Chapter 236
Varkas fixed the speechless guard with a piercing glare and demanded sharply,
"I asked what happened."
"B-Big Brother..."
At that moment, a rough voice mixed with the clamor of steel struck his ears.
Varkas whipped his head around and his face instantly hardened.
Raina was sitting on the ground, covered in dust.
"Why are you here?"
"I... I..."
His younger sister, pale as death and trembling on the verge of tears, lowered her head, unable to continue.
Just as Varkas reached out to seize her shoulder and demand an answer, the woman who had been kneeling before the rubble suddenly sprang to her feet and rushed toward him.
"Y-Your Grace!"
Varkas stared down with frozen eyes at the woman whose face he had grown sick of seeing since childhood.
Her broad, blunt features, characteristic of her dwarven bloodline, were twisted beyond recognition. Clutching at his blood-soaked cloak, she cried out in desperation.
"Please save her! Our lady is trapped in there!"
For an instant, a sharp ringing pierced his mind.
His vision rapidly narrowed as he stared at the mountain of collapsed stone.
The woman's anguished sobs echoed through his ears as though he were submerged beneath water.
"Please, Your Grace... please save our lady! I beg you!"
Varkas shoved her aside and strode toward the heap of rubble.
It looked as though the entire outer wall of the tower had collapsed. Massive layers of interlocked stone blocked the lower portion of the structure, while beneath them lay the shattered remains of the staircase that appeared to have fallen from the very top of the tower.
Without hesitation, he bent down and lifted the enormous boulder blocking the entrance.
His shoulder, arms, and fingers convulsed violently with strain, but he paid no attention, hurling the stone aside before ripping away collapsed pillars and chunks of masonry with his bare hands.
The nearby guards hurried over to clear away the smaller debris.
Varkas barely noticed them.
It felt as though every one of his senses had gone numb.
Light.
Sound.
Even the passage of time.
Everything seemed frozen.
How long he continued moving rubble in a half-delirious state, repeating the same motion over and over, he did not know.
Someone finally grabbed his shoulder.
"Your Grace... your shoulder is still bleeding. Your wound must be treated first..."
He violently shook off the hand and bent over the ruins once more.
Grasping the lower end of a massive fallen pillar, he lifted it into the air.
Something pale entered his field of vision.
Varkas froze.
Half-buried beneath the rubble lay the deathly pale face of a woman.
It was as though every thought in his mind had suddenly gone dark.
While he remained standing there, utterly motionless, soldiers pushed past him into the ruins. They frantically cleared the stones covering her body before carefully pulling her limp form free.
Only then did Varkas let the pillar fall from his hands and stagger toward her.
A soldier kneeling beside her, examining her condition, spoke in a heavy voice.
"...She isn't breathing."
A wave of grief spread through the crowd that had gathered around the tower.
The soldier added in a trembling voice,
"She has already... passed away."
The woman who had collapsed to the ground threw herself over the body and began sobbing even more desperately.
Raina, who had stood frozen in shock, also burst into tears.
It all felt like some bizarre, incomprehensible play.
Varkas did not move.
He simply stood there, staring silently at her pale face.
As he did, the world before his eyes slowly began to crack apart.
It was as though everything around him had shattered into countless fragments.
Darkness descended upon a world that had turned to ash in an instant.
As if the sun itself had gone out.
Standing within that endless abyss, he thought—
Morning would never come again.
Light would never, ever return to his world.
* * *
The Grand Duchess's funeral lasted for three days.
An endless stream of mourners came to pay their respects.
Within the Grand Cathedral, quiet funeral hymns echoed without end, while flowers laid by the citizens of Kalmor steadily piled higher atop her coffin.
Every one of them seemed to mourn her death sincerely.
The women who had lived alongside the Grand Duchess in Laedgo Castle during the three weeks of the siege wept openly.
The maids who had attended her most closely clung to one another, sobbing uncontrollably.
Even the guards made no attempt to hide their grief.
They firmly believed that the Grand Duchess had saved Kalmor.
Most of them had witnessed with their own eyes the dire wolves that had suddenly appeared and blocked the enemy's advance.
The citizens of Kalmor unanimously believed that if the wolves had not repeatedly intervened at the most critical moments, the city guard alone could never have held out until reinforcements arrived.
Some even began spreading rumors that the Grand Duchess had truly been the incarnation of Tiramer, the Spirit of the Earth.
That reverent atmosphere of mourning spread throughout the entire city almost overnight.
Throughout the funeral, every tavern and marketplace in Kalmor remained closed.
Black banners hung from every corner of the city.
Yet while the entire city mourned, the Grand Duke shed not a single tear.
He merely stood before the altar in silence, his face as pale as a ghost.
He looked like a man whose soul had already departed.
On the final day of the funeral, after his wife's coffin had been buried behind the chapel of Laedgo Castle, the Grand Duke immediately returned to his duties.
As though nothing had happened, he resumed directing the reconstruction of the city.
Several weeks later, Kalmor gradually began to recover.
Hundreds of stonemasons from across the East arrived to rebuild the shattered walls, guard posts, watchtowers, and defensive towers.
In the ruined villages outside the city, the sound of carpenters' hammers echoed day after day as new cottages rose from the ashes.
Even the fields once drenched in blood and littered with corpses were now covered with sparse weeds and wildflowers, quietly erasing every trace of war.
But unlike Kalmor, which was slowly regaining its vitality, a gloomy atmosphere still lingered over Laedgo Castle.
Entering the eerily silent great hall, Edrick Rubon spotted the chief maid, whose expression was equally dark, and carefully addressed her.
"I've come to see His Grace. Is he in his office?"
"Yes. His Grace is attending to official matters on the third floor."
After giving her curt reply, the chief maid offered a brief bow and disappeared into the kitchen.
Scratching the back of his head, Edrick turned and climbed the stairs.
Passing through the dim corridor, he found the two guards standing outside the office recognize him immediately and step aside.
He took a slow breath before knocking on the door.
"It's Rubon. May I have a moment of your time?"
"...Come in."
The moment permission was given, one of the guards quickly opened the door.
Stepping inside, Edrick instinctively stopped in his tracks when he saw Varkas seated behind his desk, quietly reading through a stack of ledgers.
At first glance, he appeared no different than usual.
But Edrick had noticed long ago that Varkas had been growing thinner with each passing day.
In only a few weeks, his face had become noticeably more gaunt, its sharp features even more severe than before.
The collar of his uniform no longer concealed his deeply pronounced collarbones.
It felt as though he were standing before a blade that had been honed to the very edge of breaking.