Chapter 105 – For Freedom (1)  

“I’m still unsure about your decision, Duke Henna.”

Like all the other rooms in Beldeve, the Duke’s office was made without a single window to prevent a dragon’s breath from affecting the insides. Sina didn’t like such rooms in Beldeve; the large stones felt as heavy as the history of the eastern territory.

“You suddenly requested a meeting, and you’re telling me that you’re unsure? Tell me, what are you so unsure about, knight?”

While Hela had certainly been informed of Sina’s name by Horhell, she didn’t bother calling Sina by her name. Hela’s attitude toward Sina was cold in contrast to her attitude toward Juan. However, Sina wasn’t discouraged.

“Juan is not a trustworthy man. Every place he passed by turned into ruins—Tantil, the Ash Tower, Hiveden, Durgal… all of them. He is strong, and he doesn’t hesitate to wield hatred in order to fulfill his purpose,” Sina said.

“So?” Hela raised her eyebrows.

“Juan might even use Beldeve as a stepping stone to achieve his purpose. I do not think that he joined the punishment unit without any goals, considering that it’s a group composed of those who have been encroached upon by the Crack.”

“You sure don’t know a lot of things. As expected of a novice knight.”

“...Your Grace, I might be too young and lacking in experience, sure, but I think I can confidently say that I know more about Juan than you do. I have been chasing him from Tantil all the way here. His identity is also…”

Sina was about to talk about Juan’s identity in detail, but shut her mouth; she had a feeling that it might have huge repercussions. It was no joking matter to bring up a story about how the respected emperor of the empire had come back for revenge with a sword in his hand.

“Then what do you think is the right thing for me to do, knight? Would it be best for me to restrain Juan entirely, bind him with chains and lock him in the underwater prison right now?” Hela asked.

“Your Grace, I’m just…”

“Knight, you think too little of me and the eastern territory. Do you really think that I have no idea about what Juan is up to? The reason why he suggested joining the punishment unit is to remain in Beldeve.”

“I’m sorry?” Sina asked back in confusion.

“I have detained Juan as a prisoner. If I lock him up in the underwater prison, that would be no different than directly handing him over to the capital. Yet if I release him, you never know what the Imperial Army and the Church might do. Putting him in the punishment unit is the most appropriate alternative. It’s an excuse to keep Juan within the fourth division and not hand him over to anyone else.”

Sina closed her mouth as she thought Hela’s words were plausible.

‘But why?’

“Then doesn’t that just further prove that Juan is pursuing something in the eastern territory?” Sina asked.

“Maybe he is. But about it? There’s nothing in the eastern territory that I can give him. I have no idea what Juan wants from the east, but he has no choice but to follow my orders as long as he is in the punishment unit. I’m gonna make sure to make the most out of him until I get enough value out of him for my risk.”

“...Your Grace.”

Juan was too powerful and dangerous for one to use as a sword held in their hand, but Hela was also a formidable commander. Sina thought that it might be an insult to Hela if she further worried about her, but Hela was dealing with the emperor.

‘Who in the world could use the emperor as a sword?’

When Sina opened her mouth to persuade Hela once more, Hela stood up. Perhaps because of her hunched back, Hela was much shorter than Sina. On top of that, she didn’t have as much freedom in selecting her weapons, as she only had a single arm. Nevertheless, Hela looked like a huge mountain to Sina. Sina realized yet again that Hela was a veteran who had trained numerous people who held key posts in the Capital Army.

Then, Hela tapped Sina’s left eyelid with her hand. Sina flinched in surprise; she hadn’t even felt the presence of Hela’s hand reaching out to her until that moment. Sina felt chills running down her back when Hela’s dry hand lightly rubbed her eyelid which had burn marks and a tattoo, but she didn’t show any agitation.

“It seems that your wound has no chance of recovery. Is it your arrogance or your fanaticism that allowed you to engrave such letters on your eye?” Hela asked. “...this too is one of the ruins left by Juan. If I hadn’t met Bishop Rietto, who treated me, I would have had to cut off my right hand as well.”

“Juan did that? As expected, he’s such an interesting young fella.”

