They were about to leave January behind and enter February. They were in a different country as they entered the last month of winter, but the snow was doing exactly as well here as it had done in İlonya, still falling enough to paralyze life.

Since Mora is north of İlonya, he had expected the winter to be harsher here, but he hoped that the snow would at least abate in the last month of winter.

Now that their journey had come to an end, he felt both relief and excitement. He felt the anxiety of entering a new place for the first time, but also the excitement of seeing people he knew again.

It took them only a week to cross the mountains between İlonya and the Mora. Of course, this was thanks to the strength of the roarons. The snow made it difficult to get up and down the mountains, but somehow they made it.

Yu felt that he should be appreciated here and that he deserved some praise, but no roaron gave him the praise he wanted. Yet Yu had managed to cross the mountains without loss, without starving any of them or letting them perish from the cold.

Of course, the losses were not inflicted by the group led by Yu. The three bandit groups they encountered in the mountains also suffered heavy casualties and their activities came to an end.

Everyone knew that there were bandits in those mountains. Those who had goods between the Mora and İlonya that could not pass through customs used those mountains, and there, too, groups of bandits were waiting to take possession of these valuables.

Yu was in the same situation. Yu couldn't get the gold through customs and he had to use the mountains to get his money to the Mora. So everything went as expected, but he was seriously surprised that there were still bandits there when the winter was so hard.

Of course he had taken precautions against the bandits, but he found it hard to understand them. They were so likely to die of cold and hunger that it was almost suicide to continue living in those mountains.

Of course, if this is suicide, what would you call attacking a demi-lion tribe of two hundred people with groups of thirty to fifty bandits?

“When you think about it, what they did was not so unreasonable. Of course it doesn't make sense to stay in those mountains or to attack when you know you're going to lose, but they had no choice. Probably their supplies were no longer enough for them and they had to eat. So they had to attack us and capture our goods and supplies.”

Yu had armed the roarons, but these weapons were no match for a fully equipped professional army. The weapons they had were mostly axes and hammers found in the villages, which would allow them to kill a man. Still, the roarons managed to get by with them.

“Indeed, they are useful soldiers. They are fit to serve as a special guard unit.”

He still remembered the helplessness of the people in front of the roarons.

“I don't think the roarons' weapons are that bad either. The weapons of the last bandit group were good, but the weapons of the first two were not much different from ours. Besides, not everyone had a sword in medieval times, and I saw a video where agricultural tools were used for fighting. So their weapons are not really bad. Of course, I need to get better ones, they should be warriors who strike fear into the enemy.”

In total, they were attacked by three different groups of bandits. The first group of bandits consisted of forty people, the second group was twenty-nine and the third group, the best equipped, was fifty-five.

The men of roaron had done what Yu had expected of them and had done their duty in all three attacks, protecting him and Yurine. They were as good as Yu expected them to be.

The first two groups of bandits attacked at night and the roarons defended both night raids perfectly. The last group chose to attack in the morning. They were better equipped and more experienced than the two groups. Although they were unlikely to defeat the roarons, if they had chosen the night raid, they could have at least managed to inflict casualties.

The last group had another interesting aspect besides its strength. Someone in that group managed to stand up to the roarons. And not just against a single one, but even though he was surrounded by five roarons, he kept swinging his sword.

He probably couldn't have kept it up for long, but the fact that he was able to defend for even a minute against five hulking demi-lion warriors was admirable.

“Sivina said she would have a hard time in such a situation. Let's see what she says when she hears this.”

Seeing that the roarons had failed to defeat her, Yurine took action, even though Yu said it was unnecessary. Yurine wanted to test her strength on a strong person.

No matter how well he wielded the sword, his chances against a wind mage like Yurine were not very good. Yurine defeated him easily, gaining more respect and admiration from the roarons.

But it was not his skill with the sword that made him interesting, it was who he claimed to be. If he was telling the truth, he was someone important.

He called himself Link Yachi Long. He was a little taller than Yu, but thinner, but that didn't mean he was weak. He had an incredible skill with a sword, but it was his name, not his sword, that determined his worth. Long was the name of the clan from which the ruler of the Mora Kingdom was chosen, and the Yachi branch was part of the Long clan, although the current king was from a different branch.

The Yachi branch was not very prominent, but they too had royal blood and anyone from the Yachi branch had a chance to become king.

“He can't really be who he claims to be, can he?”

Why would someone important be a bandit in the mountains?

