Chapter 122

"The horses disappeared? Not just one, but all of them?"

There were two horses they had ridden.

One was a horse with ordinary gray fur, the other was his horse from another realm, Sleipnir.

Let's say the ordinary horse was one thing.

But for Sleigh to have disappeared? That couldn't be possible.

"I'll look for Sleigh. Whatever happened to the other one, Sleigh wouldn't have just run away."

"B-but we don't e-even know w-where they went."

"I'll find him, sis. I can find him."

Leandros nodded, stopping Amelia who was trying to dissuade him.

"Young master, please don't go far and come back quickly. If thieves stole the horses, it could be dangerous."

Leandros knew that Sleigh could hide in shadows.

But the fact that he was speaking this way indicated that he too thought the situation was strange.

Jen, flustered, asked.

"Since this happened at my aunt's inn, I should go with you and..."

"No, I'll go alone. I just have a hunch."

He brushed Jen off and ran immediately.

He needed to find a place away from people's eyes.

Where, where should he go?

As he moved away from the village center toward the outskirts, buildings began to appear sparsely and then disappeared.

He ran until he reached ground where weeds and wildflowers grew chaotically, emerging from between laid stones,

Then, catching his breath, he took out the horn from inside his shirt and put it to his lips.

-Whoosh.

A sound like air escaping was heard.

He looked around.

Though it was midday, there were plenty of shadows.

But Sleipnir did not come.

-Whoosh.

The horn again made a broken wind sound.

The shadow of the tree shade he was staring at neither coalesced nor took the form of a living being.

He blew the horn again and again.

This was the spell to summon a horse from another world that the Duchess of Hartmann had possessed.

But that spell had become a forgotten incantation, transformed into the sound of wind,

And now he had no means to summon the horse other than the horn.

"Sleigh."

The horse from another world had disappeared.

He hadn't even been aware that Sleipnir had vanished.

"Sleigh, Sleipnir!"

Someone had seized his horse.

Realizing this fact, he returned to the inn.

At the inn, they repeatedly apologized and offered compensation equivalent to the value of two horses.

The innkeeper explained with a very apologetic face.

"Livestock sometimes disappears like this. It might be wild beasts coming down at night and carrying them off. I'm truly sorry. It's our inn's responsibility for neglecting proper management."

An ordinary wild beast came down and carried off a horse?

Surely there would have been a commotion,

And Sleigh wouldn't have just passively allowed it to happen.

But they hadn't heard any sound.

Even Leandros had replied that he hadn't sensed anyone's presence other than those working at the inn.

Amelia, faithfully playing her role as "cousin sister," had her arm around his shoulder.

To anyone watching, he would appear to be a young man filled with dejection after losing a cherished horse.

But inside, anger was boiling.

"This isn't a matter that can be resolved with compensation. We need to leave the village, and you expect us to walk on two feet? It would be proper to provide spare horses if you have them."

"But Sir Mercenary, as I mentioned earlier, our village has no horses. Really."

"Is it plausible that there's not even a single horse?"

"If you doubt it, ask everyone else! People without even cows or pigs are more common!"

"So, you're saying we should just take the money and go?"

"Our village doesn't receive many travelers to begin with. We can procure horses from the neighboring village for you. But it will take some time."

Leandros, who had been discussing the matter of horses with the innkeeper, returned to him and Amelia who were standing a bit further back.

"Miss, young master."

"I heard it all. You don't need to explain it again. ...Wild beasts, they say."

"Young master."

"My horse isn't such a worthless animal that it would be carried off by some mere wild beast. Someone is clearly lying."

He didn't yet know who it was.

But he would find out.

"It's somewhat true that the village has no horses or livestock. When I went around the village with Jen earlier, I didn't smell the distinctive foul odor of animal pens. Even though there were farmlands right next door."

"Th-that's right. Then p-perhaps they're kept s-somewhere separate."

"Livestock is private property, why would they gather them in one place? The way baronial or ducal families handle animals is different from how people handle farm animals."

"B-but they s-surely don't c-cultivate fields w-with bare hands."

"That's what's strange."

No horses, no chickens, no pigs, no cows.

The village was lively, but there were no crowing of roosters announcing the morning, nor the sight of donkeys or oxen pulling carts.

Why was that?

Was this what the refreshing and pleasant air had meant?

Amelia patted his shoulder.

"L-let's first c-calm down and th-think about what to d-do next. I'll a-also ask o-others about the h-horses."

"...Okay."

Was this how Yurik felt when the horn was taken from him?

He lowered his eyes while fingering the black horn hanging at his chest.

