Bronze Dream (2)
From the moment that Gwain got lost, he knew he had a problem.
However, he didn’t think deeply about it at the time, even if there were the remains of food on his mouth and hands, with his insides feeling bloated. The first time he knew he had a serious problem, was after some time had passed when he already arrived at the royal capital. When he woke up, his body was covered in dirt, and there were even blood stains on his boots.
He learned that he followed the prince on a mission late on the previous night and that a bloodied corpse had been buried during the mission.
It was a far different problem than simply feeling stuffy and being covered in food waste.
He had left the palace without being conscious of it, and it seemed he had even swung his sword. He pondered this state of affairs, but no solution was to be found. Since nothing happened after that, Gwain buried his resentment deep within his heart, that was until he visited the castle of the Marquis of Yvesinth.
When he awoke the next morning, he found out that he had become a hero who had defeated a paladin of the empire. The new title, ‘Three Indomitable Knights’, was another bonus.
How had his body become like this? His skin was full of cuts and stab wounds, and the mana stored in his body was in disarray.
Well, having fought a paladin, it was natural for his body to be a mess. The problem was that he couldn’t remember it.
The same counted for his comrades, who had fought with him. Gwain wracked his head for days, thinking about it and then thinking some more.
Then the first prince suddenly came to mind.
The first prince knew that they had faced the paladin. It was an ugly thing, that such a prince had let them battle. Gwain thought that perhaps the prince knew something.
“So you came to see me?” the first prince asked, and Gwain nodded.
“If you couldn’t have won, do you think I would have used you like a hand of bad cards, juts discarding it?”
Gwain was left speechless for an instant. It was an unexpected question.
“It is a problem that you can understand if you use your brains a little, but why can’t you and your comrades see things in that way? What did you expect?”
Gwain was greatly embarrassed, so much so that he could not think of how to answer the little prince. His mouth was agape.
‘Creek,’ he stood up and decided to flee from the wagon, but the first prince caught his arm and said, “No. You came to the right place. Sit down and watch.”
Pretending to give in, Gwain sat back down and awaited an explanation.
“You really want to know?”
“It happened to my body. Of course, I want to know.”
The first prince asked Gwain a few times whether he truly wished to hear the truth. He also said that sometimes ignorance could be the greatest medicine. Gwain was afraid, but he hardened his heart and demanded the truth.
“If you really want to hear it, then.”
The first prince then started talking, his face serious. The truth he revealed proved to be shocking.
“So this ghost, I mean, this Death Knight’s soul, is in my body?”
Gwain was drained after hearing this and started to grope at his flesh, but the first prince kept explaining in a low voice.
“Death Knights are not unconditionally evil beings. They are the hallowed spirits of the knights who had given their lives for the founding king. Now they remain in this world for a while, for they still have work to do. I don’t know what this mission is they are staying behind for. All that is certain is that they will never harm you.”
“You say that now!”
“If you don’t believe me, study your mana. I don’t know for sure; your amount of mana must be more than before. Your pain should have eased as well.”
The prince certainly did not speak false. As it was his own body, Gwain knew it better than anyone. But it was still unacceptable, for this wasn’t about gains and losses.
It was a threat to his existence, and Gwain feared that he, as a human, could disappear at any time. The Death Knight could take over his body right this moment. As he imagined that, his heart constricted, and his body grew cold.
It was a horror he had never before experienced.
“Again, they won’t take your body away from you.”
“They’ve already used my body many times. I can’t even remember my own actions! You know that they use it again and again!”
‘Kreeuk,’ the carriage’s door opened and the prince’s warriors appeared. It seems that they had come running after hearing the shouting.
“Your Highness, are you okay?”
Their hands were on the hilts of their swords, and they gave Gwain sharp looks. Their eyes were alert as if they would cut Gwain’s throat without a thought if so ordered.
“It’s nothing.”
“Your Highness?”
“I said it’s nothing.”
The first prince gestured for them to leave.
“Is that Gwain?” a woman whispered just before the door closed, also saying, “We should be wary, lest we regret it later.”
“Arwen!”
As the nervous first prince shouted this and the carriage door once more opened, Gwain chewed his lip.
“Keep my orders in mind, if you don’t want to regret it for a lifetime.”
