Chapter 54
A few days after the small commotion between Heter and me.
At last, a letter arrived from Egmund saying that preparations were complete and asking us to come.
“Great.”
As they say, strike while the iron is hot, so the moment the letter arrived, Heter, Ruby, and I began preparing to leave for the capital.
Unlike traveling within the North, the capital was nearly a fifteen-day journey one way.
So we needed to prepare more thoroughly than usual.
“My lady! Where did you put the summer clothes?”
“Why are you asking me that? They’re probably wrapped in cloth in the wardrobe my parents used.”
“My lady, will this much water and food be enough?”
“Yes, Sir Gold. But just in case, please prepare a little more.”
“Yes.”
“S-Sir Heter! I polished your sword and armor, but….”
“Hmm, they look fine. Thank you for your hard work.”
Only after frantically finishing our preparations could we finally board the golem bound for the capital.
And so, on the way to the capital.
“Wow, my lady. This is the first time I’ve seen so many trees and this much grass.”
“I know.”
The sight of the landscape, which had been white and desolate with each passing day, gradually turning green was astonishing even to me.
“Hmm? Haven’t you been to the capital before, my lady?”
“It was still winter then. It had snowed quite a bit in the capital, too.”
“Ah.”
For that reason, going to the capital felt less like going there for work and more like taking an outing.
Of course, there were times when magical beasts attacked us along the way.
“Ugh… The smell of blood.”
“Are you all right, my lady?”
“Of course.”
With Heter and Ruby around, worrying about magical beasts would have been utterly pointless.
Thus, two weeks after leaving Fortune.
Clatter.
“Hmm?”
Heter suddenly brought the golem to a stop.
“Another magical beast? I’ll go, Alice.”
“Wait a moment, Ruby.”
“?”
I sighed and stopped Ruby, who was drawing her dagger and trying to leave the carriage.
The fact that it had been two weeks since we left Fortune meant that we were now closer to the capital.
As the emperor’s residence, the capital and its surroundings were heavily guarded, and with so many people coming and going, magical beasts were practically nonexistent.
Even the few magical beasts that remained probably knew better than to touch a carriage.
Besides, if a magical beast had appeared, Heter would have called Ruby immediately.
The fact that he was silent, as he was now, meant he had found something other than a magical beast. For example—
My lady.”
Someone, perhaps.
“There’s a person collapsed up ahead.”
‘Just as I thought.’
Finding someone collapsed while traveling in a carriage?
A tired old cliché.
I wanted to ignore them and go straight to the capital, but I couldn’t do that.
What if they really did need help?
“Ruby. Go check what condition they’re in.”
“Hmm? Me?”
I nodded as I watched Ruby point at herself.
“All right.”
Ruby tilted her head slightly and left the carriage.
I sent Ruby because she was less likely to put the other party on guard than Heter.
If they took Ruby hostage or something, today would be that bastard’s dying day.
Fortunately, nothing like that happened.
Ruby returned to the carriage before long.
“My lady! Over there!”
But… did she seem a little excited?
“What’s wrong, Ruby? Calm down a little and tell me.”
“Well… the person collapsed over there is from the Eastern Continent!”
“…The Eastern Continent?”
“Yes!”
So, someone from the Eastern Continent had collapsed near the capital.
“Heter.”
“Yes. I’ll get the golem moving right away.”
“Huh?”
“Ah, don’t be so heartless. Couldn’t you help me a little?”
“!”
The moment we heard the unfamiliar voice, Heter drew his sword and Ruby her dagger.
“Whoops!”
Soon, an unfamiliar man backed away with both hands raised.
“Who are you?”
“My hearing is rather keen, you see. I overheard you and realized that, if I didn’t say something, you were going to leave me behind, so I squeezed out every last bit of strength I had and got up.”
The Eastern-looking man, dressed in an ink-black robe and a gat, pulled a small pouch from his sleeve.
“As you can see, I have money. Couldn’t you help me a little?”
“….”
Showing us his money only made him more suspicious.
As I said before, this was near the capital, where there were many soldiers passing by.
Yet not only was a man from the Eastern Continent collapsed here, but his clothes and money pouch were also perfectly fine?
That meant he hadn’t been robbed.
And then there was the movement he had just made.
‘Even Heter hadn’t seemed to notice him.’
If he was the Heter I knew, he would have noticed the man before he approached.
In other words, this man was either quite strong or possessed some special ability.
‘Someone like that is asking for help with the capital right in front of him?’
No matter how I thought about it, he was suspicious.
It would be best not to get involved with someone like him.
“I’ll give you some food. So step back for now.”
“Haha, judging by the direction you’re traveling, it seems you’re on your way to the capital. Could you show me a little more mercy and give me a ride all the way to the capital?”
“Hah.”
When I raised my hand, Heter took up a ready stance.
“I don’t know what you’re thinking, but you’d be better off just taking the food and leaving quietly.”
“Urgh….”
