WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
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◈ Prince of Rage ◈
Chapter 74
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There were times in life when bad things happened one after another. That was the Lokir Merchant Company’s situation now.
The young lady had died, and now the head of the merchant company had died as well. The two deaths had come only days apart.
Head Lokir had been ill for a long time, and everyone had expected he would die someday. Yet when he finally did, people still felt a great loss.
He had founded the company. It contained as many as nine major guilds, along with ten-odd smaller businesses and branches. He was the one who had gathered all those stubborn craftsmen and technicians together as one family.
They had not simply come together because of shared interests.
The Lokir Merchant Company was a commercial and industrial association formed from life’s hardships, loyalty, betrayal, forgiveness, trust, resentment, and everything else besides.
Guilds had gathered around the Lokir Merchant Company estate as though forming a village. There were guilds of goldsmiths and jewelers, tanners, blacksmiths, tailors, stonemasons, weavers, dyers, shoemakers, architects, and more.
Each guild was a gathering of people in the same trade, but the Lokir Merchant Company embraced all of them.
It supplied them with raw materials, sold their finished goods, provided armed protection, mediated disputes, lent money, and handled any other troublesome or difficult matters.
It was not an organization that could be gathered merely through appeals to sentiment, nor one that could be sustained solely through the cold organizational power of shared interests.
Both were necessary. Human affection, along with clear reason and vision.
Lokir had not been a noble, but he had been a self-made man who built a small kingdom of his own.
Many elderly people attended his funeral holding the hands of their sons or grandsons. They were people whose family businesses had passed down through generations.
So it was insufficient to call them merely professional associations. One way or another, they were all connected by blood.
Like a lord and his vassals.
“You need to get married first. Married. Have children soon, too. The dead are dead, and the company is the company, isn’t it? It all rests in your hands, Lucas.”
A very old man kneaded Lucas’s hand as he spoke. He had been one of the merchant company’s founding members, though he had long since retired from active work.
Lucas himself must have been struggling to collect his feelings, but he was sweating as he forced an awkward smile and received the mourners. He looked somewhat haggard, though he had not completely fallen apart.
Being the chief mourner was not easy. It was especially difficult when there were this many visitors.
“Yes, I understand. I’ll keep that in mind, sir.”
“Oh, Grandpa, he knows what he’s doing. Stop it already.”
“You brat! You can’t talk like that! Do you know how hard this company was to build?”
“I know, so come this way already.”
Strangely, people seemed to become impatient and somewhat fierce as they aged. Even someone who had achieved great things was, to their grandchildren, merely a troublesome grandfather who needed constant attention.
The mourners offered flowers to Lokir’s body, which had been made up to look as if he were alive. In the center of the temple stood its distinctive long brazier, and people also tossed coins into it.
It would be bothersome to collect them later, but that was tradition.
In any case, the temple had entrances at the front and back, so people entered from one side and exited through the other. Lucas’s close associates guided them and took care of various matters.
Meals were offered to the mourners outside the temple. There were so many people that it was hard to say whether this was proper, but some were drinking, laughing, and chatting together off to one side.
It was noble in one sense, yet common in another. Since its roots lay with craftsmen, technicians, and merchants, that was only natural.
Fortunately, most people offered flowers, bowed to the chief mourner, and passed on. That helped more than stopping him to ramble on about worries or words of encouragement.
Some went further, helping the servants with their work. They carried food, tended the brazier’s fire, arranged flowers, and swept and scrubbed the floors.
After noon, the number of mourners dwindled. Lucas could not leave his place, but he sat down and finally caught his breath.
Then Valerie, Knut, and Yorick approached him.
“You don’t need to stand.”
Valerie said this as Lucas tried to rise. The group first offered flowers, then tossed coins into the brazier. Since the merchant company had shown them generosity, they gave generously.
“Is it not difficult on your own? You must be exhausted from nursing him, too.”
Before his death, Lokir’s dementia symptoms had reached their peak, and he had caused even more of a commotion. It was as though he had been trying to use up all his remaining strength so he could die even a little sooner. That was what it felt like after he was gone.
“The hardships belong to the living. Thinking that way makes it less difficult.”
Lucas was haggard, but he had not collapsed entirely. They said pain and grief made people grow, and Lucas seemed to be doing just that.
Perhaps he seemed detached. It was in his eyes. They looked as though they could now see deeper places and farther distances.
“And the priest? I’m sorry I couldn’t take care of him myself. And thank you as well. Perhaps it would have been better if the priest had been at his side from the beginning instead of me.”
For a brief time before his death, Lokir had been docile whenever Priest Eirik cared for him. It had been a truly strange thing.
“He was a Norseman.”
Valerie meant that they had placed the body on a boat, set it afloat on the river, and burned it. There had not been many mourners, so Priest Eirik’s funeral had ended quickly.
Valerie thought Sigbold might erect a rune stone in Jomsborg when he returned.
“Is there anything we can help with?”