“I hope he is not telling the truth. After all, the one the Zodianists want to make king is from a different branch of the same clan. Let's not get arrested for attacking the royal dynasty as soon as we leave.”

They had brought Link Yachi Long with them to sell him into slavery like the other seventeen surviving bandits.

“We've finally arrived, Yu. It's been almost a year since we left here.”

Before coming to Andromedia, they had stopped at Libra and bought a new wagon and supplies for the roarons. They had also hired a driver for their new wagon.

Yu had made sure that his new wagons were similar to the old one because he liked the one he had lost the day he bought it. This wagon was similar to the old one, but a little bigger and more comfortable.

Yurine looked both happy and sad as she opened the window curtain and looked out. She had left here with her mother, but now she was back without her.

Her sadness made Yu feel as if he had a stone in his chest. He turned his head and put one hand on Yurine's head as he looked out the window. He was stroking her hair.

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Yurine was watching the walls. The walls of Andromedia were painted gold and could be seen from several kilometers away.

“Although there are similarities with Rolderhelm and İlonya, the difference is obvious even from a distance. This place has more of a medieval feel. And it's still surprising to see these crowds.”

After they had entered the main road and traveled a little further, they were met by a surprising crowd. Yu had expected people to stay indoors in winter, with the snow so heavy and a civil war on top of it, but in the Kingdom of Mora, the density on the roads around Andromedia was immense and increased the closer they got to the city.

“Maybe their problem is finding food.”

Two roarons, Kigaro and Dimen, escorted their wagon on the rinos. Yu had asked for Kigaro to be appointed commander of the roarons and Yurine had appointed him commander. Kigaro was now the leader of twenty-nine roaron men besides himself.

Dimen was the one Kigaro had chosen to help him. The remaining roarons would be kept a little further away from the city for a while, as it was impossible to bring them into the city at once. Of course, Yu would take care of the needs of the refugee camp.

“The to-do list is long, but I'll get the simple things out of the way first. I'll sell these thugs and get rid of them first. Then I'll tackle the serious stuff.”

Slavery was legal in the Mora and the bandits they captured would probably spend the rest of their lives doing someone's work, working for a living. Of course, if the person named Link really turned out to be who he claimed to be, Yu could have been the slave.

Their wagon slowed down and after a while it started to move in a stop-and-go motion. They were waiting for the long queue in front of them to end and it would be their turn.

“If it's this crowded in winter, I can't imagine what it's like in summer.”

While they were waiting in line, the snow started to fall again. Workers cleared the road so that vehicles could pass, but after a while the snow covered the cleared areas again.

“Where do we go from here?”

“I want to see Sivina and Ana. I want them to...” He thought for a while how to say this part. “We sent them to tell them that the old Virgo Cardinal was gone and that you were coming to be the new Virgo Cardinal.”

He didn't want to use the word dead for Rie when Yurine was around.

“They've already passed this news on to the Andromeda Church. I also want to make sure that the money I gave them is safe.”

He trusted them, but he still wanted to see the gold as soon as possible.

“Let's go to the Church of Andromeda first.”

Since Sivina and Ana had come on behalf of Neko, they would probably let them stay at the Virgo Cathedral. So if they hadn't run away, he believed he would meet them today.

“People in the church know you, don't they?”

“The Pontifex and most people know me.”

“First we have to talk to the Pontifex and get him to approve you as Cardinal of Virgo. I hope the system still works the way you say it does.”

“Yu, don't you believe me?”

“I believe it. I think if it's only been a year and the system has changed, we'll be in trouble. It would be easier for you to be accepted as Cardinal of Virgo because you're Rie's daughter, but if I suddenly come out and say I have the Blessing and I'm going to be a cardinal... I don't know, it's not likely. And I might be accused of killing the previous cardinal.”

In fact, when it came down to it, Yu knew he was guilty.

When he was at Rolderhelm, the guilt he felt for Rie's death faded for a while, but after he left Rolderhelm, it flared up again, growing every day. He felt guilty even for the fact that the guilt he felt back then had subsided for a while.

“If I hadn't held her... If I trusted myself... So many ifs.”

Yu chose to just watch. He watched and chose to stand by and think he was protecting a child. How stupid he was, he had done nothing but make a mess of things.

“I see someone dying and I don't intervene. That makes me as guilty as the murderer. I'm as guilty as Sorrow, if I hadn't been there, maybe they would have lived...”

Why was his guilt increasing day by day? Why did his emotions change so quickly? He hated grief, regret, but he was especially frustrated by the fact that his moods did not remain constant.

