Chapter 246: If So, Then a Formal Duel

“Hey, what’s the matter?”

The usual din was absent.

From the tavern rented out entirely by us, the Landsknecht double-pay soldiers, not a sound escaped.

We drank, yes, but there was no camaraderie, no sharing of cups.

Each one of us drank alone, pouring our own drinks.

Whether it was beer, wine, or the distilled liquor developed by the Cologne Sect for treating smallpox, any alcohol would suffice.

As long as it intoxicated, the type of drink didn’t matter.

And yet, even with drink, there was no escaping reality.

Everything had already been understood.

It was all over before it even began.

The day Claudia von Reckenber died was the day all of us, the Landsknecht, faced the “Final Day.”

We were now nothing more than wanderers with no destination, no place to belong.

“Weren’t you going to start a fight?! You went out there to pick one, didn’t you?! So why are you back here, empty-handed?! Where is Valiere von Anhalt, the one you were supposed to bring back?!”

Baumann’s shout echoed through the tavern.

Ah, that’s right.

She hadn’t joined us.

Because she had declared herself absent, tied by her promise of a duel with Lord Polydoro.

She didn’t play the fool, venturing out to disrupt Valiere’s conversion ceremony only to slink back in defeat.

But she would find out eventually.

That Claudia von Reckenber was gone.

It was only a matter of time before the truth became known.

Even the will to look away had its limits.

What would it achieve now to abduct Valiere?

To incur Lord Polydoro’s wrath—what good would it do?

To engage in a flashy bloodbath, spilling guts like filth, drenching Lord Faust, the knight, in the stench—

And then.

And then.

We hoped to provoke his wrath enough to be killed by him.

We prayed, from the depths of our hearts, that such an end might save us.

But even that hope was now exhausting.

We wanted to think no more.

Surely, with such cowardly thoughts, we could never reach Valhalla.

It was unthinkable to rest in the same place as the great hero Reckenber.

If so, even the act of thinking itself had become distasteful.

“So, what are you going to do now?”

Baumann asked, but no one answered.

No one spoke.

No one wanted to do anything.

Nothing at all.

And when we were caught in such despair,

A knock came on the tavern’s swinging door, a knock none of us had ever heard before.

“Excuse me.”

A sharp, measured voice.

It sounded like a schoolteacher, patiently instructing little girls in reading and writing, refined yet grating.

I knew that voice.

I’d heard it countless times five years ago, beside Reckenber.

It was the voice of the foolish woman who challenged Reckenber five times and lost five times.

The one we mocked relentlessly.

The fool.

“Temeraire, what do you want?”

“At least address me as Duke. But expecting civility from savages like you might be asking too much.”

Her crystal spectacles framed with gold,

Her short hair, a reminder of the stitches needed after nearly being killed by Lord Polydoro,

Her once prominent nose now flattened and crooked.

The face before us was different from the one we once knew,

And yet, even as I thought to laugh at her, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

“If I said I came to laugh at you, would that satisfy you?”

“Is that what you came for?”

“No, it’s not.”

With her finger brushing her flattened nose, she adjusted her gold-framed crystal spectacles.

Like a schoolteacher wielding her authority, Duke Temeraire spat out her words.

“Pathetic. Too pathetic to even laugh at. The once-invincible Landsknechte, who had the privilege of serving directly under Claudia von Reckenber, reduced to this—weaklings.”

“…What’s your purpose here? Revenge for losing to us five years ago?”

“Unfortunately, I no longer consider you worthy of being my enemies.”

Of course.

We no longer had the strength to mock the “Pig Duke” who had lost to Reckenber five times.

Once, we had reveled in her failures, making her the highlight of our drinking banter.

Victory over wealthy lords had satisfied our thirst.

Defeating those who had everything gave meaning to those of us who had nothing.

But now, we couldn’t even muster a laugh.

In exchange for material wealth, we had lost everything else.

Now, we understood that we were the true fools, far more so than her.

“I’m merely a messenger, a courier. I bring something you need to hear.”

“A messenger for what?”

“For Claudia von Reckenber. She left words behind.”

At her declaration, even Baumann, who had been shouting moments ago, fell silent, turning her gaze toward Temeraire.

Temeraire continued.

“You likely don’t know, but Reckenber and I were quite close after the war. We spoke often, exchanged letters—hundreds every year. Among those, we discussed you, the Landsknechte. Would you like to know what was written?”

“…Go on,” I said, prompting her to continue.

With the air of a lecturer delivering a lesson, Temeraire spoke.

“The question I asked most often, and the one you’d likely want answered most, is simple. What did Reckenber plan to do with the Landsknechte? Leave them rotting in the imperial city? Let them decay into obscurity? Or did she have some greater vision for them?”

“What did she say?”

“For the first three years, her response was the same: ‘I’m still thinking about it. Just wait a little longer.’ Naturally, I shouted at her, asking if she was joking, but her reply was earnest. ‘I don’t have an answer yet, but I’m truly struggling with it, so please wait just a bit more.’ Laughable, isn’t it?”

