Chapter 61 - A Fairy's Joke

Encrid gathered the corpses in one place and waited for the patrolmen.

"This is work too."

He was muttering to himself as he straightened up the Half Fairy's corpse.

As he groped around to lift and move the assassin, his fingertips caught on a strange sensation.

It was around the chest.

When he traced it with his fingers, he felt the sensation continue down to the side.

When he opened the assassin's clothes, he saw a throwing-dagger sheath strapped to the body.

Inside it were four remaining Whistle Daggers.

They were not common items.

'I nearly forgot.'

They were excellent weapons.

And he had just learned how to throw them, too.

They would be useful if he kept them.

Had he not experienced the power of the Whistle Dagger all too clearly with his own body?

He took the whole sheath, and while he was at it, searched the others' clothes thoroughly and collected things like crona as well.

Aside from the Whistle Daggers, there were some powders and leather pouches whose contents he could not identify.

But they gave off a strange smell, and he felt he should not touch them carelessly.

If it was a poison that could poison him through mere contact, he would not be able to get an antidote right away.

Above all, he had always been reluctant to use poison in the first place, so in many ways, they were objects that weighed on his mind.

Encrid left the poison pouches and the like as they were.

After that, it was only natural that the patrolman who found Encrid was shocked out of his wits.

After all, the troublemaker Squad Leader who had vanished during duty hours had suddenly appeared with five corpses.

"What is this!"

At first, the man was so startled that he even leveled his spear.

"Spies."

Encrid explained briefly.

That was enough.

"I know that one's face. Four days ago, he said he was an errand boy for a peddler."

One of the patrolmen pointed at the dead man with the crossbow.

A peddler meant a merchant who wandered here and there carrying a load light enough to sling over one shoulder.

It was a fitting disguise.

"Didn't you check his identity tag?"

"We did. It was sophisticated."

A sophisticated forged identity tag.

Could things like that be made so commonly?

Probably not.

After that, one of the soldiers who searched the Half Fairy's clothes with the tip of his spear grimaced at the corpse with the split head.

And while Encrid waited off to one side, the 4th Company Commander, in other words, the Fairy Commander, appeared.

After inspecting the dead assassin's clothes, she soon spoke.

"He carried poison. He was an assassin."

It was a conclusion she reached after checking not only the poison but his build as well.

Encrid obediently explained the assassin's existence.

That was the end of it.

The patrolmen stared at him with suspicious eyes the entire time he waited, but the misunderstanding was brief.

"You took down five? One of them looks like he must have been fairly skilled."

"These three are Jack, Bo, and Rotten."

One of the patrolmen chimed in as if he knew them.

Jack was good with a spear, and Bo was nimble.

Among ordinary soldiers, Rotten was also considered no easy opponent.

Those three soldiers, a Half Fairy assassin, and even a soldier with a crossbow.

He had faced all of them, yet he had no major injuries.

A few scratches were all.

"... Alone?"

The patrolman asked, even forgetting the presence of the Company Commander beside him.

That was how surprised he must have been.

"One thing led to another."

Encrid answered and looked at the Company Commander.

The Fairy Company Commander said nothing.

Her expression did not change either.

She only stared quietly at Encrid with those same jewel-like green eyes.

"Understood. Return."

"Yes."

He saluted and turned around.

As she watched him, the Fairy Company Commander spoke.

"You left your post, so you will have to make up for it later."

What a sharp-edged thing to say.

To bring up leaving his post in this situation.

The three patrolmen glanced at one another.

Encrid himself, however, silently nodded.

"Yes, understood."

The Company Commander was his superior.

Arguing would only make his mouth hurt.

There were people within the unit who were brutally strict about military law and regulations.

The Fairy Company Commander did not seem like that type, but still.

If she said that, was it not a subordinate's duty to obey?

There was nothing to gain from needlessly digging in his heels.

"Then."

Only then did Encrid stride away from the scene.

Two days later, two members of the Border Guard came to find Encrid again.

Since on-site inspections within the city were the Border Guard's responsibility, it was a move for the field investigation.

Encrid responded diligently to everything.

"They attacked suddenly."

"Did you leave your post because you knew something?"

"No. Their presence did feel awkward, but I wanted to get some fresh air."

"Your leaving your post just happened to expose spies? These two look like they died in a single strike."

"They tried to kill me out of nowhere."

"And yet you subdued them without actually getting injured?"

The two guards' questions were sharper than expected, but Encrid remained calm.

He was the only person who had seen it directly and survived, so it was only natural.

"Yes. I was lucky."

"If you got lucky twice, you could bring down a wall. It means there was that much of a gap in skill."

One of the two made a deflating joke.

Neither of them said it because they suspected Encrid.

It would be absurd to suspect the target of an ambush.

Most of all, it also helped that the Border Guard had already investigated Encrid's background thoroughly.

