Chapter 252

Side Story – A Snake Without Venom, A Flower Without Fragrance (2)

The reason Bize had come to dream of being a merchant was a conversation with a certain old man in the slums of Kimel City, back in childhood.

“In the southern swamplands down south, if you let your guard down for a moment, crocodiles take your legs. Look at mine, just like this.”

“Wasn’t grandpa’s leg cut off for gambling?”

“Nonsense!”

He claimed to have been a great merchant in his younger days who traveled various cities in the area, and naturally many considered it an unverifiable boast and ignored it.

Only Bize, instead of wandering the dirty back alleys playing tag with children her age, stuck close to the old man.

“Grandpa, tell me that story again today. The one about going to the sea.”

“Hm? You want to hear it again?”

“Is it really true that there, water fills the world instead of land?”

“Of course it is……”

Every time she heard the stories, Bize imagined herself freely wandering that outer world the old man spoke of.

A life with only a pack on her back, sleeping under the sky as a roof and the ground as a bed, seeing countless landscapes and meeting many people.

However, when she brought this up, the old man would burst out laughing as if it were absurd.

“A girl wanting to be a merchant? Give it up. Unless you become a mage, it’s a line of work that’s tough even for strong men. Look at this.”

The old man pointed to his leg, about half shorter on one side.

“You can’t even imagine how terrifying it is outside the city walls. From ordinary beasts to mutated monsters, fellow humans, and rarely even other races.”

His voice warning that being a traveling merchant was a job one half-devotes their life to was serious and grim, unlike his usual flippancy.

But this kind of discouragement only fanned the young Bize’s spirit further.

What held back her determination to become a merchant and see the world, no matter what anyone said, was none other than her own mother.

To be precise, parents would be more accurate.

“Is this little one my daughter?”

“Yes, master. She is……”

“She’s got a fair enough face. Good, this should do.”

“Thank you!”

In the autumn of her eleventh year, Bize was sold to a man she’d never seen before for a few coins.

The man’s name was Garn Mirsel … the head of the Mirsel knight family, a distant collateral branch of Arabion, and Bize’s father.

There, Bize received a new name: Bizhela.

“This annex is your home from now on. Behave and receive your education.”

“Education…… can I learn writing and arithmetic too? Mom said we had no money for that sort of thing.”

“Writing and arithmetic? What use would that be?”

Garn, Bizhela’s father, who had somehow been moved to take in the daughter born to a pauper he had briefly fancied, scoffed when she said she wanted to be a merchant.

Unlike the old man who had once planted dreams in her, this carried the contempt unique to people who regarded others as fools.

“I’m going to raise you as a flower. Your face is fair enough, so with proper education you could be sold to a decent family.”

“A flower … you don’t mean…”

“Your duty is to bear mage children. Don’t forget that.”

What Bizhela was supposed to learn was not what she had hoped for, like the specialties of each region or accounting methods.

She only needed to know how to smile well, how to speak with refinement, and how to please men … or women, if necessary.

She heard that Garn regularly impregnated women with fair faces in the area, and when a child with acceptable looks was born, he would pay for it and raise it to sell on as a concubine.

Thanks to this, he lived an extremely wealthy life for a knight … with a large house and multiple servants.

Only then did she realize that she had essentially been sold as a high-class courtesan.

The same was true for those receiving education alongside her.

Females were brood mares, males were studs.

Calling that something a little more refined was the term ‘flower.’

Having grasped this, she secretly slipped out of the house in the middle of the night a few days later.

“She’s running away!”

“Catch her!”

But where could a child from the slums who knew nothing go?

Bizhela couldn’t even get past the guards at the city gate and was caught again.

The knight Garn flushed with fury and glared at her.

“How dare you, you impudent little wretch.”

“Let me go. I’ll work and repay the ransom later……”

“It seems you haven’t received enough education.”

It was clear that it wasn’t an apology or plea, but a bold demand, that angered her father.

He kicked out her reed-thin legs and broke them just like that.

“Augh……”

“I hope you don’t forget this pain. If you try to escape again, I’ll have no choice but to cripple you for real.”

At least he had her treated properly, perhaps thinking a cripple wouldn’t sell … and she was thankful the bones set right.

If she’d been left unable to walk properly, her dream of being a traveling merchant would have had to be shelved.

Eight years like that.

