Chapter 80 – Letters

Letters

Before I knew it, the day had cleared up.
The effects of the alcohol had completely worn off.

When I returned to the lodging, everyone was already up.
Given the time, it would have been strange if they were still asleep.
I packed up my things and headed out with Cecilia.
Valkvogel did not accompany us. I left her at the lodging. We wouldn’t be leaving right away, so I’ll leave her behind to guard our belongings as we search for the letter. If you put it nicely, she’s playing the role of a keeper.

So off we went towards Chloe’s house.
Under Cecilia’s guidance, we arrived in no time.
There was no chance of getting lost.

The house we arrived at was cramped. I had expected a forest keeper’s house to be somewhat large, but it was smaller than I had anticipated.
It was so small that it could be mistaken for a single room.

Yet, it had everything it needed.
A door that would send a blade flying if not opened in the correct sequence.
Emergency food supplies like nuts and strange tree roots were well-stocked.
Clothing and equipment were amply provided.

The room was small, but it was densely packed inside.
It would have taken a lot of time to find the letter.

If I had come alone, that is.

“So, what color is the letter we’re looking for?”

Now I have Cecilia with me.
Well, she’s not good at finding things. But she’s better than nothing, right?
At least she’ll help find it a minute faster.

Hmm.
Perhaps, 30 seconds.
No, maybe 5 seconds.

“It’s on light green paper… just gather any paper-like things you see in one place. I’ll sort them out.”

Cecilia searched near the door.
I searched around the bed.
It seemed more efficient to split up.

I didn’t hear any news from my side.
No paper came out at all.
What I found were simple clothes and strange knick-knacks, drafts of newspapers, and a few gold coins. And a commendation from the imperial court.

That was all.

I couldn’t find anything like the letter.

Could she have thrown it away?
No, there’s also a chance that Chloe has it.

Thinking that, do I have to go back underground…

“Flan, I found it.”

“What?”

As I was deep in thought, I heard that.
Turning around, Cecilia was holding out the letter to me. She had a proud look in her eyes. If it weren’t for the heavy dark circles under her eyes, I would have felt her expression was bright.

I took the letter, feeling puzzled.
The paper Cecilia handed me was light green, with a seal stamped on it.
The letter I had sent.
It was definitely genuine.

“…It’s real.”

I didn’t expect Cecilia to find it.
She didn’t look well on the way here. And even now, she’s looking at me with tired eyes, yet she managed to find it.

“Yeah, well, thanks. You did a good job finding it.”

And so, I received the letter.

Chloe’s letter showed no signs of being tampered with. More precisely, it looked as if the defensive system hadn’t been triggered.
It appeared untouched.
This was what I had expected.

I never thought she would open the letter before hearing the truth. Although I considered the possibility that Chloe might discard the letter, I never entertained the idea that she would have tried to open it.

…It took about 5 minutes.

Well, I figured it would be found quickly.

Green paper isn’t that common, and with two people in this small room, it should be sufficient.

In this respect, it’s really convenient that each letter has a different color.
If they were all similar white, when lost… ugh.

Still, with the seal on it, it would have been annoying, but I could have found it.

“Then I’ll open it, and you… no, just stay.”

I was about to send Cecilia out, but I stopped myself.
There’s no real reason to send her away. She doesn’t seem particularly interested in what’s written in the letter. Besides, she doesn’t have the tools to steal the power of the goddess that has emerged.

And I’m confident that Cecilia won’t betray me before my journey ends.

Such baseless confidence came over me.

So, I started to extract the contents of the letter as if tearing it open.

-Crackle.

“Huh? What’s this…”

The letter resisted my touch.

Just in case, I tried once more.

-Crackle.

Rejected again.
The letter would not open.

“…It won’t open? I remember it opened easily before.”

She looked at me with a puzzled expression and healed my hand.

Well, Cecilia wouldn’t know since she opened the letter she received without any trouble. It must be her first time seeing lightning burst out of a letter.

It was my first time, too.

The owner of the letter is dead, and it won’t open?
What’s going on here?
Could it be that she’s not dead…?
No, that’s impossible.

If she fell down the waterfall into the underground… it would be several hundred meters.

