CH 83

The three of them sat near the tree for a while, and each endured a difficult time in their own way.

Hayer got up immediately, as if sitting still made him feel more depressed. Then he buried Tamati by digging the ground while sprinkling the water of the oasis.

Meanwhile, Iris collected enough flowers under the sacred tree and put them in her baggage.

Watching the two people from a distance, each doing their own thing while weighed down by heavy emotions, Cadella—who has lived the longest among the three—thought that the two were unexpectedly similar.

After Tamati’s burial, Hayer, who had risen, felt a presence and gestured to be quiet to the two.

It wasn’t until a while later that they began to see a herd of camels running from afar.

Hayer carefully identified the people approaching that were creating dust. Then he smiled in relief and opened his mouth.

“It’s a group of silk merchants.”

It wasn’t until a little after he spoke that they saw the group of merchants holding a flag generously made of fine silk from afar. They were approaching the oasis.

Iris murmured.

“How can you see…?”

Then Cadella said.

“Right? Iris, you didn’t see either?”

“Yes.”

“We are normal.”

“I think so too.”

When Iris agreed, Hayer laughed from behind. It was the first laugh since Tamati left.

Upon arriving at the oasis, the group of merchants found the sacred tree lying on the floor and froze.

“Sa-sacred tree! Why is the sacred tree…?”

Hayer said calmly as the group of merchants approached with gibberish.

“Merchants of Siere. I am an Asheri, and I have just arrived after being informed that the sacred tree has been cut.”

“Asheri! I always owe you a lot.”

The merchant said and scanned the party with his eyes. The party who came to check that the sacred tree was cut down was too simple.

Hayer hastily excused himself.

“Here, the princess of the Lepos family had to accompany me to pass through that maze, and this person who looks like a child…”

Hayer made some excuses and looked down, hesitating because there was no excuse for this child.

At that time, the powder that Cadella had was sprinkled on the person who seemed to be the leading merchant. Then the merchant, who frowned for a moment, opened his mouth in hallucination.

“Ah! Aren’t you Mr. Cadella?”

“Yes.”

“Oh my, if you’re Mr. Cadella, a group like us isn’t even a fist to you.”

“Sure, sure. You know it well.”

Cadella nodded confidently. Hayer and Iris almost burst into laughter, but desperately held back and wrinkled their faces.

Fortunately, thanks to Cadella’s hallucinations and the Asheri family’s influence on those travelling to and from the border, the three were able to ride on the merchant group’s wagon. In return, they had to listen to Cadella’s boasting every day.

* * *

The trip with the group of merchants was relatively stable.

Basically, because the mercenaries the merchants were employing were desert peoples, they could easily pass through the desert.

The desert people were strong and mighty, but above all, they were extremely relaxed when they met the same desert people. Thanks to this, they were able to break up nicely without conflict, shaking hands and sharing some money.

During the fifteen days leading to the capital on a camel-drawn wagon, the merchant group encountered the desert people three times. If they had passed through the maze and moved to the sacred tree with the Tejas Knights, they might not have had a chance.

The Knights of Tejas may be far stronger in terms of strength, but the natural circumstance of fighting was too disadvantageous.

While crossing the desert for such a long time, they talked about many things with the people of the merchant group.

Fortunately, the merchant people spoke Luwan’s language relatively fluently, so there was no difficulty in communicating.

In particular, the fact that Iris was a good drinker has been greatly favoured by the merchant women who like to drink.

“Where does all this alcohol go in that small body?”

“It’s fascinating…”

“It’s because the liquor in the north is strong.”

After Iris said that, she checked outside the tent for a moment.

In the meantime, Hayer was learning the language of the desert people by talking to the mercenaries he had become close to as if they were old friends.

Being sociable, he learned to smoke unique to the desert people, shared drinks, and quickly laughed and chatted like an old friend.

After staring at him for a while, Iris turned to the merchant women again. At the same time they were spending time drinking, they were continuing their usual moves from the wagon.

The merchant women’s embroidery skills were great. In an instant, beautiful scenes were embroidered on the empty silk.

Iris looked at those embroideries and asked insinuatingly.

“What is the atmosphere like in the capital of Siere? I don’t know because I’ve never been there.”

“Ah, at Siere? It’s the opposite atmosphere from Luwan there. Luwan is… it smells bad, doesn’t it?”

Iris nodded in agreement, and the merchant woman continued.

“Siere is very clean from the street, and the clothes are much better. I’m going to Luwan because there’s Everhart Port, but it’s not a country that I have to go that far.”

When she said that, another merchant woman next to her hit her on the arm.

“You, in the presence of a royal…”

“Ah, why! If you’re a royal, you should look at the situation even more. Maybe you’ll become the king.”

While talking like that, the merchant woman, who had been quietly embellishing things since before, spoke up, as if she thought she had only talked about Siere’s good points.

“But I heard that something like an unknown beast often comes out these days.”

“A beast?”

“Yes, a strange beast that I’ve never seen before bites people in the capital.”

Iris paused at the merchant woman’s words.

She asked back.

“Can you tell me what the beast looks like?”

“It’s different from person to person, so I can’t gather opinions.”

“What I heard was that something like a tree trunk drags people around?”

“I heard it’s a big dog with teeth like a wild beast.”

It was felt from their conversation that monsters were pouring into Siere’s capital.

Iris felt a shiver down her spine. It was clear that the two sacred trees near the capital of Siere were causing problems.

Iris said.

“Come to think of it, I think I also saw a monster on the border of Siere.”

The merchant women stopped at her words. Then one asked.

“By any chance… did something that looked like a termite mound move?”

“How did you know?”

“Oh my god.”

The merchant woman clapped, and a woman of Celios’s age covered her mouth with her hands.

When she stiffened and wept in an instant, the merchant woman next to Iris explained for her.

“Well, the son of this family came back alone from the desert in a state of distraught… The termite mound kept on biting people.”

“Ah…”

“Everyone asked if he was bitten by a termite, but no matter how much they tried to fix him, wouldn’t he insist that the termite mound bit him? So… they thought it was insistence.”

In other words, it wasn’t a story of insistence.

Iris nodded. She understood both that the termite mound bit, and that such a thing could not have happened.

It was when the atmosphere was briefly subdued by the conversation of monsters.

When Iris closed her eyes for a moment and was lost in thought, a merchant woman opened the tent slightly, looked at Hayer, and smacked Iris on the arm.

“Gosh, well done by the way, well done.”

“What… do you mean?”

“I’ve never seen such a handsome man in my life. But you made him fall in love, so good job!”

“What! Not at all.”

Iris, with her eyes wide, waved her hands.

Whether she denied it or not, the merchant women chatted among themselves.

“Did you see that knight’s eyes all the way here? His eyes were so fixed on the princess…”

The merchant woman, who was surprised that she met someone who saw the monster that bit her son and was alive, immediately got involved in the conversation.

“I really thought that was falling in love.”

Iris was taken aback by the merchant women’s words and stammered, not knowing what to say. She wanted to say it wasn’t like that, but there was no way to explain it because they were guessing everything from the ‘look in the eyes.’

afterword

hayer being so obviously and hopelessly in love with iris as always… bro is not slick at all!!! love the merchant women they’re so sweet even if they’re only here for ~2 chaps