Chapter 10 - The Praying Mercenary (1)

In a forest pierced by the bitter winter wind, three men who looked like mercenaries sat around a campfire.

SLURP, SLURP.

They were watching a boy drink soup with his nose practically buried in the pot.

"We got lucky."

"There was a rabbit staggering around way over there."

"Good."

"Well done."

The mercenaries had already eaten, so there was not much rabbit soup left, but the boy was grateful even for that and was licking up every last drop.

Realizing that now was not the time to speak to the boy, the mercenaries began talking among themselves.

"By the way, I hear they're gathering people."

"For the monster subjugation?"

"Looks like Count Bayezid's son is taking the field himself this time."

"They said it was the second son or something."

"I hear the Bishop of Varna is going with them too."

"Sounds like it'll be a big one."

"He's struggling desperately to catch his father's eye."

Like mercenaries, their mouths were discussing the monster subjugation, but the men's minds were entirely fixed on the blond boy.

'He looks expensive, doesn't he?'

'Look at the sword he's carrying.'

'He's at least from some well-off household.'

'Blond hair and blue eyes.'

'We could get a pretty penny even if we just sold him.'

Exchanging opinions in quiet glances and whispers so the boy sitting apart could not hear them, the men slowly began to move.

Subtly blocking the boy's escape routes.

"Ah... thank you."

"You saved my life."

"No need to thank us."

"People have to help each other."

"I don't know how I can ever repay this kindness."

The boy set down the pot and bowed his head politely in thanks, and the mercenaries grinned, showing their blackened teeth.

"If you're that grateful, there is a way to repay us."

"What should I do..."

"Pay us back with your body!"

A noose made of rope flew in from behind the boy.

"Huh?"

"Uh, uh?"

"Hey, you idiot!"

"What are you doing!"

But inside the noose was not the boy it was supposed to catch, only an unlucky mercenary.

"Slippery as a rat, aren't you!"

The remaining two mercenaries quickly drew their weapons at the boy who had dodged the noose.

"Looks like our young master learned a bit of swordsmanship from some tutor his father hired, but the real world is actual combat, see?"

"Put the sword down while we're asking nicely."

"Before one beating turns into ten."

While the mercenary caught in the noose hurriedly untied the rope, the two mercenaries blocked the boy's way and began growling.

"That's right."

"Life is actual combat."

Blond hair and blue eyes.

And a sword that gleamed, but did not seem to have seen much use.

To anyone, he looked like the child of a wealthy family who had run away from home, yet the smile now on the boy's face was that of a savage wolf.

"What?"

"I thought about it while I was walking all the way here."

"If these people really showed me kindness from the heart, how should I repay them?"

SHING.

Even as the mercenaries threatened him roughly, the boy's momentum did not die at all.

Rather, at the sight of the boy drawing his sword, the mercenaries swallowed without realizing it.

A savage force was flowing from the boy as he held the sword.

"Turns out I was worrying for nothing all this time."

The boy was smiling.

"Fuck me."

He was the same kind.

That bastard was no young master ignorant of the ways of the world.

"Hey, what are you doing!"

"Get up already!"

"Are you going to spend all day untying that rope!"

Even so, it was fine.

That brat was one, and they were three.

He looked confident in his swordsmanship, but with their experience in real combat, they should be able to subdue him easily enough.

"Ugh... uuuugh!"

That was what they thought, but the groan flowing from their companion behind them was not normal.

"What are you doing!"

"Uuugh!"

"Ugh!"

Their companion, who had been caught in the noose, was scratching at the ground, his body strangely stiff.

Those were not normal movements.

'We got hit!'

The mercenaries felt despair as they felt their own bodies slowly stiffening.

'When the hell!'

They could tell who had done it.

Because the boy was grinning as he watched their companion stiffen.

But as for when he had put in the poison...

'The rabbit!'

Only now grasping the situation, the mercenaries stared at the boy in horror.

"There's really nothing easy in this world, is there?"

"You son of a bitch, from the very beginning!"

The staggering rabbit they had thought was a stroke of unexpected luck had actually been a trap.

"You too, you too...!"

The mercenaries felt despair as their own bodies slowly began to stiffen.

"Yeah, I ate it too."

Vlad spoke as he took out a leaf he had hidden beneath his tongue.

"Along with the antidote."

"Ugh!"

"Uuuugh!"

Their slowly stiffening bodies collapsed onto the cold snow.

"Not knowing when and who might get eaten is what actual combat is, isn't it, seniors?"

