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Chapter 55 – EPISODE 55 – WINTER FLOWER (1)
About 300 years ago, there was a king who was called the Civil Engineering King.
He built a great wall across the northern border to prevent the invasion of the northern barbarians.
It was an enormous and large-scale construction project.
The construction, which began in the fifth year of the Civil Engineering King’s reign, lasted more than 30 years and was finally finished in the third year after the Civil Engineering King’s death.
The northern wall was guarded by the Jackdaws.
However, neither the wall nor the Jackdaws were perfect.
As it stretched across the entire border, the entire wall did not have a uniform height, thickness, and defense.
There was also a limit to the number of Jackdaws, so it was impossible to keep a close watch on the entire border.
Hence, inevitable gaps occurred.
There were areas were the defense was left only to the wall.
“This way.”
It was the very place where Red Wind crossed the border.
Jude followed Red Wind’s guidance without any complaints, while Cordelia dozed off with her head in front of Red Wind as they rode on the horse together.
About half an hour pa.s.sed again like that.
In a place where human traces were scarce and it was deserted and out of sight, Jude decided to take a break.
“If the patrol pa.s.ses by, they’ll see our traces.”
Because their footprints could be clearly seen on the snowy field.
But they didn’t worry about that for now.
Jude properly swept the snow under a tree to create a place to sit.
“Cordelia, please.”
“Huh? Okay.”
Cordelia was half-asleep and had a sleepy face, but she sluggishly nodded and heated the water canteen to make the cold water lukewarm.
No matter how infrequent the place was from humans, it was still within the surveillance area of the Jackdaws.
If they started a fire, there was a risk of being caught right away because of the smoke.
“Here, beef jerky.”
“The jerky is hard.”
Cordelia grumbled, but she knew well that they didn’t have much of a choice. After he gave some to Red Wind as well, they started to chew on the beef jerky.
They continued to eat for a long time without saying a word.
Suddenly, Red Wind tugged Cordelia’s sleeve.
“Huh? What is it?”
When Cordelia asked with a smile, Red Wind hesitated for a while as if she was choosing her words, before she spoke again.
“Cordelia, I, curious about one thing, that.”
“Yes, what is it?”
“Fack? F*ck? What does that mean?”
“…huh?”
Cordelia asked again with a stunned face, and Red Wind said again.
“Cordelia, often, you say it. Jude and secret words, words of love, that you share.”
It was something that was not in the continent’s official language.
‘Words of love’ that were often used by the two.
When Red Wind carefully listened, ‘f*ck’ was a word that came out very often.
“N-no. Wait, wait a second.”
Cordelia was embarra.s.sed. She was so embarra.s.sed that she didn’t even think about the comment on the words of love.
“H-how do I explain?”
It had been quite some time since the two had began talking in Korean, and her old habit had revived.
Cordelia groaned and looked back at Jude, and Jude replied with his eyes.
‘It’s karma, karma. Who told you to swear so much?’
‘It’s not a curse? It’s an exclamation?’
But it was a useless quarrel.
Cordelia turned to Red Wind again instead of the unhelpful Jude, as she said as calmly as possible.
“That…what ‘f*ck’ means is…”
“Yes, f*ck.”
Cordelia flinched at Red Wind saying that with a smile. It felt like the Red Wind that she liked so much was swearing at her.
“Ah…well, that is. That is…an exclamation.”
“Exclamation?”
“Yeah…exclamation. So cool! Wonderful! Amazing! Well…something like that?”
It didn’t sound like her explanation worked, but when one thought about it, Cordelia had in fact, used that very word for that kind of purpose.
Upon hearing Cordelia’s desperate explanation, Red Wind’s eyes sparkled and then she said with a broad smile.
“F*ck Cordelia. F*ck Jude. Both of you are f*ck!”
Red Wind brightly shouted before she sent an impatient gaze to Cordelia.
It seemed her eyes were asking for an answer.
“Ye-yes…Red Wind is f*ck.”
“F*ck Cordelia, so good, f*ck!”
As Red Wind hugged Cordelia and cursed, or rather, repeated the ‘exclamation,’ Jude finally couldn’t stop himself from laughing.
“Kuku…ku…haha, haha…is this karma?”
Although Red Wind brightly using foul language was shocking, it seemed to be helpful in some way.
That way would be Cordelia reducing her use of exclamations in the future due to education issues.
And indeed, when Cordelia tried to exclaim in succession by reflex, she tightly shut her mouth and was in distress.
“Ah, this is so funny. It’s so much fun.”
“Jude, is this funny?”
“Uh, I’m glad that the two of you are having fun.”
