Chapter 39

Chapter 39. The Soaring Firebird (2)

Several hours later, the Firebird Hunter and I headed toward the temple in the eastern part of the city together with Juan.

Unlike the temple in the marquess’s city, the temple in the duke’s territory was beautiful, but otherwise ordinary.

Inside the temple, as always, there were worshippers and priests, and because of my position as the duke’s son, I was able to meet with one of the priests.

He was not the same priest who had come running to heal my illness when I was young, but the priest serving at this temple also looked like a capable one in his own right.

He welcomed me warmly. Fortunately, perhaps because he was a man of faith, he did not openly display contempt toward an illegitimate son.

Leaving Juan in the chapel, the mercenary and I headed into an inner room with the priest.

"What brings you here, Young Master?"

I handed him a stack of papers.

They were the contracts the Firebird Hunter and I had been drafting all this time.

"We came to have them notarized."

The priest, after accepting the stack of contracts, looked over the bundle with a weary expression.

"Are these all contracts?"

"Yes."

At my answer, the Firebird Hunter shook her head helplessly.

She was probably remembering the hours she had spent filling out the contents of the contracts with me.

They were contracts I had written as carefully as possible, drawing on the experience of my previous life.

"There is no problem with notarizing them, but contracts written this thoroughly are quite rare...."

Contrary to the priest’s words, they were not particularly special contracts.

They only contained the essentials: a ban on harming one another during the term of the contract, the division of any profit gained, and the prevention of leaking information.

Moreover, they did not contain anything about legal remedies or compensation in the event of a breach.

Unlike my previous life, there were no courts or prosecutors in this world to deal with contract violations.

Well, within a territory the lord did handle things somewhat similarly, but unlike the subjects of a territory, mercenaries could simply leave its borders and be done with it.

On top of that, no matter what, I was still the lord’s son and a noble, so even if I broke the contract, it would not be easy for her to protest.

But this world had its own way of making people honor contracts.

A priest’s notarization.

According to what the priests said, notarization meant that the god watched over the fulfillment of the contract, but to me it looked more like a kind of mana usage or inherited ability (though naturally I could never say such a thing to a priest).

In any case, contracts in this world took effect through a priest’s notarization.

So long as the contract was faithfully observed, there was no problem at all, but if it was broken, divine punishment would descend.

Well, divine punishment was not actually something all that grand.

"It comes with a tracking function, and priests can tell the next time you try to make a contract, right?"

"You know quite a lot."

The priest nodded at my words.

Unfortunately, the tracking function was nothing more than a simple directional tracker like a compass, and what the priest learned the next time was only whether the previous contract had been fulfilled, but even that was satisfactory enough.

Well, perhaps someone could kill the other party in secret and then simply never have another contract notarized, but criminals like that had been rather difficult to catch even in my previous life.

If I added a few other safeguards besides notarization, the chance of betrayal could at least be reduced to a minimum.

"Then, both of you, place your hands on the contracts."

The priest of the duke’s territory pointed to the contracts laid out on the altar.

She and I placed our hands atop the stack of contracts, and the young priest cut his palm with a small dagger, letting his blood drip onto the contracts.

The blood seeped into the contracts, and some of it smeared onto both her hand and mine.

Then he began to pray.

"This promise is a promise made in the name of god. Whoever breaks it, let his blood flow like a river...."

The words of the prayer, spoken with his eyes closed, were unexpectedly terrifying.

'Is this notarizing a contract or casting a curse?'

His words continued, and the blood on his hand began to glow faintly.

"...Thus, in the name of the god whose name may not be spoken, I bear witness to the contract between these two. Karat Brit."

He spread both hands and proclaimed it.

"If this promise is broken, then in the name of god your body shall be torn apart. In the name of the god whose name we do not know, I bear witness to the contract between these two. Karat Brit."

The moment his words ended, the contracts and the hands she and I had placed upon them glowed faintly.

I could feel an unfamiliar mana flowing in through my hand.

'Should I try pushing it out?'

Since it was weak mana, that thought did occur to me, but because I believed this mana was what would uphold the contract, I let it sink into my body.

The mana ran through me, then vanished somewhere.

The blood that had pooled on the contracts was gone, and the wound on the priest’s hand was healed as well.

"Is it finished?"

"Yes. The contract has been witnessed in the name of god."

"Surely I’m not going to die with blood pouring out everywhere just like in that prayer?"

I asked cautiously, since the actual effect seemed different from what the prayer described.

"Haha, nothing like that. Those are merely the inherited prayer words of a sage from the time of the Great War. There is a legend that the sage’s contract witness truly did produce effects similar to the contents of the prayer, but the actual effect today is exactly as commonly known. You needn’t worry."

I let out a sigh of relief inwardly. This world was the kind of place where unexpected things happened all the time, and I felt as though I was constantly finding new things to worry about.

"Thank you. Then, though it is only a modest sum, I would like to offer a donation of gratitude to the merciful god who has bestowed this grace."

I took a money pouch from my clothes and handed it to him.

It was only the fixed fee for notarization, but perhaps because this was a temple, even the method of handing it over was rather cumbersome.

The moment he received the pouch, his expression brightened.

Had I just delivered that line particularly well?

"Oh, you brought it yourself. That’s a relief. If I had to contact the estate separately and collect an offering, the whole process would become terribly troublesome."

