Chapter 5: Chapter 5

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Chapter 5

“Where have you been?”

The man asked her.

“The most recent one is the Xyle Plains.”

“Ah, that’s where the large-scale magic took place.”

“Do you know?”

“I do. It’s very famous, isn’t it?”

Isilis asked in surprise, and the man answered with a smile.

It was famous. It was the war in which she took part in and fired her second largest large-scale magic. Many people died at her small gestures, and it was also a war that showed the status of Larchen, the Magic Empire.

After that war, except for small local wars, major wars disappeared.

She was born with magic comparable to that of the previous Emperor, who was said to be the greatest in history. It was bothersome to show her strength, and she had been quiet all this time, but she was really angry in that war.

Seeing the pirates of the seas coming ashore and slaughtering her own people, it was the magic that made her angry to the end of her head. Isilis used the magic and lay ill for several days, though she did not regret it. It was because she had protected the people of the empire.

“You must have seen the Empress of Larchen.”

“There is no one who would not be in awe of her as a wizard.”

As Isilis replied casually, praising herself, the man laughed again at her words. Dark eyes gleamed with light.

“Are you a mercenary, too?”

“Wizard mercenaries are rare, but they are.”

“Then, you are not from Larchen?”

Most wizards were based in Larchen. However, since she introduced herself as a mercenary, she seemed to think she would not stay in the Larchen Empire.

“You’re asking too much.”

“…I’m sorry.”

The man agreed as soon as she gave a resolute warning that he had been asking too many deep questions to someone he had met for the first time.

“I did it because I was glad. It was not easy to meet comrades outside the battlefield.”

“Don’t you think we can have a drink because we met in a place other than the battlefield?”

“That is true. Although if we had met somewhere else, we might have been enemies.”

The man who was watching Isilis quietly sipping her glass of wine with darkened eyes whispered. There was a powerful resonance in the man’s voice, speaking in a small voice. That low sound reached Isilis as well and quietly wrapped her heart.

Perhaps, he was talking about the war, and from that moment on, Isilis seemed to have felt an affinity for the man.

There were very few ‘real men’ who survived the battlefield.

‘It’s even rarer for a man with that kind of power.’

He was not an easy person to meet. It might have been her luck that she came to Etort Port today. She got to meet such a person. Conversation with the man entertained Isilis. The man was a witty man. He was a person who could easily solve the heavy subject of war.

Isilis nodded her head as she occasionally heard the bartender, who had been listening by the side, put in his thoughts. It was a night when an unknown man approached her in an instant.

“You look tired.”

“Oh, is that so?”

At the man’s words, she emptied her wine glass.

She was tired. The distance from the Imperial Palace to here was considerable so she used magic to move to Etort Port, which reached the edge of the border. Because of that, she couldn’t help but be tired.

‘I thought I hid it well…’

She had no idea that anyone would recognize her tiredness. Although she wondered if her expression had loosened as she traveled, that wouldn’t be. She was the Empress. She was a person who had a hard time not showing her feelings outwardly.

But, there were still people who recognized her expression.

“It would be better to go early and rest.”

“It is up to me to decide.”

Cutting off the man’s words, Isilis raised her glass.

The man also raised his glass to her. After passing the last drink into his throat at once, he opened his mouth carefully.

“Would you like to change places and have another drink?”

“Good idea.”

“Then, let’s go.”

As the man stretched out his hand to her, he caught her hand. Isilis couldn’t resist a man reaching out his hand to escort her. The man who gazed at her, having a bewildered expression, smirked.

“Why?”

“No, no. Let’s go home and have a drink.”

“Do you have any good drinks?”

“At least, it’s better than the drinks here.”

Although the drink that bears her name was a fine drink, she found it difficult to satisfy her picky palate. Remembering the name of the bartender who offered to serve her alcohol, she walked away with the man.

The noisy harbor night greeted them.

“It’s noisy.”

“Isn’t it a place where people live? It’s rather good.”

The man answered Isilis with a smile.

“Is that so?”

“That’s right, right. You and I are saving their lives as we go from battle to battle.”

The man was right. It wasn’t that she didn’t think like that man while on the battlefield, but when she heard it in person, it felt like a part of her chest was tickled somehow. Perhaps, it was more because he was on the battlefield like her and had gone through a similar experience.

“Self-praise is bad.”

“Isn’t it the same with you?”

She didn’t hate the man who said that she and him were in the same position anyway, so there was no need to be humble. It felt comforting.

The man spoke again, clenching his blood-stained hands on the battlefield.

“If it weren’t for you and me, this place could have been burned.”

“You and I, one of us two could have invaded here.”

“I wouldn’t have done that.”

“Why?”

“I love this place.”

“This place?”

“To be exact, this port.”

“….”

