The square jaw is as impressive as the broad shoulders.
A man of short stature but who couldn't be called small in stature.
The look in the man's eyes did not waver at all despite Peter's presence filling the room.
"To be honest, I don't like it."
Sigurd looked at Peter with a twisted gaze as crooked as the words he spoke.
It was a rude action in some respects, but Sigurd had a good reason for it.
"Why did you suddenly change the mayor of Soara? No matter how you look at this, it seems like we're being ignored."
"...I never did it with that intention."
The news of Joseph, who had nearly disappeared from his position, caused a great stir among the dwarves.
Anyone would feel confused if someone they worked well with suddenly disappeared.
Peter thought he could bridge this gap, but the world of dwarves, which he encountered for the first time in his life, did not work as he expected.
"There will be no changes in Bayezid's welcome to Nidavellir. It's just that the person doing the work has changed, so..."
"That's the problem."
Creak!
With a loud scraping sound on the floor, the chair Sigurd was sitting on was pushed back.
The way he stood up showed that he didn't want to hear anymore.
"The problem is that people have changed. Lord of the humans. Peter Bayezid."
"..."
The man sitting across from him was the lord of Bayezid, but to Sigurd, that really didn't matter.
For him, the most important criterion at the moment is how much a person can be trusted and not the position they hold.
"The reason we came to Shoara was because of Joseph Bayezid and Knight Vlad. If it weren't for them, we wouldn't even have thought about starting an exchange."
The long history of persecution of the dwarves had made them closed-minded, and it remained the same today.
So far, the only thing that could even slightly alleviate the dwarves' caution was Joseph's polite letter sent with the young dwarves.
"Please bring Joseph Bayezid or Knight Vlad. If you ever want to talk to us again."
Sigurd begins to cross his arms tightly as if he had nothing more to say.
The dwarves' speaking style, as direct as it was straightforward, pointed directly to what they wanted.
"...Joseph Bayezid or Knight Vlad."
The request was so straightforward that even Ragmus, the advisor at his side, was surprised, but Peter, the person they made the request to, was silently lost in thought.
Peter, who did not feel disconcerted or offended by Sigurd's request, simply needed a moment to gather his thoughts.
"Many people are calling him that."
Sigurd may not have known it, but Peter wasn't the only one searching for their names these days.
The lord of Hainal and the green-haired woman were looking for the two who suddenly disappeared.
"That's why I decided to give it a try."
Peter, who had finally realized Joseph's intentions, suppressed his truly complicated feelings and silently bowed his head.
"You worked hard to save it all this time."
Nidavellir, with whom there was no interaction.The fallen Ravnoma.
And a subdued Hainal.
And even the skinny boy from the alley.
Perhaps his second son was silently crouched down, picking up things that had fallen to the ground while his older brother was out enjoying the glory.
Polish them until they shine bright and gleaming.
***
"Please save me, please save me. I'll do better."
"We were wrong. Please, forgive my life..."
Inside the village's grain warehouse.
In this dark and cool place, men hung upside down silently pleading for help.
Among them, the fake priest hanging from the highest point had already been beaten until his white robe turned bright red.
"Do you want me to spare your life?"
Vlad, hearing the impostor's pleas, snorted in disbelief and drew a dagger from his chest.
"Severe injuries, threats, fraud, extortion, and even blasphemy."
Pieces of jerky are cut off little by little for each sin committed.
It was an insignificant action, but the life felt in that action was real.
"To account for all these sins, do I have to resurrect the dead and kill them again?"
"I'm sorry! Sir!"
"Please, save me! Please!"
Faced with Vlad's words, which sounded like death threats, the fake priest and his helpers begged for help.
Because the man laughing there really had the authority to do so.
"Do you want to live?"
"Yes! Yes!"
"Then give it to me."
"Yes?"
Vlad extended his empty hand as if it were obvious.
The fake priest, looking at the hand while hanging upside down, was momentarily perplexed.
"There must be something you've been working on while doing this. Looking at it, it's not something you've done once or twice."
"..."
He didn't seem like that kind of person.
Clearly, Vlad's appearance when he unsheathed his sword while the deacon sang a hymn a moment ago was brighter than any other knight's.
However, his current appearance was nothing more than a dirty one, like that of street thugs.
"If you don't like it, tell me. I heard the fire hasn't been extinguished yet."
"I'll give it to you! Everything we have!"
Perhaps the scammers out there now didn't know.
The young knight now smiling in front of them was someone who had already committed severe injuries, threats, fraud, property extortion, and even blasphemy.
A greater evil that overcomes a lesser evil.
Vlad's eyes looked grim as he smiled in the dark warehouse.
***
"I told you I would save your life!"
"That damn cheater! Go to hell!"
The group of swindlers being dragged away by the villagers was noisy.
They exploited innocent beliefs, became rich, and nearly burned a healthy person to death, so even if they were to die, they probably wouldn't have a good death.
