Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria - Volume 3 - Chapter Ep

Epilogue 

“Big Brother... Big Brother...” Yuuto felt his body being lightly shaken, rousing him from his slumber. 

He felt like he’d been having a dream. A dream of memories both nostalgic and terrible. 

Lately, he’d finally started seeing those dreams less often... 

As his eyelids began to open, his blurry vision caught sight of swaying locks of golden hair. 

“L-Loptr...?” 

Perhaps because of the dream, that was the first name that had come to his half-asleep mind. It was only after the word had left his lips that his mind awoke completely. 

Yuuto was no longer the lost young boy of two years ago. He was now the patriarch of the Wolf Clan, a figure of undeniable power and authority who had subjugated his clan’s erstwhile threats, the Horn and Claw Clans. 

The person in front of him was Felicia, wide-eyed with surprise. Her expression darkened slightly, as if a shadow had passed over her heart. 

“...Sorry,” Yuuto said. 

Dammit, he thought bitterly as he apologized. 

At some point, saying that name had become a taboo between the two of them. 

For Yuuto, it was a painful reminder of how his immaturity had hurt his brother, driven him into a corner, and at last driven him mad. For Felicia, it was the name of a relative who had committed the most unforgivable and fiendish crime under the laws of the clan — the killing of his sworn parent — earning him the reviled moniker of “kinslayer.” 

It was also the reason Felicia was Yuuto’s sworn little sister and not his sworn child. As the sister of the man who had killed his own patriarch and tried to kill Yuuto, she believed she didn’t deserve the right to be his sworn child. 

Those close to her had all attempted to persuade her that the affairs and actions of one’s blood relatives had nothing to do with the Oath of the Chalice, but she had stubbornly refused to relent on the matter. 

A younger sibling subordinate was formally regarded as higher in status than child subordinates. However, management of internal clan affairs, such as promotions, was conducted with the parent-child relationship at its core. In other words, despite still being only in her teens, there would likely never be an opportunity for a younger sister such as Felicia to rise to a higher position in the clan. 

She could not be promoted to second-in-command or assistant to the second, and she could never become the patriarch. And all due to her own decision, one that seemed to be a form of personal atonement. 

“No, don’t worry about it.” Felicia spoke sadly, with a shrug of her shoulders. “Still, I wonder where that man is, and what he’s doing now.” 

Yuuto was a bit surprised at this. He hadn’t thought she would pick up the topic and continue with it. 

It had already been more than a year since Loptr had left the Wolf Clan. Perhaps the wounds in her heart had healed a bit in that time, and the resistance she felt to speaking about him had lessened. Still, she had referred to him not as her “brother,” but as “that man.” 

A search had been conducted with the full resources of the clan, but in the end, they’d found no clue as to Loptr’s whereabouts. 

The previous patriarch had asked him to take care of Loptr, but that was going to prove difficult. 

Even if he did come back, no one would accept someone who had killed his own sworn father becoming patriarch. 

Yuuto might want to name Loptr as his successor, but most within the clan would surely refuse to exchange the Oath of the Chalice with him. If that happened, the Wolf Clan would weaken and decline. With the weight of the lives of everyone in the clan resting on his shoulders, Yuuto couldn’t allow himself to be swayed by personal feelings in this matter. 

“Who knows,” Yuuto said sadly. “But wherever he is, I hope he’s alive.” 

If the man had managed to start a new life in some other land, perhaps taken a wife and had a child, and found some small measure of happiness... that was all Yuuto could earnestly hope for. 

It was true that Loptr had insulted Yuuto, tried to kill him, and killed the predecessor and father figure Yuuto had respected. But Yuuto just couldn’t find it in himself to resent him. Instead, whenever he thought of him, he only felt the gripping pain of guilt in his chest. 

“Fate really does never work out the way you want it to,” he said. 

The man who had dreamed of becoming patriarch since childhood, and had spent his life in constant effort to achieve that, had gotten his dreams shattered and become an exile from his clan, while a boy who was only desperate to go back home and had no interest in power or authority was now the patriarch instead. 

What am I doing sitting in this chair? he often wondered to himself, even now. 

In the end, though the Wolf Clan had seen several victories, Yuuto had been unable to return to Japan. 

The idea that he would be able to go home if he completed his mission here had been nothing more than an assumption he and Mitsuki had come up with on their own. In hindsight, he now wondered incredulously just how he had so easily and fully believed in that assumption, despite there being no evidence for it. 

