Chapter 154

Translator: Willia

There were so many wondrous things in the world.

An ocean brimming with saltwater, and a sea made of sand. The scorching sun by day, and starlight that poured down like rain at night.

The mausoleums of ancient emperors that spoke of life's impermanence, and grand fortresses that looked as though giants had built them.

But if I were told to choose just one place to lay my body down, I would leave all those wonders behind and choose my homeland.

It may hold nothing surprising, nothing particularly stirring, but even so, the only resting place for my soul is home.

Past the western reaches of the Empire, through the lowland Kingdom of Nethersland where the vampires dwelled, and then east again.

The scent of flowers carried on the wind, the smell of earth and grass and wood, the taste of the water, the familiar lilt of people's accents, and a sense of season that fit like well-tailored clothes.

It was the north.

A little farther east and one would reach Ernburg, and farther north still lay the fields of Heiden.

Ricardt's strategy had proven effective. By outwardly acting as though he intended revenge, he had kept all the kings too busy protecting themselves to bother obstructing the Knight Order's movements.

Had they known his true destination was Adeloron, and had he politely asked for their permission, could they have reached the north as safely as they had now?

They would have blocked the roads and tried to extract something from him, most likely. One could hardly expect goodwill from people who framed the innocent and extorted money and concessions from them.

Every place Ricardt and the Knight Order passed through held its breath in terror. Like children who believed ghosts roamed outside their homes at night.

Bandits in their strongholds, lords who extorted exorbitant tolls, all of them simply prayed for Ricardt to pass through quickly, not daring to show their faces.

Confronting the Order of the Steel Knights required forces on a kingdom-wide scale at minimum, and while this was not a surprise invasion, it had come so suddenly that everyone was struggling just to muster their troops.

In other words, with the cowardly sovereigns stumbling over themselves to no avail, the Order of the Steel Knights was enjoying a relative degree of ease at present.

Nature, however, was another matter entirely. The summer monsoon rains had engulfed the north.

Boom. Ba-boom......

The overcast world flickered with lightning, and then the sound of thunder rolled in from the distance. It was as if the gods had seized the heavens and were shaking them violently.

Standing on the boundless northern plains and watching the thunder and lightning crack while the rain poured down, there was no spectacle quite like it.

But being caught in that rain was far from pleasant. The armor most soldiers wore was called a gambeson, lined with wool or cotton batting, which meant it absorbed an enormous amount of moisture.

Waterlogged armor weighed several times more than usual. On top of that, they had already passed the paved roads, and now the path was mud that swallowed their ankles with every step.

Spear shafts were slippery, the food and firewood loaded on the carts and wagons had taken on moisture, and the wheels could barely turn before sinking into the mire and stalling.

This misery, this exhaustion, was something no one who hadn't endured it could ever understand. It was a weariness so crushing, so relentless, that the thought of dying seemed preferable.

Still glad to be home? the world seemed to ask, with relentless persistence. But life is an endless succession of trials. The only right answer was to endure and overcome.

Ting. Ping. Ti-ti-ting. Ping.

The rain hammered against the soldiers' helmets. The rhythm only quickened, never slowing.

The knights and Ricardt dismounted and pushed the wagons and carts. The wheel, that great invention, was now all but useless, and like oxen plowing a field, men had to shove each cart forward by hand.

At a pace slower than a crawling worm, how much farther did they have to go? Even a genius of strategy and tactics was nothing more than a speck before the forces of nature.

Ricardt was caked in mud from the waist down, and his armor had lost its shine. The Knight Order's banners, usually snapping so fiercely in the wind, hung limp and sodden.

They pushed the carts for what felt like an eternity, urging the soldiers on, but one by one, men began collapsing from exhaustion.

Hardship could be endured by gritting one's teeth, but at this rate, illness would set in.

Ricardt decided he had no choice and made the call.

"Gather the wagons and carts in one place and set up tarps to shelter from the rain. After that, get fires going and warm yourselves up. And the potatoes, let's eat them all before they start sprouting."

"......"

It was a terribly vulnerable position for making camp, but Raimund and the knights nearby could not raise a single objection.