Bizhela received her education meekly as a flower while constantly watching for any chance to escape.

It wasn’t easy, what with the family servants, the relatives receiving education alongside her, and the foul-tempered stepmother who controlled them all.

Sometimes she thought about burning or cutting her face, but she soon abandoned the idea.

Based on years of observing her father Garn’s personality, she was certain that if she dared ruin her own face rather than being sold off willingly, instead of releasing her he would simply kill her.

If not that, as punishment he’d cripple her and dump her back in the slums.

The chance for escape came utterly out of the blue in the year she turned nineteen.

The war with Zahar, which had been rumored for some time, was the trigger.

“Everyone run! The Zahar army is attacking the city!”

“Run? Where?”

“First quickly pack and get ou…”

“No time to pack! Just come out!”

Screams echoing from all directions, flames rising, the thundering of mages in battle.

In the chaos, instead of joining those fleeing, Bizhela quickly slipped into the wardrobe her stepmother often used and hid.

After all, fleeing with the others would mean death if spotted by the enemy, and if she survived she’d be sold to someone for the sake of rebuilding the family.

Fortunately, what appeared to be a Zahar family mage who came in to plunder the house glanced at the wardrobe and then looked away.

‘Safe.’

She was clutching the stepmother’s jewelry in her arms, so once things settled she could use that as seed money to start trading.

She hadn’t thought about how a seventeen-year-old woman alone would protect her assets, but there would be some way … surely.

Had Bizhela been the type to think through every detail before acting, she never could have attempted a sudden escape attempt as a young child.

However, after the first one passed, a second Zahar mage looked around briefly and came straight to find her and dragged her out.

When she thought it was all over.

Unexpectedly, the one who saved Bizhela was the first Zahar mage who had come.

“From now on, you are my spoils of war.”

He said that, but she wasn’t foolish enough not to know that the other person was deliberately acting this way.

Just from his actions a moment ago, it was clear he had known of her presence but turned a blind eye.

The man was the tallest and most well-built she had seen among all the men she had known.

Like a bear wearing a human disguise, one might say.

His face looked cold and cruel, as befitting a Zahar mage, but at least it was better than the other mage from moments ago who had been like a dog in heat.

“What’s your name?”

“Karim.”

“I’m Bizhela. Bizhela Mirsel.”

Walking out of the manor while exchanging conversation with this stranger, Bizhela noticed that among the familiar faces she saw in the bodies scattered around the entrance, there were many she recognized.

The stepmother who had always despised her, several half-siblings who had been educated together, servants who normally treated her as if she didn’t exist in front of others but occasionally showed her kindness……

Seeing that, it hit her anew.

The fact that the person she was being held by was a member of the murder group that had destroyed this city.

Bizhela bit her lip to suppress her trembling body.

* * *

Karim took the girl who had identified herself as Bizhela to the assembly point at the lord’s manor.

The Zahar nobles who had gathered there beforehand all made surprised expressions when they saw him.

“What, you too?”

“Always acting so pure and then……”

“So that’s your taste, huh.”

Karim didn’t bother responding to his colleagues’ criticism mixed with jokes.

After confirming the city attack was complete, they moved to a nearby hiding place to avoid the enemy’s pursuit.

During that process, Bizhela held in Karim’s arms kept talking to him without pause.

“Wow, Karim! You’re really fast.”

“Coming out here like this is my first time … where are we going right now?”

“Um, is there any chance you could let me go?”

Like raising a chattering bird by one’s side.

Karim frowned at the noise yet didn’t scold her.

Because he could feel that this girl’s body, and her voice, were trembling faintly.

Without the same senses as high-ranking nobles, he couldn’t sense emotions from someone’s scent, but he didn’t need such abilities to know she was afraid.

A short while later at the campsite they arrived at, the Zahar nobles raised their cups to celebrate the continued victories.

“Glory to the descendants of the great Night Hunters!”

“For Zahar…!”

Their bodies didn’t get drunk on mere alcohol anyway, but it wasn’t bad to lift spirits this way.

What followed, naturally, was the wild feast claiming the war trophies obtained in this battle.

As screams and moans began coming from tents set all around, Bizhela’s eyes trembled.

“You come in too.”

“I, I……”

Though she stepped back in hesitation, could she withstand a noble’s physical strength?

With a sensation like being dragged off by a beast, she was pulled inside the tent, and the moment the entrance closed she was dumped on the bed.