The man pulled out a folding fan from somewhere and unfolded it with a troubled grunt.
“….”
The one who broke that hair-trigger tension was none other than—
“My lady! Someone’s asking for help. Isn’t that a little harsh?”
“Ruby?”
“There’s room in the carriage anyway, and we’re going in the same direction!”
I wondered why she was suddenly acting this way, but I soon heard her true motive.
“And he came from the Eastern Continent. Couldn’t we hear something about hot springs from him?”
“Ruby. You just want to hear what the Eastern Continent is like, don’t you?”
“….”
Ruby averted her eyes like a puppy that had done something wrong.
Under ordinary circumstances, I might have granted her request, but this time it was out of the question.
“That man is too dangerous. What if he rides in the carriage with us and does something?”
“Ah, don’t worry about that!”
Ruby beamed and pointed her dagger at the man.
“I’ll sit right beside him, and the moment he tries anything funny, I’ll slit his throat!”
“…Did I hear that wrong?”
“No! You heard me perfectly. Why do you ask? Could it be….”
Ruby stared at the man with unfocused eyes.
“Were you planning to do something?”
“Of course not. As someone getting a ride in your carriage, I would never think of such a thing.”
The man shook his head violently from side to side. He shook it so hard that it was almost possible to see afterimages.
“See? Let’s take him, my lady. Please?”
“Sigh….”
In the end, I raised the white flag after seeing Ruby throw a tantrum like a child begging to bring home a puppy.
“But you’re responsible for him. If he does anything, you have to stop him, all right?”
“Yes!”
“Haha, I feel as though I’ve become some kind of puppy.”
***
“Haha, thank you so much. If it weren’t for you, I would have starved to death right there.”
‘What a lie.’
Once the golem started moving, the man climbed into the carriage and thanked us while eating our provisions.
“By the way, are you really from the Eastern Continent?”
“I am. My given name is Mugae, and my surname is A.”
Ah, so his full name was Amugae, then?
Is this bastard messing with me? How could he come up with an alias even more half-assed than Heter’s?
“Then should we call you A?”
“Rather, please just call me Amugae. Where I come from, we put the surname and given name together like this.”
“Oh, I understand, Mr. Amugae!”
“…So what brings someone from the Eastern Continent to the capital?”
While Ruby continued to believe that Amugae was his real name, I asked why he was going to the capital.
“I was on my way to meet someone in the capital, but I ran out of food along the way.”
“Oh, is that so?”
That wasn’t particularly suspicious.
Unlike the southern barbarians, the people of the Eastern Continent had maintained steady exchanges with us since ancient times, as the original novel had also mentioned.
However—
“But that’s strange. Isn’t there a route from the east that leads straight to the capital?”
We had come straight down from the north.
Therefore, this was north of the capital.
No matter how bad someone was with directions, could they really get this lost?
“Before going to the capital, I wandered around to see what the West was like… Haha, it’s embarrassing.”
“….”
He was suspicious to an absurd degree, but I had no concrete evidence.
‘Well, they’ll verify his identity when we reach the checkpoint.’
If he did anything suspicious, we could subdue him then.
“By the way, I read in a book that people from the Eastern Continent can use a special martial art called mu-gong, wear a hat called a gat, and carry black masks to hide themselves in darkness. Is that true?”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“Hahaha.”
Amugae laughed awkwardly at Ruby’s enthusiastic questions.
“None of that is exactly wrong, but you’ve mixed several different things together.”
“Hmm? Mixed them together?”
“You all live in the same empire, but people from the capital, the east, and the North don’t all behave the same way, do they?”
“That’s true, isn’t it?”
“It’s the same for us. As you said, some people have learned mu-gong, some might carry masks, and some, like me, might wear a gat.”
“Wow….”
Perhaps because she had always stayed in Fortune, Ruby seemed to especially enjoy seeing or hearing what the outside world was like.
“Could you tell us about something else, too?”
“Of course.”
After that, Amugae eagerly explained the Eastern Continent to Ruby.
He told her things like how they were developing hot springs and how they laid quilts on the floor to sleep instead of using beds….
‘Hmm?’
As I listened to Amugae, I felt that he had left out one particular detail.
“Why did you leave out Pungmulnori, the secret organization that wears smiling masks?”
“…What?”
Pungmulnori, the Eastern Continent’s secret organization that wore yangban masks.
As befitted a Korean web novel, it was a setting that showcased Korean characteristics, so I still remembered it clearly.
It also happened to be the organization I liked most in the novel.
‘How could I resist a secret organization wearing traditional masks?’
But when Amugae heard that, he opened his eyes, which he had kept closed until then, and looked at me.
“How… do you know about that?”
“Hmm?”
It was a famous secret organization, after all… Ah.
Right, it was a secret organization.
A secret organization that someone like me, who had never once visited the Eastern Continent, shouldn’t have known about!
“May I ask where you heard of it?”
“Ah, well….”
This… it seems I may have made a pretty big mistake.