Chapter 984: You Truly Are Beautiful

“How many children does the emperor have?”

It had been a casual question. He had not even been trying to get an answer. He had only thrown it out to get the conversation moving. That was how it started, and then, out of nowhere, the answer came back that the emperor had no need to bear children personally.

‘The emperor is a woman.’

That was the conclusion he had ended up with somehow. Shinar’s influence had not been limited to Seriana alone.

Valmung was, in effect, the captain of the escort for every Imperial figure traveling with them, Seriana included.

He had acted as though nothing bothered him, but he had been wary of Shinar and kept an eye on her. Especially when Enkrid approached him asking for a spar, with the dragonkin, the witch, and the fairy all coming over in a line, and the dragonkin offering to go first while the fairy stepped forward as though no one would dare go before her—at moments like that, Valmung seriously wondered what in the world this was supposed to be.

And then he let the words slip.

He had meant to say that no one should dare covet the position of the deified emperor, that even without anything based on bloodline, the Emperor of the Empire was overwhelming, and that was why he had added the figure of speech about not needing to bear children personally.

“My lord!”

Mol cried out, and Valmung realized his mistake and nodded.

Should he be alarmed?

There was no need.

“You’ll find out when you get there anyway, so why do you keep poking at it?”

He asked it back as though it were nothing.

“The more I know before I arrive, the better, right?”

Enkrid answered just as casually.

“And then you’ll leave what you learn behind for those kingdom people trailing along in the rear?”

Valmung asked again.

Two of the Royal Guards had been leaving notes and letters all along the road. For example, as soon as they reached camp, they would tuck one away in places like the stump beneath a branch they had broken off under the excuse of gathering kindling.

If they were going to light a fire, then why were they snapping green branches?

It was the kind of mistake made by people who did not look used to life in the field the way rangers were.

Valmung, on the other hand, was thoroughly accustomed to a wandering life.

More than anything, he was not as dull as he looked. Enkrid knew he had noticed. He also knew Valmung would let it slide even knowing.

That was why it did not matter if the Royal Guards acted a little clumsy.

“So what, then? You’re doing this for fun? Is this some little game where one side hides things and the other side deliberately digs them out, just so the road won’t be boring?”

One side hid things, one side tried to uncover them. It was no different from a card game.

Valmung did not sound displeased. There was only pure curiosity in it.

Enkrid answered.

“That too.”

Strictly speaking, it was something the big-eyed one under his command had ordered. Kraiss’s anxieties were not always right, but his actions always had reasons. Why do things this way now? Because it was information needed to ease his anxiety, and the bare minimum of preparation.

Hadn’t Crang agreed and stepped in actively as well?

“It makes the trip less boring, doesn’t it?”

Crang added that from the side. To him, it might truly have looked like an amusing little game to play on the road.

Just as Crang saw Enkrid as a madman, Enkrid and the others did not exactly regard Crang as normal either.

What kind of king trusted in what, exactly, to march out like this?

If one looked at it carefully, he did have plenty to rely on, including the protection of Paradise Water. Even so, the risk was enormous. Of course, the gain to be had from bearing that risk was also enormous, which was why he was doing it.

“I’ve spent too long on idle thoughts. Let’s spar.”

They had gotten an interesting piece of information. The emperor was a woman. Instead of sighing, Valmung flicked a glance at Shinar and changed the subject.

“I’ve seen plenty of crazy fairies in my life. She’ll be all right, I assume?”

“If you mean me, then no, I will not. I suffer from a sickness that drives me mad if my fiancé does not hold me once each night.”

The crazy fairy started spouting jokes. Valmung did not like that very much.

Enkrid answered in her place.

“She’s fine.”

If she was joking, then she was perfectly normal.

“So you hold her once every night?”

Valmung asked.

“That isn’t how it is.”

As he answered, Enkrid extended his sword. As always, the spar was not an excuse. In a way, this was the real purpose. That was simply the kind of man Enkrid was.

Information about the Empire. Stories about the emperor. For the moment, he forgot all of it.

Valmung too had accumulated quite a bit over the last several days. He intended to use this chance to work the frustration out of his system.

The moment their intentions aligned, their momentum drew itself inward. Their wills had met, so words were no longer necessary.

Valmung began.

The squared club shot forward like a point. It was a thrust as fast as lightning. Enkrid gripped his sword with both hands and blocked it with the flat of the blade, using it like a shield.

Clang!

The spar began as a clash of force against force. Both of them were monstrous enough that the impact made their hands go numb. Valmung twisted his lips upward.

“You’ve got some damn strength on you.”

He muttered it. Instead of answering, Enkrid moved his feet. Chasing after the retreating Valmung, he closed the distance and brought his sword down.

It was a crown split clean enough to belong in a manual.

Valmung knocked that aside as well.

