Chapter 261: 138. A Small Clue -1 (Part One)
Translated by A Passing Wanderer
Edited by RED
**
The leader of the dwarves, Belrog, dearly wanted to deliver his masterpiece personally. So he quickly packed up his luggage and joined the Ronia supply corps. He even jumped up on the carriage driver’s seat and drove the vehicle himself.
His gaze landed on the outer walls of the castle in the far-off distance.
“So, that’s Ronia, is it!”
Belrog broke out in a wide grin before taking a glance behind him. His eyes took in the sight of a single white-coloured shield wrapped in fabric, currently secured within the wagon.
‘That’s the gift I must hand over to His Highness.’
Belrog was thinking of handing over that shield to the Imperial Prince and confirming its performance with his own two eyes.
Ronia’s gates opened up and the dozen-plus carriages delivering the supplies proceeded to enter the city.
Belrog, sitting on the driver’s seat, made a surprised face at what he saw next.
The City of Convicts, the Haven for the Undead, the Sacrificial Castle, etc…
Several different labels were often used to describe this fiefdom of the northern region. However, unlike those negative labels indicated, this whole city seemed to be overflowing with vitality.
Villagers from nearby villages were coming and going through the open gates, while the avenues were filled with various stalls. Several people, hard to tell whether they were convicts or regular soldiers, were busy dashing around, as well.
When Belrog reached the city’s plaza, he got to witness yet another surprising spectacle.
“All troops, get in formation!”
“Sir!!!!”
What he saw was a battalion of soldiers at least five thousand strong gathering in the plaza. Excluding the regular forces meant to defend Ronia, all the other combatants had gathered here.
They didn’t make a single mistake or a misstep in their movements.
These convicts, filled with military discipline, were all standing tall, like some sturdy, unshakeable statues.
A man walked up and stood on a podium in front of them. He was none other than the feudal lord of this place, Count Jenald Ripang.
He began his speech.
He mentioned the Seventh Imperial Prince, then spoke some things about the Saint and Saintess before pumping his fist in the air. A loud cheer followed right afterwards.
Their fighting spirit was positively overflowing.
“Are they really convicts?” Belrog’s jaw dropped at the sheer shock of it all.
Forget about calling them ‘convict soldiers’, they came across more like proper enlisted combatants of the Theocratic Empire instead!
“Are you Belrog?”
As he stood there stewing in his own shock, a young woman walked up to him. She had a striking head of silver hair, crimson eyes, and pure white metal armour.
Belrog took a good look at her and was surprised one more time.
‘I see. So this young lady is Charlotte Heraiz?’
He immediately realised who she was, since her armour had been personally crafted by him.
Unfortunately…
‘…I screwed up.’
He was supposed to match the equipment’s size to the girl named Charlotte Heraiz, but he made an elemental mistake of not setting the shield to the correct size.
Belrog ended up sneaking a glance at the shield inside the carriage. It was simply far too large and heavy for a slender girl like her to wield!
Cold sweat trickled down his forehead as a distraught expression formed on his face. “Yes, ma’am. My name is Belrog, the head of the dwarves that serve Her Highness, First Imperial Princess Hilda. May I enquire where I can find His Highness?”
He wanted to personally deliver the shield to the Imperial Prince. He also wanted to discuss with the latter on what could be done to rectify his mistake, as well.
Charlotte’s gaze followed after his and shifted over to the carriage, before her brows shot up.
Although a piece of large fabric was wrapped around the sacred shield, such a layer proved to be inadequate to block off the gentle and bright glow coming from the equipment in the end.
A familiar aura was coming off from it: the aura of divine energy. Not just any divinity either, but…
‘That’s His Highness’s own divinity.’
Charlotte was puzzled by that.
Why was His Highness’s divinity permeating that item?
“Is that the one?”
“Pardon? Ah, yes. That’s correct, ma’am. It’s the shield that His Highness personally requested from us.”
“His Highness did?”
Charlotte stared back at Belrog with a stunned face.
He tilted his head in confusion. “You didn’t know, ma’am? He even sent a precious dragon fang and requested it from us.”
“…”
“He said that it’s supposed to be a present to someone dear to him, so we had to give it our all when crafting it.”
A change gradually appeared on Charlotte’s face.
Her previously hard and icy expression gently melted away. Her eyes went round, and her lightly trembling lips couldn’t say anything.
