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It was said that the Jifiji Temple was completely burned (3)
Arwen, who finally calmed down her father and his attempted hugs, asked me for my understanding, and whether she could talk with him for a while.
I said she could, so she led her father into an adjoining room. Siorin’s smiling face not once showed the reality of the situation: That he was being dragged from my presence.
From outside the closed door, I began to hear the scolding voice of a woman.
“Why did you travel so far from home!?”
“I have been summoned here by His Majesty.”
“Don’t lie! I know you volunteered for this.”
“Ah well, a daughter does know her father best.”
“Did you say anything strange to His Highness?”
“I said nothing! Do I look like a peasant, who doesn’t know proper conduct when meeting a royal?”
“There are rumors regarding my record of service, so I had to ask.”
“Why are you so irritable, Arwen? Is there really something your dad doesn’t know about you?”
I could hear that Arwen’s voice had already become exhausted from all the shouting. Siorin Kirgayen clung to his love of his daughter, struggling through her wild remonstrance of him.
Arwen asked her father to go back home several times, but Soirin had stood firm and said that he wouldn’t be beaten back by her. In the end, Arwen had no choice but to relent.
“Please promise me one thing. If so, I will no longer interfere with father’s choice to be present on this mission.”
“How presumptuous, to have a daughter involved in her father’s affairs-“
“I am a knight of His Highness and represent the Kirgayen family in such a capacity. Be mindful of that fact.”
Siorin finally got in a word edgewise before Arwen cut him off, and he said, “I promise that I will do nothing to embarrass you in public, Arwen dear.”
“I am part of His Highness’s knight escort, so do not forget that I am always on duty, regardless of the time and place.”
“But Arwen, your father has volunteered only to see you after such a long time! How can you be so hard? If you really love your father, can’t we have some time to converse, even if only for a moment?”
“There is no time.”
“I really don’t believe that you don’t have-“
“Not even a second’s time.”
Even to me, who listened outside the door, Arwen’s answer felt like a knife through the heart.
“I’ll do as you say, then. Still, it’s good to even have the pleasure of seeing your face, and I am happy to see that you are healthy.”
Siorin’s voice had grown subdued. Its tone had become lonely; it sounded like the leaves of autumn being swept away by a gentle wind.
“I am glad to see you as well, father. I am not so good at these things, but I am glad that you also are in good shape and appear healthy,” came Arwen’s voice, and her voice had softened as it stuttered, expressing her joy of the reunion as well.
“Thank you for saying that, Arwen. I know you don’t like me that much, so there’s no need to try so hard. I will try to avoid getting in the way of your duties as much as possible during the mission.”
At that point, I didn’t know what to think. Siorin Kirgayen was deliberately showing his weaker side to his daughter.
“It’s not like that!” came Arwen’s response. “I have never thought of father in such a way. You have led us Kirgayens wonderfully, and I have always admired you. The reason I was so ferocious toward father just now is that you have always treated me like your little daughter rather than the knight that I-“
Arwen was interrupted by her father, who said, “I respect that. Come on then, if you let me hug you, I know that you are mature.”
“Father
” said Arwen, and she sounded frustrated as if she tried burying her head into her collar in shame at the moment that her father claimed his hug.
“Father, please let go of me now
”
“My daughter, little bird! Oh, ah, I can say that I want to be holding you like this for years! Your father is dreaming!”
The dream didn’t last long. As Siorin almost started shouting in an excited, love-filled voice, I heard a disgruntled grunt from Arwen as she finally managed to push her father away from her.
“You did that on purpose! Again!” she scolded him.
“Your father’s heart is always the same when I see you. So it is always with my heart that I speak to you. It’s really not intentional.”
It seemed that this situation wasn’t something that had only occurred once or twice. I heard Arwen chiding her father a bit more, and then things grew quiet. The door opened.
“Thanks to Your Highness’s consideration, I was able to communicate openly with my daughter. I can only thank you, and thank you again,” Siorin brazenly stated, his face filled with satisfaction.
Arwen was very red in her face, and I couldn’t tell whether it was because she was angry or embarrassed by how her father conducted himself.
On my part, I was just amazed that she had such color on her usually expressionless face.
Arwen briefly thanked me, apologized, and then disappeared.
Once more, I was left alone with Sirion Kirgayen.
His face was frigid and stern, just as it had been when we had first met.
What was his angle? After showing all that love toward Arwen, he was now pretending to be strict once more. I gave a vain little chuckle, finding it all to be so ridiculous.
Whether he noticed my ridicule or not, Siorin said a few words about his planned schedule and then brazenly left me.
