■ 콩 □
“Count!”
As I waved my hand and approached, the Lord of Hamburg, who had also noticed me, waved back with a pleased expression.
“Welcome, Lord Caldlasth.”
“You’ve arrived earlier than the agreed time.”
“Isn’t it better to wait for someone rather than making them wait for you?”
The Lord said with a smirk and then introduced the man beside him.
“This is Pelmond, my most trusted subordinate. He has been assisting me since childhood.”
“I’m Pelmond.”
The middle-aged man with a long scar near his eye slightly bowed as he spoke.
Judging by the mana scent he emitted, he seemed to be an expert just before becoming a Sword Master.
He was quite a strong individual.
He might be capable of a good match with a hero who doesn’t wield a holy sword.
Looking around, it seemed all the soldiers present were strong enough to use aura.
They were indeed worthy of being called elite troops.
After shaking hands with Pelmond, I asked the Lord.
“It’s quite a long journey. Will it be alright for you to be away for so long? If the Count is absent for too long, the city might fall into chaos.”
The Lord waved his hand dismissively, saying it was fine.
“One day should be fine. No matter how busy I am, I must first confirm that my daughter is safe.”
“…Understood. I will guide you from now on.”
I sensed his firm resolve in his words, so I didn’t say anything more.
“Didn’t you bring a horse? It will take quite some time if we walk.”
“Don’t worry about that. I may not look it, but I’m quite sturdy.”
As I said this and thumped my chest muscles proudly, the Lord muttered in agreement.
“Indeed, muscles never betray their owner.”
Truly, like father, like daughter.
Thinking we had a long way to go, I wrapped mana around my limbs.
Then, taking the lead, I said to the Lord and his subordinates following behind.
“Keep up. I won’t take responsibility if you fall behind.”
The place I led the Lord of Hamburg and his soldiers to was a canyon in the southern part of the Vulcan Mountain Range.
This was a location agreed upon with Dorothy beforehand, chosen as the best place to hide ambushes in the entire Vulcan Range.
It had already been about three hours since we left the Hamburg County territory in silence.
Although it was well past lunchtime, the atmosphere wasn’t conducive to stopping for a meal, so we ate preserved food while walking.
Chewing the tasteless preserved food with water and saliva, we trudged silently through the snowy field when the Lord, walking his horse beside me, asked.
“By the way, Lord Caldlasth, where exactly is the hideout where the other party members are hiding?”
I traced my finger along the distant mountain range.
“Follow that ridge down, and you’ll find a natural cave once used by wild bears. Everyone is hiding there to avoid the eyes of the demon tribe.”
“Hmm.”
The Lord, holding the reins, seemed deep in thought as he stroked his beard with one hand.
“Then let me ask one more thing.”
“Please, go ahead.”
“As far as I know, if you keep going in this direction, you’ll reach a valley with sharp rock pillars protruding like fangs. And that’s an ideal place for soldiers to ambush.”
“Is that so? I didn’t know that.”
The Lord of Hamburg cut in decisively.
“No, you must know.”
I stopped walking.
“Why is that?”
“Because you were part of the ambush operation at Fang Valley during the Human-Demon War. I still remember it since I was the overall commander then. The rumors about the executioner mage who suddenly rose to fame.”
I tilted my head in confusion and asked.
“That was five years ago. Isn’t it natural that I might have forgotten those memories?”
“Hmm. That’s true. As you say, human memory is like a flame. Unless it’s something one considers intensely memorable, it fades and erodes quickly.”
But-
“Conversely, if you’re trying to deceive me, it all makes sense, doesn’t it?”
The soldiers, who had been silently following, suddenly began to surround me.
Maintaining a poker face, I asked the Lord standing behind me.
“But that’s all just conjecture. You’re pushing me based solely on suspicion, Count. Me, a member of the Hero Party and a Grand Mage of the 6th rank from the Emerald Tower.”
When I brought up my status, the Lord of Hamburg smiled without changing his expression.
“If all this is my misunderstanding, I will, of course, apologize. And as compensation for my rudeness, I will grant you anything you desire within reason. But do you know this?”
The Lord’s eyes, wide open for a moment, held a fierce intensity.
“My daughter calls me ‘Papa’ in her private letters.”
“But the letters you brought all addressed me as ‘Father.'”
“No matter how serious the letter, my daughter would have mixed in at least one ‘Papa.'”
“What do you think the reason is?”
The Lord of Hamburg asked me with a certain conviction.
“Perhaps because she couldn’t trust someone, or was certain that the letter’s contents would be spied on.”
“You know well.”
The Lord of Hamburg said this and then asked, pointing at the back of my head.
“So, Lord Caldlasth, where have you hidden my daughter?”
I glanced back and muttered.
“This is why I dislike perceptive people.”
The moment I said that, the soldiers surrounding me all drew their swords.
I hadn’t underestimated the Lord.
But I hadn’t expected that the form of address in the letters would reveal my betrayal.
How was I to know that Rachel, who always acted strong and aloof in the party, was a doting daughter who called her father ‘Papa’ at home?
Just as the dead Kongming caught the living Zhongda, Rachel, imprisoned, had outsmarted Caldlasth, who was now free.
Realizing that I had lost a battle of wits to a woman I had always dismissed as a gorilla brought a strange sense of emptiness.
Anyway,
There wasn’t much time to dwell on such thoughts.
“Where is my daughter? Or is she even alive?”
The Lord of Hamburg, drawing his sword from his waist, pressed the blade against my neck and asked.
Since there was no need to hide it, I raised both hands and answered his question.
“Your daughter Rachel is still alive. Of course, she’s imprisoned in the Demon King’s Castle dungeon.”
Crack-
The Lord, gripping the sword hilt so tightly that the veins in his wrist bulged, asked with bloodshot eyes.
“Was it your doing, Caldlasth? That my daughter is imprisoned in the Demon King’s Castle?”
I shrugged and sneered.
“Half of it is her own fault. Honestly, I endured it for quite a while. I don’t know what kind of upbringing she had, but picking fights with me seemed to be her hobby.”
“You! How dare you, you insolent fool!”
The Lord, furious to the brim, raised the sword in his right hand high.
But what stopped his anger was Pelmond, the middle-aged man who had been introduced as the Lord’s closest aide.
“Calm down, Count. Falling for his cheap provocation is just unnecessary emotional expenditure.”
“Grr, Pelmond! Let go!”
“Count, calm down!”
Finally, perhaps coming to his senses at his subordinate’s shout, the Lord of Hamburg lowered his sword.
But still glaring at me with intense eyes, he said.
“Caldlasth, don’t think about running away. When we return to Hamburg, I will personally torture you and make you confess every sin you’ve committed.”
Hearing his words, I couldn’t help but chuckle.
“Run away? Why would I?”
Then Pelmond, standing beside the Lord, pointed his sword at me and pressed.
“Don’t get cocky, executioner. No matter how strong you are, do you think you can take on 100 elite soldiers of our family alone?”
A blue aura rose from the weapons of all the soldiers surrounding me.
The aura, a sign of mana users.
“Certainly, a typical mage wouldn’t be able to do anything against this number.”
Whoooosh─
Using the correct breathing technique, the virtual magic circuits within my body began to spin fiercely.
“But tell me, have you forgotten who I am?”
Though I was called ‘executioner’ and ‘butcher’ on the battlefield for killing demons without remorse,
Long before that, the title I was given as a mage was entirely different.
Grabbing the cold blade pressed against my neck with my bare hand, I said.
“I am the Tempest, the Tempest Mage Caldlasth.”
