The sun rose over the wide fields. The snow that fell in winter melted with the arrival of spring, and the rain that rode the wind last night had stopped. The ground was a dark brown. The scent of soil spread thickly, and sprouts poked their heads out everywhere.
Dozens of round tents, called gers or yurts, stood on the field, and as the livestock began to cry, people came out one by one. They checked to see if any livestock had disappeared during the night and felt sweat gathering under their layered coats.
Here, in Dithmarschen, winter and spring had long been one. But recently, the boundary was becoming clearer. It was a period when the flow of mana was finding stability.
The cause of disasters, which arbitrarily wielded nature, was diminishing. The people of the Bard tribe praised the mercy of God and offered prayers.
Among them, a girl holding a basin headed toward a tent.
The girl was the daughter of the tribe leader. Except for her sharp eyes, which she resembled her father, she was no different from other nine-year-olds. And lately, the girl had been taking care of a strange person.
'He's still sleeping.'
The person was lying alone on the bed.
Even though the sunlight streamed in when she opened the door and warmed his face, he was in a deep sleep without moving. The girl placed the basin next to the bed and examined him.
"······."
His skin was bloodlessly white, and his hair was black and disheveled like a lion's mane. Living outdoors would have tanned his skin and created wrinkles, but he looked like a nobleman who had been raised preciously.
But he was neither a young man nor a nobleman.
He was Ulrich, the lord of Dithmarschen.
The adults of the Bard tribe called him by various names. Ulrich, Lord, Master, and Elder. The girl understood the first three titles, but she didn't understand the title of Elder.
Why would they call someone younger than her father that?
The girl's father told her that he had lived for a very long time. The adults said that when they were the same age as the girl, he looked the same as he did now. It was hard to believe.
The girl was eight years old. It was an age when she did not fully understand that time made people age. Likewise, she could not fully understand that someone who had lived longer than anyone else could have such a young appearance.
'A strange person.'
Therefore, to the girl, he was a strange person.
And the strange person was in a deep sleep.
It wasn't just a deep sleep. It wasn't just a matter of sleeping for another day or two. It was such a deep sleep that lasted from three days to a week, making her worry that the Elder might have been cursed or ill.
However, the adults of the tribe didn't seem to care how deeply the Elder slept. To the girl's worried questions, her father said,
"He will wake up when the time comes."
He added.
"It's not the first time the Elder has slept so deeply. When he slept really deeply, he slept until the following winter."
Again, the girl could not understand.
But what could she do? That's what the adults said.
Since the Elder had gone to dreamland, every morning during prayer time, the girl would come into the Elder's chamber, clean, and wipe his face.
At first, she was worried he might wake up, but the Elder didn't budge. The girl's father was so sensitive that he could hear the sound of wolves walking inside the ger and wake up, but the Elder lay there without even breathing, no matter what the girl did.
So much so that she had put her hand under his nose.
After wiping his face, she always gently placed her index finger under his nose. It was to check if he was breathing properly. Then, she would feel a faint, very faint breath, and each time, the girl would feel relieved and leave the chamber.
But today, at this moment, it was different.
"Huh?"
The moment her finger touched his skin, he opened his eyes.
"Oh?"
The eyes of the two met. As the Elder's black eyes looked up at the girl, the girl froze with her index finger under his nose. She stared down at him, her lips trembling.
'Did I wake him up? Did he wake up because of me?'
Suddenly, worry boiled up. She had only done it because she was worried about the Elder, she had no other intentions. She opened her mouth to make excuses, but no words came out. She was afraid of being scolded.
"I'm thirsty."
As the girl's expression turned tearful, he said.
"I-I'll get it right away!"
Like someone who had found light at the end of a long, long tunnel, the girl quickly turned around and ran out of the ger. A cry of 'Fatherrrrr—' followed.
#
'The weather is warm.'
Immediately after the girl left, Ulrich thought.
He lay still on the bed, looking up at the ceiling.
It wasn't the color and shape he always saw. His chamber was made of gray stone, but what he saw now was yellow fabric.
