Chapter 190: Oblivion (15)
TL/ED – Miso
While I was struggling to find the right words, Dersia, who had pulled a hood over my face from behind to conceal it, spoke first.
“It’s less cold.”
“Pardon?”
“There seem to be parts within these walls that are disconnected from the outside.”
…She was right.
I hadn’t noticed, but when I moved my hands, it did feel considerably less cold compared to outside.
It wasn’t a simple difference in temperature. It felt more like the Burden had lessened.
“Focus on the task at hand. Have you located Decay?”
“No.” “Then our objective remains unchanged.”
“…”
Listening to her calm tone, devoid of any rise or fall, made me feel composed as well.
She was right. Nothing had been resolved yet, and it was far too early to be caught off guard.
“Hmm…”
I gathered myself and hurried into an alleyway. The guards had started eyeing us suspiciously.
Dersia whispered a question in a low voice as we entered the alley.
“How long do you think it will take to gather information about the city?”
“I just finished.”
“?”
“It’s dinner time, so people were chatting quite a bit.”
Even now, the sounds of people laughing and chattering over their meals echoed through my head like reverberations.
It had been quite a headache at first, but living in the Capital had helped me get used to it considerably. It was especially lucky that several knights, who appeared to be officers, were conversing with grave expressions.
[When is Lord Bireum coming back?]
[It’s already been three months. No matter that he told us not to come looking for half a year, we should start putting together a rescue party soon…]
Extracting the crucial details from their hushed meeting was not a difficult task.
After a brief moment of concentration, I gave Dersia a condensed summary.
“It seems this place was the northernmost frontline, once called the Empire’s Shield. And Decay appears to be the lord of this city, a man called Bireum, who vanished suddenly three months ago and hasn’t reappeared. The soldiers have an extraordinary level of trust in Bireum, and given that they’re only hoping for his safe return despite such extreme conditions, it seems he governed quite well.”
“Jern. It has been exactly two minutes since we entered this city.”
“From my perspective, it feels like every person in this city spent two minutes pouring out their personal affairs to me, repeated about ten thousand times. I’d say that’s more than enough time to get familiar with a city.”
“…”
I ignored the look of displeasure on Dersia’s face and extended my Current Sense a bit further.
[Lady Roan. I’m just an uneducated commoner, so I can’t speak in proper formalities, but staying cooped up in your room will ruin your health. And if that happens, Lord Bireum will kill us when he returns. Your noble per… uh, is that even the right word. Anyway, it would be best to take care of yourself.]
[…Thank you for your concern, but…]
[If you have any pity for Schwenne, please at least step outside for some fresh air. Today’s relatively warm, at least.]
Inside a lavish room of the inner keep, I listened to the conversation between a slightly plump middle-aged woman and a one-eyed soldier, then tilted my head before scrunching my face in irritation.
“He was even married, apparently. He had a wife named Roan.”
“…”
“And in thirty minutes, she plans to step out onto the terrace for an evening stroll. Conveniently, there’s a vine climbing up to that terrace we can use. There are plenty of roses creating blind spots, so if we slip through the gaps, we should be able to grab her.”
“If I were a lord, I would have made absolutely certain you could never set foot in my domain.”
“Go ahead and try stopping someone from scaling the walls in the middle of the night. Let’s get moving.”
I took Dersia along and ran carefully through the alleyways without stopping even once, heading for the back side of the terrace.
All the while, my Current Sense continued picking up conversations from the castle’s residents.
[Potatoes, the potatoes actually grew…!]
[Good heavens, this is… this is nothing short of a miracle.]
[Wasn’t this something every wizard in the world had given up on as impossible? I wonder if we can ever repay Lord Bireum’s grace in this lifetime.]
[General! The Capital has sent us unrusted swords, along with an enormous supply of whetstones and oil!]
[It must have been over ten years since the last resupply. At last, we can put proper weapons in the hands of the new recruits.]
[What about us?]
[Tch, sharpen yours with the whetstones and make do.]
Praise upon praise upon praise for the lord called Bireum.
If all of this were a dream, then Decay had been caught in quite an embarrassing scene.
‘Did this all really happen?’
Of course, I doubted that the life one sees just before death would contain any lies, but the idea that a man like Decay had once been such a trusted lord was still baffling to wrap my head around.
Well, there must have been some kind of incident I had absolutely no interest in knowing about.
If it didn’t help me kill him, I couldn’t care less.
“…”
“We’re here.”
After running without rest, we managed to arrive right on time.
