Chapter 145
A Peaceful Ambush
“……”
In the dead of the night.
Like the moon, a solitary bright point in the night sky, Isaac’s eyes showed no sign of closing.
Outside his lodging.
He stared blankly at the heavens, sinking deeper and deeper into his thoughts, as if being pulled into a lake of unknowable depth.
“Can you not sleep?”
It was the Grandmaster, emerging from the lodging.
Isaac paused for a moment before turning his head.
“……No, I can’t.”
“That’s understandable.”
The Grandmaster said matter-of-factly and sat beside him. He habitually placed an unlit cigarette between his lips, but did not light it.
After watching him for a moment, Isaac tentatively reached out.
“May I have one?”
“You don’t smoke.”
“I used to, before my regression. Of course, I quit partway through.”
He had often smoked while writing his treatises as the Ink Sword. But he had eventually given it up, knowing it was destroying his body.
With one leg already ruined, he had not wanted to destroy his lungs as well.
In its own way, it had been Isaac’s testament to never fully giving up on his dream of becoming a swordsman.
“Don’t. You became the swordsman you so desperately wanted to be, did you not?”
“And yet you continue to smoke, Grandmaster?”
“You may smoke when you reach my level.”
Despite his words, the Grandmaster grudgingly extended a cigarette to him. The texture in Isaac’s hand was a peculiar sensation, both awkward and familiar.
He gently rolled it between his fingers but only held it, taking it no further.
“I gave it to you. You may as well smoke it.”
The Grandmaster said, lighting the cigarette in his own mouth. A plume of acrid smoke billowed out, and strangely, Isaac’s mind began to settle.
“Speak.”
“Pardon me?”
Isaac wondered what his master meant by the sudden demand.
The master simply looked up at the moon, his arms crossed as he spoke.
“If you have something to say, then say it.”
“……”
“Your master is simply standing here. Unburden yourself. Consider that I just happened to be listening.”
It seemed a paradox was required to unravel his complicated heart.
He wanted to organize his thoughts by speaking to someone, yet he felt these were emotions that should never be spoken aloud.
And so, Isaac took a steadying breath.
A sigh, more bitter than the acrid smoke of the cigarette he held, escaped his lips.
“When I lost my leg…”
“……”
“I was devastated. In that moment, I truly felt as if my world had shattered.”
Was he afraid of living with a crippled leg?
No.
What he feared more than a lifetime of limping was…
“What if my wife… what if she truly let me go?”
“……”
“I had lost any and all potential to be a son-in-law worthy of Helmont.”
A bitterness, as sharp as inhaled smoke, rose in his chest. The actual cigarette in his hand remained inert, a silent witness.
“She came to my door every day. I could hear Ria’s footsteps, hesitating just outside. In their own way, they told me that everything was all right.”
The scent of roses wafted through the crack under the door each day.
Her anxious pacing, the soft sound of her forehead resting against the wood.
He knew all of it was because she was worried for him, but Isaac couldn’t bring himself to open that door.
“But I couldn’t bear to show my broken form to the woman I loved most. If I had… I felt I would truly shatter.”
He had lived alone, in silent darkness.
He had spent his days in that small room, venting his pain and groans, his agony and resentment.
And after a year passed in this way…
“I finally came out.”
“……”
“Had I overcome it? No. Had I run away? Not that either. I simply left because it was no longer a place where I belonged.”
For a year, in that darkness.
What Isaac had done was…
“Prepare for a farewell.”
“……”
“I suppose it took so long because I had loved her so dearly.”
There had been too much love for her; it had simply taken time to put it all in order.
“On the dawn of my departure, the scent of roses lingered in the air.”
His limping leg.
The rhythmic tap of his cane on the floor. And between those sounds, the faint, intermittent scent of roses drifting to him.
“That was our end.”
He took a breath, composing his thoughts.
Only after two more plumes of smoke had escaped the Grandmaster’s lips did he speak again.
“It was all wrong.”
It should never have happened that way.
“Whether we were to continue or to end it, we failed to do either one properly.”
They had been two people, caught in limbo.
“Afterward, I lived my life as the Ink Sword. Not as the man named Isaac Logan… I just… existed.”
The old Isaac was no more.
The Isaac Logan who had once seen the world through the beautiful lens of romance and youth had vanished.
It seemed the time had finally come to look back on himself.
After more than ten years.
Now, he thought he was beginning to understand.
“It was cowardice. It would be right to call me a coward, for I had spent a year preparing to sever our ties all by myself.”
A look of profound sympathy filled the Grandmaster’s eyes.
It was a look that said, You were allowed that. You were hurt that deeply.
In response to that silent comfort, Isaac offered a bitter smile.
“Grandmaster, you are always making me prepare for something.”
The Grandmaster and Nameless had told him.
They said he needed to cast aside his fortress of logic and simply swing his sword on instinct.
“It wasn’t just about swinging a sword.”
Even if it had been a coincidence, Isaac smiled gently.
“You were telling me to move forward.”
“……”
“The next time I meet her, it will not be as the Ink Sword. I will meet her as Isaac Logan.”
He would set aside common sense and reason.
He would put away his dispassionate logic and judgment for a time.
“I want to meet her simply as myself… and pour out all the words I’ve held inside.”
