Chương 3: The Grandest Welcome

Provincial Survey — Entry #37 Rusalka, Brine Marches I arrived just before dusk, and I regret to report, sires, that the town announced itself long before its walls did. The smell carries across the road like a wet blanket. It's all salt, wool dye, boiled pigment, and something faintly sour I simply cannot identify. I stopped twice to check my boots, convinced I had stepped in something unfortunate. I had not. That is simply how Rusalka smells.

The town itself sits upon a hill of white salt, which is admittedly impressive in its own way. From a distance it looks almost like frost gathering over the earth. Up close, though, it is far less poetic. The town is full of carts, salt miners, shouting merchants, and even more salt that dries the lips. Still, the people here seem proud of the place. Salt, after all, is pure gold. Note to self: don't stay long enough for the smell to become familiar. I fear that would mean I have begun to like the town.

—'Ostravian Provincial Field Journal', 984 AN Edition, Written by Albrecht Mirov, Surveyor of Settlements As the red sun fell over Rusalka, Orland peeked through the leaves of the bush he was hiding behind, checking to see how many guards were going to welcome him. Even hiding in the forest off the beaten road leading to the hillside town, he could easily see the eastern gate with guard towers on either side.

Movement on the walls caught his eyes: about half a dozen guards wielding spears and wearing pointy-tipped helmets patrolled across the ramparts. Not too many. He'd expected more, honestly, but maybe the town didn't know what time the Hero was supposed to arrive. All the better for him, he supposed. He preferred a more subtle welcome. He ducked back through his bush and scrubbed his hair again, checking for any dye residues. His fingers came away clean. Good, good.

He had no mirror, but a cursory glance at his reflection on the pond beside him surprised him a little. If he weren't himself, he probably wouldn't even realize it was him he was looking at. His scruffy hair was bright gold like the nobles of Rusalka, and his traveler's tunic, trousers, and coat, while plain, were also perfectly sized for him. Even his new shoes were comfortable and warm. He'd never had clothes that fit him before.

All his worrying about feeling suffocated in nice clothes went out the window the moment he'd realized that, and maybe he'd spent a little too much time twirling and running around in his new clothes. Owning something nice… felt nice. But no more wasting time. He pinched a strand of his hair one last time just to double-confirm the dye wouldn't just fall off, stuffed the vial of leftover powder into his pocket, and then glanced at the picture book he'd placed inside Baba Marza's satchel.

"Good day, Your Majesty. You called for a great slayer?" he muttered, nodding absentmindedly to himself as he slung his satchel over his shoulder. The satchel definitely made him look the part of a traveler, but as the Hero, well… he didn't forget to put on the mask he'd taken from the young man. He reached under his coat and pulled it out, flipping it around to see how he could put it on. There weren't any straps or anything, but it was a relic. Maybe…

Carefully, he placed the golden mask over his eyes, and his instincts immediately proved correct. The sides of the mask tensed and clamped down on his temples just tight enough to keep it from falling off, but not to actually hurt him. He blinked a few times for good measure. The visor, thank the gods, was clear enough for him to see through almost perfectly.

Whether the mask would protect him from being seen through was another matter altogether, but at this point, he had the gauntlet, and he did have the mask—he just had to pray nobody in Rusalka knew the Hero's true appearance well enough to call him out on it. And the gauntlet… He pulled it out from under his coat and looked at it for a long moment. The gauntlet was definitely a battle-type relic, but what it did and what its limitations were, he didn't know. He didn't have a tag relic to check its ability.

Still, as long as he had the gauntlet, he probably didn't need to wear it all the time… probably. Decent clothes, check. Golden hair, check. Mask and gauntlet, check.

"Good day, Your Majesty. You called for a great slayer?" he mumbled, washing his hands and face in the pond one last time.

