If you take one step at a time (2)
Life is an endless series of choices.
There comes a moment when you have to endure it alone because no one can take your place.
“I can’t follow such bullshit orders.”
And only when that moment of choice comes, do people realize who they truly are.
Because that is the moment when you can throw off the shell that has surrounded you so far.
Under the night sky with a full moon, the dwarves were crying because they could not get on the ferry in front of Chama.
Their skinny faces and messy beards showed their hard lives.
“This is not it.”
A knight of enormous stature.
The knight with his sword drawn took a step forward and covered the fearful dwarves with his body.
“Are you going to ignore orders? “Jorge.”
“You are not my lord. “Sigmund.”
A knight of enormous stature. Jorge.
He said, glaring at the man in front of him with fierce eyes.
“I am loyal to Count Gaidar, and you are not.”
“The orders I brought bear my father’s brand.”
Sigmund waved the order roughly in front of Jorge.
The Gaidar family seal shining under the moonlight was the truth without any manipulation.
“······.”
Whatever the true intention contained in the order, Sigmund’s procedures and justification were perfect.
A knight who does not follow his orders is disobeying his orders and is breaking his oath.
“I am human. “I can’t follow orders like that.”
“······.”
And Jorge chose.
I decided to spit out the knight’s oath along with the false command.
With those words, the knights began to move.
Those who agree with Jorge’s words should go to his side.
Anyone who wants to follow his master’s orders, even if they are false, should go to Sigmund’s side.
The knights bit their lips as their eyes passed each other.
Godin looked at Jorge with hesitation, but his senior just nodded with the same blunt expression as always.
“Do what you want to do.”
“······I’m sorry.”
“Go see.”
At a crossroads of choice where it was impossible to say who was right or wrong, Godin took a step forward.
Glory and honor.
And towards a world that can shine even brighter.
Godin was a knight.
※※※※
“Come in.”
Vlad took a deep breath at the sound coming from inside and opened the door to the mayor’s office.
The afternoon sunlight shining brightly through the window with the curtains wide open.
There was a dark-eyed man and his knights sitting with the sunlight behind them.
“I heard you called me.”
“okay.”
Josef sat down, straightened his back, and looked at Vlad who opened the door and came in.
The boy he saw for the first time after issuing the detention order seemed a little more serious than when he confronted him.
“You’ve been busy so far, right?”
“······A little bit.”
Josef smiled slightly as he looked at Vlad who muttered his answer.
Sometimes, he would attack like fire, but in this case, he was holding his ground heavily and it was impossible to control him.
“There was a rumor going around the city. “And the pitch-black horse too.”
There was a moment of playfulness in Josef’s smile as he looked at the boy.
“Something like Lady Gemina?”
“······.”
“Baron Alicia will be heartbroken if she hears this. “Have you still kept her handkerchief?”
When the story of Zemina came up, Vlad couldn’t help but smile awkwardly.
Honestly, I never imagined that things would get this big.
Some may have called it a joking title, but the name Lady Gemina was clearly floating around Shoara along with the reputation the boy had built up.
“sorry.”
“What do you have to be sorry for me? “Be careful not to let sparks fly later.”
Josef nodded as he watched the boy slowly moving forward toward his goal of becoming a knight.
Now, the value of the boy’s name has increased to the point where it proves not only his own honor but also someone else’s.
So, I have to tell you here.
Because I couldn’t let it run wild like a thunderbolt forever.
“The reason I called you today is to tell you something.”
“······?”
Vlad raised his head at Josef’s suddenly serious tone.
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“That day, in a village in Baron Utman territory, you disobeyed my orders and saved children. Am I right?”
“······That’s right.”
When the incident came out of Josef’s mouth again, Vlad’s posture became cautious.
But Josef had no intention of scaring the boy by bringing up what had already happened.
Because Vlad had already paid for his sins by being suspended.
“What if something like that happens again? “Are you going to ignore my orders again?”
Vlad was momentarily taken aback when he saw Josef suddenly asking about the day’s events.
I hurriedly looked around at the other knights nearby, but they all only made subtle expressions and no one gave me any advice.
Now, Josef’s question was something that only Vlad had to think about, answer, and endure.
“Children were dying.”
Vlad bit his lip and answered Josef’s question.
Even if I get punished again, I can’t help it.
Since he had sworn to be faithful to Joseph, he could not lie to him.
“If you ask me if I would do the same, yes.”
Josef nodded as he looked at Vlad, whose movements were hesitant but whose eyes were unwavering.
You make the same choice.
Vlad’s answer made Josef feel bitter, but it also made him smile.
I chose the boy because he had this kind of appearance.
“Honor is the light that shines on others, but conscience is the light that shines on oneself.”
Josef slowly stood up and spoke to the boy.
Although he had a small body, his radiating presence naturally focused attention on Josef.
“It is also a compass that shows the way when you are lost.”
With the answer just now, Josef clearly identified the boy, and the boy probably also knew who he was.
Vlad set his own standards to avoid getting caught up in the muddy back alleys, so he was able to look up at the twinkling stars.
And if I were to express that standard in one word, it would be conscience.
