Chapter 56 - EPISODE 56 – WINTER FLOWER (2) (1/2)
An explanation regarding the chapter’s title:
Winter Flower refers to the “Camellia” flower. And in some languages, Camellia sounds similar to “Kamael,” so the Winter Flower is indirectly referencing the character Kamael. Why that is so is something the author only knows. Maybe his parents named him after the Camellia flower and because he’s a guy, it became Kamael? I don’t know, but that’s the closest explanation I could give.
When one thinks of the word ‘fantasy,’ it conjures up thoughts of swords and magic. Thus, numerous swordsmen existed in Pleiades, the world of Legend of Heroes.
More than half of the characters used swords, and there was also a high proportion of swordsmen among the playable characters.
In particular, the main characters of each episode, such as Landius and Kamael in episode 1, Maximilian in episode 2, and Luichel in episode 3, all used swords as their main weapon, so it could be said that among all the characters, those who were called ‘heroes’ used swords.
‘Thus, it can be said that the Four Great Swordsmen symbolized the strongest people in Legend of Heroes.’
These Four Great Swordsmen were chosen by players among the many swordsmen characters.
The Four Great Swordsmen was not a title that existed in the setting, as it was a kind of meme commonly used like the Four Heavenly Kings and the Four Great Kings, but because it was so widely used in Legend of Heroes, the title was virtually treated as an official setting.
‘Kamael, Maximilian, Luther, and Scarlet.’
There was a lot of discussion on who among the four was the strongest, but in any case, Kamael took the lead among the Four Great Swordsmen and the allies and enemies altogether.
‘He was also the only character that appeared in the entire Legend of Heroes series.’
That was why some say that Kamael was the true main character of the Legend of Heroes series.
‘He had a lot of fans ever since he appeared in the first episode.’
Although Jude himself liked Landius more, Kamael was in the top range if he ranked in sequence all the characters that had appeared in the game.
‘Now then, about Kamael.’
The Ghostblade.
He was the strongest in the Guardians of the Holy Cross if you exclude Elendia, their leader, who was completely shrouded in mystery.
As one of the Four Great Swordsmen, he owns the extremely cold magic sword ‘Almace,’ one of the 7 famous swords in Legend of Heroes.
Unlike Landius, who underwent a shocking visual change in 10 years, Kamael remained the same familiar character when he appeared in the second episode.
He was dressed in black with a hood covering his pure-white hair.
He had a beautiful face that heavily exuded a neutral charm, and infinitely cold blue eyes that were like gems.
As if it was his character setting, he had a stiff facial expression and rarely smiled except when he’s with Landius, who had been with him since the first episode.
He quietly stared at Jude before he opened his mouth and spoke again.
“I was observing your movements at the request of Landius.”
Jude nodded a little at Kamael’s words.
Because Landius was a magnanimous person and not a foolish one.
He wasn’t a person who would leave his disciple unattended.
“In fact, I tried to somehow end my observation here in the north, but I couldn’t. Because Saluzia moved.”
It was Saluzia, one of the six branch executives of the Devil’s Hand.
The power of a high-ranking demonic human was comparable to the heads of the Guardians of the Holy Cross, and even as one of the heads of the Guardians of the Holy Cross, he had no choice but to be focused and stay alert in order to immediately respond against her.
“I found and saved you while I was tracking down Saluzia’s whereabouts.”
It was a roughly understandable story.
And it was really like Kamael to start an explanation and not care about introductions.
To put it simply, he was not interested in anyone other than Landius and his colleagues in the first episode.
“Where were you going? If you keep moving north, there wouldn’t be any other place except outside of the border.”
It was a low but beautiful voice.
Jude pointed towards the trembling Red Wind behind Cordelia and said.
“She is Red Wind, a member of the Great Storm tribe. In order to cure her father’s illness, we were crossing the border…and on our way to the land of barbarians.”
Because Red Wind was with them and listening, Jude was reluctant to use the word ‘barbarian,’ but there was no other different term for it that he could use right now.
At Jude’s explanation, Kamael knit his brows.
“How is a child from the 12 northern families and a barbarian girl related?”
