Chapter 89

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It was a night cold enough to make the tip of one's nose sting. A campfire burned deep in the wooded hills near Rubensheim.

Wrapped in his cloak, Ricard stood gazing out over Rubensheim, which shone like faint starlight in the darkness. That city housed the headquarters of the Rubens Guild.

He and his three friends had boldly made camp nearby.

"Riki."

Marie's voice came from behind him. Then the scent of agarwood incense brushed his nose, which was tingling slightly from the cold.

Ricard turned and saw his friends. Boribori and Ice were tending to their weapons, lending each other their cleaning tools, while Marie burned agarwood incense at the tip of a short, slender, grooved stick.

Ricard sat beside Marie and inhaled the incense smoke she held beneath his nose. Boribori and Ice looked up and stared.

There was something rather unseemly about the way he inhaled the smoke. Ridiculous, even. It simply looked odd.

"Mmm... This stuff is surprisingly addictive."

But Ricard enjoyed his incense without caring what his friends thought. It had no addictive properties, but the scent itself was so pleasant that, after inhaling it morning and evening, he had come to enjoy it quite apart from its medicinal use.

"It does smell good. Makes me feel calm," Boribori said.

"But isn't that expensive? How much have you got left?" Ice asked.

"He needs it morning and evening, so I think there's enough for a little over a month," Marie replied.

Ricard frowned slightly as he inhaled the smoke from the stick Marie held for him, not even bothering to use his own hands.

"You lot need to stay on your toes. We're right in the middle of enemy territory. Getting sloppy, aren't you?"

"Riki, you're the one who said we should camp here," Boribori said incredulously.

"Yes, but I'm telling you to stay alert."

"Are we going into the city to kill them, then? Aren't we supposed to avoid fighting inside cities?"

"The enemy crossed the line first. If we're the only ones who keep to it, we're choosing to fight at a disadvantage. I'd rather not do it if I can help it, but for now, I'm waiting to see how they react."

"Will they agree to negotiate, though? I think mentioning the antidote was a mistake. It feels like we've given them something to hold over us," Marie asked, still holding the short stick beneath Ricard's nose.

"I never intended to negotiate. That was just bait. I tossed it out to see how their Guild Master would react."

Ricard had offered three terms: the Guild Master could die alone on the guild's behalf, the guild could suffer near-total destruction, or they could hand over the antidote.

In truth, he was saying that none of it meant anything at all.

"I don't quite follow. You still need the antidote, don't you?"

"I do, but I don't need one from him. And if you get too caught up in what you need, you'll end up being led around by the nose. I'll be grateful if he thinks the way you do, Marie. Suppose he thinks I'm desperate for the antidote and stalls. That just gives us more time to fuck them up at our leisure."

"Oh... Riki doesn't study, but he really is clever."

Boribori sounded impressed. Marie, however, couldn't simply admire him.

"This isn't an 'oh' moment, Bori. I think he's being too complacent. Who knows what will happen if he doesn't get treated in time? What he just said means he isn't looking after his own life. I don't see why any tactic is worth going that far."

"If that's what he wants, what can we do? I'm not Riki's fiancée, so I wouldn't know."

"... You're starting to sound more and more like Riki."

"Me? Is that supposed to be an insult or what?"

Boribori was two years older than Ricard. Already an adult, he had learned a great deal and was no longer as innocent as he had once been.

And, as Marie had pointed out, he had spent so much time with Ricard that the boy had influenced him in many ways without his realizing it.

"That's enough. What are you two saying right in front of me? Marie, don't fixate on the antidote. We'll find some way to treat me, even if it takes a while. Trust me. Right now, what matters is getting ourselves into an advantageous position."

"Nooo... But..."

Still unhappy, Marie whined. Boribori and Ice stared at the pair, dumbfounded. These two had become insufferable while they weren't looking. They used to be so cool.

Ricard did have some sense of how he looked, though, and cleared his throat a couple of times for no reason. To escape the embarrassment, he turned his attention back to business.

