NOVEL NEXT chapter 34
34 – Mother of the Old Church
“Eat.”
“Thank you…?”
I sat in front of the poor kid with the grilled skewers I bought from a street vendor in front of me.
The little boy carefully looked at Rossweisse and I, and then put his hand on the grilled skewers.
And after a while, he started to eat the grilled skewers in a panic.
“Hey, eat slowly. Are you feeling sick?”
“S-sorry!?”
No, why did you apologize to me for that?
Anyway, the little boy looked like he had starved for a few days, so I fed him some food first.
…Even if you buy it for me, I can’t let this young guy get into theft already.
Still, if you think about it, he’s a great kid.
What kind of pickpocket in the world would touch a warrior’s wallet?
And it is succeeding.
The poor boy ate all the skewered meat, made him drink water, and then looked at him.
After eating all the food, the kid started to notice that the tension had risen again.
“What’s your name?”
“Yes?”
“I mean your name. There shouldn’t be a name at all.”
“Ah…Yes! It’s Rudy…”
Seeing the visibly embarrassed kid in front of her, she felt uneasy inside.
Why are you so scared?
I bought him some food and just asked his name.
“Okay, Rudy. I’m Hans, and over here…”
“This is my wife, Rossweisse~”
Is that still going on?
She passed Ross Weisse’s picture through one ear and looked towards Rudy.
She still had her eyes down, looking at her.
Well, I got caught pickpocketing, but they even bought me food, so I don’t know how to react.
“…Do you need money?”
“Uh…Uh…Yeah…”
To be honest.
But, I roughly understood why this guy needed money.
The profile that appeared before her eyes showed the answer.
Name: Rudy
Age: 12 years old
Class: None
A child living in a slum in Nevan City.
He is the leader of orphans in the slums and has made a living by helping with odd jobs.
Recently, their adoptive mother, who was taking care of them, collapsed and they are raising money for treatment.
…Well, this must be the reason.
He certainly had great pickpocketing skills, but the look on his face after stealing showed a sense of guilt.
It definitely didn’t look like the face of a guy who was a habitual pickpocket.
So I wondered if there was something going on.
“…Are you okay?”
Did he realize that I was trying to intervene?
Rosweisse looked at me and said worriedly.
Certainly, it might be better to quickly go to the republic rather than get involved in a place like this.
Furthermore, even if I help them, Nevan City will eventually be attacked by the Demon King’s army.
Even if I help them now, it would ultimately be nothing more than hypocrisy.
Even so.
“…I found out the situation, but I can’t just leave it there.”
I’m not interfering in other people’s business out of idle curiosity.
Because you may find out useless facts and continue to feel uncomfortable.
Thinking about it again, I looked at Rudy.
“Rudy.”
“Yes…”
“Let your mother guide you.”
“Yes?!”
Rudy is surprised.
The guy started answering in gibberish with a puzzled expression.
“I…I’m…I’m really sorry for trying to steal…I…I mean, that’s…Your mother…So…”
“No…It’s not that.”
I said something wrong.
It became like asking a misbehaving child to bring his parents.
A slum in the corner of the city of Nevan.
Unlike other places where it is clean and the buildings are relatively new, the musty smell from the old buildings irritates your nose.
While walking there, Rudy spoke in a quiet voice.
“Um…Um…Please keep it a secret that your mother is sick.”
“Huh? What’s going on?”
“No, that’s because I don’t know what the slum men will do if they find out that my mother is sick…”
“…What is that? Did you do something to protect your enemy?”
“Ah…That’s…”
Rudy mumbles, unable to answer properly.
Although he was nervous, once he intervened, he did not pursue further in order to quickly solve the problem and return.
Following Rudy as he passed through the slums seemingly familiarly, we arrived at a church.
It is an old church that is so worn out that it is broken here and there… No, it might be right to call it a ruin.
Still, there were signs of clumsy repairs in every corner, so it didn’t seem like anyone would be able to break in unless they forcibly broke down a wall or door.
Rudy walked up to the door and knocked on the bottom.
After a while, a small voice came from the door.
“…Who are you?”
“Aroma? It’s me, Rudy.”
“Rudy…? Open the door now…”
After a while, a clicking sound was heard and the door slowly opened.
What came out of there was a small child who looked even younger than Rudy.
The kid opened the door, looked at me and Ross Weisse, and looked scared.
“Who…Who are you?”
“Aroma, it’s okay. These are the people I brought with me.”
While Rudy was comforting the scared child, children came rushing in with the sound of pounding footsteps.
Seven young children, including Rudy and Arma here.
I entered the church, locked the door, and glanced at the children who were looking at me with eyes filled with curiosity.
Unlike Rudy, he didn’t seem to be as hungry as Rudy, even if he had eaten.
…Because he was the oldest, he seemed to have eaten as much as the children without starving.
“Rosweisse, would you mind looking after the children here for a moment?”
“Huh? Yes…I understand.”
I left the children with Rossweisse and followed Rudy into the church.
.
In what was originally a chapel, the chairs where believers used to sit for worship had been roughly removed.
And, the stone statue of the goddess Erdiya, which I have seen several times recently.
At the end of the old chapel, which was broken here and there, a stone statue of the goddess stood proudly.
