Chapter 553 - The Blood-Crazed Youngest

Despite being a noble, Harrison tilled his own land. He persisted in that way of life even as the sun burned his skin and stripped his head of hair.

Why? Because he loved the land, enjoyed the work, and had a clear purpose in life. So he did not care if people mocked his baldness or called him a miser.

Did he never indulge in luxury? Quite the contrary. He enjoyed greater luxuries than the king. Who was the first to taste the fine wheat, grain, and fruit grown on his land? The king? Or himself? Himself. There was no greater luxury. He was both a noble and a farmer.

"Are the safe roads all you need?" Encrid asked again.

Harrison found his response unfamiliar. He had never met anyone like him. Who ordinarily went to such lengths to help? Encrid demanded nothing in return, nor did he ask Harrison to serve under him.

There was nothing strange about one noble serving another. Did the Duke of Fertile Lands not lead a group of nobles under him that way? Yet Encrid seemed to want nothing. He would simply do it.

"Why are you being so good to me?" Harrison asked.

He had obstructed Encrid, raising objections despite knowing his fearsome reputation. Had Encrid threatened to cut off an arm or a leg for offending him, Harrison would have had no grounds to complain. Not that he could meekly surrender a limb.

"Just because."

Encrid did not explain his every reason. That was simply the sort of person he was. Of course, having never encountered this before, Harrison was bewildered.

Then the gray-haired Noble Slaughterer stepped over from beside them and spoke. He was sipping from a wineglass in one hand, a sight that suited him better than Harrison had expected.

"That's just how he is. I'm sure he's got his reasons, but don't try to understand them. You'll only give yourself a headache. More importantly, have you heard about the alley cat whose heart was burned black after one woman after another dumped him?"

Rem had been spreading Jaxon's nickname for some time now. Harrison let his words go in one ear and out the other as he looked at Encrid. Though he had not even conveyed a question with his eyes, Encrid spoke.

"Till your land. If that's your dream."

"See? Told you there wasn't a reason," Rem said.

Harrison could only keep staring at the sculpturally handsome man. The words struck him like lightning, leaving him speechless. A dream? Did Encrid even understand what he was saying?

Harrison, too, had tried to establish a militia in his domain and do something similar to the safe roads. But that was easier said than done. The labor and expense were no joke. Hiring mercenaries to solve the problem would be no different from inviting a band of thieves into his domain.

It would be wonderful if everything somehow worked out. But what if the mercenaries banded together and tried to seize the domain? What if they caused trouble? To put it bluntly, what if they stabbed one of his subjects to death and called it an accident? Did he have the strength to punish them?

In the end, he had to build a militia from people he could trust, and talent with a sword was not so common. He could build and defend walls, but raising a force capable of protecting all his farmland was exceedingly difficult.

Above all, though Harrison was confident in his ability to train farmers, he was not nearly so adept at training warriors. He was managing to hold on thanks to the help of a few wandering swordsmen who wanted to settle down.

Even so, he wanted to protect all the farmland and restore the dead soil scattered throughout his domain. Judging by what he knew, it was entirely possible. Of course, it would never be easy. He knew that well.

'But I still have to do it.'

For the sake of future descendants, to improve his land, and to give them better lives than they had now, he had to do it. Yet whenever he tried anything, those around him tried to stop him.

["You're already making a perfectly good living off the land. Must you go that far?"]

["Why are you trying to expand your land?"]

["It's only natural for people to die to monsters. But there's no need to go looking for death."]

No, it was not natural. He was not seeking to expand his land by accepting deaths to monsters as inevitable. He wanted to protect those who wished to farm in safety and give them better lives. Was that not the duty of a lord responsible for his domain?

That was what he believed, but others mocked him. A dirt-grubbing miser. That was what those who knew him called him.

And now here was Encrid, master of an order he had given the unprecedented name of the Lunatic Knight Order. The hero of Border Guard. The Demon Killer. The Iron Wall Knight. A man who would have been justified in driving him away with far harsher words was telling him this: till your land and fulfill your dream.