"You called?" Suddenly, a heavy thump resounded through the forest behind him. He whirled in fright, hands raising instinctively, but saw nothing. It was getting dark out. Still, he knew exactly what it was he was hearing: that same giant, foreign beast traveling through the forest these past few days. He'd heard it this afternoon when he was robbing the Hero's corpse, and now he was hearing it again. For all the magic beast enthusiast he was, he didn't plan on lingering out here long enough to see it.

Best not to tempt any magic beast, whether they're really man-eaters or not. He drew in a deep breath, puffed his chest out, and stepped out from behind the bush. The road to the eastern gate was always quiet in the evening hours. A few wagons carrying barrels of salt from the nearby mines rolled across, but otherwise the grass on either side of the road waved softly in the evening breeze, undisturbed.

Orland trailed behind the farthest wagon and kept his pace steady, and he had to force his shoulders to not curl forward like he always did whenever he entered and exited the town. Heroes didn't have to slouch. Heroes walked like they owned the road. … Or so he thought. It felt ridiculous, and it didn't feel like him, but he did it anyways. Step by step he came closer to the town walls, the stone rising taller and darker with every pace.

As the wagons before him were cleared through one by one, his mind began wandering: what if they figured him out immediately? What if they had drawings of what the Hero actually looked like, and one comparison between the fake and the real thing exposed him? Just don't think about it, he chastised himself. Confidence is key. You've got this. I've got this. His ultimate goal? Nothing too grand. He had no idea what the Hero was supposed to do, and he didn't care.

He had no intention of permanently impersonating the Hero—there wasn't a rat's blasted chance in the seven hells he was going to pull that off for the rest of his life—but if he could just enter Rusalka, speak to the nobles in a few parties, and throw some words around to make sure people knew a slumborn boy by the name of 'Orland' was very helpful to the Hero during his short stay here, that'd be good enough.

Hopefully the Hero's words carried enough weight that even after he 'left', a certain Orland would still be able to find a salt-mining job, buy a proper house, and live a better life as his reward for being very helpful. Also, it'd be great if he could get pardoned for having beaten up Ruslan and his crownies. He'd change his fate using the Hero's. Just a few days of playing as someone else. How hard can it be?

Strangely, though, when it was his turn to be cleared through the gates, the guards took one glance at him and immediately paled. Even Crooked-Eye Boris fixed his lazy eyes the moment he neared the gate. Then every gatesguard but Crooked-Eyed Boris dashed into the town, and Boris stood in Orland's way as the heavy iron gates slammed down.

"Excuse me," Boris muttered.

"One moment, please." For fear of messing up his first words, Orland didn't even dare to ask what was going on. Of course he worried he'd already been caught, but he simply gave Boris the brightest, most confident smile he could muster.

"I can wait." And so wait he did. Maybe it was just five seconds, or ten, or a minute, or ten minutes—it wasn't easy to tell with his heart roaring in his chest—but eventually, a heavy bell rang inside the town and Boris' ears perked. The man glanced around his shoulder before quickly stepping aside, bowing so deep Orland worried his old back might snap in half.

"Please, enter," Boris said.

"... Okay?" The gate lifted once more with a heavy groan, and as Boris somehow made himself even smaller against the sides of the gate, Orland sucked in a deep breath for composure. No turning back now.

'Good day, Your Majesty. You called for a—' The town erupted with noise the moment the gate raised enough for him to see inside. Fireworks screamed into the sky above the walls, and along the road beyond the gate, magic lanterns flared to life one after another, casting bright colored light over the cobbles. Music came. Two dozen flutists standing upon shops and buildings to the sides of the road burst with a triumphant tune—loud enough to rattle every bone in his chest—and that wasn't even the loudest of it.

A crowd had gathered along the road, and they were restless.

"It's the Hero!"

"Welcome, welcome!"

"Glory to the Ostravian Empire!"

"Must've been a long journey from Relikov City! Stay over at my place, please!"

"No, he's staying with me!"

"No, me!" Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. Orland froze. All in total, there had to be at least two hundred… no, at least four hundred merchants, guards, and townsfolk gathered before him. Some waved ribbons, many others tossed flower petals onto the road. Hells, he'd slipped into a few parades hosted by the nobles of Rusalka before, and even they didn't get half as much of a welcoming festival as he was getting now. … Who's the Hero, actually?

