The hand gripping his boot stopped Luman.
“Stop. I know who you are.”
It was a firm yet gentle voice. A calm voice, without any other emotion mixed in.
It did not sound like someone who had just woken from unconsciousness.
But judging from the hand trembling faintly and the eyes gone loose with weakness, he still did not seem fully conscious.
Luman did not care who tried to stop him.
If they were connected to the slave merchants, then whether their crime was great or small, he would kill them.
They had made Ren stay in that filthy place. It was only right that they pay for that crime with their lives.
“I know who you...!”
“And if you do?”
“......”
Luman looked down.
He stared at the hand gripping his boot and the red eyes looking up at him.
“If you know who I am.”
He shook off the hand holding his foot and said,
“What does that change?”
His voice was light. Calm in a way that did not suit someone holding a blade. That composure was old. The indifferent expression of someone who had killed many times before. What filled his golden eyes was old ennui and a hatred that burned as if newly born.
For him to hate someone he had only just met, that child presumed to have been kidnapped must be precious to him.
Seka, too, felt as if his chest were stopped up with worry, since the circumstances around his younger brother pointed in the same direction.
But Cedric would not want to see him like this.
And that boy, Ren, would likely be the same.
“The boy you are searching for would not want you to look like this.”
“You would do well not to speak carelessly.”
Facing that flashing murderous intent, Seka opened his mouth.
“That boy’s Aras is clear.”
Those who reached the final realm of the sword could sometimes see such things.
Seka’s tense voice continued.
“As you must know, Hero, those with clear Aras instinctively reject souls soaked in blood. Being covered in blood as a Hero of the kingdom and killing out of personal hatred will have entirely different meanings. So please... stop.”
When Seka shook the boy’s hand, he had felt his Aras. Things that were terribly clear and transparent could sometimes be cruel, pushing away even the smallest speck of dust.
“Ha. Haha......”
Shhhhhh.
The golden spear in Luman’s hand shattered in midair.
Only after the force pressing down on the air disappeared could Seka finally rise from where he was.
“You are right.”
With those words, Luman left the room.
After cleaning up the aftermath, Seka swept his gaze over the deck.
The black sky was beginning to stain purple. The crashing of the waves sounded rougher than it had at night. Though it was a large ship, the sea seemed angry enough that he could feel it rolling beneath his feet.
Spotting the platinum-haired man gazing out at the distant sea, Seka strode toward him.
The man did not look back.
Only when Seka stood beside him did he open his mouth.
“We need to return to Delfona.”
“Return?”
The man, Luman, turned his head.
The moment Seka met his eyes, his knees seemed to go weak.
Luman was not threatening him at all. He was merely looking at him.
And yet Seka could not move, as if he had been skewered. If he moved without permission, it felt as though the man would kill him. It was an instinctive sense.
Luman turned back toward the sea. Only then did Seka feel as if he had been released.
“They say the auction will be held in Delfona. Circling around by land is only to muddle the route.”
It was the answer Sonen had desperately guessed and offered up.
“......”
Seka could not answer.
This ship was an express vessel.
It could neither stop nor be halted. It was headed straight for the Kingdom of Ganea without stopping at any city along the way.
“They say it will be held in about four days.”
“Four days......”
Seka let out a low groan.
The ship had already run through the night, there was nowhere nearby where they could dock, and they did not have the authority to make that happen.
“What do you think of the position of Hero?”
“What do you mean?”
“Exactly what I said. If I thrust a sword at them under the title of Hero, will I be able to change the route?”
After a brief silence, Seka answered.
A Hero was not supposed to reveal his own identity.
But for Luman now, no rule could force him to do anything.
“No. These men are rough sailors. They may die by the blade, but they will not simply change course. Perhaps if you had His Majesty’s token.”
His Majesty’s token. After receiving his final mission, Luman had sent all of those things back to Temar.
“Would it be difficult to move them with only a sword?”
“......”
Seka looked at Luman’s back.
“Sailors have strong grudges and strong loyalty. Even if every sailor here dies, others will take revenge for them. If necessary, even against those close to you.”