The bitter experience of losing two people precious to him, and the more than a year of harsh days he’d spent fighting for the future of the Wolf Clan as its patriarch, had changed the boy’s naive and impulsive heart. It had fostered a new sense of objectivity in him. 

Of course, some possibility did still remain that he might be able to go home if he accomplished some sort of task or mission here. But rather than getting caught up in arbitrarily assumptions about what that was, he was broadening the scope of his vision, considering various possibilities, and approaching the problem from many different angles. 

“Lately, whenever I think about that man, I feel this strange uneasiness...” Felicia said. 

“Whoa, whoa, that’s not a good sign. Felicia, your intuition is often on the mark, you know.” Yuuto furrowed his brow, wondering if perhaps something had happened to the man. 

If nothing else, Loptr was an Einherjar with battle skills on par with Skáviðr. It was unlikely that he would go down in any normal circumstance, but... 

Maybe the reason Felicia had taken this chance to bring up Loptr in conversation was because she could no longer deal with those feelings of uneasiness on her own. 

“For some reason I just... have a really bad feeling,” Felicia whispered with a serious expression, clutching one hand to her chest.

Nóatún. 

Surrounded by wide tracts of grain-producing lands fertilized by the Örmt River, it was the capital city of the Hoof Clan, one of the Ten Great Clans regarded as the largest and most powerful in all of Yggdrasil. 

The city had once reached the heights of prosperity when it was the home territory of the late Yngvi, called the supreme ruler of Álfheimr, but now it had been transformed into a chaotic, living hell. 

Soldiers ravenous to sate their greed, lust, and thirst for blood roamed the streets, hooting and hollering with wild delight. They assaulted the homes of the people and took their valuables. If they found a woman, they ignored her tearful screams and had their way with her right there on the street. 

Crying children bound with ropes were being rounded up to be taken away. It was because they would fetch a good price as slaves. 

There were flames beginning to rise in several places throughout the city, as well. 

“Pillage everything! Despoil them all! Burn everything! Show these fools what happens to those who dare defy us, the Panther Clan!” The patriarch of the Panther Clan gave out his cruel orders from atop his horse, his feet planted firmly in the stirrups. 

Judging by his voice, he was a young man. It was difficult to tell his exact age from his appearance, however, for the upper half of his face was covered by a black mask which reflected the light with a dull sheen. 

The members of the Panther Clan had heard it was because he had an ugly scar. None of them had ever seen his uncovered face. 

“Just what I’d expect of you, Father! You felled the capital of the Hoof Clan so effortlessly!” the man serving as adjutant praised his master. 

This man who called himself Hveðrungr had suddenly appeared before them a year ago, and possessed knowledge of a great many crafts and techniques. 

Most amazing among them were stirrups and the making of iron. 

The Panther Clan was made up of nomads who traveled the grasslands with their livestock. Everyone in their clan was capable of riding a horse, and since they also made their livelihood through hunting, all of them were proficient with a bow. 

With the addition of stirrups, they were able to further steady their bodies on top of a moving horse, allowing them to wield spear or bow on horseback with ease. 

In other words, every single member of the clan could fight as seasoned cavalry! And iron was much more hard and durable than their old bronze weapons. 

Newly armed with these two things, the sheer mobility and destructive power of the Panther Clan defied description. 

What had once been nothing more than a single clan roaming the Miðgarðr region had, in the blink of an eye, annexed the surrounding clans and finally grown powerful enough to overrun even a nation as large as the Hoof Clan. And it was all thanks to the new technology this stranger had provided. 

Because of that, the man had continuously racked up achievements and recognition within the clan, rising in rank at an incredible pace, until at last he’d received the honor of succession despite being an outsider, becoming the sixth patriarch of the Panther Clan. 

The Panther Clan patriarch’s mouth twisted into a cruel sneer as he spoke with a icy tone that sent a chill down his adjutant’s spine. “Heh, something like this is no challenge for me. This is still merely nothing more than a stepping stone.” 

The eyes behind his mask were ablaze with hatred and insanity. However, the power of that passionate fire had propelled the Panther Clan forward at a rapid pace. 

The adjutant thought his master to be a frightening man. Just what could it be that spurred him on so? 

With his golden hair flowing in the wind, the patriarch of the Panther Clan set his sights on something far, far away. 

“Keh heh heh, all it took was a little knowledge of these things, and now everything goes exactly how I want it to. I lost everything to you once. This time, I am going to be the one to rob you of everything. Just you wait, Yuuto...!”

To Be Continued