Chapter 68 : Weimar Wigma
Chapter 68. Weimar Wigma
“Out of the way, out of the way! You lowly things!”
The man who had dismounted from the sperm whale Seaborn, flapped his clothes about as he spoke.
“I am Brodin, Prince of Arsen, passing through!”
He stepped onto the harbor without a single attendant. Rather than making any effort to avoid the people blocking his path, he instead pushed forward shamelessly.
“Move aside!”
“Tsk!”
“Get out of the way, get out of the way.”
It was obvious that the people he collided with were cursing him out internally. The looks directed at him were anything but friendly.
Watching the scene, Yul turned to Lucian.
“What’s with that guy?”
“They say he’s a prince of the small kingdom of Arsen. And the reason people avoid him is because of the difference in status. The academy accepts talent without discrimination, so there are many commoners as well as nobles.”
“A prince?”
“Even so, I’ve heard his situation is rather pitiful.”
“Why?”
“He doesn’t have a single attendant with him, right? Normally, other nobles bring one or two with them. Even I, as a branch of a count’s family holding the title of viscount, still travel with attendants.”
“Now that you mention it?”
Yul looked at the household servants who had disembarked from Rohakim’s ship.
They had little presence, but they had boarded together with Yul and Lucian and sailed all the way here.
“I’ve heard he doesn’t receive much support, even from the Kingdom of Arsen. He was the fourth son, I think.”
Unlike the other students who were cursing the prince they had just passed, Lucian seemed to feel some sympathy for him.
“Wigma Academy has its own dormitory district. And there are separate quarters exclusively for attendants as well.”
“Oh, really?”
“There should also be exclusive quarters for Seaborns, but those are meant for sea creatures, you know? The lower levels are probably submerged in seawater. Since you’re polymorphed into a human, Yul, I’m not sure where you should stay.”
“I can just stay in the attendants’ quarters.”
“No. We can’t have you staying there.”
“Hm. Wait a bit, I’ll find something myself.”
“Huh?”
“Just say I’m an independent Seaborn. Tell me where your dorm is, and I’ll look around the academy on my own.”
Yul parted ways with Lucian and decided to look around. There was an overwhelming amount to see.
‘Wigma Academy looks like it was made by modifying reefs or islands.’
It wasn’t built directly atop the sea. It seemed they used reefs or islands as a base, then hauled stone onto them and piled on soil and sand.
At the center stood a strangely shaped shrine that served as the island’s landmark.
In the island’s center, instead of academy buildings, there were many separate facilities. There were also quite a few merchants.
‘There’s no way there wouldn’t be lodging.’
He spotted an inn with a peculiar name.
[The Fire-Breathing Hans Inn]
Even though it was an academy, it wouldn’t be only students living here, so he had expected inns—and sure enough, there was one.
Yul took out the stipend he had received from the Beltein family and paid for a room at the inn.
‘The layout feels like a tavern.’
The interior leaned closer to early modern than purely medieval.
The first floor was used as a dining hall, while the second and third floors were for lodging.
The people staying here looked to be of fairly high status. Their clothes suggested they might be students’ family members.
Or perhaps simply travelers who had come to see an academy built on the sea.
“Sir, will you be having lunch?”
The owner asked if he wanted a meal, and Yul said yes. He chose something with potatoes—hash browns, mushroom soup, and grilled bread with jam.
The prices seemed higher than on land, but no one appeared to mind much.
‘There’s the transport cost, too.’
As Yul waited for his meal, a small boy in suspenders entered the inn.
“Newspapers for sale.”
Seeing that the owner didn’t pay him much mind, it seemed he had permission.
“Give me one.”
After paying a few coins, Yul took a newspaper from the boy. The headline was printed in large letters.
《Shocking! The Conspiracy Behind the Hero's Death.》
Unbelievable. From the very first line, he was drawn in.
《After the fall of the Empire, the Hero Sone headed to the eastern front to defeat the Demon King. Most people believed that the Hero Sone defeated the Demon King, and then she fell after exhausting all her strength, but that was not the truth. There was a betrayal by a companion behind her death…….》
“What is this! It’s fabricated!”
“The hero died because of betrayal!?”
Those words hadn’t come from Yul. Gentlemen who, like him, had bought and read the newspaper were shouting in outrage.
Ignoring them, Yul continued reading the article.
《The Empire’s fourth prince sought to eliminate the hero’s influence in order to rebuild the ruined Empire. He issued a secret order to the hero’s companion, the mage Judah Hillcliff, and plotted her assassination. After the Battle of the Yerin River and the defeat of the Demon King, a gunshot was fired into the back of the Hero Sone. With newly developed forensic techniques, it was revealed that the bullet which pierced her back was identical to ammunition fired from Judah Hillcliff’s pistol…….》
‘Why is the traitor’s name Judah…….’
Yul got hung up on a strange detail, but for the people around him, that part didn’t matter in the slightest.
“Prepare the ship! I’m heading to the mainland at once!”
“We need to track down the ones who made this newspaper!”
“Is this real?”
“Wait, don’t jump to conclusions! How can we know whether it’s real or fake……”
Yul leisurely sipped his coffee. To him, everything from the very beginning was unfamiliar.
First of all, he didn’t even know why the Empire had fallen.
‘I’m pretty sure Ian once told me that many nations, unable to find room to expand because a massive state called the Empire stood firm, were seeking a way out through the sea.’
