Chapter 135. Young and Tender Pillars (3)
“The Iron Bank wishes to take custody of Count Cohen.”
Blanc, who was getting ready, showed a puzzled expression at Nicholas' words.
“Did the Iron Bank have any reason to hold a grudge against Count Cohen?”
However, Nicholas' subsequent explanation made Blanc understand.
“It seems he borrowed money from the Iron Bank and didn’t repay it. And it appears to have been a habitual practice.”
Blanc clicked his tongue and said.
“I thought he was an arrogant man, but to borrow money from the Iron Bank and not repay it…”
The Iron Bank, where all the wealth of the world gathers.
They were people with the power of an entire nation.
The three powers that move the world: military force, political power, and financial power.
The Iron Bank stood at the pinnacle of one of them.
Although the Iron Bank did not use its power for personal matters to maintain its impartial position, there was an exception, and that was only when it came to debt collection.
“They offered 1,000 gold coins.”
“…He must have borrowed a lot.”
Although the Iron Bank had always treated Blanc, the owner of the first account, with a smiling face, they would collect the money from the debtor, Count Cohen, more coldly than the perennial snow of the Neyanpalgar Mountain Range.
“Good. Proceed with that, and I’d like you to give Bonas a heads-up.”
Blanc wanted to give his pitiful treasurer a chance to catch his breath.
“Understood, my lord.”
As Nicholas bowed his head, Hansen, standing beside him, handed the luggage he was holding to Blanc.
“Farewell.”
“I hope you know that it is because of you, Sir Hansen, that I can go out with peace of mind.”
Seeing Blanc’s consideration for him, Hansen smiled, his wrinkles deepening.
The knight commander, Hansen, and his wife, Ciella.
And the people he had gained through his connections from his past life, and the vassals who had remained loyal to Norington without succumbing to the exploitation of the three barons.
It was because they, along with Norington, were firmly supporting his back that Blanc, the sole regressor in this world, could move about busily without being tied down to his territory.
“Let’s go.”
At Blanc’s command, Jerome, who was holding the banner at the very front, began to move.
The knights followed behind Jerome, with Blanc at their head.
Simon, Rakshar, Barzio.
And the newly joined dwarf, Sten.
They were heading to the Gorge Where Even Tears Dried Up, where Ulrich’s illusion lay dormant.
***
Ulrich’s illusion, which had been in the second account, had said it.
If the World Tree existed in his time, this seed would not become a World Tree, but a Spirit Tree.
It would become an existence that would share the burden of the World Tree, which was supporting the world alone.
‘I think the reason the World Tree withered in my past life was probably due to the existence of the Void Tree.’
At the same time, Ulrich, at the time of creating the second account, seemed to have noticed the relationship between the Void Tree and the World Tree to some extent.
“And you mean to say he became certain here.”
Ulrich, who had given him the key to the second account here in the Gorge Where Even Tears Dried Up, had seen through the true nature of the Void through his own method.
Next to Blanc, who was quietly looking at a map, Sten stood with a gleaming shovel, glaring.
“So, around here?”
“A little more to the side than that…”
“Then, around here?”
“A little lower than that…”
Sten brought the shovel to the ground according to the instructions of the old man, whose hand holding the staff was trembling.
“…Old man, are you looking down on a dwarf right now?”
Sten began to get angry at the old man who kept changing his words as if he were senile.
It was questionable whether the old man even understood what Sten was saying, as he simply looked around, leaning on his trembling staff.
“You’re completely ignoring me now? Is this some kind of racial discrimination?”
Sten slammed the shovel he was holding down and started to grumble.
“In the first place, the very idea that all dwarves are good with shovels is a prejudice, you know? I’m a dwarf who specializes in pickaxes rather than shovels!”
As Sten huffed and grumbled, Simon knelt down, placing his hand on the ground.
“Will you find a waterway like that?”
Sten and the knights had grown closer after the battle in the Black Forest.
Although there had been an unfortunate incident with a minecart in between, it had actually made them more comfortable with each other.
“…I’m not finding one.”
“Then why do you keep doing that?”
Simon had been trying to find a waterway in the barren wasteland through his eyes that transcended the physical, but it was impossible to find a waterway in a place that had been dry for a hundred years.
“I just felt like I should be doing something…”
Blanc was busy comparing old maps, trying to find the place where water once flowed.
The knights, unable to stand idly by while their lord was busy, were looking for things they could do.
Rakshar was sniffing the air for the scent of water that wasn't even there.
-….
Of course, there was also a knight who paid no mind to such things and just sat still like a displayed suit of armor.
“Then, why don’t you go help that greenhorn over there set up the tents.”
Sten pointed his finger at Jerome, who was diligently setting up the tents for the group all by himself.
Jerome, who had not yet received his knight investiture, was fulfilling his duties as a squire, taking on all sorts of odd jobs in the knight order.
“I can’t see, so…”
Simon, whose nature was sensitive and delicate, was a person who didn't want to exert himself physically unless it was related to Blanc.
Sten looked at the old man who still couldn’t find the spot and Simon whose eyesight came and went as he pleased, and rubbed his face with both hands as if he were tired.
“Did you find it?”
Blanc, holding the map, asked the old man he had brought from a nearby village and the village chief who had brought him.