A black shadow fell over the three stiffening rabbits.

The blue gleam held by that shadow was the last thing they saw.

* * *

CRACKLE. CRACKLE.

In the winter forest as the sun was setting, a blond boy who looked like a mercenary sat alone.

The armor did not fit his body perfectly, but from the various pieces he had put on and the clothes he had layered underneath, he did not look dressed in a way that would leave him freezing to death on a winter day.

"This actually worked."

Vlad muttered to himself as he stirred the campfire with a piece of kindling.

At least, that was how it would look from the outside.

["You were lucky."]

["Yellow-striped mushrooms aren't that common."]

"You know about mushrooms that paralyze people and leaves that cure it, so what exactly are you?"

["... I don't know that."]

The boy was not talking to himself.

He was speaking to the voice he could only hear when he gripped a sword.

"You know all sorts of random things, but you don't know who you are."

["..."]

At the boy's grumbling, the voice merely remained silent.

"Well, it doesn't matter."

SHING.

The boy spoke as he drew the sword.

"Because the most important thing to me is this."

Until now, it had only been a sword he watched from afar, but now it was in the boy's hand.

The boy would remember forever the tears that had been shed so he could have it.

"I'll help you, so help me."

["Are you not afraid of me?"]

The boy had asked the voice that did not know who it was to teach him the sword.

"I don't care even if you're a demon."

"What I'm truly afraid of is..."

Blue moonlight settled over the boy's sword.

That radiantly shining light reminded him of someone.

"That I'm nothing at all."

Aura that looked like blue moonlight.

Before that aura, the boy had been nothing at all.

For the boy, who had chased after shining things even while spending his whole life in the mire, the helplessness brought by that blue aura had been far too terrible.

You are nothing.

You are nothing more than a life that will stay curled up like this and rot in a gutter forever.

The aura holding the blue moonlight had been saying that.

"If I'm with you, I'll become something."

"Even if it's just a demon worshiper."

["... Very well."]

["I will teach you."]

And so the boy decided to struggle.

Because he held in his hand a weight that would not let him give up, even if he wanted to.

Moonlight and a campfire.

On a night like the day he had first seen aura, a boy who wanted to become something and a voice that did not know itself decided to help each other.

It was a contract only the two of them could make.

And the moon floating in the night sky was its witness.

* * *

It was now the season entering deep winter.

Before a dense coniferous forest, tents had been set up across a white field covered in snow.

Inside the largest and most splendid of them.

"Ordinary."

A black-haired man lifted a teacup that had already gone cold as he reviewed the documents laid out before his desk.

He looked young, but the dark shadows beneath his eyes made his impression seem sickly.

"Too ordinary."

The black-haired man was frowning as he flipped through the documents, as if something displeased him.

"Young master."

At that moment, a one-eyed man entered along with the cold winter wind, throwing open the tent flap.

"You've come, Jager?"

"Yes."

"Lord Joseph, I have just returned."

The man called Jager brushed the snow from his shoulders and approached the sickly-looking man.

"Is something troubling you..."

Seeing that Joseph, whom he had served his whole life, did not look well, Jager asked carefully.

"It is too ordinary."

Joseph sank into thought as he looked at the documents before him.

"The monster subjugation is proceeding smoothly."

"There have not been many casualties, and all of them came from the mercenaries."

"There are missing men, are there not?"

Joseph said, drinking from the cold teacup.

"Though it would be fair to call them deserters."

From Joseph's position, it would have been better if there had been wounded or dead during the monster subjugation instead.

Because deserters appearing meant discipline had not been properly established.

"An unremarkable result, and deserters on top of that."

"Everyone will doubt my ability to command."

"And my father will as well."

For an instant, a sharp gleam entered Joseph's eyes.

"My elder half-brother, too."

Joseph.

Joseph Bayezid.

As the second son of the Count Bayezid family, he was anxious.

"These are troops I barely managed to raise while avoiding my brother's interference."

"If not now, I will have no opportunity to show my military ability to the retainers."

Joseph was an ambitious man.

As a direct descendant of House Bayezid, he was trying to push aside Rutiger, who shared the same blood, and become the next Count Bayezid.

"If things continue like this, it will be my ruin."

"..."

Wanting to become the next Count Bayezid was not merely for the sake of ambition.

There could not be two suns under the same sky.

If he failed to become Count Bayezid, it was obvious what his elder half-brother Rutiger would do.