Uncharacteristically, Knut had been the first to ask whether they could help. It was truly rare. Perhaps he felt indebted for having stayed at the estate.
Lucas simply shook his head calmly.
The view outside was visible through the open entrance. Fields turning yellow, a forest in the distance, white clouds in a blue sky.
“I understand now. Why he said we cannot possess anything.”
Lucas spoke as if to himself while looking at the pleasant view outside.
“Possessing something only means that it passes by for a little while. The very thought of possession was an illusion. Something merely remains in the wake of what has passed. I think that is what living is. So we must do our best and be sincere in everything.”
“...That’s admirable.”
Valerie meant it sincerely. At first, he had thought Lucas was some strange fellow, but not anymore. Lucas had always been clever, so it seemed he had finally found something important amid regret and pain.
Whether it was fate or life, one man had become something greater.
Watching a person grow was strangely gratifying.
New mourners were entering. Valerie saw them and spoke to Lucas.
“We’ll be going.”
“Alright.”
After a brief exchange like a cool breeze, neither cold nor warm, Valerie’s group left the temple.
Outside, mourners were scattered across the fields or gathered in lively groups as if on a picnic. Some who had not seen each other for a long time were quietly catching up.
As they passed through them, Knut lightly tugged on Valerie’s hem.
“Valerie.”
“I know.”
“Why? What is it?”
“There are eyes on us.”
“Can’t they just be looking?”
“No, that’s not it. Just be quiet for now.”
Naturally, people could be looking at Valerie’s group, but Knut had picked out the hostile intent mixed among those gazes.
Valerie had even estimated their numbers, though he was not yet sure exactly how many there were. In times like this, one simply had to test it.
“You two go look after Ivy. I’ll split off alone.”
Valerie said this to find out whom they were targeting.
When he naturally separated from the other two and headed toward the estate alone, they seemed to follow while carefully maintaining a certain distance. They were after Valerie himself.
They looked like people sent by the Duke. Were they merely there to watch him, or to assassinate him?
He could not yet know their purpose, but from Valerie’s perspective, having learned assassination techniques from the Black Hand, they were amateurs.
A funeral gave them a convenient excuse, but if unfamiliar people were sent to observe someone so openly, they could not erase that distinctly unfamiliar air.
In truth, once an assassination was noticed by its target, it had already failed and was over. That was why Valerie did not let on that he had noticed them.
When someone else was targeting him, there was no need to be startled or flustered. He only had to act even more regularly than usual and set a trap in return. Deliberately show them a weakness, for instance.
So Valerie strolled leisurely through the fields and headed slowly toward the estate. Since he often spent time alone, it did not look unnatural. He seemed like someone peacefully enjoying autumn.
Still, even Valerie was not wholly without concerns. It was not anything too serious, but winter weighed on one corner of his heart.
He had to decide whether to stay here through the winter or travel farther south even now and settle there.
There was no great difference either way, but just as life was simply life and death simply death, winter was simply winter. There was nothing to be done about it.
Valerie had always tended to live regularly. He had been that way before his regression as well, because it was a kind of principle concerning action itself, separate from living.
To put it more simply, he was close to a machine.
Through a routine that accumulated day after day, his skills became more refined and his judgment sharper. He seemed to have always tried to maintain that state of being honed to an edge. So that he could cut at any time.
He had once lived that way compulsively, but now that he thought about it, perhaps he did not actually like regularity all that much.
Valerie felt this as he deliberately lived even more regularly while keeping the assassins targeting him in mind.
“Valerie.”
After finishing breakfast at dawn, washing briefly, and leaving his room, Brynhildr spoke to him as if she had been waiting.
“What?”
Valerie’s reply was indifferent, but it was no longer as sharp as before.
“People are targeting you.”
“I know.”
“You know?”
“They were probably sent by the Duke.”
“Why?”
“He must have guessed that someone had put foolish ideas in your head. Since he felt threatened, he would want to remove that person.”
“...You know even that? No, before that, are you really alright?”
“What?”
“I mean, someone is targeting you. Aren’t you anxious or afraid?”
“Not really. They make it obvious.”
“...”
Brynhildr wondered what kind of child he was. Normally, if someone targeted you, you would be afraid and anxious, but Valerie showed none of that ordinary reaction.
No matter how strong he was, should he not at least feel uneasy?
Of course, Valerie had faced too many assassination threats before his regression, so he was merely accustomed to it. Without that experience, he too would have reacted normally.
“I’m used to this. So there’s no need for you to worry and get involved. If you do, you’ll only get in the way.”
Used to it. At those words, a corner of Brynhildr’s heart ached. What kind of life had he lived? It hurt even more because he acted as though it did not matter.
Valerie looked at his sister calmly, then turned and walked down the corridor. His footsteps rang loudly on the marble floor.
When he left the estate, the cool air unique to dawn and a navy-blue world greeted him. It was the season when the sun rose later and later.