Several exchanges followed.

No matter how enjoyable fighting was, neither of them was foolish enough to spend all his strength without knowing what lay ahead. Both kept a suitable distance and swung their weapons without going all out.

Of course, even that alone left Shinar watching in admiration.

‘My fiancé.’

You’ve grown again.

She herself had broken through a wall, but he had not spent that time idly either.

‘Yes. That’s how my fiancé should be.’

She had always found that kind of bearing and that kind of presence beautiful, and that had not changed now.

The dragonkin admired it as well. Temares, however, observed not only Enkrid, but also the movements of his opponent. His pupils narrowed into vertical slits, then widened again and again.

He was watching every bit of the spar.

If it became a fight to the death, Enkrid looked to hold the advantage. But in a knight’s battle, one could not carelessly declare who would win or lose. Especially not at that level.

Then what was the meaning of this spar?

‘Interesting.’

Temares could plainly see Enkrid’s purpose in sparring with that man. And the man facing him accepted it with unhurried ease.

‘One is trying to grasp and learn the traits the other possesses. The other is fully willing to teach them.’

Temares’s eye was exact.

Watching how Valmung handled his weapon, Enkrid learned and absorbed one thing after another. It was not as though he had suddenly become something clearly different from before. It was still an extension of the swordsmanship he already knew and practiced.

What was the heart of Valmung’s technique?

‘Precision.’

And a meticulousness that paid attention even to the smallest details.

If one insisted on describing his weapon skill in words, it was like slaughtering an ox with a thin pocketknife no longer than a finger joint.

‘Though it looks like the opposite.’

Seen from the way he used a technique that did not suit the shape of his weapon, the comparison still held.

His main weapon was a squared, heavy blunt instrument, and yet he wielded it like a master sword that would split flesh open the instant it touched armor, weapon, or skin.

‘So he had originally been hiding a technique that affected anything it touched—weapon, armor, flesh.’

That was what could be inferred from his habits and mannerisms.

In any case, Enkrid focused all his effort on reading Valmung’s smallest movements through the spar.

Seeing something once did not mean he could immediately do it. Even so, things like this helped simply by watching and trying once to reproduce them with his own body.

That kind of fineness, utterly unlike his appearance, was something that must have saved Valmung’s life over and over again.

Enkrid focused on the spar without caring who watched. He struggled to learn even one more thing. If he could learn and master even a single characteristic of Valmung’s technique, he would do whatever it took. As though that alone were the essence of the moment, he gave it everything he had.

Only when the spar came to an end did he return to the original subject.

“If there’s no need for children, then it isn’t because of succession, is it?”

At the question, asked as he wound the spar down, Valmung narrowed his brow.

“You really mean to keep prying to the bitter end? Fine. I’ll give you an answer that should satisfy me, at least.”

That was Mol, the one who had raised his voice earlier. To him, the emperor was a god. Even now, he was holding back only because Valmung was the one doing this. If it had been anyone else, blades would already have been out.

‘Brainwashing? Can someone really hold that kind of reverence for no reason?’

This question had not been aimed at Valmung but at Mol, his attendant. Looking at his reaction made it easier to judge the emperor’s status.

“Go and see for yourself. His Imperial Majesty does not go anywhere.”

Valmung gave that answer as though that were the whole of it. Naturally, it was not an answer that truly cleared things up. Still, if that was the best he would give, then so be it.

Enkrid nodded calmly and thought,

‘Does not go anywhere?’

Valmung did not realize it, but Enkrid was gathering information even from those words.

‘Bound to one place?’

Why? An oath? A restriction? Some kind of magical force at work?

Did having no need to bear children mean the emperor had lived that long?

‘Or is the emperor only a symbol?’

Had those two syllables—emperor—been reduced to a concept alone? Not something existing as a person.

‘No. Not that.’

He still knew too little to reach all the way to the truth. But one thing was certain: the emperor was not merely a concept.

Mol’s reaction would make no sense if that were the case.

That evening, partly to soothe Valmung’s nerves, Enkrid kept Shinar at his side and made it clear that he could control her.

“She will not do anything that harms Lady Seriana.”

“So now you’re calling her Lady again.”

Valmung answered sullenly to that.

“I think we’ve finished enough of sounding each other out.”

Seriana heard that as well from beside them. She had also been observing them all this time.

Enkrid, the witch who made Nephir Teshir cower, the king of Naurillia, even the barbarian from the west.

Watching the witch react to a trivial provocation had been amusing in its own way. At the same time, she had once more thought that the man she had set her sights on was anything but easy.

‘Scheming, yet upright.’

That was what she thought as she looked at Enkrid. Then she realized her own mistake as well. In the end, they had apparently tormented Sir Valphir and managed to get a few words out of him.

“Has all the interesting part already passed?”

