TYMKM 05

Chapter 05

Salt Castle rose majestically into the sky.

Ivory-colored flags bearing white salt fluttered from the watchtowers that jutted their heads beyond the castle walls, while unfamiliar coats of arms lined the battlements below.

They were undoubtedly the marks of other noble powers who had come to visit the castle.

The banners came in every imaginable color—green, red, blue, ochre, and countless shades of fabric—each displaying the individuality of its respective house. Yet regardless of the design, the embroidered emblems were predominantly worked in gold and silver thread.

The army of colorful banners billowing magnificently in the wind added to the grandeur of the festival.

The moat surrounding Salt Castle was fed by seawater, flowing in a great circle before being contained around the fortress.

Everyone was trying to cross the drawbridge.

The people moved like schools of fish.

Lanram and Sera were swept along with the unstoppable crowd and passed through the castle gates.

Lanram happened to look up at the ceiling.

The lower edge of the portcullis glinted sharply above them.

She felt a chilling shudder, as though those enormous iron fangs might drop onto her head at any moment.

After several days of continuous festivities, the atmosphere inside the castle was hardly any different from that outside.

The place was crowded with people who had even brought their stalls inside and were hawking their wares.

Selling things without permission in unauthorized areas was usually enough to get someone dragged away, yet the attempts to sell even one more item never stopped.

The reason the peddlers were able to run so freely was that almost all of the castle’s guards had been assigned to protecting the distinguished guests.

Lanram paid no attention to any of it and went straight toward her destination.

Before long, she arrived at a place filled with deafening cheers.

The jousting tournament she had been longing to see was taking place in the courtyard before Salt Castle.

The match was already well underway, and the spectators were packed together.

All the good spots had already been taken.

“Aren’t we too late?”

“It’s probably better this way. All the riffraff must have been eliminated by now.”

A contest in which only the strong survived until a single final victor remained.

That ruthlessly unforgiving rule was precisely what made the tournament so appealing.

Just as Lanram struggled to see the field properly, a tremendous roar erupted from the stands.

Someone’s lance had broken.

Someone else’s had remained intact.

Since nobody had been unhorsed, the knight whose lance had broken was the one who gained the point.

“It’s two to two. It’s a tie. Now they have to decide who gets the final point.”

Someone nearby said it as though he were providing commentary to the person beside him.

Lanram was desperate to see the spectacle with her own eyes.

She kept peering around from her short height when Sera called her name and waved.

“Tichi! Over here, over here.”

At last, the two women found an empty corner and claimed a secluded spot.

A large tent blocked about half the view of the arena, but it was still far better than staring at the backs of other people’s heads.

Just then, the final lance shattered, bringing the previous match to an end.

A trumpet sounded, short and bold, announcing the beginning and end of the match.

I’ll watch the next match properly from beginning to end. I won’t miss a thing.

Lanram pressed herself against the wooden barrier that reached up to her chin and waited excitedly for the next match.

Then, from the far side of the arena, a knight appeared.

He was mounted on a chestnut horse wearing white tack, and he himself was clad in gleaming white enameled armor.

“Gading Knight, Xylas Acopf!”

Someone introduced him in a booming voice, and an enormous roar erupted from the stands.

It was somewhere between a scream and a cheer.

“Xylas! Xylas!”

“Eeeek, Xylas!”

The women’s voices were particularly loud and shrill.

The sight of the dazzling white knight approaching soon proved that their excitement was not misplaced.

“My goodness, Tichi…”

Sera covered her mouth and murmured.

“I think I understand now why you wanted to see this so badly.”

The knight removed his visor and waved to the crowd.

Sera’s entranced gaze was fixed on his face.

He seemed like the sort of man who enjoyed being watched.

Otherwise, there would have been no reason for him to endure walking all the way into the middle of the arena without putting his head covering back on.

The man certainly had a face worth looking at.

White skin.

White hair.

And a perfect smile that revealed gleaming white teeth.

