Embers of Embers

Chapter 523 Meeting
"To round things off, you saved my life, Lorenzo."
Haybold pushed open the door of the tavern and motioned for Lorenzo to follow him in.
"Actually, I thought it was nothing at the time. Later, when I was lying in the hospital, Kestrel told me a bunch of nonsense."
"Kestrel?"
Lorenzo was a little confused. When he walked into the tavern, the interior decoration was quite in line with the Viking style. Bucklers and axes were hung on the walls, and some horn cups were scattered on the table. Of course, there was also the lingering... Weird smell.
Lorenzo didn't know what other people thought. Anyway, it made him feel like he was back at home... However, it was strange that there were no customers here. Apart from the bartender, Lorenzo and Hebold seemed to be the only guests. .
"Yes, Kestrel. He fell on the bed and screamed when he had nothing to do. He had no fear of escaping from death. Think about it when he was in Maruli. This guy flew up happily and didn't care about whether he died or not."
Haybold randomly picked a table and sat down, his expression became a little subtle while recalling.
"Vikings are not afraid of death, it is we who long for the Hall of Valor after death, but obviously for Kestrel, there is nothing after death, so I asked him why he felt like this.
Kestrel told me that according to his life history, if nothing unexpected happened, he would have died in a dirty corner of the lower city many years ago. It was the purification agency that saved his life and gave him A decent job and a stable place to live. "
"For Kestrel, it was a crawl from one fire pit to another that wasn't as bad, but at least he survived."
The bartender came over drunkenly and served two large bottles of beer to the two of them. Dense foam was floating on the liquid, and a few ice cubes could be seen suspended in it.
"He told me that from then on, every day he lived was earned with blood."
"Blood earning?"
Lorenzo laughed out loud at these words.
Haybold couldn't help but laugh, and shook his head helplessly while laughing.
"This guy is a little too optimistic, but it does make sense when you think about it. I should have died in Maruli, but I came back alive, thanks to you." Haibold picked up the wine glass and took a big sip. "Every day I live now is an unexpected surprise for me."
"That sounds pretty good."
Lorenzo remembered the past because of Heibald's words, but he didn't recall too much. He only touched the memory slightly and returned it.
"It seems like everyone has stolen time from the hands of death."
Lorenzo sighed softly and rubbed the wine glass vigorously with his fingers. Under the rough texture, he could distinguish every inch of cracks.
"How is Kestrel doing now? Why didn't he come with you?" Haybold asked.
"We set off in a hurry. Kestrel's injuries haven't healed yet. The most important thing is that this guy asked for a vacation. When we went to Maruri, this guy was caught in the middle of the vacation."
Lorenzo explained, thinking of Kestrel's slumped face, he said again.
"Let him rest. No matter how optimistic you are, you can't toss him so hard."
"What about you? Don't you need a rest? You just blew up Maruri and rushed here non-stop. Sometimes I think you are a disaster, Lorenzo."
Haybold said with a smile.
"Okay, okay, but what did you call me out for? Just to taste your Viking beer?"
Lorenzo glanced at the ice cubes floating in the wine. The naked eye could clearly distinguish the impurities in it, and some gravel was solidified in it.
"I guess these ice cubes are caught from the sea? Authentic, the taste of nature."
The taste was a little bad, but Lorenzo didn't mind that.
"It's really more than just drinking..." Haybold was interrupted by another person mid-sentence.
"The main thing is that I want to see you."
Before Lorenzo could raise his head to see the source of the sound, the man came to Lorenzo and placed the plate he was holding on the table, which contained hot barbecue and beer.
The man sat down, raised his glass and took a swig.
I don't know when the bartender had left, and there were only three of them left in the tavern.
"We have plenty of time, no one will bother us." The man added.
Lorenzo looked at his face. He was a slightly old man. The cold wind corroded his face, and the sharp axes carved scars on it. He looked very tired, but his eyes were filled with tears. But full of energy.
"Um...do you Vikings have any etiquette?"
