Chapter 2 (1/2)

Teo Keh couldn’t calm down, and paced around the pavillion.

Although the thick pavillion was blocking the sun above his head, the temperature inside the pavillion was still quite hot.

However, Teo Keh neither opened a window, nor pulled up the hanging curtain that covered the entrance, and merely traced a circle on the floor, as though following the pattern of the carpet with his foot.

―――――They still haven’t? They still haven’t found him?

His forehead ran with sweat, and his prided moustache had lost its l.u.s.tre.

Teo Keh had served under the first king of the Kingdom of Yohk’Zai, Tenuhg, before he had revived the country, and had supported him.

When Tenuhg had revived the country he was 31, but at the time Teo Keh was only a youth in his teens. However, seeing through Teo Keh’s exceptional talent for politics, Tenuhg appointed him as prime minister when he was only halfway through his twenties.

The newly revived young country continued on vigorously to absorb ten odd clans, and two small countries in its surroundings, and in a flash had risen to become a great nation that controlled almost all of the Zaharya.

Tenuhg was a hero. At the very least, he was a hero to Teo Keh and the citizens of Yohk’Zai.

Tenuhg possessed a tenacious body and powerful vitality that matched his status as a hero, and he continued governing Yohk’Zai as a strong king, until he died at 71 years of age in the bed of his favourite, and 48-years junior, concubine.

However, a hero does not necessarily have heroes as children.

The 46 year old successor of Tenuhg, Iyoh, was merely a kind-hearted man.

Had he been born to a commoner in the city, he would probably have lived a fortunate and happy life.

Unfortunately, Iyoh was born as the son of Tenuhg. There was no way that a recently risen, and still unsettled country was suitable for a kind and gentle ruler.

The result was that in only four years, the kingdom was meeting its decline.

Had Iyoh been a fool who hadn’t noticed the disaster of his nation, or an unrepentent man who had grown c.o.c.ky from becoming the king, the situation may still have been better. However, he was neither of these things. Lamenting his own weakness, unable to bear the pressure, growing thinner in a flash, and then finally succ.u.mbing to illness and leaving this world too son.

His reign had only lasted 4 years and a few days. It ended when Iyoh had just turned 50.

What was worse, was that Iyoh had no son.

Naturally, there was a dispute over the successor. It seemed that a struggle for the throne would break out between the two son-in-laws of Iyoh, and the sons of Tenuhg that were the younger half-brothers of Iyoh. You could say that they were on the eve of such a war.

――――――FOOLS!

Teo Keh could not believe their stupidity.

If it became an internal war, then even the dissatisfaction of the affiliated clans and nations would turn towards them. To him, it was obvious what future a scattered and separated country held.

While days went as he continued to kick away and reject invitations to each faction, one day, he recalled a certain servant woman that he had driven out from the palace a long time ago.

Despite being a servant who did the laundry, perhaps as a prank of G.o.d, when she was 14, of all things, she began a relations.h.i.+p with Iyoh.

By the time Teo Keh had realised it, she was already with child.

A child with a woman of no standing. What’s more, Iyoh was not an adult yet.

Teo Keh gave the woman money, and expelled her from the castle.

And like that, Teo Keh told Iyoh that she had happily accepted the consolation money, and left after having an abortion.

However, the truth was different. She did not abort the child.

Teo Keh had been prepared to even use force to make her do so, but the woman cried and clung to him.

She didn’t want power nor riches. She just wanted to give birth to the child conceived between her and the person she loved. She wouldn’t cause trouble for Iyoh or anybody else. She just begged Teo Keh for permission to give birth.

Seeing the crying woman holding her belly, Teo Keh couldn’t bring himself to do it.

After promising to never name the father, and to live in a faraway land, he let the woman go.

Had that child been a boy… thought Teo Keh.

It was the child of a woman he had driven from the castle himself.

He knew that he was being selfish. However, he had no other plans left.

And so Teo Keh followed the woman’s footsteps, and discovered that she had given birth to a boy.

Whether it was fortune or misfortune, the woman had pa.s.sed away ten years ago. Hearing that the boy with Iyoh’s blood was working as a member of a desert merchant group, Teo Keh secretly sent soldiers to find him.

