The Death Mage that doesn't want a fourth time

69 Making a decision with someone's life in the first village

Following the lead of Kasim's party, Vandalieu was heading towards the village that they were working in, the Seventh Cultivation Village.

"A cultivation village in a place like this?" Vandalieu asked in surprise. There was a city's ruins to the south, and even a mine in beyond that.

Fester was surprised himself at Vandalieu's question. "I've never heard about the city," he said. "If you go south from the village, there's only a rocky mountain with a slave-run mine in it. There is another Duchy when you go past that, though."

"No, I've definitely heard that there was a city, a hundred years or two hundred years ago," said Kasim. "Isn't that the city that Vandalieu is talking about?"

"Ah, I see. He said he had a Vampire parent, right? I suppose it wouldn't be strange for him to be told about that," said Fester.

It seemed that the Hartner Duchy had gone into a decline in the past two hundred years.

"But why on earth would such a thing happen?" Vandalieu asked.

The adventurers gave him puzzled looks in response to his question.

"Sorry, we're not really that well-educated. Each of the duchies is its own state, like a country ruled by noblemen, so people like us don't really learn about the histories of other duchies," said Zeno.

"Are you all from other duchies?" Vandalieu asked.

"Yeah, there's a long story behind that. It's a sad story to both hear and tell –" Fester began.

"I'll tell him, Fester," said Zeno. "First, regarding why the city disappeared, I'll tell you what we know –"

According to Zeno's explanation, the direct cause was Talosheim's ruin after all.

That city had been built as a relay-point for the commercial trade with Talosheim, and when that commercial trade disappeared, the productivity of the city decreased and it became difficult to maintain it.

At the same time, the southern mine's production had fallen as well. Since profits couldn't be made by employing normal workers, slaves were used to carry out the mining.

With the people working at the mine not even having money to spend, the Duke Hartner of the time, who had been newly-appointed several years previously, had ordered that the city be dismantled.

Vandalieu was amazed that they would have been willing to dismantle an entire city. It seemed that feudal societies did anything that had already been decided upon. In Japan, there would definitely be disputes over such an action.

But what happened to the First Princess?

The name of Talosheim's First Princess, Levia, didn't appear in Zeno's story. It might have been omitted because it didn't have anything to do with the city.

It bothers me, but I suppose it would be unnatural for me to ask about it now.

As Vandalieu thought this, Zeno's story skipped to more recent events.

"Actually, five years ago, The Amid Empire came attacking," he said. "Most of the Sauron Duchy to the north was occupied. We're from the Sauron Duchy."

"We're what you'd call refugees," said Fester. "Those guys from the Empire apparently behaved themselves in towns and larger farming villages, but in small villages like ours, they did whatever they liked. My oldest aniki tried to save his fiancé, and both of them –"

"Fester, that's not the kind of story you should let such a small child hear, is it?"

The war between the Amid Empire and the Orbaume Kingdom that Vandalieu had heard of previously. Vandalieu felt that he had suddenly caught up with what had been happening.