Chapter 261 – Epilogue: Old Tree  

There were two people lying down on a shallow hill with their eyes on the farmhouse. A hundred fully armed mercenaries were waiting for instructions while standing behind the two.

The man looking at the farmhouse through a cylindrical object said, “I’m sure, sis. It’s Sina Solvane, and that fucking bitch Heretia is next to her.”

“Wow, Colter did something right for the first time. Our enemies are finally all in one place.”

They were Igel and Ioshiff, the Ilde siblings.

Five years ago, Imil Ilde came to the conclusion that he neither had the place to stand in the Crack nor did he want to join forces with the monsters. He had decided to compromise and decided to rule the empire.

Imil Ilde’s judgment ended up being right to some extent, considering that Gerard’s forces left in the Crack ended up suffering. However, he had no idea that Heretia had the authority to control the Golems in the holy city of Torra.

Imil and his meager army of rebels were ruthlessly crushed. Of course, Imil’s corpse couldn’t be found anywhere after being crushed along with the other rebels.

Igel and Ioshiff miraculously managed to survive the chaos. However, there was nothing the two could do after being labeled as fugitives by the empire. Aruntal was scattered everywhere, and their strong background as members of the Ilde family was gone.

In the end, all they could do was wander around the slums to rob people and work as mercenaries.

Ioshiff signaled at the mercenaries. They used to be members of the same bandit group, but they were now mercenaries.

“We’ll be able to take revenge and get paid at the same time. We’re about to kill two birds with one stone,” Ioshiff said.

“Sis. Do you think we’ll be able to confront Sina Solvane?” Igel asked.

“It has been a long time since she wielded her sword, so she won’t be that much of a threat. However, there’s a possibility that someone might avenge them if we aren’t careful enough, so why don’t we just kill the children and set the farmhouse on fire?”

“I think that’s a great plan. By the way, I want to catch Heretia myself. I want to see her crawl like a bug after I break that prosthetic leg of hers,” Igel said.

Igel tried to stand up with a satisfied look on his face, but he heard a voice coming from behind.

“Who are you?”

The voice belonged to an old man speaking haughtily in an accented voice. The old man was riding a carriage on the road. The soldiers and the Ilde siblings were confused.

They hadn’t been able to hear the sound of the carriage until now.

However, the old man sat still without moving a single inch.

Igel suddenly remembered that a peddler would sometimes stop by this orphanage.

“Let me ask again. Who are you?”

“I’m not really looking for a bonus, but I guess there’s no other choice.”

Igel clicked his tongue and signaled at the mercenaries.

Five mercenaries approached the old man to try and bring him down.

However, the old man simply frowned and said, “You must be bandits.”

There was a flash, and the severed hands of the five mercenaries flew into the air.

Igel knew that the old man couldn’t be an ordinary peddler, and his assumption ended up being correct. He noticed a small brooch hiding beneath the old man’s coat.

The brooch had the emblem of a dark red crow.

“It’s the Order of Huginn!”

“Why are all bandits so loud?” the old man muttered.

Igel and Ioshiff judged that things had gone wrong. They quickly sent the mercenaries to charge at the old man. They reckoned that the old man wouldn’t be able to deal with a hundred mercenaries on his own, even if he was a Huginn knight.

The bigger issue was that the Order of Huginn might come here after hearing of the commotion.

Igel and Ioshiff hurriedly looked for a way out.

They turned and heard a soft noise. Their eyes were pierced at the same time. They could feel a grotesque sensation as if the objects that had pierced their eyes were scratching the insides of their skull.

However, they had no time to react as their brains were quickly stirred into a fine mush.

The final image that the Ilde siblings saw was a woman with the emblem of a dark red crow on her chest.

The eyes of the Ilde siblings glazed over as the woman hurled them toward the mercenaries.

Igel and Ioshiff roared and charged at the mercenaries before their feet could even touch the ground.

The mercenaries were quickly massacred by the two without being able to react.

The mercenaries were killed, and they became knights of the dead in the proverbial blink of an eye. The number of undead creatures had grown once more, and Anya stared quietly at them. ***

“She’s getting better and better.”

“It will be hard to find a necromancer as good as her. Actually, it will be hard to find a magician on the same level as her. Even the Tower Master of the Magic Tower is probably no match for her.”

