I looked down a little, embarrassed. “Also, I... I’d like to make some friends... I guess.”
That was something I hadn’t been able to obtain in my previous world. A gang of friends like Mary and Gus had been to Blood. Those three had been my parents and teachers, but this was something they hadn’t been able to give me, something I needed to go out into the world and obtain for myself.
“Is Menel not a friend?” Tonio asked.
Put on the spot, I gave a single laugh while I thought of an answer. “I think we get along pretty well, but he won’t look at me as a friend, you know? And everyone else puts me on a pedestal, calling me ‘sir’ or ‘Father’ or something...” I couldn’t get used to that, and I felt uncomfortable being respected so much when I was so ignorant about so many things. If Menel said we were friends, I had a feeling it would make me pretty happy.
“Yeah,” I said. “Friends would be nice...”
Voicing it brought home the reality. I was saying I wanted friends because even at the age of fifteen (according to the solstice system), I didn’t have a single one. That was pretty darn bad, I had to admit. So much so that it was a little bit funny. People really don’t change much.
“I see.” Having heard my answer, Tonio smiled cheerfully. “Then perhaps I will put myself forward for the third place position.”
“Huh?”
“I fear incurring the wrath of Menel and Robina if I beat them to the punch.”
Seeing me tilt my head in confusion, Tonio laughed loudly and rose from the stump. The sun had risen without me noticing. “All right. Let’s collect some water and start preparing breakfast.”
Tonio was good at cooking. For breakfast, he made bread by mixing flour with water, kneading it into dough, winding it around a stick, then heating it over the campfire. It was simple, but eaten steaming hot with cheese, some lightly grilled bacon dripping with grease, and a little salt sprinkled on top, the result was delicious.
According to Bee, Tonio’s skill at cooking was the reason she was accompanying him. Apparently she was a halfling who really enjoyed eating.
As for me, I had learned how to cook, generally speaking, but the ingredients available to me in that city of the dead were extremely limited, so there wasn’t much I knew how to make. And Menel, in contrast to his pretty exterior, was the kind of guy who didn’t care about taste so long as he had something to eat, and it showed in his cooking. Tonio’s presence had enriched our daily meals considerably.
We ate the holy bread I was bestowed each morning after my prayer as a snack while on the road. Meals were eaten two or sometimes three times a day in this world. Physical laborers in particular usually had a midday meal, and right now, we were in the middle of a journey. Walking all day took a lot of energy. I wanted a midday meal if I could get one, but on the other hand, I didn’t want to stop walking. Tonio had been the one to suggest that we should light a fire for breakfast and leave the holy bread for lunchtime, and it had sounded like a perfectly good plan to me.
“You ask me when I’ll be back home / I wish I knew that great unknown.”
Bee often sang as we walked.
“The heavens open on a stagnant pond / We both fall silent as the rain beats on.”
She didn’t much care whether it fit the mood.
“If we don’t know when, we’ll say ‘someday’ / That someday, we’ll embrace again / And laugh about today.”
Oh. I thought it was going to be a depressing song about lovers, but it flowed beautifully into a hope-filled ending. Clever.
“Hehe.” Bee sounded proud. “It’s a pretty nice one, isn’t it?”
“The final verse felt like a ray of light piercing through the clouds.”
“Yeah, exactly!” Bee said, equally entranced by the lyrics. “That’s what’s so great about it.”
She really did like songs and poetry.
Chatting like that, we passed through several villages, which became more flourishing the further north we went.
Occasionally, we even came across places big enough to call a town, with probably over a thousand people living in them. In places like that, Tonio would quickly buy and sell and gather information, and then we’d move on. He looked like he’d mastered this process. I thought again about just how good of a merchant he probably was.
“Oh, right, I meant to ask you,” said Menel. “How’s Whitesails doing right now?”
I suddenly realized that he, too, had been cooped up in a remote village, so it must have been some time since he visited the port.
“The Fertile Kingdom is in a transition period at the moment with its new king,” Tonio said.
“Wait, you mean Egbert II has...?”
“Yeah,” said Bee. “His posthumous name’s ‘Egbert the Bold,’ they’re saying. He was a pretty good king, I thought...”
“So he’s dead...” Menel closed his eyes. Somehow, I felt the dignified character of an aged half-elf in him.
According to Tonio and Bee, the Fertile Kingdom had recently suffered the passing of its king, and a new king had succeeded him.
The one who had enriched the kingdom thus far and shown an eagerness to expand into the southern regions was King Egbert II, also known as Egbert the Bold. After his death, he was succeeded by his son and heir, Prince Owen. From listening to them talk, I got the impression that King Egbert II had been a pretty brilliant man, and at the same time, the kind of person to want to run the show all on his own.
Although King Egbert II ran the kingdom excellently and led it to prosperity, the local feudal lords were not the least bit happy at having their rights and interests gradually eroded by the domineering tactics of the king and the aristocrats who were advising him. However, because he was actually producing results, they were unable to openly criticize him.
It was at a time like this that Egbert II’s love of alcohol came back to haunt him. His death came suddenly and was attributed to a stroke or something similar. He may have surrounded himself with priests offering strong divine protection, but there was apparently nothing they could do in a case like this where he was there one moment and gone the next.
King Owen, who inherited the throne, was in the prime of his life, but was said to be a pretty undistinguished person. He wasn’t a degenerate or a wayward thinker, but he was neither as talented nor as wise as his father. In terms of the report cards I got from school in my past life, he would have gotten a run of Bs and Cs, but no As, even when including extra points for having the right attitude.
In terms of his personality, he didn’t possess his father’s decisiveness either, and the feudal lords that the previous king had kept under his thumb seized on the opportunity to assert themselves. They insisted that expanding to the south was a bad idea after all. King Owen replied that it was good, and that they should continue it. To which the lords complained about “our expenses” this, “our forces” that, “our defenses are suffering,” and on and on, ad infinitum.
“Isn’t that... pretty bad?”
“It is. It seems that the political situation over on the continent is a little chaotic. Fortunately, however, Southmark has not been greatly affected thus far. That would be due to Owen’s younger brother being dispatched here. His Excellency is an extremely gifted individual.”
The king’s brother, Ethelbald Rex Fertile, was a youthful man in his thirties. He was the son of Egbert II and his second wife, and didn’t share the same mother as King Owen; however, it was said that he took after his father, excelling equally in the arts of the sword and the pen.
King Owen, concerned about the political turmoil, pushed through an order to demote his brother to the status of commoner. Then, he revived the extinct aristocratic family of Southmark, and ennobled his brother Duke Ethelbald Rex Southmark. In other words, he appointed him in charge of the entire expansion effort to Southmark.