Children of the Holy Emperor Chapter 35

035. Aslan of the Western Mountains (2)

The prisoner was led obediently as Aslan led. There was so little resistance that I was suspicious that they were planning to run away by pretending to follow me.

Aslan glanced up, but his face was so indifferent that it was impossible to read his expression. There is no trace of relief that his life was saved or anxiety about his future treatment. I wonder if his brain got a little weird after hearing about that infamous heresy trial.

“Hey. I think I just barely survived. Jerome rarely lets strangers like you come in. “He is a very suspicious person.”

The prisoner glanced at him and answered.

“Okay, thank you.”

He knows that Aslan was willing to go through the trouble for him.

But what? What is this natural underside?

“Still, you’ve overcome the hurdle, so as long as you do what you’re told, you won’t die easily. It’s a common statement that this has happened. “My name is Aslan.”

“Yes… … .”

Ney?

“My name is Bart.”

It’s an alias.

Clap, clap, clap. Every time he takes his steps, the sound of metal clashing rings loudly.

The prisoner was wearing thick handcuffs on both arms, which were connected by a short chain, which seemed to restrict his movements.

“If I’m going to start something, I guess I should do this first… … .”

He thought for a moment about whether it would be okay to release him, but then shook his head. What good would it be if I ran away from here? A prisoner branded as a devil worshiper would not be able to set foot anywhere on this continent.

The place they headed to was a blacksmith shop in the corner of a slash-and-burn village. I don’t know if it would be okay to call a place with a small furnace and an anvil with a broken corner a blacksmith shop.

“I can’t solve this.”

Old Max came out after drinking in broad daylight and said, rubbing his red nose.

“These aren’t handcuffs ready to be taken off. “The heated iron was joined together and welded.”

Then he looks at the prisoner’s smooth wrist and tilts his head.

“I filled it up and it doesn’t look bad at all. “Wow, that’s amazing.”

Aslan frowned. Leading a man in handcuffs through the famously rugged Western Mountains? Who is he going to kill?

“How could it not? “I have to go up the mountain to collect herbs starting tomorrow.”

“Well, if you heat it well in the furnace, you can try knocking on it… … .”

Old Max lifted the bottle and shrugged his shoulders.

“In the meantime, will that hand hair remain?”

That’s right. We’re trying to do some work together, but it would be difficult if there were no hands left to do the work.

While Aslan was considering the next best solution, the prisoner, Bart, was staring at his wrists as if it was something new.

“I can’t believe you’re pulling a prank like this… … .”

The subject, who had been wearing them all this time, had an attitude as if this was his first time seeing handcuffs properly.

As expected, his mind seems to be going back and forth a little. As he thought about having to carry that guy around like a hump from now on, Aslan felt a migraine like he never had before.

Once the chains connecting the handcuffs were cut, old Max and Aslan came to a consensus. Soon the old man came out from the corner of the forge holding a heavy hammer, put a chisel on his chain, and started hammering.

Kang, Kang, Kang.

However, the work of a heavily drunk nobleman was not at all trustworthy. Aslan, who could not see old Max’s hand slipping a couple of times and almost crushing the prisoner’s hand, snatched the hammer from him.

I’d rather not watch it because I’m so anxious about whether I should do it or not.

Bart, who is calmly placing his hands on the anvil, is quietly watching what they are doing with a calm expression on his face. He was a person with no sense of crisis.

Aslan concentrated his mind while holding the hammer and aiming at the chain. Considering the strength of the chain, it seemed unlikely that it would break with just a few taps, so he planned to use his auror to finish it as quickly as possible, even though it was clumsy.

Although he could not officially become an initiate because he had never received proper classes, he was able to temporarily release the aura he had built up in his danteon onto his arms and weapons by concentrating his mind. Considering what he learned on his own, he could be considered a pretty good talent.

I caught my breath, and the moment I exhaled, I swung my arms as hard as I could.

Ugh. A sound that was on a different level from old man Max echoed through the blacksmith shop.

Tsk, tsk.

When I knocked twice more with the same trick, one of the links on the chain shattered.

Whoa. Old Max, who had just taken a sip of alcohol, gave a gulp and let out an exclamation.

“Did you write that?”

Aslan nodded. Since he often broke the auror on his weapon by roughly spilling it, old man Max, who repaired it, already knew of Aslan’s special talent.

And surprisingly, it wasn’t just old Max who noticed this.

“I didn’t know there would be Auror users in a place like this.”

Bart stood up, turned his wrist once, and said to Aslan. It was the first time he looked directly at Aslan. Aslan thought inadvertently that his eyes were strangely cool and responded a little awkwardly.

“I wouldn’t call him an Auror user.”

“I just hammered it, can you recognize it?”

When old Max asked curiously, he nodded silently.

“That’s amazing. “This kid does tricks like this once in a while, but you’re the first person in this town who has figured out what he’s done.”

Then he whispered to Aslan.

“What does this guy do?”

“He is said to be an apothecary who was a former priest and devil worshiper.”

The old man too belatedly noticed the stigma on the back of Bart’s neck and clicked his tongue.

“Is this a punishment from the Lord? “The rest of your life will not be comfortable for you either.”

He patted Bart on the back as if to comfort him, then disappeared into the blacksmith shop, waving the bottle.