"If things go well, I'll live in a monastery for the rest of my life."

"If not, I'll die without anyone knowing."

History proved it.

His own father had been a man who climbed upward by trampling his blood brothers beneath his feet.

"I lack useful swords."

"Except for you, Jager."

For Joseph to become the next Count Bayezid, he needed not only his own ability, but also the support of the retainers.

However, since Joseph had been born sickly, it was difficult for him to win the retainers' support, no matter how much help he had from his mother and her family.

Because House Bayezid was a house that revered martial strength.

"... Young master, there is something I must tell you."

"Speak."

As Joseph rubbed his temple as if his head ached, Jager hesitated briefly before speaking.

"There is a suspicious mercenary."

"A suspicious mercenary?"

At the completely unexpected words, Joseph's eyes narrowed.

"A spy sent by my brother?"

"That is not the sense in which he is suspicious."

"Then in what sense?"

Jager was a knight.

And a steadfast one at that.

But the Jager who now hesitated to speak before Joseph was not the man he usually saw.

He was not certain.

"Tell me, Jager."

Realizing that this was more serious than he had expected, Joseph urged him to answer.

"I think you will have to see it for yourself to understand."

"Would you follow me for a moment?"

"It seems something has happened."

When his knight acted differently than usual, Joseph realized that the matter Jager was trying to mention was no ordinary thing.

"Lead the way."

Worried that the cold winter wind might harm his body, Joseph put on a thick overcoat, then wrapped himself in a scarf and gloves as well.

"This way."

So that the sickly young master would not breathe too much cold winter air, Jager cast aside any concern for a knight's dignity and guided him as quickly as possible.

It was a filthy tent.

"Is this not the slaughterhouse?"

"It is."

"This is where the important parts of the subjugated monsters are cut out."

Joseph quickly covered his mouth with a handkerchief and looked around.

It was not because the hanging corpses and the smell of blood were disgusting.

Joseph's mind was stronger than any knight's, but his body was so frail that he had to be careful even of the contaminated air drifting inside the tent.

"This way."

Jager guided Joseph deeper into the slaughterhouse.

In the deepest part of the slaughterhouse, corpses of various kinds of monsters were hanging.

At a rough count, there were about six corpses.

"Look."

Jager personally turned the hanging corpses and showed them to Joseph.

"You mean the wounds?"

"Yes."

On the back of a goblin that had gone completely stiff, perhaps because it had been hanging for some time, sword marks had been carved.

"They are crooked."

Joseph gave his impression in an indifferent tone.

Because the sword marks just shown to him looked like something made by a person who had only just picked up a sword.

When Joseph finished speaking, Jager pointed to the monster corpse hanging beside it.

Wounds.

Not only on the back, but sword marks carved all over the body filled the corpse.

From left to right.

From the oldest corpse to the orc corpse that had only just been brought in.

After examining all the corpses, Joseph unknowingly lowered the handkerchief from his mouth.

"Could one person have made all of these?"

"Yes, young master."

The moment he heard Jager's answer, Joseph moved back toward the place where the first corpse hung.

He always walked slowly, but at this moment, one could almost say he was running.

"Impossible..."

It could not be helped.

"How old is this corpse?"

"A little over a month."

"Barely a month..."

At Jager's answer, Joseph stared in shock and carefully examined the monster corpses once again.

Sword marks.

Crooked, crude wounds.

But the closer he came to the newer monster corpses, the clearer and deeper the wounds that someone had made became, and also...

"Who is it?"

They had formed a single, steady line.

"A man called Rhimann."

"He is a young man with blond hair."

"Rhimann?"

Jager approached Joseph and whispered quietly.

"The mercenaries call him 'Praying Rhimann.'"

"Praying Rhimann..."

Joseph silently repeated the title Jager had spoken.

"Investigate this man called Rhimann in detail at once."

"Yes, young master."

Having received Joseph's order, Jager left the slaughterhouse.

"... This truly makes no sense."

Left alone, Joseph turned his head and looked over the monster corpses once more.

He could not handle a sword, but he could see.

Joseph was a direct descendant of House Bayezid, which revered martial strength, and outstanding knights stood in abundance around him.

That was why he could recognize it.

"He is a genius."

From the crooked strike whose very basics had not even been properly established.

To be able to reach the Sword Path carved just now in a single month was something only a talent bestowed by heaven could do.

The corpse of the orc that had supposedly been brought in yesterday still had both eyes wide open, as if it could not believe its own death.