“That’s a weird guy,” I mused to myself as I shook my head, looking in the direction in which Siorin had made his departure.
Soon after Siorin had left, the Marquis of Bielefeld came.
“I saw Count Kirgayen on the way here.”
“Yes. It seems as if he’ll be going with me.”
The marquis took a bottle of wine from my liquor cabinet as if he owned the place and then asked me what my first impression of the count was.
“He loves his daughter a great deal.”
The marquis grinned and said that, apart from an excessive affection toward his eldest daughter, Sirion had other virtues and that his skill was beyond doubt.
The Marquis of Bielefeld told me a decent amount of stories while he drank his wine, but his face suddenly turned serious.
“There will be thorns wherever you try to reach, and not one person Your Highness meets will not test your patience.”
The warning of the marquis wasn’t much different from the one that the king had given me. So, I would give him the same answer.
“I have lived no differently in the kingdom.”
“Your Highness, please pay attention.”
“What already?”
“You must leave the capital early on the day of departure, as there is something that has been directly ordered by His Majesty.”
As I studied the marquis’s expression, it was clear that his covert advice was serious.
“I don’t know what’s going on, but I hope it ends well,” I said.
“I hope that Your Highness will also accomplish your purpose and that we may see each other in safety once more.”
I offered a toast to the Marquis of Bielefeld, and he accepted it by saying, “I wish for the infinite glory and well-being of Your Highness the Prince.”
“And so do I wish you a pleasant future, Marquis Bielefeld.”
We struck our glasses together and emptied them at once.
“Well then,” the marquis said, and he left without a backward glance.
So, after having planned my departure for a few days, it seemed that I was tied to it. I felt sorry for the marquis, for he could be comfortably resting at his estate for at his age. Instead, he was wandering around, doing what he could for the sake of the kingdom.
The brightness of the next day was almost terrifying.
I found Maximilian and told him, “Take my sword.”
He did not refuse, and I immediately handed him my true body. I carefully watched Maximilian’s reaction. I was wondering whether he would be able to talk to his brother, but it seemed that the guy’s soul was still hiding somewhere, in silence.
I intended to watch Maximilian for a few days, so I had entrusted my body to him in advance. I asked him to notify me the instant that he started hearing strange words or voices.
Contrary to my worries, Maximilian did not hear anyone speak, and the day of departure arrived.
* * *
On the day that I left the capital, the king and queen saw me off in front of the palace.
The king opened and closed his mouth, clearly not knowing what to say.
“Go well,” he finally said in the end.
Looking at the king, and then at me, the queen asked if I didn’t want to give my father a hug.
I hated the thought of it, and the king hated it as well.
“Brother, please go safely,” said Maximilian.
“I will, and I shall return and see you again.”
After greeting Maximilian, I looked to his side. The princes and princesses that I had met once in the hall were arrayed there.
I bowed my head in silence and waved at them. I looked at Siorin Kirgayen, who asked, “Then, shall we set off?”
“Let’s go.”
“March!” and at the command of their leader, five-hundred troops began marching thereafter, the Templar Knights joined up with us.
The man who led the fifty knights was one I knew well. He was Erhim Kiringer, the deputy-commander of the Templar Knights, a man I had fought alongside with at Winter Castle.
“My lord, I am very pleased to see you again,” he said. He and the other Templars knelt before me in reverence. As I saw that excessive display of politeness, Erhim said with a grin, “When we last met, I said the Templar Knights would stand behind Your Highness.”
“Is that so?” I mused.
“Yeah, I said it,” Erhim Kiringer stated as he gave me a meaningful look.
It was a look filled with absolute trust and respect. The Templars who were behind him also looked at me with similar emotions. These were the Templars who had suffered great adversity in Winter Castle, and Dunham Fahrenheit was among them.
Erhim and Siorin walked with me, and the entire party set off again. By the time we had finally left the capital, Niccolo and the rangers came from afar and joined up with us.
“Your Highness,” Ranger Jordan greeted me as I looked down on him, and his mouth was grimly set, his eyes almost popping from their sockets in irritation. It seemed that he was quite dissatisfied after being recruited for another long-term mission.
There seemed to be a whole lot of things that Jordan dearly wanted to say to me, but because the difference between the command and the common soldiery wasn’t as hazy here as it was at Winter Castle, he dared not voice his complaints to me. He just kept looking at me in silent protest with those bulging eyes of his. After the rangers joined us, marching behind the Templars, the number of people on our expedition was nearly six-hundred.
Among them were the three-hundred cavalrymen of the Central Legion. They were our escorts and accompanied us as we headed to the southern border. We finally arrived at the fortress of Eunsaja, which served as the base for the Southern Legion. After we had stayed there for two days, we were well-rested and once more headed south.