It was an investigation they had completed when they had tried to take him into their own unit.

"You went through a lot."

"I heard you made upper-grade. Congratulations."

"Yes, thank you."

Both of them outranked him.

That was simply how the Border Guard's ranks were.

"You really have no intention of coming here? Your skill would be wasted."

As they were about to leave after finishing the investigation, the short-haired guard said that.

"No."

The answer, cut off as cleanly as a knife, stopped the conversation.

"Uh, right."

Encrid returned to his quarters just like that.

As he opened the door, something suddenly dropped from above his head on the right.

Encrid reflexively twisted his body to the side and dodged.

After dodging, he lowered his stance completely and rolled.

Because he had barely avoided it, a portion of his hair was cut off.

When he thought he had just barely dodged whatever had flown at him and looked to see what it was...

"Oh, you passed ambush-dodging!"

Rem was grinning as he spoke.

The culprit was the axe Rem had swung.

"Rem, you crazy bastard."

It was the kind of thing that made curses come out on their own.

Encrid's severed hair fluttered down through the air.

If he had been even a little late, the axe blade would have left a tattoo somewhere on the back of his neck.

A tattoo made while blood poured out.

A scar.

"Don't worry. Even if you hadn't dodged, I only planned to cut off a little hair and stop there."

"I shouldn't even bother talking."

There were many madmen in the world, but among them, a few especially severe madmen were in his squad.

Encrid had realized that fact long ago, so he did not even get angry.

"Since assassins are coming after you now, shouldn't you learn how to prepare for ambushes too?"

"Nice excuse."

Encrid shook his head.

"Looks like it's about time to cut your hair anyway, doesn't it?"

Rem said with a swagger.

In truth, it was time to trim his hair.

His bangs would often slip down over his eyes.

When he had faced the previous Half Fairy, he had been in a state of extreme concentration, and he had been preparing several moves to deceive the opponent, so he had not noticed.

But it had grown bothersome enough to get in the way of daily life.

"Do me a favor, then."

Encrid said.

It was not Rem who stepped forward.

Krais approached from behind.

"Yessir."

Krais was more dexterous than one might expect.

The others handled weapons like swords and axes brilliantly, yet when told to cut someone's hair, they produced bizarre shapes.

"I'll cut the bangs a little short and trim the rest moderately."

A short dagger, scissors, and a comb made of horn were Krais's tools.

"That'll be ten copper coins."

"It got expensive."

"My skills improved. If you don't like it, go to a barbershop in the city."

He did not want that.

The barbershops in the city were expensive, and their hands were worse than Rem's.

There was no reason to go there and pay twice as much crona.

Instead, the barbershops in the city were excellent at treating wounds, so they had become places injured people visited instead of people getting haircuts.

"Now, I'll begin."

SNIP, SNIP.

The sound of hair being cut soon began to reach his ears.

He was sitting on a chair brought out right in front of the entrance to the quarters.

Before long, white snowflakes began falling over his head.

Rem, who had been watching Encrid from the side, grumbled.

"Like powdered demon shit."

Once snow fell, they would be busy for a while clearing the training ground, drainage ditches, and the like.

That work was equal for everyone.

Neither Rem nor Ragna could slip out of that labor.

If they did not clear the snow, troublesome matters would pile up in heaps.

"I hate it."

Ragna, who had come out at some point, spoke with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

"It is cold."

Jaxon beside him was the same.

"No matter how much one warms the body, cold like this is difficult to endure, Brother."

Audin had come out as well.

Why were they all coming out to watch?

When snow fell, it was supposed to be a little less cold, yet today the temperature had dropped especially low.

Sitting outside, his lips turned blue.

"Ah, my hands are shaking. If I make a mistake, I'll cut your ear."

Krais, who was cutting his hair, said that.

"I can hear you."

"That is how hard I am concentrating."

Krais focused on cutting his hair while warming his hands with a suitably heated stone.

Encrid watched the falling snow and thought about the spies.

'How did they get in?'

The one who had entered as a peddler had forged an identity tag.

The Half Fairy had infiltrated secretly.

Border Guard was a city far harder to infiltrate than expected.

And forging an identity tag was a serious crime.

Neither was something that could be done easily.

More than anything, the fact that Jack, Bo, and Rotten had turned into spies felt strange.

'Where did they say all three of them were from again?'

He felt as if he had heard it somewhere.

"You know the three who died this time, right?"

Encrid asked.

Krais nodded, then realized he was standing behind Encrid and could not be seen, so he answered.

"Yes, I know them."

"Do you know where the three of them were from?"

"Jack was caught pickpocketing and ended up serving, and Bo, I think, was charged with insulting a noble."

"He was a decent fellow, then."

At the words insulting a noble, Rem added a comment.

"Sure."