Since then, the two have been wandering around the slash-and-burn village. It was already too late to do anything else, and I decided it would be better to teach Bart, who would be staying with me from now on, the structure of the village.

There was also a need to show some respect to the villagers. Since it is a village made up of vicious bandits, it is important to avoid the unfortunate incident of Bart walking around alone and getting stabbed by a suspicious person.

The village guys were gathering in groups of twos and threes, drinking, throwing daggers, and flirting. There are some people who are loudly saying that they will soon rob the Asinbal regular business.

When Bart passed by, they gave him a harsh look as if they were going to argue, but when they saw Aslan next to him, they soon lost interest and turned their heads. Because she knew very well that her leader, Jerome, cherished the young boy’s talents.

“See that high cliff over there? “That’s the border of this village.”

Aslan, who had been living alone ever since he left Rohan, found it a bit tiresome to explain things, but somehow he felt a little excited.

Another reason was that Bart was a better person to talk to than I thought. Although he did not show much of a reaction to Aslan’s words, he had a unique atmosphere that gave the feeling that he was basically listening attentively.

“If you follow the trail all the way up there, you will come across unusable fields. It is said that there was farming there until two years ago, but it was completely abandoned when Jerome and his gang settled here last year. I tried to use some of it, but I couldn’t even think of setting fire to the mountain by myself. Oh, have you ever tried farming, Bart?”

Bart shook his head.

but. Although there was soot here and there, he had basically clean skin as if he had never seen sunlight. His hair is also spiky and uneven, but strangely, it has a good texture, as if it has been well maintained.

A kind of elegance that could not be hidden by the shabby robes was implicitly oozing out, and Aslan was guessing that Bart before the trial might have been a very high-ranking priest.

“Have you ever wanted to try farming?”

okay. Above all, the tone of speech is very serious. He doesn’t look that old.

Aslan shrugged his shoulders and answered.

“Well, rather than that, I think I want to make a living from something other than stealing. In fact, what is unsettling here is that the size of the village has grown so much that the gap between opening the top keeps shrinking. “Someday, a punitive force will come here too.”

“… … .”

“But even though I think about it in my head, I don’t know how I can actually live like that. Since I have been in a gang of thieves since I was young, I don’t know how to live differently. Still, when I was young, I wanted to try something different, so I learned how to hunt and gather herbs, but the more I learned, the more I ended up joining the bandits.”

“… “I see.”

“I don’t like the idea of ​​stealing and killing. The bandits said that it was so unfair that we were the only ones being robbed, so we were giving back to the world. But if you think about it, the dead merchants never did anything bad to us directly, right? So I guess my conscience is pricking me. “Gustav always told me that I had to live according to my conscience.”

“… … .”

“Oh, Gustav is a priest I used to know. “He was caught up in a punitive raid and died.”

When I think of Gustav, my nose wrinkles for no reason. Aslan rubbed the back of his nose and for a moment he wondered why he was even talking like this.

But Bart’s face, who had been listening quietly, became a little more serious.

“Even if you are unfamiliar with something, you adapt to it when you encounter it. “I don’t think we will have much time, so how about going down the mountain now?”

yes? Time?

Aslan tilted his head.

“Well, it’s not that I haven’t thought about it, but it will be difficult as long as Jerome is around. Some of the slash-and-burn village people who originally lived here ran away down the mountain last year. But do you know what happened to them?”

“… … .”

“He was caught by the Flanders guards and summarily executed.”

It was like that. It is difficult for simple people who have lived off the land all their lives to suddenly turn into bandits just because bandits from abroad tell them to do so. In the end, some who rebelled secretly led their families down the mountain.

When Jerome learned of the news of their escape, he showed no particular reaction. He just smiled bitterly.

Surprisingly, as soon as they reached the vicinity of the village, they were arrested by the waiting guards and beheaded on the spot. They say it was because they were vicious criminals, but there were also children there who sucked their fingers.

They were not given a chance to identify themselves, nor even a moment to speak about the bandits occupying the slash-and-burn village.

So Aslan was suspicious. There is someone in the Flanders guard who is actually in cahoots with Jerome. The reason why Jerome is boldly eating his upper body at random is because there is something believable about it.

“Now I feel like I’ve been bad at taking steps for the rest of my life. Still, since I came here, I haven’t directly interacted with the raiders yet. Jerome seems to be dissatisfied with that, but he’s not so needy that he needs to lend a hand to a child like me. “I’m also good at hunting.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it will be difficult to completely wash away your hands, but one day you will die at the hands of the punitive force. Still, I think I want to be proud as long as I live.”

Ahaha. I say all sorts of things to people I meet for the first time.

Aslan, feeling embarrassed, scratched his head and looked up at Bart. And for a moment, I was startled, because this cold-looking prisoner was looking at him and raising the corners of his mouth slightly.

Although the warmth was somewhat sparse, it was still something that could definitely be called a smile.

“You seem to have quite extraordinary thoughts at such a young age.”

Next, a hand came lightly to the top of Aslan’s head.

Pat pat.

“uh… … .”

Aslan didn’t know what to say. She felt like she was treated like a child who couldn’t understand what was going on, but she didn’t even say she felt bad because she still felt praised.

Above all, when had he ever been treated so innocently like a child by an adult?

Aslan felt strangely sentimental and left Bart’s touch alone.

And soon after, I was hit on the forehead by the chain that was swinging from the handcuffs.

fantasy,