“You have found your way. I hope this armor will help you protect your conscience.”
With those words, Josef removed the cloth that was standing next to him.
Armor shining in the afternoon sunlight.
Vlad opened his mouth as he looked at the light shining towards him.
“This······.”
“This is the armor sent from San Logino. “As they are the group that handles the most iron armor, it is armor that contains a variety of technologies.”
After Josef finished speaking, Vlad looked down at his leather armor, which was torn here and there.
The path he had walked so far was engraved in each pathetic torn scar, but it was now armor that could not protect the boy.
“Go see.”
Ramund, who had been quietly sitting at the reception table until now, looked at Vlad who was hesitating and nodded.
You can’t wear a broken shell forever.
Because the existence of Vlad has grown to the point that it can no longer be fully contained in just the word “possibility” that Bayezid focuses on.
“yes.”
The boy took a step toward the sunlit armor.
I did what I wanted to do and I did what I had to do.
Logino, who witnessed the boy’s struggles, testified.
The knights here serve as witnesses.
A boy wearing armor given by San Logino.
On one side of the boy’s shiny breastplate was engraved a phrase from that day as testified by the Holy Knights.
The phrase “the knight who saved the lives of children.”
※※※※
“As expected, in the North, we must pay attention to the Ironworkers and the Knights of Bayezid. “There are rumors that Baron Utman’s articles are showing unusual behavior these days…”
Inside the candle-lit office.
Godin was reviewing the report in a gathering of Gaidar’s knights and vassals.
“Tell me.”
“yes.”
At Godin’s instructions, the adjutant began reciting the list of knights he had researched so far.
“Knights Schwanden, Mikhail, and Vastro of the steelmaker Baranov family…”
“The knights of Count Bayezid’s family, Antalas, Rutger, and Agoth….”
Godin was listening intently to the names of the knights in his ears.
Gaidar, who had driven out the Romanov family, had now become the loser of the West in name and reality, and their gaze was now directed to regions other than the West.
“The names of the Bayezid family have not changed.”
“Except for Rutger, Count Bayezid’s son, there are no people who really stand out.”
New names were appearing one after another in Baranov, a family of steelworkers, but Bayezid had not changed at all from the names he had reported on a few years ago.
“It appears that generational change has failed.”
“······You can’t judge hastily.”
Godin shook his head at the sound coming from next to him.
The weight of the name Bayezid was something that could not be gauged from a single report.
Perhaps there might be knights whose names were not revealed like his former self.
“Now that I think about it, there is a slightly unusual trend in Bayezid.”
“Tell me.”
The adjutant, who was wondering for a moment whether he should even say this, looked at Godin urging him with his eyes, and blurted out a name that was not written in the report.
“It is said that there is a boy who is not a knight, but stands out among Bayezid’s servants.”
“name is.”
The adjutant thought for a moment and pulled out a name that had been buried in his head.
“My name is Vlad. My hometown is Shoara in the County of Bayezid.”
“······.”
Godin listened to the adjutant’s words, frowned, and looked into the distance.
It’s definitely a name I remember, but it didn’t come to mind easily.
“This is the boy who first appeared in the duel of honor in Deermar… but these are just unbelievable rumors, so I couldn’t confirm it for sure.”
There was a reason why the adjutant hesitated to utter Vlad’s name.
“They say he emitted an aura on the spot… but I’m not sure.”
“Auror? “A seed?”
The other knights who were listening to the adjutant’s report snorted and laughed.
This is because the judgment that the information gathered was wrong was more credible than believing the rumor that a young guy who was not a knight had already radiated aura.
“Shoara…Vlad….”
However, despite the knights’ ridicule, Godin just quietly closed his eyes and recalled the memories of that day.
As I recited the name of the familiar city, I was able to recall the blond boy I met in the white fields.
A boy sitting next to a bonfire and looking at himself.
The blue eyes of the boy who saw an Auror for the first time in his life were filled with star-like light.
“······I get it. “I hope everyone knows the current names.”
Godin, Count Sigmund’s new knight commander.
With his command, Gaidar’s knights bowed their heads and left the leader’s office.
“Vlad, Vlad.”
Godin sat down in his chair, tilted his neck and smiled quietly.
He was a bold guy.
I wanted to bring him with me if possible, but fate-like fate separated them.
Although Godin had no idea that Bayezid’s squire, who was said to be emitting aura, was the boy he had seen, he could only recall the faces of the people in his memories.
“Do what you want to do.”
Another person that came to mind along with the boy’s name.
Godin quietly thought about what Jorge had said to him that night.
What would it have been like if he had followed Jorge back then?
“······It couldn’t have been like that.”
Godin smiled bitterly and shook his head.
At the crossroads of choice, Godin crossed the line toward Sigmund rather than Jorge.
The moment he took a step and crossed that line, Godin realized who he was.
What you want, what you want to do.
Even what you have to do in the future.
“Is he living well?”
Godin’s quiet whistling sound rang out in the empty office.
The sound the blue-eyed boy made when he called to him from far away.
It was the sound of a cuckoo at the end of summer.