Truth was, he'd only heard rumors here and there that the 'Hero' was some chosen man on some divine quest to kill some distant demon king in the far north. He'd figured the Hero was more or less equivalent in fame to a governor or a small region lord, but this? Madness. As he stood completely stunned by the reception, the crowd near the back of the street parted.

A path was cleared for a whole battalion of soldiers in gilded steel armor to march through, and these guys weren't the poorly paid gatesguard Orland was used to dealing with. They were armored from head to toe, wielding giant spears and halberds that crackled very faintly with frost. Relic weapons, all of them. Crooked-Eye Boris would probably kill to be promoted to their ranks. But these guys are… the nobleguards?

He got his answer a moment later when the nobleguards parted and formed a corridor, allowing two people to walk forward. The first was a fat old man. His coat was bright with embroidered colors. Rings glittered on nearly every finger, and his wide hat carried enough feathers to stuff multiple pillows. Orland felt sick just looking at how his belly strained against his waistcoat, though his beard, at least, was combed into neat curls. Orland couldn't immediately say where he'd seen this man before, but…

His eyes locked on the second person immediately. The young lady walking behind the fat old man was a beauty beyond beauties. Her golden hair fell over her shoulder in waves, and her pale dress was trimmed with such delicate silver threads he felt poor just looking at it. Now he remembered who the two of them were, because he'd never forget this lady: the daughter of the governor of Rusalka, who he'd seen many times in many festival processions before.

That meant the fat old man had to be her father, the governor himself. Orland tried his damndest to recall the man's name as the two of them approached him with bright smiles. He's… Leni… Lami…. Ludo-something?

"I am Ludoslav Belograd the Third!" the man announced in a booming voice, spreading his arms as he reached Orland.

"Governor of Rusalka and loyal servant to the Saint-Monarch of Ostravia!" Right. Ludoslav. Orland dipped his head as respectfully as he could.

"And this is my daughter, Milena," Ludoslav said, gesturing proudly towards the young lady beside him.

"Welcome to Rusalka, Hero. How was the journey here? Great? Not-so-great?" Two hundred pairs of eyes watching him made him sweat. Guards, merchants, children, musicians… everyone was waiting to see what the famous Hero would say. Uhh… Time for the line! His mouth opened.

"Good day, Your Majesty," he blurted.

"You called for a great slayer?" The entire street went silent. He felt heat climb up his neck. Good job, dumbass. That's one way to— Ludoslav Belograd burst into a roaring laughter, and the tension snapped instantly as the crowd joined him. Merchants laughed, guards laughed, children laughed, and even Milena covered her mouth with one hand as she giggled softly.

"Hah!" Ludoslav slapped Orland hard on the back before draping a hand over his shoulder, beckoning him forward.

"I had heard rumors that the Hero was a dashing young man capable of slaying demons and monsters even great adventurers dare not face, but to think he is also a humorous man! Oh, we shall get along very well. Come, come—let us make haste to my manor. A guest of such divine importance cannot sleep in a roadside inn, can he?" While the crowd surged and swayed around them, following the three of them deeper into the upper district with a parade of cheers, Milena took his hand and tugged him away from her father.

Ludoslav couldn't help his grin, but Milena's smile was even brighter, even prettier. Just the touch of her soft hand alone was enough to send heat rushing straight into Orland's face. Thank the gods half his face was hidden behind a mask, because he knew he was definitely blushing like an idiot. What are you, twelve? he chastised himself. He was fourteen. Which wasn't much better.

"Make way, all of you!" Ludoslav boomed as they walked, sweeping his hand at the broad streets ahead.

"Let the Hero breathe before you smother him dead with affection, saints preserve us!" The crowd obeyed about as well as a crowd ever did, which meant people only pressed in a little bit less. Orland looked around nervously as he was dragged up the main avenue almost by force, and every second person who managed to push past their escort of nobleguards leaned forward to greet him, question him, or shove some token into his hands.