But this was the result.

The ray of light that he had found after much trouble had had his merchant group attacked by bandits, and by the time the merchants were located, their remains were buried beneath the sand.

When Teo Keh received the news, he began planning the escape of his clan to outside the country.

However, no matter how they dug up the sand, they couldn’t find a man like him. The only bodies they found were those of men in their prime, and in the end, they couldn’t find the man who should have been 35.

Though out of character, Teo Keh wanted to thank G.o.d.

However, the circ.u.mstances being what they were, he couldn’t predict the result, and their time was limited. What’s more, the only clue were the earrings that Iyoh had given the woman. Inherited from his mother, they were earrings made of the blue rock lip’se, that he had never parted from in these past ten years. If they hadn’t been taken by bandits, then they should still have been hanging from his ears.

Teo Keh prayed. He prayed with all his heart.

After continuing his silent prayer with his eyes closed, when he parted his eyelids again, he doubted his eyes.

“…Again? Give me a break…”

And then, he doubted his ears.

“Woman… What are you doing?”

What he saw before him was a strange, strange, scene.

As though a rectangle had been cut from it, a certain part of the pavilion scenery had changed, and inside it, was a woman with honey coloured skin, but in an appearance that was basically naked, she was standing there with bubbles dripping from her, clenching tightly a pink object.

“Well, I’m cleaning the bath. Problem?”

“Cleaning the bath? Is that a bath over there?”

“That’s right. A bath. What are you doing? You don’t seem to be stranded, do you.”

“I am not stranded but… What exactly is going on? Are you a user of the dark arts?”

Teo Keh noticed that his own voice had trembled when he asked the question.

“Huh? Dark arts? As if I can use something like that. Isn’t this something that you did?”

“Absurd!”

When he accidentally raised his voice, the woman’s shoulders trembled with a start.

The woman looked frightened, but in the next moment her expression turned angry.

“Hey! Don’t raise your voice like that. I don’t know what’s going on either! I mean, just last night a stranded man appeared, and now there’s a full-bellied and arrogant old man. What’s going on…”

Her vigour was only there for the beginning, and her voice quickly wilted. Seeing the confused and frowning woman who seemed like she would cry at any moment, Teo Keh became fl.u.s.tered. He was fundamentally somebody weak to the tears of women after all.

“S-, Sorry… I got a little excited, didn’t I? Apologies.”

After giving her face a wipe with her slender, bare arm, she tightly pressed her lips together.

Seeing that she wasn’t going to start crying, Teo Keh felt relieved.

“But still, what on earth is this?”

It was a scene that seemed stranger the longer you looked.

This s.p.a.ce had suddenly appeared in the dark red pavillion.

This s.p.a.ce that opened from his hips to above his head looked just like a painting floating in the air.

However, a painting where the person in it moved, and talked. And what’s more, where the person was a woman in a strange appearance.

Teo Keh stared hard at the woman.

Her pale skin was similar to the people of the north, but despite that, her facial features were quite flat.

The clothing she was wearing was also quite strange. A light blue cloth covered only her chest and hips, and only a string covered her shoulders. As for her legs, everything from the thighs down were laid bare. Despite that, this woman showed no signs of embara.s.sment, and was calm.

“Heyy, could it be that you’re troubled for water?”

“…Water? My water supplies are not particularly troubling, but…”

Teo Keh frowned. While tilting his head and wondering why this woman thought he was troubled for water, he suddenly gasped.

“Did you say that something like this had happened before? You said “again” earlier, did you not?”

If his memories weren’t mistaken, that was her first line.

The woman had experienced this before. And that person was somebody in need of water.

Teo Keh was agitated enough that it felt like the bottom of his guts would jump up.

“What type of person… What type of person was the one that you met!? Was he not wearing a pair of blue earrings!?”

It felt like he was being pulled by a fine thread.

Teo Keh leaned forward in excitement, and tightly gripped the silver frame of the rectangular hole.

“Y-, Yes. He was, but?”

It really was him!

To he who hadn’t believed in the G.o.ds even a little, in this moment his faith had taken a 180 degree turn.