Arc 3 - Chapter 15: Words of the Old Lion (1/2)

"This place looks the way it should."

The corridor of the Duke of Vermia Leoral dri Vermilia, seemed fuller than the rest of the church.

The corridor was entirely for the use of Duke Vermilia, and inside was his large entourage.

"Lady Neko of Virgo Cathedral is here to see Duke Vermilia."

"His Excellence has been waiting for some time, please wait for me to inform you."

The maid who went to tell Duke Vermilia that Yurine had arrived was a thin, blond half-elf. When he saw her, Yu realized he hadn't seen an elf since he left Rolderhelm.

In fact, he had seen almost no non-human creatures.

In Rolderhelm, different kinds of creatures were part of everyday life and you could meet them everywhere, but since he left, almost everyone he met was human.

Not counting the roarons who lived in a forest the world didn't care about, the wolf-eared sisters in İlonya, the demons and Yurine.

When he saw that the rest of the world was dominated by human beings, he felt that the fantastic dimension of this world was diminishing and he was upset by this sudden normalization. He was afraid that it would become like his world.

"Yu, I don't know why he would want to do such a thing."

As they waited for the maid to come back, Yurine started talking. As she spoke, she looked around to make sure no one else could hear her.

"He was always kind to us."

"Look for your enemy near, they say. When we talk to him, we will get an idea."

Soon Yurine would meet the man who could be responsible for her mother's murder. Her impatience was evident in the way she kept tapping her foot on the floor.

"Maybe Leoral used his son as a pawn to kill Rie."

He still couldn't understand why Leoral would want Rie dead. The last thing he could think of was that Cecilus had planned it without his father's knowledge.

"No matter who it is, I will not forgive those involved."

As Yurine uttered the last word in an eerie tone, maid came running out of Duke Vermilia's room.

"The young lady's determination is admirable," Yu said. While the maid was panting.

The half-elf straightened her body, looked at them and spoke excitedly. "His excellency is waiting for you!"

Leoral must have told her to be quick. As soon as she finished his sentence, the half-elf turned and started walking so that she could accompany Yu and Yurine to the duke's chambers. As they followed her, Yu turned his head and called out to Kigaro.

"Wait for us here."

Link finally left them, saying he had something else to do, so Kigaro had to wait alone.

"Your Excellency, Her Excellency Neko is here."

When the half-elf maid opened the door to the room and let them in, they were greeted by an emaciated old man lying on the bed.

"Neko..."

In his weakened state, Leoral tried to stand up with the support of his thin arms, but his efforts were pathetic.

Seeing this, the servant rushed to his master and tried to stop him.

"Sir, you need to protect yourself. For your health..."

"I'm fine."

"But Lady Cornelia's instructions-"

"I said I was fine!"

As the half-elf servant tried to persuade him to go to bed, the Duke of Vermia became childish and stubborn. Leoral could not get up, but he would not give up.

"It's okay, it's better for you to lie there," Yurine said. She was annoyed by his stubbornness.

Yu looked at Leoral's face again. The Duke of Vermia must have been over seventy years old. His face, though wrinkled, bore no signs of old age, but it was pale, his skin a shade closer to the white skin of the dead. His hair, bleached and cut short, was sparse, as if it had just begun to fall out, and he had no beard, but a thick mustache stood above his lip.

His face was thin and bony, his cheeks and eyes sunken in. His thin, trembling fingers gave Yu a pitiful impression.

"This man... He's not what I expected."

The man Yu expected to meet was no more than fifty years old, powerful and authoritative, and his desire for power was reflected in his eyes.

He thought Leoral would try to control Yurine when he met her, but Leoral wasn't even strong enough to control his toilet. He was a broken man and there was no light in his eyes to show that he was clinging to life.

Listening to Yurine, Leoral apologized and wished he could at least stand up straight in front of Yurine. To fulfill this wish, his maid helped Leoral to sit up by straightening the pillow on which his head rested.

"You two get out," Leoral said.

He ordered both his own maid and Yu. The half-elf bowed his head and left the room, while Yu remained where he was with a fixed expression on his face. Seeing Yu's stubbornness, Leoral repeated his words, this time a little angrily.

"Do you have milking ears, boy? Come out, I want to be alone with her."

Yu's expression was still the same, he remained unmoving.

"Yu will stay with me."

Before Leoral could turn red with anger, Yurine put a stop to it. Leoral tore his eyes away from Yu and turned to Yurine.

"He can stay if that's what you want."

Yurine took a chair in the room and sat down, dragging it to a spot where she and Leoral could talk to each other, while Yu continued to watch them a few meter from the door. In this position Yu could see her face.

"I heard what happened... I'm sorry for your loss, I'm so sorry."