In this world, with magic, bodies are tougher.
But even so, in the face of objects or weapons imbued with the same magic, or against magic itself, that toughness is useless. At least, it’s rare for someone to die from a silly slip and a broken neck.

But to survive a fall from that height?
Wouldn’t it be strange if she were alive?

…First, I need to find her.
Find Chloe and verify whether she’s alive or dead.
If she’s beyond recovery, I’ll kill her and open the letter.
If she’s in a state where she can live, I’ll have to let her live.

She hasn’t paid the price in full yet.
If there’s a chance, I’ll let her live.

“…Cecilia, this is urgent. We need to go somewhere else for a bit, follow me, and don’t ask why.”

Or is death not included in the conditions to open the letter?
As I grasped the doorknob, that thought suddenly crossed my mind.

Why did I assume that death was one of the conditions for opening the letter?

The beginning was simple. I thought the letter opened because of the master’s death, as it did open shortly after leaving the dying master behind, with strange sounds coming from my pocket.

But now it’s different.
Chloe is dead, but the letter won’t open.
Does this mean the letter can never be opened?

Maybe she didn’t die.
There’s an old saying that the height of a cliff is inversely proportional to the survival rate. Considering that, she might be hanging from a tree branch somewhere by now.

No, that’s not it.

Death might not be a condition for opening the letter.
I didn’t witness the master’s death firsthand. It’s possible that the letter opened because the master had a change of heart. And I don’t have a way to properly confirm Chloe’s death either.
I can’t be certain of life or death.

I must also consider the possibility that she’s perfectly alive.
There’s a chance I took a wrong turn during the chase.
Faking footprints in the forest would be easier than breaking branches. Especially for Chloe, being a forest keeper, it would have been even simpler.

Could this paper itself be a manipulation…?

Hmm.
Looking at the seal…
It’s not a fake.

This is real.
Damn it.

But why won’t it open?

“Ah, shit, ugh…”

What should I do?
Should I go looking for Chloe, whose whereabouts and life or death are unknown?

Searching every part of the waterfall that leads to who knows where is too inefficient. It’d be easier to find a needle in a sandbox.

And I don’t have time to wait.

…Then.

“…No. Let’s collect the letter for now. We’ll conclude the matter of Chloe later when we come back. We’ll open the letter after meeting Chloe.”

This is the only way.

If she’s alive and hiding that fact, we can come back later.
She’ll surely show herself once we leave.
By the time we return from the Dragon Kingdom, she’ll have let her guard down enough.
It’s inefficient to go to the Dragon Kingdom and come back, but I don’t have time to stay here.

And if she’s on the brink of death, the letter will open soon anyway, so it doesn’t matter if we go,

And if she’s dead and the letter still won’t open…

Let’s not think about that.
It’s too complicated.

Well, it doesn’t matter if I can’t open the letter right now.
The content of this letter isn’t important anyway.
Even if there are hints written inside, I have other letters left directly by Troka. There’s bound to be more information in those.

Or there could be more false information, but still.

Eventually, we changed our course.
The destination is the lodging. Taking Valkvogel with us, we head towards the Dragon Kingdom.

“Tower of Magic, Holy Imperial Court, The Great Forest, and now… it’s the Dragon Kingdom.”

“Not much left now.”

Finally, the end.
The journey is slowly coming to a close. Cecilia’s face seemed to darken, as if clouded by the prospect of parting. Of course, it’s not because of the sadness of saying goodbye. It must be worry.
Because that guy is in the Dragon Kingdom.

But there’s no need to worry so much.
After all, I’m someone who knows the value of good health now.

“…You mustn’t fight.”

Cecilia, as if reading my thoughts, said that.

Dragon Kingdom.
The knight.
Bella…

Does she think I’m going to start a fight?
Even though I’ve never thrown the first punch.

Probably.

“I’ll try not to.”

The sun was setting before we knew it.
It’s our last evening in Myluman. Maybe we’ll never see it again, so I’ll burn it into my memory.

The World Tree being rebuilt.
The large trees.
The small trees.
And just trees.

And now… let’s stop looking.
After all, there’s nothing but trees to see here.

Now we must move towards the Dragon Kingdom.

