Chapter 117

Chapter 117

White Crown

“...Hot.”

A drop of sweat rolled down the boy’s cheek, gathered at his chin, and fell.

The endless sand spread before the boy’s eyes shimmered as though dancing.

Sand began rising over the horizon.

It was a sign that another fierce wind was about to blow.

The desert wind was hot and carried sand dust, making it terribly painful when it brushed against the skin.

If the wind grew even slightly stronger, it would immediately become a sandstorm.

The boy’s brow furrowed on its own, and to avoid the sandy wind, he slipped into the hut behind him.

Inside the hut was comparatively cool, and safe from the wind.

Although it would be hard to withstand a sandstorm, if they prepared beforehand, it was not impossible. It had been so until now.

“Grandmother, the wind is blowing again.”

The boy set down the water-filled bucket in his hand in one corner of the hut.

“Be careful...”

The old woman’s body, her hands trembling, looked terribly frail. It seemed insufficient to endure harsh hut life.

Originally, they had not lived in such a hut, but in a proper house. A sturdy house where they did not need to go far to draw water, and which had been built to easily withstand sandstorms.

However, because the old woman had made a fuss, saying she would set up a hut here, the boy, who had lost his parents early and lived with her, had also ended up living in the hut.

The boy did not have much complaint about this.

Because his grandmother, who had not spoken a single word for the past few years, had suddenly begun to speak.

Her first words had been that they should set up a hut.

It was said that she, sitting there hunched over, had once been one of the greatest “astrologers” on the continent.

It had happened before the boy was even born, so he had no more information than that, but he was grateful that he was now able to communicate with the grandmother who had taken care of him.

“A guest is coming...”

The old woman’s throat must have become terribly hoarse, for her voice was rough and scratchy.

No one had yet come to the hut, and from outside, nothing could be heard but the sandy wind. Yet the boy ran over at once and found the tools needed for astrology in one corner of the hut.

The old woman’s wrinkled face bloomed brightly as she watched the boy.

“Kkulk-kulk... It is all right today. I will only speak for a moment...”

The boy scratched his head.

Not long afterward, the sound of a carriage outside the hut suddenly reached his ears.

The guest had come.

The carriage stopped in front of the hut, and before long, one person stepped inside.

The unknown person who entered was wearing a robe that looked luxurious at a glance.

Soon, when she lowered the robe over her head and the veil around her mouth, her face was revealed.

With bluish hair hanging straight down, she wore a smile as she looked at the old woman.

Soon, she approached the old woman, knelt down before her, and sat opposite her.

She was also the first to speak.

“Lady Cassandra, have you been well? I heard the news and came to see you.”

“Ahh, Sicily... gentle wind... you have finally come...”

At the old woman’s answer, the boy in the corner of the hut opened his eyes wide.

Delgrad was a city based on an oasis in this desert, and the only city in the desert.

As far as he knew, “Sicily” was the name of the lord who governed Delgrad.

The lord of Delgrad, Sicily Windless.

Upon realizing this, the boy’s head naturally lowered.

“The one in the carriage is your child...?”

The old woman, Cassandra, did not use honorifics with Lord Sicily. Since long ago, ever since Sicily was young, she had known Sicily’s father.

“Yes, she is my second daughter, Riqua.”

Sicily answered in a calm voice, quietly turning her head toward where the carriage would be outside the hut.

How on earth had Cassandra known Sicily’s daughter was in a carriage she could not even see? The boy found that fascinating and tilted his head.

Only, Cassandra could read the stars in the sky and see what others could not.

“The child resembles you, and with her upright heart, she will govern Delgrad well... kkulk-kulk...”

At Cassandra’s praise, Sicily smiled while thinking of Riqua, who would be in the carriage.

“...You flatter me. More importantly, I am relieved to hear your voice again, Lady Cassandra.”

“Kkulk-kulk... It is a wonder he did not take my life.”

Cassandra had once been punished for revealing heavenly secrets by warning that there would be a war against the demons.