They spent the whole day going around the village, asking if anyone had seen escaping horses or if there were any witnesses at night, but to no avail.

They all uniformly answered that they knew nothing.

In the end, they had to return to the inn as the sun was setting.

And the next day.

From early morning, someone was banging on the door of the room where he and Leandros were sleeping.

When Leandros opened the door, frowning deeply,

Jen, standing in front of it with a bewildered face, urgently called out.

"Young master, Sir Mercenary, the horse has been found! But, well."

The horse had been found?

At those words, his eyes, half dozing, snapped open.

Jen, looking over Leandros's shoulder at him as he was getting up from bed, hesitated and then said.

"The horse was found dead. Next to the village well."

* * *

It was the gray horse.

Drenched in blood, it had turned a dull brown, but amidst that, the dirty gray fur was still recognizable.

The first witness was a man who came to draw the first water at dawn.

It was usually his wife's task, but that day his wife's back was hurting, so he had come instead, he testified.

"The sun was just about to rise, so I thought I should hurry. But there was something by the well. At first, I wondered what it was, but as I approached closer. The horse was lying there, dead in such a horrible way!"

The horse that had carried Amelia here no longer had legs.

No, not just the legs.

The horse was hollow inside.

As if some grotesque worm had eaten away its insides, only the outer shell remained.

Seeing this, he was reminded of the transparent pupa that the Northern Margrave had torn and emerged from in his previous life.

"H-how, how c-could it be s-so cruel."

"It would be better for the Lady not to see any more. Let's go back."

Leandros, who was supporting Amelia, looked at him.

"Young master."

"What about Sleigh?"

"He hasn't been found yet."

"This isn't the work of beasts."

A demonic beast.

It had to be at least of demonic beast caliber.

Only that could explain this bizarre, grotesque, and utterly disgusting act.

Leandros was silent for a moment before agreeing.

"That's right. But for now, there's no evidence. If you go back, I'll try to investigate among the villagers."

"...Right now, moving my sister is the priority. I'd be grateful if you could do that."

Leaving the strange corpse behind, he followed Leandros.

All while unaware that one persistent gaze was following behind.

Amelia was not as serious as they had worried.

But she still needed to rest.

After all, frequent exposure to such sights was equally damaging to one's mental strength.

Leandros laid her down in the room and immediately left the inn,

While he lingered around the stable behind the inn, thinking of the many reasons why Sleipnir might not have returned.

As if to prove that the innkeeper's claim that "there are no horses" was not a lie, the stable was completely empty.

Despite saying that not many travelers visited, the stable they had built was surprisingly large.

While he was looking around to see if there might be any clues,

Someone suddenly appeared behind him.

"What are you doing here, guest?"

"Aaah! What the!"

"Ah, it's the young master. Sorry, sorry. Did I startle you by suddenly speaking? People don't usually come to the stable."

Jen, holding a bucket, spoke cheerfully as he entered the stable.

He began to sweep the dirty floor with a broom, using water he had collected in the bucket.

"Are you here to clean?"

"Well, dust will keep accumulating if it's left like this. We need to clean it frequently. Though this might be an area young master doesn't need to worry about."

Indeed, he had never paid attention to it.

At the castle, the employees took care of cleaning on their own.

As he was watching the cleaning, Jen spoke up first again.

"About the horse incident... I'm really sorry. I feel regretful, but I didn't know how to say it."

"You know that it makes me more angry when you express regret, right?"

"That's why I was wondering whether to say anything or not. But if I don't say anything, it seems like I'm truly evading responsibility."

He clamped his mouth shut without further reply.

In truth, he didn't want to see anyone related to the inn, including Jen.

Because it was their responsibility, both for neglecting stable management,

And for not caring whether someone stole or carried off the horses.

Of course, the inn probably didn't have such intentions,

But that didn't make his anger disappear.

Let's just go back.

What good would come from saying anything here other than venting personal anger?

As he was about to remove his hand from the stable pillar and turn around,

Jen, who hadn't been looking at him, added.

"So I've been really troubled about this too. The disappearance of the horses might be related to why the village doesn't raise livestock. I was afraid that telling you would only make you feel worse."

The reason they didn't raise livestock.

The point Amelia had questioned.

"There's a specific reason why you don't raise livestock?"

"Yes. It's actually like an old-fashioned legend that's been passed down in the village."

Thump, thump,

Jen shook off the wet broom and poured all the remaining water in the bucket onto the floor.

A legend.

The legend of the eastern wasteland, the oral tales of the north.

Was he going to talk about those?

Jen finally turned his head toward him.

His face was more serious than ever before.

"They say that a witch's curse remains in our village, killing people's livestock."