Jude roughly evaded Cordelia’s angry look and said to Red Wind again.
“Red Wind, are we entering the valley like this?”
“Yes, but the valley is rugged. It’s narrow. The horse can’t go.”
At Red Wind’s words, Cordelia was surprised as her eyes widely opened, while Jude nodded.
Because Jude had already roughly guessed it.
‘It would be natural as it is a place where the surveillance of the Jackdaws is negligent.’
“Jude, what about the horses then?”
At the same time he was thinking, he heard Cordelia’s voice.
Jude replied with a shrug as they had no other choice.
“We have to release them.”
“They’ll be released?”
“Oh, they’ll become wild horses…or some lucky person will find them.”
Cordelia had a very unwilling expression at hearing Jude’s answer, as she found the fact to be really hard.
“Let’s release them at this point. If we take them deep into the valley, we’ll have trouble coming out too.”
“…I understand.”
Cordelia replied with a gloomy voice before standing up from her seat and releasing the saddle of the horse she had been riding on so far. There was a sense of regret in each of her touch, as if she held a lot of affection for it.
‘Somehow, you’re very affectionate.’
Jude happily watched her before he rose from his seat too, unfastened the saddle of the horse, and brought together their small luggage.
And the time of parting finally came.
Jude and Cordelia made the horses run forward by slapping the horses’ b.u.t.t.
The two horses began running on the white snow field.
“Farewell, Jude.”
“Farewell, Cordelia.”
The two who spoke at the same time looked back at each other and said immediately again.
“Cordelia? You named the horse Cordelia?”
“Yours is Jude?”
“No, it was a male horse.”
“In that case, me too. It was a female horse.”
Red Wind burst out into a laugh at hearing the two’s words.
“You’re of the same mind. You two. Really f*cking fantastic.”
She had a bright, innocent, and pretty smile.
‘Do something about her.’
‘I-I’ll work hard.’
After finis.h.i.+ng their conversation with just their eyes, Jude and Cordelia tried to stop Red Wind who was trying to use her newly learned vocabulary, as they urged her to step forward again.
***
Time had pa.s.sed.
In the afternoon, the group was able to reach the valley’s entrance after pa.s.sing through the storming blizzard that started.
“It widens after pa.s.sing here. Just have to struggle a bit.”
Red Wind said as they pa.s.sed a narrow path that one person could barely pa.s.s through, while Jude wondered if they should camp-out tonight or move overnight.
And Cordelia suddenly stopped.
“Cordelia?”
Jude discovered it too late as he turned around and asked, but Cordelia didn’t immediately answer. She looked behind her back with a frown.
“Hey, it’s a strange story…but I don’t have a good feeling here.”
She had been feeling something ominous since a while ago. It was as if someone was stabbing a spear from behind.
If it were someone else’s words, he would have let it go.
But it was Cordelia’s words.
‘Cordelia’s sense is special.’
Her sense was simply great – it wasn’t something that ended at that level.
Various abilities existed in Pleiades, the world of Legend of Heroes.
In fact, it wasn’t just Cordelia, as Jude’s own memory and calculation abilities were in a stronger state compared to the days when he was on Earth and even before he awakened here and opened the 2nd door of the Ninth Heaven’s Nine Doors.
The same could be said of Cordelia’s sensitivity.
Perhaps it was a power that belonged to something that was close to foresight.
In fact, Cordelia’s sense had been much more accurate than before, since she had learned the Witch Transformation.
“I don’t see anything.”
Said Red Wind.
As she possessed the blood of winter elves, her vision was superior than that of humans, so she couldn’t see any enemies within her sight nearby them.
But Jude believed in Cordelia’s sense.
“Let’s hurry up.”
Jude started to walk as if he was almost running, and Cordelia also increased her speed. Thus, Red Wind had no choice but to run and follow the two people.
The narrow path ended, and a wide road came into sight. It was a basin terrain surrounded by steep cliffs.
There was still no one near them. It was a quiet place with only the three of them here.
But Cordelia kept looking back.
Her ominous feeling kept getting stronger and stronger. The sensation of being stabbed in the back also grew stronger.
“Owooooh!”
At that very moment, the roar of a beast came over their heads.
Above the valley.
Three large dogs came down from the steep wall. With dark red fur and yellow eyes, they were definitely not ordinary wild animals.
“h.e.l.lhound!”
A demonic dog.
It didn’t end with the three. More demonic dogs appeared from above the valley.
“Run!”
The screaming Jude promptly threw away the luggage he was carrying and then carried Red Wind on his back. Cordelia also immediately activated the Witch Transformation and cast
“Owooooh!”
“Awooh!”
