Chapter 35
“We should get a carriage from the first city outside Ivarid. If we get one here, we might be tracked through the purchase record,” Carl said, thinking ahead. For ordinary citizens, horses and carriages were unattainably expensive items. While small trinkets might go unnoticed, such a high-value transaction could be traced. Max tilted his head, puzzled.
“Would they really go that far to chase us? It was your secret storage, so no one would even know it was emptied, let alone robbed.”
“Still, if the women who came to the castle looking for work suddenly disappear, it might arouse curiosity. They were quite attentive, even providing maid’s quarters. It’s safer not to leave any traces, suspicions, or evidence. Let’s follow Carl’s suggestion.”
“Understood,” Sian backed Carl’s opinion. Max nodded in agreement.
“But…” At the agreed meeting place in front of Ivarid’s outer gate, the Dragon’s Claw mercenaries were all dressed in surprisingly fine attire.
“Hey, what’s with the getup? We’re not wealthy refugees,” Sian frowned, scrutinizing each mercenary. Some had adorned their usual shabby clothes with overly fancy hats and feathers, others tightened their belts, and some wore new shoes.
They all seemed to be showing off their newfound wealth. If they had gone all out from head to toe, it might have at least been balanced, but the extravagance of those accustomed to poverty was limited to just this much.
Their mismatched splurging in odd places looked quite ridiculous. Poverty-stricken lives had been that severe. Even with money, they didn’t know how to spend it properly.
“Look who’s talking. You two look like you’re out on a noble inspection,” Dr. Zivago, who was dressed relatively normally, retorted towards Sian and Carl.
“That blouse, it’s new, isn’t it, sis?”
“And those earrings are quite fancy too.”
“Sir, what happened to the clothes I gave you? You’re wearing new ones…”
The mercenaries’ arrows of criticism turned towards Sian and Carl. They instinctively looked at each other and cleared their throats simultaneously.
As soon as the morning sun rose, before the smell of alcohol had fully dissipated, the Dragon’s Claw mercenaries had raided Ivarid’s shopping district. The pretext was preparing for departure, but everyone was busy indulging in their newly acquired wealth, however modest it might be.
Of course, this included Carl and Sian. Shedding their shabby clothes, they were now dressed head to toe in new ready-made garments that exuded nobility.
“I can understand the boss, but even you look like a noble now, sis.”
“You look like a different person.”
“Shut up,” Sian huffed, elegantly tucking her loosely styled hair behind her ear.
She had also done her nails and put extra effort into her makeup. Although this grooming would soon become pointless on their journey to the Dragon’s Temple, nothing was more effective for a change of mood.
“Did you get your hair done too, sir?” Bill, who had been observing them intently, looked at Carl with sparkling eyes. Carl, who had been watching Sian show off her dazzling new earrings by tossing her hair, turned to Bill with a questioning look. Naturally, the gazes of the other mercenaries followed.
“Well, it’s been a while since I’ve gone on such a long journey, so…” Carl mumbled awkwardly, reaching to touch his hair but stopping midway. Having grown too accustomed to the long-haired wig he had been wearing, he belatedly realized the emptiness below his ears.
“Why don’t you just adjust your collar? It’s wrinkled here,” Sian said, looking at Carl and smoothing out the wrinkled edge of his shirt collar. As the two faced each other, both tastefully dressed from head to toe befitting their noble origins, they truly shone.
Anyone would mistake them for a couple. The mercenaries’ eyes narrowed, remembering Carl’s bombshell confession from the previous night.
‘They’re flirting shamelessly…’
Although Sian had flatly rejected Carl’s confession, the atmosphere between them was still warmly pink-tinged.
“Let’s get going. There’s no one to see us anyway, so what’s with all this fancy dressing up?” Unable to bear it any longer, Dr. Zivago separated the two.
“Alright. Does everyone have everything they need?”
“Yes,” the mercenaries answered enthusiastically. The weather was exceptionally nice.
“Let’s go.”
* * *
“A precious guest is coming.”
The woman of the temple, veiled down to her eyes, stood with her hands respectfully folded.
A cold air swirled around the smooth, polished gray marble floor. The central prayer room was vast enough to accommodate hundreds of people, but it was empty except for the altar holding the statue of Yggdrasil, a figure from the legendary founding myth.
The space evoked a subtle sense of dissonance – the floor felt cool to the touch, but not chilly or cold.
Despite the absence of windows, the air was as fresh as if in the middle of a forest, and despite being constructed entirely of carved marble and granite, there was no pervasive chill.
Michael, still kneeling, raised his head to look at the priestess who had suddenly appeared before him.
