Chapter 208. Beggar Siblings – Only Daughter
Leo left the Irotashi River, leaving the Harriet Gaidan in a state of rage.
There seemed to be no way to deal with her, as her hatred towards Lord Bart had reached the marrow of her bones. And soon, realizing that Phallas had died, the Duke of Tartan would deploy all his forces in pursuit, so Leo hastened on his way.
But the pursuit had already begun. Since the Western Border Count of the Kingdom of Conrad was Median Tartan (the son of Duke Lapert), each city that received the message sent out their troops. Soldiers spread out in all directions, restricting passage and beginning to build a siege net.
By now, the knights of the Tartan Duke’s family must have been rushing in, and Leo realized he was in a very difficult situation. The tightening siege to catch Bart was not favorable to him either.
Damn it, curse it.
Because of that bastard Oriax, I have to move even at night. I can’t live like this forever, so I will eventually get caught, but I needed to delay that day as much as possible.
That way, I can gather some knights and turn the nobles to my side. If I had known it would turn out like this, I wouldn’t have sought out Lord Bart.
Leo, who had pulled his hood deeply over his head, scratched his head vigorously. Even though he had the emblem of the Monarch Baron, the soldiers would not leave him alone as he moved stealthily in the dead of night. They would at least try to take off his hood, and then…
They would see a young man who looked just like Prince Eric de Yeriel.
Eric de Yeriel was the grandson of the Tartan Duke, so the private soldiers of the Duke’s family would know his face.
Lord Bart had fled smoothly, and only I, who had nothing to do with it, got caught in the siege.
Annoyed, Leo drove his horse forward, thinking, ‘There’s no other way.’ At this point, he intended to break through the siege with force before the duke’s knights arrived. Leo waited for the siege to tighten and then approached the torch-wielding soldiers nonchalantly.
“Stop! Get off your horse. Where are you going at this late hour?”
“Get out of the way. Do you think you can block the passage of a noble? I am from a branch of the Monarch Baron’s family.”
Leo took out the emblem of the Monarch Baron. However, the soldiers, though politely bowing their heads, did not clear the way.
“I’m sorry. But this area is currently controlled by the Duke of Tartan. Can you please remove your hood?”
“Why should I?”
“…Do you have any reason not to?”
The soldiers’ gazes hardened. Just as Leo was stealthily reaching for his scabbard, anticipating this reaction,
– Piiik!
A loud whistle resounded. A blue line shot up into the night sky, and the soldiers’ attitudes changed rapidly.
“There! Over there!”
“We’ve found them! Not far from here? They said they would reward even just binding their feet. Captain, what should we do?”
“… It could be a trick. We stay here. But first, take off that hoo.. Ah!”
Upon seeing the blue line, something flashed in Leo’s mind, and he turned his horse around. If his memory was correct, coming this far was not entirely in vain.
He quickly dashed toward the place where the signal had flared. “Huh? Did the cavalry already arrive?” he lightly waved his hand at the surprised soldiers as if he were on their side and easily slipped through the breach in the siege.
However, the siege was triple, quadruple-layered, and soon Leo found a knight skillfully managing seven horses while breaking through the siege.
“Damn it! There were cavalry nearby.”
When the knight saw Leo, he effortlessly leapt from the horse he was riding to the one behind it. With a gentle flick of his long whip, he adjusted the direction of the horses ahead and, pulling the reins, softly turned towards Leo.
Impressive horsemanship.
He seemed to have planned to deal with the pursuing cavalry and then escape, but Leo shouted,
“Galren! It’s me!”
“Huh?!”
As Leo slightly took off his hood, Galren froze. He was so shocked that he even dropped the sword he was holding.
“Pr-Prince…!!”
“There’s no time to explain! Ride!”
“Y-Yes!”
Galren couldn’t gather his thoughts. He turned the horse’s head as instructed but couldn’t stop his own head from turning toward the prince.
How… How is this possible…? The prince is alive…? And how did he end up here?
At that moment, some soldiers in the distance were preparing to face the cavalry with spears. Finally able to tear his eyes away from the prince, Galren gulped.
I lost my sword, what should I do now? While he was contemplating, the prince followed closely and asked,
“What should I do? Should I go ahead and take them out first?”
“Yes. B-But it’s dangerous. I can handle…”
“Hyah!”
The prince spurred his horse forward and charged. With a long sword raised high, he headed toward the spearmen, and Galren was incredibly worried.
Handling a sword while on horseback is difficult. Not only was that long sword much heavier than a one-handed sword like the one he had just dropped, but it also required the ability to control the horse without using the reins.
But just by looking, it was clear that the prince’s horsemanship wasn’t great.
Can he even wield a sword properly?
Doubting even his swordsmanship, Galren stealthily flicked his whip at the side of the prince’s horse.
So the horse would veer just enough to avoid the soldiers’ strikes. The plan was that even if the horse, not being a battle horse, got speared, Galren would snatch the prince and flee. Galren also guided the other horses to appropriately bypass the soldiers…
– Swaaaaash-!
If it wasn’t for his supreme horsemanship, he would have surely fallen off. Galren was mesmerized by the flash of light in the prince’s hand.
An Aura Blade.
The prince leaned dramatically to one side, and with a single hand holding the blazing light, he sliced through over ten spears and soldiers in an instant.
“Unbelievable.”
Galren thought he was dreaming. He believed that his longing for the prince had led him to see an illusion.
