Seeing that he understood, Hoarah Loux dropped the subject and returned to their earlier discussion, his voice returning to its normal volume. "Back to what we were saying. What do you think draws us 'barbarians' most to the Lands Between, this place where people fight to the death under the gods' scrutiny? Better hunting grounds? Warmer weather?"
Horace Loux remained silent. He knew those could not be the answer.
"It's the Elden Ring, Asei." An indescribable eagerness entered Hoarah Loux's voice, along with a deep resolve, as though he bore some burden.
"That thing can change the rules of the entire world! It can decide the fate of every living being! Don't you think that matters to us... or rather, to you?"
"...But I don't need..." Horace Loux struggled to speak.
"You do!" Hoarah Loux was unequivocal, his gaze as sharp as a blade.
"Because you have..." He paused, seemingly choosing his words. In the end, he lowered his voice further, until it was barely more than a breath.
"Those 'Great Runes Rituals' you tinker with... and those 'changes' in you that I don't understand, but that are definitely nothing ordinary..."
He stared into Horace Loux's eyes and silently mouthed, "Which god chose you?"
Horace Loux's pupils contracted slightly. His older brother actually thought he possessed special knowledge and abilities because some god had chosen him?
He neither admitted nor denied it.
At his reaction, Hoarah Loux seemed to receive some sort of confirmation. He sighed, both relieved and heavy-hearted. "All right. If you don't want to go into detail, don't. Whoever you were before, whatever your origins, right now, you're the little brother I, Hoarah Loux, raised with my own hands. That's enough. You might wonder why I forbade the spread of the Great Runes, but you don't understand... no god's gift comes without a price. Use that power less. Do you hear me?"
Then, without waiting for Hesa to respond, he looked away and turned back to the fire, a trace of recollection and confusion entering his voice. "I don't know exactly what you know... but when I 'picked up' Marika and brought her back to the tribe, your reaction was too strange. That wasn't how someone would treat a powerful shaman or a beautiful woman. You knew who she was, knew what she meant, and you were deeply wary and disapproving."
No kidding, Horace Loux thought. Who told you to casually pick up an Eternal Queen by the roadside, someone destined to stir up a storm and who might even screw you over in the future?
"I'm not as clever as you. My mind can't work through so many twists and turns." Hoarah Loux gave a self-deprecating smile.
"But I do know that the odds of 'picking up' a shaman who just happens to be an 'Empyrean' are lower than getting hit in the head by a falling star. She, and whatever might be behind her, are dangerous. So you can go. Take those who don't want to get involved and leave. Go to Liurnia and find your peace. But I have to stay."
His gaze grew firm again as he looked toward Marika's tent outside. "I understand that some 'high and mighty' beings have probably already set their sights on us. In that case, someone needs to stand where they're most visible and draw every eye and every attack. That person can only be me."
He paused. A rare trace of uncertainty entered his voice, but determination soon covered it. "Besides, Marika... I think she isn't necessarily our enemy. At least not now."
Horace Loux had nothing to say.
In a sense, his older brother's judgment was correct.
Marika herself might not be an enemy, and might even harbor goodwill, but the Golden Order, the Greater Will, and those future mad plans and upheavals entangled with her identity as the "Eternal Queen"... that was another matter.
"You'll set out first thing tomorrow morning." Hoarah Loux rose, his towering body casting an enormous shadow in the firelight, though the bright light around it soon dispersed that shadow.
"And after that..." He picked up the greataxe resting beside him, its blade reflecting the dancing firelight.
"Let the name 'Hoarah Loux' remain in the past. The one who exists in this world will be Godfrey 'the Golden.'"
His tone was calm, yet carried the resolve to sever his past.
Horace Loux rose as well, looking at the man before him, who was both his older brother and someone about to become the first lord, shouldering an entirely different fate.
A thousand words crowded his chest, but in the end, he could not utter a single one.
He knew this was his older brother's choice, and also his older brother's way of carving out room for his "special" little brother to develop in secret.
"Go." Hoarah Loux turned his back and stopped looking at him, merely waving a hand, his voice betraying no emotion.
Horace Loux took one last, long look at his older brother's back, then turned, lifted the tent flap, and slipped into the cold night outside.
There was no farewell.
Some things did not need to be said.
Some roads could only be walked separately.
At dawn, as the sky was just beginning to lighten, the westbound group quietly left the tribal camp.
There was no grand send-off, only subdued silence and hurried footsteps.
Hoarah Loux did not appear, nor did Marika.
Only a few tribal elders who knew the truth stood at the edge of the camp, watching this caravan bearing another part of the tribe's future and hopes disappear into the mist-shrouded west.
Horace Loux walked at the head of the group, the "sense of guidance" he had gained the previous night growing ever clearer within him.
It was neither a map nor a signpost, but more like an intuition, an unseen pull telling him which direction to take, where to turn, and even when to stop and wait.
They soon left the relatively familiar fringes of the Land of Shadow and entered a stretch of hills veiled in faint gray-white mist.
The mist was not thick, yet it strangely distorted their vision and sense of direction.
Without Horace Loux's guidance, the group could easily have become lost within it.
Relying on that "guidance," they traveled through the mist for a day.
Toward evening, a peculiar sight appeared ahead: the mist grew denser here, almost becoming a solid, milky-white wall. At one particular point in that "wall," the "sense of guidance" reached its peak, as though calling silently, "Right here. Go through."
Horace Loux took a deep breath and led the way toward the dense wall of mist.
Strangely, when he touched the mist, the seemingly thick wall parted to either side like flowing water, revealing a passage only wide enough for a few people to walk abreast.
"Follow me. Don't stop. Don't look back," Horace Loux ordered quietly, stepping into the passage first.
The group followed close behind. The instant they entered the passage, everyone felt a slight weightlessness and dizziness, as though the ground beneath their feet were flowing and the light and shadows around them were racing backward.
Their sense of time blurred. Perhaps only a few breaths passed, or perhaps a long time.
When that abnormal sensation vanished and the view before them suddenly opened up, they found themselves standing on an entirely different stretch of land.
Beneath their feet lay damp lakeside soil, and the air was filled with moisture and the fresh scent of plants.
Liurnia. They had arrived.
The entire migration had gone unbelievably smoothly.
They had encountered no battles, no one had become separated, and there had been no casualties. Even the time it took was astonishingly short-from leaving the tribe to setting foot on Liurnia's soil, it had taken only two days at most.
And most of those two days had been spent searching for the entrance in the mist and preparing for the crossing.
The actual "crossing" had been so brief that it seemed like nothing more than a dream.
Horace Loux stood by the lake, real, damp soil beneath his feet and the lake's distinctive scent in his nostrils. Yet he felt little joy at reaching their destination. Instead, a deeper bewilderment and a faint unease arose within him.
Why... hadn't the "feeling" that guided us to find and board the "Moon Boat" to reach this place disappeared or weakened after our arrival, as expected?
It was still there, like a fine yet tenacious thread wound deep within his soul, still stubbornly pointing... west?
No, more precisely, it pointed deeper into Liurnia's lake region, in a more specific direction.
Hadn't the Moon Boat already fulfilled its mission? Bringing us safely to Liurnia.
Why was this "fabricated" course of fate still exerting a pull?
Horace Loux gazed at the shimmering lake and the strange sights shrouded in the radiance of True Magic in the distance, his brow slowly furrowing.
Things did not seem so simple.
Perhaps this "fabricated" fate came with some unexpected "extras," or a "price"?
Five updates today, Liuli; seven tomorrow.
Before you continue