Chapter 46 :

Chapter 46 - Escort (1)

The Second Prince leaned against the window of the carriage returning to the imperial palace, cast one glance at the ducal residence growing distant, then leaned back in his seat.

Dito Abiran recalled the face of the young duke, who had been rolling eyes filled with fear while somehow pretending to be calm.

From the moment he first saw the young duke, the child had grated on him.

Trembling in fear was nothing special.

Everyone who saw the imperial family came to feel fear.

It was the natural reaction of a human standing before a god with both eyes open.

All humans had been that way, and would continue to be so.

But that fellow called the young duke was different.

There was no reverence in the child’s eyes.

The child had looked at him as if briefly entranced, then blinked as if waking from something and bent his knees to show him respect.

“I understand why he is so concerned.”

Dito Abiran, who muttered this, rested his arm on the window frame and propped up his chin.

The Feedus family would disappear soon anyway.

Even if the people of the family vanished, only the name of the ducal house would remain, and others would be made into Abiran’s sword and shield.

By then, the young duke would be nothing more than an orphan boy with nothing left.

The Second Prince raised his hand and tapped the carriage window.

‘What kind of face would he make if I snatched the child away?’

* * *

Jing swept a hand over his neck at the eerie feeling brushing the back of it.

He did not have a good feeling at all.

All he wanted was to return to his son quickly, but his stomach twisted at the fact that, in order to do so, he needed the person before him to cooperate a little more.

Composing himself, Jing shook the map of the village marked “Komiel”.

“Now, you understand that this is a village fairly close to the capital, yes? As I have said consistently and clearly before, I must go to the place where my son is waiting. So......are you listening to me right now?”

“Yes, I am listening.”

At the plain answer, Jing frowned.

“Then at least take your face away from the plate when you speak.”

“I understand.”

As expected, a polite answer came back, but his face was still turned toward the bowl.

It made Jing a little heated, but it was not as if he could not understand.

Because he remembered those foods from Amica’s space that had been too miserable to call cuisine.

Since he ate that sandpaper-like bread so well, Jing had suspected he had lost his sense of taste, but it seemed that was not the case.

Seeing how he pounced even on ordinary stew.

Feeling both pity and annoyance toward him, Jing left Ratel alone and picked up his spoon.

After safely leaving the forest, the two of them were having a late meal at a pub in the nearest fairly large-looking village.

Perhaps Ratel liked the stew, which had plenty of meat and solid ingredients, because his eyes gleamed as he focused on its contents.

To the point that no matter what the old man across from him said, he never raised his head.

This is actually better.

Jing, who was thinking of parting ways with Ratel around this point, glanced once at him, still unable to take his face away from the plate, and opened his mouth.

“Good. Then listen as you are.”

Jing took a deep sigh.

“Once the meal is over, I plan to go to the temple. Since I have been unable to offer prayers all this time, I think it will take about a day. So once we leave the shop, would it not be better for us to separate for a while?”

It was something he said because, if Ratel served Amica, it would be a place he would not even want to set foot in.

If Ratel said he understood, Jing planned to secretly leave the temple and naturally part ways with him, and if he refused, Jing planned to insist that the religious rites of those who served Abiran were just as important as serving Amica.

If the other side used force, that was a matter he would have to think about further.

“Why separate?”

Ratel, who had emptied his bowl completely at some point, raised his face with a puzzled expression.

It was the first face Jing had met since the meal began, but he did not feel like calmly looking at it.

“Why? I said I will go to Abiran’s temple and stay there for about a day, did I not?”

“That is good. I can go too and ask them to let me sleep there for one night. It will save money.”

What is this fellow saying right now?

“No, you cannot do that.”

At Jing, who was horrified, Ratel tilted his head.

“What do you mean?”

What do you mean?

“Do you have no knowledge of religion at all? Those who serve Amica cannot enter Abiran’s temple. You would not want to enter either, would you?”

At Jing’s frustrated answer, Ratel nodded as if he finally understood.

“You do not have to worry about that. I do not serve God Amica.”

This time, Jing could not erase the feeling that he had been deceived until now.

He was so dumbfounded that no words came out.

“No......!”

Jing, who had been about to demand why he was telling such an obvious lie, soon closed his mouth.

Right, upon looking back, Ratel had not once said with his own mouth that he served Amica.

He had merely been together with the priests of Amica.

Jing had never even imagined that someone who did not believe in Amica would stay with the priests of Amica.

It was a choice no person of Abiran could even think of.

Baseless resentment and the reality that he now had no choice but to go to the temple with Ratel wrapped around Jing.

As a bonus, he felt an anxiety that perhaps an even more hopeless fellow than expected had been attached to him.

While Jing had many things he wanted to say but could not bring them out, Ratel was calmly ordering a honeyed pie, saying he should eat one.

* * *

“Were we not going to the temple?”

Ratel asked Jing, who was moving in a completely different direction from the tall, castle-like building.

Jing glanced at Ratel, then turned his head forward again.

“There is somewhere I must stop by for a moment.”

Looking at Ratel’s calm, expressionless face, it did not seem that his statement about following him to the temple had been something he said lightly.

Since he had said he was raised under that elder, Jing had naturally thought Ratel also served Amica.

Just as all the people of the Abiran Empire naturally longed for Abiran’s care, he had thought Ratel would be the same.

