Chapter 43 – Beans
“Count!”
As I approached, waving my hand, the Marshal of Hamburg, who had also spotted me, waved his hand with a welcoming face.
“Welcome. Lord Kaldrash.”
“You came earlier than you promised.”
“Wouldn’t it be better for me to wait than to make the other person wait?”
Marquee Baek smiled as he said that, then introduced the man next to him.
“This is Pelmond, my most trusted subordinate. He has been right by my side since I was a child.”
“My name is Pelmond.”
The one who said that and slightly bowed was a middle-aged man with a long scar around his eye.
Judging by the scent of mana he felt, he probably looked like an expert on the verge of becoming a sword master.
It is a considerable level of strength.
It must be enough to have a good fight with a hero who did not carry a holy sword.
Looking around, it seemed that all the soldiers in this place were strong people who could use Aura.
Definitely deserves to be called an elite soldier.
After shaking hands with Pelmond, I asked the Marquis.
“It’s a long way to go, but will the time be all right? If the Count leaves for a long time, there will be chaos in the city.”
Then the Marquis said it was okay and waved his hand.
“It’s okay for today. No matter how busy you are, shouldn’t you first make sure that my daughter is safe?”
“…Then I understand. Let me guide you from now on.”
I felt the firmness in his words, so I didn’t say anything more.
“Didn’t you bring a horse? Moving on foot would take quite a while.”
“If that’s the case, don’t worry. Even if I look like this, one body is strong.”
As I said that, as if showing off my strong pectoral muscles, the Marquis muttered sympathetically.
“Cancer, muscles never betray their masters.”
He is also the father of gorillas.
The way I thought was similar to that of my daughter.
I thought I had to go a long way, so I put mana on my limbs.
Then he led the way and spoke to the Marquis and his men who followed.
“Follow me. I won’t take responsibility if you fall behind.”
***
The place I headed with the Hamburg Marshal and the soldiers under his command was a canyon in the southern part of the Vulkan Mountains.
This place had been discussed with Dorothea in advance, and it was chosen as the best place to hide the ambush in the entire Vulcan line.
After leaving the county of Hamburg, they marched silently for about three hours.
It was well past lunchtime, but it wasn’t the mood to ask for a leisurely meal, so we ate preserved food as we walked.
Badly.
As we were walking silently through the snowy field, forcibly chewing and swallowing the tasteless preserved food with water and saliva, the Margrave asked, who was walking the horse side by side.
“By the way, Lord Kaldrash, where exactly is the hideout where the other party members are hiding?”
I ran my finger along the distant mountain range.
“If you go all the way down the ridge over there, there is a natural cave used by wild bears.
“Hmm.”
The Marquis holding the reins, perhaps lost in thought, said while holding the reins with one hand while stroking his beard with the other.
“Then I will ask you one more question.”
“Yes, please tell me.”
“As far as I know, going this way leads to a ravine with sharp stone pillars sticking out like fangs. It’s a good place for soldiers to ambush.”
“Is that so? It’s the first time I didn’t know that.”
Then the Marshal of Hamburg sternly cut him off.
“No, you can’t know.”
As I continued to move forward, I stopped.
“Why is that?”
“That’s because you were included in the surprise operation in Fang Valley during the Manma War. I still remember it because I served as the general commander at that time. Rumors about the crazy mage who suddenly became famous.”
I asked, tilting my head in bewilderment.
“It’s already been five years. Then wouldn’t it be strange if I forgot the memory of that time?”
“Um. That’s right. It’s just as you said. A person’s memory is like a flame, and if it’s not something that you think is intense, it will quickly fade and weather in your memory.”
But I mean-
“Conversely, don’t you think it all makes sense if you’re trying to trick me?”
The soldiers who had been silently following me until now suddenly surrounded me.
Still maintaining my poker face, I asked the marquee standing behind me.
“But that’s all just conjecture. The Count is now unilaterally pushing me with only his heart. A member of the warrior’s party, and a 6th tier great mage belonging to the Emerald Tower.”