Encrid scoffed at Rem.

Rem pretended not to hear, and Krais continued speaking.

"Rotten said he used to be some merchant company's guard."

"Which merchant company?"

"He said it was one that went under a long time ago. What was it called again?"

All three had joined around the same time.

Within about a year.

Krais knew a great deal, as befitted an information source.

'If someone planted them intentionally.'

A group that could forge identity tags, knew the city's back ways inside and out, and was close to crime.

Would a group like that be common?

There would be a few obvious places within Border Guard.

And among them, if it was the largest...

'The Thieves Guild.'

They called it a guild, but it was a gathering of bastards involved in all kinds of crime.

Had he not heard that it had been completely replaced around a year ago?

He had heard that somewhere.

When he asked Krais, Krais said rumors like that had gone around, but even he had not been able to dig into the details.

Encrid's gaze turned to Jaxon.

"Do you know anything about the Thieves Guild?"

It was an abrupt question.

Jaxon silently looked at Encrid.

"Why ask me that?"

"Because I feel like you'd know."

Why else?

Starting with how to throw daggers, then how to train the senses.

Encrid knew how to use his head.

Even if there had been no intention behind it, he could roughly guess Jaxon's background.

A profession related to thieves or assassination.

Or something similar to it.

That was why he asked.

Jaxon closed his mouth for a moment.

Encrid stopped Rem with his eyes when he seemed about to say something.

Ragna watched with his eyes half-lidded as usual.

Audin quietly clasped both hands together and stayed still, as if waiting for an answer.

SNIP, SNIP.

Krais broke the silence as he finished cutting his hair.

"I want to know too. You think the assassination targeting the Squad Leader started there, right?"

Krais was exceptionally quick-witted.

In truth, anyone who had directly taken in the situation might grow suspicious.

Even more so if they knew how to use their head.

Krais's mind worked quickly.

And because he had rolled around among the lower classes, he likely knew a few things as well.

Therefore, Krais thought Encrid's suspicion was reasonable.

Soon, Jaxon opened his mouth.

Encrid had expected him to ask for some kind of price, but that was not the case.

"It was replaced around a year ago. I know nothing about what happened after that. All the connections I had were cut."

It seemed worth looking into.

That was what Encrid thought.

"Done."

Krais soon spoke, and while his hair was being cut, the snow began falling heavily.

"Ah, I really hate this."

"I hate it too."

"Agreed."

"Brother, this is a trial given by God."

"It's really coming down in the most annoying way."

Those were the words Rem, Ragna, Jaxon, Audin, and Krais said in order toward the falling snow.

Encrid looked at them and spoke.

"I'm thinking of establishing an operation under the Squad Leader's discretionary authority. Instead of clearing the snow, we head out immediately."

At those words, all five of their ears perked up.

Ten eyes looked at Encrid like starving wolves.

It seemed they would do anything as long as they did not have to clear snow.

"First, I'll get permission from the Company Commander."

Encrid said as he brushed the hair off his face.

"Go on, then."

"What are you still doing here?"

"This way."

They all made a fuss, urging him to hurry and go.

Encrid thought it was right to move while it was on his mind.

He also had no desire to go inside the barracks and be harried by those five fierce gazes.

Encrid melted the snow that had already piled up and washed the hair off his face, then went straight to the Company Commander's barracks.

"You cut your hair. But why are you here? Were you ambushed again?"

Was that talk of an ambush a joke?

The Company Commander's words made Encrid wonder.

"That is not it."

"Then?"

"The Thieves Guild seems suspicious. I want to confirm it."

The Fairy Company Commander had a room to herself.

With her hands clasped behind her back, she looked at the snow pouring down through the window and spoke.

"Meaning?"

"I would like to carry out an operation at my own discretion."

"Hmm."

The Fairy Company Commander kept her hands behind her back as she looked out the window, then asked.

"It is not because you do not want to clear snow, is it?"

"It is not."

Half of it was true, but then again, the other half was also true.

So there was nothing to prick his conscience.

"Fine."

The Fairy Company Commander's permission fell.

"You will have to be careful. Crime guilds within the city are very good to those above."

As she spoke, she raised her right index finger and pointed at the ceiling.

A military city had a Battalion Commander instead of a mayor, but the Battalion Commander was not the only one there.

There were also several nobles dispatched by the state for administrative work.

They were the core power figures of Border Guard.

"It will not be good if you get on their bad side."

Politics came from the Fairy's mouth.

It was extremely awkward, but Encrid accepted the advice.

"Yes."

"And when you leave, take a wide path around the brazier. This is my room. It would be troublesome if you started a fire."

There was a short brazier in the Company Commander's quarters.

Thanks to that, the air was warm.

"Yes, I will be careful."

Even as he answered, Encrid thought he really could not get used to the Fairy's jokes.