Broken Promises
“Then what the hell am I supposed to do? Leave my siblings to die? Who’s to say the Cardinal won’t usurp the throne now?”
Anneliese flailed her hands in panic.
Noah reached out and rested his hand over hers, assuring her.
“That won’t happen.”
He held her gaze, trying to ground her spiraling thoughts.
“For the time being, people don’t find the Emperor inconvenient. They won’t accept a new ruler, even if that ruler were a clergyman.”
Anneliese calmed down, if only somewhat.
Troublesome woman. That was all Vergil could think.
To believe he had once harbored affection for her. No matter how pretty she was, personality still mattered in the end.
“Amelia, could you take Anneliese to her room?”
“Yes.”
Amelia bowed politely at Noah’s instruction and gestured for Anneliese to follow.
Anneliese rose slowly but refused Amelia’s arm.
For a brief moment, Vergil could have sworn he felt killing intent spill from Amelia, though it vanished as quickly as it appeared, as if it had never been there at all.
When did the genre change from pure love to a love triangle?
That was all Vergil could take away from the scene.
* * *
By evening, the guests were finally shown to their rooms.
Vergil, Mary, Hannah, and Adam were led through the inner corridors of Liebert Castle.
Their rooms were prepared in advance, far more lavish than anything they had grown accustomed to during their travels.
Soon after, they were invited to dine.
The banquet hall was already lit when they arrived. Servants moved quietly, setting down dish after dish.
Mary’s eyes widened.
“Is… is all of this really for us?”
“Yes. So don’t stare. Eat properly.”
“We truly don’t deserve this.”
Vergil took his seat without ceremony while the Schäfers showed their courtesies to Noah.
As the meal progressed, the tension that had followed them into the castle slowly eased.
Mary laughed when a servant refilled her cup too quickly.
Hannah finally relaxed her shoulders, savoring a proper meal for the first time in months.
Adam ate in silence, still wondering if this luxury was meant for them.
Vergil remained observant.
He noticed the number of guards stationed discreetly along the walls.
He noticed how the servants avoided looking directly at him.
He noticed how every entrance remained watched, even during a dinner meant to signal safety.
After the meal, they were given time to rest.
Mary grew sleepy almost immediately, clinging to Hannah and Adam as they were escorted back to their rooms.
On the balcony, Vergil approached Noah, who stood under the pale moonlight with a glass of wine held in his hand.
Noah smirked as he sensed him coming.
“Picked up on the signal, aye?”
“You weren’t exactly subtle about it during dinner.”
Noah let out a chuckle, swirling the wine once before taking a sip.
Vergil did not waste time.
“First, I’ll be transparent with you, Lord Noah. I’m looking for someone.”
“Is this about the witch you’ve been relentlessly searching for?”
“Yes.”
Noah fell silent, setting the glass aside as he rested a finger against his chin.
“I see. Then this witch you’re searching for… would she happen to be the Ice Dragon everyone is after?”
Vergil frowned.
“That depends on whether I can trust you or not.”
“You’re awfully trusting despite your words, Sir Vergil. Do you realize that answer more or less confirms what I just asked?”
Vergil did not look away.
“And you should realize, Lord Noah, that I am a man with nothing to lose. I could cut you down right here, and nothing would change.”
“......”
“I would still be a prince slayer. I would have simply added one more name to the list.”
Noah’s gaze fell to the dinner knife Vergil slowly pulled from his pocket, then returned to his face.
“My, how frightening. I understand your reluctance to trust others, Sir Vergil. But surely you are not such a poor judge of c-character, are you?”
The slight stutter, the sheen of sweat gathering at Noah’s temple, it was more than enough for Vergil to tell.
This was not the composure of a man laying a trap.
And the fact that they were alone, with every guard dismissed immediately after dinner, told Vergil even more.
Noah was exposing himself.
If it was an act meant to make him lower his guard as well, then it was an excellent one.
Vergil slid the knife back into his pocket.
“Why me?”
“There’s no one else I can trust but you, Sir Vergil.”
“You are aware how limited my movements are within the Empire, right?”
From exile to global criminal. That was his current standing.
“Yes. Within the Human Empire, certainly. But I can vouch for you. The other races barely care who you are at all. To them, it’s just decorum.”
Vergil narrowed his eyes.
“What are you trying to say?”
“They like you.”
“......”
“They like that you singlehandedly weakened the Human Empire.”
Vergil understood what that meant. It wasn’t the end for him. If he wished to, he could abandon this land altogether and live anew somewhere beyond the Empire’s reach.
“About that Ice Dragon. If we find her, will she help us?”
“I didn’t confirm anything. For all you know, she could simply be a witch.”
“Then this witch. Will she help us?”
“I don’t know. If it aligns with her interests, she’ll help me.”
“You. Not us?”
“She’s an eccentric.”
“I feel like we’ll get along quite nicely, then.”
* * *
A year ago.
Crackle——
Against two experienced dragons, it was a brutal matchup for Seris.
However, her body moved as if guided by her instincts.
Whoosh——
She dove low, then rose up. Her wings split through the sky as ice followed her path. Shards formed in her wake and launched outward.
Frost collided with flame.
Ice shattered against the earth.
The fire dragon roared, exhaling a torrent of heat that scorched the clouds themselves.
