Chapter 128 : Chapter 128
Chapter 128: Black and White (3)
“Vanguard……?”
“Yes.”
Towards the confused Ibi, Kain grinned and nodded.
“Thanks to that new type of ship that brought you here, we can now transport our warriors to the continent without worrying about losing them to the storm, unlike before.”
But that alone was not enough, Kain continued.
“We need someone who knows Tiaria inside and out.”
He said, implying she was the perfect fit.
“You grew up in Tiaria. Despite your young age, you survived on your own in the underbelly of that place. So you understand that city, and the people of that city, better than any of us.”
It’s only you, Evie.
Kain said, approaching Ibi one step at a time.
“Lead our vanguard.”
Ibi still looked at the approaching Kain with wary eyes.
However, unlike before, she did not retreat.
“So… you want me to, invade Tiaria? Leading you guys…?”
“Yes. The time has finally come, to achieve our long-cherished wish of conquering Tiaria.”
In the end, Kain came right up to Ibi again, just like before, and gently placed a hand on her cheek.
“And you, will come to rule Tiaria.”
“…!”
“As the first governor of Tiaria, Evie Midrashi.”
Ibi couldn't brush his hand away.
Instead, she froze on the spot.
“I…”
Her expression was one of a possibility she had never imagined before, now impossible to get out of her head.
“Tiaria……”
“Stand above those who have despised and ignored you.”
Kain, who was watching Ibi with a pleased expression, stroked her cheek with a gentle touch.
“Make those who looked down on you, look up to you.”
***
“Why did Kain suddenly come looking for Ibi?”
“The Baron… has sown the seeds, for the conquest of Tiaria…”
At my question, the soldier under the influence of 「Word Command」 answered in a dazed voice.
“Now is… the time to reap…”
Even as he spoke, he couldn't seem to take his eyes off my face.
“Evie is… one of the seeds the Baron sowed in Tiaria…”
Unfortunately, the soldier's words were not a metaphor.
After participating in the Tiaria expedition in the past, Kain had remained there for a while instead of returning to Krom, and had many children then.
And Ibi was one of them.
“Be more specific.”
“The Baron intentionally… exposed the seeds he had sown, to a harsh environment within Tiaria, though not as harsh as Krom…”
“…Are you talking about the slums?”
On the other hand, he gave no answer to Toric's question, making it seem as if he had just muttered to himself.
This was because he was strictly answering only my questions truthfully.
When I finally asked again, the soldier nodded and answered.
“The slums, he said, were the optimal place to sow the seeds… If they grew up in a place like that, they would naturally harbor hatred for Tiaria…”
Kain's judgment was correct.
Indeed, Ibi had always considered that place not as her home, but as a place she wanted to escape from.
“What's the plan after making them hate Tiaria?”
“To entrust the role of vanguard, for the Tiaria expedition, to the strongest seed… who survived on their own there…”
Kain had deliberately thrown his own children, including Ibi, into Tiaria, and into the worst environment there, the slums.
Like dropping his own cub off a cliff.
“But until now, they have all been failures…”
I cast 「Word Command」 once more on the soldier, who seemed to be gradually breaking free from my control as the effect weakened, and the soldier continued speaking in a captivated voice.
“The Baron's seeds, sown in Tiaria… either did not survive, in that place without even miasma… or even if they survived, they did not reach his expectations…”
They had no intention of escaping or overturning that place, but tried to settle for that small world.
“When the one who showed the most potential among the seeds, by creating their own independent force, showed such a side… the Baron was greatly disappointed…”
This was referring to the ‘boss’.
The leader of the gang, made up of dark elf half-breeds, where Ibi had spent several years before being taken in by Don Paulo.
“He was about to give up, saying it couldn't be helped if the blood of the weak was mixed in… when the last seed the Baron had sown before returning, finally sprouted…”
The one he's talking about now, is Ibi.
In short, it meant that Kain had been holding a kind of survival game to select a skilled warrior to entrust with his army.
With none other than, his own children.
“That’s, too cruel…!”
Upon hearing that truth, my companions, especially Lily, were extremely angry.
“How could he do that to his own child…!”
Lily, who rarely gets angry, seemed unable to hold it in this time.
Lily, too, having experienced being abandoned at birth, must be empathizing more with Ibi's position.
“Sister Evie…”
Therefore, she felt even more sorry for Ibi's situation, which was a little different from her own.
At least Lily's mother, Lilith, as a succubus, had the choice not to bear an unwanted child.
So Lily was, at the very least, born into this world as a fruit of love.
But Ibi was not.
“A person… that’s not something, a person would do…!”
Kain had not intended to create a child.
He had created a soldier.
With the feeling of producing a unit in a game.
And in that ‘work’, there was no affection mixed in.
He had just sown his seed as if sowing seeds in the ground.
