Chapter 733
The prosperous neighboring fiefdom, Hove.
This place had become an unbelievably wretched ruin. Simon and Lete walked around with somewhat dazed expressions.
It looked as if a great war had already broken out here. Every building had completely collapsed, dried bloodstains were visible, dead horses and livestock were buried under ashes, and as if bombarded from the skies, huge craters had been gouged out in many places.
There were also countless horrors too dreadful to describe. Lete, who had been walking silently, stopped at one point.
“......”
On the hill of Hove, dozens of crimson crosses stood looming. Corpses and skeletons, long since dead, were hanging from them.
Necromancers, those who aided them, or perhaps simply innocent residents of this place.
“Are you alright?”
Simon asked with concern.
She covered her mouth and lowered her head. Whether it was trauma from corpses, or shock at the massacre carried out by the Holy Federation, was unclear.
Then, as if refusing to look away, she raised her head and quietly gazed at the crosses.
“Maybe, I’ve been thinking about it all too lightly until now.”
Lete took in the sight of the ruined village.
“I thought, if war broke out, I’d just fight as needed. I thought, I could lead the warriors into Roke Island, drive out the Witch of Death, and liberate the residents of the Dark Alliance. That’s what I believed.”
But all of that had been just the tip of the iceberg.
In the name of holy war, the tragedies and horrors of the common people were thoroughly buried.
In Efnelle, they had never been taught that such history existed.
“All I can think, is that I’m fortunate.”
She brushed her snow-white hair back like falling snow, and sighed.
“Fortunate to know this is the past, and that someday this war will end. The people who lived in this era, how much suffering and hardship they must have endured.”
Children born in an age of peace, who had never known war.
Yet just 22 years ago, such horrors existed.
“The war may not end.”
Simon said firmly.
“If the Executioners change the past, and drive a wedge between Father and Mother.”
“Yes.”
Lete nodded, and took the first step forward.
“Let’s hurry and find a carriage.”
The two continued walking.
After thirty minutes, they encountered their first living person, or rather, a homeless man.
When they asked how to hire a carriage, he silently pointed ahead.
Following the direction indicated by the homeless man, they eventually came upon Hove’s city center, which was less damaged by bombardment.
‘So the survivors were all here!’
They had expected despair and resignation amidst the ruins, but the residents of Hove were living stubbornly, tenaciously.
Precarious, half-collapsed shops and restaurants bore signs reading “Open”, and merchants dragged carts out into the streets, bartering and selling their goods with vigor. A gentleman was seen exchanging what looked like an expensive framed painting for a single piece of bread.
The streets were noisy, and even laughter occasionally rang out.
Behind them lay nothing but pitch-black ruins, yet the people lived on like hardy weeds. For the first time since crossing into the past, Simon smiled.
“Because people like this exist, maybe that’s why, in our time, Hove became prosperous again.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
Lete smiled faintly.
Now and then, carriages rolled down the streets, confirming that coachmen were indeed working. Asking around, the two arrived at a place where coachmen rested.
There, they began grabbing anyone in coachman’s clothes, questioning them.
“We’d like to go here.”
Lete pointed on the map to the land once called the Neutral Zone, now Bahila Fiefdom. The coachman’s expression turned grim.
“......Impossible. Miss, that region is a battlefield right now.”
“A battlefield?”
“It’s one of the fiercest fronts between Keyzen and Efnelle. Even a thousand lives wouldn’t be enough.”
The coachmen all vehemently refused.
By now, Simon was used to such refusals. He pulled out a jingling money pouch from his bag.
“I can pay as much as you want.”
“Well, it’s not about the money......”
In wartime, currency’s value had plummeted. Coins were little more than shiny metal.
“How about we just buy a carriage outright?”
Lete suggested the same idea again, but Simon shook his head.
“The Neutral Zone, no, Bahila, is surrounded by battlefields. We don’t know how many times we’ll run into the front lines. We’ll need the guidance of an expert who knows the roads well enough to avoid war.”
At least until they reached Bahila, the coachman’s skill and knowledge would be essential.
So the two went around questioning coachmen.
Just then.
“I’ll work today and bring something back, so wait for me.”
From a ruined house, a coachman stepped out. Over the wall, five children huddled together, seeing their father off.
As the coachman turned to walk away, Simon suddenly stepped in front of him.
“Whoa, you startled me.”
“We want to go to Bahila Fiefdom. I’ll pay you as much as you want.”
“Bahila? That place is a battlefield. And money is......”
At that moment, Lete approached.
“If money’s not enough, how about this?”
She lifted a sack. The coachman peeked inside, and his eyes widened.
“Is this... dates?”
The sack was full of dates and various fruits. They had actually packed them as souvenirs because Anna liked fruits, never imagining they would be used this way.
This much would last at least two months.
“Half now, and the other half when we arrive. How about it?”
In the end, the coachman nodded.
With crops dead from the Ashen Judgement, and fruits unsafe to eat, food was more precious than gold.
“Can we leave today?”
After securing a carriage, it became a battle of patience and waiting.
Simon and Lete dozed and woke repeatedly inside the carriage. The fiery meteors and blinding bolts that rained from the skies became familiar.
