Chapter 221 — 깃발을 들다

Chapter 221

Raising the Banner

“At last, we can finally return to the Empire.”

Beneath a flag snapping in the wind,

Elric stood at the edge of the fortress and looked down over the distant land.

The horizon was all jagged with mountains piled upon mountains,

but Elric knew. Beyond that lay an Empire in the thick of turmoil.

How many months had it been since he’d left?

Three? Four?

No—perhaps half a year.

The seasons had turned twice, maybe three times.

Chasing Demon Kings had been so frantic that his sense of time had dulled.

So the thought of going back to the Empire set his heart lightly aflutter.

Hermann must have felt the same; a smile hung at the corner of his mouth.

“But this is where it truly begins.”

“Right. It begins now.”

Hermann nodded, heavy and sure.

Across his steadied pupils seemed to flit the afterimages of countless incidents from the past months.

Once their business in Interresia was wrapped up,

Elric immediately dismantled the Guardian Dragon and, using the byproducts, focused on turning the Star Campaigners into Dragonfang Troops.

He took their sworn oaths of true loyalty and distributed the serum of the Guardian Dragon he had personally refined—of course, with contracts that carried penalties should they break their vows. That went without saying.

He even shared part of the Progenitor’s magic his grandfather had left him—the Art of the Dragonfang Troops.

On that foundation,

the soldiers, whose skills had already soared thanks to the various techniques Elric had taught them, found another springboard for a new leap.

Meanwhile, he also devoted himself to forging arms from the dragon’s hide, scales, and bones.

Having once prided himself on being a “dragon hunter,” Mephisto knew exactly how to make use of a dragon’s carcass.

—Dragons, you see, are like a tree that gives and gives. Not a scrap goes to waste. The problem is, when they near the end of their lifespan, they dissolve their bodies back into mana and return it to nature, so unless you hunt them, good luck getting any parts…!

He hadn’t had a chance to show off in one of his specialties for a while; the needless explanation got long and dull to boot.

Anyway,

the forging and refining proceeded at a brisk pace without any major missteps.

They made blades—swords, spears—from the dense bones.

Inner armor from the hide.

Mixed the scales with Baekryeonjeonggang steel to temper solid heavy plate.

Thankfully, the Guardian Dragon had been so enormous that there was more than enough to arm all the Star Campaigners, and even share a portion with House Vail and the Black Skull.

—Hmm, I’m not sure I should accept something like this.

—If it feels like too much, you can hand it back.

—N-no, that’s not what I meant…!

—Pahahahat! Then I’ll gladly take it. When you’re old, this is about all you can afford to be greedy over.

—What about you, Hermann?

—Ahem! I’ve had a change of heart. To refuse a gift would be discourteous as a friend. Ahem, ahem!

When Hermann and Saylor received their new blades, their expressions could not have been brighter.

It also became an opportunity for the knights of House Vail—who had kept some distance from Elric—to begin opening their hearts to him one by one.

—Please forgive the discourtesy we have shown until now.

Kanata, master of the Cheongyang Knights, led his men in person to bow his head to Elric, a proof of that change.

Hermann and Isabel looked on from afar, thoroughly pleased.

And time’s wheel rolled on again.

The forging was completed, and so was the basic training as Dragonfang Troops.

Armed with stout armor and weapons, the Star Campaigners were now veterans who could stand anywhere in the world and not be found wanting.

Thanks to strict drilling, their prior identities as retainers of the Count Franz household and the Viscount Twork household had largely faded.

Thus was born an elite force two thousand strong.

And at last, it was truly time to depart.

Elric went to Sarnai to say his final farewell.

There,

he met someone he had long wanted to meet but had never had the chance to.

The God of the Firmament had descended into Sarnai’s body.

—You are the grandson Usden spoke of.

Though she should not have been able to see, Sarnai, in that moment, was looking straight at Elric.

Her usually calm voice was somehow different—quiet, full of grace.

A presence that made you want to bow your head without thinking.

He had met the Flower Gods at the Temple of Flowers before, the God of Narcissus among them, but this was entirely different.

This, he thought, must be what true divine dignity feels like.

—Ugh…! I have to feel this filthy sensation again? This place makes me sick. When you’re done, let’s get out. If we stay, this king won’t last.

Mephisto, standing right beside him, loathed that aura.

—Mephistopheles, you are as discourteous as ever.

But the God of the Firmament seemed to hear Mephisto’s grumbling. Looking straight at Mephisto—precisely—she spoke.

Yet there was something like fondness in the smile at her lips.

—What’s this? You can see this king? So you didn’t win the title of god in a card game after all?