After some thought, Seriana asked that.

“Again?”

Shinar reacted at once with a single sharp word, but Enkrid stopped her. Keeping her tucked close at his side, seated squarely between the two of them, was enough.

“The rule of law. The burdens of an executor. The many kinds of people who move the Empire. I listened to all of that with great interest. The only thing neatly left out was the matter of the emperor.”

“Perhaps not for the two of you, but there are many who would think even speaking His Majesty’s name is irreverent.”

“The Empire sounds like a religious order serving the emperor. Am I mistaken?”

“It is not a religious order, but there are indeed many who revere that person as though worshiping a god. For example, Sir Mol there, who follows as an attendant.”

At those words, the attendant Mol lifted his head. His drooping eyes gave him a harmless impression.

To be Valmung’s attendant meant he was someone who followed Valmung’s words faithfully and learned from him. Naturally, one would expect a weapon similar to Valmung’s hanging at his waist as well. But what Mol actually carried was a narrow-bladed rapier.

Enkrid roughly understood why. Valmung’s technique must have begun from rapier work.

In any case, as attention centered on Mol, Seriana spoke again.

“His Majesty showed a miracle for Sir Mol’s sake. It was sacrifice, and it was love.”

Even though the subject had turned to him, Mol said nothing. He merely listened in silence.

Even that attitude held reverence for the emperor.

“There are truly many who have received His Majesty’s grace like that.”

It sounded as though Seriana counted herself among them.

Enkrid nodded calmly. After that, the talk mostly turned to trifles and to confirming the route ahead.

The Royal Guards who had been leaving letters behind were no longer able to continue after a few more days passed. They were climbing a harsh mountain path now. There was no one who could come fetch the letters.

“I’ll carry you.”

Valmung hoisted Seriana onto his back. The road was rough, and there was nothing else for it.

“What a shame. Someone else might have been the one carrying me.”

Seriana tossed out the joke. Shinar’s eyebrow twitched, and Esther’s finger flicked once.

Now that she had gotten over her confusion, Seriana found the reactions of those two extremely entertaining. In that respect, she stood a level above the witch and the fairy.

“Carry me too. My legs hurt.”

That came from the fairy, who in the mountains neither lost her way nor showed anything less than twice her usual vigor.

“Whose legs? Are my legs hurting?”

Enkrid accepted the joke with practiced ease, and Crang, unable to hold back, laughed before asking,

“I didn’t know you loved jokes that much.”

Crang and Shinar had known each other longer than either had known Enkrid.

“For my fiancé, what could I possibly not do?”

“So asking to be carried is for my sake?”

When Enkrid answered like that again, Shinar closed her mouth. She was a mature fairy, and so she knew how to keep quiet when necessary.

“My legs—hm, no.”

Esther awkwardly tried to imitate Shinar, then gave up.

“Shall I carry you? Your legs are probably fine, but my back is broad.”

Temares said that while standing in front of Enkrid. Once they entered the northern mountain range, he had taken it upon himself to guide the way. Enkrid looked at a back half the size of his own and said,

“No need.”

The dragonkin accepted that. He was still direct, with no habit of wrapping his words. Though seeing him again after so long, he had certainly changed a great deal.

“You are stained.”

That was what he said of Seriana, now that he was taking interest in those around him rather than ignoring them entirely.

“You should have drowned yourself in spells, yet instead you drowned yourself in worldly desire and lost your mind. You look exactly like a sheep that has lost its way.”

That was how he judged Nephir Teshir.

And when he looked at Valmung—

“You truly are beautiful. Let us clasp those hands together once.”

—he said that, which made one seriously question his eye for beauty.

Though if one listened to what lay beneath it, he seemed to believe that anyone who seized life by his own effort was beautiful, so perhaps he was seeing something inward instead.

“Are all dragonkin perverts?”

Valmung muttered it while rubbing his thickly bearded jaw. The thought accompanying it was simple enough.

There really isn’t a single normal human being on this side.

That was when they had been traveling for some time and had entered the Pen-Hanil Range. If they turned east from there, they would pass straight into Imperial territory without even stopping by Border Guard.

Everyone kept a reasonable amount of vigilance. There should have been some sign nearby—monster, demonic beast, or at the very least some witless wild animal.

And then someone more dangerous than any monster, demonic beast, or wild animal appeared.

“I’ve waited a long time.”

There were some among them for whom these people were strangers, but for most of them, they were familiar faces.

“I heard you meant to use us as gatekeepers. I don’t think I ever gave you a proper answer to that. So I’ll give it now.”

There were three blocking the road. One woman, one middle-aged man, and one young man.

The one who had spoken was the young man.

His name was Riley Zaun.

The son of Heskal, who had become a traitor to protect the Zaun family, and now a proud member of that same family in his own right—a limping swordsman.