Ch.287Swift Arrival

“I am a Healing Priest serving Saulite, Florence is my name. It’s an honor to meet you, Lord Median. Sir Leonore.”

The priest Lacy introduced, Florence, was a woman who appeared to be around thirty.

Her neatly braided brown hair and slightly upturned eyes gave her a strong-willed appearance. She looked more suited to be a Paladin than a priest.

In fact, there were even slight bloodstains on the mace hanging at her waist.

She seemed to have already received information about our destination from Lacy, as she had brought a travel bag and thick winter clothes.

“I’ll be counting on you.”

After a brief greeting, we boarded the carriage Leonore had prepared.

The interior of the carriage was both cozy and luxurious.

The cushions on the seats were as soft and elegant as a bed, and the windows were adorned with rose-patterned velvet curtains.

Leonore, who had been tasked with arranging the carriage and preparing travel supplies, solved everything in a very simple way.

She dumped all the work on some members of the Rose Cross Knights who had remained in the capital instead of joining the Duchy of Faelrun.

It was like subcontracting the subcontract.

They were loyal members that Leonore could be proud of.

Even though they were no longer obligated to follow her orders, they not only accepted willingly but even volunteered to be coachmen.

Though I found their sparkling eyes when looking at me a bit burdensome.

“So, shall we head straight north from here?”

“No. We need to make one more stop first.”

Since both Lacy, whom I had been counting on, and Asha, who I thought might be helpful, couldn’t join for their own reasons, there was only one person left.

—-

“The north? Why there all of a sudden?”

Ophelia, whom I met after separating from the others, asked me as if she had no idea what was going on.

Had this woman completely shut herself off from outside news?

I noticed unfamiliar items scattered around. It seemed she had been locked up in her laboratory for the past few days.

She should go outside more often. At this rate, she probably didn’t even know that the witch accusations against her had been dropped.

I had no choice but to explain the current situation from the beginning.

“…So now you want me to go fight the king of the Werebeasts?”

“Something like that. Why, is there a problem?”

Ophelia sighed, leaned back deeply in her chair, and lit a Mana Herb.

The smoke she exhaled reached the ceiling and dispersed.

“It’s not that it’s a problem… I just don’t see why I need to do this. I’m not particularly friendly with Faelrun. Nor do I have any grudge against the Werebeasts. It seems like something the Empire will handle on its own without you or me getting involved, and I’m reluctant to stick my head into such dangerous business…”

Oh.

Come to think of it, that was true.

In the original story, she could stay with me until Isabella was caught in the latter half, but now Ophelia had no reason to follow me around!

She had cleanly finished her revenge, obtained Claire whom she had desperately wanted, and her magical research seemed to be progressing smoothly… she would naturally want to stay in her laboratory.

Moreover, unlike in the original story, she had no relationship with Demian, so asking her to help rescue him wouldn’t work at all.

“I’m grateful for everything you’ve helped me achieve. But that doesn’t mean I need to risk my life to repay you. I’d be happy to help with something less dangerous, but I can’t agree to accompany you to a battlefield.”

She does feel gratitude and goodwill toward me, but not enough to follow me into a fiery pit.

This is troublesome…

I could force her to come by threatening to report things like Claire’s survival or her necromancy to the Church, but that would destroy our relationship.

—-

In the end, I couldn’t persuade Ophelia.

This woman who had obtained everything she wanted no longer desired anything else.

To move Ophelia in the future… I would need information that interests her, or an order she cannot refuse—in other words, something like an imperial command.

It was a more disappointing outcome than I expected.

She did apologize and provide various supplies, but ultimately she refused my request to join us.

It wasn’t quite enough to call her ungrateful… but true to her nature as a mage, she was more calculating than I had thought.

—-

Leonore, who had been waiting outside, nodded as if she had expected this when she saw me return alone.

“You said you’d bring a mage, but all you got was a bunch of supplies. Failed to persuade her, I see?”

“Yeah. She said she’d repay the favor but wasn’t willing to risk her life. It’s a reasonable decision… but not one I particularly liked.”

“That’s mages for you.”

Her tone suggested she hadn’t expected much to begin with.

…Though I had been rather hopeful.

We seemed to be getting along well last time.

We shared cigarettes and discussed ways to punish Isabella—I thought we had become somewhat close.

[Trusting a sorcerer. How foolish.]

…Stop laughing, it’s annoying.

After boarding the carriage, we finally headed north.

I scattered and examined the various items Ophelia had given me inside the carriage.

“Still, she provided quite well. Recovery potions, painkillers, sedatives, and stimulants. Lots of scrolls too… my goodness, even enchanted weapons? These aren’t cheap items.”

“…Stimulants?”

Was she talking about aphrodisiacs or something?

Why would those be included?