“It seems his mind is not sound due to old age.”
The village chief bowed his head and answered Blanc.
“…My father told me that my father’s father told my father that his father’s father’s father farmed around here…”
“…Take him away.”
Seeing the old man rambling, Blanc judged it was a lost cause and shook his head, telling the village chief.
“It would be good if you could call the women who can prepare food along with the ingredients to this place. I will pay generously.”
“No, my lord! How dare we ask for payment from you, my lord.”
The village chief, who was in charge of the nearby villages, bowed his head and expressed his respect for Blanc.
During the war with the three barons, the Cadmus army had burned the wheat while raiding the villages of Vicious, but Blanc had left them with the minimum amount of food to survive.
The rightful heir of Norington, who had shown mercy to the people of the enemy territory even in a brutal war where not only property but also lives were taken.
That story was widely talked about among the people here, and this soon led to the public sentiment shifting in Blanc’s favor.
“Stop saying things you don’t mean and get ready before the sun sets.”
The village chief accepted the gold coin Blanc tossed him, bowed obsequiously, and hurriedly carried the senile old man on his back and returned to his village.
“I can’t find it.”
Blanc frankly admitted that finding the dried-up waterway was beyond his ability.
“Please dig here for now.”
“So we’re digging after all…”
Although he had not sworn allegiance, Sten, who had joined the Cadmus Knights following the words of his father and chieftain, Drogan, grumbled but carried out Blanc’s order.
“Will this be enough?”
Like a true dwarf, Sten instantly dug a pit deep enough for an adult man’s chest to fit into.
“Excellent.”
Blanc carefully placed the World Tree seed that Ulrich had given him into the pit he had dug.
‘Will this work….’
Although he had acquired the land from Isabella for this very purpose, now that he was placing the seed in a place with no moisture, Blanc began to doubt whether a sprout would even emerge here.
‘If it doesn’t work, I can just dig it up again and plant it somewhere else.’
Blanc, not caring about the person who would be doing the digging, decided to plant the seed for now.
Blanc placed the seed in the pit Sten had dug.
“…”
The party carefully covered it with soil and watched it for a long time, but.
“…Well, it’s not like a sprout would come out right away.”
The young phoenix chirped and sneered at the foolish actions of Blanc and the knights.
The knights had watched in anticipation, hoping for something since it was a seed from the second account of the Iron Bank, but the dramatic scene they had expected did not happen.
“Prepare to camp. We might have to stay here for a week or more.”
They had to at least confirm whether a sprout would emerge, so Blanc and his knights planned to stay in tents with the help of the nearby village and observe the World Tree seed’s progress for the time being.
“…?”
The knights were returning to their tents, but only Jerome stopped and looked back at the spot where the seed was planted.
Because he had faintly heard a certain sound in his ear.
“Why, why aren’t you coming?”
“Can’t you hear something like a drumbeat nearby?”
“A drumbeat?”
At Jerome’s words, Rakshar pricked up his ears and looked around, but he couldn’t hear such a sound.
“No, I can’t hear anything.”
Since Rakshar had superior senses than him, Jerome thought he must have been mistaken and didn’t think much of it.
However, Jerome was not mistaken.
The sound of a heartbeat, which sounded like a drumbeat, was not something that could be heard by ordinary human ears.
***
The moon rose over the Gorge Where Even Tears Dried Up.
As always, Barzio, who didn’t need to sleep, volunteered for the night watch.
The party, including Blanc, felt an unusual heaviness in their eyelids and went to bed early.
It was a drowsiness that was hard to resist even for Blanc, who had lived his entire life in a state of tension.
Everyone in the tent trusted Barzio outside and fell into a deep sleep.
-….
The problem was that even the knight who had transcended death had closed his eyes.
His white ghost fire, which had always burned brightly, quietly went out.
His soul, engraved on the old dagger, drifted into a peaceful slumber for the first time in a long time.
In it, he was dreaming of his honorable self and smiling.
While all the knights were having peaceful dreams, something small peeked its head out of the wasteland.
A small seedling, as if asking, ‘Is there anyone awake?’, cautiously turned its head and looked around.
The small seedling, which was shy even of the moonlight shining on it, soon, as if it had made up its mind, slowly stretched its neck and began to rise to the surface.
As the seedling began to raise its head, small lights, as if they had been waiting, began to gather from the moonlight.
Blue things that had been hidden deep in the ground were moistening the dry soil and rising to the surface.
Dry green things that had been unable to sprout for a long time gathered around the shy seedling as if they were overjoyed.
To human ears, it was a quiet night, but to the ears of others, a boisterous night had begun.
The wasteland, which had been left alone and lonely for a very, very long time, welcomed the newly planted seed and held a festival.
Around the primly risen seedling, bright lights, blue lights, and green things gathered, held hands, and danced merrily.
The small, shining, tender things were holding a small festival with the moonlight as their spotlight.
“Ugh, so noisy…”
While all the knights were asleep, only one squire of the Cadmus Knights was covering his ears in the middle of the festival, trying to sleep.
The Gorge Where Even Tears Dried Up, where small, young things gathered under the moonlight, looking joyful.
The dry gorge was shedding a single tear.