He had expected it, but the grilled fish was needlessly delicious. Perhaps it tasted even better because hunger was the best side dish and he had been starving.
The fish that the great Lord Tirad had personally gutted, stuffed with Makkam leaves and salt flowers, then turned this way and that as he grilled it with care, was only a common freshwater fish. Yet it had neither a fishy nor an earthy smell, and its flavor was clean and nutty.
Too proud to ask for another fish to be grilled, Kazar carefully picked up a piece of flesh that had fallen to the ground and placed it on his tongue.
The springy flesh grew more savory the more he chewed. It was truly a taste that made a man feel servile.
“It’s good that we have plenty of salt flowers. I should dry them and use them in other dishes too.”
“Oh, right. I saw something strange while picking them.”
Kazar said that while picking salt flowers, he had seen regularly spaced holes beneath the vines.
“What?!”
Hearing that, Ernolf’s eyes lit up, and he asked about the spacing and positions of the holes.
Kazar answered that he had not gone around the entire cliff, so he did not know how many holes there were or exactly where they all were.
“They seemed to continue into the cracks between the rocks higher up, but there weren’t any salt flowers there, so I didn’t go.”
“Let’s check tomorrow once it’s light.”
“Why?”
“It’s my hobby.”
“Since when did you have a hobby?”
“You can enjoy a hobby even if you own nothing. You said you were going to live a fucking great life, so can’t I enjoy a hobby or two?”
Put that way, Kazar had no response.
With nothing to say, Kazar merely pursed his lips and poked at the campfire.
As though Kazar would make a fuss unless he explained, Ernolf drew a picture on the ground and explained.
“When you build a Mage Tower or a fortress, you don’t make an entrance on the lower level. Usually, you raise the stairs high like this and set the door on the second or third floor.”
Kazar knew that this was done to protect the entrance from enemies.
But Kazar knew it only because he had turned back time. A fourteen-year-old slave who had lived only in quarries and mines could not have known that.
He found it strange that Tirad knew it.
“Those holes might be the traces of supports driven in to raise stairs.”
“How do you know that?”
“Obviously.... I saw it in a book.”
Whenever he made use of knowledge he had acquired before taking possession of this body, Ernolf used the books he had seen at the temple as an excuse.
Then Kazar would frown at him for a moment before accepting it as though he had given up on questioning it further.
“So it might not be just a cliff. It could be an abandoned Mage Tower or fortress?”
“Yeah.”
“Hmm....”
Kazar looked interested as well. Ernolf quickly continued.
“You said the peak of the horseshoe-shaped mountain was directly ahead of the quarry where our parents are, right?”
“Yeah.”
“I read about it in a book. There really is a mountain like that. Its name is quite direct too: Horseshoe Mountain.”
Ernolf had memorized most maps, from old maps to modern ones. The name Horseshoe Mountain had endured into the era he had lived in, so he knew it well.
“If Horseshoe Mountain was directly ahead....”
With a branch he had been about to throw into the campfire, Ernolf roughly drew a map on the ground and marked two dots.
“That means it is somewhere around here or here. The sea is in this direction, so we can rule that out. The quarry will be somewhere in the Polina Mountain Range.”
“Right.”
Having gone to the quarry to look for his parents before, Kazar nodded without thinking.
“Do you remember the quarry owner’s name?”
“Of course I remember. Slick. Wilcher van Slick.”
Kazar had captured that bastard and his family, hung them from the execution platform where the quarry slaves had been punished, and whipped them until they died.
‘I’ll get to meet that bastard again and kill him once more.’
As he spoke the name and recalled the bastard dying after all the skin had been stripped from his back, murderous intent rose within him on its own.
“Since you remember the quarry owner’s name, finding it should not be difficult. The remaining problem is visiting our parents. We cannot go looking like this.”
Ernolf said this as he looked down at his own body.
They had fled without receiving the clothes they had commissioned, so the two were still wearing blankets from the Kasion Mercenary Company, cut in half with crude holes punched through them.
“Whose fault do you think that is?”
“Mine.”
“At least you know.”
“I won’t do it again, so overlook it once. I’m sorry.”
Ernolf admitted his fault without a word of complaint. Kazar stopped grumbling and closed his mouth.
In his previous life, Kazar had not gone to see his parents until he was past twenty. He had been too busy scraping by to spare the time, and as Tirad had said, he had not wanted to see his parents without having achieved anything.
Only after taking revenge on Kasion, becoming the captain of a mercenary company, and winning the nobles’ trust until he had acquired a certain degree of wealth and power did Kazar finally seek out his parents.
‘Mother killed herself by jumping from a cliff on the day we were taken from her. Father lost his voice after that day and grew sickly. By the time I went to find him, he did not last much longer before dying of illness.’
When he grew older and thought back on it, he felt it would have been far better to meet them while they were still alive, even if he had looked like a beggar.
That was why, this time, he wanted to prioritize going to see his parents over acquiring wealth and power. Still, looking this much like a beggar was a little too much....
When Kazar suggested that they earn some money on the way, his young older brother puffed out his chest and said confidently,
“I’ll make us filthy rich before we reach the quarry, so don’t worry.”
“How?”
“There are ways.”