"Let's say the Rubens Guild has about a hundred people. If they scrape together every last student from their affiliated academy, that might come to a hundred and fifty. But if they gather everyone in one place, all they'll do is eat through their provisions. Leave them alone, and they'll incur enormous losses all by themselves. Their Guild Master isn't an idiot, though, is he? What would you do in his position?"

"I don't know. Just tell us," Ice said flatly.

Ricard began to wonder whether teaching through questions and answers wasn't such a good method after all. In any case, they were his friends, not his pupils.

"If the Guild Master's a coward, he'll panic and gather everyone he can in one place. If he has any guts, he'll leave the adventurers to keep working where they are. The most sensible response is to put together a small group to hunt us down. From what I saw today, there wasn't any particular influx of people into Rubensheim. That means he has some nerve, and he intends to handle this using only his closest men. In fact, that's his only option if he wants to keep his position secure."

The Rubens Guild had been in trouble for some time. It displayed all the typical signs of an organization in decline, and its recent, nearly desperate efforts to rake in money were proof.

When an organization struggled, the greatest danger was that its unity would weaken and its members would leave. That was how organizations fell apart.

Regardless of rank or class, every leader feared that above all else.

That was precisely what Ricard was targeting. A man who had survived so long as an adventurer wouldn't fear death. So Ricard intended to drive him toward what he truly feared: ruin.

One by one, bit by bit, he would cut off every limb.

Whether the man ended up cornered and begging through tears and snot, or tried to make a final stand, the result would be the same. He would be broken.

"Tomorrow, let's go to a place called Hetz. If we wipe out the bastards there, they'll have trouble getting food. Let's see how long they can hold out."

The agarwood incense burned out, and Ricard twitched his nose after inhaling the last of the smoke.

His sense of smell seemed to have gone numb, but it soon returned. He could smell the campfire burning, and the fragrance of Marie's hair beside him.

Despite his warning to stay alert, the three of them looked utterly unconcerned. But they weren't being careless. They had simply accumulated a great deal of experience in real combat.

Looking back, he had been through so much with Boribori, Ice, and Marie. Considering each ordeal in turn, it seemed they had survived by the skin of their teeth, barely managing to pull through.

As a result, their affection for one another had deepened, they understood one another better, and they seemed able to face most crises without batting an eye.

Had they grown? Were they becoming adults? What did it mean to be an adult? Such questions suddenly occurred to Ricard, but there was one other thing troubling him.

"Ice."

"Yeah?"

"Have you ever heard of a Sister of Prophecy?"

Ricard brought up what he had heard from Daisy's mother when he happened to meet her in Nibelungen. He was a little cautious, since it concerned the church.

Ice, however, didn't seem particularly bothered. He gazed at the campfire, gathered his thoughts, and spoke.

"The church has been researching codices for a long time. I've heard some contain secrets to long life, things like magic, and secret arts of prophecy. My training was part of the process of becoming a Sword Master, and my mission was to steal the imperial household's techniques. I never saw the Sisters of Prophecy myself. I only heard they foresee the day God will rise again. They also prepare to carry on His holy bloodline after His resurrection. Ritual bathing every day, praying, that sort of thing."

"So when is he supposed to rise again?"

"I don't really know, either. Apparently, even the Sisters of Prophecy can only see fragments. From what I gather, several of them train together and cross-check their visions to work out the date. What happened in Nibelungen recently was probably a sacrificial ritual. They believe that if the imperial household and the nobles persecute the church, God will rise again on the promised day and wipe them out."

"..."

To Ricard, it sounded as though they had built an elaborate plan on an utterly absurd premise. If the premise was nonsense, what good would any amount of meticulous planning do? He truly couldn't understand it.

Well, they believed it was real rather than nonsense. That must be why.

"But what if he really does rise again?" Boribori asked.

"We've got Ice. He'll let us off."

Ricard's lighthearted joke finally brought a smile to Ice's lips.

"Sorry, but I'm an apostate. My sin is worse than an atheist's."

"That's harsh. You worked hard for them all that time. He ought to repay you for that, god or not."

