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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 9
Chapter Title: Forging Unity
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"...Is it that good?"
"Yes!"
We were descending the mountain after a simple ceremony.
Yet Snow-Covered was buzzing with excitement, even though she hadn't swung a sword once.
It was probably because of the Northern-style name I'd given her at the training ground.
Snow-Covered.
It wasn't grandiose, but it was a human name for someone born and raised in the North.
No one knew how Aura would eventually carve her Martial Name, but Snow-Covered would stay with the girl for life.
It felt like breaking ground for a new beginning.
I glanced back at the receding training ground, then turned to Snow-Covered, who was hurrying to keep up.
"From now on, come to this training ground every dawn, and I'll teach you. How much you put into it will determine what you achieve."
Most ordinary folk couldn't fully master even the first five forms of Northern Swordsmanship.
But those called knights broke past that limit, wielding ten forms or more—and the higher the number, the greater the hero etched into history.
And of course, most candidates could surpass fifteen forms.
Partly because I'd handpicked them, but mostly because they trained like their lives depended on it.
Truth be told, it would be a lie to say I wasn't worried.
Could young Snow-Covered truly overcome this grueling path?
Or would she give up and flee when she hit an unbreakable wall?
But that worry melted away like snow at the sight of her eyes just now.
"I'll do my best."
There wasn't a flicker of doubt in them.
As if she already knew her fate was coming, Snow-Covered just blinked her dark pupils.
"Good."
Only then did I let my calm return, stepping forward as if nothing had happened.
Of course, my steps hid a joy she wouldn't notice.
The wind heralding early winter felt unusually lighthearted today—probably just coincidence and mood.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"You make traps pretty well."
"Hehe, I've caught a lot of squirrels."
Having taken responsibility for the slash-and-burn folk meant securing steady food supplies was unavoidable.
And the most familiar method was hunting, so while heading down, I'd planned to teach Snow-Covered how to set traps.
But she didn't need instruction—she had surprisingly deft hands for it.
She'd been catching small game with traps since childhood just to survive.
"Good work."
Thanks to her, we'd set about a hundred traps before sunset.
Of course, for all these people, it was still nowhere near enough...
I offered awkward praise and quickened my pace back to the smithy.
Sniff sniff.
"?"
But in that instant, a fragment of scent carried on the wind brushed past my nose.
A foul smell so fleeting you'd miss it if you blinked.
I whipped my head toward the west, where it wafted from.
"Master?"
Snow-Covered called to me.
But my focus was elsewhere. Instead of answering, I drew my bow and arrow.
Sniff sniff.
It wasn't far.
The stench of charred flesh mingled with burnt hair, drifting lazily in the sky.
My face hardened as I shouted to Snow-Covered.
"Stick close!"
I wanted to send her to the smithy first.
But with the smell possibly fading any moment, there was no time.
Fortunately, she grasped the situation and dashed right behind me.
We veered off the path in seconds, sprinting toward the nearby ridge.
Caw! Caw!
"...!!"
After about ten minutes, the stench thickened.
And with it came the rare cry of crows in the North.
Crows that wouldn't budge their heavy rears without corpses worth eating.
Nothing explained this except one thing from my memory.
Creak.
I brushed frost from the bowstring and drew it taut.
Ready to loose an arrow at any second, I slowly peeked out from the brush.
Caw!
But what greeted me wasn't an enemy—it was a crow pecking at a corpse's eye.
"Ahh..."
Smoke seeped from the charred palisade.
Bodies lay scattered like filth, with only crows strutting amid the bloody heaps.
A hellscape of plunder and slaughter.
This other slash-and-burn village had already been visited by black death.
Rustle, rustle.
Confirming no foes, I eased the bowstring and stepped from the brush.
I eyed the tangled pile of corpses, gauging the rigor mortis.
"...Damn it."
Big trouble. At most half a day ago.
Even far from the valley, in the North's sparse network of paths and streams, it wasn't distant.
I closed the eyes of a corpse that looked barely five years old.
"W-Who... who did this...?"
"Barbarians."
I'd suspected as much since spotting that camp of fifty or sixty.
But I never dreamed such a large-scale raid would erupt nearby.
