Immortal's Ascending Path - 44
Episode-44 Royal Wedding.
Ulrich finished speaking and leaned back in his chair, basking in the sunlight streaming into the backyard. Roberta stood silently, watching him. Questions swirled in her mind.
Most of them were about names. The fact that he occasionally borrowed names meant that Armin wasn't the only one. She was simply curious about which names he had borrowed and whether she knew any of them.
And the remaining question was about Armin. Not just anyone, but his adopted son. No matter how harsh Ditmarsken was, someone in his position shouldn't die so easily.
After pondering for a while, she cautiously asked,
"What happened to Armin?"
"There was an accident. He met with misfortune while I was away."
Accident? Misfortune? She narrowed her eyes. Did he die from a plague or a monster? Just as she was about to ask again, he spoke first.
"Did you tell Vinicio about the monsters?"
Setting aside her question about Armin, she asked back,
"Are you referring to… Gallua?"
"That's right."
He was referring to the massacre she had witnessed just before arriving in Icelandburg. A mixed-blood of unknown human and fairy origins had summoned monsters to hunt the villagers.
Ulrich and his party had eliminated all the monsters, and the culprit seemed to have taken her own life, but the incident wasn't over.
"I only told him that monsters attacked the village."
"You didn't tell him the details, I see."
"Not yet. There are too many unclear things."
While talking with Archbishop Vinicio, she conveyed the incident but concealed the fact that Gallua was the culprit and that she had summoned the monsters.
In that village, along with the hidden history related to the establishment of the Public Church, Ulrich said that the culprit was related to a clan with the same progenitor as Cormillius.
She didn't know if the Archbishop knew that hidden history, but revealing the details would cause a great uproar. The Osnober Kingdom was in conflict with the Pantheon, or rather, Cormillius, and King Richard had been excommunicated.
Even the appearance of monsters near the capital was a problem, but what if the person summoning those monsters appeared? Rumors could spread that Richard was involved with the minions of an evil god, sacrificing the people for some kind of gain.
Because of this, Roberta decided that she had to hide the details until she grasped more of the situation.
"Well done. It's best not to bring it out into the open for now. Vinicio is a good person, but there's nothing he can do right now. His subordinates were summoned to the Pantheon by summons, and there are many eyes watching. If he moves carelessly, it will only raise the opponent's guard."
Roberta furrowed her brow.
"You're expecting there to be a group involved here."
"Based on the circumstances so far, we have to assume so."
Indeed, he had left Ditmarsken in the first place because of suspicion. Sensing a conspiracy related to the royal wedding, he stopped his seclusion and came all the way to Icelandburg.
On top of that, what meaning was there in that unknown Gallua annihilating a village? There was a larger plan, and it was merely groundwork for that plan.
The problem was that everything was speculation. He knew there was a scheme, but it was vague. He didn't know what they were aiming for or how they were going to do it.
"Have you eaten?"
"No. The conversation ended at an awkward time."
"Then go rest. Recover from your journey today, and we'll talk tomorrow."
Stopping her from following, he left the mansion alone.
#
Roberta ate a late lunch and returned to the backyard. She lay down on the bed to take a nap, but she couldn't fall asleep. Ulrich told her to recover from her journey, but she wasn't particularly tired.
She had even crossed the Ice Peninsula. Camping for a few days was nothing. She sat in a chair and drank the tea that the servant had brought. And while looking up at the sky, she retraced her journey.
The village that had been attacked by monsters and then rebuilt, the stepmother who cast a spell on her daughter out of jealousy, the clan that had served one person for hundreds of years, the person blessed by an evil god—each one remained vividly in her memory.
She had traveled all over the place with Diocesan Alonso or the Priests of the Pantheon when she was an apprentice Priest. But this experience was a first.
Roberta placed her two hands holding the teacup on her lap.
'This will be over soon.'
She was at her destination, Icelandburg. The wedding was only a few days away, and she was scheduled to return as soon as the ceremony was over.
And the journey would end the moment she arrived in Ditmarsken. Thinking about this made her feel restless.
'Will I really leave Ditmarsken?'
Ulrich, would he return to Ditmarsken?
Count Meyer Willem said that Ulrich would leave after this journey, that he would travel the world under a different name. Ulrich replied that it wasn't necessarily the case, but Willem insisted.
She dismissed it at the time as perhaps being an overreaction, but now she thought so too. That he would leave when the journey was over. During her time with him, she had seen him change his name, hoping to be forgotten.
The Ulrich of Ditmarsken had stayed in one place for too long and had become too well-known. It was a situation that didn't suit the him she had seen so far.
If he had stayed in Ditmarsken, he would have lived in a world decorated like an artificial garden, unaware of the passage of time, as he had said.
If he felt bored, he would sleep deeply until the following year, welcome the past connections that occasionally came to visit, and remain as a Lord who had lived for a very, very long time while monitoring the Ice Peninsula.
But an opportunity was given.
He ended his seclusion and began his journey.
That beginning was a journey to face old memories and the present in Luman's village, and he regained the time he had forgotten in the artificial garden. The reason for using the name Armin instead of Ulrich wasn't just because of regret.
It was to prepare for the future, as he had lived long enough as Ulrich. So that he could put down his name and leave at any time. But if he left, what would happen to her?
"I don't know. What will happen in the future."
Muttering to herself, she sighed.
Usually, it didn't matter. Even if the Lord died or went missing, the Priests guarded their posts. The only time a Priest moved posts was when the Pantheon ordered it.