His face was more dazzling and conspicuous than any ornament surrounding him.

“He’s far too beautiful to waste away as a monk. Perhaps that’s precisely why he had to be offered to the Goddess.”

Sera murmured regretfully.

Gading Knights were men belonging to the Moon Mother, revered by followers of the Jeom faith.

They were the Goddess’s warriors, tasked with protecting the peace of the daytime, when the moon had waned from sight.

Their brilliantly white armor symbolized both their sacred duty and their pure spirits.

Lanram found it rather strange.

The people of Bigland simultaneously harbored desire and envy toward beautiful men.

They worshiped them, yet feared them.

That was why there was a cultural practice of hastily sending a second or third son to a monastery if he was considered excessively beautiful.

It was also a way of preventing younger sons who were not the firstborn from taking an excessive share of the family wealth.

I wonder whose will made that seemingly noble man enter the clergy.

Lanram rested her chin on the barrier, wondering.

Then someone shoved her elbow and snapped at her.

“Don’t you dare steal glances at the sacred star with those filthy black eyes!”

That insolent heretic bitch…

The rest was muttered under her breath.

Lanram immediately snapped out of her thoughts and straightened.

An Endelian woman with sagging cheeks and a malicious expression was glaring at her.

Apparently, she had been so moved by the beautiful Gading Knight that she suddenly needed an outlet for her overflowing religious fervor.

Lanram’s mood instantly soured, but she did not show it.

She simply moved away.

“Come over here, Tichi.”

Sera noticed what had happened and pulled her toward the left.

“What was that? Why did she suddenly start picking a fight…?”

Lanram answered her concerned friend with nothing more than a shrug.

“At least my hair is still attached to my head today.”

Lanram truly was not bothered.

It happened far too often for her to take every incident personally.

She would rather pay attention to something else.

For example, the beautiful Gading Knight’s opponent.

The man leading the event shouted in his characteristic booming voice.

“And answering the challenge, the Iron Horse, Chyroeneia!”

At the same time, he raised the banner in his right hand high into the sky.

He was already holding a white flag in his left hand, while the newly raised banner was gray.

This time, the enormous cheer contained far more male voices.

Particularly loud shouts and applause erupted from inside the nearby tent.

“Go show that pretty boy what steel tastes like!”

“If that slick bastard beats him, I’m not letting him off!”

The man mounted on the horse was smacked on the backside.

“Ah, I know, I know…”

The young man awkwardly fumbled with the reins.

His name was Chyroeneia, and he was about to enter the match.

He was an eighteen-year-old novice knight who had only recently received his knighthood.

Unlike the other knights, Chyroeneia had no experience accompanying an army, and this was his first time participating in a jousting tournament.

Yet, unexpectedly, he had been performing remarkably well.

“He’s already made it to the quarterfinals. Captain, surely you have a few words of encouragement for him?”

The man who had slapped the young knight on the backside turned toward the inside of the tent.

A man sat in a place where deep shadows covered him.

He was a man who lived inside the pitch-black suit of iron he wore like a second skin, ignoring the sunlight and feeding instead on darkness.

Nix Feroa, the pockmarked man.

He was the Lord of Loudhill, the captain who led the Iron Horse Order, and, to someone else, simply the young master of House Feroa.

But whatever name one used to address him, there was no changing the fact that he was the lord and master of them all.

Encouragement?

The man looked indifferently at the world through his rigid visor.

Everything appeared to him as nothing more than a childish game of soldiers.

Yet he knew perfectly well that this seemingly frivolous event held special significance for a young knight like Chyroeneia.

Talented young knights could use jousting tournaments to make themselves known among the upper ranks of noble society.

For a talented man from a humble family, it was a perfectly reasonable way to seek advancement.

Thus, the prize awaiting the winner contained not merely wealth and fame, but also an opportunity to rise into the ruling class.

Young bachelors with promising futures were usually filled with anticipation before entering a match, crushed by nerves, or both.

Chyroeneia was closer to the latter.