15. The Engagement – The Two Fathers**
- Kya-uk! Kang! Kya-a!
A fox, so large it was difficult to bring it into the house, and whiter than the snow piled on the ground.
Noguhwa stepped lightly on the snow as if it were unreal, approaching a fine prey, and was caught in a trap.
The enormous fox shook its body to escape from the trap. At that moment, Dehor's voice echoed through the valley.
"Fire! If you have something to throw, throw it now!"
With a shout, the hunting team he led revealed themselves.
Lena, out on her first hunt, inevitably found Noguhwa's footprints, and Leo promptly reported it to the hunting team. Dehor, seeing the footprints, halted all hunting activities and gathered the entire hunting team.
Under Dehor's command, the team densely set traps in the valley. They lured the fox with thick chunks of meat.
They had previously hunted the same fox with this exact method, and back then, Leo thought Dehor was being overly cautious.
But now, he didn't think so.
That monster needed even more preparation, and without Dehor, it would never be caught.
- Gyaaaaaa!
Noguhwa shook its body violently.
Its white fur fluttered as it deflected arrows and axes. Some got stuck in its body, but it didn't seem to care.
The fox stood still and looked around.
Although startled, it seemed to realize that the bait in front of it was a trap and the things around its legs were snares. It surveyed our numbers while scratching its leg.
Soon, it let out a bark that sounded like laughter, "Kyankyangkyang," and leaped into the air.
All the traps around its legs snapped as Noguhwa soared high into the valley. It opened its jaws wide and dropped vertically.
The targeted warriors hurriedly threw themselves down. The valley was steep, making it dangerous, but they had no choice.
"Scatter! That fox is just like a fox! Spread out and keep throwing spears and axes! I'll handle it!"
Dehor shouted, drawing out a massive axe.
Leo had never seen anyone stronger than him.
His double-edged axe was as large as a household door. Though Dehor was a large man, his strength was clearly extraordinary.
- Waaaaaah!!
Dehor's roar drew Noguhwa's attention. The fox, showing immediate curiosity, approached, and the two began a desperate fight.
Noguhwa moved its large forelegs and snout nimbly. Each time, Dehor swung his giant axe like a windmill, forcing it back. The fox, sensing it wouldn't survive a hit from that axe, was cautious.
The hunting team spread out wide around them, shooting arrows and throwing spears. As the fox grew angrier from increasing wounds and tried to turn elsewhere, Dehor charged with his axe, keeping its attention.
Her white body gradually became covered in blood.
- Kang! Kang! Kang! Kang! Kang!
The fox's howls grew urgent as it felt the crisis. It had tried to flee earlier, only to have its hind leg slashed by a stout monkey, surrounded by smaller monkeys.
It had underestimated these primates.
Normally, it could devour one with each attack...
Noguhwa's eyes began to burn blue.
"Yes! Come on! Hahaha! You're finished!"
Dehor laughed heartily, sensing the end. He had hunted many such beasts, and their last actions were almost always the same.
In their final moments, they would launch their most familiar attack with all their might.
So this fox ─ would leap.
Despite the enraged fox before him, Dehor pulled his axe back. The fox would leap, so there was no need to worry about the front.
He took a stance, ready to strike upwards.
And Noguhwa leaped.
The giant fox soared high and plummeted like lightning, and Dehor swung his axe skyward.
- Slash!
With a sound like rocks breaking off a cliff, blood gushed forth.
The warriors held their breath for a moment,
"Haahahahahaha!"
With Dehor's hearty laughter, they burst into cheers. Lena jumped up and down, proclaiming her father the best.
The great warrior of the Ainar tribe, Dehor, had achieved another legendary feat, and the hunting team would gladly witness it.
That evening, they shared their scarce alcohol and held a feast with plenty of fox meat in the valley.
While everyone laughed and chatted, the only one feeling down was Leo.
Near the end of winter, war inevitably broke out. Dehor's complaints and Lena, now a warrior after her hunt, participating in the war, remained unchanged.
"I want to join too."
"...Alright."
The only difference was that Noel Dexter permitted Leo to participate.
Noel, sitting in a rocking chair, reluctantly turned the pages of a book and gave his son several pieces of advice.
He seemed to have anticipated his son's decision to follow his fiancée to the battlefield.
He explained how the troops would be deployed, the roles of each unit, emergency measures, and the requests to make to superiors.
It seemed Noel had thought a lot about how Lena and Leo could return alive.
Noel's advice lasted all day, ending only when Lena came asking why no one was coming to eat.
The next day, Leo and his father went to the inner castle to fill out the application forms.
The knights and soldiers on duty at the inner castle greeted Noel with deep salutes. Each time, Noel paused to exchange a few words.
But the knights' attitude towards his father was strange.
Despite being active knights, they found it difficult to face his retired father. Their cautious tone was mixed with reverence and fear.
Noel Dexter, though slightly bitter, merely wished them well in the upcoming battle.
On the way back, Leo asked,
"Father, don't you want to join the war?"
