Barbarian's Adventure in a Fantasy World-Chapter 282: The Barbarian King (3)

Bayern closed his mouth at Ketal’s question and let silence pool between them. Several long minutes passed while he stared at the table and steadied his breath. When he finally spoke, his voice held the slight tremor of a man who had set a memory aside for years and had now picked it up with bare hands.

“Give me a moment to put my thoughts in order,” Bayern said. “I would appreciate a little time to settle myself. Let us speak of something else for a moment.”

“If that is what you want, then we can do that,” Ketal replied.

“Thank you. We can talk about the duel we just had. Why did you choose to lose to me on purpose?”

At the very end, Ketal had loosened his grip on the axe. He had let the recoil carry him back and had framed the scene so that it looked as though he had been driven off.

“Why did you do that?” Bayern asked him again.

“I did it because I have no intention of becoming the new king,” Ketal said in a level tone.

He had discarded that burden once already and had left it where it fell. He had no desire to bend his back under it again.

Bayern frowned as if the answer did not line up with the shape of the day. “Then why fight me at all?”

“Because the mood in my column had already fixed itself to that end,” Ketal said. “After they saw what I could do, the barbarians convinced themselves I was going to challenge you. I could have ignored the talk and refused to fight, but if I had done that, they would have been bitterly disappointed. The bigger the expectation, the sharper the disappointment. They would have thrown that feeling at the city. They would have made trouble, broken things, and then they would have asked whether their King could really hold the North.”

He paused and let the simple logic sit.

“The cleanest way to erase all of that was to meet you, show strength, and then lose in a way that closed the door,” Ketal finished.

Bayern blinked, surprised despite himself. “So it was for our sake.”

Ketal had not needed to fight, nor had he needed to lose once the fighting began. He had done both to prevent the confusion that would follow.

“As a man who has led barbarians myself, I have some sense of how much work it takes to keep those idiots going in the same direction. I had no wish to stir them up for nothing,” Ketal said plainly.

“Thank you,” Bayern said, and the gratitude came from the center of him rather than from habit. Warmth softened his gaze when he looked at Ketal.

“Was that the only reason?” the Holy Sword murmured with a thoughtful air. “I would have said you wanted to test yourself as well, although that may be my imagination. I will be quiet now.”

Only Ketal heard the sword’s voice. He let it fade without comment.

“It still surprises me,” Bayern said. “I did not expect the King of the White Snowfield to be someone who thinks like I do.”

“It surprises me as well,” Ketal answered with an honest smile. “I did not expect to have such a sensible conversation with a barbarian.”

Speaking to Bayern felt like speaking with a scholar from some sane corner of the world rather than a man from the tribes. Ketal tilted his head.

“I heard that until a few months ago, you were not so different from the other barbarians,” he said. “The story says you changed the moment you returned from a long journey.”

“You heard correctly,” Bayern said. “That was when I entered the White Snowfield.”

He gave a wry smile, and when Ketal nodded for him to continue, he began to lay the history out in even lines, as if the act of naming it would take a weight from his ribs.

“I was strong,” Bayern began.

There were children who showed strange talents at an early age, gifts so far beyond ordinary sense that people could only whisper about them in awe and unease. They called such children Vessels of Heroism. Bayern had been one of them. At seven, he had beaten a grown man in a straight match. At ten, no one in his village could hold the ground in front of him for longer than a breath. By the time he reached twenty, he stood at the highest level of the Transcendents. Even across the whole North, few could have matched him as an equal.

Voices had followed him wherever he went. They had said his name with pride and certainty. They had said that he would one day be the only Barbarian King. Bayern had believed it without any doubt. He had thought that if it was not him, then no one else would lead the barbarians.

“I was arrogant,” he said quietly. “I thought nothing in the world could touch me, and the price of that thought was a long, deep boredom. I wanted to hit a wall and break it. I wanted an opponent that could truly threaten me so that the victory would mean something.” 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

He spread his hands, remembering the frustration.

“The strong men on the continent would not fight me. They did not want the trouble of being tied to me, because they expected me to become a Hero one day, and they preferred not to make a friend or an enemy in advance. One place caught my eye as I was running out of patience.”

“The White Snowfield,” Ketal said.

“Yes,” Bayern answered. “It is the greatest Demon Realm in the world. Long ago, the Emperor went there to challenge it and failed. I believed I could accomplish what I wanted there. So I hired a ship and sailed there.”

“What did you meet?” Ketal asked him.

“A bear,” Bayern said.

He meant the White Bear from the Emperor’s legend, the one whose steps were earthquakes and whose breath froze the face of a mountain. Ketal let out a soft sound that meant understanding.

“That must have been a disaster,” he said.

“It truly was,” Bayern answered, and he pushed up his sleeve.

Unlike most barbarians, Bayern kept himself wrapped in heavy clothing that hid his arms and chest. Ketal had thought it was a sign of restraint. He realized now that it had been a screen.

“Oh my,” the holy sword said in sudden alarm.

Bayern’s forearm was marked by a scar that could not be softened by time. The flesh looked as though it had been bitten out of him by a blade as large as a door. Half the forearm had been carved away.

“I met the Sun God’s Saintess to try to heal it,” Bayern said as he drew the cloth back down, “but it cannot be repaired.”

“It was a single blow. I burned with the will to fight a mountain that walked like a beast, and in one stroke, I nearly died. My proud axe shattered. My gut opened and tried to leave my body. Blood filled my mouth.”

At that time, he had been a highest-level Transcendent. On the continent, he had been as strong as men came. However, that had meant nothing. The bear was one of the rulers of the White Snowfield’s territories, like the White Serpent and the Ugly Rat. Against a creature like that, the difference in kind mattered more than the difference in rank.