But the sharp wind brushing his cheeks was too real to be a hallucination. His heart pounding as if it would burst told him this was not a dream.
Several similar incidents happened. By the time Galren judged the siege had been sufficiently broken, the prince halted his horse.
“Galren, I’m happy to see you again.”
“Y-You remember me?”
– Prrr.
The dim dawn light gradually illuminated the prince’s golden hair. Those shining golden eyes… Galren felt no need to ask, “Who are you?” This man… this man was the prince they had lost over a decade ago.
“Of course I remember. My knight who has struggled for many years. You’ve worked hard.”
“Ugh. Ooooohhh.”
Tears streamed down the cheeks of the knight who got off his horse and knelt. A life full of resentment. The tears of a knight who had lost his youth flowed hotly, and in that intense silence, a message suddenly popped up.
[Achievement: Master-Servant Relationship.2v – ‘1’, Those who swear loyalty will never betray Leo.]
But Leo felt it was useless. “Rise. You must have many things you want to say to me.” He said, lifting the knight, but the middle-aged knight kept repeating, “No, I have nothing. Nothing at all.”
* * *
Contrary to appearances, Galren was a talkative person. To avoid pursuit, he released six conspicuous horses into the meadow, and as he rode side by side with Leo, he frequently chatted.
Leo, thinking he had met a rather lively person just as he had heard, was actually meeting Galren for the first time. Galren was one of the bodyguards who had been with Bart and was known to have acted impulsively alone right after the attack on Phallas Tartan.
“Right now, they must be cursing me out tremendously.”
As he said, whenever Bart and his companions mentioned Galren in the past, they would often lose their composure and spew out curses, calling him a bastard son of a dog or a cursed wretch.
Of course, there wasn’t genuine malice behind those words. Instead, there was a heavy mix of a commemorative sentiment because, just before embarking on the Irotashi River, Galren had taken all the horses they had ridden on, volunteering himself as bait.
How absurd must it have been for the knights to find themselves escaping thanks to the unexpected sacrifice of a comrade without even a single word of discussion? That was why they couldn’t openly express their gratitude.
However, Galren had his own reasons. On the northern road toward the Monarch Barony, Galren spoke.
“Ayron… Oh, you wouldn’t know who Sir Ayron is, right? He’s a friend born in Noyar Port, the son of a fisherman. His idea was that if we disguised ourselves as fishing boats, we’d be fine, but I didn’t believe that. Knights disappearing without a trace, with a river nearby, it’s obvious where they would have gone.”
“I see. But wouldn’t it have been better to discuss and then escape together?”
“Hmm… If I had, my comrades would all have followed me. That’s why I didn’t say anything… but now I think I should have discussed it. Then, everyone would have met you sooner, my prince. But Prince, is it really fine not to bring Bart? You might not know, but he’s an outstanding swordsman. Well… not that he compares to you, my prince.”
“Unfortunately, there’s no time for that.”
Leo spoke indirectly. Bart was likely to return to Noyar Port around next summer. Without any means of contacting those who had fled to the sea, and unable to wait until then, Leo decided to simply return to the Monarch Barony.
Fortunately, Galren wasn’t the type to pry into others’ affairs.
About the prince’s unusual behavior, such as moving at night and taking short naps at noon, he asked, “Is it to avoid pursuit?” only once and didn’t question further. Instead, he chatted about minor matters, for example:
“Wouldn’t it be better to ride a different horse?”
“It’s borrowed.”
While steadily heading north.
Nothing significant occurred during the journey. Perhaps the most noteworthy thing was that Leo learned a bit of horsemanship from Galren in about a month of riding. By the time the two reached the Monarch Barony, light snowflakes were falling in the mild winter.
Located at the northernmost point of the Conrad Kingdom, the Monarch Barony bordered the Belita Kingdom and the Aisel Kingdom. Like other border territories, it had a fortress built for military purposes serving as the lord’s castle. However, its rather small scale made it look somewhat shabby.
The shabbiness was further accentuated by the densely packed houses surrounding the fortress.
A shabby shantytown. The precarious houses, barely enough to shelter from rain and wind, leaned against one another with roofs barely perched on their thin walls.
This was also a characteristic of a border territory. It was where fugitives from other kingdoms would settle without permission, and if the lord wasn’t meticulous, it would quickly become like this.
Moreover, since the head of the household, Gustav Monarch, was indifferent and off in Belita Kingdom, it only made things worse. Leo passed through the rundown houses and entered the lord’s castle.
Showing his emblem to the guards, he asked the chief servant if any party had arrived before them. The disinterested chief servant, matching the gloomy ambiance of the fortress, assigned Leo a maid.
Thinking that this place wasn’t going to be any help, Leo followed the maid’s guidance to the outer quarters where Lena, Xenia, and Tian were staying. And there, he encountered someone he hadn’t even expected.
A towering figure with snow-white hair. Bishop Berg was waiting for him. But what was even more shocking…
“Xenia?”
Was Xenia’s actions. Dressed in an elegant fawn-colored dress, she had her arm linked with Bishop Berg’s. Smiling brightly, she dropped a bombshell on Leo.
“Grandfather, let me introduce you. This is the person I promised my future with…”
Leo froze in shock. Bishop Berg looked displeased, and Xenia was warmly introducing her future husband to her grandfather. Her full name was Xenia Peter, the only daughter of Count Gustav Peter.
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