That brief history lesson had been the limit, but Yul found himself growing increasingly interested in this world’s history.
Perhaps this was something he should investigate later as a personal hobby. Just as his meal arrived and he began eating, someone spoke to him.
“You’re quite calm, aren't you?”
A man who looked to be in his fifties, dressed in a black suit. With thick eyebrows and drooping eyes, he looked somewhat like a black bear, yet his expression suggested someone brimming with scholarly zeal.
He was seated at the table right next to him.
“That’s because I don’t even know what it’s about. Why did the Empire fall? As far as I remember, it was perfectly fine up until ten years ago.”
“Have you been hiding somewhere for the past ten years? The fall of the Empire is something even rural villages know about.”
“In that sense, I suppose I was somewhere remote.”
The man spoke as if intrigued.
“If I tell you the story, will you listen?”
“If you tell me, it’ll save time. That sounds good.”
He had originally planned to go look it up in the library.
“Starting from ten years ago, then. Hmm. Yes, that will do. Within the Empire, there was a place called Epellerune. A gigantic cavern reaching tens of meters in scale. No one knew how far underground it extended. It is said that even the scholars within the Empire were astonished by its depth.”
“And then?”
“And ten years ago, enormous monsters awakened within Epellerune. It coincided with the time when the Great Catastrophe was occurring in the sea.”
“Ah.”
So, while the Heaven and Earth Resonance was throwing the world into chaos, something was happening on land as well?
“A terrifying number of orcs crawled out along the cavern walls. The sheer scale could only be called astronomical. Those monsters began slaughtering humans indiscriminately. The Empire sent its armies to subjugate them, but all were stopped by the one who led them—the orc known as the Demon King, Groll Bardum.”
That name sounded strong.
“The subjugation forces were instead crushed, and the Demon King advanced on the Citadel, the heart of the Empire, reducing the capital to complete ruins. Most of the Imperial nobility died there. After that, the same thing was repeated elsewhere. Killing, destroying, burning……. By that point, the Imperial army had lost its ability to function. Within the Empire, people began walking the path of every man for himself. At that time, the three western coastal nations, despite suffering massive damage from a great tsunami, still sent countless adventurers and heroes eastward.”
“So there was a Hero Party.”
“Exactly. Sone Helbig. Though originally from Blücher, she spent most of her life in Frangia. She was an excellent commander and warrior. And the same went for her companions.”
Sone Helbig, Judah Hillcliff, Yarel Faegan, Andros Rolben, and Ig Sigkhardt.
It was a remarkably unconventional composition for a Hero Party.
Yarel Faegan was a Moon Elf who had been living in seclusion within the Empire. He possessed outstanding archery skills and a gentle charisma.
Judah Hillcliff, said to be the traitor, had exceptional magical ability, but before the Demon King appeared, he had worked as a low-ranking Imperial civil servant.
Andros Rolben had been a cook from Serland, a frontier state of the Empire, but after the Demon King incident, he awakened as a necromancer.
Ig Sigkhardt was a woodcutter, a descendant of Vikings who lived in the Empire’s southern desert region.
Together, they drove back the orcs, and those who were impressed by their deeds began to gather. Eventually, an entire army formed around the heroes.
Vast support poured in for Sone Helbig, and she unified those with differing opinions through sheer strength and charisma.
The final battle. On the most exalted Hill of Haphelie, the Hero and the Demon King clashed, and it was said that they both perished together.
At least, until this newspaper began circulating.
“From what I see in the paper, it’s clear. The age of heroes has ended. From here on, it will be an age of politics and intrigue. Adventurers will form their own factions and establish adventurer states.”
The man spoke with words bordering on emptiness.
“What happened to the heroes?”
“Judah Hillcliff—according to what’s written here—was executed. Whether it’s true or not, I can’t say, but if it is true, then this is a textbook case of cutting off the tail. The other heroes each went their own way. Some built their own power bases, some went into seclusion, some returned to their homelands.”
“Hah. Things you’d expect to find only in history books.”
“Indeed. That such events, which you’d expect from thousands of years ago, happened just as civilization was emerging from its long slumber—it’s enough to drive anyone mad.”
No matter the era, humans long for heroes. The Hero Party stood out in that regard as well.
‘If this were Earth, it’d be like heroic legends suddenly appearing right before people’s eyes in the late 1700s. King Arthur, Joan of Arc, that sort of thing.’
From what he had heard, the Empire lay in complete ruins, with no one left capable of seizing governing authority.
The last surviving imperial bloodline, the Empire’s fourth prince, had been the strongest candidate, but after the hero assassination incident, he fell completely from grace and retired.
“That was an interesting story.”
“The pleasure was mine. Thank you for listening. Whenever I talk about history, everyone falls asleep, even though it’s this fascinating.”
“Right?”
History as a genre is fairly niche. There aren’t as many people as one might think who enjoy tales of the past.
“Are you a newly enrolled student as well?”
“No. Are you a professor?”
“That’s right. I teach in the Department of Magic Engineering.”
“Hm? Are you Quentin Blackmoore?”
“Huh? How do you know my name?”
To think he’d run into Professor Quentin here. Yul spoke up at once.
“Don’t you think magic engineering should separate the engraving of rune scripts from the physical shaping of objects? Don’t you think the people who design and develop rune scripts should be separated from those who engrave them? The separation of software and hardware, in other words.”
“Oho.”
Unlike when he had been speaking about history, the man now widened his eyes as if he were about to devour Yul whole.