Chapter 169: The Germinating Seed
After the battle ended, the battlefield was busy with cleanup. Between the crumbled rocks, broken spears and Rite-Stone fragments were scattered about, and blood-stained earth had dried and crusted in the wind.
The Mountain Rabbits gathered their comrades who had fallen into eternal sleep. They collected the ownerless swords and stood them upright like saplings, then shoveled earth to cover them over.
"Victory's always been like this. Not even surprising anymore."
Volga muttered, covered in dust. Hadiya let out a hollow laugh and picked up the thread.
"Still, at least we can complain about it. A hell of a lot better than the ones buried in the gorge. Don't you think?"
Romance and Kotchap stopped shoveling, wiped the sweat from their brows, and chimed in.
"True. If you've still got the strength to curse, it means you survived. We got the most precious thing a battlefield can offer. Our own lives."
"Yeah, though things really have changed. Back in the day, I'd have gone straight for those wolf pelts first. You know what those are worth?"
At that, pfft—laughter rippled out here and there.
The laughter was brief, but through that small moment of shared feeling, they each felt the reality of having survived. Volga followed up with another jest.
"Hey, if we split it according to how much everyone actually did out there, you'd barely walk away with anything. Half of that haul is Calix's."
"Like you're one to talk? Same as always with you."
And then, without warning, Volga's expression grew strange. It wasn't intentional, but Romance's jab had struck somewhere deep.
The battlefield had always been Calix's domain. He was the one who threw himself into the most dangerous places first, who cut down enemy commanders. And in the process, Volga's place was slowly shrinking.
"……I need to catch up."
When would he reach the realm of Falling Fire?
He stared at his friend's back and asked himself that question. He knew he couldn't afford to be impatient—but he didn't want to be dead weight either.
And that feeling wasn't his alone.
***
As darkness settled over the gorge, firelight rose up across the camp. Exhausted soldiers slept soundly, while an old man drew near one of the fires and sat down.
Master Sevi Belgrado.
Royce set down the sword he'd been tending and moved to rise, but stopped at the other man's gesture.
"Sir Belgrado."
"Sit easy."
Belgrado moved through the surrounding knights in conversation. He called each by name, praised their efforts in battle, and offered a few words of swordsmanship advice to each. Even Helmut Barben, a Top-Rank Swordsman, bowed his head to receive instruction.
'Why's he come all the way to the Mountain Rabbits' camp?'
'No idea. Must be here to see Calix.'
The murmuring was short-lived.
He turned suddenly toward Royce.
"You pushed yourself."
"……It's nothing."
Royce answered immediately and wiped the blood from the back of his hand. But Belgrado didn't miss the faint trembling at the tips of his fingers.
"I thought something was off throughout the battle. You kept throwing yourself forward to an excessive degree. Is that the responsibility of a unit commander?"
Just as he said—Royce had stayed close behind Calix throughout the entire battle. He'd kept every nerve on edge watching for danger, and afterward had charged to the very front to suppress the enemy.
Seeing the flicker in his eyes, Belgrado asked again.
"Your Neural Accelerator gives off a somewhat unfamiliar sensation. Where was it made?"
He'd struck at the heart of it—and there was no pretending not to notice a second time. Royce answered in a voice that was barely composed.
"It's one used by mercenaries from Astria. I was lucky enough to get hold of one with decent output."
"You could have had one of Niboria's implanted."
"……Given my age, after much deliberation, I left it as it is. There's also the matter of needing to readapt to something new. Instead, I've been taking physical enhancement agents."
The exchange carried complex meaning beneath its surface.
Belgrado had pointed out that the other man's Neural Accelerator was unstable; Royce had pushed back, saying it was fine enough. Only the surrounding knights wore expressions of complete incomprehension.
Why is this man drawing all of the Master's attention?
Belgrado soon provided the answer.
"I saw the flame along your blade beginning to dim."
"……!"
"Congratulations are in order. You've reached the threshold of Geomhwa—you won't be looked down on wherever you go from here."
Royce kept a composed expression, but it was Helmut standing beside him who revealed eyes full of disbelief. The commander of the Mountain Rabbits had reached the same Top-Rank standing as himself.
And yet—Belgrado narrowed his brow and let out a short sigh.
"But bear this in mind. Every choice carries both light and shadow. It's good for climbing higher, but it won't resolve the fundamental instability."
"What do you mean by that……"
"It's the same as what I asked you at the start. Don't push yourself. Swordsmen may be those who wield their blades at the cost of their lives—but none of them choose death by their own hand."
Royce knew his innermost thoughts had been read.
Indeed, he was burning himself up. Terrified of falling behind, he was pouring everything he had into chasing after someone's back.
And so he didn't dare offer a single word in reply. He quietly closed his scabbard, and answered by lowering his head.
In his eyes, still, a stubborn hunger flickered.
The desire to be even a moment stronger than he was—no.
It was the weight of responsibility. The need to carry out his role, no matter what.
***
The smell of blood cleared within two days. Firelight and the scent of people slowly spread through the camp. Soldiers rested and replenished their strength, and steel regained its edge.
In the midst of it all, messengers from outside came and went through the command tent in a steady stream.