—I preside over all things. I see where you have flowed from, and where you will flow to.

—Preside? More like sit back and watch.

—Depending on how you look at it, the words you choose will differ.

—Tch!

Faced with the God of the Firmament’s graceful tongue, Mephisto folded his arms and averted his head, as if he wanted no part of the conversation.

Elric could only shake his head beside him. As always, Mephisto was terrible at verbal sparring.

Then Elric steadied himself and offered proper courtesy to the God of the Firmament.

He wouldn’t bow even to the Crown Prince, but this god was a being worthy of such a salute.

—I heard it was you who met my grandfather, and who had Sarnai lead me here. Thank you.

—I merely did what I ought. Descendant of ■■.

■■.

Elric could not, for the life of him, recall the exact sound of the name the God of the Firmament had spoken.

He had heard it clearly.

But his brain refused to process it; it would not stick in memory. As if his mind had chosen not to recognize it.

Even so, Elric could guess who she meant.

The Progenitor.

The name whose very existence was a legend within the clan.

—I only granted the request of my friend, ■■. You have no reason to thank me.

—May I ask what… the Progenitor asked of you?

—I would like to tell you, but I cannot. It was ■■’s dying wish. Put simply, if I say it outright, the descendant will be getting it too easy, or so he said. He thought it would be boring, so he asked me to hide it as much as possible. Usden had quite a hard time with that as well.

—…

—The smile you’re wearing now—that was exactly the smile Usden used to wear.

Elric clicked his tongue. So his grandfather, who had tormented him, had in turn been tormented by the Progenitor.

Mervinger, through and through. They simply could not bear to watch anyone else have an easy time. Perhaps that was the ancestral trait handed down through the house.

Which only made it more annoying.

—In any case. I wanted to see it at least once. What the ‘successor’—the one ■■ said would be born someday—would look like.

At those words,

Thump!

Thump!

Elric had to calm his pounding heart by force.

Successor. The word the Progenitor had used struck him hard.

The Progenitor would not have meant the head of the house in a mere domestic sense.

He would have meant the one to truly inherit his magic and his teachings.

And that, the fact that he had been pointed out, gladdened him.

At the same time, he wanted to know the ‘reason’ the Four Seasons’ arrangement had been passed to him.

—Seeing you up close—this is uncanny. You look just like him. Enough to call to mind ■■ in his youth.

In that brief conversation, Elric realized how very happy she was. As if she were meeting a friend she had had to send off long, long ago.

Elric, for his part, was glad for the many secrets he’d heard from her.

For he had caught a glimpse of an age so old that not even records remained.

And then—

—Go west. There you will find what you desire.

Elric received a prophecy that wasn’t quite a prophecy.

He never did learn what it meant.

When he asked, the God of the Firmament only smiled that strange smile in silence.

Considering he was at the very edge of the eastern borderlands at the time, “go west” might simply have meant return to the Empire—or it might have meant go farther still, to the farthest reaches of the west.

Perhaps it meant that if he went to the West Sea, he would gain something.

But he knew it would be of great help to him, and so Elric gave thanks.

And then—

The campaign began in earnest.

He planned to earn their first merit as grandly as possible.

Only then would the Red Lion Army, Batu, the demons, and the Empire all take note of their return.

—Acran Fortress. We go there.

The reason for choosing Acran Fortress was simple.

After Ketraine Fortress, where the Star Campaigners had first proved their mettle, it was the place that would most provoke the Red Lion Army,

and—

Belot… that massive Demon King’s miasma was drifting this way.

Whether it was Grigori’s main body or a branch, the trail of the demons led there all the same.

“An ominous stench reaches us even here.”

Elric half-ignored Mephisto’s mutter.

“【Show me】.”

He swept his magic wide along the horizon spread before his eyes.

Belot would have no idea,

but a fragment of Hyul’s thought-mass still lingered in the Demon King’s shadow, left there by Hyul’s will.

Kekeke. I finally get to eat something tasty again.

Hyul’s intent tittered, delighted.

And then—

Found it!

Elric locked onto something.

A mountainside whose slopes were far more precipitous than the rest.

Hyul’s “scent” billowed thick from that place.

“Hermann.”

“Right. Looks like you’ve found something fun again?”

“Don’t you want to catch the Demon King you missed last time?”

Hermann’s eyes went wide at the unexpected words, then he let out a soft laugh.

A fang peeked between his crooked lips.

“I do. You have no idea how galling it is for a knight to let quarry slip.”

“Then let’s go catch him. That quarry.”

Elric laughed too.

The Mage Who Devoured Talent