"Fraud? What does that mean?"
"It doesn't matter. Deacon. People like this keep deceiving till the end."
After patting his full pockets, Vlad quickly turned Jean's shoulder and headed towards the village chief's house.
The men's screams could be heard from behind, but there was only a smile on Vlad's face.
"Anyway, what happened to the man who was hanged? Is he dead?"
"Fortunately, he's alive. God must have protected him."
While Vlad dealt with the swindlers in the warehouse, Jean focused on treating the man who had been burned at the stake in the village chief's house.
Priest Andreas was famous for his healing miracles, and Jean, perhaps due to his master's temperament, was also a child who could handle a bit of divinity.
"Oh, oh… Precious people. Please come in."
The village chief, who seemed anxious waiting outside the door for Vlad and Jean, bowed so low that he could no longer bend and led them inside.
"What would have happened to our village if it weren't for you two?"
The village chief, who knew he had almost been deceived by some swindlers, kept his head bowed to the point of exaggeration.
Legally, the crazy burning at the stake earlier could have been punishable by the knight who was in charge, but doctrinally, it could have been condemned by the young deacon.
"I was fooled by the plague spreading in a nearby village. If we didn't catch that man and burn him immediately, the plague would spread to our village…"
However, following the swindlers' words was an inevitable choice for the village chief.
Fraud and propaganda arise through human anxiety.
The village chief, who was anxious for not being secure because there was no lord to protect him, and anxious because there was an evil being nearby, couldn't leave the suspicious man who was said to have brought a plague alone.
"Ugh…"
"I think you've come to your senses!"
Inside the house we entered following the village chief's instructions, there was a man who was beginning to regain consciousness.
Seeing that he couldn't easily get up due to the harsh experience, Vlad silently began to check the belongings placed beside him while Jean hastily helped him up.
Drawing from his experience as a pickpocket, he looked into his coat and saw it was full of all sorts of things.
"This kid is suspicious too."
Not because of the soot, but because, for starters, his jacket was completely black.
The small pockets inside the tattered robe were filled with singed grass blades and strange bone fragments.
"Where am I?"
"You've come to your senses?"
And what was most suspicious of all was the strange mask he wore.
The impostors hanging upside down spoke to Vlad.
That strange mask was originally worn by a man.
The impostors hanging upside down spoke to Vlad.
That strange mask was originally worn by a man.
"Who are you?"
"I am the knight of Bayezid. I am Vlad."
Vlad lifted the mask he held towards the man lying there.
A size and shape that fits perfectly to your face.
In fact, as the scammers said, this mask belonged to an unknown man.
"I told you my name, so now it's your turn, right?"
"...My name is Nibelun."
Now, a small voice came from the man who stuttered as he opened his mouth.
However, what Vlad heard from the man who finally spoke were only ominous words.
"I came here chasing death."
"…Death?"
The mask he held nearby had a strange shape, like it had the form of a crow's beak.
A strange mask with a bird's beak on top of a black robe.
The man's face, seen through the eye holes of the mask, looked like a cat.
The man who revealed he had been chasing death was a beast-man rarely seen in the North.
***
The appearance of the mansion under the moonlight was unsettling.
Once it must have possessed an antique charm, but it had been neglected and now stood there, losing its original color.
In a deep forest where not even a single bird's chirp could be heard, the mansion stood alone under the moonlight.
Creak! Creak!
"...I see."
A faint sound was heard from inside the crumbling mansion.The sound of water being poured carefully.
A noise emanated from the old mansion, as if someone was bathing.
"That's why you couldn't go."
A hall in a mansion where even the roof had collapsed and the dark night sky was visible.
However, despite everything being old, the bathtub in which the woman reclined boasted an ivory light that blended with the darkness.
"Poor man."
A woman with hair that started off as green but ended up dark.
Now she was carefully drawing water from the tub and washing the man in it.
The woman washing the motionless man seemed skillful, as if she had practiced it a lot.
"You must have been worried about what was left. I understand."
The moonlight floating in the sky began to slowly seep into the mansion through the hole in the roof.
Then, the view inside the bathtub.Instead of water, it was filled with bright red blood.
A man with pure white hair tilting his head.
The figure of the man whom the woman held carefully was wrinkled, like a desiccated corpse.
"...You must have been so afraid of the dragons that you would have done something like this."
The woman, who couldn't touch the ground, smiled warmly like a mother and withdrew the hand of the bright red corpse from the bathtub.
Although he was now very thin, the feat he had accomplished with his hands was greater than that of anyone else.
"So now you have to rise. Your Majesty."
With the woman's voice like a spell, the hands of the corpse began to unfold.
A sinister fingertip slowly beginning to bloom, like a root absorbing water.
Each time the fingertips stretched out, the blood in the bathtub decreased little by little.
The moonlight, which had reached the end of the sky, illuminated the ruined mansion.
In a place only the moon could see, headless corpses lay in miserable forms.
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