Roberta was different. Her post, Ditmarsken, was virtually worthless to the Pantheon. It was a diocese directly managed by the Pope solely because of one human there. The reason she was sent was the same.
"Roberta Priest?"
She turned her head. Fritz had also come out to the backyard. He looked clean, having washed off the sweat from his sparring.
"Were you resting here? Aren't you tired?"
"I'm fine. More importantly, what about you? You were sparring too."
"I was going to take a nap, but I can't seem to fall asleep."
She knew the reason why he couldn't fall asleep without asking. It was the same worry as her, or rather, a heavier worry than hers.
Roberta was only parting with someone she had been with for a little over a year, but the boy had to send off someone he had served for generations.
She had previously advised Fritz not to be impatient, but there was a reason why the boy continued to show impatience. He couldn't afford to have the mindset of leisurely learning from experience since this could be the last journey.
"Fritz."
After thinking for a moment, she asked.
"Yes?"
"If Ulrich leaves, what will you do?"
At the word 'leaves,' Fritz flinched.
"Well, um… I still have to stay in Ditmarsken. Bernhardt showed me to Ulrich as his successor. Besides, there's no other path for me anyway."
In Osnover, primogeniture was common, and Fritz was the fourth son.
"Well, that's a matter for the future. I'm not trying to think about it right now."
"I thought you would be very upset, but I'm glad you're not."
"Isn't it possible that he won't be leaving anytime soon?"
Roberta looked at the boy, who was raising his voice in a cheerful manner.
"The reason why Ulrich came here hasn't been fully revealed, and in my opinion, it doesn't seem like it will end as a simple incident."
"You think so too?"
"Of course. The biggest reason is what Ulrich is suspecting, but also what happened in the village last time, and the fact that Richard was excommunicated. It feels like something big is going to happen."
Fritz added that wasn't that the reason why Ulrich wasn't here? Although he didn't reveal the reason to the two of them, they knew that he was away investigating the issues related to the royal wedding.
"You're right. It seems like there's something big going on."
She stood up from her seat.
"Where are you going?"
"There's no need to just wait like this."
"Then I'll go with you."
Fritz also stood up.
"But do you have any idea where to go?"
"I do have some idea. I've seen it before."
When she was an apprentice Priest, Roberta assisted Alonso in rooting out heretics. How did he approach the heretics back then? After rummaging through her memories for a moment, she nodded.
"Let's find a mage."
#
The two left the mansion and walked along the main street.
Changing their attire, Roberta wore plain clothes instead of her Priest robes, and Fritz also dressed simply so as not to give the impression of being a noble.
"You're going to find a mage?"
"Yeah, that's what we can check right away."
Fritz tilted his head. He had a look on his face that asked why a mage of all people.
"There's a saying. When you keep a mage close—"
"Keep a Priest by their side. Is that what Ulrich said?"
After punishing the mage and stepmother named Oxana Narses, Ulrich said that to her husband, Lord Matthias.
"Yeah. It's a pretty old saying."
"Doesn't it mean to keep them together to keep each other in check because they don't get along?"
"That's right too. But do you know why they don't get along?"
Saying he didn't know, Fritz asked the reason.
As far as the boy knew, there was only one difference between Priests and mages. The difference was whether or not they had undergone the ordination ceremony. Of course, that difference was very significant in human society.
They both used the mana that the celestial gods had bestowed upon the world, and whether or not they were ordained didn't make a difference in their ability to handle mana.
When Oxana Narses summoned lightning with a gesture while fighting Roberta, other high-ranking Priests could do it too. They just didn't do it.
"The difference between Priests and mages is only whether they learn mana for faith or for themselves. If a mage realizes faith and is ordained, they can become a Priest."
"If there's not that much of a difference, why do they get along so badly? Is it because someone who hasn't been ordained uses magic?"
Roberta smiled and replied no.
"That's not it. If that were really the reason, I would have hated it when you used mana to light the firewood. You used mana even though you weren't ordained, right?"
"Ah… I did."
"The reason we hate each other is because of the difference in faith I just mentioned. We criticize mages for being arrogant, just as mages criticize us for being arrogant."
Roberta suddenly stopped walking. The two were in front of the entrance to an alleyway leading from the main street to the palace.
"What's wrong?"
Looking at the narrow road, she focused on her senses. She felt the wind. It wasn't the wind created by the movement of the air. It was the mana that she often compared to the wind. That wind-like flow of mana was blowing from inside the alleyway to the outside where the main street was.
"This way."
"Do you feel something?"
"Mages have their own standards."
Standards? Fritz blinked.
"Anyway, there's another meaning to the saying I mentioned earlier. Where there are no Priests, mages swarm. Like bugs swarming sweet snacks."
Following the flow of mana, the two entered the alleyway and soon stopped at a house. On the outside, it looked like an ordinary three-story house. However, unlike the buildings in the vicinity, it had no nameplate.
The windows were all closed, and moss and vines grew on the outer walls. It looked like an abandoned, vacant house.
However, standing in front of the house, they felt a strong wind. This was the source of the wind. It was a mage's base, and they used this method to replace the nameplate.
Knock, knock, she knocked on the door.
"Who is it?"
The response came a little late.
"I came following the flow."
"What's your name?"
"Neberaya Oxana."
Hearing the name Oxana attached to the pseudonym, Fritz turned around, and she covered her mouth with her finger and gave a slight smile.
< Royal Wedding > End