Chapter 20
Under short brown hair, pale green eyes heavy with exhaustion gazed at him.
Anderter let out his usual playful smile as he patted Raphaelo’s shoulder and asked how he was doing.
[Are you really alive, Raphaelo? The effects of <Mercy Grass> are impressive, that’s for sure. I thought some corpse was crawling up.]
Raphaelo faced such an Anderter but found he had no energy to smile back. No, more precisely, he didn’t feel like smiling at all.
It was because he had spotted traces of deep contemplation in Anderter’s darkly shadowed eyes.
[Just in case, I’m telling you now.]
[What?]
[Don’t entertain any foolish thoughts. I won’t allow you to act on your own. I’m your superior. You have to stay by my side until this war is over.]
Anderter looked at him with slightly surprised eyes. But for some reason, the affirmative answer he had been waiting for didn’t come.
His heart raced as if he had downed strong liquor, though he hadn’t. Raphaelo gripped Anderter’s hand on his shoulder with a force that seemed ready to crush it, demanding an answer.
[Answer me, Anderter.]
[……What’s so hard about it? Keep it in mind. Don’t worry about unnecessary things and focus on recovering.]
Anderter stepped back to the side and flashed a refreshing smile.
[Because you’re the only one who can command this great army.]
Facing that sincere smile made it feel like a boulder crushing his heart had vanished.
Anderter didn’t lie. Knowing that, even a single obvious phrase brought him a sense of relief.
After that, the dream’s space-time twisted once. Before he knew it, he was lying in bed again, gasping for breath.
[Huff.]
His deafened hearing slowly recovered.
In five more days, he would be able to head to the battlefield. It was a moment when he had been wandering on the brink of death, tormented by fever that clung like a leech.
From beyond the tent, one voice finally pierced Raphaelo’s heart.
Anderter declared.
[I’ll go.]
[No, Lord Anderter. The Supreme Commander will never allow you to move.]
[But no matter how I think about it, there’s no one more suitable than me. I’m the only one who can take care of Gaigoil, climb the cliffs, infiltrate Mephisto’s castle to throw their main base into chaos, and take advantage of that chaos to go for Mephisto’s neck. What’s the point in debating it?]
[……But permission.]
[I don’t need permission. I’ll handle this myself. Tell him it was my independent decision.]
Barren land. Corpses that hadn’t even cooled. Soldiers awaiting their day of death.
Anderter, who had been silently gazing at the world surrounding him, was now set to set out alone.
Toward the final destination that would also be his grave—the great mage Mephisto.
That couldn’t happen.
Raphaelo’s body convulsed as he fell from the bed and crawled on the ground. Commanders who rushed out grabbed his body in a panic.
[Damn it, let go of me! Wait! Stop right now, Anderter! You can’t die! I won’t let you die like this!]
Anderter didn’t turn back to look at Raphaelo.
Ah, his figure was gradually receding into the distance.
Anderter’s two legs leaped into the black flames. They were the flames of hell from which no one returned once entered.
Knowing that better than anyone, Raphaelo despaired.
[Come back right now, Anderter Fargerrrr!]
At some point, the world went dark.
He didn’t know how much time had passed. From beyond the darkness, Anderter’s comforting words rang out. The voice of his desperately missed comrade.
[It’s not your fault, Raphaelo.]
No way.
It can’t not be my fault, Anderter. I killed you. This pathetic me drove you into that hell.
Even so, you are still my sword. Whether alive or dead, you should live by my side and die by my side.
You, who must do that, can’t be dead.
“……Ha.”
Come back soon. Peace gained by losing you is meaningless. Right? You think so too, don’t you?
…….
Answer me, Anderter.
“……Your Grace.”
Answer me, Anderter Farger.
“……Your Grace!”
Anderter Farger!
“Archduke!”
The clear call pierced his ears. In that instant, his two eyes snapped open.
His mind, sunk in the murky deep sea, rose at an astonishing speed. His blocked airways opened with a gasp, and Raphaelo’s world returned to reality.
It had all been a dream.
“Your Grace, urgent dispatches have arrived.”
“……What time is it?”
“4 a.m.”
Raphaelo covered his eyes with the back of his hand and let out a long breath.
It was hard to steady his breathing with his heart pounding relentlessly.
The nightmare he had was so vivid that it felt as if he had been on the battlefield until just moments ago.
‘I’m tired.’
The voice of the dead echoed in his ears.
[It’s not your fault, Raphaelo.]
Had he wanted forgiveness from him? Was that why the deep-seated desire within him had taken form through the medium of a dream?
‘No.’
There had been a time when that was true, but not anymore—at least not now.
Anderter Farger was dead.
He had made a noble sacrifice in the final battle against the great mage Mephisto, and that sacrifice had left Raphaelo with a wound he couldn’t shake off for a long time.
The inability to find Anderter’s body had made it all the more agonizing.
Four years.
For four years, he had frantically searched Queen Island for the body.
I told you to die by my side even in death. He was bitterly resentful for vanishing without a trace.