More than ten h.e.l.lhounds came down from the wall in a rush.
Jude clenched his teeth and focused only on running. Intercepting multiple enemies was Cordelia’s specialty, and not that of Jude himself.
“Get away from us!”
As Cordelia’s dark red hair fluttered, she released her magic. More than ten magic missiles struck the middle of the h.e.l.lhounds’ foreheads as if they were guided missiles.
It was a really marvelous skill. In the entire Sälen Kingdom, one could barely count in their hands those who can show that level of control while in the middle of running with
The h.e.l.lhounds who were struck in the middle of their foreheads fell off at random. Cordelia continued to cast
“Something, I can feel there’s something more!”
A feeling that she found difficult to explain herself.
Jude ran and looked back. Thanks to the area with
‘They’re the advance party.’
No matter how deserted the place was, they couldn’t have brought ten h.e.l.lhounds from the beginning, so it was evident that they were summoned nearby.
And that meant one thing.
Saluzia had moved.
She, the branch head, had finally come and struck them here.
But how did that happen? It was normally not possible.
Even if they had noticed that the group’s purpose was to cross the border, it was impossible for them to attack their group in such a desolate place as if it was an ambush.
The group didn’t specify their location to anyone else, nor did they give a clue to infer their purpose, as was the case with the Sunflower.
There was something. Something that Jude himself didn’t know.
Jude cut off his thoughts there.
What was important was the fact that Saluzia was somewhere nearby.
Jude kept running and thinking.
Cordelia’s sense.
There was another thing that she felt.
It wasn’t Saluzia.
Saluzia was with the pack of h.e.l.lhounds.
It was an ambiguous feeling in the first place, but that did not mean that it was something chaotic.
The other one.
The other one that Cordelia felt.
“Caaww!”
Jude and Cordelia simultaneously looked at the sky.
They saw a crow.
And at that moment, Jude realized it. Cordelia also had a hunch.
That was it.
That another thing that Cordelia felt.
They had to follow that crow to get out of their current crisis.
“Jackdaw?!”
Red Wind who belatedly spotted the crow, said in a voice mixed with fear.
For her, a northern barbarian, the jackdaw was a bad omen among all the bad omens.
But it wasn’t.
The completely jet-black bird was different from a jackdaw.
It was a pure crow.
As for what that meant…
“Owooooh!”
The h.e.l.lhounds managed to get out of the area with
Instead of looking at them, Jude looked up the sky. The crows were increasing. They seemed to increase one by one, and before he knew it, the crows covered the sky. The sound of their flapping wings in the sky alone seemed to be ear-splitting.
Red Wind was very frightened and shrank her body. Moreover, her eyes saw the direction they were heading to now.
“A cliff!”
It was a cliff. But Jude didn’t stop. Rather, he ran faster. The h.e.l.lhounds noisily cried behind his back.
“Owooooooh!”
“Awoooo!”
Jude saw Cordelia. So did Cordelia, and she nodded. She refres.h.i.+ngly smiled.
One could count in their hands the characters in Legend of Heroes who had such a splendid entrance.
Or rather, there was only one person that the crow symbolized in the first place!
“Hug me!”
Jude stretched out his hand. Cordelia threw herself at Jude, and he barely carried Cordelia in his arms while Red Wind was on his back. Together, he threw themselves over the cliff.
“Kyaaaaa!”
Red Wind screamed, but it was for a short time.
The flapping sound of the wings made by the dozens, or rather, hundreds of birds, swallowed up all the surrounding sounds.
The flock of crows shrouded Jude and Cordelia. Cordelia tightly hugged Jude’s neck as she closed her eyes. So did Jude.
And time pa.s.sed.
The sound of the wings that seemed to never end gradually died down.
Solid ground.
A place where they could step on and stand.
Jude staggered for a while, but soon regained his balance. He slowly opened his eyes, confirming the existence of Cordelia, whom he held tightly in his arms.
They were still in a place covered with white snow. The crows that flew into the sky scattered in all directions and disappeared.
And in the front.
A person looked at Jude and Cordelia who were supporting each other and breathing roughly.
That person had dark blue eyes, pure white hair and a white face, but everything else was jet-black.
Jude knew that person, who was wearing a long black robe over his head. Therefore, he put that person’s name on his mouth first.
“Jude Bayer greets Kamael.”
The Ghostblade Kamael.
One of the six heads of the Guardians of the Holy Cross.
The protagonist, who together with Landius, were the two giant stars of Legend of Heroes 1.
“Landius’ disciple.”
Kamael spoke in a low voice, responding to Jude’s call. And then stepped towards Jude and Cordelia.
