City of Steelworkers (2)
Winter is not a good season to move somewhere.
The weather is cold, the roads are hard, and sometimes the roads are blocked by falling snow.
However, for the lords who were busy all year round, the only season in which they had some time to spare was winter, so holding the Northern Conference at this time was unavoidable.
“It’s so cold. this.”
Vlad felt the cold sticking deep into his throat and ended up swearing.
A group heading to the city of steel workers to participate in the Northern Conference.
The procession in which Bayezid’s Rutger and Baron Hainal moved together certainly looked solid and sturdy, but even so, it could not stop the approaching cold.
As
everyone was walking along, cherishing even the warmth of their exhaled breath, there was a lone person hitting something with his fist.
The person who broke the icy silence and attracted the attention of the group.
He was Nibelun, a beastman who was Vlad’s advisory wizard.
“…Why do you keep hitting me like that?”
“It’s a warmth pocket.”
Vlad opened his eyes tentatively and began to quietly watch Nibelun’s actions.
This was because he knew very well that Nibelun acted strangely mysterious every time he took something out of his backpack.
“Warmth pocket?”
“yes. Warmth brought from far south. “This guy is so lazy by nature that he won’t wake up unless you hit him.”
“……ah. okay?”
Vlad didn’t understand a single thing Nibelun said, but he just nodded quietly.
Mysterious because it cannot be explained.
Because I don’t understand, he must be a wizard.
“ah. “You’re awake now.”
With Nibelun’s words, the small sac that had been hit began to squirm, emitting a faint red light.
Would it be an illusion if it looked like someone being forced to wake up from a warm blanket?
“Is it getting warmer now?”
“About half a day. “Once you wake it up, it moves that much.”
Vlad closed his left eye to see if there was a spirit in his pocket, but all he saw was not a spirit but a faint haze that was difficult to recognize.
It was also evidence that Vlad’s world does not yet have a deep understanding of the mysterious existence.
“Do you have another one?”
“no. “This is the only one.”
“okay?”
As soon as Nibelun finished saying, “This is one thing,” Vlad’s eyes began to sparkle.
Vlad’s hand stretched out fiercely along with him.
“Huh?”
“Then let’s borrow this for a moment.”
It was a pickpocketing technique that you had no choice but to fall victim to even if you knew it.
Nibelun looked embarrassed as he looked at the warm bag that had already passed to Vlad.
“…Is this by any chance magic?”
“no. “It just happened.”
It might be a bit similar in that you have to experience it to know.
Leaving behind Nibelun, who was still wide-eyed, Vlad drove Noir towards the carriage in front of him.
“Alicia. “This is Vlad.”
If there was something like this, I would have brought it out sooner.
Vlad, clutching Nibelun’s pocket, went to Alicia’s carriage as if there was nothing to think about.
“Are you okay? “Is it worth holding on?”
Vlad could see Alicia crouching through the slightly open window of the carriage.
As expected, the cold in the north was harsh for Alicia.
Unlike here, her territory, Deermar, was a place warm enough to produce lemons.
“are you okay. Still, it’s more bearable than the chill in my heart.”
“…Then I’m glad.”
However, even though she was shivering from the cold, Alicia’s eyes still seemed to be filled with a strange heat.
Vlad was clearly at the end of the heat that was slowly burning through the sticky feeling of defeat.
“Take it. “This is the vision of my wizard.”
The person in charge of this procession was Rutger, but Lady Alicia’s leader was none other than Vlad.
Alicia quietly watched Vlad’s hand pass through the cold air.
“What is this.”
“They said it was a warmth pocket. “I’m not sure either.”
I didn’t want to accept it, at least out of hurt pride, but the warmth coming from Vlad’s fingertips was hard to ignore.
It was a warmth that made even her cold expression, which was trying to pretend to be angry, collapse.
“…If you care about me like this, wouldn’t Miss Jemina back home be worried?”
“I don’t know why Jemina’s name is coming up now.”
Vlad, who was worried that she might reject him, began to laugh as if he was relieved when he heard Alicia’s cheers.
“Right now, I’m only thinking about the Baron’s safety.”
“…The horse is Cheongsanyusu.”
My current self is Lady Alicia’s knight.
Alicia, who heard those words, tried to respond coldly, but the coldness that began to melt from the corners of her lips was something she could not help.
Vlad’s unhesitating approach when she needed it most was something Alicia, who had little experience with men, found difficult to resist.
“If you have any inconveniences, please let us know at any time.”
The carriage window quietly closes with those words.
Sensing the presence of Vlad leaving again without saying anything, Alicia quietly looked at the bag that Vlad had given her.
It was said to be a pocket of warmth, and I could literally feel the warmth being conveyed.
“…Keuung.”
Duncan, who was listening to the conversation between the two right in front of him, let out a groan that sounded like a pain.
‘I’m not too immune. Immunity to men.’
An old knight looking at his young lord with a sad expression.
Alicia probably doesn’t even know what expression she is making right now.
Just a moment ago, Duncan’s eyes looked as if they could eat anyone, but looking at Alicia fidgeting after receiving only a bag, Duncan felt like his insides were boiling.
