Meanwhile, on Riezel's side.
As Riezel got off the carriage and observed Karudia while waiting for Lizbeth and the others to return, before long, he noticed something unusual.
At first, his attention went to Karudia's city gate, where he saw a carriage that didn't seem like an ordinary means of transport, but then he realized that a few gazes from inside that carriage were directed at him.
Whoever they were, they really weren't even trying to hide their scrutiny.
Not only were their eyes blatant, sizing him up without restraint, but one of them even carried a faint hostility, which made Riezel shift his gaze toward the carriage as well.
As Riezel activated the Transparent World and peered into the carriage's interior, what he saw immediately surprised him.
'Who are those two?'
Within Riezel's Transparent World, none of the four people inside the carriage could hide—they were all fully exposed in his vision.
In any case, what caught his attention was the out-of-the-ordinary state of two among the four.
One of them looked like a swordsman who bizarrely didn't have a heart, carrying a weapon at his side, while the other was a magician with an immense amount of magical energy flowing through his body—not as much as Yuri's, but still far stronger than the original Riezel's, whose Gate was damaged.
'Hmm, looks like the people in that carriage aren't ordinary...'
Just like how Nibald saw Riezel, Riezel also came to a similar conclusion.
Meanwhile, just as such a thought crossed Riezel's mind, he noticed movement inside the carriage, and soon, the magician with the immense magical energy stepped out, accompanied by another person whose magical energy was also quite formidable.
As for the strange swordsman without a heart, he vanished completely—not even Riezel could tell how he disappeared.
Riezel's eyes flickered as he watched the two who stepped out of the carriage.
One was an old man in his sixties, while the other was a teenage girl—both wore elegant black magician robes and held jewel-encrusted staves about an arm's length long.
As soon as they stepped out of the carriage, they approached Riezel immediately.
"Hey, if you're handing out food, do it somewhere else! Don't block the road into the city!"
"And you refugees, go eat somewhere else! Don't stand around here!"
"S-Sorry!"
"Ah, no, we're not scolding you, just giving you a heads-up, okay? Please don't cry, Miss..."
At the same time, the guards led by Walter arrived to clear the refugees and open up the road, but when one of the guards spoke too harshly, Lizbeth got startled and instantly teared up, looking all pitiful, which made the guard flustered and panic, realizing he had scared her.
Riezel spared them a glance but didn't wait for Walter to come over, immediately grabbing the reins of his carriage and moving it to the side of the main road.
Only then did Nibald and Andrea finally reach him, as if they had arrived fashionably late.
"Hello there."
Nibald grinned like a friendly old neighbor, greeting Riezel with warmth—his attitude was completely different from the formal tone he had used with Felix in the carriage earlier.
Andrea didn't say anything and simply stood beside Nibald, curiously sizing up Riezel.
Riezel cast Andrea a subtle glance before finally meeting Nibald's gaze.
"Hello." Riezel nodded lightly before giving a slight bow. "Sorry, looks like we blocked your way."
He could pretty much guess why the old man and his group hadn't just taken the carriage and left Karudia.
Strangely, Nibald didn't seem to care about it at all.
"Hoho, if blocking the road for a bit means saving so many refugees, I wouldn't mind if you blocked it even longer."
Nibald still had that cheerful grin on his face—it was clear he wanted to chat with Riezel.
"I just helped them out a little, so it's nowhere near enough to call it 'saving' them." Riezel calmly shook his head.
"...You're right." Nibald's smile finally faded a little, then he looked around at the refugees. "Because of your aid, they might make it through the next few days, but whether they can survive after that... who knows."
"As long as the war doesn't end, all of this won't stop." Riezel said flatly.
"Ending a war is easier said than done, y'know?"
Nibald spoke with a helpless expression, seeming to be affected by Riezel's words.
"Even when a big country invades a smaller one, it usually takes a long time to actually win the war and occupy the land. And when it's a war between two big countries... that's even worse."
"You know, the war between Jinas and Reiburg has been going on for forty years. Even with that so-called agreement, both sides have been fighting on and off, but that just makes the war drag on even longer."
"Unless someone actually steps in and forces a ceasefire, it's impossible for them to settle the war in anything less than a few more decades."
Nibald started talking to Riezel about international affairs.
