Dwarf Liberation Front Nidavellir (2)
The western city of Trinova.
There was a mansion located in the center of the city, avoiding the desolate sands wandering the wasteland.
It was a large and spacious mansion that was clearly visible even from a distance, but it had a dark feel to it, and it was probably not just an illusion.
“This is why I hate coming to the West. “I have nothing to eat and nothing to drink.”
“…….”
“Anyway, it’s not fun. “This neighborhood.”
Golden Ball Barbossa took off his boots and was rattling off the sand inside them.
It didn’t match the luxuriously decorated room, and it wasn’t polite to the person sitting right in front of him, but he just acted comfortably as if nothing was really wrong.
“Anyway, your complexion has gotten a lot worse than when I saw you before. Count Gaidar.”
“…I guess it has to be that way.”
Barbossa put his boots back on the crackling sand and looked at Count Gaidar with a deep smile.
However, unlike the brightly smiling face, the oddly crooked head made the viewer feel a strange sense of pressure.
“Well, you must be lying, since you killed 5,000 soldiers.”
“…….”
“And you also lost Godin. “I really felt sorry for that friend.”
“stop.”
A sturdy figure and strong eyebrows.
Although he was a little shriveled by the shocking defeat, he still dreamed of a comeback and had undiminished momentum.
“It was a painful defeat, but I, Sigmund, am not one who will collapse after one defeat!”
“It’s so easy to understand even if you speak softly.”
However, Barbossa just dug his fingers into his earholes as if he was noisy despite Count Gaidar’s harshness.
“What is the purpose of someone who is busy with southern affairs coming all the way here?”
“I have something to take.”
“what?”
Barbossa’s face, which had been smiling until now, began to distort strangely at Count Gaidar’s question.
“What are you saying? “You should remember something when you see me.”
“……that.”
“You borrowed money. money. Something shiny. goldfinch.”
For a moment, Barbossa’s head tilted forward and suddenly found itself under the Count’s chin.
It looked like a poisonous snake.
“Fed and clothed 5,000 soldiers and gave them weapons. Isn’t that all borrowed money? “Where could there be money for that in this shitty town?”
“I borrowed that money from the Dragon Blood Prince…!”
“To be exact, it’s the money that Dragon Blood Lord borrowed from me.”
Barbossa, who interrupted the Count with a fierce smile, took out a document from his arms and threw it to Count Gaidar.
A sheet of eerily bright red paper.
It was the so-called ultimatum, the paper that those who borrowed money from the Golden Ball feared the most.
“And after crossing the middle bridge, you are the debtor.”
From Ravnoma to Bayezid.
A poor count family needed a lot of support to rise to the top of the West.
However, Dragulia’s support, which he devoured as much as he was starving, eventually held Gaidar back.
“So let’s end it like this.”
Barbossa lifted the bright red document with a familiar hand gesture and held it in front of Count Gaidar’s eyes.
“Just give me one city. That’s roughly correct. then.”
It was ridiculously unreasonable, but it was true that I borrowed it.
Count Gaidar, who had vaguely guessed the future, only trembled with his lips and did not dare to speak.
Because the report that Barbossa received before coming in said that the ships that came in droves were occupying his city of Torcea.
“What does it mean to be a good neighbor? “Just sign here and I will defeat those northerners.”
Is this what a sharp smile is like?
Ugly golden teeth were shining at the corners of Barbossa’s smiling mouth.
※※※※
Kkeikiik-
The old door made an unpleasant sound as if the owner had not paid attention.
But more than the sound, what tickled Vlad’s nerves was the fierce gaze of the sailors sitting in the store.
Rejecting heterogeneous beings seemed to be the same everywhere else.
“here. “A glass of brandy.”
“I think I came to the wrong place. “There’s nothing to sell to kids here.”
“Shake it, not stir it. Let’s pay this instead.”
Vlad took a coin out of his pocket and placed it in front of the owner, making a loud noise.
The unsightly, rusty coin looked like something I wouldn’t want to keep even if given for free, but when the owner saw the coin, a strange look appeared in his eyes.
“…Where did you come from?”
“North.”
“North? Where in the north?”
Vlad chuckled and responded to his owner’s shallow attempts to explore him.
“I have nothing to tell you Nassau hillbilly.”
“…I’ll tell you that a guest has arrived.”
How to recognize your peers.
The bar owner took the coin from the table as Vlad looked young but looked like he had been through a lot.
“It might take some time.”
“You’d better come quickly.”
When Vlad saw the owner taking off the apron he was wearing and trying to go out, he pointed backwards with his thumb and said.
“I hate people who stare at me from behind my back.”
“I tell you to be careful.”
Vlad took the drink offered by the owner and glanced back.
Men putting their hands into their bulging arms.
They were bloody men who seemed ready to pull out a knife at any moment, but Vlad smiled and gave them a drink.
“Strangely enough, it feels like home.”
What I ordered was brandy, but what came out was an unknown liquid mixed with cheap rum.
However, Vlad, who was used to the harshness of the drink, took a sip and frowned as if nothing had happened.
“This time it’s the sea.”
Vlad, who had all the time to himself in the quiet shop where there was no owner and customers, took out a piece of paper from his pocket and looked at it.
The picture was drawn sloppily, as if it had been drawn by a child, and there was a single, eye-catching golden light drawn on it.
※※※※
“What is this?”
“timing.”
One night after leaving Sturmah.