Lorenzo turned to look at Hebold. He regretted not asking the shrike more, but life was probably like this. There would always be emergencies that caught people off guard.
"Never mind that, Mr. Holmes."
The man said with a smile.
Lorenzo swallowed. This sudden meeting did make him a little uncomfortable, but he quickly adapted to it and showed a smile that was somewhere between friendly and mean.
"Hello, Your Majesty."
……
The current king of the Viking kingdoms, the world-famous Ice King, Ragnar Lodbrok.
At this moment, he was sitting opposite Lorenzo, holding the wine glass with one hand, looking at the foam rising in the liquid, and thinking about something.
"Well, let me think about how to start."
He doesn't have the posture of a king at all. You can still see the primitive wildness in his behavior, and his exposed skin is covered with scars and burns.
Ragnar Lodbrok was a king, a warrior, and a Viking.
Lorenzo knew about his rise. He was just an ordinary warrior at first. In order for the people of the tribe to survive, he plundered other territories and the scale became larger and larger. Finally, he killed his own lord. Instead of ruling the territory, the plundering fleet became larger and larger, and finally he plundered a country.
This is a living legend, but in the eyes of some, he is a villain who has abandoned his faith.
"I heard that you met pirates on the way here?" Ragnar asked.
"Well, it seems they were a group of guys called Black Fang Pirates. We wiped them all out."
"Is that so?" Ragnar was a little surprised, "Are they all wiped out? Then I really need to thank you, these guys are extremely troublesome."
"what happened?"
Lorenzo forked a piece of barbecue and started eating it without any courtesy.
"You also know that we Vikings all relied on plundering, but after I ended the civil war, the first thing I did was to abolish plundering. We can no longer attack each other. Many lords agreed with me Even if you don’t agree with some of the ideas, you have to agree.”
Ragnar smiled helplessly.
"But I can convince the lords, but I can't convince everyone. Some extreme Vikings disobey my orders because of their belief in Odin. They continue to plunder all over the Viking countries. Not long ago, they raided They reached Lengbing Bay and snatched several armored ships, making it more difficult for us to encircle and suppress them."
"Don't worry, those armored ships have sunk into the sea. I witnessed it all with my own eyes."
Lorenzo knew very well that pirates were not the problem, the problem was ironclad ships. Whoever had them would be the most arrogant pirate on the sea.
"Are all the pirates on the ship dead too?" Ragnar sighed, "There are many familiar faces inside. I thought I could persuade them."
"Are we killing your acquaintances?" Lorenzo felt something was wrong.
"It's okay, just kill him, so no one will cause trouble," Ragna waved his hand, indicating to Lorenzo not to pay too much attention, "In the past, Odin's faith did protect us, but now the Vikings Countries want to keep up with the times, but the belief in God Odin has become a constraint for us."
"This is how many people criticize me, saying that I have violated the faith of God Odin. Some people say that I am the worst pirate, but now I am driving other pirates to death."
Ragnar took another sip of wine, and his face turned red, making him look much healthier.
"What do you think?" Lorenzo asked.
"How else to look at it? This is a necessity. Faith cannot be eaten as food. Only internal stability and external plunder can allow more people to survive."
Ragnar was dismissive of Odin's belief. He looked at Lorenzo and noticed some strange looks in his eyes.
"Why, do you think it's weird?"
Lorenzo nodded and said what he said without any scruples.
"You are the king of the Viking kingdoms and a pirate who roams the ice sea. Logically speaking, you should be the most heroic descendant of God Odin, but you don't care about God Odin... It always feels weird."
"What about you? Mr. Holmes, I know that you were once a demon hunter of the Evangelical Church, guarding the Cathedral of San Naro in Medanzo. In comparison, you should be extremely powerful in front of your god. Pious, didn’t you end up here anyway?”
Ragnar smiled and said, it seems that he and Lorenzo have something in common.
"Faith may really have mysterious power, but more often than not, it is just a tool to facilitate rule. But now times have changed, and we must keep up. Faith should be abandoned, and there is only steel and gunpowder. That’s the absolute truth.”