It might come out as resentment, as ugliness, or as pure agony.
But it was necessary.
“Bitter.”
As if he had smoked the unlit cigarette to its end.
Isaac handed it back to the Grandmaster.
Taking it, the Grandmaster nodded, a faint, wistful smile on his lips.
“A marital spat, then.”
“Heh, I suppose you could see it that way.”
“Then you’ll need to prepare. Your former wife is quite formidable, as I recall.”
“She is.”
“You should at least aim not to be killed.”
“You’re right.”
“Do you require my help?”
“I am asking for it.”
The moonlight bathed the two of them.
As a master, he knew the path his student was about to walk was perilous, paved with thorns.
Tuk.
The Grandmaster patted Isaac on the back once in response.
“I accept.”
* * *
The capital, Evergard.
“……”
Princess Clarisse hadn’t slept a wink in days. Her daily routine now consisted of staring at documents, her face gaunt with exhaustion.
“What am I doing in my prime age? I should have at least learned how to fold paper flowers or something.”
She grumbled, but her eyes flew across the text, swiftly organizing the contents in her mind.
The situation in the Northern Region was especially dire.
With the Malidean Wall gone, Demonic Beasts were now trying to cross over with alarming frequency.
It was a stroke of immense luck that the Eisenwolf family had managed to set up a temporary defensive line with a stockade.
Furthermore, Baron Logan’s heroic efforts had allowed some of the Cardias and Northern soldiers to return, which had a positive effect on the state of the war.
However, the situation remained just as precarious.
“To think the Primeval Transcendents are still appearing…”
Clarisse sighed as she read yet another report about their sudden appearances.
It seemed that as a price for moving the Malidean Wall with Sorcery, numerous Primeval Transcendents were now unintentionally crossing into their world and back again.
From the perspective of the Primeval Transcendents, this was a slow attrition of their forces.
But it was just as troubling for her side.
“The stress on the soldiers is said to be immense.”
Heyrad added.
Clarisse nodded in agreement.
“Of course it is. The enemies appearing are the Primeval Transcendents, after all.”
It was no exaggeration to say it was like a warrior worth a hundred men suddenly appearing out of thin air.
An unlucky encounter could lead to the assassination of key personnel or a raid on their supply lines.
There were simply too many variables.
“And once again, we are indebted to Cardias.”
Since the disappearance of the Malidean Wall, Uldiran himself had become a living wall, fighting on the front lines. Amid the chaos of the war, his presence alone was a tremendous source of strength.
“This, too, is thanks to Baron Logan, who risked his life to venture into their world.”
As she praised Isaac, swinging her legs idly in her chair, Heyrad sighed.
“Showing such blatant favoritism is not wise, Your Highness.”
“Favoritism? Is it not natural to look favorably upon a noble who produces results?”
Clarisse shrugged shamelessly. She was eagerly awaiting Baron Logan’s return.
“Just how long is he going to be at the Magic Tower? How much time has passed?”
“A month now, Your Highness. Of course, that includes his travel time, so while he hasn’t been at the Magic Tower for an exceedingly long time, it has been a fair while.”
“Has there been no report on the Sorcery yet?”
“Magic Tower Master Legant is said to be working diligently to decipher it.”
“I know it’s rather shameless of me to say this, but I wish he would hurry. It would be good to have a solution for what’s happening in the Northern Region.”
Clarisse desperately wanted to resolve the situation in the north through the analysis of the Sorcery.
“Ah, I can’t think anymore! Break time! I need a break!”
Her head was throbbing. She hadn’t rested properly in days.
What Clarisse needed right now was a moment of respite and a cup of coffee.
As if on cue, Heyrad brought over the coffee and refreshments he had prepared.
Clarisse stood from her desk, coffee cup in hand. Heyrad frowned at the undignified display, but it was her own office. Surely, she could do as she pleased.
“Hmph.”
She took a sip of coffee and went to stand by the window.
Spread out before her was the panoramic view of Evergard.
Whenever things became difficult, Clarisse would gaze upon the city like this to steel her resolve.
The more I struggle, the longer I can protect this view.
It was a way of reaffirming her motivation. This was how Clarisse always reined in her faltering spirit.
“……Hm?”
Her eyes caught sight of an out-of-place woman.
No, ordinarily, she wouldn’t have seemed strange.
But at this moment, her presence was more than just odd; it was alarming.
Because that woman…
“She was… supposed to have been taken prisoner, wasn’t she?”
It was Rianna Helmont.
With her Greatsword strapped to her back, Rianna was walking with a steady, determined gait. The citizens around her recognized her, bowing their heads respectfully or watching her with eyes full of admiration.
Of course, only a select few in Evergard knew that Rianna had been captured. If word got out that the next Head of Helmont had been taken prisoner right after Arandel’s death, the house would plummet into an irreversible decline.
Besides, there was no need to needlessly alarm the populace with such news.
And so, Rianna walked on, unimpeded, right up to the gates of the Royal Palace.
It was an unimaginably audacious approach.
To think she would stroll so leisurely into the heart of what should be enemy territory.
“S-Stop her! Heyrad, now—!”
The moment Clarisse cried out.
High in the sky, a pillar of Crimson Essence shot upwards.
“Run… from me.”
The woman at the center of the surging power pleaded in a low voice as she continued to advance.