Chapter 155

Translator: Willia

It was the kind of place no one could find unless they were a local, unless they knew the surrounding terrain well.

The shallow cave offered shelter from the rain, and various traveling supplies had been stocked inside. A sort of resting place where a traveler battered by wind and rain could stop and catch their breath.

The dreary curtain of rain dared not intrude upon the heart, and the cozy campfire seemed to gently caress the soul.

The knights shared a fire among themselves, and the Monastery folk shared one among theirs. An awkward distance hung in the air between the two groups.

Ricardt and Ice were the exception. The two leaned their backs against the wall, shoulders side by side, warming themselves at a campfire meant for just the two of them. Even the comfort of the flames was nothing compared to the tenderness of their friendship.

What should he even say? Nothing in particular came to mind. But whenever their eyes met, a smile spread across their lips for no reason at all.

Memories of the days they had spent together surfaced now and then. Days beautifully wrapped in that thing called nostalgia.

All those grueling hardships, all that unspeakable pain, were now nothing more than memories gone by. To have survived like this, to be able to see each other and smile, that alone felt like it forgave everything. Whatever it may have been.

"Should I be calling you Priest now?"

Ricardt asked first, half-joking.

"No. Priest, please. I haven't even been certified by the Holy See."

"That stuff doesn't matter much. What matters is whether you're happy."

"I am. It's all thanks to you, Ricky."

Ice said it without a shred of hesitation. Ricardt turned his gaze away, embarrassed.

"I didn't do anything. You achieved it all on your own."

"Even though I let you down so many times, you never abandoned me."

"Hm? That's not right. I think you've got it wrong."

Ricardt said it as if he had no idea what Ice was talking about.

"Huh?"

"You never let me down, Ice."

He meant it. When it came to revealing his feelings, Ricardt might hide them, but he never lied about them.

This time it was Ice's turn to feel flustered, ducking his head with a smile. Then he looked back at Ricardt and spoke. The reddish glow of the campfire seemed to melt into his silver hair.

"......That's such a Ricky thing to say. You haven't changed. Strong and warm."

"You think? I don't know about that. By the way, it hasn't actually been that long, but it feels like ages. Being called Ricky, I mean. Lately I've been going by my real name."

"Ah, right. I heard bits and pieces on the wind too. I'd heard you were in Adeloron, but I didn't know you were leading a knightly order. Nobles share the same names all the time."

It would have been hard to imagine that someone who should have been in Adeloron had boarded a ship, been shipwrecked, circled through the Holy Land, gone through all manner of trials, and ended up leading a knightly order across the border into the Empire.

"An army doesn't fall from the sky or sprout from the ground, so I wore out my boots getting it done. Fortunately, sincerity won through."

"That's good to hear. So you're heading back to Adeloron with the order? I already feel sorry for your enemies. By the way, do you have kids?"

"No, not yet. I'm not sure if I'll settle down. For the time being there's work I need to do, but who knows what'll happen once time passes."

"Anyway, sounds like you're doing well. I wanted to at least check in on you now and then, but I held back because of Marie."

"What do you mean? What about Marie?"

"She doesn't like me."

"Huh? That's the first I'm hearing of this."

It was unexpected. Even back when there had been the whole mess with the Order of Judgement surrounding Ice, Marie had actually been the one to defend him.

And if anyone were going to have an issue with someone, wouldn't it be Daisy? It was surprising to hear Ice say something like this.

"Back when we were staying in Ernburg, when you weren't looking, she kept glaring at me."

"Marie did?"

"Yeah."

"Why would she......?"

"I dunno, seemed like she had some kind of inferiority complex about swordsmanship? She wasn't a Sword Master yet back then. She seemed like she was being chased by something, like she was all worked up. But I'm not exactly the sociable type either, so things just stayed that way. I'm not saying she's a bad person."

Ricardt thought carefully back over the past. That must have been around the time he had turned down Marie's first confession. In the buckwheat field.

Looking back now it seemed almost silly, but back then it had been the most important thing in the world to Marie.

It is no easy thing to restrain and control burning emotions in one's immature years. So she had taken out her frustration on someone who had nothing to do with it? He wasn't sure.

"Do I need to apologize on her behalf or something?"

"Ha ha, you can if you want."

"Well, I'm glad at least. Glad I didn't marry someone terrible."

"Ha ha ha......"

It wasn't an important conversation. Just trivial stories from the old days. The kind of talk close friends naturally fall into.