It seemed like he wanted to hear Riezel's thoughts, maybe because he was curious about the young man who was willing to use precious monster meat to help a bunch of refugees.
Unfortunately, Riezel had zero interest in that topic.
"How would I know what those people in power are thinking?" Riezel said bluntly, his face adorned with indifference. "It's their country, their land—they can do whatever they want since it's got nothing to do with me. I just felt like butting in a little on something unfair happening in front of me. I don't care about whatever those bored old geezers are scheming."
Such brutally straightforward words didn't just leave Nibald and Andrea stunned—even Felix, who had just stepped down from the carriage and was walking over, froze for a second and stopped in his tracks.
Riezel glanced at Felix for a moment before turning his attention back to Nibald.
"May I ask who you are?"
Riezel finally asked for Nibald's identity.
"Me?" Nibald snapped back to attention, then returned to his usual cheerful demeanor. "I'm Nibald Garland, from Letryss Territory."
'Oh? Letryss, huh?' Riezel's interest was immediately piqued.
Letryss Territory was a duke's territory located east of Jinas, and its ruling family was said to be descended from the king's younger brother six generations ago. Back when the third-generation king was in power, they still held succession rights to the throne, but once that king abdicated and the current king's grandfather took the throne, they lost their claim.
Riezel knew about Letryss Territory mainly because Yuri had mentioned it to him once over tea.
She had two reasons for bringing it up.
Firstly, it had a connection to the Frenzel family.
Yuri's maternal family was a vassal of the Letryss family, pledging loyalty to them, which gave the Frenzel family some ties to the Letryss family in the past, but unfortunately, those ties weakened after Yuri's mother returned to her family.
Nevertheless, Yuri had told Riezel before that her elder sister, the one their mother had taken with her, was now serving as the current Duke Letryss's secretary, which made her keep a close eye on the Letryss family's affairs.
Secondly, it was because the current head of the Letryss family, Duke Letryss, was one of the rare female noble leaders, just like Yuri.
She was quite a bit older than Yuri, already twenty-four this year, but for various reasons, she still wasn't married, making her marriage a major issue for both the Letryss family and the entire Letryss Territory, turning it into a hot topic in the royal capital every year.
More importantly, Duke Letryss, like Yuri, refused to align with either the Royal Faction or the Duke Faction.
In other words, the Letryss family, much like the Frenzel family, remained neutral, more of a bystander than a participant, which made the Letryss family's movements a matter of interest to many nobles, including the royal family and Yuri.
Yuri had spent plenty of idle moments chatting with Riezel about the Letryss family, so thanks to that, he was pretty familiar with Letryss Territory.
Now, the old man in front of him, whose magical energy was absurdly immense, enough to rival a Strategic-Class Magician, was actually from Letryss Territory.
Didn't that mean he had ties to the Letryss family?
Such a thought couldn't help but flash through Riezel's mind.
Nonetheless, he didn't bring it up and simply listened as Nibald continued his introduction.
"And this is my granddaughter, Andrea Garland." Nibald introduced the girl standing beside him.
"Hello, nice to meet you." Andrea gave a slight bow before curiously asking a question. "Excuse me, may I know your name? Where are you from?"
"Just call me Riezel. I came from the royal capital, Yeluvia." Riezel answered calmly.
"Royal capital?" Andrea mumbled to herself.
"You came from Yeluvia?" Nibald asked, looking a bit surprised.
In the next moment, his gaze instinctively shifted toward the luxurious carriage beside Riezel, and with just one glance, he immediately spotted the crest on it.
"Isn't that... the Frenzel family's crest?"
Nibald froze for a moment before quickly turning his head back and staring at Riezel.
"Could it be that you... Are you Sir Riezel Brynhart?"
While asking, Nibald's eyes lit up with excitement.
"Riezel Brynhart?"
Andrea was taken aback for a moment before her eyes widened.
"What...?"
Nearby, Felix and his family's knights, who were about to walk over, were completely stunned as they heard Nibald's words.
Riezel Brynhart—this name had recently spread across all of Jinas and even throughout the entire Akasha Continent for one simple reason.
Because he was the newly ascended Sword Saint—the youngest Sword Saint in history.
'H-He's the Lightning Sword Saint?'
Felix's eyes grew wider and wider as he stood there in shock.