“There was a divine revelation from the barbarian god, Great Storm.”
When Cordelia stepped forward and spoke, Kamael’s eyes were filled with curiosity.
“Barbarian god?”
“Yes.”
Cordelia replied once again and secretly glanced at Jude afterwards. Because it was her asking for help, Jude also spoke.
“Great Storm is the barbarian god of the wind who watches over the Great Storm tribe. And…I heard that the illness of Red Wind’s father, Red Gale, seems to be related to the power of demons.”
Red Wind was startled and surprised by Jude’s words as her eyes widely opened, but on the contrary, Kamael’s eyes narrowed.
“Indeed, that is something worth investigating.”
Kamael didn’t know much about the demon followers that settled down in the land of the barbarians beyond the border.
However, Kamael was someone who had willingly declared an oath to eradicate all the demon followers that existed in this world.
His eyes, which had been indifferent until now, were now filled with emotions for the first time.
“I see, your purpose is to cross the border. As Landius’ acquaintance, I’ll help you up to there.”
“Before that, Kamael, I’d like to ask you one question.”
“What is it?”
“It’s about the movement of the Devil’s Hand. Does one of our enemies have the ability of foresight?”
First of all, to the best of Jude’s own knowledge, there was no one in the Devil’s Hand who possessed the ability of foresight.
However, the Devil’s Hand were their enemy, and not their ally.
Naturally, he couldn’t identify all their secrets during the time when he played it as a game.
‘They appeared as if they were waiting for us.’
The Hellhounds of the Devil’s Hand.
It was only during Frost Anvil that their location was specified, as it was possible for them to gather clues and track them down because Jude had a clear motive to go to Frost Anvil in order to search for the Sunflower.
But now, this place was a snowfield where there were few to entirely no people.
It was possible to follow the trail, but it was impossible to predict where they would go in order to set up an ambush.
At Jude’s question, Kamael considerably looked at Jude in interest before asking.
“Why do you think it’s a foresight ability?”
“Because it’s hard to explain the ambush if there was no foresight ability. And…my guess is, their foresight ability seems to be imperfect.”
Judging from Kamael’s reaction, it seemed that there was indeed a foresight ability within the members of the Devil’s Hand.
But fortunately, it was very likely that the ability was imperfect.
Hearing Jude’s words, Kamael’s face became like that of a teacher testing their student.
“Why do you say it’s imperfect?”
“Because of the appearance of Hellhounds.”
If it was a perfect foresight ability, it would be Saluzia and the demonic humans who would appear in that position instead of the Hellhounds.
But it was the Hellhounds that appeared.
It could only infer one thing here.
Their foresight was imperfect. And because it was not a perfect foresight, they released the Hellhounds over a wide range, and one of them encountered Jude’s party.
Kamael had a very faint smile at Jude’s hypothesis, and then he whispered in a low voice.
“Are you really the disciple of Landius?”
Jude wondered on what the connection was between his reasoning ability and Landius, and also wondered why Cordelia was casually humming all of a sudden. But Kamael himself was convinced and had a stiff expression again as he said.
“That’s right. In the Devil’s Hand, there’s a middle-ranking demonic human called Kanos who has an imperfect foresight ability. According to my investigation so far, it seems that his foresight could only tell the rough location. And given that he hasn’t frequently used it, I think that he cannot freely control the ability itself.”
“Indeed, so it was like that.”
Imperfect foresight.
With that in mind, Jude also understood on what happened at Frost Anvil.
They knew that Jude and Cordelia were going to Frost Anvil, but they didn’t exactly know when and what route the two were going through.
And that was why they made a mistake when they held their ground and waited for the two on the 1st floor.
‘Is this the price for being too lucky at the casino and auction house?’
There was no such thing as a law of total luck, so it was natural to think that it was crazy when their foresight that they could not freely control, suddenly succeeded in succession.
‘Whatever.’
It was bound to be annoying if there was a foresight ability on the enemy side. Crossing the border would get them out of the Devil’s Hand’s area, so they wouldn’t have to pay much attention to the enemy by then, but when they come back later, they would have to resolve that issue.