She couldn’t say anything as the man’s gaze stared at her with somewhat dim eyes as he talked. Isilis waited for the man’s mouth to open again.

“This is a place with memories for me.”

“That’s right. I feel the same way, you as well?”

As she spoke while acknowledging the man’s words, he widened his eyes as if surprised.

“You and me. We are very similar.”

“How? I am different from a rugged man like you.”

Even though she knew what the man meant in a sense, she said it playfully. In fact, it was difficult to see the man’s appearance as ragged. It was a sharp-looking face. Seen from other places, he was so deceitful that he would be mistaken for a nobleman.

‘No, he must be a nobleman.’

The man reached out to her in the manner of a nobleman.

“How interesting.”

She rolled her eyes and talked a little more with the man, and as they walked, the accommodation appeared in front of her. She followed the man to the place in front of the man’s door.

“Let’s have a drink here.”

“Are you telling me to go into the stranger’s room now?”

“Even if you enter this room, I know you have enough power to leave this room.”

At his mention of her magical abilities, Isilis nodded her head. That was correct. The man could not force her.

‘I can throw a weapon and disappear.’

The thought of throwing one of her magical weapons and disappearing put her mind at ease. Following her man’s escort into the room, Isilis was greeted by a neat room.

“What do you prefer?”

“Wine would be nice. Red wine is better.”

She wished it was red wine, but she knew it was difficult to find red wine because this was a port city. Hearing her, the man raised the attractive corner of his lips and smiled.

“I lack magic, but you must have had clairvoyance. How do you know I have red wine?”

“Hmm?”

“You are lucky.”

The man rummaged through his luggage and pulled out a bottle of wine.

“You carry pretty good things.”

Isilis, who recognized the wine bottle, spoke so. It was a wine from the Brego region that could be said to be expensive. There was a separate line that was given to her because it was a drink that she enjoyed drinking.

“I accidentally saved someone and got it.”

“Saved someone…?”

“I saved a merchant from the soldiers of the Khalifa Empire.”

“The province of Brego is quite far from the Khalifa border, which is strange.”

“I thought so, too. He got lost on his way to Hillenton.”

“…Hillenton?”

She had doubts about the man’s words. It didn’t fit the logic. The province of Brego was also at the southern end of the empire. The wines produced there are sold in Hillenton at the northern end…?

It was Isilis who had no memory of stamping such documents as they should have an imperial permit if they were to trade across the country.

‘There is something.’

She was glad she got out.

A glass was placed in front of her, who was thinking of investigating immediately, and red wine fluttered in it. It was the red she loved. It was a color that symbolized the imperial family of the Larchen Empire and was also a color revered in the Empire.

The increase in the price of red wine also contributed to the fact that it was the wine she enjoyed, though the fact that it was the color of the Imperial Family was more significant. It was because this was the only red-colored wine she could drink.

Other red-colored alcoholic beverages were offered only to the imperial family, which the general public could not drink.

For that reason, red wine was loved by nobles and wealthy commoners.

“You’re very thoughtful about alcohol.”

“Do I…?”

Isilis smiled as she lifted the wine glass and took a sip of it. It felt good. If she could do something with this as an excuse to the nobility, she would be more than happy.

‘I can’t believe I’m happy with this? Me, of all the world…’

She had nothing to be happy about. When the position of the Emperor was once again overshadowed. When she came to think of it, she couldn’t remember the last time she smiled brightly.

“What are you thinking about?”

“I haven’t smiled lately?”

“If the Battle of the Xyle Plains was your last, there was not much to smile about during the rest of the time?”

“Leaving the battlefield doesn’t mean that those memories will disappear.”

“Well, me as well.”

“Where do your memories stop?”

The man thought for a moment as Isilis asked before replying to her.

“The Paragon region.”

“Isn’t that where Hillenton and the Khalifa Empire were recently joined?”

“Because you’re a mercenary, you’re family about the situation.”

“There’s no way I don’t know. Isn’t that the place where local warfare took place for almost a year?”

“That’s right.”

“Who won?”

She hadn’t heard the last report and came over here. She wondered Did Khalifa win…? If not, was it Hillenton?

“Hillenton.”

“I see.”

“That’s why I was able to come here.”

“Were you on the Hillenton side as a mercenary?”

“No. I was told that the local war was over, and I was able to come here.”

“It was on the Hillenton side.”

“You are quick-witted.”

If the man didn’t win, he couldn’t come back alive because he couldn’t save the mercenaries who had lost the battle in the Khalifa Empire.

“I’m glad you survived. Let’s make a toast.”

At Isilis’s words, the man also raised his glass. The man, who looked at her with a faint smile on, subconsciously opened his mouth.

“For your beauty.”

“That’s funny.”

She smiled brightly, wondering if she didn’t like the man’s almost reflexive words.

“No. It’s really beautiful.”

“I’m tired of hearing such compliments.”

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