Pavan saw Anya’s slaughter through a telescope from a distance. He was so far from the farmhouse that the farmhouse looked even smaller than his fingernails. Captain Kilt of the Order of the Capital was standing next to him. Captain Kilt used to be the deputy.

Pavan had been tracking down the Ilde siblings. But instead of ending them with his own hands, Pavan decided to throw them as meat to the wildest dog he knew—to Anya, the Captain of the Order of Huginn who had been protecting Elaine Elliot’s orphanage.

The mercenaries and the Ilde siblings didn’t even last ten seconds before they became members of Anya’s undead.

The old man, whom they thought was just an ordinary peddler, was unscathed.

“She was already a powerful monster five years ago, but she has become even stronger. It won’t be an exaggeration to call her the goddess of death at this point,” Pavan said.

“But the captain of the Order of Huginn’s lifespan is limited… as far as I know,” Kilt answered.

“Yes. I don’t know how long she’ll live, but our descendants may start heading toward the East one day.”

Pavan smiled bitterly and glanced behind him. The young talents with important positions in the military and those who were expected to play important roles in the Order of the Capital in the future were standing behind Pavan. Most of them were hard-liners for an expedition to the East.

They watched the scene of Anya’s slaughter with pale expressions as they exchanged the telescopes with each other. One of the knights asked with a trembling voice.

“Is she the captain of the Order of Huginn?”

“Yes. What do you think?” Pavan asked.

“...She’s a monster.”

The hard-liners quickly gave up their lingering attachment to the East. There were more reasons why Pavan had been delaying the expedition to the East aside from Heretia’s resistance and his respect for Sina.

The biggest reason was Anya. She was like a ghost, and she had always destroyed everything that Pavan had sent to approach the East.

Elaine Elliot’s orphanage was located exquisitely near the border between the empire and the East, so the imperial military even had to draw a separate borderline on the map.

Anya had an overwhelming presence in the empire in terms of force alone. Ever since the disappearance of the emperor and his children, Anya was the only one in the empire with the combat level befitting someone from the mythological era.

Her presence was terrifying, and everyone coveted her.

Pavan suddenly noticed something strange while observing Anya through the telescope.

Anya was staring at him.

Pavan thought that there was no way she could have noticed him, considering the distance, but he broke out into a cold sweat for some reason.

Pavan quickly folded the telescope and tried to stand up.

Someone snatched the telescope away from him the moment he tried to stand up.

Anya was now standing in front of him.

Anya looked around at the telescope and held it upside down to hold it close to her eyes. The telescope was the latest invention, even in the empire, so it was only natural that Anya had no idea what it was.

“Anya. I mean… Captain of the Order of Huginn,” Pavan said as he tried his best to make a friendly smile.

Kilt tried to grab his sword in a hurry, but there was nothing around his waist as Pavan instructed him to leave his arms off before approaching Elaine Elliot’s orphanage. Nothing would have changed even if Kilt had a sword since his swordsmanship was not as good as Pavan’s. But even Pavan couldn’t imagine how to attack Anya.

“Pavan Peltere,” Anya said with a bright smile.

However, Anya’s smile felt bizarre in Pavan’s eyes.

“Is it fun to play the emperor?” Anya asked.

“Well, I’ve been having fun...”

“If you want to keep having fun…” Anya brought her face close to Pavan’s ear and whispered, “You better not go anywhere near Sina.”

Pavan gulped and nodded. “I’ll keep that in mind.”

“You would have been mumbling and wandering around with the mercenaries over there if you hadn’t informed me in advance that you were sending those twin siblings over to me. You gave me a pretty good gift.” Anya giggled and continued. “From now on, you don’t have to see me in person. Just send the gifts over.”

Pavan quickly nodded.

Anya fiddled with the telescope in her hand as if it belonged to her before dissolving into a liquid that quickly disappeared.

Pavan wiped the cold sweat off of his forehead and staggered backward.

Kilt rushed over to support Pavan.

“She’s so creepy,” Kilt complained.

“But she’s reliable as well, don’t you think? She acts like that, but I kind of have a close relationship with her. I might be able to get her on my side one day if I continue to diligently send her gifts.” Pavan shrugged.

Kilt stared dumbfoundedly at Pavan.