Then something caught his eye, glinting through the gap in Ice's clothing. It looked like he was wearing armor underneath, and even from just a glimpse, Ricardt knew what it was. The breastplate forged from True Silver, the one he himself used to wear.

"So you had this all along."

Ricardt and Ice had roughly a four-year age gap, but they were similar in build and frame. It was too large for Bori and too small for Volka, but it looked like a perfect fit on Ice.

"Hm? Oh, this. Back then, you just took it off and left without a word. And then I couldn't find you anywhere. Want it back?"

That was just the state of mind he had been in at the time. The side panel of the breastplate had been split open, so he had simply stripped it off, tossed it aside, and walked out of the temple.

"No. I'm glad you're the one who had it. Keep wearing it."

"This thing must be worth a fortune, you know?"

"Money comes and goes. I don't worry about it."

"Then I suppose I should say thank you, even if it's a bit late."

"Ha ha, no. I just teach the kids swordsmanship and go on patrols with them. That's about it. We look after the sisters, and the sisters look after the children......"

It sounded like they were running an orphanage. Every monastery differed in its function, but monasteries generally served as local administrative institutions, handling everything from social welfare like hospitals and orphanages to officiating marriages and conducting funerals.

The Miquella Sword Monastery was somewhat unusual, operating as a kind of armed monastery that maintained security in the surrounding region. It took in children with nowhere else to go, raised them, and taught the sword to those among them who showed talent.

"So that's why you were out killing bandits? I saw the bodies on the way here."

"That's right. Snake-Eye Ashtad. He leads a band of deserters. He took over the villages a few years back and has been growing his forces ever since. The lords are all too busy mustering their own armies to bother, and in the meantime he's grown too big for anyone to touch. So if no one else will step up, we have to."

"Couldn't you just kill them all yourself? You're a Sword Master too."

"Not every Sword Master is like you, Ricky. Get stabbed, get cut, let a wound fester, and you die."

"Same goes for me."

"Anyway. We need to approach this carefully. It's dangerous for the kids too."

Ricardt turned his head and looked toward the group of boys and girls from the Monastery gathered near the cave entrance. They appeared to be between fourteen and eighteen. In other words, roughly the same age as Ricardt.

But between them and Ricardt lay an insurmountable gap in talent, experience, skill, and enlightenment. Even if one lives the same number of years, the density of those years differs for everyone.

The Monastery children were staring in this direction. To be precise, they were staring at Ice, because their instructor was smiling far more than usual, and they found it fascinating.

Much as he had improved compared to the past, Ice still came across as cold in others' eyes, more often than he intended.

It wasn't that he was particularly strict in his teaching; he simply rarely smiled and was not a warm personality by nature.

But now, reunited with an old friend, the smile would not leave his face, and to the children it felt like stumbling upon a rare wildflower.

So he can smile after all. So that's what he looks like when he smiles. Truly the most beautiful person in the world. Such thoughts came to them unbidden.

And naturally, they grew curious about the man who made their instructor smile. Pure-gold blond hair, a straight nose. Yet somewhere within those calm eyes, an inexplicable chill could be felt.

Above all, amid his outward ordinariness, there was an aura. Something difficult to explain, as though he did not quite belong to this world, a depth impossible to gauge.

Ricardt withdrew his gaze from his friend's students and turned back to Ice to ask,

"Do you keep in touch with the others?"

"Not often. The one who put up the money when we bought the abandoned monastery and cleared the surrounding farmland was Volka. I'm always grateful to him."

The Miquella Sword Monastery's main source of income was essentially running a manor. They were fundamentally self-sufficient, supplementing their livelihood by selling the spoils from driving off brigands and bandits.

Ricardt nodded slowly and said,

"Everyone walks the path of the sword in their own way."

"What do you mean?"

"Bori is, how do I put it, walking a scholar's path? Like he's trying to turn swordsmanship into an academic discipline. Volka seems to be running some kind of business. And you, Ice, you seem to use the sword as a means of honing your faith. The sword is the common thread, but the paths you're each walking are completely different."

"There's one more thing in common, isn't there?"

"What's that?"

"You. Everyone was influenced by you. Volka couldn't have grown the way he did without you. And Bori, Marie, me, that goes without saying."

"No. You all grew on your own."

"Ricky, you get a little flustered when people compliment you, don't you?"

"It's modesty. Just modesty."

"Let's go with that."

