The ship they transferred to at the Port of Evahil was a massive sailing vessel with no less than seven sails. Thankfully, this one came with private cabins.
However.
“His Highness and Silver Wolf will share a cabin with me. Come on. Get aboard.”
Somehow, they ended up spending a whole month in the same room with River Rat. Wolf leaned in and whispered to the Red Eagle Prince.
“Your Highness. Just like you wanted—your adventure has begun.”
The Red Eagle Prince pressed his lips together like he was holding back laughter, his shoulders trembling.
The moment Wolf stepped onto the ship, he was startled. A large number of the male passengers were hulking blond men. He’d never seen so many blond men gathered in one place before, and it left him feeling oddly unsettled. The women, on the other hand, were smaller, with all kinds of hair colors.
Stol men buying Atanian women with money and taking them home?
Wolf had known about marriage-by-sale, but seeing it with his own eyes made his ears burn. Stol actively encouraged marriages between Atanian women and their own people. They also frequently kidnapped Atanian men and used them as breeding studs. The purpose of this disgusting crime—kept up ever since the “invasion of the <Ill Omen>”—was purely racial “improvement.”
‘That savage continent across the North Sea stayed isolated as a single ethnic group for a long time. Thousands of years, ever since light first existed. With that much time, problems are inevitable.’
‘The <Ill Omen> know that, too.’
Just like the history teacher had said, Stol people realized it as they invaded the Atania Continent.
They were one-eyed giants.
And in the rich world outside, there were only two-eyed people.
A single race across a vast continent. Human mutants that would never be born in Atania. A civilization hundreds of years behind Atania in every way—art, architecture, farming, metalwork. They had no written language at all. Stol people labeled all those differences not as traits, but as problems. And they blamed the cause on their race being “inferior,” ignoring every other factor—geography, environment, resources, weather, all of it.
Wolf had read an explanation like this in a book, too.
Human mutants were said to have been rare even in the beginning. The one-eyed giants inspected babies the moment they were born, and if the child was judged a “mutant,” they killed it. As a result of repeated infanticide and marriage-by-sale, mutants in Stol today were treated like a “talking skylark” from a fairy tale.
The ship left the harbor. The Red Eagle Prince stayed silent until they entered the cabin. Inside, there was a narrow aisle with bunk beds on both sides.
River Rat flopped onto the right bunk and fell asleep. Wolf set his travel chest on the upper bunk above where River Rat lay.
“I’ll take the top. Your Highness, you rest on the bottom.”
Wolf said it brightly on purpose as he climbed the ladder to the upper bunk. Sitting on the bed, the Red Eagle Prince only stared down at his own toes. Wolf leaned his head over the edge.
“Your Highness, we look ordinary here. Blond hair isn’t common in Atania.”
“True.”
The Red Eagle Prince looked up at Wolf and smiled. Compared to boys their age in Atania, Wolf and the Red Eagle Prince were tall and solidly built. Along with blond hair, that unusually developed physique was a Stol trait.
“Wolf. You’re popular, aren’t you? With girls.”
“…What?”
Wolf froze. The Red Eagle Prince reached a hand up toward the crown of Wolf’s head.
“You’re taller than me, and you’ve got a likable face. They say common girls are more open than noble girls.”
“So you want to hear about my love life. Unfortunately, I don’t have anything to tell.”
Wolf yanked the blanket over his head. That only seemed to feed the prince’s curiosity.
“Lebanon lets you marry at eighteen. You’ve got a girl you promised to marry, don’t you?”
“No! I’ve never even dated.”
“You do! You’ve dated a lot!”
At that reaction, Wolf gave up on having an honest conversation. Why won’t anyone believe what I say? Roy or this prince—neither of them. Are they hard of hearing?
“Wolf, tell me a story about getting dumped. Like a one-sided love that ended in tears.”
“If it’s my story, it’s sad. If it’s someone else’s failed romance, nothing’s funnier. But, Your Highness, I’ve never been dumped. So I don’t have a story to tell.”
“So you’ve only rejected women, then? Wow. Now I’m curious what your girlfriend looks like.”
“Same. I’m curious too.”
“She must be gorgeous. What’s her name?”
“Maybe Mia? That’s the most common commoner girl’s name in Lebanon.”
Of course Wolf was popular with girls. He’d rejected at least fifty confessions.
It wasn’t that he had high standards, either.
He just… didn’t have any sex drive at all. He’d never even had a wet dream, and he didn’t feel the urge to touch himself, either. Boys his age said every morning the thing would stand up and make the bedsheet tent, but Wolf’s sheets were always flat. He’d tested it a few times, wondering if something was wrong, but the conclusion was that nothing was abnormal.
Even Wolf thought it was strange. How could a teenage boy be like this? If he’d had deep faith, he might’ve been happy, thinking God had given him a priest’s fate—but it wasn’t that, either.