'Why?'
He blinked a couple of times.
Then his memory told him that this was not the lord's residence, but a tribe's dwelling. Inside a round tent ger set up for him by a tribe called the Bard.
A warm breeze blew through the slightly open door of the ger.
'Has winter passed?'
His memories were temporarily jumbled because he had just woken up. He couldn't remember the dream he had, but his heart was uplifted. It seemed he had a pleasant dream.
He raised his hand and covered his face.
'It's okay. It's okay.'
He had fallen asleep near the end of winter.
After finishing hunting monsters and stopping by the Bard tribe to rest, he suddenly felt boredom. Sometimes that happens when you live a long time. There are moments when life feels too familiar, and that familiarity turns into boredom.
When that time came, he slept deeply. Just as a bear hibernates to survive the winter without food, he too sometimes fell into a deep sleep because life was like that. He didn't set a time limit. He had even slept for decades at a time.
For an ordinary person, it would be an act of wasting time. But he was fine. Because he didn't die, because he didn't age. Even the dragons asked him if he lived forever, so he had a long time.
That was how he escaped boredom.
"Have you awakened?"
As he was thinking that, the girl returned with two people.
"The weather is really nice. Kurt."
"Indeed. It is full spring."
Kurt, the tribe leader and the girl's father, smiled and greeted him with his eyes. From that appearance, Ulrich was reminded of an elder named Brasse. Brasse was Kurt's father and had died last winter.
The last time he had seen Brasse was last summer. Because he saw death hanging over the old man's face, he returned the item he had entrusted to him in his younger days. It was like an ominous prophecy, but the old man simply left one word. Thank you.
Now the old man was gone, and his fourth son was here.
Brasse's traces were in Kurt. The two were different beings, but somehow they were connected and stood before him. It was a feeling he had seen and felt too much.
"······."
Ulrich raised his upper body and asked.
"How long have I been asleep?"
"You have been asleep for a little over a month."
Kurt added, "This time it was quite short."
"This time? Ah, right."
Suddenly, a memory came to mind.
"You've seen me before, haven't you."
"Do you remember? I lived in the mansion as a page."
About thirty years ago, before Kurt was even ten years old, he had stayed at the lord's residence as a page and received teachings from Ulrich.
If he remembered correctly, he had fallen asleep in the summer and woken up the following winter. It was the first time he had slept so long while living as the lord of Dithmarschen, so there was quite a commotion.
"Compared to then, it's not even a tenth of that."
Kurt smiled.
"That's true. Compared to then."
Ulrich nodded, smiling along, and said to the priest standing next to Kurt.
"Did you hear that, Roberta?"
Roberta scratched the back of her head awkwardly.
"Yes… I seem to have worried unnecessarily."
Glancing, her gaze went to Kurt.
The young tribe leader answered that gaze with a smile, saying, "I was right, wasn't I?" It seemed there had been an argument over whether Ulrich would get up on his own.
"It's the first time I've seen someone sleep like the lord."
"I often hear that. Among other things."
Receiving a cup of tea from the girl, Ulrich asked Roberta.
"Has anything happened in the meantime?"
"No, nothing worth mentioning."
Ulrich felt a piercing gaze.
"Is that so?"
It was the attention she was giving him. She didn't show it outwardly, but he couldn't be fooled. He'd had this experience more than once or twice. When looking at a creature they can't understand at all, people have that kind of observer's eyes.
Roberta, the chief priest of the Duchy of Dithmarschen.
Nearly a year had passed since she took office. But her intense curiosity about him seemed to remain. To her, he was a strange lord, a being that shattered common sense itself.
She must have searched the records and confirmed that he had lived for 300 years. She must have heard many claims that he had lived for even longer than that. With her own eyes, she had seen him performing infant baptism and swallowing the blood that flowed from his wounds to heal them.
There was no way she couldn't be interested.
"While the lord was sleeping soundly, Lord Bernhard did a very perfect job with his duties. So much so that the territory residents didn't even know the lord was sleeping."
