Chapter 294: Side Story – Black-haired Man (2)

Very early in the morning, before dawn had even broken, a group of men crossed a fog-covered prairie.

There were more than twenty of them.

All were dressed in a disorderly manner, with no uniformity whatsoever.

But one thing was obvious.

They did not look like people from the North.

“Whoa, whoa.”

They looked more like sailors or pirates.

Men who carried the strong scent of the sea.

The one leading the group spotted something in the distance and stopped everyone.

“Well, well. These short-legged brats made it pretty far.”

What he had seen was a wrecked carriage.

One of its axles had broken, and it could no longer move.

It was the same carriage the children had used to escape from Sturma.

“They got lucky too. If they’d taken the main road, we would have caught them a long time ago.”

The man clicked his tongue as he looked at the carriage.

They had lost the children’s trail for a while due to certain complications.

Yet they had still managed to get this far.

And they had avoided every patrol and blockade zone with incredible precision.

It was almost as if someone had been guiding them.

“Boss, I found tracks.”

The man turned his head toward one of his subordinates.

Sure enough.

The children’s footprints were clearly visible in the damp soil.

It seemed they had even lit a campfire while fleeing.

A few half-burned logs still remained.

And countless footprints stretched around them.

“…What the hell is this? Were they dancing?”

Around the campfire were chaotic footprints leading in every direction.

As if the children had spent the night dancing.

Those incomprehensible tracks made the man frown deeply.

“It looks like they camped here and then headed out into the prairie. Judging by the direction…”

The subordinate, a former tracker, followed the trail.

But eventually tilted his head in confusion.

Because the children were heading neither toward Varna nor Soara.

They were moving southwest across the prairie.

“…I have no idea where they’re going.”

When they left Sturma, the children had a clear destination.

But once they entered the prairie, they began walking in completely absurd directions.

As if they had gotten lost.

“Maybe… that’s for the best. After all… there’s something I need to recover as well.”

While the assassins from the Southern Archipelago tried to make sense of the change in direction, a voice spoke from the side.

“The direction is correct… If you accompany me there… I’ll pay you more.”

It was not a pleasant voice.

Every word was accompanied by an unpleasant metallic sound.

A noise that instinctively provoked revulsion.

Furthermore, the speaker wore a hood pulled deeply over his face, as if trying to hide himself.

“…You’ll have to pay us more, of course. This wasn’t part of the original job.”

The chilling voice.

The old robe.

The hood concealing the face.

Even for assassins accustomed to all kinds of experiences, he was someone they would rather avoid dealing with.

Then another sound was heard.

Clink— Clink—

“This… should be enough.”

The weight could be felt from the sound alone.

The men from the Southern Archipelago, especially sensitive to money, could estimate the amount of coins almost exactly.

The leader carefully opened the pouch.

Then he swept his gaze across his men and nodded with a peculiar expression.

“Ahem. You don’t have any other requests?”

The corners of the assassins’ mouths rose at the sight of the generous amount of gold.

That mage really has no sense of the value of money.

Then again, someone who goes around carrying corpses probably has little use for coins.

Mocking comments began spreading among them.

But the hooded man did not respond.

He simply watched the assassins celebrate their payment and nodded silently.

“As agreed… you may do whatever you want with the girl.”

After all, a deal was an exchange of what each party desired.

“But the boy… I would like you to hand him over to me.”

Both were golden.

But their value was completely different.

The hooded man’s voice, as he searched for a blond-haired boy, sounded much clearer than before.

***

“…So, what’s your real name?”

A group of children walked through a fog-covered prairie.

The white mist was so thick they could barely see more than a few steps ahead, forcing them to walk shoulder to shoulder.

On top of Emil’s head, the yellow mole pointed the way with a solemn expression, as if it were the captain of an expedition.

“Are you really the Golden Duke’s daughter?”

Perhaps it was because everything around them felt unreal.

The children had finally begun getting to know one another.

And naturally, they ended up asking Tarenian who she really was.

“…Yes.”

There was a phrase they had heard repeatedly while escaping from Sturma.

Barbossa’s daughter.

Not all of the attackers who had assaulted Sturma were returned dead like Ishtvan.

Some had very clearly pointed their swords directly at Tarenian.

“My real name is Lenia Barbossa.”

Her real name was Lenia Barbossa.

They had altered her name to sound more masculine and bribed the insignificant House Modvia of the South to create a false identity.

All of it had been done to escape assassins.

“In my family, succession has always been violent. You all know that. It doesn’t matter how many children a family has. In the end, only one becomes the head.”

The blood of nobles is blue.

Not the warm red that should flow through a person’s veins.

But cold blue blood.

And what chills that blood is an insatiable thirst called power.

“There used to be more than twenty siblings. Now only three of us remain, including me.”

Lenia Barbossa had originally been the youngest daughter of the Barbossa family.

She had been far removed from the struggle for power.