“Meeting the bear means you had stepped into its territory,” Ketal said, almost to himself. “It is a wonder you survived.”

The bear did not expand its domain for the sake of expansion, but it was stubborn in defense. When someone intruded, the answer was swift and final. In that light, the fact that Bayern was alive sat strangely on the table.

“It was not through my own strength that I lived.” Bayern shook his head and looked at Ketal. “In that moment, I saw a barbarian.”

Ketal’s eyes widened.

“I was paralyzed with fear before the massive bear. I wanted nothing more than to run, but terror locked my legs in place. The bear came forward, step by step, and pressed down on me with its presence. I felt death closing in. And then, suddenly, it drew back.”

In that moment, Bayern saw a barbarian, his ashen-gray hair flying loose in the wind.

***

It was in his youth, before he had ever become a king. Bayern trembled violently in the bitter cold. It was the first time he had truly learned what fear meant. He wanted desperately to flee, but his feet would not move.

The White Bear was coming closer, step by step. Bayern was certain he would die here. Just then, the approaching bear stopped. A low, rumbling growl rolled from its throat. There was wariness on the beast’s face. Bayern was startled by the sudden shift. That massive bear, that overwhelming monster, now stood visibly on guard against something.

Soon enough, he understood what had roused the bear’s caution.

“Bear. Bear. Damnable bear,” the ashen-haired barbarian said.

Footsteps sounded behind him, unhurried and certain. A barbarian with gray hair that the cold wind lifted crossed in front of Bayern and walked toward the giant shape.

“Our chief needs your territory,” the barbarian said. “It would be polite if you stepped aside.”

The bear’s answer rumbled out of its chest.

“I do not mind if you refuse,’ the ashen-haired barbarian said, showing his teeth and closing both hands around his axe.

“Do not step in,” he said over his shoulder. Only then did Bayern notice the other barbarians standing behind him in a loose line, as quiet as the rocks that dotted the snow.

‘Are you sure?’ one asked. “The chief told us to push together.”

“You will struggle on your own!” another added.

“Shut up,” the first barbarian said without looking back. “If you interfere, you will die.”

“How stubborn,” someone muttered. “Do as you like. If you die, I will be next.”

They spoke as if death were a minor inconvenience, a thing that could be set on a shelf until later. The first barbarian stared at the bear and rolled his shoulders as if loosening a muscle that had been tight all day.

“Let’s fight,” he said. “I will pay back the insult from last time. I will eat your gall while it is still warm.”

Bayern’s face went white as the words sank in. The bear was a monster to him, something so far beyond resistance that the idea of striking it felt like a child's dream. To hear a man speak of it the way one spoke of a hated neighbor made the world tilt. There were more of them, too, not just one.

The first barbarian glanced at Bayern and clicked his tongue.

“You are not one of ours,” he said. “You came from Outside.”

His lip curled as he measured what he saw.

“You are weak, and you are a coward.”

Bayern could not argue. He lowered his head and accepted the judgment. The barbarian’s eyes cooled.

“If it were up to me, I would kill you here,” the first barbarian said. “Our chief told us to spare outsiders and bring them to him, but I do not want to bring a coward like you. I will not disobey him either. I will offer a compromise. I will not kill you. Survive as you can. If you want to run away, then run.”

With that, the ashen-haired barbarian stopped thinking about Bayern. He looked at the bear and smiled without any humor.

“All right then. Come on, you cursed beast!”

Power met power, and the shock of the collision raced outward across the frozen ground in a wave that made the snow leap and the air ring like struck steel. As he watched, Bayern felt a thought settle deep within him, reshaping the course of his life into something new.

I am nothing, he realized. I am only a man, and not an extraordinary one.

He came away from that fight carrying an understanding he could not have reached in any other way.

***

“That is how it went,” Bayern said now, still looking at Ketal.

Ketal nodded. “That would change a man.”

“I barely escaped the mess they made,” Bayern said. “I ran with everything I had and somehow reached the North again.”

After that, he changed direction so sharply that men who had known him for years stumbled trying to keep up. He stopped looking like every other barbarian and began to act like a reasonable person.

“The barbarians call me a coward,” he said. “They are not wrong. I became afraid in front of a strength that made a fool of me, and I fled.”

He had grown since then. He had tightened muscle and mind until the man in the arena felt like another person entirely. He believed that he could face the White Bear now and not be driven. Even so, the fear he had learned that day had carved itself into the inside of him in a way that would not fade.

“That must have been a disaster to live through,” Ketal said with a trace of pity.

“You said you were a chief,” Bayern answered. “Do you know who the barbarian I met was?”

“I believe I can guess,” Ketal said. “I sent people to tidy up the territories. I told them to bring every outsider to me alive. It seems they did not listen.”

His eyes cooled, the way a blade cooled in water.

“When I find him, I will break his head,” he said.

Bayern let out a breath that was half a laugh. The barbarian who had terrified him had served this man.

“You are very large,” Bayern said.

The phrase did not mean size. It meant presence. The measure of Ketal did not fit inside the North. Bayern would have to show another badge to stand on level ground.

“I have never told anyone that story,” he said. “Please keep it between us.”

“I have no habit of sharing other men’s business,” Ketal said.

“Thank you,” Bayern answered.

He lifted the cup again and drank. The tension that had been in his shoulders eased a little now that the words had been said.

“By the way,” Ketal said lightly as he refilled his own cup. “You won today.”

“You handed the victory to me,” Bayern said.

“Even so, a victory is a victory,” Ketal replied. “I said that if you won, I would hand over my rights and obligations. How does the title sound? King of the barbarians of the White Snowfield. You must admit that it has some weight. Would you like to take it?”

“Absolutely not,” Bayern said at once, and for the first time that evening, he looked genuinely appalled.

Ketal laughed and seemed pleased to have predicted the answer.