Hela laughed out loud as if she found the fact that Juan wounded Sina to be funny.

For a second, Sina felt an intense rage upon hearing Hela’s laugh, but soon closed her mouth when she saw Hela’s empty right sleeve fluttering.

Hela grabbed Sina’s right arm and fiddled with it. Sina’s right arm was covered with scars, almost as if it was a cloth that had been torn and patched up shabbily; however, the wounds had completely healed up and holding a sword didn’t seem to be a problem.

“It would have been like I was looking into a mirror if you really had lost your right hand, knight. That would have been kind of awkward,” Hela said.

“I sincerely apologize, Your Grace. I’ve been disrespectful, but I never meant to insult you.”

“I see, knight. You called your eye one of the ruins left by Juan, but you don’t seem to be ashamed of it. You even engraved those letters on top of it as if you were proud.”

“I’m just…” Sina was speechless.

If Sina truly hadn’t wanted to get a tattoo engraved on her eye, she could have just resisted and refused despite whatever the Order of the White Crow said. However, it was also true that there was confusion somewhere deep in her mind. Sina wondered whether or not she should consider the title of ‘the emperor’s watchdog’ engraved by Juan himself to be an honor if Juan really was the emperor.

‘What’s the point if the existence of the emperor itself is a disgrace?’

The tattoo engraved on Sina’s eyelid symbolized her confusion itself.

“I don’t consider my unbalanced figure to be a ruin, knight,” Hela said as she lifted her empty sleeve. “War took a lot of things away from me: my eye, my arm, my family, and my dreams. Yes, I once thought that all I had left was ruins, just like you. But the ruins also give you something important.”

Sina shrugged her shoulders upon hearing Hela’s whisper. Then, Sina momentarily felt something similar and familiar from Hela.

“Whenever I trip on my foot by accident because my single eye can’t properly measure the distance, I think of my dead son who died with an arrow pierced through his eye. When I suffer from phantom limb pain of my arm getting cut off in my sleep, I think of my dead husband who died with his body hung on the pillar. My disabilities gave me a lifelong gift…”

This familiarity was because she could feel madness and hatred. Hela harbored the same feelings that Sina felt from Juan.

“…a lifelong gift that helps me to never forget my pain and resentment. Thanks to that gift, I was able to continue this war for fifty years, starting from the age of twenty. I could keep going even when most of my disciples betrayed me, the empire turned a blind eye to me, and the people of the eastern territory complained. Humans are bound to give up when they become exhausted, but these scars help me never forget what I am fighting for.”

Hela too was also the type to ruin everything around her, just like Juan.

“...Your Grace, that…”

“No. You’d better keep that in mind too. Whatever Juan did to your eye, it seems to have had a significant impact on your life.”

Sina remained silent.

“So don’t worry about me, knight. You think that Hela Henna would just be used as a stepping stone and get thrown away? No, instead it’s the other way around. I’ll be the one using him and he will be my stepping stone instead. At the same time, he can use me as much as he wants as well. Don’t you want to know how far we can go by stepping on each other?”

Sina got goosebumps on her entire body. She began to question whether it had been a good decision to help Horhell bring Juan to Beldeve. Hela would never quietly hand Juan over to the Order of the Capital. Instead, she will use him as much as she could to achieve her goal—and Hela’s goal wasn’t a trivial one.

“If you don’t have anything else to say to me, feel free to leave and…”

At that moment, the door burst open. The only time anyone could burst into the Duke’s office without knocking was in emergency situations. A soldier with a pale look ran into the office.

“Your Grace, Centurion Horhell’s dragon has crashed on the northern front!”

Hela’s expression stiffened.

***

“According to the guard’s report, Horhell is currently somewhere here in the Gelmar Mountain.” The northern front itself wasn’t too far away from Beldeve. In fact, Beldeve was the front line itself.

Juan looked at the bright dots moving around in the dark blue horizon outside the barracks. Fortunately, the search was still underway.

“The villages of the local rebels around this area are here, here, and here. There are about two thousand people among them who can fight.”

