“He was eating with some man? I only saw them in passing, so I’m not sure. But he had blond hair and green eyes.”

The story that he had eaten with some man on an outdoor terrace became the last sighting.

Luman left a message for Temar, who still had not replied, and sent one to Coco as well.

He had to find Ren using every possible means.

Even thoughts he did not want to have had to be thought.

Judging from the trail that had vanished, there was a strong chance Ren had been abducted.

By a slave caravan that sold people off without leaving a trace.

After coming to that conclusion, Luman left a message for Giselle as well.

It was a request for large-scale support regarding the slave caravan, and a request to shut down every route attempting to cross the border.

“Lante. Do you feel anything?”

I’m trying. Wait. I can feel that he’s faintly connected.

“A feeling?”

A feeling was not enough. He needed something concrete.

Then someone caught Luman’s eye.

Red hair visible beneath a hood fluttering in the sea wind. A sword strapped across his back, a red cloak draped over him, a man who looked somehow familiar.

The sight of him brought back a scene.

“Seka! Seka! Seka!”

The roar of the people calling the victor’s name, and the name ringing out.

“The owner of the laurel crown, the winner of the swordsmanship tournament is Seka! It’s Seka!”

It was him. The winner of the swordsmanship tournament held in Tempesto Village.

Luman narrowed his eyes.

That man was following someone.

A man with a deeply furrowed face and anxious steps, as if he were being chased.

“Sir. When does that ship leave?”

Luman asked a man busy sorting fish, handing him a gold coin with a kind smile.

The man had been about to snap at him for interrupting his work, but he glanced at the gold coin, pocketed it, and opened his thick lips.

“Can’t you see it says express? It’ll leave within five minutes.”

“Thank you. Do you happen to know that man?”

“Who? How would I know everyone in a big city like this...? Just looking at him, he’s a merchant. Ah, probably someone who supplies goods to Eroia Trading Company?”

The man narrowed his eyes and tilted his head.

“That’s Sonen! Quiet bastard who never says a word came begging a few days ago, saying one of the big sacks he loaded onto his wagon had burst and he needed one in a hurry. Strange thing for a man who never made mistakes in his life. Heh heh. I sold him a cheap sack for a high price, though.”

“A large sack, you say.”

“Yeah, a sack so big you wouldn’t notice even if a person fit inside. What, you make me talk and then just leave? Well, damn.”

The man grumbled and bent back down.

Luman was already on the ship.

Seka stood on the hull a little apart from the man he was following. At a glance, the way he gazed quietly at the sky made him look as if he were merely watching seagulls.

When Luman approached without deliberately hiding his presence, Seka turned to look at him.

“We’ve met before.”

“......”

Seka merely nodded.

They had met before. After hearing from Temar that Ren had shaken hands with Seka, the winner of the swordsmanship tournament, Luman had grown curious and looked for him. When the two had exchanged a brief nod, Ren had called Luman over, so Seka had seen them together.

“I have something to ask. Why are you tracking that man?”

Wheeeeeee— Wheeeee—

The urgent sound of whistles chased up from below the ship.

***

Giselle, who had been standing on the castle ramparts and looking down at the distant ground below, turned at the king’s call.

“You’re here again, Giselle.”

“My king.”

“When we’re alone, call me by name.”

“What brings you here?”

“Here.”

“Surely you did not come to give me this.”

“I needed an excuse to get some air. I used you.”

“Well done.”

Giselle glanced at him and held out his hand.

A crystal orb flashing red.

An emergency signal.

When Giselle operated the crystal orb, a message appeared. Ragniel, who peeked at it, started in surprise.

“A slave caravan? A large-scale request... Is Luman in danger? We must issue orders at once—!”

“No.”

“...What?”

“We must leave it as it is. That is Sors’s message.”

“What does that...”

“Did we not already dispatch a noble during the royal council? What you fear will not happen. This, too, is something that must happen, so I shall pretend I never saw this message.”

“What are you...”

Shiiiiiiik—

“Ah. My mistake. It slipped from my hand.”

The crystal orb slipped from Giselle’s hand and fell endlessly below the ramparts.

***

“There will be a surprise inspection.”

Inspectors in white uniforms and blue badges blew their whistles as they boarded the ship just before departure. The people aboard looked at the inspectors with puzzled faces. Their target was one middle-aged man. The man, who had looked uneasy, turned at the sound of the whistles, then seemed relieved instead. The middle-aged man and the inspectors seemed to know each other’s faces.

“Come here...!”

The middle-aged man whispered and beckoned to the inspectors.

Soon after they hid behind a structure on the ship, out of people’s sight, not even two minutes passed before the inspectors left the ship. Their faces were stern and rigid, but their lips twitched oddly.

As if they were about to burst out laughing at any moment.

Two men stood facing each other on deck, exposed to the sea wind.

The men who had come aboard blowing their whistles left the ship so quickly and anticlimactically that there had not even been time to eavesdrop on their conversation.