As we left the citadel, Siorin said to me with some fear in his voice, “Your Highness, from now on, you must travel by carriage.”
To avoid unnecessary disputes and not show my face too much as we crossed the border, I accented and climbed into the cramped carriage.
“Your Highness, please sleep without worry,” Adelia said as she skillfully arranged the carriage’s cushions and laid me down. As we lay there, I started to enjoy the regular swaying of the carriage. I fell asleep without realizing it.
When I awoke, the procession had stopped.
“Adelia?
“Yes, Your Highness?” she muttered as she rubbed her eyes and raised herself up. I asked her why the carriage had stopped.
“We have reached the borderline, but the imperial troops that have to meet up with us have not yet appeared.”
Upon hearing that, I gave a bloody laugh. Their intention was strikingly clear.
“They mean to insult us by being very late.”
They were loudly announcing their contempt for us by being deliberately late. I figured that it wasn’t that big a deal, so I laid back down. As expected, the imperial troops only showed up late the next day. I raised the shutters of the carriage as I watched them appear. I gave a bitter laugh as I saw a group of horsemen approach, casually steering their mounts our way and not one of them showing any sign of being troubled by their lateness.
“Your Highness, I will close the window,” Siorin said as he appeared and blocked my view.
The window closed, and I heard Erhim Kiringer’s rushed instructions to his knights, “If you have no confidence in managing your facial expression, then lower your visor! From this moment on, don’t even speak a word!”
Shortly after Erhim had spoken, I listened as the once-distant sound of horse hooves came to the fore.
* * *
“Are you Leonberg’s delegation?” the man who rode at the forefront asked in Supreme Imperial, the language of the empire, as he came to a halt.
Despite the man not apologizing for being an entire day late, Siorin Kirgayen didn’t so much as shift an eyebrow. He just inquired as to the rider’s rank in fluent imperial language.
“You know how to speak in imperial,” the rider said, “It is nice to meet you. I am a member of the forty-first army of the empire and advanced knight of the hundred-and-twelfth knights, De Gaulle de Devich.
De Gaulle then asked again, “This procession is the delegation from Leonberg, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Ah! Then, there must be a prince of the kingdom in that carriage, yes?”
Siorin’s face hardened due to the undisguised tone of malice in De Gaulle’s voice.
“I have to say hello to him,” the imperial knight added.
It was expected.
“He has just now fallen asleep because he hasn’t been able to overcome the hardships of traveling in the carriage for an entire day,” came Siorin’s firm response, and I could hear that the Templars had surrounded my carriage in a tight formation.
“Hoh, calm down. I just wanted to greet him, because he is such a precious person who has come,” De Gaulle said, still sounding insistent that he wanted to see the prince’s face.
“I do not know what the custom is in your home country, but in our kingdom, a lower-ranked person can not demand one of a higher rank to greet him, unless the latter desires the meeting,” came Siorin’s response.
“Ah, that is our custom as well – still, I want to see him,” came De Gaulle’s blatant provocation, but before Siorin could act decisively, the carriage door swung open.
Siorin frowned, as he himself fumed inside, and knew Prince Adrian’s reputation for great anger.
He expected the prince to be angry, but such proved not to be the case.
The face of the first prince was very casual as he appeared from the carriage. So far from anger, there was not even a hint of annoyance to be seen.
That alone was unexpected.
“You want to say hello?” fluent imperial language flowed from the first prince’s mouth.
De Gaulle widened his eyes, clearly not having expected that the prince could speak imperial. However, he quickly righted himself and replied with a mean smile, “If you would allow me to say hello, then yes.”
The Templars almost had seizures as they saw De Gaulle approaching the prince while still mounted on his horse. The first prince raised his hand to hold them back, an order which proved to be difficult for them to obey. The sound of teeth grinding behind their visors was heard.
De Gaulle laughed as he steered his horse, obviously hearing the sounds of the Templars’ agitation. He finally came to face the first prince.
And that moment, De Gaulle’s horse suddenly reared its front legs and stepped back from the prince.
“Hey, hey!” De Gaulle shouted at it, terror in his voice at his suddenly willful horse.
“Stop!” the knight shouted, but all for naught, for he could not hold on and was thrown from his mount.
He laid on the ground for a time and then seemed to snap awake as he pushed himself up onto his knees with both hands.
“Huh,” De Gaulle moaned as he shook his head a few times.
The first prince looked down upon De Gaulle with a proud face and said, “Your greeting is well received.”
The imperial knight could only vacantly stare in front of him as he heard the prince’s words.