So the reason for his delight was not my graceful words, but the fact that I had handed over cash on the spot.

As I gathered up the contracts and left the temple, he continued grumbling about nobles who did not bring the money themselves.

"This territory is not even the worst. In some other places, they try to settle it with promissory notes. Promissory notes for offerings to the temple.... If our god were not so merciful, there would be no end of people being struck down by divine punishment."

Perhaps because a priest’s status was not low, he went on slandering nobles in ways commoners could never dare until the moment we parted.

After meeting back up with Juan in the chapel and leaving the temple, the mercenary finally spoke.

It was the first time she had opened her mouth since stepping into the temple.

"Then let’s meet in front of the South Gate tomorrow morning."

Leaving only those words behind, she went off first, still wrapped up in her cloak.

"Hmm. Did I make the contract too oppressive?"

"I do not believe that is the case."

I shook my head at Juan’s answer. It was something I could simply ask her about tomorrow anyway.

What mattered more was tomorrow itself.

"What excuse am I supposed to use to get out tomorrow...."

Since I needed to come fully prepared, I felt as though I ought to have a proper excuse ready as well.

---

The next day.

Fortunately, I was able to leave the estate without needing any special excuse.

That was because people were extremely busy with the arrival of Adria, who was now only a few days away from becoming Simon’s fiancée.

It was a return visit in answer to Simon’s visit to the marquess’s house, and one meant to finalize the engagement.

'Was it delayed by a few more days than in my previous life?'

For all that, the date of the visit had not changed very much. I had thought that after all the things that had happened, the butterfly effect would be much greater, but surprisingly it was not.

Wait, Adria had arrived?

"Ah! Come to think of it, was it today?"

"What is special about today?"

When I suddenly spoke aloud, Juan, who was walking beside me, asked.

"Ah, no. It’s nothing."

I shook my head.

It was not something to tell him.

Once I counted it out, I realized that the day I died in my previous life was today.

The very day I went out with Adria to see the fortress, was chased by mercenaries, and lost my life.

In a few hours, it would be the exact time of my death.

The ones who killed me were all dead now, and there was no reason for me to die suddenly this time, so it seemed likely that I would finally get to see the message again after so long.

Four years was not a short time. Without a goal, it surely would have been unbearable.

And now, if only a few more hours passed, I would not have to repeat that long stretch of time ever again.

Juan and I walked steadily, and before long we reached the South Gate.

She was waiting there.

As always, she was wrapped in her cloak.

"So you’re here.... Are you really planning to keep carrying that thing around?"

She stopped waving and pointed at what I was holding.

In my hand was the sword wrapped round and round in cloth.

It was so large that, even today, I had to drag it along the ground as I brought it here.

Juan had offered to carry it for me, but I refused because I needed to grow accustomed to it in my own hands.

"Whatever sword it is, wouldn’t it be better to use one suited to your body? If you keep using a sword like that, you’ll only pick up strange habits."

She was right, but I simply could not bring myself to carry a sword suited to my body to the place where I had died.

A sword sized to my body was best for proper swordsmanship, but to other people, a sword suited to my frame was nothing more than a tiny blade for children.

Short reach, light weight, a toy-like little sword.

And worse, it was only a common mass-produced training sword, the kind that would snap clean in two after clashing a while with a properly forged blade.

I had already gone through that once, so I needed at least a sturdy sword that would not break.

'Well, if I had enough money, I could always commission a proper sword....'

But because my savings had been bleeding away merrily of late, both yesterday and before that, I no longer had much left.

"You look as though you prepared properly for everything else, yet you brought that sword of all things.... You really do seem smart, but in the oddest places you still show how much of a child you are."

She was right. I had prepared properly enough.

I was wearing leather armor, and Juan was also fully equipped.

"Well, there won’t be any fighting where we’re going, so even a sword like that shouldn’t matter."

After saying that much, she let out a sigh.

"What do mercenaries in this place even live on? There are no monsters, the public order is good, and in the end all they can do is trail merchant families around. Is it even possible to make a living here?"

"There are certainly many jobs escorting merchant families and nobles. And although ours is a safer territory than most, monsters do appear in the mountains and forests along the border. I’ve heard that the rewards are larger here than elsewhere, so even if the opportunities are fewer, it isn’t a bad arrangement."

At Juan’s answer, the Firebird Hunter rounded her lips.

"Oh, so the rewards paid by the territory are generous? Then your duke must be a good lord."

She praised the duke while looking at me, but I had no interest in such praise.

"Let’s go quickly. At this rate, we won’t be back before the day is over."

"Ah, right."

When I took the lead and started walking, she followed behind me with an embarrassed look.

The guards recognized Juan and let us pass out through the gate.

Then we began walking the very same road I had once passed along in a carriage several years ago, in my previous life.

It took us more than twice as long as it had by carriage, but eventually we reached a place from which the ruins could be seen in the distance.

After confirming that the ruins looked exactly the same as before, I turned my body in the opposite direction.

A great forest stretched some distance west of the ruins.

Ons Forest came into view.

There was no reason to take the same path as in my previous life.

Our destination was the abandoned graveyard. Entering through the exit would be much faster.

The female mercenary, Juan, and I began walking toward the graveyard’s exit—that is, the abandoned village with the empty well.