Crack!
Flames licked at the logs in the fireplace, bursting with a soft crack.
The man standing with his back turned slowly withdrew his gaze from the mural before him.
He turned around.
The dim yellow firelight finally illuminated his face.
He was a burly man nearly two meters tall. Beneath his gray-white hair, a pair of equally gray-white eyes lay deep in their sockets.
The gray-white stubble on his chin looked as though it had been frosted over. A ferocious scar slashed diagonally across his left cheek, from brow bone to jaw, like a centipede sprawled over pale skin.
He wore a close-fitting suit of silver leather armor. The fireplace flames danced across him, casting his shadow upon the wall like a white bear poised to strike.
—Gulp!
At the sight, Chatt unconsciously swallowed. He lowered his head even further, scarcely daring to meet the man's eyes.
"You mean..."
Ired spoke, his voice so low it seemed squeezed from his chest.
"That Elu, after being brutally tortured and starved for three days, then tied to a stake for burning with his hands and feet bound by hemp rope, killed Rock and four trained militiamen?"
His gray-white eyes fixed on Chatt before him, his gaze so dark it seemed ready to drip water.
He had personally selected all those carrying out the burning ritual.
Naturally, he knew exactly who the man Chatt spoke of was.
A malnourished little runt who had only just come of age.
He was so thin that a gust of wind seemed capable of knocking him over.
How could such a mud-legged peasant possibly kill Rock?
Though Rock was merely one of his dogs, utterly incomparable to himself,
he still possessed the strength of a Trainee Knight. Under normal circumstances, taking on three or four grown