“Is it His Highness Prince Carlston?”
“It is the master of the silver dragon Idelin.”
Michael bowed his head deeply at the priestess’s answer. Though the meanings were the same, the place where Michael stood was a mystical space solely for dragons.
Here, even a prince with rights to the imperial succession was merely the master of a dragon.
The priestess, draped in a long white veil that flowed from her crown to the floor, revealed only her eyes. The wrinkles around her eyes suggested she was quite advanced in age, and her pupils were a golden color, faintly tinged with magical energy.
“He comes with a companion drawn by the dragon’s fate.”
The priestess wasn’t looking at Michael. She was gazing at the large arched openings on both sides beyond the vast floor behind Michael. Her gaze seemed to penetrate even beyond those openings.
Her dreamy gaze, seeing yet unseeing, made her appear more like someone without sight. Along with the space itself, the priestess’s gaze also exuded a clear sense of dissonance, but Michael had already been waiting here for two weeks on the Crown Prince’s orders, anticipating the prince’s arrival.
By now, he had grown as accustomed to this dissonance as one could. In this mystical space, said to be invisible even to ordinary humans, there was nothing that wasn’t extraordinary.
Michael tilted his head.
“Does he have a companion?”
The priestess nodded slowly.
“They will arrive soon. They are precious guests, so please treat them with the utmost hospitality.”
Michael bowed his head again in acknowledgment of the priestess’s request, but questions arose in his mind.
The prince had disappeared after being severely injured by the rash actions of Antonio, the Dragon Knight. He hadn’t returned to his domain, Ivarid, and his whereabouts were completely unknown.
Of course, rumors had spread throughout the empire that Idelin had been seen in Ivarid during that time, but Michael, who had been staying at the Dragon’s Temple for the past two weeks, was unaware of this.
He had simply been waiting on the Crown Prince’s orders, expecting that if the prince were alive, he would surely come to seek refuge in the temple, a place unreachable by ordinary people.
It wasn’t at all surprising that the Crown Prince’s prediction had come true. Even the temple side seemed to have known not only that the prince would come to seek refuge someday, but also that the Crown Prince would send someone, as they had welcomed Michael warmly.
However, the idea that the prince, who had disappeared after being severely injured, had found a companion in the meantime and was now approaching the temple deep in the forest was something he hadn’t considered at all.
Moreover, someone the Dragon Priestess would specifically refer to as a ‘precious guest’…?
* * *
Suddenly, Sian’s ear became unbearably itchy. She scratched it with her pinky finger, but no matter how deeply she dug, it didn’t bring any relief, as if someone somewhere was talking about her.
“Is someone badmouthing me…?”
Sian’s expression turned serious as she scratched her ear.
“That’s what you get for not living a virtuous life.”
“Who was that? Who just spoke?”
Someone among the mercenaries gathered in the cargo wagon tossed out a comment. Sian glared around at the men, trying to identify the speaker, but everyone played innocent.
She clearly heard someone speak, but no one owned up to it.
“By the way, are we sure this is the right path?”
Just as Sian was about to reveal her true colors and mutter a curse, Dr. Zivago, who had been desperately staring outside the wagon to avoid Sian’s gaze, wrinkled his nose.
Tree trunks, branches, leaves, grass, soil, and occasionally small wildflowers blooming among unknown weeds. It was impossible to tell how many days they had been looking at the same scenery. They had accepted it for the first two days, but from the fourth day on, even the path barely wide enough for the wagon to pass had become extremely narrow, to the point where they were essentially forging their own trail.
“That’s right. We’ll probably have to leave the wagon soon and continue on foot, so prepare yourselves,” Carl said. Everyone had more or less anticipated this, given how narrow the forest path had become, making it difficult for the wagon to pass through.
“Yes, sir.”
The cargo wagon they had acquired in the next city after leaving Ivarid had been modified into a comfortable space akin to a tent for the long journey.
Several soft blankets had been laid out to somewhat alleviate the worst of the ride’s discomfort, but there was no helping the stiffness in their backs and hips. Sian stretched out fully.
“How much further do we have to walk after we get off?”
“…Well.”
Carl tried to hide his troubled expression as he answered Sian’s question. Sian’s eyes widened.
“What?”
The reactions of the other mercenaries who had been watching Carl’s response were almost identical to Sian’s. Carl, the dragon’s master, was the only one who knew the way to the temple. But “Well”?
“The Dragon’s Temple can only be entered with their permission. They probably know I’m coming, but… it’s unclear how soon they’ll open the way for us.”
“Excuse me?”