It was easy conversation. Nothing snagged; it flowed as smoothly and comfortably as could be. That relaxed atmosphere carried on, and in the same easygoing vein, Ricardt asked,

"Are you not getting married? You're older than me, Ice."

"I've taken a vow of chastity. I did choose the life of a monk, after all."

"Funny, that."

"What is?"

"The people in the knightly order had all taken vows of chastity too. But I made them stop."

"Why?"

"They seemed to have lost their way. In the end, there's nothing better than building a family and raising children with love. To be honest, I grew up in a happy home. A mother's love, a father's recognition, the bond between siblings. I believe beyond any doubt that those things made me who I am today. I'm convinced that a parent's love is the sacred force that allows a person to endure the long suffering of life. That's why I offered them that path. Not that I'd force anyone to marry, mind you. You know what I mean?"

The difference between Ice and the knights was whether or not they had lost their way. Ice had not, so Ricardt did not press him to start a family.

Still, what Ricardt had just said seemed to strike some chord in Ice. He gazed at Ricardt for a moment, then shifted his eyes to the campfire. His expression turned briefly contemplative.

"Hey, Ricky."

"Yeah."

"Can I ask you something?"

"Anything."

"Back then, why did you spare me......? You killed everyone else."

By "back then", he meant what had happened four years ago at the temple of the Order of Judgement. Ice was far from the only one spared; the nuns and a fair number of others had been allowed to live. Of course, those who were killed numbered many times more.

"......I'm not sure...... I don't remember it too well, but I think I felt I needed to break the chain. The chain of hatred upon hatred. And how could I ever kill you? I'd sooner die myself. Don't say things like that."

"No, I was just curious. Ricky, you're not actually an apostle of God or something, are you? Have you ever heard the voice of God?"

This time it was Ricardt who gazed steadily at Ice. They were not sitting across from each other with the fire between them but side by side, shoulders touching, so their eyes were close.

In Ice's silver eyes there was the faintest trace of lingering attachment. A lingering pull toward faith.

Ricardt knew. He knew the pain buried in the deepest reaches of Ice's heart. An indelible guilt over his younger brother. Just when it seemed to ease, it would surge back to life and cling like a shadow.

"I killed my own older brother with my own hands. My Billy, whom I loved more than anything. The trembling look in his eyes as he died, and the frailty of him, they're still vivid in my sight and in my ears. But do I look like I'm tormented by it? Ice."

"......"

"It's not that the pain is tormenting you. You're the one holding on to it. Accept the pain as pain, and keep it in your heart. Don't cling to it. What you said earlier, that you're happy, you need to focus on that. That is the path to hearing the voice of God."

For a reason he could not name, Ice felt a sudden throb in his chest. He turned his head away. He did not sob, but when he closed his eyes, his long lashes were wet.

Ricardt's words were not idle comfort. Nor were they something cobbled together out of hollow sympathy by someone who could not truly understand.

They were grounded in truth, spoken by someone who knew the weight of sorrow, who understood pain and anguish better than anyone.

Ice's nose stung, and for a while he gathered himself. When he spoke again, a trace of tears lingered in his voice at first.

"At least, ahem, at least to me, you are an apostle of God."

"Yeah? Then can I issue a command as an apostle?"

"What command?"

"Let's swap faces, you and me."

"Ha ha ha ha!"

Ice burst into hearty laughter at Ricardt's ridiculous joke. The sound echoed loudly through the shallow cave, and both the knights and the Monastery children turned to look.

He kept laughing regardless. And thanks to that, the tears retreated entirely.

"For now let's rest, and once the sun comes up, we'll go teach the bad guys a lesson. How about it?"

"Sounds good."

"I like that it feels like the old days."

Ricardt said it with a confident grin.

There was no need to summon the soldiers resting below and put them through the trouble. With Ice at his side, he was confident they could wipe out even the largest bandit gang.

He could have done it alone, in truth, but that would risk things getting messy. They needed shelter from the rain regardless, so setting fires was out of the question.

Looking at Ice, Ricardt felt as though he had gone back to the age of ten. Ice, on the other hand, had weathered his years of anxiety and grown into someone who seemed at ease.

That ease came from a certainty in the path he had chosen to walk. And it was plain that the certainty had its roots in Ricardt.

The children who had once swayed like reeds in the wind were now trees, firmly rooted in their own right. And those trees had become shelters for others.

Outside the cave, rain still fell through the pitch-black night. The charcoal scent of the campfire made it feel like getting drunk without a drop of wine.

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