Harrison remembered something his wife, who was waiting for him at home, had said.

["If the God of Abundance needs you, won't he send you word when the time comes?"]

Why did those words come to him now? Because this was that moment? He did not know. But even if the god said otherwise, Harrison decided to believe that the moment had come.

God might have bestowed life, but living it was a matter of a living being's own determination. Drawing on that determination, he made his decision.

He reached inside his coat and took out another glass bottle.

"Give me back the one I gave you. Let's exchange them."

Once again, Encrid handed it over without even asking what it was. The glass bottles changed hands. Dozens of pairs of eyes watched them.

Marquis Varnas and the Duke of Fertile Lands had taken up positions among the onlookers at some point. They were not the only ones. Krang had joined them, too.

It was customary to announce the king's arrival at a banquet loudly, but Krang had stopped the announcement. Something interesting was clearly happening, so he had chosen to be a spectator.

Harrison was famous in several respects. He was a noble who stubbornly tilled the soil and harvested fruit. His domain had a peculiar rule: every subject was required to study and research ways to improve crop yields. The lord himself did so, and there were even people in the domain who specialized in that work.

Whether thanks to those efforts or a god's whim, a true divine blessing had come upon his land some ten years ago. Not a bountiful harvest or anything of that sort. Divine power had genuinely manifested there.

A small spring had bubbled up from the earth, then vanished, leaving only a single mouthful of water. Harrison had discovered it while setting out at dawn with his pitchfork to work the fields. He had carefully scooped the water into his hands, and, miraculously, not a drop had fallen to the ground, or so the story went.

He had carried it away with care, poured it into a glass bottle he would ordinarily never use because of the expense, and sealed it. This was the famous sacred springwater.

No one knew what effects or benefits the water offered, but word had already spread far and wide that its divine power was genuine. A high priest had come requesting it in accordance with the god's will, only to be refused. When a large trading company asked for it, Harrison had steadfastly denied that any such thing existed.

["I'm telling you, there's no such thing. Does that sound plausible to you? What, water that doesn't run out of your hands? Utter nonsense!"]

When rumors spread that Harrison always carried a glass bottle inside his coat, he bought a few potions and began carrying them around. Even those potions cost more than their weight in gold.

"It's sacred springwater."

Now he had brought it out—the very thing he had denied possessing until he was blue in the face. Encrid tucked the glass bottle into his coat. Like the first, it was corked and tightly bound shut.

Again, he neither looked at it nor asked whether it was real. His manner said he was accepting it because it was being offered. In truth, it would have made no difference whether it was a potion or a gold ring. He really had accepted it simply because Harrison gave it to him.

If fine wine cost its weight in gold, and a healing potion required three times its weight in gold to buy, this was something even ten times its weight in gold could not purchase. It was certainly not something to hand over so casually.

"Oh!" One of the watching nobles sucked in a breath. He was just giving that away?

Encrid took in the surrounding reactions and asked, "It seems valuable. Why give it to me?"

At the half-joking question, Harrison gave a rough-hewn smile—the first he had shown since their encounter in the audience chamber.

"Just because."

"I'll put it to good use."

"Please do."

That was the end of it. Harrison neither insisted that Encrid keep his promise nor pressed him on it. Though few besides Krang knew it, Encrid had borne him no ill will from the start. To those unaware of that, this was not merely surprising but bizarre.

"Why give him that?"

"What's gotten into those two?"

"Because he's handsome?"

Some of them spouted nonsense, but this was simply a matter between the two men. Harrison had given Encrid something of his, and Encrid had agreed to do what Harrison wanted. That was all.

"Phew. I forgot to breathe watching that."

As Krang spoke from among the onlookers, those who recognized their king stepped back.

"Oh, Your Majesty."

"Ah, when did you get here?"

"Carry on enjoying yourselves. Don't mind me."

With that, Krang stepped forward and addressed Encrid.

"I told you not to hate him. Did you bully him instead?"