“…We take care of the goddess’ stone statue every day.”
“Were you a follower of the goddess?”
“No, but even if it was an abandoned church, it became a place for us to live, so we shouldn’t forget our gratitude, my mother said…”
Indeed.
But if you look around again, it is a really old church.
There are traces of several renovations and expansions.
It was probably used and renovated for such a long time that they eventually built a new church and moved it.
“Hans, that’s the room. My mother is sleeping in that room.”
“Yes.”
This is probably the room used by the bishop of the church.
When I entered the largest room, I noticed a cleanly cleaned bed.
And then there’s the woman losing her consciousness on the bed.
Indeed, I found out why Rudy wanted her mother’s neighbors to not know that she was sick.
She said she was my adoptive mother, so I thought she was an older woman.
“Do you know anything about the symptoms?”
“No, one day he suddenly collapsed…And hasn’t opened his eyes since.”
The woman lying on the bed was a red-haired beauty who appeared to be in her early 20s.
Madeleine, a commercial city in the eastern part of the empire.
It is a commercial city adjacent to Harbilitz, and it is no exaggeration to say that all marine products coming from Harbilitz are supplied to the mainland through Madeleine.
At the same time, Madeleine was able to succeed as a city for merchants because it also served as a transportation network to various cities within the empire.
However, the present of Madeleine, which can be said to be such a commercial mecca, is a little different.
The market, where you could always hear the voices of merchants soliciting customers, bargaining, and the busy footsteps of customers, had a chilly air.
Recently, there has been a decrease in the number of merchants coming in and out due to a large-scale crackdown on merchants.
But the biggest reason was none other than Harbilitz.
Harbilitz, a city occupied by demons.
Madeleine is a city adjacent to Harbilitz.
Not only that, as I mentioned before, the city of Madeleine also serves as a transportation network to various cities within the empire.
If the demons were aiming to subdue the empire, it was obvious that their next target would be Madeleine.
It was a fact that the nobles of the empire and even Prince Freud were aware of.
Therefore, the imperial army deployed a large number of soldiers to Madeleine.
With soldiers deployed as national guardsmen and the atmosphere of war looming, citizens hid indoors and held their breath.
The soldiers were preparing for the invasion of the demons by building a defense line and digging a moat.
One of the soldiers, a soldier named Glenn, was stationed on the castle wall.
His only role is to frequently look into the distance from the castle wall and report any unusual occurrences.
But it was only in the beginning that he came to work feeling nervous.
Three days after starting this shift…The tension was slowly dissipating.
“…Nothing’s wrong today too.”
I heard that Harbilitz was occupied by demons.
In fact, the reconnaissance unit went to Harbilitz and confirmed that monsters were standing guard in front of the castle gate.
So, we were on high alert, but as the situation has continued for several days, we have no choice but to relax.
“Hey, Glenn. It’s shift time.”
“Oh, Marco.”
Marco, a fellow soldier.
When he came up to the wall to change hands, he held out a bottle of water to Glenn.
The water bottle contained alcohol with a strong alcoholic smell.
“Hey, don’t drink while working…”
“Hey, I can’t even get drunk this much.”
Glen glared at Marco, who was laughing heartily, and accepted the water bottle with a bitter smile.
“By the way, Marco, you said you had experience fighting demons, right?”
“…Well, I was assigned to the front line…There were a few times.”
“Are they strong? The demons.”
At Glenn’s words, Marco nodded his head with a firm expression.
“It varies from demon to demon, but it is several to ten times stronger than an average adult male.”
“…It’s scary, to be against such monsters.”
“It’s a typical demon story, and when the Four Heavenly Kings become one, they’ll be able to take on hundreds of us by themselves, right? I saw it myself.”
Saying that, Marco looked into the distance.
“Big Bull, the Four Heavenly Kings of Demons. I only saw it from afar, but it was truly a terrifying fight.”
“Was it that strong?”
“Of course, every time he swung the ax once, dozens of soldiers fell.”
Marco personally saw the fight between the Four Heavenly Kings Big Bull and the warrior party.
No, I only saw it from a distance rather than in person, but even so, I was able to fully feel the overwhelming power of the being called the Four Heavenly Kings.
And, at the same time, the strength of the existence of a hero.
“Ha…If only the hero was alive.”
“You said you lost your life in a fight with the devil, right?”
“Yeah…Well, that’s what I heard…”
With a slightly drunk and flushed face, Marco leaned out of the castle wall and looked at the floor.
The view of the floor from the high castle wall was very dizzying.
“Honestly, I don’t understand that such a strong warrior died in vain like that.”
“You’re a hero…What kind of hero is…Huh?”
Glenn wanted to ask Marco’s story about the hero.
His expression suddenly became stiff.
Marco looked at Glenn, who was interrupted mid-speech, and asked with a puzzled look on his face.
“Hey, Glenn. What’s wrong?”
“Look…Look over there, Marco…”
Direction pointed by Glenn.
Marco turned his head in that direction and his mouth slowly opened.
“Demon… It’s a demon army…”
“Oh my god…How many people are there?”
Clearly, according to prior information, it was a mixed group of demons and monsters whose number was close to a thousand.
However, the army that appeared over the horizon already boasted a number and majesty exceeding a thousand.