“Wolf! If you won’t tell me your girlfriend’s name, then tell me about your first time! As a prince, I order you!”
The Red Eagle Prince actually stood up and started thumping Wolf on the back.
“Was your first time bad? It’s okay, it’s okay, that can happen! Sit next to me and tell me calmly, everyth—”
The pestering turned into a horrified groan.
All at once, River Rat bolted upright and yanked off the top. A bizarre tattoo, black as pitch, flashed across the whole hulking, muscular upper body. The visual shock was so intense the prince and his attendant just stared, stunned, as the barbarian took a boxing stance and started throwing wild punches into the air.
Wolf and the Red Eagle Prince exchanged a look, then tiptoed out of the room like cats. Only once they were out on deck did Wolf open his mouth.
“What the hell is wrong with that guy?”
“What do you think? He got pissed and told you to shut up because you were noisy.”
“That’s what I figured. I just wanted to make sure.”
It was bleak. The sea wind at the end of November was far harsher than river wind. In this cold, it was hard to spend time on deck even at noon. Meaning: until they reached Stol, they’d have to stay in that cramped cabin day and night, staring at River Rat’s face with their mouths shut…
Oh God.
This trial was far too cruel for two young boys.
“Let’s find somewhere people gather and hang out. It’s a big ship—there should be a lounge, or a dining hall.”
Just like the Red Eagle Prince said, there was a dining room that doubled as a tavern. After that, the two boys spent almost all their time there, except when they slept. Time was like a huge rock that wouldn’t budge. To push that rock, Wolf and the Red Eagle Prince did everything. Card games. Holding pens in their mouths and writing letters to each other. Taking apart and reassembling a pocket watch. They argued a lot, too. Which tastes better, butter or cheese? What’s a woman’s true charm—fingernails, or toenails?
One day, a sailor said they were close to the Stol Continent. Even though Lebanon was subtropical and Wolf had only ever heard of blizzards in words, a snowstorm hit. The two boys couldn’t bring themselves to leave the deck until late at night, watching the sea get pelted with snow. The first snow Wolf had ever seen looked like white salt.
That night, Wolf couldn’t sleep. A strange tension—fear and excitement tangled together—refused to settle and kept circling through every corner of his body. In just a few hours, they would reach the savage continent. A world unlike Atania in every way, something strange and unfamiliar—like the first blizzard Wolf had ever experienced after seventeen years of life.
Unable to stand it anymore, Wolf went out onto the deck. It was a pale dawn, the snow already stopped. A thin coastline split the world in two. Sometime after noon, the Stol Continent emerged in the distance. A couple hours later, the ship arrived at the Port of Morgan.
The weather was clear.
Wolf’s first impression, stepping down onto the Port of Morgan:
Pathetic.
The Red Eagle Prince looked disappointed too.
“The port’s tiny. Don’t tell me this is the biggest port in Stol.”
“Of course not.”
River Rat answered, irritation plain.
“It’s only the closest sea port to White Deer’s tribe. From here to White Deer’s tribe takes two days on horseback.”
White Deer.
The image the name brought up was an elegant, long-necked beauty, but in reality White Deer was a warrior and a tribal chief who had joined the Stol king’s overseas invasion campaigns. The closest image would be a muscular woman with a bloodstained axe in one hand, and an Atanian man slung over one shoulder. Apparently, the Red Eagle Prince had been conceived from a single night the Stol king spent with White Deer.
“We need to buy horses. Follow me.”
River Rat gestured and started walking. Up ahead, a merchant with dozens of horses grabbed passersby and haggled. Most of the people who’d gotten off the ship were heading toward the horse seller too.
Carrying the chest, Wolf followed after the Red Eagle Prince and looked around. Hills circling the port. Old inns spaced out here and there. Luggage warehouses.
Until now, Stol had been an image to Wolf—sparks exploding when you forge iron. But the landscape in front of him looked gloomy, like a castle that had fallen into ruin a long time ago. As a tourist’s review, it was… terrible. Even some remote backwoods village in Atania would probably be better than this…
The line in front of the horse seller was long.
“We’ll have to wait a while.”
River Rat said it while turning back toward the Red Eagle Prince.
That was when Wolf took a step back.
Did I see wrong?
Something flew in and… looked like it grazed that rat bastard’s head.
River Rat didn’t move at all—only rolled the eyes left and right. Then a red line bloomed across the face.
From just under the left eye to the right ear.
Thin as a thread.
The next moment, Wolf couldn’t believe his eyes.
The upper part where the diagonal red line had formed—half of River Rat’s skull—slid away like a sled gliding down a slope, then dropped clean off.
Maybe because it was so absurdly brutal, Wolf saw it too clearly, too slowly.
How could something like this…
One thing was certain.
The trip was over.
From here on out, it was an adventure.