‘Everyone passed away too early.’
Duncan sincerely wished that the previous head of the family was sitting where he was sitting now.
If he were here now, as a father, he would have slapped that stupid guy in the face.
※※※※
One ducal family and one earl family.
And a total of 7 families, including the 5 baronial families.
These families were the pillars of the Northern Union that currently supports the North.
“Maringen Romnier Ford Mills Harquita…”
Noir’s eyes were wide open, as if surprised, as he looked at the figures loitering in front of him.
Sentences that seem to be alive and moving.
That was the mystery of Dorothea expressed through dyes and paints.
“Don’t other knights usually memorize other families’ emblems as soon as they receive a title?”
“I did learn, too.”
However, her mystery was now just a teaching material, floating around before Vlad’s eyes.
“But why don’t you know?”
“I did learn. “I’m not saying I know.”
I learned it, but I don’t know.
Dorothea was at a loss for words at Vlad’s defense, which was so confident.
“But the other knights probably know. “How embarrassing would it be if you went there and found out that you were the only one who didn’t know the flags of other families!”
“So now you’re learning. “You can learn it now and use it.”
“urg……!”
When I first saw him, he was a young squire who couldn’t ride a horse properly.
But now, seeing Vlad talking back to her openly, Dorothea could only tremble.
“okay. Like Vlad said, you can learn it now and use it. “It’s better than just going around pretending to be a knight like other guys.”
“…It’s convenient for you to say that you don’t teach directly.”
Rutger, who was listening to their conversation next to them, started to interject with a chuckle.
“Anyway, as long as you don’t make a big mistake there. “The Northern Conference was originally a gathering of lords.”
Although he was joking, Rutger was assessing the situation accurately.
Vlad was participating in the Northern Conference through the invitation of the Steelworker, but even if he actually went, he wouldn’t be able to do anything special.
“All you have to do is go say hello and come back. “You just have to do it well.”
What Vlad can achieve at the Northern Conference is probably the exchange of personal connections.
Of course, it was a very important matter, but since the Northern Conference was not a place for social gatherings in the first place, it was literally just a matter of saying hello.
“I can finally see it. “The city of steel workers.”
“Where?”
Vlad hurriedly dismissed Dorothea’s mystery at Rutger’s words.
Even though Lotea said something about him tampering with his mystery, Vlad just focused on the sight in front of him.
“Wow…”
A tall cliff stood tall above the snow-covered white plain.
The cliff, which rose majestically enough to be called a mountain, was showing off its presence as it looked down on the flat plain around it.
“Can you see the fortress nestled between the cliffs over there?”
“yes.”
Vlad, who had been amazed by the grandeur of the cliff for a while, turned his gaze to follow the direction Rutger was pointing to.
Is it because of the characteristics of the rocks that make up the cliff?
The human castle wall visible between the steep cliffs was a dull gray-white color, but it was shining brightly in the sunlight.
“That is Bastopol, the city of steelworkers. “It’s the oldest city in the North.”
“…Bastopol.”
A huge city was perched on top of a cliff that rose high as if defying gravity, a
huge castle wall that seemed impossible for anyone to easily break through .
“Besides, according to the founding legend, that city is the one that stood against the dragon until the very end.”
Baranov, the only ducal family in the North, was a family that existed even before the founding of the Empire.
And the city they built, Bastopol, was also humanity’s last defense, raising its flag until the very end against the most perfect dragon.
“……awesome.”
Vlad began to smile as he looked at the sparkling gray-white cliffs in the distance.
The shape of the cliff rising alone without anything was somehow stimulating somewhere in Vlad’s world.
Exciting-!
I was excited because I saw it for the first time, but for some reason, the city seemed to be calling to me.
The city on the cliff, which he saw for the first time in his life, was definitely making Vlad’s heart beat.
※※※※
Crack-crack-
clack-
“……Hmm.”
The steelworker’s mansion in the city of Bastopol.
There, in the deepest basement, an old man was drooling.
“You’re reacting much more severely than before.”
Fernand, the steelsmith wizard, was looking at the two ships that were trembling as if there had been an earthquake.
Two boxes tightly sealed by chains containing divinity.
One was originally owned by Baranov, and the other was owned by the now extinct Ravnoma.
“…Which dragon opened its eyes this time?”
A sealed box containing the most perfect dragon sculpture.
The old wizard’s eyes were sparkling as he looked at the box.
It was a ship that reacted even when the fastest dragon, Lindwurm, appeared, but it did not vibrate as intensely as it does now.
Perhaps, in order to react like this, there is a strong possibility that he is a dragon.
You’ll have to be close to you
.
“I need to report this.”
As the vibration of the sealed box became unusual, Fernand quietly began to unfold his mystery.
When the handprints made with the fingertips formed a formation in the air, waves that seemed as if they had been melted into the Milky Way began pouring out from there.
A huge door located deep underground in the mansion.
The dark hallway leading there began to get longer and longer following the old wizard’s spell.
As if it had been stretched, the hallway became increasingly narrow and long, and naturally began to distance itself from the world above.