“They’re for the horses. They’ll run tirelessly while the drug is in effect.”

Ah. That kind of stimulation… I misunderstood.

Anyway, it seemed like a useful drug.

If we kept feeding it to the horses whenever the effect wore off, we could arrive much faster.

The scrolls were mostly for support rather than combat.

Spells that maintained warm indoor temperatures for a while, or alarm magic that detected and signaled approaching presences.

Even scrolls made by high-level mages depended on the user’s mana affinity for activation, so embedding attack magic wasn’t very meaningful.

Plus, they were single-use. Using a flame arrow would be like throwing gold coins into a river.

I handed the enchanted longsword to Leonore.

It had magic that caused flames to rise along the blade, but I couldn’t use it since I had no mana affinity.

Leonore also had little talent for magic, so at full power she could only ignite the flames briefly, and for extended battles she could only heat the blade. But that was better than nothing.

—-

Our journey toward the north was extremely peaceful.

At least for us riding in the carriage.

From the horses’ perspective, it was anything but peaceful.

“Prrrrr…”

One horse that had been running with foam at its mouth collapsed as soon as we reached the city.

The other horse standing beside it was also dripping blood from its mouth and looked like it wouldn’t last much longer.

We’d need to replace them again. This would be the eighth pair.

The stimulant’s effect was still active, but no matter how effective it was, it couldn’t make a dead horse move.

The female knight driving the carriage skillfully removed the harnesses and handed over the dead horse and the nearly-dead one to the guards.

Shortly after, the guards brought her two new horses.

We didn’t need to pay.

There wasn’t a lord in the Empire who didn’t know about me by now, and none foolish enough to refuse cooperation when I said I was going to support the north.

So we were racing at top speed, not sparing recovery potions and stimulants for the horses.

We did try to ensure at least one horse survived until we reached each city, as it would be troublesome to lose all our horses in the middle of the road.

“I heard the Ka’har treat horses like brothers, but seeing you, that must be incorrect information. Brothers? Even slaves wouldn’t be treated this harshly.”

Leonore let out a hollow laugh as she looked at me lying down and recovering in one corner of the carriage.

Was I being too harsh…? Five horses had become horsemeat in just three days. Three more had been replaced when they were half-dead.

[…I’m too embarrassed to even show my face.]

‘What does it matter? Thanks to this, we’ve compressed a journey of over a week into just four days.’

Indeed. The Faelrun Castle was now just a day’s journey away.

The female knight and Leonore took turns sleeping and driving, and we sustained ourselves entirely on prepared rations and meat from the dead horses.

As proof that we had reached the north, even the air we breathed had grown cold since yesterday.

While the capital was still in late summer weather, this place seemed to have already entered winter.

I was using the fur cloak Asha had given me as a blanket, and the others were also wrapped in thick fur clothing.

“Even after we arrive, you’ll need to rest for two days. You haven’t fully recovered yet.”

Florence looked down at me with a stern face as she advised.

Her healing skills were no exaggeration—my condition was improving rapidly, but as she said, I wasn’t yet fit enough to fight satisfactorily.

“Yes, we should have that much time. The Werebeasts have retreated for now.”

From what I’d heard on our way here, Rurik’s Werebeast army had retreated toward the Sky Mountains after conquering the North Wall for some reason.

I wasn’t sure whether to consider it fortunate or unfortunate.

It was a blessing that Faelrun Castle hadn’t fallen, but it wasn’t good news that the North Wall had been reduced to dust.

“They might just go back like this… if that happens, you’ll have made this journey for nothing.”

“Well… I don’t think that’s likely. If they had intended to retreat completely, they wouldn’t have bothered destroying the North Wall.”

If they had retreated all the way back to the land of the Werebeasts, they would find solid walls in place by the time they returned.

Rebuilding a barrier like the North Wall would not be easy, but creating basic walls wouldn’t take too long.

The fact that they destroyed the North Wall instead of attacking Faelrun Castle proved they didn’t intend to leave easily.

They would come back to interfere if wall construction began, and if the reinforcements were smaller than expected… they might engage in all-out war.

Securing the newly received horses to the harnesses took some time.

Perhaps because of the blood from the eight sacrificed horses soaked everywhere, they resisted fiercely as if being dragged to the guillotine when we tried to put the harnesses on them.

They did calm down when I emitted a light killing intent.

No need to struggle unnecessarily.

I wasn’t planning to feed these ones stimulants anyway.

Because we had run out of the drug.

—-

And so, we continued toward Faelrun Castle.

We moved a bit slower than before, but since we didn’t have far to go, it shouldn’t be a problem.

By now, snow was falling from the sky.

Heavy snow at the end of August. This is why I didn’t want to come to the north…

But I would have had to visit eventually.

Someday, I would need to go beyond the Sky Mountains.