“While I am thinking about how bad I am, I just watched Yurine to massacre hundred people and I am totally okay with that?” He searched his heart, but couldn’t find a regret about them. “Thinking they’re bad people, is that why I am not feel guilt?”

He couldn’t find a word to convince his conscience. Despite every other person he had killed, his thought still were about the Rie. In here, he couldn’t thought anything but her.

“I'm trying to clean up my own mess, but even if I wash, will the blood on my hands go away?”

He was looking at his hand as he thought about it. Suddenly it felt even worse to have caused the death of someone who had saved him. The hole in his chest was waiting for a chance to open up again.

“Yu.” Yurine turned to face Yu and took his hand. “Don't look so sad, I won't let you be blamed.”

“You're a nice girl. What favor could I have done to deserve such a nice girl?”

Even if Yurine could protect Yu from the accusations of others, she could not prevent Yu from accusing himself, from being judged by his own conscience. Still, it warmed his heart to even try.

As the cars ahead of them moved forward and it was their turn, their wagon stopped under the big gate of the city. They could hear Tobias, the driver they had hired to drive the wagon, and the officer at the city gate talking.

When the officer asked to inspect the wagon, Tobias got out of the driver's compartment and knocked on the door.

“My lady, Mr. Valarfin, they want to check our cargo.”

“Open the door, Tobias,” Yu said.

Tobias did as he was told and opened the door. Their driver was taller than Yu but thinner. He had pink hair and yellow eyes. Yu had tried to see if he was trustworthy and decided that he was as trustworthy as a normal person could be.

So instead of making a long-term deal with him, he had made a short-term deal with him and he was going to send him soon.

The officer, whose job it was to prevent illegal goods from entering the city and to administer and keep records of taxes, greeted Yu and Yurine and entered. The city guards were waiting just outside the car.

The first thing the officer noticed and wanted to check were the crates that took up half of the space inside the carriage. When the officer asked for the crates to be opened, Yu stood up and started to open the locked crates.

“W-what are you doing with so much gold? Where did they come from?”

In the city where they had stopped before coming here, Yu had heard about the laws. He learned that if he brought too much gold into the city, the tax rate would increase, and if he brought too little, it would decrease.

Yu did not understand the reason for such a system, but he did not question it too much. All he knew was that he had to bring his gold into the city in pieces, not all at once, so that he would pay less taxes. So he entrusted some of the gold to the roarons.

And yet there was still a jaw-dropping amount of gold in front of him. So the officer could not hide his astonishment.

“This gold belongs to the Valarfin family, to me.”

“Was there such a family in the Mora?”

“We are not Morans, the Valarfin family is from the Storm Kingdom. When my family fell apart, I took my inheritance and traveled to Rolderhelm, where I met the damsel, and when I learned who she was, I swore allegiance.”

The Storm Kingdom also worshipped the Storm God Azer, but the Zodian religion had long since lost its influence there. Only a small minority practiced Zodianism and their beliefs differed because of the distance between the countries.

“If you are rich, why would you swear allegiance to a child? It's a ridiculous story.”

“Your ignorance and disrespect are disturbing. The one you call a child is the bearer of the Virgo Blessing and is here to become the Cardinal of Virgo.”

There might not have been anyone who cared about the Virgo Cathedral, but at least those in this city would have heard of it. After all, a new sect was emerging in their city with the approval of the Pontifex of Andromeda.

Of course, the important point here is not the Virgo Cardinalate, but the fact that Yurine bears the Virgo Blessing.

Most of the Blessings created by Azer centuries ago were lost and the only Blessings whose whereabouts are known are the Blessings of Andromeda, Leo, Aquarius, Libra, Gemini, Sagittarius, Virgo and the Orion.

He was not sure that they knew the identity of the bearers of the Gemini Blessing, but after all, the bearers of the Blessings were considered chosen by God and valued. Or, they just believed bearers of Blessings chosen by the Storm God Azer, but they also thought the female bearers are witch and did not like them. If it is as they think, and the bearers are chosen by God, they should also love witches. In such a contradiction, and believing that someone like himself could not be chosen by any god, Yu believed that the bearers were just random people.

“Can you prove she's carrying this?”

“We're going to the Church of Andromeda for that, but I don't think it's any of your business here, please just do your own thing.”

The officer had no answer for this. Yu had come up with an explanation for the gold, and the story became more believable because both he and Yurine were charismatic people, not only in their clothes but also physically.

The officer counted the goods in the wagons and the slaves behind them, made his notes and prepared the wagons to enter the city.