Varadis approached us between the bonfires we had lit for camping.
“This is what the priestess told me. In fact, it’s like I came all the way here to tell you this.”
Varadis, who went out into the world to find traces of the Mother World Tree, decided to join the group that was heading to the island of the dwarves.
The west that the party was heading towards was where the Mother World Tree was located, and Joseph, who was leaving to find an opportunity, had no reason to reject the elves.
“I see. thank you.”
Although he expressed his gratitude in words, there was some hesitation in Vlad’s hand as he extended it toward the painting.
“…It looks like his drawing skills still haven’t improved.” “That kid’s consistency is his charm.”
A revelation given by the elf priestess to the knight who saved the World Tree.
However, contrary to the grand cause he accepted, the picture he held in his hand was crooked, as if it had been drawn by a child.
“What is this? “Why is the surroundings so dark?”
“ocean.”
“So what is that floating around here? “Is it a log?”
“ship.”
“…….”
It was so messed up that it was now embarrassing to even ask about it, but there was one light that seemed recognizable.
There is a shining dot on the brown lump that the world tree’s goddess claims is a pear.
Vlad narrowed his eyes at the very familiar color, even though it had no human shape.
“Is this me?”
“As expected, you can recognize it at a glance.”
Varadis, who was a little excited to recognize the picture drawn by his younger sister, smiled and nodded.
“A knight who lights a fire on a ship floating on the sea…”
Nibelun, who was close by, was looking at the picture while letting out a low voice.
Looking at his sparkling eyes, it seemed that the revelation that the priestess had given him had aroused his great interest.
“I have never seen such a clear revelation. “I don’t know who he is, but the level of the prophet is very high.”
“Is it clear? this?”
Even without permission, Nibelun had already taken out a magnifying glass from his backpack and was looking at the picture here and there, continuously letting out exclamations of exclamation.
Vlad clicked his tongue at his careful appearance, as if he were handling a luxury item.
“…To be able to point out a gap in time so clearly. “I really want to stop by the elf forest someday.”
“With Lord Vlad.”
“I really want to go there once. Let’s go together. please.”
When Varadis said that she had to be with Vlad, Nibelun put her hands together as if asking for a favor.
The pupils, characteristic of the beast people, gradually became wider and rounder, but Vlad was not actually looking at Nibelun.
“Thank goodness this time.”
“What?”
A light swaying precariously on the pitch-black sea.
Vlad rummaged through the crackling campfire, looking at the color that clearly painted him.
“Because I am the person to whom revelation points.”
There was a canary who fell for me in the city of Moshiam.
She was the bird that lit up the pitch-black night to guide me to the right path.
Vlad, who had buried Justia’s death in his heart, was relieved to see that this ominous feeling was aimed entirely at him.
※※※※
“Here’s the map.”
“…….”
“And this.”
The port of Nassau at sunset.
The sea to the west, much warmer than when we left Sturma a month ago, was just stretching out.
“What is this?”
The secret contact that the bar owner connected me with was a port worker who seemed to be everywhere.
He, who had been carrying as much burden as his face showed for many years, was now standing in front of Vlad, patting his bent back.
“It’s a conch shell. “Isn’t it a little big?”
“What is a conch?”
“…You said you came from the north.”
It was an object with a strangely curled end.
Vlad’s expression crumpled strangely as he looked at the conch shell, which was hard to believe was a living thing.
“Anyway, you can use it like a trumpet. “You know the trumpet, right?”
“So you’re saying you’re coming?”
In response to Vlad’s question, the unnamed old man at the port just shrugged his shoulders.
“I don’t know that.”
“…….”
“What I can tell you for sure is that the place depicted on the map is so foggy that even experienced captains are reluctant to go there. So, I can’t take responsibility for the ship.”
All he is holding is an unkindly drawn map and the corpse of the guy who used to be Sora.
However, since these were the only clues to the dwarves’ island, Vlad could only nod.
“The boat is fine. “Because we saved it.”
“Then I’m glad.”
Realizing that the meeting was over, the old man held up the mango flag he had been carrying with great difficulty and lowered his head.
Just a moment ago, it was a contact, but now he is a permanent port worker.
Nassau was the land of Bayezid, but still retains western customs.
Helping the dwarves there was probably an action that had to be hidden.
“Then don’t ever see me again.”
“Here you go.”
It was Vlad who flicked a gold coin to the old man for his hard work, but he just shook his head and quietly handed it back.
“I already received the payment from the dwarves.”
“…….”
Vlad scratched his cheek as he watched the old man leaving the port, carrying the net with difficulty.
Even though he was a seemingly insignificant old man, he seemed to have something that couldn’t be replaced with gold coins.
“The other ships don’t want to go…”
After the old man left, Vlad walked towards the dock in the lonely port.
Now, the western sea where you can even feel the scent of spring.
Vlad spotted a familiar shadow in the increasingly dark red sunset and took out the picture the priestess had given him from his arms.
“Looking at it this way, it seems similar.”
When I looked at it casually, it was just a brown lump, but when I compared it like this, it seemed to have some resemblance.
A tall mast compared to its small body.
And even the white triangular sail fluttering at the highest point.
A small ship coming into the port of Nassau at sunset.
Vlad waved his hand high as he saw the familiar ship departing from Shoara.
“It’s here, Haven!”
Dwarf Liberation Front Nidavellir.
The ship that would carry the group there was the red-haired Gemina, driven by Captain Haven.
