Out of the impasse

Fire eliminating everything in the room, wiping all evidence about its owner. Vaterian stood outside of it, only left after making sure every single part of the room was covered by the blazing flame.

"If this was just the beginning of the journey, what will come next?" Speaking to himself, Vaterian wondered what would come afterwards.

Vaterian slowly walked out of the cave. Suddenly, the torch stopped lighting up the atmosphere and his surroundings fall into dark.

He felt something went wrong, he started to rush toward the exit despite the injury still causing him pain, but his sight become more and more blurry. At last, his vision turned black and fell onto the ground.

The last thing he heard was someone running closed to him.

___(the end)___

(Just joking please don't leave)

Vaterian woke up, he captured a white cloth in his vision. By listening to the sound of rolling wheels, he knew he was on a wagon.

"Hey, you finally awake."

Vaterian turned his body aside. As he expected, he saw his friend staring at him.

"Starting a fire in the closed area, you had big balls, huh?" Igor looked at him and proceeded to read the newspaper.

"Was there any problem about it?"

"Well, you can try to put a rat and a campfire in a container and see how fast the rat would die. Thanks for me being a good comrade, going into the cave to search for you. Otherwise, you won't even have the chance to open your eyes." Igor shook his legs while reading the last page of the newspaper.

"First-hand experience from your childhood?"

"I wanted to deny it but everyone knows the truth. You always need to hide in some nasty places if you want to run away from the tax collector." Igor didn't deny it, he still hated the city he was born in, but neither could he deny how much he learned from there.

Vaterian looked at the date on the cover, 20 of November.

"3 days? Never expected to be in such a long sleep." Vaterian told the truth, he never had such a long sleep without being haunted by nightmares.

"Yeah, you just slept past your birthday. Congratulations, this was your 8th time not celebrating it."

"Don't talk like I could celebrate it during the time in Karlsburg. Anyways, what was the news for today?" Vaterian tried to lift his body, but his injuries didn't allow him to do it.

"Quite a breaking news I would say. Don't move your body, those injuries were worse than you thought. I already told you those mixtures only worked well when they were added into wine." Igor spoke like he never thought to use the treatment, or he was just using it as a disguise to hide the fact he drank all of them.

"So that's the reason you filled your bottle with wine instead of the medicine? Next time don't try to hide it, I could hear the sound of the liquid flowing within the bottle." Vaterian exposed Igor's lie.

"Here you go, read the paper and shut up." Igor passed the paper to Vaterian, avoiding speaking further on this topic.

The headline of the newspaper was about them, "The King had announced the exile of the Prince without the noble's consent, a violation to the principal."

"Let me guess, the second page was about the Grand Duke chasing for us."

"Exactly, but they went too far. They didn't expect we would go past Silvester and go straight to Karchidon. now they are ahead of us, I hope they won't realize that." Igor stretched his body and went outside of the wagon.

"Thanks for holding the reins, you could come back in," Igor spoke to someone. It didn't take long for Vaterian to know who he was talking to. He saw Viridiana come in.

"Igor! You let a lady be harassed by the wind?"

"She said she wanted to experience it! I swear she was there for less than 10 minutes!" Listening to Igor's reply, Vaterian sighed. Viridiana laughed when she saw them arguing.

"Thank you Viridiana, for taking care of me, I appreciate your hard work."

"There was a possibility that Igor was the one taking care of you, don't you even consider it?" Asked Viridiana with a smile on her face.

"I knew him well, it was more possible for me to die under his care, he was totally incapable of taking good care of anyone. Vaterian complained about his servant who couldn't serve him well, it wasn't a good experience.

"How were those citizens? Were they fine?" Asked Vaterian.

"I thought you didn't care about them," Viridiana asked ironically

"I just want to make sure Igor achieve what he wanted."

"Thanks for Rolf, most of them were fine but some of them never woke up from their sleep," Viridiana answered in a low volume, she didn't feel well every time she recalled those cries.

"Rolf?"

"The little boy that asked for our help, he had surprisingly good medical skills, he found a way to wake those people up by burning some herbs. He is also the person who made the treatment for your injuries." Viridiana talked it with excitement, she had never seen such a talented kid.

'There are some reasons he could escape from the monster.' Vaterian spoke silently.

"And Rolf asked me to give you this letter." Viridiana took out a piece of paper, written in Hellandic script, it seems like the boy didn't want Viridiana to know what had been written on it.

Vaterian opened the letter, the first word on it brought his attention.

______

"Your Highness, I apologize for disrupting you from your grand escapement.

I sincerely thank you for your help despite being in your own impasse. I knew you wanted to hide the truth about your identity, but the insignia hidden underneath your cloak was difficult for me to not notice it.

There had nothing valuable I could give you, the only thing I could give you back was the information about the murder of your sister.

My father was in Silvester for years and handled a lot of people who passed through the gate. Albert Waldstein, the person who killed your sister was one of them.

He asked for the pass from my father 10 years ago, he was suffering from fever at that time. It was my brother who saved him, the medical record and the copy of the pass was sadly being burned, but I still remember it.

You might say how I knew all of it? My brother liked to tell me how good he was at saving people. I heard that from him and I read the document in my father's office.

Albert was suffering from fever and had a huge headache, it was not the most important thing, but the person who brought him in was.

Jack Reingard From his last name, he came from the Reingard church but he was wearing a coat of arms of the Carpathian empire.

My brother secretly searched Albert's luggage during the treatment. He saw two letters, one from the Grand Duke and one from Matthias Hunyadi, at that time we had no idea who he was.

They left the city with the consent of my father and the Grand Duke and travelled to Karchidon. My father had no idea what he did until the civil war broke out.

Weeks ago, he came to Silvester again, then my brother committed the murder.

During my last conversation with my brother, he said it was a contribution for him to create his own Horror Story. He also frequently asked me to deliver him some weird mushroom hidden in his drawer.

That's all I know about, hope it was helpful for you.

Your faithful servant,

Rolf.

____

Vaterian knit his brown, there was too much information in this single letter. He started to feel the death of Ilse was far more mysterious than he thought.

"This boy was truly a genius, just hope he won't suffer because of what his family did."

Vaterian closed the letter and put it under his cloak, this letter need to be eliminated from the world and not be seen by any other people.

"Father, how was it possible for us to end this when we don't even know what happened in KönigStraße."

Looking at the Mountains, Vaterian felt the future was less and less predictable.

___(Volume 1 end)___