"That's not how it works, Riki."

Ice let out a disbelieving laugh at Ricard's utter ignorance of religion.

"Anyway, that sanctuary, was it? Is their headquarters really in the fields of Heiden?"

"Yes. The members there are different from those outside. In the sanctuary, holy knights who have 'closed their eyes' guard the holy sword for the promised day."

"The holy sword?"

"Yes. The sword the God of Judgment used to execute sinners. The sinners would call it a demonic sword, I suppose."

"..."

It sounded like the sword Riki had used in his previous life. That still existed?

"The holy knights who have closed their eyes are all Sword Masters. That was my ultimate goal, too. Not that it matters anymore. Sword Masters, whatever."

"How many holy knights are there?"

"At least thirty."

"Thirrrty?!"

"How is that possible?!"

Boribori and Marie's eyes went wide with shock.

"Hundreds of times that many children must have died. I nearly became one of them."

The world wasn't perfect. It had plenty of problems. But the Church of Judgment was far from normal, either.

It seemed that monsters created by the world were seeking revenge upon it through even crueler means. Just like Riki in his previous life.

The mood grew somber as they thought of the children who had died to create Sword Masters.

"Can't people just live with a little respect for one another?" Boribori said.

However he looked at it, it seemed simple. It wasn't difficult. Was that what made it difficult? Because something so simple somehow never happened. Everyone silently agreed with him.

"How are you doing? Are you all right?" Ricard asked Ice.

"Me? Well... Honestly, there's still a trace of anxiety. The difference is that I don't let it control me anymore, but I don't think I can get rid of it. I've only come this far thanks to you and Armand, Riki. Thank you."

"What are you anxious about?" Boribori asked.

When Ricard wasn't around, the two of them were surprisingly close. Their personalities seemed to mesh well.

"The thought that what they said might be true. What do I do if God really rises again? What about my sister? That sort of fear."

"Why don't you try dating a girl? Love changes everything, Student Ice."

Marie abruptly threw her arms around Ricard as she spoke. Ice shook his head, looking less than enthusiastic.

"I find women a little hard to trust. They all say they like me when I haven't even done anything."

"Wow..."

Faced with a statement no ordinary man could make, Boribori could only marvel in disbelief.

Ice gave an awkward smile.

"I'm not trying to brag. It's just the truth. I don't see what's so handsome about me."

"Wooow..."

This time, Ricard, Boribori, and even Marie all voiced their incredulous amazement at once. Ice shook his head as though he couldn't say anything around them.

Whatever might become of the world, the four of them focused on the task at hand.

Following Ricard's plan, they went to Hetz and killed every Rubens Guild adventurer there.

After that, they targeted the places that would hurt the guild most, killing every adventurer they encountered.

With no one able to match them, Ricard's party roamed openly and at their leisure. Sometimes Marie took the lead, sometimes Ice, and sometimes they fought together.

Ricard alone had it easy. So easy that his bad lungs were starting to feel like an excuse.

For the Rubens Guild, doing nothing meant mounting losses. Yet gathering their forces seemed a questionable response to just four people.

This wasn't a war between guilds. Ricard and his friends could simply run back to Beringen if things went wrong. The initiative was clearly his. He could do as he pleased.

It was like being jabbed repeatedly with a spear while someone taunted, "Still going to sit there? What are you going to do about it?"

The Rubens Guild Master saw no way out, as even a direct confrontation seemed unwinnable. It felt as though inescapable death were circling him. These bastards were even worse than the Ehrenberg Five of old.

As time passed, he lost his members' trust, and adventurers deserted. His communications network collapsed until he couldn't even determine how much fighting strength he had left.

But even he had a last resort.

Ricard and his friends were loitering near a village called Kogtz. It was a small village with a mill and water running through a ditch.

Brown frogs hopped through the grass beside the ditch. It was nearly time for them to hibernate.

Ricard was craning his neck and moving about as he surveyed the village, as though looking for something, when someone approached along the path beside the ditch.

"Huh? Isn't that Dunkel?"