The moment she was about to scream, Karim pulled her tightly to him and covered her mouth with his hand as he whispered:

“To get each other’s scent on ourselves we need to stay like this. Just keep making sounds in this state. Understood?”

Giving trophies in the form of prisoners was a reward for the raiding unit risking their lives in battle.

Being caught bringing one back and then doing nothing with them would obviously not be looked upon well.

The worst case would be an order coming down that if he wasn’t going to use her, to give her to someone else … and however much a nephew of the family head Karim might be, among nobles he was of a lower ranking power, without the ability to refuse that.

Fortunately the girl nodded as if she understood.

* * *

After raiding two more cities following the assault on Kimel City, the raiding unit gradually returned to their main force at Vigen City.

Karim and others who had taken flowers moved alongside them, carrying their share of flowers on their shoulders or seated in front or behind them on the beasts they rode.

“Hey, Karim.”

“What.”

“Why haven’t you done it?”

“Shh. Mages have good hearing.”

Karim frowned at Bizhela’s question and sent a signal to be quiet.

Fortunately, everyone was talking loudly enough that no one heard their conversation.

Confirming this, he let out a small sigh and whispered.

“……Because I don’t want to take a woman who doesn’t want it.”

“You really are a good person, Karim.”

“As if.”

If he were truly a good person, he wouldn’t have participated in the war in the first place.

Karim was simply a coward.

Someone who could only extend a hand within the limits of where he himself would be safe.

After that, they continued to talk about all sorts of things during the journey back to Vigen City.

Because he was afraid that if he left her alone even for a moment, some other Zahar noble with their leash off might grab Bizhela.

“Wearing her out good, wearing her out.”

“That good, is she?”

Karim let such crude jokes go in one ear and out the other while thinking about how he might be able to let her go.

Even if she had no relatives left, sending her to a nearby city would be better than this.

However, unfortunately there was simply no opportunity to do so.

During the day Karim himself was busy on raiding unit activity, and at night multiple sentries stood guard, monitoring all coming and going inside and out.

“This place called Vigen City … that’s in the Grey Zone, right?”

“Yes.”

“I’ve heard the name a few times…… is the land there really all grey?”

“So I hear. I’m not sure whether it has to do with the color of the ground, but they say the soil isn’t very good there.”

In the meantime Karim gradually grew closer to Bizhela through various chit-chat like this.

Though he was usually reserved, he found he could manage conversation reasonably well with this girl.

Bizhela was more interested in worldly matters than in cosmetics or clothing … the topics common women typically liked … and Karim, while not old even for a noble, had picked up various stories from traveling here and there.

In the end the two traveled together all the way to Vigen City where the Zahar army was stationed, without managing to find a chance to part.

Aryl Zahar, who had come to meet her brother, narrowed her eyes looking to his side.

“You came back alive, Karim. But beside you…… is that a flower?”

“Yes, Sister.”

“Is it.”

He felt hurt at Aryl’s contemptuous look implying she never expected this of him too, but he couldn’t protest that it wasn’t like that.

Not that he distrusted his sister, but there was no telling where such words might reach.

Karim arranged for Bizhela to stay with the other prisoners as his share of prisoners, then headed back out to the battlefield.

The Arabion main force had slowly arrived in the Grey Zone, so from now on it was no longer a matter of probing each other’s weaknesses but a true clash of strength against strength.

“There they are … Arabion soldiers!”

“Attack!”

The Zahar mages who took turns using tracking magic could always detect the presence of Arabion mages first, then approach under concealment and get in preemptive strikes.

By contrast, the Arabion nobles who always had to yield the first attack to the enemy excelled at reversing unfavorable battles thanks to the mobility of flight magic and the firepower of lightning magic.

Of course both sides had their noble members protecting themselves while sending in the knights, so the real casualties were the knights’ share to bear.

A year like that.

Even while fighting fierce battles against the Arabion army as a Zahar noble, Karim visited Bizhela whenever he had a moment.

Because he knew that when the capturing noble’s interest waned, the prisoner could be passed on to other nobles or even knights.

He worried whether being imprisoned here would be uncomfortable, but unexpectedly she seemed quite happy with her prisoner’s life in Vigen.

She even said that compared to where she used to live, it was actually a much freer life.

For Karim, who hadn’t known that being raised as a flower was that oppressive, it felt like learning something he hadn’t known before.