And probably right now, Kain was cleverly hiding that truth and trying to win Ibi over.
And probably, Ibi is…
***
“……Evie.”
“Hmm?”
“…Why do you keep, calling me Evie?”
At the unexpected question, Kain showed a puzzled reaction, and Ibi moved away from his side and approached the railing.
“Looking back, everyone has been calling me Evie since I can remember. …I don't remember at all who started calling me that.”
Then she slowly shook her head.
“…Is it a name you gave me?”
At this, Kain chuckled, pfft, and answered.
“No, it's not a name I gave you.”
“Then why are you calling me…”
“Evie?”
“You're making me your heir, but you didn't even name your own child?”
“Don't misunderstand. It's because I respect you.”
“…What?”
“Instead of a name I gave you, you survived until now with that name── as Evie, and you stood before me as Evie.”
You are already a skilled fighter.
Kain said.
“The name Evie is proof of your fierce life. It is a medal of a skilled fighter. As such, this father cannot possibly take that name from you.”
“…….”
Ibi did not turn her head, but just silently looked at the black-and-white horizon.
As if looking back on her own life, which she had lived as Evie until now, in a place she couldn't see from here.
Before long, Kain slowly approached that Evie and carefully wrapped his arm around her shoulder.
And that touch, Evie did not push away any longer and accepted it obediently.
“Now, look.”
Kain, who whispered in Evie's ear, then extended his other arm, and Evie's two eyes naturally followed that arm to where his fingertips were pointing.
And so, she looked down at the view of Krom that spread out below the railing.
“From now on, this castle, this beautiful city, is your home. Your hometown, where you can always return.”
Then Kain gently raised that arm and this time, pointed beyond the horizon.
“So you don't need to run away anymore.”
Towards the place where Ibi's ‘home’, which she had always wanted to escape from, was.
“Let's take revenge together, on that city that has tormented you until now.”
A single tear fell from one of Evie's eyes as she looked at that place.
“Make it yours, Evie.”
***
“Why did Kain order Don Paulo to make people into slaves and send them here?”
“…….”
The soldier was silent.
Even though he was still under the control of 「Word Command」, as could be seen from his two eyes tinged with a faint crimson and his captivated expression.
“Where are those people now?”
When I urged him on again.
“…I do not, understand the question.”
He answered like this.
As I've said before, he can only answer within the scope of the ‘truth’ he knows.
These guys were, in the end, just minions assigned to watch us.
Therefore, to get to the truth of the conspiracy,
“…Do we have no choice but to ask him directly.”
As Toric said, we either have to ask Kain himself, who is secretly plotting the conspiracy, or.
“Or we find it ourselves.”
We had to uncover that secret ourselves.
The good thing is that I already know where to go for this.
The problem is that I can't go right now.
“Well, for now, it's Ibi.”
Yes.
I couldn't leave Ibi here.
This was partly because we literally couldn't reach the place where that truth was hidden without Ibi, the rogue of our party…
“We have to take her with us.”
But more importantly, I couldn't leave Ibi alone in this castle.
So many people have done that to Ibi until now.
We, I, couldn't do that.
『Tell me the truth.』
Therefore, I shot up from my chair and cast 「Word Command」 again on the soldier who was looking up at me.
“Where is Ibi now?”
“Before that, there is one thing we must do.”
Kain said, carefully removing his arm from Evie's shoulder.
“…A thing to do?”
“I already know how strong a fighter you are, but it seems the others here still do not.”
At that, Ibi turned to him, and Kain answered calmly.
“Hearing the plan to bring an illegitimate child and make them the heir, the other collateral family members have opposed it…”
It was only natural.
From their perspective, they must have naturally thought that they would inherit Kain's position, who still had no heir.
So there was no way they would easily accept the decision to suddenly make an illegitimate child from Tiaria, and a half-breed at that, not a pure-blood, their heir.
“Besides… not all of my kin have the same insight as the Baron… The warriors will reject, a half-breed commander…”
This was also inevitable; as I've said before, the dark elves are a race that insists on strict pure-bloodism.
So if they were suddenly told to fight under the command of a half-breed, they couldn't help but be dissatisfied.
“The Baron intends to, quell the dissatisfaction of the family members, and the doubts of the public… at once…”
“How?”
“We have this tradition, Evie.”
Kain continued in a gentle tone.
“Every time we go on an expedition, we hold a sacred ceremony to decide the vanguard.”
“A ceremony?”
“In front of all the warriors who will go on the expedition, to prove one's qualification to command them.”
“In front of them… to fight a duel with one's life on the line…”
Kain, just as he had thrown his own child, Ibi, into the slums of Tiaria, was planning to drop her off a cliff again this time.
“The one who survives that duel… becomes the vanguard of the expedition…”
This time, in a place called the arena.
Kain said.
“──Show them who you are.”
With a gentle smile on his face.