too.
“The Margrave of Akuldag deals in slaves. And he deals in mages as well.”
Parus spoke while folding one finger after another.
“The desert is vast. Norbu held that vastness beneath it.”
No matter how wide it was, Norbu looked down upon the desert.
“Slaves are common. Capturing people into slavery is not.”
That was true.
Slavery was becoming a relic of the past.
The age of grabbing anyone and selling them as a slave was over.
“Harein, you lost a girl. But the desert has been losing people without discrimination. The commonality was discovered a week ago. They were all mages, and they were all taken to Akuldag.”
The number was not large, but neither was it small.
Parus muttered it low. It sounded almost like a lion growling.
“Compared to Enverque, the number will be clearly smaller.”
That was why Parus was furious.
The desert—Norbu—had been looked down upon. That was how he saw it. That was why he had chosen to become a slave.
“There is a place somewhere in Akuldag that handles mages. It is not this auction house. There were no abducted Norbu among the slaves.”
That was likely something Harein herself would have eventually learned.
Thanks to Parus, her predecessor here, she had bought time.
Time that mattered.
In a kidnapping, time was life.
“That is a hard story to believe.”
It was the same as Shura’s abduction.
Though she thought so, Harein pretended disbelief.
“The evidence is lacking.”
Parus had given only the result.
Harein wanted the process as well. She wanted the proof that Akuldag was handling mages.
“My secretary uncovered it. He has now gone missing. He was likely captured.”
“I could say the same thing.”
“My secretary is a mage.”
Parus said it as though daring her to try.
A secretary of Norbu blood, and a mage.
“That is the first I’ve heard of such a thing.”
“We only met today. Of course, I feel fate in you, Harein.”
“Be quiet.”
“…….”
“Speak. You have piqued my interest.”
“Mages are common in Norbu. It is merely kept secret. There is no reason to hand someone a hold over us.”
Norbu and the eastern continent where many nonhumans lived were similar in that regard. The Church drooled over both of them.
Norbu’s loose attitude toward mages would be a splendid justification.
“And yet they still dare drool.”
“The girl you are trying to save by making yourself a slave is a mage too, Harein.”
In other words, they had shared dangerous secrets with each other.
That was why Parus had so readily exposed the secret of his secretary.
“So we have become the kind who can join hands.”
Harein nodded.
A relationship like this was stronger than half-hearted trust.
“May I take your hand?”
Parus held out his hand.
Harein smacked it away with all her strength.
“There were no abducted Norbu among the slaves. Yet you still chose to become a slave. That means this auction house is connected to the abductions.”
Parus’s gaze grew more burdensome.
The desert liked the wise.
“I have seven women.”
“So?”
“Harein, I will give you second place.”
“Speak of this place instead.”
“The abducted people of Norbu all vanished after reaching this auction house. My secretary as well.”
Then Shura was somewhere in this auction house after all.
Just not in the underground where the slaves were kept.
“There is a hidden place. It will be a place only mages can reach.”
A place allowed only to mages.
Harein smiled without meaning to. Harad himself had come to Akuldag by exactly such a path.
“And what of him? Is he safe?”
There was still one more person in the cell.
Harein pointed to the handsome man still trembling in the corner.
“He is my hands and feet.”
The moment Parus said that, the handsome man stopped trembling as if it had never happened. Truly, he was wise.
“You are fortunate, Parus al Norbu.”
“I know. I met you, Harein.”
“…….”
Harein was left speechless.
The meanings were different, but the words were the same. Parus truly had been fortunate to meet her.
“Then let us add one more secret. I, too, am a mage.”
Flames rose above Harein’s palm.
Parus’s eyes widened.
“And not just any mage. The most precious mage in the world.”
If counted as a person, third.
But as a mage alone, first.
“Then it truly is fate.”
“…….”
A small disturbance rose from outside.
Someone was running down the stairs. One set of footsteps was old, the other young.
Their noisy steps crossed the entrance and followed the corridor. Then they stopped before the bars. It was the old appraiser and a woman who looked refined and composed.
“Which one of you is the one who called himself the King of Prophecy?”
The woman asked.
Anyone could see how startled she was.
‘The Otherworld.’
Parus had given her the next clue.
That woman would be carrying the clue after that.
“I am.”
Harein said it while running a hand through her abundant hair that reached her waist.
“I am Harein of the Sun.”
The one they called the King of Prophecy.
“Then the first place—”
“Be silent, my slave.”
Harein intended to take Parus with her as well.