Hela held a candle inside the barracks and pointed out specific locations on the map. The places which Hela pointed out were in a triangular shape as if they were surrounding the Gelmar Mountain, which was reported to be the location where Horhell had crashed.

“It’s right in the middle of the villages,“ Juan said.

“The situation is not very good. I want to rescue Horhell before sunrise if possible, but a night operation is impossible, since we have neither a map of Gelmar mountain nor a local soldier to guide the way. We’re going to lose a lot of troops to get through those guys to find Horhell, not to mention that we don’t even have a lot of troops that can move right away,” Hela said as she looked at Juan. “I’m hoping that the punishment unit will come forward.”

Only a few people were able to come out as soon as they heard the news of Horhell’s crash; except for the minimum number of troops to protect the fortress of Beldeve, only Juan and the punishment unit were present in the barracks.

“Aren’t you excited that the time for you to perform in an active manner came earlier than expected?” Hela said jokingly.

However, there were less than fifty members in the punishment unit in total. In other words, Hela was giving an order for fifty troops to find Horhell before sunrise while dealing with nearly two thousand enemies. This was literally a suicide mission for the punishment unit.

But unless they acted, Horhell would be captured or killed by the enemies, as there weren’t that many places for the dragon to hide its huge body. Although it was unknown as to why the dragon couldn’t fly, whether it be because it was in the middle of the night or because it was wounded, it was clear that it was in a situation where it couldn’t move.

“It’s not the worst situation,” Juan replied in a calm manner.

“Well, you sound confident.”

“You see all kinds of things when you live for a long time. In this case, the fact that we’re in the middle of the night is not such a bad thing.”

The guards had a strange look on their faces upon seeing a young man who looked to be only about eighteen years old mentioning ‘a long time’ to an old woman who had lived over seventy years. However, Hela didn’t seem to mind and simply laughed it off.

“Let’s hope it’s not the worst situation for Horhell either. I think he should be well hidden somewhere, as long as he didn’t die from the crash. He’s the type to get stronger when faced with bad luck, so I believe he’s still alive,” Hela shrugged.

“Were you not prepared for a situation like this?” Juan asked.

“To be honest, this kind of situation is the first for me as well. Actually, I didn’t even know the enemies had the ability to crash a flying dragon. It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that the reason why we were able to maintain this front line despite our numerical inferiority is all because of Horhell’s dragon.”

Juan’s lips twisted as he realized that Hela’s stiff expression was not only because she was concerned about Horhell being dead or captured.

“Is someone helping the rebels?” Juan asked.

“That seems very likely, unless the dragon has an upset stomach. The rebels had been very intimidated until now because I had massive damage to them during the early fall battle. I can’t think of any other reason for them to pick a fight all of a sudden like this.”

‘The backers of the empire’s rebels, huh…’

There were many candidates, but there were not many opponents who could afford to do so.

“I hope we could find a trace if it was done by the Thornbush Priest Organization. It would be a good opportunity to make a fuss about this in front of the capital. Or, maybe it was the Imperial Army… but even if it was them, there aren’t many weapons they have that could deal with the dragon… perhaps, um… no, nevermind,” Hela said as she shook her head.

“Do you have any other ideas?” Juan asked.

“...maybe it was the Templars. Not even a dragon would be able to withstand Spears of Wrath. But there is no reason for the Templars to cooperate with the Thornbush Priest Organization, the enemies of the empire. Don’t you think so?”

Juan nodded; he also thought that the Templars should be considered as one of the options. It was obvious that the Order of the Evil Snake were still after Juan, hence it wouldn’t be a big surprise that the Templars ran into Horhell by a so-called-coincidence and shot down his dragon, since Horhell was the one who took Juan away the last time.

“I think we should consider it a possibility and keep that in mind,” Juan said.

.

“What? The Templars? I don’t even want to think about the situation where I have to deal with two thousand rebels and the Templars at the same time,” Hela looked at Juan with a startled look on her face.

“I agree, but just because you don't want to think about it doesn’t mean that it won’t happen.”

Juan went out of the barracks, while Hela followed him outside the barracks.

“Do you think you’ll be able to bring him back?”

“That would be up to Horhell’s luck.”