The Avengers (1)
The next day, Dalen and Bjorn packed their bags and left the city.
Felber decided to stay behind with Tommy for a while. As planned, they would remain in Revibach to push the limits of their physical bodies through herbs and medicine.
Magic that interferes with the timeline places an immense burden on a mortal’s body.
It wasn’t just Felber, who had achieved great feats, who needed urgent physical improvement. Tommy, who hadn’t gained the long lifespan of a familiar, was in the same boat.
“Take good care of them, will you?”
“Haha, of course! When else in my life will I have the chance to serve a great wizard? Trust me. I’ll introduce you to the best herbalists and physicians I know!”
With a hearty laugh from the merchant leader behind them, Dalen and Bjorn exited the city gates.
The road stretched north from Revibach. The direction of the horses’ hooves was the opposite of when they had traveled this path months ago.
The winter that had begun in earnest as they headed south was now giving way to a full-fledged spring as they journeyed north.
The road was half-mud, thanks to two days of sleet that was more like rain.
“Sienna hasn’t shown up for about a month.”
A few hours after leaving the city, when the traffic on the main road had thinned, Bjorn spoke up.
“The Crow’s Nest stayed open for a while, selling drinks. But people don’t go there just for the drinks, do they? Without the owner, a place like that loses its clientele.”
“Did you hear anything from her?”
“Not really. Things seemed a bit different lately, but you know how Sienna is. She doesn’t mingle much outside of business. Tsk, she was such a friendly kid back in the day.”
“You’ve known her since she was young?”
“I was close with her mother.”
The dwarf habitually twisted his bushy beard.
“Sienna had a rough childhood.”
“I’ve heard.”
I knew from the background, and she had shared a bit of her story once.
“Well, think of it as a trip down memory lane and listen again.”
Bjorn chuckled softly and began his tale.
Sienna was on her own by the time she was seven.
She wandered the lowest streets of the Bronze District, learning the ropes of trade and intimidation among drug dealers and smugglers.
For a child not even ten, just taking care of herself was a monumental task.
Yet, whether it was due to her environment or innate talent, she soon became quite capable.
For several years, she lived a hand-to-mouth existence.
In those streets, that alone was considered a success.
“But her goal wasn’t just to live well in the filthy back alleys. That little girl had dreams bigger than mine, and I’ve lived over a century.”
Her journey began by building a small information network through connections with sewer workers.
A few years later, the name “Crow’s Nest” became well-known in the back alleys of the Bronze District.
In the process, she made acquaintances with many from the underbelly of society.
Nine out of ten harbored ill intentions towards the clever young girl, but a few became her allies.
Bjorn, the one-eyed craftsman, was one of those friends.
“Anyway, back to the point. At first, I didn’t think much of it. It wasn’t the first time she’d disappeared without a word.”
Bjorn chewed on a sausage as he spoke.
“But then, suddenly, two weeks ago, the Crow’s Nest closed its doors. That’s when I realized something was seriously wrong.”
“Two weeks?”
“Yes. That very day, I abandoned my workshop and sought out the Gallios merchant group, knowing you had ties with them. Sienna always said that if the Crow’s Nest ever stopped operating, it meant something had happened to her.”
Dalen scratched his chin. Sienna’s absences weren’t uncommon.
Usually, it was to expand her information network or negotiate with other factions.
But in those cases, as Bjorn mentioned, the Nest itself never closed. The bartender, Bourbon, was always there.
“What about the bartender? Did he leave too?”
“No. The funny thing is, even though the Nest is closed, that guy still shows up for work.”
Bjorn added that he suspected the bartender was the root of the problem, but Dalen let the comment slide as he organized his thoughts.
“So it’s not the worst-case scenario yet.”
If Bourbon had left, it would mean Sienna was in grave danger.
If Bjorn was right, at least two weeks ago, that wasn’t the case.
Despite the dwarf’s grumbling that it might already be too late, there was still time.
“Surprising, though. I didn’t expect it to happen so soon.”
Dalen stroked his chin.
Having played through hundreds of scenarios, he knew the situation well.
Sienna closing the Nest and disappearing usually occurred around the mid-point of the game.
Even as the head of the largest information guild in Falcion, she embarked on a journey to regain her original strength, a power she might never return from.
“Perhaps it’s not a wrong decision. The steps towards the end are clearly accelerating.”
Monsters were stirring in valleys and deep forests, and signs of war were emerging across the continent.
Even Dalen could feel the tension, so the sense of crisis Sienna felt as an information broker must have been even more intense.
“Bourbon, that bartender, is a shady character. If he so much as touched a hair on Sienna’s head, I’ll personally bury him in a mountain of gunpowder and…”
Meanwhile, Bjorn, who had delivered the news, was busy spinning wild scenarios, unjustly blaming the bartender.
As Dalen wondered why Bjorn was so worked up, he recalled Bourbon’s true identity, unknown to anyone else.
”…It makes sense, in a way.”
Instincts can’t be ignored. He could only hope Bjorn wouldn’t end up pointing a gun at the innocent bartender.
Dalen nudged the wriggling backpack behind him and urged his horse forward.
The rain-soaked ground squelched beneath the hooves.
[Squawk!]
The baby dragon let out a contented chirp. It was a cheerful sound.
Munching on raw rabbit meat, the dragon soon settled down, its belly full.
Its chosen spot was atop Dalen’s head.
It nestled its front paws and body into his hair, wrapping its hind legs and tail around his neck and shoulders for stability.