As I was selecting a thick enough vine to support both our weights, Dersia grabbed my chin, let out a sigh, and rubbed her wolf-fur scarf against my face.
“Hey, whaddya doin’.”
“No matter how pressed for time you are, keep track of your own condition.”
“Huh?”
The scarf Dersia pulled away was stained red.
With my nosebleed.
…I’d thought I was used to it, but it seemed I wasn’t at the level where I could use it for extended periods just yet.
“Oh, thank you.”
I wiped it off haphazardly, offered an awkward thanks, then gripped the vine and called out to her.
“I’ll be more careful from now on. Shall we climb?”
“Let’s.”
Dersia put the scarf back on with surprising nonchalance and scaled the vine up to the rose garden.
Once she reached the top and took a look around the rose garden, she furrowed her brow slightly.
“A garden with rather lacking aesthetic sensibility.”
The garden was roses, roses, and more roses.
A rose garden in the most literal sense. Even in a rose garden, staring at nothing but red roses would strain the eyes, so at the very least, different colors of roses would normally be mixed in. But this garden was simply wallpapered with roses as red as blood.
So densely packed that even the green stems were barely visible. From a distance, one might mistake it for the scene of a massacre.
But more than anything, the strangest part was that roses were growing at all in this frozen wasteland of subzero temperatures. Even if it was less cold inside the castle walls, this was not the kind of environment where plants could grow this healthily.
“She’s coming.”
Accompanied by two guards, the woman called Roan, Decay’s wife, was walking through the eerie rose garden with a tender smile.
Once she’d wandered far enough from the entrance, I immediately choked out the guards.
“Urk…!”
“Gkh…”
They didn’t even have time to scream. All that escaped was a short, stifled breath.
Thud, thump. Hearing the sound of the two large guards crumpling to the ground like puppets with their strings cut, Roan turned around with a puzzled expression.
“…Everyone?”
I was standing there.
After a very brief standoff, Roan drew in a breath.
I didn’t bother to stop her.
“Eek.”
The breath she’d drawn failed to become a scream and fizzled out.
In a situation where she couldn’t even open her mouth, I whispered quietly.
“I’ll give you about five minutes. I have no intention of harming you, so if you have any means of self-defense, please use them all. We can talk afterward.”
“…”
If she had other things on her mind, she might keep trying to pull tricks during the conversation.
Better to give her a set amount of time from the start, to let her understand with certainty that everything had already been over the moment I appeared before her. Only then could we have an honest exchange.
Roan’s eyes wavered several times as they met mine. I could see her throat bob as she swallowed, and then…
“I, I won’t scream.”
“Don’t worry. No matter what means you use to try to escape me, I swear I will not harm you. I give you my word on my family name.”
It was Dersia’s family name, anyway. Despite how firmly I’d spoken, Roan shook her head.
“My guards are knights that he specially prepared for my protection. I don’t believe I could do anything against someone who knocked out men like them in an instant. If you have something to say, you may say it now.”
“…”
She was trembling slightly, but her eyes were serious.
Good enough. I slowly opened my mouth.
“Decay… no, Bireum. There’s information I’d like to know about your husband.”
“…I thought as much.”
Roan gave a small nod as though something had clicked, then asked back with a resolute expression.
“I know this isn’t the situation for it. But, did you come from the Capital, by any chance?”
“…?”
“I heard that supplies arrived from the Capital today. I thought that if anyone were to come, today would be the only chance.”
A coincidence. Just as I was about to say so, I saw the look on her face, as if she had steeled herself for something, and slowly drew out the key.
“Jern Aspandil. I am an envoy carrying out the Empire’s orders, along with the wizard beside me. I trust that explains things.”
“Yes…”
No one would dare impersonate an envoy of the Empire. There was no surer or more gruesome way to die.
Roan, too, showed not a shred of doubt at my words, her eyes brimming with tears as she sank to her knees.
“P-please. Have mercy on this domain.”
“Huh?”
“Bireum, he… in order to protect this small domain, he ended up resorting to something dangerous…”
“Ah, yes. I understand.”
It was so obvious I understood without needing to hear the rest.
Decay must have become a Fallen after dabbling in various dangerous methods to save his domain during his lifetime. I was about to dismiss it as nothing special and simply ask where he was when…
“But Bireum already paid for his sins. With his life.”
“…What?”
“He tried numerous methods that the Empire does not permit, and one week after venturing beyond Snow Mountain, he was brought back as a cold corpse. But we couldn’t tell everyone. This castle was held together by Bireum alone. If they learned he was dead, it would all fall apart…”
“Wait, what did you say?”