The punishment bestowed upon her was silence.

The Chief God took her voice away.

Yet for some reason, starting a few days ago, her voice had begun to return.

Was it the Chief God’s whim?

Had she paid for her sin?

Only the Chief God knew the answer.

“What have you ‘observed’ this time?”

At Sicily’s cautious question, Cassandra’s mouth opened with a creak.

“Sicily, over the past few years, the ‘path of the stars’ has twisted several times... and lately, it has grown even worse... The stars, the sky itself, are roiling...”

The boy did not know what this “path of the stars” Cassandra mentioned was, but Sicily nodded faintly, as though she knew.

Judging by Cassandra’s expression, the boy inferred that, at the very least, it was not a good thing.

Soon, Cassandra began rocking back and forth, her muttering intensifying. She was trembling with unease.

“It is coming... ‘It’ is coming...”

“If you mean it... perhaps... do you mean the ‘Calamity’?”

Sicily asked calmly.

It seemed that “it” was a word difficult to put into her mouth.

Sicily had learned from her father that in such times, question-and-answer was best.

It could not prevent the revelation of heavenly secrets, but it at least allowed her to summarize the information even a little.

When the word “Calamity” left her mouth, the boy remembered the faces of his parents, whom he could no longer see.

The enormous horde of “otherworld species” called the Calamity had taken the lives of many of Delgrad’s warriors. Among them were the boy’s parents.

For the people of Delgrad, dealing with otherworld species pouring from otherworld gates was part of daily life, but the “Calamity” of that day had been somewhat different.

The lord of Delgrad, Sicily, had also participated in the battle and managed to clean up the Calamity, but even taking that into account, considerable casualties had occurred.

It was a terrible nightmare that must never be repeated.

At Sicily’s question, Cassandra shook her head.

“If it were those lumps of scrap metal, that would be better...”

““...””

At the words saying the Calamity, which had caused the boy’s father and Cassandra’s own son to die, would be better, the boy and Sicily could not hide their shock.

Before their shock had even faded, Cassandra opened her mouth again.

“‘It,’ which came from a distant place that is not this land, wore a ‘crown.’ A snow-white crown... Whether his coming will halt the slaughter of soldiers who have lost their king, or whether it will begin an invasion that leads everything to ruin... even I cannot know... So many... far too many branching paths are tangled together...”

It was a very vague story, difficult to grasp.

When Sicily asked whether she meant the Demon King’s revival, Cassandra shook her head again and firmly denied it, saying it was not the king of demons.

After that, Sicily asked several more questions, but Cassandra closed her mouth after saying only that “it” was already on its way here.

That meant even she could no longer answer.

There was no need to make Cassandra reveal heavenly secrets again, so Sicily had no choice but to board the carriage without any particular gain.

Riqua, who had been waiting for Sicily in the carriage, looked steadily at her.

In Riqua’s face, Sicily could faintly see Lucia, her eldest daughter.

Sicily grew worried.

Of all times, it overlapped with the time when students from the academy were scheduled to come on a field trip.

“I hope nothing happens...”

Sicily wanted to think Cassandra had merely grown old and was spouting absurd words. But since she had seen with her own eyes, since her father was family head, how much help they had received from Cassandra’s prophetic astrology, she could not easily ignore it.

“A king, is it...”

At least as far as Sicily remembered, there was no nation that wore a white crown.

The crown of the elves, said to be made by weaving branches of the World Tree. That was perhaps the whitest crown.

However, Cassandra had said it was not another race, and that “it” looked as though it were wearing the skin of a human. She said an unknown darkness lurked within.

Neither a human king nor the king of demons, what on earth would “it” come to this Delgrad to do?

It was already far too late to postpone the academy’s field trip schedule now.

Thinking of Lucia’s bright smile as she made her way to Delgrad, Sicily’s worry grew as vast as a mountain.

***

Zeto, whose eyes were wrapped in snow-white bandages, was sitting against the carriage.

They were on the way from Innocence Academy to the desert.