The hooded man, Seka, who had fallen silent for a moment because of the commotion, lowered his voice and answered.

“My younger brother’s whereabouts are unclear, so I am looking for him. Are you here for a similar reason?”

“Why do you suspect that man?”

“...Instinct.”

After a pause, Seka answered that way.

“Will you answer my question now?”

Luman, who had been about to leave, opened his mouth.

But he could not answer easily.

Because if he said yes, it felt as though it would become true. Circumstantially, it was already certain that Ren had been taken by slave traders. His refusal to acknowledge it would change nothing.

But saying it with his own mouth was another matter.

Seeing Luman unable to answer, his lips trembling, Seka shook his head.

“You don’t have to answer. If you learn anything, please tell me. I will tell you as well.”

Seka said that and moved aside for him. Luman looked at the edge of the cloak hidden beneath the hood that snapped harshly in the sea wind, and swallowed a miserable feeling.

Yes.

Luman was miserable.

It had only been a few days.

Since he had left Ren’s side.

A time so short that, even if something were to happen, it should have been hard for anything to happen at all.

So why had this happened?

He was anxious.

Had a Hero always been this useless, this powerless?

Could he not even track someone properly?

Was he just an ignorant Hero who only knew how to use force?

“Giselle. If Giselle responds...”

No reply came.

No contact came from the royal castle at all. The line was dead.

“Verdi. If it’s Verdi...”

Luman left a message.

It was the same message he had left for Giselle.

Should he go to the royal castle himself? Perhaps sending manpower would help more than searching on his own. Even if he stood firm here, caught a clue, and searched for Ren relentlessly, if Ren crossed the border... Even if Luman had quit being a Hero, the honor and meaning he had once held had not vanished, so his movement would not be entirely free.

Luman’s eyes fell on the man pacing uneasily.

The man Seka had followed. He could feel Seka watching him too, lying at an angle not far away.

“Instinct, was it.”

He felt like clinging to anything at all.

“Lante. Not yet?”

Wait. It’s tangled like a spiderweb.

Lante’s headache-laden voice came through the message.

There was nothing Luman could do right now.

Luman staggered and sank down where he stood.

He collapsed completely. The fact that there was nothing he could do right now made his throat feel as if it were closing.

Ren.

It seemed as though he heard a faint voice calling him.

Luman jerked his head up, but all his eyes caught were drifting clouds.

People murmured as they looked at him where he sat collapsed. Someone asked if he was all right and shook him. The voice did not reach him properly. The deck rolled beneath him and surged as if it would swallow him, and his mind spun.

Luman could not pull himself together.

What if... something terrible happened to Ren?

What if the people meant to save him arrived too late? What was he supposed to do?

The screams he had heard in war, the faces of people starved by poverty, and the voice of a girl sobbing and begging him to save her brother came to him like hallucinations.

The great and small tragedies Luman had seen—had seen since an age he could no longer even remember—seemed to surge toward him.

No.

That could not happen.

Ren did not need to fall into such a tragedy too.

No one deserved to go through such things, but Ren especially should not. He had already endured a difficult childhood, and even so, he had grown up right. Wasn’t he an honest child with a kind heart that tried to save others?

That honest child.

That child who had grown up alone without parents, dismissed by the villagers, unable even ◈ Nоvеlіgһт ◈ (Continue reading) to pour out his heart to his own brother.

That child who had already faced death several times.

It made no sense for him to go through something like that again.

Luman felt as though he were standing in the middle of a war.

As if he stood somewhere shells could come flying in from any direction, in the middle of a place where screams were natural and looting, rape, and murder ran rampant.

The shapes of people looked warped, like shadows. Nausea rose in Luman, and he swayed to his feet, thrusting his head over the side of the ship.

“Hey, are you all right?”

“Hey!”

“Shouldn’t we call a sailor or something?”

With nothing in his stomach, Luman only vomited up bile and squeezed his eyes shut. Then he sank down as he was. Veins bulged on the fist he clenched tight.

Ren.

Could he find you?

He had never once recovered anything he had lost.

The things he had cherished most, the people he had cherished most—he had never found them again after parting from them.

Could he find Ren?

His old trauma seemed to seize Luman by the ankles.

Swallowing him and dragging him endlessly downward, trying to shove him into the memories of the past.

What woke him was Lante.

Through the noise of people’s voices, fading and returning, the fox’s voice rang out as if looking down on him.

Are you listening to me with your ears plugged? I said I’m looking, you moron. Instead of wasting time like this, go beat the suspicious bastard into talking.

At that insolent tone, Lante’s voice carrying faint irritation without the slightest sense of crisis, Luman snapped back to himself.

Slowly, he lifted his head.

In his eyes was a man looking this way.

A short, middle-aged man. He had a good-natured face, but he looked uneasy. He was sneaking glances at Luman, surrounded by people, with eyes mixed with anxiety and curiosity.

When their eyes met, he flinched in surprise and turned his head away. A moment later, he looked at Luman again, then lowered his head deeply and moved away.