Indeed.

Reckenber, to us, was a godlike figure.

A being who seemed mistakenly born into this world from the depths of hell.

Yet, she always had a certain recklessness about her.

She likely hadn’t thought of us at all.

Not that I wanted to accuse her of it.

We had dreamed on our own.

We believed the warrior’s parade would go on forever.

A Valhalla Calling.

We thought it wasn’t us being called to Valhalla but Valhalla descending to us.

To expect her to take responsibility for our delusions was never our right.

“After three years of constant prodding, she finally answered. ‘That’s it, we’ll go east.'”

“…East?”

We had no right to demand anything.

Yet, it seemed Reckenber had an idea after all.

“‘The Pied Piper of Hamelin.’ You lot probably wouldn’t understand the reference, so I’ll explain. Reckenber recalled a tale of a piper who led children away. She thought of the legend’s roots—stories of eastern colonists from the Holy Gusten Empire setting out to pioneer new lands.”

“And?”

“To the east of Virendorf, there’s uninhabited land. There, she envisioned building a kingdom for the Landsknechte. ‘I’ll be their king,’ she said. ‘That’s what they want.’ Once Katarina, her beloved daughter, grew up safely, she would entrust Virendorf to her and begin this venture. ‘After that,’ she wrote, as though offering an excuse.”

A king.

Our king, Reckenber.

We had once thought of making her emperor of the Holy Gusten Empire.

Becoming nobility would’ve sufficed.

Becoming prosperous would’ve sufficed.

But what we truly desired was never something so meager.

We didn’t want the empire itself.

“She told me in her letters that she thought it would be enough to become the king of the Landsknechte.”

All we ever wanted was for our master, our king, to be Reckenber.

The empire was merely a convenient backdrop for our desires.

Ah.

Ah.

Ah.

Three times, the thought echoed in my mind.

She had been thinking of us all along.

The one who left us with white-threaded cloaks adorned with ‘The Rose Motif’—our king.

She hadn’t forgotten us.

That alone, just that alone,

Was enough to make us burst into tears.

But we didn’t cry.

Because the story wasn’t over yet.

“And then, she died. Without realizing any of her plans, she died. The promise to meet with me again, the vows she made to you—all unfulfilled. As you know, her end came in a duel against Lord Faust von Polydoro.”

“Ah…”

A sigh of awe escaped my lips.

Yes.

She died.

Claudia von Reckenber died without becoming the king of the Landsknechte.

That was the reality.

“I told Katarina about it. That sheltered girl, who knew nothing, was told of her foster mother’s dreams. She replied, ‘Then I’ll send someone worthy to carry on that will.’”

“Her foster daughter, huh.”

I despised Katarina.

Because of her, Reckenber abandoned us and returned to her homeland of Virendorf.

I could never bring myself to like her.

Her other daughter, Nina, was different, though.

“You may hate Katarina as much as I do. But Nina, Reckenber’s real daughter, carried a hint of her parent’s essence. I wouldn’t say she’s a spitting image of Reckenber, but at least she held a glimpse of a vision for the future. She declared that she would go east. She would become the king of the Landsknechte and lead them to pioneer the eastern lands.”

“…”

We fell silent.

We knew.

If she was a daughter raised by Reckenber, she would say such a thing.

And so, I answered Temeraire, saying clearly what I had been thinking all this time.

“We, the old Landsknechte, cannot serve anyone but Reckenber. Even if her daughter, Nina von Reckenber, were to extend her hand, we could never accept it. We cannot forget everything and move on to a new battlefield. We are trapped. We can no longer serve anyone but Claudia.”

We knew.

This was the compromise Temeraire had devised.

It might be fortunate for many Landsknechte, but for us, the old ones, it was a misfortune.

We were different.

“Let the young Landsknechte go ahead. They will surely raise Nina as their king and follow her, worshipping her as they do Valiere. That is their happiness, and I hope they find it. But we are not the same.”

We are old bones, worn out by the brilliance of Reckenber.

Our place is not there.

You know it, don’t you, Temeraire?

For warriors, there is ultimately only one destination.

“This is the end for us. That’s how it is. We long for the true dawn.”

The true dawn.

A cliché phrase.

A sentiment that would rightly be laughed at.

But for us, uneducated as we were, it was the best expression we could muster.

This was the one thing we couldn’t compromise on.

Temeraire, in turn, demanded one thing from us.

“Then, I demand a formal duel from you. Not one where you abduct Valiere, not one forced by the orders of the Emperor or the City Council, but one fought with honor, purely by your own will. Gather fifty volunteers. There, in that place, you may face Lord Polydoro and die as you wish. That way, you decrepit old fools can truly reach the place you’ve been longing for.”

You will see the true dawn.

Hold your heads high before Reckenber and stride into Valhalla through a proper duel.

I’ll ensure such a place is prepared for you.

With eyes filled with pity, Temeraire gazed at us, then spat out those final words.