When I raised my identity, the Marshal of Hamburg smiled without changing his complexion.
“If all of this was my misunderstanding, then, of course, I’m willing to apologize. And if you want, I’ll do whatever you can to make up for your rudeness. But you know what?”
The three hundred eyes of Marquis Baek, who swelled up for an instant, had a strong spirit.
“My daughter calls me Papa when she sends her private letters.”
“By the way, all the letters you brought were written as father.”
“No matter how serious the letter, if it were my daughter, it would have mixed in at least one word with the word papa.”
“What do you think is the reason?”
The Marshal of Hamburg asked me a question with a certain conviction.
“Perhaps it’s because you can’t trust someone, or because you’re sure they’re going to spy on the contents of the letter.”
“I know you well.”
The Marshal of Hamburg said that and asked me on the back of my head.
“So Lord Kaldrash, where did you hide my daughter?”
I looked back and murmured.
“This is why I don’t like quick-witted people.”
The moment I uttered those words, the soldiers surrounding me drew their swords in unison.
***
It wasn’t that I particularly looked down on the Marquis.
However, I didn’t know that the fact that I betrayed would be discovered just by the title on the letterhead.
How did I know that Rachel, who always pretended to be strong and lofty at parties, was a charming daughter who called her father Papa at home?
Just as the dead Resonance captured the living middle moon, she is like imprisoned Rachel fucking her freed Kaldrasch.
When she realized that she had lost in a battle of numbers to a woman whom she usually dismissed as a gorilla, a strange sense of desolation came over her.
Anyway,
I didn’t have much time to be occupied with these thoughts.
“Where is my daughter? No, is she still alive?”
The Marshal of Hamburg, who drew his sword from his waistband, thrust the blade into my throat and asked,
It wasn’t something I had to hide, so I answered his question with both of his hands raised.
“If it’s your daughter, Rachel, she’s still alive. Of course, she’s imprisoned in the dungeon of the Demon King’s Castle.”
Kwak-
The barracksman, who gripped the handle of his sword so tightly that the tendons were caught in his wrist, asked him with bloodshot eyes.
“Is it your fault? Kaldrash? That my daughter was imprisoned in the Devil’s Castle.”
I shrugged and sneered.
“It’s half self-employed. In fact, I’ve been patient for quite some time. I don’t know how your daughter was home-trained, but she enjoys fighting me over everything.”
“You bastard! How dare you open your mouth!”
Angry to the tip of his head, the barracks raised the sword in his right hand over his head.
However, what stopped his anger was his middle-aged man, Pelmond, who was said to be the Marquis’ closest aide.
“Calm down, Count. Falling for the author’s cheap provocations will only waste your emotions unnecessarily.”
“Kuh, Belmond! Let go of this!”
“Count, fix it!”
In the end, the Marshal of Hamburg, probably coming to his senses from his subordinate’s shouts, let his sword hang down.
But he still glared at me with eyes that hadn’t lost their bright light.
“Kaldrasch, don’t even think about running away. When you return to Hamburg, I will personally torture you and make you expose all the sins you have committed so far.”
When I heard him say it, I smiled unconsciously.
“I’m running away? Why?”
Then, Felmond, who was next to the Marquis, pushed me forward with a sword instead of the Marquis.
“Don’t be arrogant. You idiot. No matter how strong you are, do you think you can take on all 100 of our family’s elite soldiers by yourself?”
A blue sword rose from the weapons of all the soldiers surrounding me.
It is an aura that is proof of a mana user.
“Certainly, a normal wizard wouldn’t be able to extend a hand or foot against this amount of people.”
Oh oh oh ─
When I used the correct breathing method, the virtual magic furnace inside my body began to rotate violently.
“But, have you forgotten who I am?”
He was called by all sorts of nicknames on the battlefield, such as ‘slut’ and ‘butcher’ because he killed demons without any guilt.
Long before that, the title I was given as a mage was something completely different.
He said, grabbing the cold blade that had been thrust into his throat with his bare hands.
“I am the storm, the storm mage, Kaldrash.”