Ragnar's expression became serious, his eyes were cold and not affected by alcohol at all.
"What do you want to say?" Lorenzo asked.
"Well, foreign war is only the first step in the rise of the Viking countries. After that, I hope to completely destroy all the lords in my lifetime.
On the surface, the Viking countries are united, but in fact it is just the interests of the lords that have reached consensus. I can become king only if more lords are willing to support me. If they want, someone will replace me at any time. "
There was a bitter chill in Ragnar's words.
"It is not me who rules the Viking Kingdoms, but the lords. Compared to the belief in God Odin, they are the ones who really hinder the Viking Kingdoms. But unfortunately, I have no way to solve them for the time being. They The foundation is so deep.”
Hebold remained silent. He had been drinking by himself since just now, as if he couldn't hear the conversation between Lorenzo and Ragnar.
Lorenzo felt something was wrong. For a king to talk to him about some of the country's problems, it would be a big problem no matter how he thought about it.
"Each territory has different laws. I need to unify them, along with all interests and wills. What do you think? Mr. Holmes."
"It sounds good, but it is too difficult to implement. You are trying to overthrow the entire old system on your own... You have done a good job in ending the civil war." Lorenzo responded.
"It is indeed very good, but this is not enough. It can only be said that the destined death of the Vikings has become a chronic death. We need to make more changes."
Ragnar thought, he could chop down enemies one after another with swords and axes, and even conquer a country by looting, but he could not fight against these invisible things, these things that were deeply rooted in his mind.
"I'm a little curious. Your Majesty, you are a very pure Viking. You grew up under the belief of God Odin and relied on plundering to survive... But your current thoughts are not like a Viking at all. I am very curious. What compelled you to change.”
Facing Ragnar, Lorenzo has always had a strange sense of dissonance and familiarity, which he couldn't describe or recall.
"Death, quite simply, is death."
Ragnar admitted that he did not hide much about Lorenzo.
"The first time I went to sea to plunder was because my mother was about to starve to death. Winter came quickly that year and we didn't have much food to survive the winter. I had no choice but to go to sea. I arrived at a place where In the Jing people’s village, I killed the people inside and robbed their food, so my mother and many more people survived.”
Ragnar's face was expressionless as he told these stories.
"I killed my compatriots... We have always been like this, attacking and killing each other. It's time for us to make changes. And my original intention of all this is actually quite simple, just to let more people live. Come down, safe from cold wind and hunger."
He showed that helpless smile again, as if this was not a serious meeting, but just a group of workers drinking and complaining after a hard day's work.
"I don't care about the evil of war or killing more people. I just hope that no one in the Viking countries will starve to death or freeze to death."
Listening to his words, Lorenzo realized what this strange feeling of familiarity was. The face of the man in front of him gradually overlapped with the appearance in his memory, and the face of Queen Victoria flashed before his eyes.
For more people to survive.
"Then what do you want me to do?"
Lorenzo looked at Ragnar. A king must have a purpose for telling these things to him.
Ragnar shook his head and spoke slowly, smelling of alcohol.
"No, I just want to chat with someone. I usually talk to Ivar. Unfortunately, he died. Fortunately, he died as a warrior. When my soul returns to the Hall of Valor, we will meet again. There will be plenty of time to talk about these things then.”
Scorning faith but following faith, Ragnar's whole person revealed a strange sense of contradiction. He raised his glass and touched Lorenzo's.
"As for you, I actually met you because of another thing, something that has been bothering me for a long time. I have thought about it for a long time, and I think you might be interested."
"Is it related to this operation in Jinghai?" Lorenzo didn't want to get involved in irrelevant matters.
"There are some stickiness, but I think even if it has nothing to do, you will be very interested. Don't worry about me troubling you. You have done enough. I just want to hear what you think."
Ragnar asked, looking into Lorenzo's eyes.
"As a demon hunter of the Evangelical Church, do you know about the Endgame Society?"
(End of this chapter)