But as her siblings disappeared one by one, she was unwillingly drawn closer to the center of the succession battle.

Her mother fought desperately to protect her.

And was eventually poisoned.

“…That man over there is also an example of that.”

Lenia cast a weary glance behind her and whispered into Emil’s ear.

“……”

Emil followed her gaze.

And there he still was.

The black-haired man walking behind them.

“Joseph Bayezid. Isn’t he the man who lost to Count Rutiger?”

The fog was so dense that it barely allowed anyone to see a few steps ahead.

And yet Joseph’s figure seemed clearer and clearer.

His face had even regained color.

He looked like a living person.

When his eyes met Emil’s, Joseph smiled gently.

“…Why can a ghost walk around during the day?”

“Maybe it’s because of the fog. The sunlight can’t get through.”

“Since when do hymns not work against ghosts? That’s cheating!”

The children whispered among themselves while watching Joseph follow behind them.

Lenia’s true identity was important.

But what truly kept everyone on edge was Joseph Bayezid.

A ghost who had appeared beneath the light of the Black Moon and had continued accompanying them ever since.

“Don’t assume he’s really Lord Joseph. He could be trying to trick us.”

Emil narrowed his eyes and looked back once more.

[……?]

Joseph tilted his head as if asking why they were looking at him that way.

Then he smiled.

A warm smile.

But to Emil, it was terrifying.

‘Why only when I’m looking at him?!’

Joseph smiled only when he made eye contact with him.

Never when he looked at the other children.

And that made Emil suspect that perhaps he was the real target.

‘As if this situation wasn’t already terrifying enough…’

Even though he pretended to be calm, Emil had always been afraid of ghosts.

And much of the blame belonged to his father, Vlad.

Even before Emil learned how to walk, Vlad would sit him on his lap and tell him adventure stories.

‘Seriously, it was terrifying. Every night a mercenary disappeared.’

‘Honey, you’re scaring the child.’

‘And every time we heard something crying inside the forest…’

‘That’s enough! Look, you’re making him cry!’

Vlad described those stories so vividly that little Emil felt as if he were there himself.

And this very prairie was the setting of the story that had frightened him the most when he was a child.

— Huuu… huuu…

Tenss!

The sudden crying sound made all the children stop.

“What was that?”

“Wasn’t that a woman crying?”

“Enough already. This is too much.”

“……”

While the others murmured, Emil closed his eyes and bit his lip.

Why are bad feelings never wrong?

Why do the things you most desperately hope won’t happen always end up happening?

— Huuu… huuu…

Just like at the beginning of that terrifying childhood story, the sound of a woman crying began echoing through the fog.

It was exactly as he had imagined it as a child.

Emil focused his hearing to locate the source.

But the voices seemed to bounce from every direction.

Even his senses could not determine where they were coming from.

“…E-Emil. Look.”

A hand shook his shoulder.

“There are women over there.”

How cruel.

The words he least wanted to hear were precisely the ones that arrived most clearly.

Hampton insisted that he open his eyes.

And Emil felt like it was torture.

‘N-No way…’

He didn’t want to look.

He really didn’t want to.

But he had no choice.

He slowly opened his eyes.

Thousands of thoughts crossed his mind.

‘What was it that Dad used to say?’

‘That their tears were black?’

He felt that if he opened his eyes, all those horror stories would become real.

Dead women searching for their children.

Floating heads.

Wandering spirits.

“……!”

But what he found was something completely different.

“…Women?”

In an unnamed corner of the prairie, where the fog was beginning to dissipate, there was a scene full of life.

Horses.

Carts.

People.

And what surprised Emil the most was the group of women staring at them with wide eyes.

“Abubu!”

And the babies they held in their arms.

“…Hello, children. Where do you come from?”

The women observed them cautiously.

After all, a group of children had suddenly emerged from the fog.

But one of them, after noticing their age, approached with a smile.

“I come from Soara.”

She was a brown-haired woman.

Far too young and beautiful to fit the typical image of a mother.

The baby she carried in her arms stretched its hands toward Emil excitedly.

“W-We come from Sturma.”

“Really? You’ve come from very far away.”

The woman looked them over from head to toe.

Hair full of dust after sleeping outdoors.

Torn clothes.

Hands covered in wounds.

And above all.

Faces marked by tears.

“Was the journey very difficult for you?”

It was a logical question.

They looked like children who had suffered greatly.

“Would you like something to eat? I brought it for myself, but you can have some.”

The woman offered them a basket of eggs.

Boiled eggs, large and nutritious.

The kind that seemed capable of restoring anyone’s strength.

“My name is Anna. And yours?”

In Vlad’s stories, all the women cried black tears.

And wandered forever searching for children they would never find.

“By the way, your blond hair is very beautiful. It reminds me of a certain boy I once knew.”

But the woman standing before Emil simply smiled as she offered him an egg.

It was such a peaceful scene.

So warm.

That Emil eventually reached out and gently touched the cheek of the baby resting in her arms.