Had some barbarian leader or shaman emerged while I'd been out of the loop?
Determined to hurry back, I shook my hands and turned.
"..."
There, amid the corpses, stood Snow-Covered.
When had she gotten there? I worried, seeing this horror for the first time.
But with eyes shut, she neither dry-heaved like a fool nor wept in terror.
She simply endured whatever surged within, quietly.
"...Snow-Covered."
To become king, one must master controlling rage and conquering fear.
Yet Snow-Covered already knew how to temper her swirling emotions herself.
Like a mature soul.
I saw something innate in her.
She opened her eyes and replied.
"Yes. Let's go back."
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"I didn't notice at all. My apologies."
"Just bad luck."
A meeting convened in the cramped smithy.
The topic: countermeasures against the marauding barbarians.
Red Iron, first to hear the news, apologized as expected.
But their appearance was sheer misfortune.
More urgent now was devising every countermeasure possible, not apologies.
"...What if we just run?"
The dagger man, standing in for the dead Village Chief, raised his hand.
Fight? No—just flee.
A defensively sound opinion, befitting their slash-and-burn plight.
"They'll freeze solid before winter ends."
But Red Iron shot it down.
Even with a base, deaths from cold were rampant. Wandering survival was impossible.
"Then fight?"
"Out of the question."
Among the slash-and-burn folk, fewer than ten adults could wield weapons.
Including grown women, most plagued by illness.
Could I alone lead and manage this ragtag few?
No—even fighting as a last resort vanished from my mind.
But the situation warned otherwise.
"Leave them be, and they'll swell into a massive horde."
"Like before?"
"Exactly like before."
It had happened once.
Tribes uniting to invade the kingdom.
But then, the great Knight King ruled the North, heroes still active—no grave concern.
Yes, that was the past.
"..."
What to do?
No clear solution.
Despair crept in, silencing the smithy.
All recalled the horrors of barbarian capture.
But then, a bright voice cut through, mismatched to the mood.
"What if we gather too?"
Who? Who said that?
The seated folk turned toward the clear voice.
There sat Snow-Covered.
"...What?"
Her point was simple.
If they were banding together, why not us?
A child could grasp matching their numbers.
But the grim reality twisted understanding into negativity.
Or perhaps they dismissed it as naive babble.
All except me, who'd seen her gravity.
Something clicked in my head.
"Red Iron, any other villages nearby?"
"Uh, y-yeah? ...Probably. Quite a few came last summer."
"Exact locations?"
"M-Me! Our village has an old woman who knows. She was a hunter once."
The barbarian raids were ongoing, fortunately.
Unknown how many villages hit, but two or three more allying with us would suffice numerically.
I gripped my sword and stood.
"..."
If they gather, we gather.
How had I overlooked something so obvious?
Blaming my narrowed vision this past year, I still admired Snow-Covered.
I addressed the smithy folk.
"Starting tomorrow, we gather people."
"What? Then..."
"Yes. We fight."
Humans are strongest united.
The spirit of the king who forged that golden age would be our key to overcoming peril.
Memories of roaming the North with him stirred an odd tremor I couldn't hide.
"How much iron do we have?"
"Plenty! But for efficiency, spears over swords if we're conserving."
The smithy brimmed with stockpiled iron.
With a legendary blacksmith, weapons were no worry.
Leaving Red Iron reinvigorated, I pointed at the dagger man.
"You! Your name!"
"Y-Yes? Short Willow!"
"Right, Short Willow. You've got a job with the others now."
Short Willow, restored from dagger man, gulped dryly.
He eyed me—half thrill, half fear—as I closed in.
Quick-witted and nimble for a slash-and-burn survivor.
I handed him a mill axe and gave him his heavy duty.
"Chop down oak trees."
"...Pardon?"
"Lots. A ton."
Wood, bark, leaves, roots, fruit.
Oak was the North's mother, used everywhere.
But its sturdy timber helped us most.
"We're making shields."
Oak shields from Northern wood and tough hide.
They'd grant us the sturdy Shield Wall once the North army's anvil.
"Fire's lit! Everyone back!"
Whoosh!
Red Iron stoked the furnace.