Valerie crossed grass that had grown to his waist and headed into the forest. Partly to deliberately expose a vulnerable time, and partly to train the power of his runes.
Amid the morning birdsong of the forest, Valerie concentrated inward. He felt cool power originating from his heart spread throughout his body.
If dragon’s blood forcibly awakened the power of runes, gave it a “nature,” and increased its “amount,” then the Dragon Slayer’s runes taught by Priest Eirik were closer to “color” and “grain.”
They could not be seen or touched, only felt, but the Dragon Slayer’s runes of dawn seemed dark blue.
They were delicate, yet not light. Cool rather than hot, calm rather than fierce. Neither slow nor fast, yet when he came to realize it, it felt as though bright light was illuminating his entire body.
The runes of dawn were not something only the Dragon Slayer could be born with. Yet over the course of his life, the Dragon Slayer had acquired his own unique color and grain. As Lucas had said, life merely left things behind where it passed. From the Dragon Slayer’s runes, Valerie felt the grain of pure sorrow and self-sacrifice.
And regret for his mother as well.
It was as if he could feel the Dragon Slayer’s soul.
However, there were parts that did not quite suit the dragon’s nature, which had ruled thunder and lightning. The dragon’s power felt as though it wanted to burst out fiercely, while the runes of dawn seemed to have a pace of their own.
The two were not completely at odds, but harmonizing them was probably his task.
In truth, having two kinds of power in one body was an extraordinary case. If something went wrong, blood vessels could rupture or organs could be damaged. Valerie did not know this might have been dangerous.
He had been fortunate because Valerie had drunk the same dragon’s blood that the Dragon Slayer had drunk after slaying the dragon. Furthermore, he was a descendant, so as Priest Eirik had said, he was alright because he was a prince.
Had it been someone else, or had he drunk another dragon’s blood, they might at minimum have been crippled or dead.
In any case, the amount and nature of the power, its color and grain, were one thing. The difficult part was how to wield it.
The breathing method Sigrún had taught him simply required him to feel the power naturally spread along its path and gather again. The method Eirik had taught him had fixed paths, so he had to focus consciously.
Thus, rather than expanding, his senses felt as though they were closing.
Furthermore, as Eirik had warned him beforehand, even natural movements were difficult until he became accustomed to it. Eventually, he had to connect it to bodily movements and incorporate it into swordsmanship.
Valerie’s swordsmanship was not orthodox. It was the result of adapting, developing, and internalizing assassination techniques through real combat.
It was concise, swift, and lethal, but far removed from solid defense or stability.
It felt like walking a tightrope. He compensated for the danger of that tightrope with innate instinct, a gambler’s temperament, and tactical calculation.
Should he alter his swordsmanship to fit the method of wielding this power, or adapt the power to fit his swordsmanship? That too was a task.
He had two kinds of power with different natures and grains. Between them, he had to learn an unfamiliar method of wielding them and incorporate it into his swordsmanship. It was a level of difficulty no one else had experienced before.
Valerie first drew his sword. Then, while wielding the power of his runes, he swung it very slowly.
Even taking one step required care. His sword swings were slow, and whenever something went wrong in the middle, his movements stopped and started.
Unexpectedly, it tired him out quickly. It was not that he lacked rune power, but that his stamina could not keep up. Less than thirty minutes had passed, yet sweat was already pouring from him.
This was not easy.
For Valerie, who learned everything quickly, it was the first difficulty of its kind. But he did not dislike it. It stirred his competitive spirit, and he wanted to do well.
The assassins watched Valerie from afar and wondered what he was doing. It was obvious he was practicing swordsmanship, but his movements were painfully slow. He sweated heavily by himself and quickly tired out.
They had been cautious because he was the champion of a jousting tournament, but something seemed strange.
“Maybe he can only ride well? Do you think he cannot fight very well on foot?”
“I think so too.”
“He seems tired now. Should we take care of him?”
“No. There’s still time. He comes here every day, so let’s bring in more people, prepare in advance, and make sure we finish him properly.”
“Right. It is best to have as few variables as possible.”
Having reached that conclusion, the assassins withdrew.
Valerie knew they were watching, but whether they watched or withdrew, he was completely absorbed in training. He had originally been someone who relied on real combat and did not train much, but this was a new kind of enjoyment.
So this was why people had to learn. He thought so, and thanked Priest Eirik once again.
His sword gradually became faster. He himself found it difficult, but his speed in opening an unknown path, or a path of his own, was astonishing. He had never consciously considered it, but Valerie was in fact a rare genius.
There was no way someone who had risen from the bottom to become a king could be ordinary. The difference from before his regression was that he focused more on his own martial strength than on schemes, leadership, and command.
It was because he was living a life more his own, an individual life.
He became so absorbed that he lost track of time. Before he knew it, the sun had risen, and shafts of golden sunlight shone upon Valerie in the forest.
Dark dawn always brought light. It was a sign, a promise, and hope.
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