“There weren’t any clues here either. I guess that means he isn’t in the country anymore,” said Kuzan Rogue, former squire of the Duke of Olipiage’s knights.
He was in Jagarta, a city on the western edge of the Oraculum Kingdom. If you went any farther west, you would hit the Purgatory Forest, which was infamous throughout the country—nay, throughout the world—as monster territory. That was where Kuzan’s former liege, Noah Olipiage, had been abandoned. Technically, he’d been sent there for his own protection, but since he hadn’t been given any allies or assets, he may as well have been abandoned. However, out of all the things they could have done, this method decidedly gave him the highest chances of survival.
All of House Olipiage, Kuzan included, knew that Noah Olipiage was both extraordinary and ignoble. Not in a derogatory sense—he simply had the resilience and open-mindedness to adapt to anything. As remarkable as the saints and luminaries famed throughout the world were, most of them would perish if they were suddenly tossed into the Purgatory Forest one day.
That wouldn’t happen to Noah. It couldn’t happen to him. He had something unique about him—call it charm, charisma, or a gift—that made one want to believe that he was an exception.
However, Noah himself didn’t think he had any of this, and always considered himself to be just average. To be fair, as far as his skills went, he wasn’t exceptional in any particular area. But after he’d gained the incredible <Holy King> skill, he’d become anything but average. It had simply taken him too long to figure it out. If he’d known earlier, there would have been more options. That was cause for regret.
“Yo, Kuzan, can you just give up already? He got dumped in the Purgatory Forest of all places. There’s no way he’s getting out of there. You may as well assume he’s already dead. Y’know what’d be better? Us getting outta this country and chasing fame somewhere else. You’re a guy I can stick with,” said a girl.
Her manner of speech was extremely coarse and boyish, but her appearance was the exact opposite. She seemed to be around ten years old, and when standing next to Kuzan, she practically looked like she could be his little sister. They actually had been pretending to be siblings while in the company of others.
It’s not that they looked similar, but they both had relatively well-proportioned facial features, so they could get away with making this claim. However, the girl was not as she appeared. She wasn’t even a normal folk. She was a dwarf, and much older than her appearance suggested. From what Kuzan had gathered, she was well over fifty.
Why, then, was she sharing a room with Kuzan? The reason was that the two of them were currently traveling together. Of course, they had different motives. Kuzan was searching for his liege, and the dwarf girl was looking for a place where she could put her talents to use.
They’d met in a town that Kuzan had come through on his travels, when he saved the dwarf girl from being enslaved. To repay the favor, and because she felt the hand of fate at work, the dwarf girl had insisted that she would accompany him. Kuzan had yielded, and the two of them wound up traveling with each other.
The girl’s name was Merikur. She was both a proficient blacksmith and fighter, so she was by no means an impediment—honestly, she made for a good partner.
Even so, Kuzan couldn’t explain everything about Noah. There were things he couldn’t risk divulging, including his own origins...at least, not while they were in this city. Anyone could be listening in. All that he’d said was that he was looking for an old friend who was in the Purgatory Forest. That much was certainly true.
His cover story was that his friend had rocked the boat too many times and couldn’t stay in the country anymore, and was at last exiled to monster territory. The least Kuzan could do was to go out and look for him.
Noah would probably grumble that this wasn’t very sympathetic toward him, but the funny thing was that all of it was true—though none of it had occurred through any fault of Noah’s.
“It’d take more than going through monster territory to kill him. At least now I know he’s not in this country anymore. I can’t say I blame him for leaving it. I just searched around here because I thought it’d be the quickest exit from the Purgatory Forest, if he made it out...”
“Then you’re not gonna give up on looking for him? Makes me wonder what kinda guy he is if someone like you is going to all these lengths.”
“He’s an interesting person. At least, the most interesting one I’ve ever met. But he’s also complicated to explain. So I’d like for you to meet him yourself.”
She sighed. “All right. Well, I’ll stick with you till you find him. Oh, let’s check out the Urizen Federation next. It touches the southern border of the Purgatory Forest, so if he didn’t come this way, he’d probably have gone there. Plus it’s a better place for demihumans like me.”
“True enough. It’s more likely than the northern border. Okay, let’s exit Oraculum tomorrow.”
“Gotcha.”
The pair had yet to discover that in arbitrarily deciding these travel plans, they had stumbled upon the correct choice.