It started during the wall repair works. Too much rain fell, and the slums went under.
At this rate, people were going to drown in the floodwater. Worse, on days like this, monsters called the Drowned often skulked around the outskirts of the city.
There was a lot to do. The castellan wanted to save whoever was in immediate danger, slum-dwellers or not, but when do things ever go the way your heart wishes?
Say you pull those who fell in the water out.
Where are you going to keep them, and how are you going to feed them?
Along with the swelling rainwater, a strange air drifted through the city. Anxiety spiked. "If we're going to die anyway, wouldn't it be better to just turn bandit?" Words like this passed among the slum crowd, and some citizens took up weapons.
"Give me ten soldiers and authority to act as foreman over the wall repair works for a single day."
That was when Edin Molsen came. A man with wet blond hair and a cut on his cheek that hadn't fully healed, showing a faint tinge of blood.
"And what exactly am I supposed to trust to give you that?"
The castellan was a man of much compassion and much worry, but he wasn't a fool. He couldn't just believe the words of a man who'd shown up out of nowhere like some thoughtless brat.
"Losing ten soldiers won't cause a catastrophe this instant, will it? I only need twenty hands and twenty feet willing to follow my words, and you only need to be fooled for a day."
Edin showed no emotion. Calmly, he said what he had to say.
"If it turns out I deceived you, you can take my head later. There—there's a child I cherish more than myself. I'll leave her behind."
He left a pretty woman inside the walls, saying she was his younger sister.
The castellan didn't realize it then, but Edin had placed his sister in the safest place within a city that might riot at any moment. He was using his head, and well.
"Very well."
The castellan didn't have many choices. Cross Guard is closer to the Border Guard than to Azpen, and it's a city that receives more aid from the Border Guard than from the mother country. Beyond that, for political reasons, it was hard to receive a helping hand from the crown.
'If I leave it like this…'
The city of Cross Guard itself will be smashed to pieces.
What the castellan needed were urban planners and hands. And a lot of them.
If he postponed work for a day, would the riot stop? No chance.
But there were no other hands to play. The castellan nodded.
"Do as you intend."
Edin immediately selected ten soldiers. All of them were men with wives and children in the city. He knew how to pick people.
As the castellan later heard in the report, Edin jumped straight into the storm that was all but a riot already.
Inside it, he went through the process of asking and answering with those who would listen to reason. Meanwhile, the rain rose higher, nearly up to the shins.
With the ten soldiers at his side, he used force to kill five people. In full view of all the slum-dwellers.
They were members of criminal guilds or the ones who would serve as the riot's core. Even so, the heat once begun didn't subside.
The rain was lashing down; left like this, death was a given.
Among them, Edin persuaded a few and collapsed a section of the city wall that was in the middle of being repaired.
"Are you insane, we're all going to die by the castellan's hand."
Said a man who was like the representative of the slum—he was the one who had held the riot back to the end, and the one who helped break the wall.
"If anyone dies, it'll be me. I'm the foreman of the repair works for today."
After deliberately breaking a section of the wall, Edin gathered people and dug a watercourse. The water drained only after a full day had passed.
Naturally, the Drowned showed themselves through the breach in the wall. There was now a gap in the wall that kept monsters out. Even though Edin hadn't rested all day and had kept moving, he took up his sword.
"All who can fight, to the front. Will you request support from Lord Del?"
"I will."
They had spent a day with half a life wagered. Soldier Del believed Edin and moved.
Some people take up a blade and protect everyone to prove themselves. Others speak by way of oration and speech, and then prove themselves by acting exactly as they said.
Edin proved himself by sweating with his life on the line together with the soldiers. He earned trust.
If you only looked at the result, it wasn't anything that grand.
The Drowned were easier to deal with than the floodwater. Cross Guard might not have city architects, but it had ample troops.
Draining the water by collapsing part of the wall was simple, and the army blocked the Drowned that came in through the gap.
Of course, that's easy to say; to move this much in a short time and persuade people was hard. Edin did that.
Having fought on the front line, Edin returned to the castellan.
"The broken wall is my responsibility. If a head is needed, take it."
The castellan did not take Edin's head when he came in with feet bloated from being soaked.
Afterward he kept aiding the castellan. He advised that thinning out the criminal guilds had to come after clearing the slums, and told him to bring in the Temple of Plenty.