He nodded at her jest.
"He's doing well. That child has always fulfilled his role."
Ulrich took a sip of tea and continued.
"But what I asked was not about that child, but about you. Bern is a child I raised, so I have no worries about what he does out of my sight. On the other hand, what about you? Roberta, have you been doing well as the chief priest?"
She turned her gaze away.
"···Do you ask knowing the answer?"
"I thought there might be some change, but it seems not."
Just as Roberta was interested in Ulrich but there was no progress, Roberta was managing the parish as the chief priest but there was no progress.
From the moment she took office, she had to travel all over Dithmarschen to restore the parish that her predecessor had ruined. The parish was not just in a state of temporary administrative vacuum due to the disappearance of the predecessor.
The chief priest had changed 13 times in 16 years, and in the meantime, the temple had even been completely burned down. The relationship that had been built between the temple and the believers over generations had disappeared both privately and publicly.
Come to think of it, her cheeks have sunken quite a bit.
"If you need help, tell me right away."
Roberta let out a short sigh.
It was a sigh that felt the weight of the deeds built by her predecessors.
"It's okay. I have to handle this much on my own."
Ulrich hummed and examined her.
"It seems you didn't seek me out because of the parish."
He narrowed his eyes.
"What reason did you seek me out for? Did Bern, that child, ask you to?"
"Yes. Lord Bernhard asked me to ask the lord. A guest has arrived."
"Tell me in detail."
Roberta didn't answer right away and looked at Kurt. Noticing the signal to leave, he took the girl and left the chamber, then she opened her mouth.
"Do you know about dragons?"
Dragons?
His head tilted at the unexpected name.
"Dragons as a race with scales and wings. Not monsters."
"Of course, I know. It would be strange not to know."
"Have you actually seen them too?"
"Of course. I haven't just encountered them in books or words. I've seen many living beings too. They have very long lifespans. So if I were to list the people who have a connection with me in chronological order, they would be far above."
And he continued. Seeing that her curiosity had suddenly turned to the dragon race, it seemed that a unique guest had come and asked.
"Yes, that's right."
She nodded a couple of times.
"There is someone looking for a dragon. They say they need a guide."
"What's the reason? Why are they looking for a dragon now?"
At the answer that they wouldn't reveal it, he furrowed his brow.
"I can't understand. Among so many things, why a dragon."
"Could there be a problem?"
"Well."
Ulrich pondered for a moment and asked.
"Roberta, how much do you know about dragons?"
"About dragons… I don't know much. As the lord knows, dragons rarely appear in the world in their true form."
That one of the races they created when the gods resided in the heavens, that dragons occasionally intervened in the world in human form after the gods of the heavens left, Roberta replied that the contents in the scriptures were all she knew.
Ulrich muttered that would be the case.
"Dragons have rarely appeared in history. The last time they left their name was in the past era. In the era you live in, dragons are just mysterious races that appear and disappear in human form in fairy tales. It's natural to think that way."
He paused with each word.
As Ulrich began to speak, he felt memories from so long ago surging up that he couldn't even realize he had forgotten them.
It was a truly distant memory. It was a story that even dwarves and elves could not continue as recorded history and was cut off. Now, he was probably the only one with the experience or who remembered the history.
He couldn't know how much the memories diluted by oblivion were the same as the facts of the past. He had to continue cautiously, word by word.
Because the words he spat out would be regarded as facts of the past, because they would be regarded as truths that no one else could refute, he had no choice but to be cautious in testifying to old events that others did not know.
"It's a pity. Because the flow of history is not a line that continues for a long time. There is too much history that has disappeared. Dwarves and elves are remembered because they established their own era and left long and deep footprints, and because there are many of them even today, but dragons are being forgotten without their own era."
Ulrich cupped the teacup in both hands and looked down at it.
"There are probably few people who know that the first intelligent being was a dragon now. That a certain four-legged lizard was gifted with intelligence and a name, and that name was Ruobheidra. That he was a wise and affectionate dragon."