After being warned thusly, Arwen apologized to the first prince and once more closed the door.
“He’s not a kid, what are you worrying about?” someone said from outside.
The prince shook his head, and his face looked somewhat awkward.
“I apologize for using your body without permission.”
Gwain cared little about the prince’s face or words. All that was important was that the matter of his body and its ghostly phenomena was solved.
“In the future, I will ask you for permission in advance,” the prince continued.
“Do you think I’ll allow it?”
“Well, even if you really hate it, I can’t help you. They pop out at will, and I can do nothing about that. They don’t listen to me.”
“What do I have to do to let it leave me?”
“I am not a priest. How can I answer that.”
“So if I go to a priest, this matter will be resolved?”
“I wager that if you go to a temple and ask their help, the priests will try to bake or boil or roast you whole. They say that an unclean body must be burned.”
As Gwain kept talking with the first prince, his fear gradually subsided.
He listened to the first prince’s casual chatter and wondered if it was really as big a problem as he had made it out to be. According to the prince, the loss was negligible and the profit considerable. Of course, Gwain didn’t believe that, but he tried to believe it.
“Is there anything else I need to know?”
The prince thought for a moment, and then said, “Eus.”
“Eus?”
“He is the youngest Royal Knight who had sacrificed himself for the king four hundred years ago. It is the name of a knight who had died as a paladin.”
As Gwain stared at the prince, the prince shrugged.
“I just thought it would be good for you to know the name of the person who has entered your body.”
“No shit.”
Even so, Gwain kept the name in his head.
His heart pounded in his breast. In his flesh was the soul one who had tried to die for his king, but had never truly died. And this being was inside a man who had ripped apart his rings for his own king.
Where else in the world would one find such a symbiotic and fitting relationship?
Gwain shook his head.
* * *
Goosebumps suddenly arose all over my body.
I watched as Gwain left the carriage. A fine wave of mana was spreading around him.
‘Sshh!’
The wave disappeared as suddenly as it had appeared.
“Well?” he asked me as he tilted his head, and then closed the carriage door as he disappeared.
Left alone in the carriage, I smiled.
“I figure he might make an attempt at revenge or something.”
I grasped at the air before me with my hand, but nothing was caught. No wave of energy was felt.
“It’s too late, but still early.”
I knew: The wave has disappeared, but its deep reverberations will soon reappear in the world.
Muhunshi was originally like that.
‘Dookdookdook.’
As I was smiling to myself, someone knocked on the carriage door.
“This is Arwen.”
“Come in.”
The door opened and the short-haired Arwen entered.
She asked if she could apologize. I nodded.
“A while ago, I was presumptuous.”
It seemed that she was remorseful that she had so openly spoken of Gwain.
“You didn’t even hear everything we talked about.”
“My heart was like a chimney. My emotions rose without pause.”
“So you blame your heart?”
“If Your Highness had not stopped me, I would have said…”
I had responded casually to Arwen, but only now could I properly see her face.
“You seem to have something else to say?”
I was serious before, but now I beckoned for her to join me, as I saw how utterly serious she was.
As Arwen sat on the bench opposite me, she looked into my eyes.
“Your Highness, I would like Your Highness to rest a little, to relax. To lighten your load.”
“My load?”
“Aren’t you carrying too many things on your own shoulders?”
“If this is about Gwain and-“
“It’s not just that.”
She was talking about my life in general and my overall attitude. She said that I could not afford to enjoy any free time as I was trying to do too many things on my own. That was why she believed me to be in jeopardy.
There was certainly a certain truth to her words.
Since I had become a human being, where did my initial plans to enjoy life to its fullest go?
Day by day, breath by breath, I was living for the independence of the kingdom as my only earthly goal.
“Have you even spent time just to relax for a moment lately?”
I pondered her question, and I realized: I don’t do anything for myself.
Really? Yes, not even a single thing!
“Since Count Balahard was killed, everything had gotten worse. Won’t you stop pushing yourself so much?”
Arwen looked at me, her face sad. It wasn’t an emotion that I could comprehend.
Fight. Get stronger. Lay the foundation for an independent Leonberg.
I knew the time I had spent had never been without meaning.
“People cannot live that much! Humans don’t live so intensely.”
