By Zephyria ======
The ship they transferred to at Evahill Port was a large sailing vessel equipped with no fewer than seven sails. Fortunately, private cabins were available here. However.
“The Prince, the Silver Wolf, and I will be sharing a cabin. Now, let us go up.”
Suddenly, Wolf found himself destined to spend an entire month in one room with the River Vole. Wolf whispered to the Red Eagle.
“Prince. The adventure has begun, just as you wished.”
The Red Eagle kept his mouth tightly shut as if suppressing a laugh, his shoulders trembling.
The moment he stepped onto the ship, Wolf was surprised. A majority of the male passengers were blond giants. It was his first time seeing so many blond men gathered in one place; it felt strange enough to make him uneasy. In contrast, the women were small in stature and had a variety of hair colors.
Stohl men returning home after buying Atanian women?
He had known about arranged marriages through trade, but witnessing it firsthand made him blush with embarrassment. Stohl actively encourages the marriage of its citizens to Atanian women. They also frequently kidnap Atanian men to use as studs. The purpose of this loathsome criminal activity, which has persisted since the ‘Invasion of the Omen,’ was entirely for racial improvement.
‘The barbaric continent across the North Sea remained isolated as a single race for a long time. For thousands of years since the first light of creation. After that much time, problems are bound to arise.’
‘The
As his history teacher had said, the Stohl people realized it while invading the Atanian continent. They were cyclopean giants. In the prosperous outside world, there were only those with two eyes.
A single race on a vast continent. Human variants that are never born in Atania. A civilization hundreds of years behind Atania in every aspect—art, architecture, farming, and metallurgy. There was no written language at all. The Stohl people defined these differences not as traits, but as problems. They attributed the cause to the race being ‘inferior,’ completely ignoring other factors such as geographical conditions, natural environment, resource distribution, and weather.
Wolf had also read such an explanation in a book.
It is said that human variants were originally born rarely. The cyclopean giants would check the trait as soon as a child was born, and if they were judged to be a ‘mutant,’ they were killed. As a result of repeated infanticide and trade marriages, mutants are now treated in Stohl like ‘talking larks’ that only appear in children’s storybooks.
The sailing ship left the port. The Red Eagle remained silent until they entered the cabin. In the cabin, there were bunk beds on both sides of a narrow aisle.
The River Vole flopped onto the right bed and fell fast asleep. Wolf placed his travel chest on the upper bunk above where he lay.
“I’ll use the top bunk. Please rest below, Prince.”
Wolf spoke with a forced brightness and climbed the ladder to the upper bed. The Red Eagle, perched on the bed, looked down only at his own toes. Wolf peeked his head over the edge.
“Prince, we look ordinary here. Blond hair isn’t common in Atania, is it?”
“True.”
The Red Eagle looked up at Wolf and smiled. Compared to Atanian boys of the same age, the Red Eagle and Wolf were tall and had sturdy builds. Along with blond hair, an exceptionally developed physique is a characteristic of the Stohl people.
“Wolf, you must be popular, right? With women.”
“What…?”
Wolf was flustered. The Red Eagle reached out and touched the crown of Wolf’s head.
“You’re taller than me and have a likable face. I heard commoner women are more open than noblewomen?”
“You seem to want to hear someone else’s love stories. Unfortunately, I have nothing to tell.”
Wolf abruptly pulled the blanket over his head. That action seemed to further pique the Prince’s curiosity.
“Levenon allows marriage from age eighteen. You have a girl you’ve promised to marry, don’t you?”
“I don’t! I’ve never even dated.”
“You have! You’ve dated a lot!”
At that reaction, Wolf gave up on having a truthful conversation. Why doesn’t this Prince Roina fellow believe what people say? Perhaps his hearing is bad?
“Wolf, tell me a story about being dumped by a girl. Like a one-sided love that ended in tears.”
“If it were my own story, it would be sad, but there’s nothing funnier than someone else’s failed romance. However, Prince, I have never been dumped. Therefore, I have no such experience to share.”
“So you’ve only ever been the one doing the rejecting? Wow, now I’m curious about your girlfriend’s face.”
“Indeed. I’m curious too.”
“She must be incredibly beautiful. What’s her name?”
“Maybe Mia? Since that’s the most common commoner girl’s name in Levenon.”
Of course, Wolf was popular with women. He had probably rejected more than fifty requests to date. However, it wasn’t because he had high standards. Rather, he had no sexual desire at all. He hadn’t even experienced the common nocturnal emissions, nor did he have the urge to masturbate. He heard his peers’ bedsheets would bulge every morning because their ‘equipment’ would stand up, but Wolf’s bedsheets were always flat. After testing it several times fearing there was a problem with his equipment, he concluded that there was nothing wrong.
Wolf also found himself strange. How could a teenage boy be like this? If he were deeply religious, he might have been happy, thinking God had bestowed upon him the fate of a cleric, but that wasn’t the case either.