They might be friends, but in public he was the king. Still, this was a banquet, so one could argue it was not a formal occasion.

"Who bullied whom?"

Krang was joking that Encrid had bullied Harrison into handing over his treasure. Encrid had immediately returned the banter.

"As long as you didn't."

Krang opened the floodgates.

"I hear you're still unattached. Why is that?"

The Duke of Fertile Lands came straight to the point.

"Do I need a reason?"

"Of course not. I hear Kin has settled in Border Guard. Did you know?"

Marquis Vaisar joined in as well. Everyone spoke as though they had been desperate for a chance to address Encrid.

"I doubt he does, my lord."

Kin Vaisar happened to have returned to the capital on business and was standing nearby. After speaking to the marquis, she greeted Encrid with a glance.

"You remember my name by now, I hope?"

While some lost their heads over Encrid's face and bearing alone, others did not. Kin Vaisar was among the latter. She maintained a sensible distance. Handsome though he was, she was not foolish enough to give her heart to a man who had no interest in her.

"It isn't a name one easily forgets."

Encrid returned her greeting smoothly.

After that, it was a banquet. The sort where people drank, ate, and enjoyed themselves. No one ended up sprawled drunk on the floor, though. No one had the nerve to disgrace themselves in front of the king. Besides, they were too busy greeting Encrid and making sure he remembered their faces.

There were young nobles who envied him, but those who admired or respected him outnumbered them several times over. And that envy and jealousy were entirely about his looks.

"What chance do we have if he looks like that, too?"

Comments like that kept cropping up. Even those who envied Encrid acknowledged his ability.

From time to time, they also saw the so-called Noble Slaughterer making his rounds, chatting about one thing or another. Contrary to rumors that he was an unhinged brute, his conduct was impeccable. Especially when it came to women.

"You said your name was Rem?"

A noblewoman who had lost her husband early in life and remained alone laid a hand on his arm and stroked it as she asked. It was a signal of sorts: she was interested in him.

"I have a wife."

Rem turned her down with that single sentence. Similar incidents occurred several times, but he showed no annoyance and kept busily chatting away. There was no coercive violence or murderous presence. He was simply talking, sipping his drink and eating dishes, bread, pastries, and desserts. It was a perfectly ordinary sight at a banquet.

Notably, he made no distinction of status or gender. He even approached the guards who had accompanied the guests. Several of them had hit a plateau in their skills. Rem offered advice to all of them alike.

"Yeah, you need to start training regularly. You've got a sagging gut, and you're blaming your talent? Want me to split your head with an axe?"

At times, his words were admittedly rather bloodthirsty, but both speaker and listener took them entirely as a joke. Wasn't that good enough? Still, the remarks he ended with were curiously similar.

"Heard the rumor going around Border Guard? About the alley cat who got dumped by so many women that he prowls around every night? Is it just a false rumor, you ask? What? You mean I don't seem like the sort of man the rumors make me out to be? Right, I'm not. But that cat is the real thing. His name's Jaxon. Don't forget it."

That was the sort of thing he said. He stopped anyone he could to talk, young or old: servants, maids, guards, and nobles alike.

By contrast, Audin, who had explained that his bear Beastman epithet was a misunderstanding, merely watched his surroundings. Some people did approach him, and he responded, but he was not as outgoing as Rem. Even so, he said everything he wanted to say.

"The Sneaky alley cat? Well, yes. He does exist. Ah, and the blood-crazed murderer—yes, he enjoys the sight of blood, but he's bedridden at present. I suppose we must put that down to neglecting his training. The youngest—ah, that's something of a title within our order. Pay it no mind. A slip of the tongue. Lord Father, punish this unworthy mouth of mine."

"That blood-crazed murderer is the youngest?"

"It simply slipped out. Please forget I said it."

Rem simply spoke to anyone he could, but Audin employed a more sophisticated method. Tell people to spread a rumor, and they tend to keep quiet. Ask them to forget it, and they spread it all the farther.

And that was the moment the Blood-Crazed Youngest was born. Of course, none of them knew it just yet.