Kazar snorted and ignored Ernolf’s words. Whether Kazar believed him or not, Ernolf truly had a way.
‘I can’t pinpoint exactly where this place is, but judging by the presence of the Cornu Tribe, I can infer that it is in the northern part of the Southern Continent.’
Unfortunately, Talisa had not been recorded in old maps or documents, so it could not serve as a reference point.
‘If that mountain range is the Emberras Mountain Range in the northeast of the continent, then this place is somewhere in the Hellam Kingdom....’
Hellam had been one of the ancient northern kingdoms and had a larger landmass than the other countries. However, much of its territory was useless, being either monster habitat, frozen tundra, or mountainous terrain. Its cities and villages were therefore clustered on the grasslands, and its civilization was less developed than in other regions.
Because the Polina Mountain Range, where Horseshoe Mountain was located, lay on the west coast, they would have to travel southwest if this place was anywhere in the northern region.
‘It is a journey of more than a month by land. It could take even longer if monsters or something else hold us up.’
Going to the west coast, boarding a ship, and traveling south would save time. However, Ernolf wanted to go by land.
‘I’ll loot every dungeon and tomb that crosses our path. I can grow stronger, make money, and get better equipment, so it will be like killing three birds with one stone.’
They still did not know what the structure hidden in the cliff Kazar had discovered was. Ernolf guessed that it was either a fortress of local rebels who had risen against the Sarapi Empire during its decline or an armory of the Sarapi Imperial Army. If it were a Mage Tower, there would be no need to build stairs.
“Let’s go investigate the cliff early tomorrow.”
Ernolf lit a fire in the shallow pit Kazar had dug in advance. It was to kill small insects and warm the ground.
Once the heated pit had cooled to a suitable temperature, Kazar lay down first. Ernolf fitted his body into the remaining space like a puzzle piece.
“Good night, Kazar.”
Ernolf said good night every time before falling asleep.
Kazar had never formed such a habit, so whenever Ernolf did this, he simply turned over without answering. Their touching backs were warm, and sleep came easily.
***
Talisa lay between Pengril Kingdom and Hellam Kingdom. It simply had not been passed down to later generations because Tyrant King Kazar had erased it from the map.
Not long after the twins caused a commotion and left, new visitors came to Talisa.
The people who forced open the closed city gates and entered at dusk were Mercenary King Kasion and Green Serpent Beligan, the High Priest of the religious group called the Temple of the Wise Serpent.
At Beligan’s request, the mercenary company had tracked the thief who had stolen a Sacred Relic for a long time before finally discovering the bastard’s location.
While Kasion’s subordinates opened the city gates and went to attack the lord’s castle, Beligan headed for Blue Vine Temple with the priests under his command.
“Dig him up.”
Beligan ordered his followers to take Irnatol’s corpse back out of its coffin. Then he personally examined the bastard’s body.
After a moment, the muscles in Beligan’s face rippled as though he were having a spasm.
“Where did you hide the Sacred Relic?!”
“A-a Sacred Relic? What is that?”
The sole priest who had survived the twins answered with a shiver, and Beligan immediately seized his face in his large hand.
“Aaargh!”
Beligan’s fingers brutally dug into the priest’s face. The priest screamed as blood flowed down his face.
“You must have understood what I am looking for. The bastard you call Irnatol was a priest who attended me. Tell me where the Sacred Relic he stole is!”
“Th-those bastards. Those bastards took it!”
“Those bastards?”
“The little devils with identical faces killed Lord Irnatol and.... Aaargh!”
With the sound of his skull being crushed, the priest died screaming.
Beligan threw the dead man onto the floor and shook his hand. The priests beside him carefully wiped it clean.
“Little devils.... Is that the boy Kasion is looking for?”
“It seems so.”
“But there were two, not one.”
“Yes. They are identical twins. One uses Aura, while the other uses mana.”
“It is rare enough for both twins to be ability users, but for one to use mana and the other Aura is unusual.”
Their unusual traits meant that investigating their origins would not be difficult. A smile spread across Beligan’s thick lips.
‘Those bastards have a grudge against Kasion, so even if I do not press him, he will find them himself.’
Beligan did not care whether they lived or died. What concerned him was the whereabouts of the Sacred Relic Irnatol had stolen.
‘If I leave this entirely to Kasion, that bastard will pocket the Sacred Relic.’
Mercenary King Kasion was greedy. Beligan could not trust him.
“Purify it.”
“Yes, High Priest Beligan.”
After Beligan gave the order and left the temple, the priests who followed him moved swiftly.
With hands from which black smoke rose, they slaughtered all the worshippers, then poured oil throughout the temple and set it ablaze.
Beligan waited for Kasion in the square before the temple. Kasion came strolling over leisurely with the lord and his wife in tow.
“Did you find what you were looking for?”
“....”
Rather than answer Kasion’s question, Beligan looked at the lord and his wife whom Kasion had brought with him. The lord and his wife had gone pale as they nervously watched the two men.
“I heard the twins are from Isburuho. They said that they were on their way to meet a Guide there, so I sent people to Isburuho to verify whether that is true. But there is something strange.”
“What is it?”
“Isburuho is farther north from here, but I hear those boys went west.”
Kasion pointed with one hand at the mountain range that towered above the city walls.