“Do you actually mean that? If you do, I guess it will be your last will.” “You cheeky punk.”

“What are you going to do with Heretia? She has technically committed treason,” Kilt asked.

Pavan stared in the direction where Elaine Elliot’s orphanage was located without saying anything. He could no longer tell whether Heretia had left or not because Anya had taken away his telescope.

Pavan quickly made a decision, but he thought that it was a decision that didn’t fit him at all.

“Just let her be.”

***

Heretia was gone, and Sina was sitting in the empty yard of the orphanage.

When the sun set and the color of the wheat field started to turn orange, Sina suddenly felt lonely. Anya would come back at night, but Sina would often feel this unbearable sense of loneliness until Anya’s return.

Sina was shaken by Heretia’s suggestion because she had been feeling more and more lonely in recent days. She wanted to meet her old comrades again. She wanted to laugh with them, talk to them, and run with them.

Sina had never once thought that she would miss the times when she had to fend for herself in multiple life-and-death situations. However, Sina knew that she was missing someone who had been standing next to her during those times rather than those times.

‘Juan.’

The wind shook the wheat field. A long shadow drooped and mingled between the wheat field, and it seemed like someone was walking toward her through the wheat field.

In the past few years, there have been several times Sina stood up and ran after thinking that Juan had appeared in the wheat field and was walking toward her.

Juan’s figure on the battlefield appeared numerous times in the wheat field.

Sina thought that she had already gotten used to it, but she was still chasing after Juan’s figure. She hoped that Juan would appear in the wheat fields one day, and she reckoned that the feeling had gotten stronger after Heretia’s sudden visit.

After all, visits from her comrades during those times were rare.

In fact, Haild had only visited Sina once. She was happy to see him again, and she had many conversations with him. However, Haild had told her to stand on his side. Of course, Sina wasn’t the only one who had been missing the comrades of those times.

Haild had proposed that Sina should stand on his side because he also wanted to relive those moments.

However, Sina refused Haild’s suggestion because she had to protect this place. She had to protect Elaine Elliot’s orphanage until Juan’s return one day.

It was questionable if Juan could return when the Crack had completely closed, and he had already become one with Qzatquizail. However, Sina believed that Juan would come back one day as long as he was still alive.

It seemed impossible, but everyone had the same thought—Juan would return one day.

‘But will he return while I’m still alive?’

The sun turned red.

Sina would always suffer during these times. She would always feel like Juan was approaching her through the wheat field in the distance during these times.

Her logic was telling her that it was just an illusion. The Juan approaching her was either just a traveler who got lost or an animal looking around for food. However, she was surprisingly convinced that the silhouette approaching her right now was Juan.

‘I’ll end up losing my mind at this rate.’

Sina closed her eyes tightly and held gripped the armrests of her chair. She felt like she would stand up and greet the figure approaching her from the wheat field, but it wasn’t just a feeling. She was already standing up.

Sina was dumbfounded by her lack of self-control.

‘But I swore to His Majesty…’

This time, Sina wasn’t hallucinating. Someone was really walking toward her.

It was a black-haired boy. The black-haired boy was wearing exotic clothing that Sina had never seen before, but the skinny black-haired boy definitely looked the same as that person—particularly during their first meeting.

Sina thought that it was a kind of illusion that the setting sun had created, but the black-haired boy stared at Sina for a while before moving his mouth.

The wind sweeping across the wheat field muffled the black-haired boy’s voice, and Sina couldn’t exactly make out what the black-haired boy was saying.

However, she was incredibly familiar with the black-haired boy’s voice.

Upon realizing that, Sina had to acknowledge that she had truly gone crazy and that she had fallen into an inextricable hallucination. Sina wanted to shout Juan’s name and hug the black-haired boy tightly—it didn’t matter even if the black-haired boy wasn’t Juan.

“Juan?”

The name that had been tickling Sina’s throat finally burst out of her mouth like a sneeze.

However, the black-haired boy nodded in response.

At that, Sina couldn’t hold herself back anymore. She ran as fast as she could as if she was afraid that the black-haired boy would disappear once more and as if she were an amputee whose leg had just grown back.

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Sina hugged Juan tightly, and they collapsed on the wheat field in each other’s arms.

It seemed that the old tree had ended its own life to move on.

And it became a sprout that was about to bloom...