“Hey, mister. I'll escort you inside. ”
An old man who looked like a chief said. Albrecht nods and follows the chief home.
There can't be a town hall or something. It was just the chief's house. The chief has a son and a daughter, both married, and now he lives alone. Even if you live alone, your children will live up to your nose if you fall down.
Outside, you hear people tidying up their supplies, and soon Randolph enters the house. The boy sat next to the chief and looked at Albrecht with an admirable gaze. And I heard something that sounded a little quiet, but it seemed to me like I wanted to learn the sword quickly.
“This is the kid I'm raising. Smart and unusual in strength compared to your age would make a great adult. ”
The chief looks at Randolph lovingly. Albrecht has no idea what he's talking about.
“I came from the north to find Erik's mother. I'm just going to take care of business. ”
“Swordsmanship!”
Randolph shouts after Albrecht says he's just going to take care of business. Albrecht was instantly hot inside.
‘Oh, right. Fuck.’
I surrounded it to keep Randolph away, but it was a promise. The promise of the article was more than a thousand yen in the Christian language, not less than the world.
The relationship between the king and the ministers was a separate matter. Responding to the king's call was honorable, but not insulting – excuses or ridicules –. It was common. It was a time when tribal customs were more alive than vocabulary. No, there was no vocabulary.
“Oh, what a habit to say to a knight. ”
The chief scolds Randolph with a stern look, as if he had seen him lovingly. Randolph flinches, but says something.
“Ha, but the master promised. ”
I've been called a master at all. Albrecht thought he might have a knuckle-stitching skill. Besides, I wanted to say something right now. It was embarrassing.
“Do I really have to be upset? The grown-ups said it wasn't an intrusion. Get out of here.”
Randolph looks gloomy. Then I left the house, looking at Albrecht with desperate eyes. Albrecht closes his eyes.
‘Oh, please. ’
The chief sees Randolph leaving and makes his face look respectful again.
“I'll bring you something to eat with the wine first. ”
“No, I'm fine. First, I want to know if Erik's mother is here. ”
The chief was about to get up and sat down again, feeling something shivering and awkward.
“Erik's mother died a long time ago. Not in this town right now. ”
Albrecht gives a rough guess, but he hears it directly from the other party, and yet he feels sorry for Erik.
“Do you have a tombstone? ”
The chief only shakes his head. There was a moment of silence between the two.
The chief spoke first, breaking the silence.
“If you don't mind me asking, why are you looking for Erik's mother?" ”
The chief asked himself, because he had heard the great talk from Randolph, but he couldn't understand it properly because he was speaking without warning.
Albrecht said in a bold voice.
“I killed Erik. I didn't do anything wrong. I don't know if you believe me, but I regretted it just before he died. And I sincerely beg your forgiveness. Then Erik asked me to give this to my mother. ”
Albrecht took out the pendant in his arms and showed it to me. The chief looks carefully and nods. But there was nothing else to say. Eric's dead, and his mother's dead. No gravestones.
Albrecht said.
“I heard about the great river when I asked you about it. Erik killed the lord's son and fled and destroyed the town. I'd like you to elaborate. ”
The chief closed his eyes. He looks like he's been ravaged. I thought for a moment and opened my mouth.
“In my village, Penbach was a pretty big village. ”
Originally, Penbach Village was quite large and paid less taxes. Moreover, the merchants used it as an intermediate supply area because it was close to the south.
The way the world tax walks was recorded by the Lord's clerk, but it was almost fist style, so the difference was large among the regions. Some places walk as harshly as it is hard to grass their mouths, and some places pay as little as a rattail as they have. Penbach was fortunately the latter.
Since there were no planes, no cars, and no horse riding, it was difficult to organize and systematically manage the entire territory, and the Lord only cared about the villages around the castle.
The bureaucracy in the world was not governed by the exception of a few people around the lord, just as there are managers, Codies and stylists around celebrities. Therefore, there was no way to dispatch and manage the area.
The Lord could not easily vacate the castle, even if he went around it once. It was based on data from a few years ago or a few decades ago.
The village around the castle itself served as a kind of lord's aid. When fighting broke out, men were armed and engaged, and men, like Calteren, took shifts to provide labor as a duty to the business of territory, such as lumbering.
Given this reality, the lords treated people as livestock, except for the villages around the castle. I didn't care if he died or not. I killed him if I had to.
The chief began to talk about the previous reality of Penbach and the tragedy that had happened to him gradually.
“Erik was a very righteous young man. But there may be no justice for the common man. ”
At that time, the Lord's son, who was a middle-aged man, rode around shooting horses. Then he found Penbach Village and acted as if he didn't care about taxes or found a good playground.
He said that he came after a long day and stayed for a few days, harassing the village wives, destroying their property or killing their livestock.