The corpses lining the roads became a common sight, and they grew indifferent to the soldiers’ checkpoints scattered everywhere.
Cutting across the shortest route, they finally entered Bahila Fiefdom, the land that would someday be known as the Neutral Zone.
“......Is this really the Neutral Zone I know?”
Bahila was a dense, lush jungle. The image Simon had of the Neutral Zone as a desert was completely wrong.
Lete waved her finger as she explained.
“In our time, people lump it all together as the ‘Neutral Zone’, but in the past, Bahila was actually divided into twenty fiefdoms. It was a great jungle, rich in vegetation.”
“But then how......”
“Because it was a borderland between the Holy Federation and the Dark Alliance, war was constant.”
Lete propped her chin on her hand and continued.
“Land tainted by black magic, or over-purified by white magic, can recover its fertility over time. But the problem is, black magic strikes, then white magic strikes, over and over. The land ends up dying completely, unable to grow anything ever again.”
As desertification accelerated, the people who had lived in Bahila Fiefdom began leaving one by one, seeking better places to live, and the influence and power of Bahila Fiefdom greatly diminished.
Following the Peace Era Accord, the Dark Alliance and the Holy Federation decided to use the now useless land of Bahila as a sort of borderland.
Thus was created a land belonging to neither faction, the so-called “Neutral Zone”. The concept of the Neutral Zone spread widely only after the dawn of the Peace Era.
At any rate, once inside Bahila Fiefdom, the sounds of explosions resounded far more frequently than before, and traces of battle could be seen everywhere.
Terrified, the coachman finally declared he could go no further, but he agreed to hand over the carriage entirely. He said he would instead buy a horse nearby and return to Hove.
And so Simon and Lete continued their journey alone, just the two of them, riding the carriage.
Lete wore the same coachman’s outfit she had put on when climbing up to Leshill, and drove the horses. Simon sat beside her, chatting about this and that.
“According to Lady Neftis, I was originally supposed to come to the past alone, right?”
Simon smiled faintly.
“I can’t tell you how reassuring it is that you came with me, Lete.”
“Hmph.”
Lete snorted, smiling as well.
“Don’t get the wrong idea. I didn’t come here just because of you. This is Teacher Anna’s matter.”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
“Ah! Have you ever seen Teacher Anna in an Efnelle uniform? There’s a picture in the Efnelle Library’s student roster!”
Suddenly overexcited, she pressed both hands to her cheeks and squealed.
“She was so, so, so, so beautiful and adorable! I could just bite her! Agh, to think the day would come when I’d see Teacher Anna in her teens with my own eyes!”
For a moment, Simon tried to imagine Anna wearing the Efnelle uniform that Lete herself always wore.
“Uh, well.”
Simon awkwardly scratched his sideburn.
“......I can’t really picture it.”
“Ugh! You have to see it in person.”
Stomping her feet in delight, she suddenly cooled, resting her chin on her hand.
“Sigh, such a beautiful, noble, and talented Teacher Anna, and the man who took her away just had to be......”
“What’s wrong with my father!”
“He’s a womanizing necromancer, isn’t he.”
There was no way to refute that.
Lete said with a sigh.
“Fate is really ironic. For the sake of world peace, those two had to be together.”
“......You really did come here to help me, right?”
“Don’t worry, my personal feelings are one thing, but the mission I’ll carry out perfectly.”
She shook the reins, continuing.
“My only concern is how best to persuade Teacher Anna to meet Richard. Honestly, I still don’t see what Richard’s charm is.”
Anna had abandoned everything she had built up, and followed Richard.
Of course, in the future she would live a peaceful, happy life in the quiet of Leshill, giving birth to Simon, but that was the future.
For young Anna back then to give up everything and follow Richard, a necromancer, what motivation and reason could she have had? From Lete’s perspective, it was hard to understand.
Groaning as she thought, Lete turned to Simon.
“What kind of person was your father in his youth?”
“Well.”
Neither Richard nor Anna were the type to talk openly about their pasts. It could have endangered them.
Simon recalled what little he had overheard about his father.
As a child, out of rebellion against the Follentia family, he abandoned his real name and acted under the name Yona.
Chosen by Feer for his immense talent.
Dropped out in his second year at Keyzen.
Then, as a legion commander, built a brilliant career, contributing countless times to the Dark Alliance.
Until, in saving Anna from danger, he was branded with the stigma of being part of the Traitor Legion, vanishing completely from the continent’s history.
‘But I guess he did have a lot of issues in his private life.’
Those who had spoken the most about Richard—
Erzebet, and Grand Duke Jin of the North.
Putting their stories together, the conclusion was clear.
‘......A fun-loving, irresponsible womanizer.’
Reaching that conclusion, Simon shook his head vigorously with a smile.
“...Still, he was a great legion commander.”
“Yes, yes, I’m sure he was.”
As Lete muttered that, she suddenly stiffened and looked up at the sky.
“Damn it, hold tight.”
“Hm?”
She yanked the reins. Simon belatedly looked up as well.
‘Ah!’
From the heavens, a black rain of meteors was pouring down.
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