I had done right, so why does Arwen keep saying that I am wrong?
I really didn’t understand, so I just frowned.
* * *
Arwen looked at the First Prince.
He had tilted his head, as if he was listening to a story that was hard to follow. As she looked at him, something welled up from inside of her.
There was something wrong with this young prince.
She didn’t know it for sure until she had broken through the wall, just now. It had always been enough for her just to follow the prince and watch his back.
But she noticed the truth only after they had crossed the border. She realized what a great burden the prince was carrying on his shoulders. How much he was overworking himself.
He was always rushing forward, looking ahead.
Prince Adrian ran ceaselessly as if stopping was a sin.
As she thought about it now, the first prince has always been like that. Always at the forefront of battle – didn’t he seek out the toughest of fights? He fought so fiercely, giving little heed to his own safety.
He lived on with large and small wounds until he finally suffered a fatal injury in the battle against the Warlord. He was rescued, escaping only with his life.
The prince had woke up after that and had crawled through pools of blood with his injured body after he had punished the neglectful northern lords by his own hand.
He had held meetings for days on end to restore the north, all the while not taking care of his body. When he was able to wield his sword again, he headed straight to the battlefield.
Prince Adrian had seemed to assume that the death of Count Balahard and the fall of Winter Castle had been his fault. He had been a boy of only sixteen at the time and yet wanted to do everything alone. It was the same now.
They did not know what would happen once they entered the imperial capital. The emperor could prove fickle and suddenly annihilate the entire delegation, and no one would protest their deaths.
The prince could not be sure about the future. If he had known that they would be safe, he would never have instructed the stealthy elves to keep the gathered military intelligence safe if worst came to worst.
The first prince must surely be expecting that, whatever was about to happen in Hwangdo, it would be strange, and death a possibility.
Before they had come close to the imperial capital, the prince had devoted all his energy to studying the empire’s knights and had suffered the complaints and shouts of a man who wasn’t even loyal to him.
A delegation of three hundred humans was clinging to a young man, not yet an adult, and no one found this strange.
They didn’t even know how to be ashamed. Of course, Arwen has been the same as them until a while ago. It might be that the prince was offering himself up for the sake of future generations, but if he continued like this, Arwen thought that he would be drained until he could neither stand nor speak.
“If Count Bale Balahard was here now, he would’ve said the same as I,” Arwen energetically said as she looked at the prince, who still gazed at her with an inscrutable expression.
“You have done well, so take a break for a bit.”
The prince remained silent. It was only after a long time that he spoke.
“You mean I’m too hasty? I’ll keep your words in mind, Arwen. I must take it easy. Do you think Vincent will give me the same advice?”
Arwen could only sigh as she heard his mischievous answer. For today, she guessed that she had to retreat from this battle of wills. It was not a problem that could be solved in a short time.
“Then, have a peaceful night, Your Highness.”
“You too, Arwen.”
She lowered her head and left the carriage.
“Well?” Arwen demanded as she saw the knights who had gathered around the carriage.
They all had heavy faces, and hurriedly avoided her gaze whenever she made eye contact. Their faces were full of shame.
Arwen pretended not to notice.
It seemed that they had all overheard the conversation that she had with the prince. On her part, she thought that it had gone rather well.
The encamped delegation was exceptionally quiet that night. Only the footsteps of a woman who worried about her master were heard as she paced before his carriage all night long.
A bright day dawned.
“Then, let’s go!”
As soon as the first prince’s order was given, the delegation set out toward the imperial capital. Their ranks were more ordered than ever, and the knights all had sharp eyes.
A giant, sprawling fortress appeared in the distance. Soon after it was sighted, a party of horsemen rode out of its gate. They were the cavalry of the imperial capital’s garrison.
“From now on, do not fail to be alert for even a moment!” the deputy commander of the Templar Knights commanded sharply. The knights’ anticipation rose and their eyes deepened.
Arwen stood near the carriage, and so did Carls Ulrich, Adelia, and the two elves.
The imperial cavalry arrived at the fore of the delegation, all the while throwing and receiving piercing glances.
“We will escort you to the imperial palace!”
Under their guidance, the delegations finally entered Hwangdo, the capital of the empire.
Five months and fifteen days had passed since they had crossed the border.
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