It's about me, isn't it? Fuck. ’
“Erik was like the leader of the village youth. I stopped the Lord's son from behaving more badly. The lord's son had no sword or strength, so he took revenge and just went back that day. ”
The problem was that Erik was a young couple with a wife, and the lord's son raped and killed Erik's wife and left her in the street while he was away working.
After work, Erik despaired in front of his wife's corpse, and the lord's son looked at him and told the villagers to look straight at what would happen if they disobeyed him willingly.
Erik, angry, choked the lord's son to death.
“It's not that I don't understand how Erik feels, but it was reckless. I was reckless, and irresponsible. ”
Erik's friends had no idea what the angry lord would do to Erik, so they moved him out of the territory and eventually the town was destroyed.
“Erik's mother died the cruelest, most miserably. I had my hands tied to a pole and I had my stomach torn open, and my intestines were pouring out, and I didn't know that people lived that long until that moment. ”
The chief's eyelids flutter and he closes his eyes again. It would be a terrifying memory.
Since then, the lord has been destroying villages and slaughtering people at random. People fled to the mountains without crawfish tools and lived a dreadful and relentless few weeks.
When the soldiers returned, they came to the ruined town carefully, packing up things like junk.
Albrecht glanced at the chief boldly.
“Do you blame him? ”
The chief closed his eyes and said,
“I resent it.”
Albrecht was speechless. Erik won't be able to blame Erik for his wife's miserable death, and the chief won't be able to blame Erik for the devastation and the slaughter of his people.
Is it possible to blame a tragedy like this? But the irony was that Erik was eventually killed by himself, who was a ruined lord's son.
“What happened to the lord? ”
“The lord had a son and a daughter. When his son died, he became desperate and tried to force his daughter to inherit the land. My cousin claimed succession, and there was a duel. The champions faced each other, but the lord was defeated. But I didn't surrender. ”
There was no opposition to the outcome of a duel in this world. Everyone around him left, and no one wanted to fight for him. The territory was eventually occupied by his cousin.
Since the age of infant mortality was high, the successor was very important. Albrecht thought he was his underling, even though he didn't understand why he made me marvel at him by keeping him in his son's castle.
Albrecht had nothing more to say. The journey by Erik ended with nothing more than the feeling of a sudden death from himself, possibly a wretch.
The chief examines Albrecht for a moment and says,
“It's late and I'll treat you to dinner. And I think you should stay here for a while. You have to teach Randolph how to use a sword. ”
"You bastard!? ’
Albrecht asked where Randolph learned to sew people's noses, and the chief taught him that. Although the chief is not a merchant, Penbach often deals with the merchants while he was still alive, so he thought he might be a little grumpy.
But when I thought about it, I had nothing to do with Erik now that it was over. Maybe I should have stayed here until the end of winter.
I didn't think it was a chorea or a family emergency to teach the sword, but I didn't really want to deal with the child. I was just annoyed.
Albrecht was only interested for a moment because of his vague admiration for fighting, but he thought he would soon be gone. I decided to stay for a few days and teach for a short time.
“Thank you. I'll owe you one. ”
The chief's house had a living room and kitchen that he saw once he came in, and two rooms were all there. The chief gave Albrecht his room and said he would share it with Randolph.
They took wine, meat and cheese from Albrecht's stolen supplies, ate dinner, and went to bed.
Albreclining on the bench, Albrecht looks at the pendant and thinks of Eric.
A commoner with a strong sense of justice. If you were born in the modern world, you'd be a great cop or a firefighter, and you'd be born in a fucking world of tragedy.
It may have been tragic to be born with a sense of justice in this world in the first place. Shouldn't he have stopped the lord's son from behaving? Should I have stayed still in front of his wife's dead body? If the lord had graciously killed the lord's son and died, would the village have been saved? What would I have done? What should we do if we don't have the same power right now?
When the bear thought about it, there was no answer. I, who was originally a modern-day Earth person, not only controlled the old Albrecht like a psychopath, but was essentially just a socialite. It was far from heroic.
Rather, the hero statue for this era might be better suited to the old Albrecht. When I was in battle, the struggle that burned in my heart was not something that I, who was a modern-day socialite of the Earth, could have.
Since I was in my 30s, my values were set, but I didn't really live with my beliefs. I just went to a junior college and went to work as it flowed.
This world was a world that constantly forced people to choose between death and belief. The third option was to surrender and conform. I didn't seem to think much about it because I was strong enough to be invincible.
Perhaps Erik, who lived with his own beliefs despite his weakness to the common man, thought he was braver than himself.
Suddenly, after killing Eric's cow, Erik wakes up and puts his head back together, tied to a post and cuts off his ears and nose. He shouldn't have died like that. Albrecht is ashamed, and he covers himself with a blanket.
< 33 > End