In the early afternoon of the same day, Vieille left the capital protected by Matkal and the Agarthas.
There was no choice. Everything was already prepared, and Vieille was placed on a raft, still in the clothes in which she had been transported to Agartha.
On the raft, Matkal was watching ahead, with his back to Vieille at all times. She was accompanied by two other men, who remained mostly downcast and silent throughout the trip. Vieille thought that these two men were probably sorcerers and had activated their presence detection. Indeed, the raft was completely unprotected and they had to be prepared for an attack from the other side of the river.
Of course, Vieille had been given a boundary stone by Linos, which made her impervious to ordinary attacks. Nevertheless, there was a possibility that someone could slip through the warding. Vieille suspected that this soldier was assigned another mission, although she thought that this was the reason for his presence.
Vieille takes in the scenery around him. The sun shining through the trees is beautiful. There is not a soul around, and the sound of the murmuring river is pleasant to the ears. From time to time, you can hear birds singing. As I look closer, I see animals peeking out from the forest. I almost said "how cute" when I saw them.
"Come on, we're about to leave the forest.
A man's voice came from behind me. I look over to see the man who has been controlling the raft looking at me and smiling. He was wearing something like a hat until a moment ago, but now he has taken it off. Vieille recognized this man's face.
...... Commander-in-Chief Knogen.
To his surprise, it was Knogen, the commander-in-chief of the Agartha army, who was controlling the raft. Vieille's body tensed up at the unexpected appearance of the man.
......He has exceeded my predictions in every way.
She hides her agitation and clucks her tongue in her mind while feigning calmness.
In fact, this was more than Vieille had planned. From the very beginning, she had intended to travel to Harnetia under the guard of the Agartha army. Normally, such a request could have been made directly to the King of Agartha, but Vieille did not want to incur a debt to Agartha for this. Even so, the Church of Crimiana was in a difficult situation because of the Friendship Flower. Vieille did not want to show any more weakness to Agartha. Instead, he thought that it would be better for the future to make her aware that she still had the power to compete with Agartha on an equal footing, and to show it to the people of the Church.
She thought it would be easy to get support from the king of Agartha. The king has a tendency to say no when asked to do so. He has a soft spot for women. He believed that if he could exploit this point, he would be able to proceed without any problem.
In fact, when Vieille said that she was going to Aphrodite alone, King Agartha was upset. And he did not miss that he swallowed his words.
Perhaps he saw through my thoughts. But he knew that, and he was not the man to tell her to go alone. All that remained was to see when he would speak up and offer his support. It would have been enough to simply wait and see.
But when he was summoned to a room in the guest house, what came out of his mouth was something unexpected. He declared that Vieille would be taken care of at the Agartha University Hospital during the boat ride from Garbee.
It is true that he was not in perfect physical condition. I still feel a little tired. But this will go away as long as I rest. If I rested myself in the ship, there would be no problem.
Vieille had something she wanted to do on board. He was going to send a message to the Church of Crimiana and its tributaries." I will return to Aphrodite with a large army, including Agartha.
The more countries that send a message, the more effective it will be. Vieille wanted to let the Church of Crimiana and its allies know that his presence was still alive and well by releasing information from the ship in small pieces.
By doing so, he hoped to subdue those who would join the rebellious Ron Esrotel and others, and if possible, to turn them over to his own camp.
There was a means of communication. The ring shining on her right hand was it.
The ring had an effect that allowed her to use birds. If Vieille could pass her magic power through the ring, birds similar to falcons called traffle would gather around her and she could use them.
However, the bird called Traffure is distributed all over the world, but it is mainly found along the coastline. When we tried to use it while she was hospitalized at Agalta University Hospital, only one traffler flew in, and it flew in only once in three times.
For this reason, she had to travel to Harnetia by boat. However, this became impossible.
The Agarthan commanders-in-chief, Knogen and Matkal, were present. Inevitably, it was obvious to everyone that the men standing by Vieille were also there to keep an eye on her.
...... cannot be careless.
Vieille's instincts were telling her that. Even if it would not kill him, he knew enough to know that if he made a bad move, things would go wrong.
......No way around it.
Vieille mutters to herself and takes a deep breath. The indescribable fresh air fills her lungs.
There is still a month to go.
Vieille quickly switches his mind. He would have a month to come up with a solution. He was confident, though not sure. But when he tried to think about it, his brain did not work as well as he wanted it to.
......I guess I'm tired after all.
As she thinks about this, she realizes that she is smiling. Fortunately, Matkal and the others do not seem to notice it. She shrugs a little. Then she decides to take Meilias' advice and stay at the university hospital for one more month to get back to perfect physical condition.
"Look at that! This is the best place to go on this river cruise. You see the high mountain range on the right? The view is spectacular in full sunlight. In winter, the snow on the tops of the mountains makes the view exceptionally beautiful. And that is Mt. Banzavi on the left. The raft will now pass through the canyon of that mountain. There are several waterfalls along the way, so the view will be spectacular.
Knogen speaks to me from behind in a good mood. Vieille smiles at me silently.
These natural landscapes are soothing to the soul. Physical tiredness can be recovered by sleeping, but mental tiredness cannot be recovered even by sleeping. In some cases, some people do not recover from fatigue for almost ten years. For those people, I try to heal their minds by showing them such magnificent scenery, and then I try to make them laugh from the bottom of their hearts by showing them something funny or enjoyable. That way, the tiredness in their hearts will be well relieved.
Knogen's words struck a chord with Vieille. This is exactly the state of mind that Vieille is in right now. He felt as if he finally understood the cause of the weariness he had been feeling recently.
I knew ...... that I was in such a situation, but I never thought I would be in such a situation.
Vieille laughed, a deliberate laugh. Then he took another deep breath and looked at the scenery around him.
Yes, it was beautiful. Maybe today would be a good day to not think about anything at all.
With this thought in mind, Vieille took another slow breath.