Boribori spotted him first. Ricard turned to look at the man approaching in the distance.

It was Dunkel, in the rare sight of his work clothes. By work clothes, that meant the clothes he wore for assassinations or combat.

He wore a snug, dark brown leather vest with a great many pockets. There was no telling what concealed weapons lurked inside.

A machete hung at his waist, and in one hand he carried a large cloth-wrapped bundle.

Dunkel approached Ricard and spoke with a faint smile.

"Long time no see. What are you doing here?"

"What are you doing here, Dunkel? This is Rubens Guild territory. Is the Beringen Guild Master allowed to be here?"

"But didn't Sally say she killed Dunkel?"

"Hey, you actually believed that?"

Sally tended to say rather extreme things, but apparently Boribori had believed her claim that she had killed Dunkel.

"Riki."

Dunkel drew a deep breath and let it out before addressing him.

"What?"

"It's time to stop. They've surrendered. The Rubens Guild."

"To whom?"

"A guild surrenders to another guild, of course. That's how it should be."

"Uh... But this is a personal grudge."

"You've killed at least forty adventurers. Isn't that enough to settle your grudge?"

"Well, isn't that for me to decide, not you? Shouldn't they at least apologize to me? I nearly fucking died."

There was no question that inhaling even a little more poison would have endangered his life.

"There is no antidote. They say they bought the poison from a mage of the wilderness."

A mage of the wilderness meant a Salaman mage. They hadn't sold the poison out of any grudge against Ricard. They had merely sold their wares.

"So I'm supposed to leave it at that?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"Because I'm ordering you to."

"Hmm... But I belong to the Ehrenberg branch, don't I? Isn't there a chain of command? Can the Guild Master give orders directly to an adventurer in an ordinary clan?"

"Riki."

The amusement faded from Dunkel's face, and he addressed Ricard again, his expression serious.

"What?"

"I've kept your handsome friend's secret. I'd like to be able to keep doing so."

Dunkel had known for a long time that Ice belonged to the Church of Judgment. He was the one who had warned Ricard to stay away from him.

"Hey. Talk to me."

Ice, who had been listening beside them, stepped forward with a scowl. Ricard put out an arm to stop him.

"That was a threat just now, wasn't it?"

"Riki, are you going to do whatever you please, like the Ehrenberg Five? With the world in this state? Are forty people not enough?"

"Why do you get to judge that and make the decision? I'm the one who nearly died."

He might have looked as though he were throwing a tantrum, but Ricard was right. Why should the guild dictate what he did about a personal grudge?

Dunkel turned to look at the quiet village and heaved a great sigh. Then he faced Ricard again.

"The imperial household can't afford to muster troops right now. Adventurers will be deployed to suppress the Church of Judgment as early as next spring. Slaughtering adventurers here means needlessly depleting those forces. Do you understand?"

"Do we have to obey when the imperial household gives an order?"

"Why do you think adventurers' guilds came into existence? Creating us, building us up—it was all the old master's plan. From long ago. To raise the ultimate swordsman. In any case, without our ties to the imperial household, adventurers are literally nothing more than hired blades. I don't mean that as an insult. We'd truly be nothing but a band of swords for hire. Is that what you want?"

"..."

Dunkel went so far as to reveal highly confidential information to persuade him. Ricard thought in silence, then nodded.

"All right."

"Go back to Ehrenberg. I'll guarantee your handsome friend's identity stays protected, and his safety. I'll also give you the treasure Rubens offered us when they surrendered. You've truly done enough now, and Rubens has paid enough of a price."

Dunkel set the bundle on the ground and left. He entered the village, rounded the temple, and disappeared from sight.

Ricard suddenly remembered what Volka had said: he wouldn't last long under someone else's command.

"The church's followers and us... In the end, we're all puppets," Boribori said.

It was an undeniable truth.

But Ricard had accepted Dunkel's orders because he believed that, in the end, something had to be settled in the fields of Heiden.

He had no choice but to seek the answer where everything had begun.

Chapter 18 – Where Fate Points. End.