With a medium-sized lizard perched on his head, Dalen tossed a few logs onto the campfire and picked up a bowl of stew.
“No matter how many times I see it, I can’t get used to it.”
Across the fire, Bjorn spoke with a slightly overwhelmed expression.
He sat at a distance from Dalen, almost half-buried in the shadows, far enough that the warmth of the fire barely reached him.
“Shouldn’t you be used to it by now?”
“How should I put it? It’s like the instinctive fear a human feels standing before a troll.”
“I don’t quite understand. Are trolls scary?”
”…Never mind.”
To be precise, it wasn’t Dalen that Bjorn was avoiding, but the baby dragon purring atop his head.
Despite spending several days together, the dwarf’s instinctive fear of the dragon was something he couldn’t easily overcome.
“Carrying a dragon’s offspring around like a pet lizard… I wonder if that’s ever happened in history.”
[Growl! Squawk!]
“Oh, no. I know it’s like a parent-child relationship for you. But to others, it looks…”
Startled by the dragon’s yellow eyes, Bjorn hastily offered an explanation, making Dalen chuckle.
It seemed the two communicated better than expected. Reactions to the baby dragon varied from person to person.
Felber’s eyes burned with academic curiosity, while his apprentice Tommy was indifferent. Knight Commander Edgar had a complex gaze, and Dalen had deliberately kept it hidden from Volkmar.
‘Kyu?’
‘Oh, little one?’
Lucia’s reaction was the most unexpected. The first impression of her as a foul-mouthed paladin shattered in that moment.
‘I wonder how she’s doing.’
Perhaps because they had spent a significant amount of time together.
When setting up camp and cooking stew, memories of her cooking often came to mind.
The crackling campfire. The meat seasoned with plenty of spices cooking above it. Her golden hair swaying in the breeze and her blue eyes gazing absentmindedly at the night sky. Her lips occasionally chattering. The soft touch of those lips.
Lost in thought, Dalen scraped the last of the stew from his bowl and stood up.
[Squawk?]
“Hmm? What’s the matter?”
Lifting the baby dragon from his head and setting it down, both the dragon and the dwarf looked at him with wide eyes.
Dalen quietly drew his axe. He spoke.
“We have company.”
The fire crackled and flared.
As soon as those words were spoken, a pale flame flickered to life beyond the darkness.
The fire, imbued with a sense of foreboding, danced in the air, forming an oval-shaped portal. From within that portal, two figures emerged.
One of them, a knight clad in gleaming silver armor, pointed at Daelon. He spoke, his voice resonating from within his helmet.
“Is that the warrior?”
The voice hummed, echoing inside the helmet.
Beside him stood a man in a robe and hood, his voice as dry and cracked as a parched desert.
“Indeed. The Red Tear of Tiara points to him.”
The hooded man pulled a red gem from his robes. The gem, no larger than a palm, glistened ominously, its droplet-like marks pointing directly at Daelon.
After securing the gem, the man removed his hood. His appearance was as cracked and dry as his voice, resembling a desert landscape.
It was no exaggeration. His face, beneath the hood, was genuinely cracked like dried clay.
Adding to the eerie sight were the blue veins that stood out starkly against his pale skin, making him look as if he had just risen from the grave.
“A spawn of the blood fiends. I’ve heard of such creatures among the shadow mages, but this is my first time seeing one. It’s a rare and revolting sight.”
With a soft swish, Bjorn picked up his double-headed axe from beside him.
Despite the sudden appearance of these strangers, the dwarf’s face showed not a hint of disturbance.
Though he might act foolishly in front of a young dragon, he was a craftsman and warrior more than capable of holding his own.
His sturdy dwarf frame and muscles, combined with the double-headed axe gleaming in the firelight, seemed ready to cut down anyone who dared approach.
The knight glanced at Bjorn, tilting his helmet slightly.
“Hmm. A grim-looking dwarf, and is that a young dragon? Where’s the paladin you were traveling with?”
“Didn’t they cross the empire’s border together? Maybe he sold him off at a slave market, like a barbarian would. Rumor has it there’s a civil war among the paladins. Perhaps he was never a paladin to begin with, just a street—ugh!”
An axe handle suddenly protruded from the center of the pale sorcerer’s face, and he fell backward, eyes wide open.
The axe, thrown with more force than usual, lodged into his skull, twisting his head grotesquely.
“Grrk…”
The knight in silver armor clicked his tongue, looking down at his fallen comrade, who lay dead with blood foaming from his mouth due to a ruptured brain and broken neck.
“I apologize on his behalf. I hadn’t known him long, but he always had a foul mouth.”
“No matter. Now he’s foaming at the mouth instead of spewing filth.”
The knight chuckled softly, drawing his sword from his side.
The silver blade, like his armor, caught the fire’s red glow, gleaming brightly.
“What’s your name?”
“Daelon.”
“Ah, Daelon. I am Beinhart Wolfenmawg, a retired knight of the Imperial Order and the leader of the Free Knights of Scanden’s Silver Hawk, operating north of the city-states.”
He adjusted his stance, feet planted firmly at a suitable distance.
Holding the sword with both hands, he angled it slightly, the tip swaying as it found its focus. The sight reminded Daelon of a swordsman he had faced long ago.
A late middle-aged merchant who, like the knight before him, had once served in the Imperial Order and whose skills had not faded even after retirement.
“I’ve come to collect the blood debt of Achalis Philemon, master of the Telia Trading Company.”