Leoral's eyes suddenly filled with tears as he had just begun to speak. This conversation really didn't seem to be going the way Yu had expected.

"I apologize for greeting you like this. My condition has been deteriorating for some time now, and I feel I don't have much more time left."

Yurine continued to listen without opening her mouth. Both Yurine and Yu were listening intently to his words, waiting for him to blurt out some information that would provide a clue to the murder.

"Neko, I know how hard times have been for you, but those girls said you came here to take over your mother's mission. So I hope at least you can accomplish what she couldn't."

Leoral's speech was slow. He took deep breaths and his chest was constantly rising and falling. He tried to speak as quickly as possible so that Yurine wouldn't get bored, which made him gasp.

"Forty years ago is in my mind as if it happened a second ago... Everything is still in front of my eyes with the same vividness... Everything... Everything is so vivid... As if I could touch it with my hand..."

Leoral's dark blue eyes began to glow, not at Yurine but at the air. Yu thought for a moment that he was dying and rushed forward to intervene, but stopped when Leoral started talking again.

"But I don't even have the strength to raise my hand, ah... How did I come to this? Back then I was like that headstrong boy over there, vigorous. When I was young, the sword was like a piece of my hand. Now... I am incapable of lifting a knife."

She closed her eyes and her thin lips curled upwards trembling. A faint smile formed on her face.

"Denise, Yumi, Tauntis, Galahad, Rhea, Vilonet, Lancel, Flory, Claudel, they are not just ordinary men but all of them were holy. And my God, what a beautiful being it was and how lucky I am to see him, our mothers and their children... And her, Natalia... All my friends are in the past and I'm here, far away from them. How awful longing is..."

"I agree with that."

Especially if it was no longer possible to reach what was longed for, longing was nothing but hell.

Yu knew each of the names he mentioned and had met Denise and Yumi personally. Natalia was Rie's master and Galahad and Rhea were the Envy and the Goddess who fought for the world forty years ago. Lancel is probably short for Lancelot of Pride and Flory is short for Florencea of Lust. Claudel was the King of Clermont, and Tauntis was the name of the Pontifex of Andromeda whom Yurine had just met. And if Leoral was not a hypocrite, the one he referred to as his god was Azer.

But the name Vilonet confused him. He had met a Vilonet in Rolderhelm, but he was with the grandson of Galahad of Envy.

"It must be the similarity of the name."

Leoral suddenly began to tell his story, even though they hadn't asked him, as if he had been waiting his whole life to tell it.

"It was a scary time, but now I realize that I loved it. No matter how scary it was, I had my friends by my side. Although... I was older than most of my friends in those days too, back then. We often talked about what we were going to do after the war. I had a lot of responsibility as the future head of the Vermia family and I had to work for the good of the country."

"You should have started when you were a baby..." Yu thought.

"I went to Rolderhelm at the time, to talk about what we were going to do. Rolderhelm... Ah... It was so beautiful and I loved it so much that I even thought about living there after the war. But I couldn't escape my responsibilities. So I said, if I can't live there, then I'll make Mora a place to love it... Peace... Security... Happiness... Prosperity... A country where people can live without worries, a dream... A utopia."

Rolderhelm was beautiful compared to İlonya and Mora, but there were monsters there too, and things that made people fear them, like the Redchapel Killer. The landscape Leoral saw must have been much whiter than the one Yu saw.

"I wanted to make this place a paradise because Rolderhelm was. It was a long time ago, but I still remember it, in my mind's eye it still looks like it did forty years ago... Tell me, Neko, is it still beautiful there?"

"Yes, Rolderhelm is very beautiful."

Yurine was speaking for the third time since she had entered the room and Yu agreed with her. After all, Rolderhelm was much more beautiful than here, and he had only seen it in the fall. He couldn't even imagine how full of life Rolderhelm's spring and summer months were.

Thinking about it now, he realized that he even missed the village of Urta, next to the Wizarding Academy.

"When the war was over, we would start all over again. Our God Azer would be with us and guide us, we would glorify the Mora and our religion. The people would be at peace; we would have peace, prosperity, abundance and fertility... We... We would build heaven on earth."

His eyes would remain closed for a few seconds, and when he opened them again, he would continue talking. He was tired of talking so much.

"We would all work hard for it, of course. There was no room for laziness on the road to our dream, and the real battle would begin after we defeated Gluttony. I believed, Neko. I believed that everything was going to be beautiful. Just as forty years ago is before my eyes now, so were these days before my eyes then."

A painful smile settled on the wrinkled man's sorrowful face.

"But I underestimated the stupidity of these people. I guess I'm as stupid as they are."

Leoral's tears rolled down his cheeks and fell down his chin.