He was a Hero.
But what Seka had seen earlier had looked less like a Hero and more like a devil.
“I will try persuading them first.”
There was no way out of this vast open sea.
It was not as if they could swim back. Even if he knew how to use a sword, there was no way to return to land from the middle of the ocean.
Was that how it was? Did he have to save his younger brother even if °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° it meant terrifying everyone aboard, even if it meant cutting down the necks of those who refused to obey? Was that truly right?
Seka did not have the confidence to do that.
But the man before him seemed fully willing.
If he had only been able to seize the ship’s bow, he probably would have dragged out every sailor without even asking Seka.
“No. We will leave persuasion for last.”
“Do you have another way?”
Seka asked quickly.
Even on his face, which had maintained its calm until now, there was a fine crack.
Thinking of Ren through that crack, Luman answered.
“We have to hope it works. If we do not want to take innocent lives.”
You, whose Aras is clean.
Had Priest Kirky said that too?
That if Luman stained himself with blood for a personal grudge, Ren would reject him.
Seka was wrong. Words like that could not bind Luman.
Ren rejecting him, hating him from the depths of his soul, would certainly be horrible. It might become a day worse than any nightmare. But he could not delay saving Ren over something as small as that.
Yes. He could not delay saving Ren merely to spare himself pain.
Four days from now.
Sonen had said the slave auction would be held sometime between four and six days from now, that it had to be.
The earliest day he had guessed was four days.
This ship had run for one full evening.
“One day.”
“......”
“If I cannot find him within one day.”
Luman stopped there and closed his mouth.
Those words were not meant for Seka.
They were for Lante, the Hero’s familiar.
Understood.
Lante’s voice rang inside his head.
On the night of the second day, after he had neither eaten nor drunk, two men stood facing each other on the deck.
“You should move.”
Dim dawnlight spread across the sky.
It was the dawn of the second day since the express ship bound for the Kingdom of Ganea had left the port city of Delfona.
He could not contact the kingdom, and there was no word from Temar. Nor from Coco.
There was no news of Ren anywhere. Still, Luman believed that Temar, at least, must be busy searching for his younger brother. Because Seka, who had come out to find his own brother, stood before him, Luman could think that.
That did not mean he intended to indulge Seka, who was blocking his path.
Shhhhk.
A foreign sound rang out.
A sound like light being compressed. Like something condensing into one point just before an explosion.
Before he knew it, a golden spear was in Luman’s hand.
Seka did not draw his sword. He raised both hands, showing that he had no intention of fighting.
“I have no reason to go easy on you. So move.”
“I will try persuading them first.”
“I do not want to argue. Not over something with such an obvious result.”
It would be stranger if the captain of this enormous ship turned the bow for someone with no authority and no power. Hoping for something so absurd did not suit Luman.
Solving it this way was not his method either.
But some things could not be helped.
Luman tightened his grip on the spear. There was no mistaking what that meant. Even so, Seka did not draw his sword.
Then the communication orb flashed.
The one contacting him was Coco.
The spear vanished from his hand. Luman hurriedly operated the communication orb and stared for a long time at the message that appeared.
Coco was heading to the capital for the duke’s funeral.
But after receiving Luman’s message, she had changed course, and half of her party, including Coco herself, had set out to search. The message said she had even hired mercenaries in a city they passed through for the search.
“......”
Luman hurriedly operated the communication orb.
He compiled the information Sonen had spat out and sent her a message. He told her they had to go to the port city of Delfona, adding that there was a high possibility the auction would be held in the underground city or in a building cleverly hidden in the heart of Delfona.
Seka, watching Luman’s bloodless face, let out a breath.
“Lante. You can find Ren, can’t you?”
I told you I can! Stop making my head spin and go inside and sleep.
The sound of Lante clicking his tongue echoed inside his head.
The reason Luman could not immediately return to Delfona was because he was tracking Ren.
Movement required concentration. If he lost the thread he had caught, finding Ren would become even harder.
“Lante.”
Please find him before it is too late.
Otherwise, I may go mad like Temar and do something to everyone here.
