Chapter 6: The Meaning of Freedom

[So that’s how it is. Then first, let’s get stronger.]

That was Frey’s first remark after hearing the whole story of Zion’s life.  

“…Are you sure you really heard my story?”  

[I listened to everything and came to this conclusion after careful consideration, you fool.]

Frey’s expression was curt, as if displeased with Zion’s attitude.

Sitting on a lavish bed dressed in an unusual outfit Zion had never seen before, Frey scratched the bridge of his nose and chose his words cautiously.  

[I sympathize with your situation.]

“I wasn’t expecting your sympathy.”  

[Listen when an adult talks until the end. I may look like this, but I’m your uncle. Anyway, don’t think only in negative terms. Think the other way around. You’ve barely escaped the shackles of the House of Aleph and that woman, Mione.]

For a moment, Zion wondered whether he should correct Frey’s title to “Madam Mione.”

Even when dealing with a sworn enemy of the Great Heaven, one must not lose courtesy.

Courtesy is an act of respecting the other party, but at the same time, it raises and preserves one’s own dignity.  

It was a belief Zion had stubbornly upheld even after Naia’s death.

Yet now, he felt skeptical about the meaning of such behavior.

In the end, he said nothing.  

[Think about it. How often in your life have you had the freedom to act as you wished?]

To Zion, who had been the heir to the House of Aleph from the moment he was born, ‘freedom’ was a concept utterly distant from reality.

Without the variables of his weakness or Mione, his life would have been bound entirely by the role of heir to the House of Aleph for half his life, and then by that of the Aleph Count for the other half.  

“What’s wrong with that?”  

[Ah, this guy is serious.] Frey pressed his fingers to his forehead.  

Frey was born on Earth, where the caste system had long been abolished, and where a crisis known as the ‘Gate Disaster’ had led to dramatic unity.  

In contrast, Zion was born and lived in a world where the caste system was natural, and noble roles were borne as naturally as breathing.  

Bridging this difference in consciousness and understanding each other was a difficult task.  

[Well, it’s not a bad thing. What I mean is, life bound only by roles and duties isn’t everything. As long as you take responsibility for what you do, living freely is a form of life everyone deserves.] 

“A free life…?”  

[Or what? Are you going to go back home and endure Mione’s pressure while clinging to your position as heir? I’m against that. This time, no matter what, she’d try to kill you.]  

“I don’t want that either.”  

Answering naturally, Zion suddenly gave a bitter smile.

Saying he wouldn’t return to his family came so easily now—something he couldn’t have imagined just days ago.  

‘Not bound by the family, not shackled by a role, living as I want.’  

Repeating this silently, Zion closed his eyes gently.

Then, he imagined and compared two scenarios.  

One: returning to the count’s house late as if dead abroad, working for the family again.  

Two: cutting ties with the family, living freely as he wished, without anyone’s interference.  

The scale tilted surprisingly easily.

Narrowing his eyes, Zion honestly voiced the feeling welling up inside him.  

“How wonderful.”  

However, there was one problem.  

“Then what am I supposed to do now?”  

[Get stronger.]  

Frey said matter-of-factly.

Zion felt trapped in a vicious cycle.  

“Does it have to be that way?”  

[I’m not forcing you. But it’s true that there’s no harm in becoming stronger. Great strength means more possibilities. The stronger you are, the more you can accomplish and the less you’ll be oppressed by others.]  

Zion let out a muted groan.

Frey’s persuasion pushed harder against the evident worry on his face.  

[Think about it the other way around. If you’re weak, your possibilities narrow. The weak are criticized and swallowed by the strong. The same goes for freedom. The freedom of the powerless is nothing but a mirage.]

Frey’s words were right.

Yet, for some reason, Zion hesitated emotionally even though his mind accepted the reasoning.  

Unconsciously, this was because of the negative experiences he had gone through after Naia’s death.  

The scorn from the Mione Faction, the relentless efforts that failed to heal his weakness, and most decisively, the incident where innocent soldiers and servants were killed by an assassin, and he himself teetered on the edge of death—these all left him exhausted.  

‘I just want to live quietly alone somewhere on a remote island.’  

In short, Zion was tired.  

The strong will inherited from Naia that had made him endure scorn and unrewarded effort had finally collapsed.

Behind the wreckage remained a sixteen-year-old boy who didn’t even fully understand what ‘freedom’ meant.  

“I understand. I can’t come to a conclusion right now, but your words…”  

[Just call me uncle comfortably, you fool. We’re not strangers, so don’t be weird about it.]  

“All right. Yes, your advice is probably right.”  

His answer was half sincere, half an evasion to change the subject.  

Frey, lying on the bed and supporting his head with clasped hands, twisted the corner of his mouth.

He could roughly guess what Zion was thinking just by his expression.  

‘I can’t force him.’  

He didn’t like that attitude, which was close to giving up.

But he could understand that harsh life experiences had worn the boy down.  

Frey himself was tired too.  

Years had passed since the communication with Naia was cut off.

Just when he thought communication had resumed, he learned that Naia was already dead and that her son was sixteen.  

Though he didn’t show it, Frey felt as if the last fragile thread sustaining his life had snapped.

He too wanted to rest and sort out his mind.  

‘He may be an unreliable kid, but he’s still his blood.’  

Frey swallowed a sigh and got up again.

Watching the unstable boy wandering aimlessly, he quietly made a vow to himself.  

‘At least I’ll make sure he doesn’t die alone on the roadside.’  

***

[How long are you going to keep wandering through this nameless forest?]  