When he closed his eyes, he saw hallucinations of Anderter; when he opened them, he heard auditory hallucinations of him.
Even the death of a beloved lover wouldn’t have tormented him this much.
But now he knew.
The days of feeling betrayed by Anderter, resenting him, and drowning in guilt were all stories of a past that would never return.
That for his own sake, he had to trample Anderter’s lingering image and stand properly on his own two feet.
Raphaelo no longer wanted to be bound by Anderter.
Thus, slowly but surely, he was expelling him from his mind. In order to bury the existence of Anderter Farger as a fleeting moment of the past.
“Including the urgent dispatch from the capital, three letters have arrived in total.”
Raphaelo rubbed his dry eyes with the back of his hand and replied.
“Sorry, but check them for me instead.”
“Yes.”
D’Shero opened the first letter and quickly scanned the contents.
“A letter stating that the Emperor and five nobles held a secret meeting in the capital Ragal. All attendees are members of the Noble Assembly, and the common trait is…….”
“Supporters of the northern conquest war, I presume.”
“Yes.”
In the north of the Pen Rota Empire lies the North Deus Mountains, which rank among the continent’s most rugged ranges.
The North Deus Mountains are dotted with purified magic stone mines, and the Emperor was preparing a conquest war to seize them—with Archduke Raphaelo at the vanguard.
“Why is His Majesty so desperate to push me to the front lines?”
It was a rhetorical question, but the answer was clear.
The Emperor’s faction wanted to drive him out of the capital. As far away and for as long as possible. Believing that would allow them to regain the Emperor’s lost real power.
So what should they do in response? They had to counter accordingly.
Even if it meant pushing a bit, he had no choice but to attend the Noble Assembly and show his face before those five nobles.
“Shall I read the next letter?”
With a nod, D’Shero opened the second letter.
“A month and a half ago, a new survivor was found on Queen Island. Name: Berty Lushan. Age thirty-four, height around 170cm, slender build, fair skin, long brown hair covering her back…….”
Raphaelo’s brow slowly furrowed.
“A month and a half ago? The report is too late.”
“It seems to overlap with Your Grace’s overseas schedule. The messenger must have chased after it for a long time.”
D’Shero soon opened the third letter. His expression as he checked the contents was rigidly stiff, unlike before.
“……This is bad. No, it’s not. The messenger was ambushed en route. Two went missing in succession, and this letter was delivered by the third messenger.”
Raphaelo slowly opened his eyes, withdrawing his hand. A faint glint flickered in his dark red eyes.
Ambush.
It wasn’t uncommon for Raphaelo, who had many enemies. But twice in a row, consecutively? His bloodshot eyes turned to the letter in D’Shero’s hand.
“They were targeting that letter, weren’t they? How important must the contents be? Keep reading.”
“Yes. ……The new survivor has settled in Midwintree. She’s working as a maid. Shall I secretly attach someone to her?”
Contrary to expectations, it wasn’t particularly special information.
“No, leave it be. I’m slowly letting go of Queen Island matters. Holding on won’t help anymore.”
D’Shero hesitated uncharacteristically before carefully parting his lips.
“But Your Grace, regarding the Queen Island survivor. She has brown hair and light green eyes. It might be my overthinking, but her appearance in various ways…….”
“Reminds you of Anderter Farger’s sibling?”
Brown hair. Light green eyes evoking the freshness of spring.
Yes, those were all Anderter Farger’s colors. And they would be the colors most familiar to Raphaelo himself out of anyone in the world.
Because Anderter had been his one and only sword, his family, his comrade.
“I remember. He mentioned having an older sister. But she passed away during the Queen Island incident. He said he buried her body himself.”
Queen Island incident.
The Queen Island incident refers to the horrific terror attack in which the great mage Mephisto turned Queen Island into a hellish inferno—one of the most dreadful in history.
In this event, most of the island’s residents died instantly, and the few survivors had to abandon their homeland and flee to the mainland.
The shocking Queen Island incident sparked the great war. That war was the Mado War.
“His parents had passed away much earlier, and the cousins he only heard about by word weren’t islanders. His family is all gone.”
Queen Island is a small island at the southernmost tip of the empire.
Small islands generally form isolated societies with little exchange with the mainland, so their bloodlines mix more closely.
Thus, it wouldn’t be surprising if a newly appeared survivor had the same hair color and eye color as Anderter. A significant number of Queen Island refugees actually had that appearance.
“Moreover, her identity has already been confirmed, hasn’t it? Berty Lushan…… She can’t be the same person.”
“Yes, I think I overthought it.”
“I understand the feeling of grasping at straws. But…… don’t report these to me anymore. Handle it at your level and cut it off appropriately.”
“……Understood.”
After D’Shero left the bedroom, Raphaelo collapsed back onto the bed and closed his eyes again.
Hoping this time he wouldn’t have a nightmare.
* * *
At the same time, in Midwintree.
Lively screams were echoing from Weatherwoods Mansion today as well.