"Please, Hero! Take this! For strength on holy errands!" said the baker in a flour-dusted apron trying to press a braided loaf into his hands.

"I'm thinking of going to Belozar for a gem run soon. You came from there, right? Is it really haunted by the Pale Riders at moonrise?" said a jeweler with tiny spectacles and a hooked nose.

"How's Kostrya? Did my fool of a younger sister treat you well there?" said an old merchant woman with a basket of petals, scattering them over his head.

"Did you really fight off an entire company of Uncommon-8 six-horned wolfkin demons with only one arm?" said a young man, flushed with wine and excitement as he desperately tried to shake Orland's hand.

"I heard from a friend of a friend in Durogorsk! You really did, didn't you! That gauntlet! Can I see it?" Orland nodded at some of them, grunted at others, and smiled whenever it seemed safer than speech. Most of the names of towns and villages meant nothing to him. He'd never been more than a few fields past Rusalka, so everything they said sounded made-up on the spot. Besides, how was he supposed to answer any of that?

'Yes, I slew six demons and ate one raw for breakfast'?

'No, I was busy falling into a chasm and robbing a corpse'? So, he let the questions pass over him like bad weather and kept his eyes on the upper district instead. He may have never been more than a few fields past Rusalka, but he'd never been more than a few blocks past the middlequarters, either. The streets here were broad and swept clean, the cobbles level instead of broken, and there were actual, honest-to-god drainage ditches. The ones in the slums were always clogged with fish guts and old rags.

Here, lanterns burned brighter in pretty glass lamps, and every house stood with painted shutters and carved eaves and little front gardens where flowers grew in orderly rows. From the slums at the very bottom of the salt hill, the whitequarter district at the very top had always been a different world to him. At most he'd crept as far as the upper part of the middlequarters where Baba Marza's shop was, but seeing all of this luxury now…

"Fate is the sun no man can escape!" a man in templar garments shouted from atop a crate to the side of the street, garnering cheers from the crowd all around.

"It is a force stronger than kings and stronger than even the whims of gods! All men are born into it and carried by it from their first breath to their last—even the poor, even the weak, and even those with nothing to their names!"

"Truth spoken!" someone shouted.

"Blessed be the gods!" someone else cheered.

"So you may be poor! You may be without love! You may suffer, you may starve, and you may curse your born misfortunes, but remember this: you are still loved by fate, for you exist in the era of the Fifth Hero, who bears the mightiest, grandest fate of all!" The templar raised a fist, shouting at the top of his lungs.

"May the Fated Hero prevail against the King of Demons, the Tyrant of Vyrmgaard, He Who Severs Worlds Between!"

"The gods hear!" someone roared.

"May the Hero prevail!" someone else bellowed. Orland's mouth tightened. All of this noise—and all of this liveliness— this was how people lived while boys in the southern alleys got beaten for sleeping behind shops. This was where the hot bread went, where the clean coats went, and where the winter didn't bite so hard because every door could actually close properly, and every window could keep the wind out.

The thought soured his face enough that he nearly forgot Milena still had his hand until she leaned a little closer.

"You're much shorter than the stories make you out to be," she whispered with a smile.

"Are you sure you're really the Hero?" Orland's heart tripped over itself. His mind, traitor that it was, reached straight back for the picture book. Find a line, find a line, find a line… aha!

"A great slayer doesn't need to be tall if his beast falls down low enough," he blurted. Gods, what the fuck did that even mean? But Milena stared at him for half a second, and then she laughed delightedly.

"Oh, well. I prefer shorter men anyways." She squeezed his hand lightly.

"How old are you, then?"

"Uh… fourteen?" Milena blinked. The surprise struck her so plainly that even he, who knew almost nothing about highborn manners, caught it at once. For the briefest instant she looked him over again as if trying to appraise his value—he did his best to measure up by straightening his back and squaring his shoulders.