Beyond that, if he were honest, he also felt a certain degree of comfort from conversing with Bizhela.

Because talking with her made him feel that he, who had only done terrible things in this place, had at least saved one girl.

One early evening, Karim returned to Vigen City, washed his blood-stained body, and headed as usual to the building where Bizhela was staying.

Passing through the knights guarding the perimeter and the servants managing the prisoners inside, he perched on one side of a bed and called out to her.

“Bize.”

“You’re safe, Karim.”

Over the past year spent together, the distance between them had closed considerably.

To the point where one had come to learn the other’s full name or nickname, and the other had become less formal in address.

The two, hearing each other’s stories from the past, saw reflections of themselves in the other.

In being children crushed by a father who was authoritative, or so overwhelmingly powerful they couldn’t dare defy him.

Even so, Karim always admired Bizhela who constantly pursued freedom, and Bizhela admired Karim who possessed the power she lacked.

Of course, she didn’t know that he wasn’t merely a knight but one of the Zahar nobles.

“You set the garden on fire?”

“Yes. I was practicing making fire with just branches and dried leaves, and it caught much better than I expected……”

Watching her stick her tongue out and smile in embarrassment, Karim took her hand and opened it.

Despite being hands groomed as a fine flower, they were rough with calluses.

“It seems you’ve been working hard here too.”

“Of course. Someday when I get out of here, I’ll need to be self-sufficient as a traveling merchant!”

He had already heard that Bizhela was the biggest troublemaker among the prisoners here.

Small wonder even the managing knights were coming to complain.

Yet since a noble … Karim … was always visiting, and she wasn’t blatantly trying to escape, they hadn’t been able to punish her.

At that moment, Bizhela studied Karim’s face carefully and asked:

“……You don’t look well. You’re not really injured somewhere, are you?”

“I’m not injured. I’ve only been injuring others.”

He had tried to manage his expression, but it hadn’t gone well apparently.

Karim thought back on the Arabion knights he had killed earlier that day.

The ones who had been sleeping after finishing their night patrol duty … unable to even resist, they were killed by Karim and his colleague who had infiltrated the tent made dark by a light-devouring magic artifact.

Mechanically inserting a dagger into the necks of the knights lying in a row and withdrawing it several times.

Only a dozen or so bodies were left under the tent.

The memory of the first time he’d killed the lord of this place, Vigen City, came to him anew and his chest ached.

“I wish I’d been born without the ability to feel guilt.”

Like his clansmen, those cruel vipers of Zahar … how wonderful it would be to be able to sink his venomous fangs into an enemy’s neck without the slightest pang of conscience.

Even saying this much felt hypocritical.

If he’d truly felt guilty, he should have committed suicide.

As he thus laid out his inner thoughts in a self-flagellating way, Bizhela who had been silently watching him suddenly pulled him into an embrace.

“But it’s because you’re that kind of person that I’m alive.”

If he had been like other Zahar nobles … someone who could be cruel to enemies or even his own kin … Bizhela would not have been saved.

At best she would have been assaulted by the other Zahar mage who found her and then killed.

The feeling of his worries melting away from the warmth transmitted from the body embracing him made Karim exhale deeply.

At that moment, the sensation of fingers fumbling with the buttons on his chest made him open his eyes wide.

“Bize?”

“These clothes are really hard to take off.”

“What are you suddenly…”

A year since taking Bizhela as a prisoner.

Karim had consistently only conversed with her as a friend and had never tried to approach as more than that.

Because he knew she had an extreme aversion to being cultivated as a flower for the nobles.

Toward that Karim, Bizhela looked up with her bright amber-brown eyes and said:

“Stay still for a moment.”

“I…”

“I know. You said you don’t want to take a woman who doesn’t want it. Does it look like I don’t want this right now?”

“That’s…”

“I like Karim. Not because you saved me, but because you’re the kindest person I’ve seen among all the men I’ve known. If you don’t want to, you can just push me away, right? It’s not like you lack the strength.”

Not out of pity for his sadness, and not out of wanting to sell her body to gain his favor.

Simply because her own feelings moved her and she wanted to approach as a woman to a man.

At Bizhela’s bold declaration, Karim who had been blankly watching her burst out laughing.

“Well, if that’s the case, with pleasure.”

That night, the savior who would rescue this world was born.