I scowled in irritation.
Dead. Decay was dead.
Which meant the Death’s Flashback should have ended.
How could a dream seen by someone on the verge of death persist after death itself? And yet, we were still trapped in this world.
“I always thought that someday, the Capital would notice the reports had stopped and send someone to investigate. B-but. The things he did that went against the Empire were never for the sake of rebellion. They were truly to protect this castle…”
“I’ll need to verify this.”
“…Excuse me?”
“Take me to Bireum’s grave.”
“Ah, yes…”
Roan left the garden and led us along a path free of guards to a small burial site.
A small grave with no headstone, no marker.
“This is his grave. B-but… please, anything but an autopsy…”
“…That won’t be necessary.”
My Current Sense reached the coffin resting beneath the earth.
It was scrutinizing that face.
There were a few similarities to Decay. The clothing matched as well.
At the very least, it did appear to be the same person depicted in the statue of Bireum.
“Um…”
“…Go back for now. We’ll discuss this matter after we’ve had a chance to talk.”
I met Dersia’s eyes and sent Roan away.
For a moment, silence hung between us at the graveside.
“So, Master.”
“Yes.”
I was the one who broke the silence at the grave. Scratching my head, I brought it up in a casual, offhand tone.
“This Death’s Flashback we’re in right now. It’s all memory, right?”
“You’re thinking too drastically.”
Dersia sighed. At first glance, the exchange might have seemed like a conversation that didn’t connect, but it was the opposite.
Dersia had grasped the intent of my question immediately.
“Decay is not in this city. If he were, you would have noticed. Even if we killed every citizen, all it would accomplish is the self-justification that this isn’t really murder.”
“Because there doesn’t seem to be any other option at the moment.”
“Why would there not be? Do you truly think it’s that likely the corpse down there is Decay?”
“…”
She was right. It was hard to confirm that a body was Decay’s based solely on a few similarities and matching clothes.
It might be possible with someone else. But Decay was a man with a Abyss Realm. He was capable of anything.
“It’s far more likely that the real Decay hid his true objective somewhere in Snow Mountain and left behind a fake corpse. In that case, rather than tipping him off with indiscriminate slaughter and giving him a chance to flee, it would be wiser to use this castle as a base, thoroughly survey the surrounding area, and then act. There’s no rush.”
“A sound judgment.”
I could understand it perfectly well, over and over. Her argument was flawless, the textbook correct answer.
“But the limit is approaching.”
“You’re exaggerating. Granted, you do look a bit worn, but the person I know could easily hold out for several more months.”
“It’s not me who can’t endure.”
I looked Dersia straight in the eyes.
“Master. Please take off your gloves.”
“…Hmm, perhaps I should have learned some acting.”
She let out a sigh with a troubled expression, but she did not remove her gloves.
That confirmed it. The coat she wore carried a significance beyond merely withstanding the cold.
“Did you check with your Current Sense?”
“I didn’t do anything like that. I’m just not an idiot.”
No matter how bizarrely resilient elves were to cold, Decay’s Extreme Ice was a phenomenon far too grotesque to simply call “cold”.
Enduring it for one month, two months, no, not that scale. Three years.
Enduring that without any Mana… it was an unimaginable ordeal.
“We need immediate results, or at least something to show for the situation.”
“Jern.”
That was the source of my impatience.
Dersia gently shook her head as if to calm me.
“I can regenerate something like a hand or a foot any number of times. Speaking without even a hint of exaggeration, I believe that if I’m willing to sacrifice a few body parts, I can hold out for at least six more years. And given that much time, we might find a way out even without hunting down Decay.”
“I don’t want to see that happen to you.”
“…”
I had to find a way.
A way for Dersia to return with her body intact.
“…Still, I’d prefer you didn’t think too hastily. I didn’t mention it because it’s an overly optimistic contingency, but if Decay is still alive, he would have aged considerably, so there’s also the possibility he could die of natural causes and we’d be sent back.”
“No, just because he ages doesn’t mean…”
As I was about to argue, a certain possibility surfaced in my mind.
“Ah.”
“…Jern?”
“M-Master. Hold on a moment.”
“??”
I gazed toward the inner keep and slowly extended my Current Sense, and then…
I scrunched my face into the deepest scowl I could manage and muttered.
“…That’s the worst-case scenario, but it’s also the answer.”
Decay.
He was inside this castle, right now.