Unlike the shabby carriage he rode every time, this was a luxurious carriage with seats that had a suitable softness to them.

The moment Zeto took the carriage into his sight, he thought this would be a comfortable trip.

...He had thought so.

On either side of Zeto, there was neatly braided red hair and platinum hair shining brightly under the moonlight.

Yuri and Eisel had each claimed one of Zeto’s shoulders and fallen asleep.

Inside Zeto’s head, Sierra’s voice was grumbling, [ My disciple’s shoulders were my place... ]

Pushed aside by Yuri and Eisel, Sierra was holding Zeto’s head in her arms.

Unable to move his body at all, Zeto was staring blankly and counting sheep.

Being unable to move was a rather painful thing, so he was trying somehow to sleep.

But perhaps because he had become used to leaving the academy every night and wandering around, he was not all that sleepy.

While counting sheep, Zeto suddenly thought he might finally be able to fall asleep.

—Rattle!

If only the carriage that had been going well had not suddenly stopped.

The corners of Zeto’s lips twitched, heat rising slightly, and he wanted to snap at Edward.

Suddenly, Edward’s voice came from outside the carriage.

“Everyone~! It seems we are being attacked by bandits~! But there are quite a lot of them?!”

Edward’s booming voice, full of excitement, passed by the carriage where Zeto’s group was, and the others inside woke from sleep and raised themselves.

“Uuugh...”

Yuri hit her head against the carriage and let out a pained sound.

“...”

Perhaps because her sleep had been interrupted, Eisel was clenching her teeth.

“...It seems we have encountered bandits. There are many of them, so I think the students are expected to help.”

Having finally regained freedom over his shoulders, Zeto rose from his seat, opened the door, and said that.

The students who had just woken up did not understand what was happening, but soon followed Zeto out.

Lucia, in one corner of the carriage, still had not woken up. At Amon’s words that no matter what the situation was, she would definitely be of no help, everyone nodded in agreement.

Thus, no one woke Lucia.

When Zeto’s group got out of the carriage, students could be seen getting out of the other carriages too. The mood was quite chaotic, but no one was tense.

Thoughts such as, “Since the instructors are here, there should be no problem,” and “Do those bandits dare touch me?” passed through the students’ heads.

It was then.

“Kill the women and leave only the men alive—!!!”

From the road ahead of the carriages came the rough shouts of the bandits from afar.

Judging by the shouts, it seemed to be a bandit group made entirely of women.

Zeto, arms crossed, scratched his head.

Through Perception, he had long since noticed they were approaching.

This was an event he had experienced in the game.

The bandit group event, where they attacked the procession of academy students’ carriages.

This was an event that happened only when Edward was the instructor. Naturally, there would be no case where a student was injured.

The instructors besides Edward were hiding in the forest for safety, watching over the students. If a student seemed about to receive a dangerous attack, they would respond like arrows.

Yuri spotted Edward, the main cause of the situation, approaching and asked him a question.

“Instructor Edward, are we supposed to kill the bandit group, or bind them?”

Edward, who had been hopping excitedly through the forest, answered Yuri’s question.

“Student Yuri, no matter what, is murder not a bit early? You should all have learned how to deal with opponents without killing them, so let us think of this as part of class!”

Listening to Edward’s insane answer, Yuri glanced at Eisel and wondered, But she seems like she already kills bandits and the like without a second thought.

Soon, Eisel, whose face had hardened after her “sweet time” with Zeto was interrupted, threw a rather murderous question at Edward.

“Instructor, what happens if an ‘unfortunate accident’ occurs while dealing with the bandits and one of them dies? For example, if someone casts magic incorrectly... or swings a sword wrong because his eyes are impaired... such a ‘mistake.’”

“...I am curious about that too.”

Zeto, standing beside Eisel, added.

At their questions, Edward’s suspicious eyes narrowed further, as though he were pretending to think.

Soon, he held up his index finger, and his mouth opened.

“In that case... there is nothing to be done! Right now, this is an imminent situation where your lives are in danger, after all!”