As a knight, everyone wanted to go to the battlefield to gain honor, but his father was indifferent.
In Leo's eyes, he was incredibly strong.
He wasn't old enough to retire from knighthood, so why he retired was a mystery.
Noel shook his head and said,
"...I'm sick of killing people. If we were being invaded, I would gladly go and fight, but I don't want to assist in an invasion war."
Noel Dexter had experienced fierce wars.
A little over a decade ago, the Kingdom of Astin and the Kingdom of Aster were a single kingdom.
Noel, the second son of an old noble family, was born in the capital, showed great talent in swordsmanship, and became a knight at a young age.
He was the youngest knight at the time, so his talent was remarkable.
But then, the young king, who had just ascended the throne, mysteriously died. He was found dead in the hall in the middle of the night, with no injuries and no signs of poisoning.
The kingdom was thrown into chaos. Countless conspiracy theories emerged, and many people were interrogated, but the culprit was not found.
His death opened a new chapter.
The young king had no heirs. It wasn’t that he hadn’t officially designated a successor; he simply had no children.
Fortunately, the late king had brothers, but unfortunately, there were two of them.
Once again, the two uncles who were next in line for the throne clashed.
When they were younger, they had lost the throne to their eldest brother, but this time, they each believed they should be the one to seize the throne.
This struggle for the throne was on a different level than the young princes’ quarrels. They were powerful figures with their own forces, so no one could mediate.
One claimed he deserved the throne because he was older, while the other argued he should have it because he was younger.
This conflict, driven by greed, absurdly took on the guise of avenging their young nephew. Advisors on both sides concocted plausible conspiracy theories.
A count’s daughter serving as a concubine for one side had summoned a sorcerer...and so on.
No, it was a guard on the other side who violated regulations and was in the royal castle at night...and so forth.
Both sides labeled each other as the unscrupulous killers of their nephew and rallied their forces.
The nobility was divided not only along political lines but also in their allegiance.
Even the knightly orders, who should have remained neutral concerning the royal family's safety, were swept into the power struggle.
Noel Dexter, a knight of the First Order, had to choose. He had no reliable information, but he mixed what he had heard with his deductions and made a decision.
And he kept that conclusion to himself.
The escalating conflict and factionalism eventually led to an internal war.
This is the famous 'Nine-Day War.'
Both sides, still coveting the capital before full-scale war broke out, engaged in nine days of fierce intrigue, hence the name.
That intrigue surprisingly produced no clear victor. Not until the war ended.
The Nine-Day War is recorded as the most intense and bloody conflict in the continent’s history.
A war where friend and foe were indistinguishable.
Unlike wars with other kingdoms, there were no clear boundaries, and it was mired in political manipulation and threats.
The kingdom’s most powerful force, the knightly orders, were split, not quelling the fire but fanning it. Most northern kingdom mages fled to the mage tower, but some stayed and used magic.
In those days, no one in the northern kingdom trusted anyone else.
Nobles cooperated yet remained wary of each other, knights hid their bodies and beliefs while killing, and barbarian tribes united to kill any suspicious outsiders.
This fierce civil war dragged on for over three years.
Hard-won farmlands on the frozen ground were burned, and the poor were killed for allegedly having no money, while the rich were killed for allegedly having too much.
Then, the war ended anticlimactically.
The two uncles who started the war were assassinated by their own sons, causing both sides to lose their cause.
The sons, who had risen as leaders of their respective factions, called themselves kings and made a pact.
Thus, the Klaus royal family was divided, and the northern regions became the Kingdoms of Astin and Aster.
Noel, who had sided with the Kingdom of Astin, survived.
For his exploits of taking hundreds of lives, he was awarded the surname 'Dexter' and generous rewards. A substantial pension was guaranteed.
Noel left his hometown, the capital where he had made his mark, and settled in his wife's hometown of Avril Castle.
And belatedly, he began to read books.
Looking back now, he realized no one, including himself, knew the truth. They had fought and killed merely because others thought differently, believing at the time that it was right.
It was a foolish act.
He grew disillusioned with war.
Leo followed his somber father quietly.
Noel returned to his study, and Leo dashed out to the training ground.
Lena was stretching.
"Lena, I'm going too."
"Why not just stay here instead of following?"
"So, do you hate it?"
"Yeah. Totally hate it."
But she smiled broadly.
"If you follow and die for no reason, I'll just be a widow."
Leo laughed heartily as he caught the wooden sword she tossed.
"Rather than that, take care not to make me a widower."
"Oh? If I die, are you not going to remarry forever?"
"Depends on how you behave."
They chuckled, pointing their swords at each other.
Leo felt at ease.
The war event was unavoidable, so for now, he aimed to survive and return. He never wanted to see Lena fight alone again like last time. For now, that was enough.
Someday, whether it would be to make Lena a princess or to break off their engagement, he would have to make an effort.
But those were concerns for later.
Lena twitched her sword provocatively, and Leo charged at her.
No more snow was falling from the sky.