Looking at him now, it was doubtful whether he believed in the existence of gods at all, let alone Amica.

If Jing had been the old Duke Feedus, this would have been a matter where he should point a sword at Ratel immediately.

But the wandering merchant Jing did not need to do that.

Finding this dramatic change that had occurred within him strange, Jing furrowed his brow.

Since Ratel, who walked silently with Jing, was not particularly talkative either, silence circled between the two.

Before long, Jing stopped in front of an old, large building.

“What kind of place is this?”

Perhaps finding the building with nothing written on it strange, Ratel asked.

“You will know once we enter.”

Jing opened the door without hesitation.

* * *

The inside of the building, larger than it looked from the outside, was dim.

Ratel looked around once at the people gathered in groups of three or five, making a loud commotion as they talked.

“Is it a bandit group’s hideout?”

“They are not exactly people with good impressions, but it is not something like that.”

At Ratel’s expression, which seemed to ask what it was then, Jing pointed to the wall on the right.

Several notes were messily posted there.

“......Recruitment for subjugation of a Giant Bear.”

Ratel slowly read one of them, then looked back at Jing.

“Are we accepting requests?”

“Exactly.”

Jing nodded.

“If this were a city, it would be like a guild.”

Jing pointed to the interior, which had a structure similar to a pub.

“In the countryside smaller than this place, a guild would not make money, so one would not be formed at all.......”

Jing looked once around the fairly spacious interior and continued speaking.

“In places like this that are not quite cities but are fairly large and have active commercial districts, they are not hard to find.”

At Jing’s explanation, Ratel nodded slightly and took in the request forms.

Jing, who had been thinking that it would be a bit troublesome if Ratel asked what a guild was, inwardly sighed in relief.

Fortunately, it seemed he was not completely ignorant of common sense in this world.

After checking a few notes, Ratel seemed to lose interest and turned his gaze back to Jing.

“Then why did we come here?”

“Why else? Because we need to earn money.”

Jing answered half-heartedly while carefully examining the request forms.

“We do not have to do this kind of thing.......”

“If you are about to say we should commit robbery again, keep it to yourself.”

At his firm answer, Ratel frowned.

“If we do it this way, would the money not be small and the time take long?”

That is true.

Jing nodded.

“In exchange, the chances of being stabbed in the back become a bit lower.”

Even at Jing’s answer, Ratel did not seem convinced and did not agree with his opinion.

Jing had expected Ratel’s reaction, so he was not particularly disappointed and spoke.

“Are we not traveling together from now on? I do not want to spend every day being chased. If someone suddenly attacks, an old man’s heart will not survive. One wrong move and I will die.”

“A person who worries about a heart attack before a sudden attack or ambush is not someone who will die by assassination in the first place.”

Jing could feel Ratel mutter, glance once at Jing’s sturdy, thick arm, and stare at him, but Jing lightly ignored it.

“In any case, if we are going to travel together from now on, I would like you to at least follow this much.”

It was half a lie.

Because he intended to shake Ratel off somehow before they arrived in the capital.

Even so, the reason he was teaching these things to this young man, who knew nothing of respect for the elderly beyond polite speech, was......well, for now, according to the half-truth, the main reason was that he had to travel with the fellow for at least a few days.

The previous Duke Agony Feedus had been treated as dead.

At a time when he had to return to the capital while hiding as inconspicuously as possible, he did not want to create pursuers as well.

To do that, he had to find work that did not require revealing his identity and could provide a suitable reward.

“Guilds in cities require various documents of proof, but places like this usually are not that strict. That means both making requests and accepting requests are simple. Ah, here is something suitable.”

Jing removed the most luxurious-looking paper among the ones posted.

[Tinas ritual, temple, escort.]

Below the simple title, the date and payment were written.

“For the work, the money is not bad either.......”

Jing handed the paper to Ratel.

“Temple escorts are usually handled by temple knights, but it seems this one is on a somewhat larger scale. Nothing big is likely to happen at a Tinas ritual, and if it is a temple, there is no need to worry about them cheating us out of the money, so it should be suitable for a first attempt. What do you think?”

“.......”

“Ratel?”

Finding it strange that he did not answer the question, Jing had to call him once more.

“......Yes, it is suitable.”

Ratel answered after a slight pause, and since he was expressionless as usual, Jing ignored the small sense of incongruity he felt from him and approached the counter with the paper in one hand.

“Then I will take that as your agreement too. We quietly earn money and quietly leave this village. Understood?”

“Understood.”

At the docile answer, Jing nodded in satisfaction.

Though if he had even caught a glimpse of Ratel’s expression as he stroked the hilt of his sword with a cold face, he would not have been able to.

“What did you just say?”

The small threat made by a short man with a curly beard, as he leaned forward, cut through the murmuring crowd.

At the small disturbance that arose in the center of the line, the gazes of several people who had applied for the temple escort gathered in one place.

Though the person involved himself did not seem to care about such things at all.

“I told you not to cut in line. Did you not hear me?”

“With those short legs, you sure managed to squeeze in well.”

“What, you, you......!”

Perhaps he had always been sensitive about his legs, which were not long even compared to his short height, because the man’s face reddened and he stammered.

“If you understood, then get lost, short legs.”

At that childish yet sharp line, Jing, who had been watching the situation, buried his face in both hands and despaired.