After walking through the forest for who knows how long, Frey finally lost patience and spoke curtly.  

[Isn’t it too relaxed? You said Mione might send an assassin again.]  

“Huh?”  

Zion looked confused.

But the one who didn’t understand was actually Frey.

Why was the guy who almost died just hours ago acting so carefree?  

“Sorry. I didn’t explain well. I’m not wandering aimlessly right now.”  

Zion stopped walking for a moment and answered fluently.  

[What?]

“The place where I was attacked is about ten kilometers west of the border. Since then, I’ve walked roughly three kilometers southeast. Of course, I have no map, so I can’t measure exactly… but the kingdom’s eastern border traces a gentle arc, so I estimate the distance to the border line is about eight kilometers in a straight line.”  

[Uh… um… huh?]

Frey was dumbfounded by Zion’s surprisingly fluent explanation, something he never expected from him before.

Frowning, he mulled over Zion’s words and asked incredulously,  

[Are you sure? You’re not just making it up as you go?]  

“I haven’t seen a map, so it’s not certain. There could be a margin of error of several hundred meters.”  

Contrary to the content, Zion’s tone was steady.

Frey, speechless, scratched the bridge of his nose.  

[You really headed southeast? Relying on your sense of direction in a forest is foolish.]  

“I checked the sun’s position, the ecology of plants, and the soil along the way, so the direction should be correct. For example, this grass… it’s called Melmai Grass. It’s a common weed seen all over the kingdom, but its appearance changes slightly depending on the climate. Because it shows distinct characteristics even with small changes, it’s the first thing to look for when lost. If the tips split into two branches and the width near the root is about the width of a finger, that indicates you’re near the southeastern border of the kingdom.”  

Hearing this fluent explanation, Frey almost groaned.

The weed Zion had pulled up matched almost perfectly with his description.

Frey, who had no knowledge of Zion’s world, couldn’t say if the explanation was correct, but it was clear that Zion wasn’t just wandering aimlessly.  

‘He seems like a completely different person than before. No, is this Zion’s true self?’  

If that was so, Frey might have been misjudging Zion all along.  

“If you keep going like this, you’ll likely overlap with the border garrison’s patrol area. It’ll be difficult to detour. Even if possible, it would take a very long time. It might be better to go straight to the fortress, approach near the garrison to observe their movements, and then look for a gap between patrols… What do you think?”  

His following words were also logical and deeply thought out. Frey, who was watching Zion silently, suddenly felt a surge of greed.  

[Zion, don’t forget what I said about getting stronger.]  

“Huh? Haah…”  

Zion made an ambiguous sound, neither agreeing nor disagreeing.

Containing his impatience, Frey narrowed his eyes.  

[If you have great strength, some will be oppressed by excessive power, but some can fully control that power with their will. If that’s nature, Zion, you have to have strength. For yourself, and for those around you.]  

But this was only Frey’s opinion; he couldn’t force Zion.

Unlike Earth, where destruction was imminent, Zion’s world was peaceful.  

[Who taught you such knowledge? Is that really a noble’s required education?]

“I learned from my mother.”  

Frey swallowed hard, then relaxed his shoulders and laughed.  

[Haha. That’s just like her.]  

Even if she lost her memories, Naia was still Naia.  

***

The soldier opened his eyes, breathing thinly as if about to break.  

His mind was foggy.

He felt numb all over, unable to move even a fingertip.

It was as if he carried a boulder instead of a body.

Or perhaps his body was gone and only his head remained.  

‘What happened?’  

Memories flickered incoherently.  

The border fortress garrison was known to be a dangerous job—and it really was—but the pay was high.

Most of it was sent back to their families.

There wasn’t much to spend on inside the fortress anyway.  

It had been a day no different from usual.

After three days of night reconnaissance duty, he had just reported to the commander, slept soundly, and was now wondering how to make good use of his remaining free time.  

Then ‘it’ appeared.  

“Stop it! No matter what, you must bring it down here!”  

The commander’s command echoed as if right next to his ear.  

It was a gigantic monster the soldier had never seen or heard of before.

Probably a monster.  

There had been sporadic monster appearances before.

Goblins, kobolds—creatures with at least some realistic strength—and dangerous monsters like orcs from old tales.

The fortress had successfully repelled all those threats until now.  

But this one was on a completely different level.

The soldier’s mind turned white with fear and shock.

Yet his body, trained countless times, gripped his weapon and took his place at the front line.  

And then…  

The memories after that were tangled and chaotic.  

There was a deafening roar.

The body of a comrade standing next to him shattered like a toy.

The fortress wall, which he thought would never fall, collapsed pitifully.  

Spears and arrows were useless.

Two stationed mages unleashed their strongest spells, but in the next moment, the monster, unharmed, counterattacked and took their lives with ease.  

The lowliest soldier, the fortress commander—everyone was powerless before that monster, as if death itself had manifested.  

Some soldiers, terrified, tried to flee.

Yet they all died equally.  

“Boom… boom…”

A steady tremor of the earth sounded—the sound of death drawing near.

The soldier struggled to rise.  

But his body still wouldn’t move an inch, as if it were a boulder.  

A large shadow covered him.

Its figure, backlit by sunlight, looked like the Grim Reaper cloaked in black who harvests human lives in stories.

The only difference was the two eyes staring at him, gleaming chillingly unlike any story.  

The soldier closed his eyes weakly.

Accepting death was not as difficult as he thought.

Only one thought came to him in the end.  

“Honey. I’m sorry.”  

And then, in the next moment—  

“Crack.”