“Flan, just to be on the safe side, how about we rest today and leave tomorrow? It looks like the day is drawing to a close.”

…Let’s move forward from tomorrow.

* * *

At the place where the underground waterfall settles.

A woman is gasping for breath.
She’s barely hanging on, exhaling breaths that seem like they could extinguish at any moment.

Clutching her torn arm, she’s barely managing to stay conscious. Any further injury could mean immediate death, and it wouldn’t be surprising.

Her head hurts.
It hurts like it’s about to split open.
It throbs as if she’s entrusted her body to the waterfall and fallen.

“That bastard Flan, when did he get so strong…”

The woman’s name is Nerati.
Her main duties include espionage, kidnapping important figures, assassination, interrogation through torture, and meaningless counterintelligence. If the Demon King were alive, she could be of use in battle, but now she’s nothing more than a non-combatant, a useless woman.

Her reason for being here is simple.

Search every inch of the Myluman underground.
If no information is found, burn it down to prevent its use as a stronghold in the next war.
That was the order.
The original Nerati would have naturally refused such a bothersome task, but she had no choice but to deploy due to the mess she’d made of everything up until now.

And somehow, she ended up facing Flan.

And got thrashed.
Utterly destroyed.

She sacrificed her arm to barely save her life.
But that was it.
She was struck by the holy sword. It was just a graze on the arm, but the energy flowing from the holy sword coursed through her entire body. Her arm rotted and crumbled, blood flowed with the pain of her body melting away.

By amputating her arm, she avoided immediate death, but the situation was still dire.

“Damn it… Damn it… Damn it…!”

To be done in like this by someone like Flan.
That bastard, how did he get so strong?
Did he become a hero or something?
If not, it doesn’t make any sense….

With such scattered thoughts, she was trying to recover.

Nerati’s patience had long reached its limit.

She had experienced failure in every mission.
She tried to relieve the stress built up from those failures by killing Flan, but even that failed due to Lumen’s interference. The next time they met, she failed because she was fighting Valkvogel. This time was supposed to be the perfect opportunity… but she lost. To that damn Flan, who had nothing but a cursed sword.
She had planned to skewer him and slowly toy with him before killing him.

Instead, she received a look of disdain and ended up running away in a pathetic state.

Once her body recovers, she’ll head straight…!

Not quite that far.
First, let’s grab a suitable human to relieve the stress.
Torture them to the brink, imagining it’s Flan.

Phelion, Flan…!

It was during such times of anger and frustration that she heard it.

Thud,
Thump,
Crack,

…Splash.

A sound came from somewhere.
The sound of an object with mass hitting the water’s surface.

When she turned her head in that direction, she saw an object floating on the water.

A greenish object.

Had a demon beast fallen in?
With a puzzled look, she stared at it.

Upon closer inspection, she noticed it was bleeding. It would be strange not to bleed after falling from this height, but it was indeed bleeding.

If it’s the blood of a demon beast, it could restore her strength.
With that thought, she fished it out with a spear. She felt a bit of weight, but the strength of a Demon Army subordinate was still intact.

And then, with a splash,

“…What the hell is this?”

What came up to the surface was not a demon beast.
It was a person.
And not just any human, but a familiar face!
A face she could never forget, unconscious.

She was the woman who had pierced through her own subordinates in an instant.
The archer from the Hero’s party.

“…”

She had once tried to assassinate Flan and failed, managing to escape from Troka. While trying to flee, she was suddenly struck by an arrow that tore through her legs. She barely escaped being captured.
At that time, she thought she was truly caught.

…And the one who shot that arrow was right here.

“Hu, huhu.”

She brought the spear to her nose.
Breathing.

It was uncertain if consciousness could be regained, but surely she would wake up. Not immediately, but someday.

“Huhuhu…!”

A sinister smile spread across her face.

The mission had failed.
Surely Flan must have taken the related information.

But,

“…Thank you, Flan. Thanks to you, I’ve gained something far more important.”

She had secured the archer from the Hero’s party.
She could extract more valuable information.
After extracting all the information, she would personally…

An evil laughter echoed over the water’s surface. The maniacal laughter continued to resonate for a while, not ceasing.