Ice Vapor Goddess

Chapter 52 Canary
"Are you crazy?!" Kyle yelled, clutching his chin.

Fafnir tapped his head, still a little confused: "Huh? Oh, I'm out... Thanks."

Kyle grabbed Fafnir's chin, twisted it hard, and with a crisp "click," finally snapped it back into place. He stood up and glared at Fafnir, then looked at his dazed expression and sighed helplessly.

"Alright, alright, get up now." He pulled Fafnir and leaned him against the wall. "What happened? A regular knight suffocated in his room?"

Fafnir was silent for a moment, then looked at Kyle's face: "It's because of my innate ability."

"what?"

"I mean, I'll suffocate because of my innate ability."

Kyle looked at him with a puzzled expression.

“Anyway, we’ll be working together in the future…sigh…” Fafnir sighed. “Just don’t spread rumors…My talent is called [Canary].

Kyle's eyes turned dangerous: "A domesticated canary? Could it be that you and Governor Hoffman..."

"No!!!" Fafnir frantically scratched his head.

Kyle looked at him with a smile, waiting for him to continue.

Fafner took a few deep breaths to calm himself down.

"Did you know that miners in the mines use canaries?"

“I don’t know.” Kyle shook his head, gesturing for him to continue.

“Mines, especially coal mines, are likely to contain large amounts of methane. If this methane is accidentally released during mining, it will displace fresh air, causing suffocation, and may even explode if an open flame is encountered.”

Kyle nodded; he had also heard about the suffocation and explosions in the coal mine.

Although worker injuries and deaths are generally considered an unfortunate and normal event, large explosions are still easily reported in the newspapers.

"So the workers would usually bring a canary down with them. Canaries are more sensitive than people. If they encounter a lack of fresh air, they will stop singing, behave abnormally, and become unsteady on their feet. If this continues, they may even die."

“Canaries love to sing, and once they stop singing, the miners know that the gas concentration has increased, so they will temporarily evacuate from the area.”

Kyle hesitated before asking, "So your innate ability..."

“That’s right, his name is Canary, and his ability is ‘Easily suffocated’.” Fafnir looked at him.

"..." Kyle was silent for a few seconds. "Doesn't he have any strengths at all?"

"Does singing well count? My bass voice is amazing." "..."

"A humanoid canary, would it count as a mine alarm?"

"..."

Kyle looked at him with pity and patted him on the shoulder silently.

Logically speaking, if someone awakens such talent while still an apprentice knight, they should probably give up on the path of a knight. Yet, they managed to persevere and become a regular knight...

“My family used to be peddlers,” Fafnir said softly. “In the north of the Empire, near Forest City, you know? The one surrounded by seven forests.”

Kyle didn't answer him. He didn't know the place. To be honest, he had never taken a geography class and his knowledge of place names was limited to what he had heard from others.

But Fafnir continued rambling on, "When I was ten years old, my family spent a lot of money to take me to take a magic test. The mage said that I only had a little bit of talent and that I definitely couldn't be a mage. If I had the chance, I might be able to awaken and become a knight."

“My father was very happy that day. He asked me to drive the carriage to the city to buy wine, but on the way, we passed the mage’s carriage. A protruding magic crystal ripped a bloody gash out of the ‘Queen’—our horse—and the horse’s entire body was torn apart.”

He looked up and leaned against the wall: “Without the horse, we couldn’t run our peddling business anymore. My parents started arguing, smashing things, and fighting… Every day was filled with these kinds of things at home. We had fewer and fewer valuable things. Finally, one day, my father came back covered in coal dust and said he had found a job in a nearby mine and brought back a canary.”

Kyle stopped talking and listened silently, his arms tucked into his sleeves as he leaned against the wall alongside Fafnir.

“He said it was given out by the foreman, one for each team. He was the team leader, and I still remember how excited and proud he was.”

"And then?" Kyle asked.

"Then he died, along with the canary, in the mine. The mine collapsed. The master wanted to save money, so the timber used for the pit slabs was all worm-eaten. A large section of the mine collapsed completely. When the workers dug him out, he was already dead, his mouth and nose full of coal dust. The canary died on his chest, its mouth open, as if it were about to sing."

"He had only worked for two days and hadn't received his wages. His mother cried and scolded him, saying that all he knew how to do in his life was to be a peddler. Then she took me and remarried to a hunter in the village because I had awakened when my father died. Apprentice knights need to eat a lot of meat and grain, and my family couldn't afford to support me. Only the hunter's family had meat and no wife."

“The gentry in the village said I could go to the Royal Knights Academy, and the priest said he could write me a letter of recommendation for the Holy See Knights training camp, but later the people in the conscription department said that apprentice knights could receive a weekly wage of five shillings, so I went.”

Kyle listened silently and patted him on the shoulder.

“I served in the army for many years… I have no opinions of my own. I will kill whoever I am told to kill, and do whatever I am told to do. As long as I have a meal, that’s fine. If I can send some money home, that would be even better… Later, when Ryan was going to become the governor of Speyside, the military was thinking of getting him some more bodyguards, so they sent me there because I was the most useless person in the army in terms of talent and ability.”

He chuckled self-deprecatingly: "Raine knew that too, so he sent me to the Holy Treasury. It would be best if I could scare the bishop away, but it wouldn't matter if I couldn't. Or it would be within his expectations if I were killed by the bishop—if that were the case, he would have a reason to take action against the bishop—perhaps he was hoping for my death?"

Kyle stood silently to the side, and at that moment he really envied the bishop's eloquence. If it were him, he could probably have persuaded Fafnir immediately. But he could only stand there silently, as a listener, completely at a loss for words.

(End of this chapter)