That face of hers looked rather unnatural, but Belrog could more or less figure out that she was feeling genuinely happy right now.
‘But to think that I messed up this badly.’
The greatest masterpiece in his life, you say? Everything would be for nought if the intended master couldn’t even use it properly!
There was simply no way a slender girl could even lift up a shield so large that even four grown men would have trouble lugging it around.
As Belrog began thinking that to himself, Charlotte wordlessly walked right past him and climbed up into the carriage’s loadbay.
‘This is His Highness’s present to me…’
Her eyes remained round as she cautiously reached out to the shield.
Belrog watched her and tried to say some things that sounded like him making excuses. “W-well, we ended up making a bit of a mistake, ma’am. Because we were so absorbed in our work, the weight and the size of the…”
While he said that, he continued watching Charlotte’s hand reach out, only to sense the carriage’s centre of mass tilt to one side, causing it to teeter for a moment there.
His eyes rapidly grew larger and his expression stiffened from sheer astonishment.
Charlotte had actually lifted up the sacred white shield.
Even though it was as tall as she was, the girl’s left hand effortlessly picked up the shield that was shaped like an inverted triangle joined with a cross.
Belrog gasped out. “Holy cow!”
What crazy physical strength that was!
Belrog had to hurriedly put a gag over the voice of his mind trying to jump out of his mouth.
Charlotte’s gaze drifted away, towards a chest near the shield next. The familiar aura was also coming from there.
“Ah, that is…” Belrog quickly climbed onto the loadbay and pulled out another item from the chest. “It’s been crafted out of the dragon’s scales. I think they originally came from a black dragon’s hide, but because of the holy water’s effects, the colour changed to white…”
What Charlotte received next was a pure-white cape. It was thin, yet soft and supple like silk. Her fingertips could clearly feel the softness of the cape.
She carefully held it in her bosom.
This cape and the shield were the very first gifts His Highness had ever given her.
Meanwhile, Belrog had turned his head to look at the convict soldiers present in the plaza. They were arming themselves with equipment being taken out from the loadbays of carriages.
He even spotted siege weapons being mobilised, and figured that they were about to enter a big battle soon.
Belrog turned his head back to Charlotte and asked her, “…Are you all planning to fight a war, ma’am?”
She was currently spreading open the pure white cape and letting it flap in the wind.
She then draped the cape over her armour, and secured the shield as tall as she was on her left hand. Her right hand reached down and rested on the hilt of the divine sword by her waist.
Belrog watched her hold her head up high, and felt a magnetic charm quite different from Hilda’s emanating from this young woman.
She was commanding and majestic to behold. But at the same time, she also gave off a sacred vibe and was arrestingly beautiful, too!
‘If a heroine from a fairy tale comes to life, would she look like this young lady?’
Charlotte shifted her gaze back to Belrog and answered, “We are to march to the ice castle.”
“The ice castle, you say?”
Wasn’t that a structure that the Necromancer King had constructed?
“And we shall…” Charlotte gently caressed the shield and smiled brightly, “…go and bring His Highness home.”
**
The ice castle in the northern region was built to a considerable scale.
Just the outer walls alone were fifteen metres in height. The whole structure was so large and imposing that one could easily spot it from many kilometres away.
However, there weren’t all that many creatures currently residing within the massive structure.
Only some undead, like zombies and other vampires who quietly buried themselves away in their research, could be found in here. That was exactly what Count Timong liked the most about this place.
Almost nothing was as good as being able to carry on his research in such silence.
He was currently standing on one of the balconies of the ice castle. He placed his hands behind his back, bent forward like a hunchback. His eyes were locked on the gigantic pit dug out in the middle of the ice castle.
Bang-! Bang-! Bang-!
The ground rocked violently.
The stakes driven into the ground all around the pit’s mouth, and the steel chains connected to them, were shaking precariously.
“Looks like it can’t be held back anymore.”
Count Timong rubbed his chin, thinking that it’d be difficult to maintain the seal on the mud giant, Mist Calf, for much longer.
‘What’s happening with the sacrifices, anyway?’
It had been several days already, so how come there was no news at all?
‘Could it be that the undead got wiped out?’
But that couldn’t be. The Jötnar went along with that lot.
‘Most likely, they must be having too much damn fun and lost themselves to wanton slaughter and destruction…’
“This is why I shouldn’t have entrusted the command to a lycan,” Count Timong tutted unhappily.