“Wolf! If you won’t tell me your girlfriend’s name, at least tell me about your first time! This is an order as a Prince!”
The Red Eagle stood up and thumped Wolf on the back.
“Did you perhaps fail to perform properly during your first time? It’s okay, it’s okay, that can happen! Sit next to me and tell me everything calm-lyyyyy…!”
The urging turned into a groan of terror. Suddenly, the River Vole bolted upright and ripped off his shirt. A grotesque tattoo, completely covering his rugged, muscular upper body, was revealed. Before the Prince and the Attendant, who were stunned by a visual shock they had never experienced in their lives, the barbarian took a boxing stance and began throwing wild punches into the air.
Exchanging glances, Wolf and the Red Eagle slipped out of the room side by side with cat-like steps. Only after reaching the deck did Wolf speak.
“Why is that guy acting like that?”
“Why else? He’s throwing a fit telling us to shut up because we’re noisy.”
“I thought so, but I asked just in case.”
It was bleak. The sea breeze at the end of November was incomparably harsher than a river breeze. In this cold, it was difficult to spend time on deck even at midday. In other words, until they reached Stohl, they would have to keep their mouths shut and stare at the River Vole’s face day and night in that cramped cabin… Oh, God. This trial is too cruel for young boys.
“Let’s find a place where people gather to hang out. Since this is a large sailing ship, there should be a lounge or a dining hall.”
As the Red Eagle suggested, there was a dining hall that also served as a tavern. Thereafter, the two boys spent almost all their time in the dining hall, except when they slept. Time felt like a massive boulder that wouldn’t budge. To push the boulder, Wolf and the Red Eagle tried everything. Card games. Writing letters to each other with pens in their mouths. Disassembling and reassembling pocket watches. They also frequently debated. Which was tastier: butter or cheese? Is a woman’s true charm in her fingernails or her toenails?
One day, a sailor informed them that the Stohl continent was near. A blizzard, which they had only heard of in the subtropical region of Levenon, raged. The two boys could not leave the deck until late at night, gazing at the snowy sea. The snow, which they were seeing for the first time in their lives, looked like white salt.
Wolf could not sleep that night. A strange tension, a tangle of fear and excitement, would not easily subside and lingered in every corner of his body. In a few hours, they would arrive at the barbaric continent. They would encounter a world as unfamiliar and strange as the blizzard they experienced for the first time in seventeen years—a world completely different from Atania in every way.
Unable to endure any longer, Wolf stepped out onto the deck. It was a pale dawn, and the snow had stopped. A thin coastline bisected the world. Around noon, the Stohl continent appeared in the distance. Within two hours, the ship arrived at Morgan Port.
The weather was clear. Wolf’s first impression upon stepping onto Morgan Port: Shabby!
The Red Eagle also seemed disappointed.
“The port is small. Is this really the largest port in Stohl?”
“Of course not,” the River Vole replied, unable to hide his irritation.
“It is simply the sea port closest to the White Deer’s tribe. From here, it takes two days by horse to reach the White Deer’s tribe.”
White Deer. The image evoked by the name was that of an elegant, long-necked beauty, but in reality, she was a warrior and tribal chief who had accompanied the King of Stohl on overseas invasion expeditions. A muscular woman holding a blood-stained axe in one hand and carrying an Atanian man over one shoulder would be closer to the truth. It is said she had a one-night stand with the King somehow.
“We need to buy horses, so follow me.”
The River Vole gestured and walked ahead. A short distance away, a merchant with dozens of horses was haggling with passersby. Most of the people who had disembarked from the sailing ship were also heading toward the horse dealer.
Wolf followed the Red Eagle while carrying his chest, looking around. Hills surrounding the vicinity of the port. Old inns lined up sporadically. Cargo warehouses. Until now, Stohl had been an image to Wolf like the sparks that explode when forging iron. However, the scenery now before his eyes was as gloomy as an ancient castle that had decayed long ago. Evaluating it as a tourist, it was not great at all. He felt even a remote village in the outskirts of Atania wouldn’t be this bad…
The line of people in front of the horse dealer was quite long.
“We’ll have to wait a while,” the River Vole said, looking back at the Red Eagle.
It was at that exact moment. Wolf took a step back. Did I see that wrong?
Something flew… and seemed to graze the Vole’s head.
The River Vole didn’t move a muscle, only rolling his eyes left and right. Soon, a red line bloomed on his face. From below the left eye to the right ear. Thin as a thread.
The next moment, Wolf doubted his eyes. The upper part of the red diagonal—half of the River Vole’s head slid away like a sled on a downhill slope and then dropped straight down.
Perhaps because it was so absurdly cruel, the scene was captured in Wolf’s eyes too slowly and vividly.
How could this…
One thing was certain. The journey was over.
From now on, it was an adventure.
6 – Hell Execution Order