Getting help from the Border Guard, opening trade with the Lockfried Caravan and the trade city—everything was his handiwork.
If you have to walk a tightrope on a cliff, then that's what you do. Edin did what the castellan never would have thought of.
"Just because the mother country won't help doesn't mean you intend to starve the people inside the walls to death, does it."
He was right. Even knowing that all this would later become his political weakness and ultimately take his life, the castellan did not cast Edin out. He had no choice.
In return, he gained a tomorrow for those living in the city; there were no regrets.
***
Enkrid asked, and waited for the answer. Given the circumstances before and after, he knew. This wasn't the castellan's doing. If you added in the favor he showed Edin, the conclusion was easy.
The castellan briefly closed his eyes and opened them. He had always known a day like this would come. Even so, there were no regrets. Without Edin's help, the number of dead in the city would have multiplied several times over.
"I asked him. Edin Molsen acted on my orders as the castellan."
Loyalty—no, paying a debt of grace. The castellan regarded every person inside the walls as his family.
Whether poor or noble, human life is precious. He was a devout believer faithful to the teachings of the temple.
While Enkrid gazed at the castellan in silence, the two guards couldn't even blink from the tension.
'You took in the rebel's son?' In truth, unless it was the castellan and a few others, no one knew who Edin was.
Knock, knock.
A short silence was broken by a rap at the door. Someone knocked on the receiving room door. It opened at once with a creak.
"Pardon the intrusion."
It was Edin Molsen. The rebel's son.
Somewhere in the time between, he had washed; he entered in neat dress. He already anticipated what would take place in here.
The castellan was too soft to be a ruler. He lacked the venom to kill others and climb. He also didn't know how to betray people's hearts.
Well, because of that, the two mercenaries standing behind him were also clenching their molars and standing their ground without running, even with the word "rebel" hanging in the air.
Those two were keeping faith with the castellan.
"Your forbearance."
Edin spoke. He was about to unpack everything contained in those two syllables "forbearance."
Spare my sister alone—and that the castellan's heart is genuine. If the Enkrid he knew hadn't changed, he would grant at least that.
If there was anything Edin had overlooked here, it was that Enkrid's madness was in the first place at a level that would make an ordinary lunatic throw up their hands.
"Pass."
Enkrid said it.
At the sudden word, Edin shut his mouth mid-explanation.
'Pass what?'
Kraiss had said this: when it came to grasping the true intent of the other's words and reading their design, Enkrid was better than he was.
And it was true. In certain moments, Enkrid really did surpass Kraiss.
Right now, he read part of the inside of the man named Edin. He didn't even need the Dragonkin's help.
"What have you been doing all this time?"
Enkrid asked. Edin frowned and replied,
"I mined iron in the Demp Mountains and drifted here and there. Loitered near the East as well."
Enkrid nodded. Edin was a fixer. A fixer with superb administrative ability, and the drive to act on it.
Could a man like that fail to find himself a place to live, wherever he went?
Then why was this man here? Why is the rebel's son here?
"Come to the Border Guard. I'll have a place ready for you."
"...What are you saying?"
Edin Molsen was a man of misfortune. Under his father, he acted like a man possessed to protect his sister and himself, and only after he escaped his father did he find the dream he had longed for.
He wanted to exercise his ability, and by instinct he sought the place that needed it.
Cross Guard is small. He had solved half the city's problems. Even so, the thirst remained.
He ran morning and evening. Partly to relieve the frustration, but also so that when the moment came that his ability was needed—when such an opportunity came to him—he wouldn't miss it even if it flashed by in an instant.
"Go work there."
Enkrid said.
Plainly, there was no place left in Cross Guard for his hands to reach. The city was stable, and apart from running, he had nothing to do.
This wasn't the stage where he could use his ability to the fullest. That was the implication inside Enkrid's words.
Edin's eyebrows trembled without rest. Shinar showed interest, which was unlike her. Enkrid's moves always had meaning, but this was something different again.
She might be a fairy, but she knows humans. That man is the rebel's son. The kingdom won't look kindly on him.
The Frog puffed her cheek slightly. Luagarne also had a rough grasp of political power plays. She had seen things while guarding the queen.
Even so, neither of them stepped in. If Enkrid wanted it, they would simply watch. As always, his Will was firm and his resolve was high.
"Good."
The Dragonkin murmured. There was a density of Will in Enkrid's words now, higher than before.