"I thought you were older," she murmured.

"The stories are wrong," he said quickly.

"Really?"

"Really," he said even quicker.

"... Well, that's quite great, actually. I'm only fifteen myself." She winked at him, and his heart skipped another beat.

"Don't tell anyone, but my papa has been in talks recently with very, very powerful men from Thalassene. If the special privileges for the salt trade between Rusalka and the Thalassenian northern ports go through, our town will become even richer than it already is. In ten years, perhaps less, it may even be a major Ostravian city."

"Uh… okay?" Milena smiled sideways at him.

"If the two of us get married, you'd be the future governor of this city as well… though perhaps the great Hero has set his sights on greater things than mere governance." Her eyes sparkled teasingly.

"I wouldn't mind that either. In fact, I rather like men with great ambition." Orland almost stumbled on the cobblestones. The word 'marriage' was one thing, but 'governor' was another. … Greater things, huh? The words struck him so strangely he could only stare ahead while his thoughts crashed together. On one hand, the sheer absurdity of it all made him want to laugh. Just this morning, he'd been a slumborn boy waking up under a leaky roof with a rusted hunting knife.

By dusk, the prettiest girl in town—and the most powerful—was casually suggesting he could become governor through marriage. No. No, absolutely not. Milena was rich. Soft-handed. She belonged to this world of polished lamps and clean walls and feathered hats and noble guards. Once this whole impersonation fiasco was over, he'd go back to his life as 'Orland' the slumborn, though with a better life given to him by the 'Hero'. Absolutely no blushing. No thinking about it. So why was he still hot in his face?

He felt terrible about that. Angry at himself, even, for letting himself feel tempted. But the roads climbed as they walked, curving up to the highest part of town. Once the crowds around them slowly thinned because the noble guards were pushing them away, they reached the manor standing at the very top of the salt hill. The Belograd Manor. Orland had seen its roof from the slums before, but up close, it looked even more unbelievable.

The three-storey manor was enormous with white stone walls, black iron fencing, and a front stair broad enough for a whole market cart to roll up. Two lines of noble guards already stood beside and along the garden out front, saluting as Ludoslav and Milena approached. Then the ornate front doors opened from the inside, and a small army of servants, stewards, maids, and butlers revealed themselves inside the foyer.

"Welcome home, governor!" one of the guards shouted.

"Welcome home, governor!" the rest of them echoed. And at the very front of the assembled servants, standing with his arms crossed behind his back, was a man who made Orland flinch before he could stop himself. What… a man. He wore a heavy fur coat despite the warmth indoors, with polished silver clasps at the throat and enough expensive trim to mark him as someone important.

A beautiful sword hung at his waist, and though his right leg was braced in a skeleton-shell from ankle to thigh, there was nothing frail in the way he held himself. His face was the real kicker. It was scarred all over, but the deepest one was the long line crossing over his left eye. Combined with his scruffy beard and his messy grey hair, he almost looked like he didn't belong here in the Belograd Manor. But the man stepped forward and bowed elegantly as Milena guided Orland up the stairs.

"Lady Milena. Governor," he said first, bowing his head. Then his gaze shifted to Orland.

"Welcome, Hero. I am Captain Kazimir Karinov, Head Guard of the Belograd Manor, and I will be your personal attendant for…" Kazimir trailed off as he looked at Orland closely. Closer. Even closer. His eyes narrowed. His mouth hardened. Before Orland's hunter's instincts could even register that look as a threat, Kazimir lunged forward and grabbed Orland by the collar, lifting him off the ground. Milena gasped sharply.

"Kazimir!"

"Kazimir, you old wolf! What do you think you're doing?" Ludoslav hissed, going red-faced immediately.

"Unhand the Hero right this instant! Have you gone soft in the head from too much winter brandy?" But Kazimir didn't so much as blink in the face of the governor and his daughter. In fact, his grip only tightened.

"This boy is no Hero," he said flatly.

"I know the Hero, and this one isn't him." Orland blinked. Oh shit.