Seris moved, letting the flames pass beneath her as a sheet of rime bloomed across her scales.
She answered with a breath of absolute cold, the temperature dropping in an instant.
Fire was smothered. The sky crystallized.
From below, the earth dragon surged upward.
Stone plates ground as chunks of rock tore free and hurled themselves like meteors.
Seris spanned her wings wide and rose, narrowly clearing the barrage.
Several stones clipped her flank, sending tremors through her body, but she did not slow down.
Ice wrapped around the fractures and detonated them midair, scattering glittering debris like frozen rain.
The three of them ascended higher.
Clouds were torn apart. Wind howled. Mana clashed so intensely that the sky itself seemed to split apart.
Seris released a ring of ice that expanded outward.
The fire dragon tore through it with brute force, but the moment it emerged, frost had already crawled across its wings.
The earth dragon followed. Its jaws snapped shut where Seris had been only a second earlier.
She was already gone.
Above them, Seris folded her wings and plunged.
Her body became a falling star of ice.
———!
Frost expanded outward in a blinding flash of light, reminiscent of the Milky Way.
Boom——!
The shockwave sent all three dragons tumbling apart, clouds collapsing inward as the air froze solid.
And above it all was a single figure.
A woman hovered at the center of the frozen expanse.
Her eyes were stark white, devoid of pupils.
She looked less like a living being and more like frost given form, as though the cold itself had chosen a vessel.
Just like that, the battle that had spanned an entire week came to an end.
Thud!
Exhausted and battered beyond her limits, Seris finally lost consciousness and collapsed onto the ground.
* * *
A promise was a promise.
“Ugh…”
Despite everything, Seris awoke with her memories incomplete.
There was no clear sense of how she had arrived there.
The only thing on her mind was the faint recollection of a promise made with Vergil.
Even so, by the second day, Seris forced herself to stand and move.
She did not know where she was, nor how far she was from the north.
Yet after everything she experienced in the village before, dealing with humans no longer felt foreign or frightening.
She walked until she found people, and when she did, she did not hesitate to ask for directions.
“Excuse me.”
The group flinched at the sound of her voice. A man in front turned, eyeing her cautiously.
“Where am I?”
“…South of the western trade routes. You look lost, Miss Witch.”
“I’m looking for snow. Somewhere cold.”
That earned her a few confused looks.
“Snow? You won’t find any around here. This region barely freezes, even in winter.”
Seris frowned. The warmth of the air pressing against her skin felt wrong in every sense.
“Then where does it snow?”
The man scratched his chin and pointed westward.
“Far west, past the forests and ravines. Beyond the Beastfolk border, if you keep going north from there, you’ll reach the frostlands. Mountains, glaciers, nothing but ice.”
“How far?”
“Weeks on foot. Less if you find a caravan willing to take you partway.”
Seris nodded, committing the directions to memory. She was just about to leave when she remembered what Vergil often told her.
——When you receive something, show your appreciation by saying thank you.
She hesitated, then opened her mouth.
“...Thank you.”
“Ah. Safe travels.”
Seris inclined her head once, then turned away.
The journey was anything but smooth.
There were countless hiccups along the way.
More than once, Seris found herself unknowingly stepping into poorly disguised scams, only realizing something was wrong when people grew strangely nervous around her.
In those moments, the witch hat atop her head became an unintentional shield.
No one wanted to scam a witch. The fear of being cursed for eternity was enough to make most back away on their own.
There were long stretches of walking. There were days spent riding with passing caravans.
There were even moments when her appearance alone earned her free passage, offered without expectation, as though kindness was easier than curiosity.
Seris accepted it all without ever questioning why people helped her, only moving forward when the road demanded it.
Time passed that way.
Nearly a year passed by.
The air gradually grew colder.
The soil hardened beneath her feet.
Grass thinned, then vanished altogether.
At last, she arrived in the north.
Snow stretched endlessly before her, swallowing the horizon.
The cold seeped into her skin, familiar in a way she could not explain.
Without realizing it, Seris felt she had come home.
“......”
And yet, at the same time, she understood there was no such thing as home anymore.
What greeted her was a desolate, frozen wasteland.
The village that had once existed there, lively and breathing just a year ago, was nowhere to be found.
In its place were the remains of an abandoned ghost town.
Broken structures jutted from the snow at awkward angles. Roofs had collapsed inward. Walls were split apart and buried under layers of frost.
The silence was overwhelming.
Seris stepped forward slowly.
With each step, memories resurfaced.
She may have only spent a month here, and perhaps that was nothing in the grand scheme of things.
But to Seris, that singular month had been everything.
“…So it’s gone.”
She stopped in the middle of what must have once been the village square.
Whatever had existed here had been erased completely. And with it, any illusion that there was somewhere she truly belonged.
“...Vergil.”
Seris rushed forward, heading for the cabin she and Vergil had once occupied.
She pushed the door open.
“......”
The interior was empty.
Whatever little warmth that had once filled this place was long gone, leaving behind only the proof that the place had been abandoned for a long time.
Seris turned away at once and searched elsewhere.
She checked every corner of the village.
Then she went to the cave where she had left Mary and her family to hide a year ago.
But there was no one there either.
“I told you to wait for me…”
But Vergil had not waited.
In the end, he had broken his promise.