"Give me a single day."
Edin said.
"I'll lodge a night and then go."
Still looking at Edin, Enkrid said it.
The castellan didn't understand everything that was happening, but he understood the gist. He answered,
"As you wish."
Enkrid received the best room from the castellan. He also borrowed the castellan's training yard.
Edin wanted to prove and exercise his ability. In a way, his temperament resembled that of the late Count Dehan Molsen.
'But he knows which way is right.'
Enkrid didn't even draw his sword and sank into thought. It's a funny thing—everything ends up coming back to swordsmanship.
'Condense.'
It's waiting. If you add condensation to Point Explosion in the ways of using Will? You press it down and then detonate.
Waiting for the opportunity that will someday arrive.
'And if I make that opportunity myself?'
Edin had done exactly that, as he looked after Cross Guard.
'Wait with a calculating blade.'
Then strike with a condensed, fast sword.
It's a simple movement. If he adds this to his own sword art, Flash, it will do.
He was neck-deep in swordsmanship like that and had just returned when it happened. Two women were waiting for him in front of his door.
One possessed gold-blond hair and green eyes; the other had faded blond hair.
"I stopped her because she was about to waltz into a strange man's room."
Shinar said.
"She was already inside first."
The woman said matter-of-factly. It seemed Shinar had waited in the room while he was away. It was nothing to make a fuss about.
"I don't know your name, but I do know who you are."
Enkrid said as he came closer. The woman's eyes barely reached Enkrid's chest. She wasn't tall. She lifted her head just as she was and met his eyes.
It wasn't only the son who took after the father.
"Please take Edin."
She was the Count Molsen's daughter. The sister Edin had protected.
They had crossed paths once before, when she was dressed as a man.
Standing as she was, she spoke of the time that had passed—how she'd worked as a miner in the Demp ranges, been chased, and nearly died while helping people, and so on.
Edin hadn't merely wandered. He'd seen the world.
The kingdom of Naurillia and Azpen on the continent; the two city-states that put trade at their forefront; the small country beyond the far West that supposedly a single knight guarded; all the way to the East and the Empire and the southern fringes.
Enkrid listened standing. It was an interesting tale.
It also confirmed that his guess was right. Edin was the sort of man who was dying to exercise what he had.
"Talent is always in short supply. I'm dying for it right now too."
It was what Kraiss always said. He often joked that if he had just two more men under him whose heads worked like his, he would conquer the continent.
So then, if he took Edin, would he conquer half the continent?
Enkrid decided what he would say to Kraiss when he got back.
"Edin doesn't have to be bound because of me. If need be, I'll bear the sins my father committed and die for them."
This girl's sharp. What she meant by that was that she would return as the rebel's daughter and receive the royal judgment.
And leave Edin out of it.
They were an interesting pair of siblings. It also told him that what Edin had done wasn't solely his own work.
Enkrid revised what he would say to Kraiss.
'You weren't planning to conquer the continent by opening a salon, were you?'
Right, then I'll say it like this. Not half—conquer all of it.
The next morning, Edin came.
"Have you forgotten who my father is?"
He asked out of the blue.
"No."
Enkrid answered.
Today again, the three non-humans watched the two with interest.
"It will be a problem."
There were dark circles under his eyes and his skin looked rough, as if he'd been up all night. Enkrid nodded. Any ordinary person would think so. Enkrid presented the answer.
"Kraiss will handle it."
He does what he wants. The cleanup gets passed off. He'd learned that when he went to the Gilpin Guild, and he'd done the same when they were dealing with the Salamander and he didn't know what state Shinar was in. Same now.
Enkrid liked this man. Not only that—he liked both siblings.
"It's time for you to meet the man whose dream is to conquer the continent."
Enkrid said, and Edin stared at Enkrid's blue eyes for a moment. He heard the strange thing about conquering the continent or whatever, but he ignored it and said,
"I'm the rebel's son."
"At least it's better than 'heartbreaker' as an epithet, I think."
Enkrid cracked a joke. And so the Molsen siblings joined the party.
***
"Uh, isn't he coming?"
The messenger asked after waiting a full day. He'd eaten and slept well, but Sir Enkrid hadn't come.
"...Yeah, well. He'll come. He's not Ragna, so would he lose his way?"
Kraiss had nothing particular to say either. He'd told him to do a city inspection for half a day at most—what the hell had he done?