"Refugees are flooding in from across Elvra. Centered on the positions we've already secured……"
Survivors were pouring into the southern territories secured by the Alliance Forces. In response, Calix sat down with Royce and Adrian and spread out a map to discuss the next battle.
"Good news, but it's only a temporary result. In the end, we'll need to win on the central front."
"As with this battle—we need to minimize casualties as much as possible."
The firelight cast long shadows, but it wasn't entirely dark. The faces of the Mountain Rabbits carried the glow of confidence and hope.
Ella, meanwhile, was busier than anyone. By day she tended to the wounded and the refugees; late at night she spoke with the clergy of the Order. Disputes broke out from time to time, but whenever they did, Marik stepped in to mediate the tensions among the priests.
"Vice-captain, thank you as always."
Even at Ella's words of gratitude, Marik said nothing and simply remained by her side. He carried stretchers himself, and whenever something was needed, he went and found it wherever it had to come from.
The words that passed his lips numbered only a few.
"……Do we do good deeds to be saved? Or are the good saved because they are good?"
"And those who have fallen? Do they deserve to be punished for their sins?"
Instead, Marik quietly listened to what the clergy had to say. It was a feeling as though something elusive within him—something that had been just out of reach—was slowly being filled.
Of course, he already knew.
He had taken Calix's counsel to heart, and through his encounter with Midra, had found a reason to keep living. And so Marik was looking for what came next.
And he—
"Is there something I can help with?"
—kept moving.
He listened alongside Ella's prayers, stood quietly at his post, and then moved toward those who called for help to take their hands.
"Th-thank you……"
It was then that he realized—the wounded soldier's gratitude was directed at him. His eyes met Ella's for a moment. She smiled briefly, and the man simply gave a small nod. A warmth he had forgotten how to live with brushed across his chest.
In that moment, just below his forearm—a faint silver light glimmered past.
Though even he himself passed over it without noticing, the change within him was preparing to spill outward.
***
Airien opened her eyes. What had interrupted the elven meditation was none other than the dwarves. Gathered around Nuri Sarui of the Snowbrack Tribe, they let out laughter loud enough to split their throats.
"That wasn't even worth breaking a sweat over! Back in Snowbrack, when we dug a mine, we'd have it done before six nights passed!"
Her furrowed brow lasted only a moment. The elven woman's gaze slid to one side. Among the dwarves, a familiar face caught her eye.
"Are you talking about the Ainbrick shaft?"
"Basim, that's ancient history! That mine was fully excavated decades ago!"
Basim made an unusually sheepish expression. He scratched the back of his neck, shrugged his shoulders—and yet the corners of his mouth lifted slightly.
At that sight, Airien let out a quiet sigh.
He had once been exiled, and had lived as a Mountain Rabbit for a long time. Knowing that, she couldn't bring herself to say anything unkind—couldn't even think it.
Above all, what they were doing was exactly what she had dreamed of.
"Basim, you felt it too, didn't you? When we brought the gorge down earlier."
"Felt what?"
"The Earth's Pulse. The current through which the land's energy flows! Even if you've been away from Viale for a long time, you can't have forgotten. Isn't it the very root that awakens the energy in us dwarves?"
Nuri Sarui, relatively young among them, brought up the dwarven method of energy circulation. Not to be outdone, dwarves from the Cardhun, Brumak, and Heimrak Tribes raised their voices in turn. Each insisted their own tribe's method was supreme and went through them one by one to make their case.
The details were painfully specific. Naturally, they were nothing like what was done in Viale. Because in Viale, such things had been bottled up and sealed away under the name of tradition.
"But is it really alright for us to be saying all this out loud?"
"Well……"
And yet in this very moment, she was watching the end of that closed-off culture play out before her eyes.
"Just say it and then pretend you forgot!"
"I……is that how it works?"
"What, you planning to go back home and report it? Is there anyone here who doesn't owe their life to Basim? Or are you going to blame it on me?"
"I wouldn't blame it on you……"
"The hell you say?"
The stocky figures grabbed each other by the collars and started throwing punches almost immediately. A minor quarrel blazed up like a fire catching. But it wasn't the kind of fight where lives were on the line—it had its roots in the rough, stubborn friendship that was quintessentially dwarven.
Then Basim wedged himself between the two of them. A wild punch collided with his forearm, but it bounced off as though it had struck stone.
Nuri Sarui stepped back in surprise.
"Don't tell me—you've already taken the earth's energy into yourself?"
Basim let out a quiet scoff.
He'd always had it. He had only now let it take root. But working through complicated explanations didn't suit his temperament, so he answered in his deliberately blunt way.
"I am a dwarf."
At those words, the stocky figures all burst out laughing together.
The dwarves' laughter carried on for a long time. And within that laughter, Airien felt a strange trembling.
Basim's words were not a simple expression of pride. They were a weighty declaration—that someone who had kept their voice down had at last found their place.
'I am an elf.'
The same words, but they landed differently. The elven woman found herself suddenly thinking of the path she had walked alongside Calix.
The young man had confessed his past in front of Marquis Ashapel. He had hidden nothing. He had not been ashamed, and he had stood proud before himself.
She was no different. Perhaps that, of all things, was—the proof of strength she had been searching for since Viale.
In that moment, Airien made a decision.
To hide nothing any longer.