Because they knew just how dire the situation was. And not one of them thought Ricardt was unaware of the risks when he gave that order.

Nor had Ricardt given the order out of some reckless, to-hell-with-it resignation. A leader could not afford that. Whether it made perfect sense or not, there always had to be a solution, a direction forward.

"The nearest town is at least three days away. If the rain doesn't stop, at our current pace it could take more than a week. Before that happens, men will start collapsing and falling ill, so the knights and I will scout the surrounding area. A small village, anything, let's find somewhere the soldiers can rest."

Let the soldiers stop and rest for now, and the knights and Ricardt would push themselves harder to find a way forward. That was what he meant.

When Ricardt's orders were relayed, the soldiers felt as though they'd found sweet rain after a long drought, even as the real rain kept falling.

They wanted nothing more than to collapse on the spot and do absolutely nothing, but they squeezed out their last reserves of strength. They arranged the wagons and carts around the perimeter like a makeshift wall, dug drainage channels, and then raised the tarps.

They brought the horses inside to rest, lit fires immediately, wrung out their soaked clothes, and pulled off their boots. When they turned the boots upside down, clumps of mud slopped out. Their feet were swollen, and only a slight exaggeration to say on the verge of rotting.

Ricardt watched the camp take shape, however hastily, and though his own body was drenched, he dried Red Comet first with a towel and brushed the horse's coat. Then he fed him a generous portion of carrots and dried bean stalks.

Red Comet seemed to know its master was tending to it before himself. The horse nuzzled its head against him, tongue flicking out in a display of affection. Of course, Ricardt found it a nuisance and kept pushing the head away. Come on, quit it. Hold still.

After that, he finally took off his own armor and boots and dried himself by the fire, taking a moment for personal upkeep. Rain drummed ceaselessly against the tarp.

While Ricardt sat warming himself by the fire with Raimund and his closest knights, a soldier brought over a silver plate piled with roasted chunks of meat and something like mashed potatoes.

"Thanks."

Ricardt took the plate and ate with his hands. A wave of pure pleasure surged through his entire body. Nothing could have tasted sweeter.

He had been pushing himself several times harder than anyone else, shoving wagons and carts, and was quite spent.

After all that suffering, drying off by a fire and eating fresh food, this was nothing short of heaven.

He wanted to set aside every concern in the world and close his eyes right then and there, but that was not an option. The Knight Order's current camp was on open ground, and they could not stay long.

"Time to move. Leigh, you're in charge of the camp."

"Understood."

His body was not fully dry, but Ricardt pulled his boots back on and draped just a single cloak over himself. No armor, only Thunderflash at his hip.

The ten or so knights who accompanied him were similarly dressed. And so Ricardt and his ten knights pulled their hoods up, stepped out into the rain, and headed south on their scouting mission. To find somewhere the soldiers could shelter.

The soldiers watched them go in silence. And naturally, the same thought came to them all. A commander like that comes along maybe once in a lifetime. Our commander is this kind of man. Our king fights like this. A swell of pride took hold.

Setting aside that he was their savior, the one who had delivered their vengeance, he was simply an outstanding leader. Leading by example was easy to talk about but not something just anyone could do.

And on top of that, his decisiveness, his ability to plan and execute operations, his personal combat prowess, there was not a single thing lacking. He was simply the kind of man worth following.

Unaware of the gazes at his back, Ricardt kept walking south. Before long, he disappeared into the pitch-black darkness, passing beyond the soldiers' sight.

To the south lay low-rising hills and forest, and it was doubtful whether any village would be found in such a place. Even if one existed, would it be large enough to shelter six thousand men?

Such worries were unavoidable, but giving up was not an option. Throwing themselves fully into the uncertain was familiar ground for Ricardt and his knights alike. Even if it might cost them their lives.

Once they entered the forest, the rain was somewhat blocked by the canopy, but it was dark as the dead of night. The knights lit the torches they had brought. Was it late afternoon now, or early evening? It didn't seem to be full night yet.

Ricardt and the knights carefully examined the trees and the ground around them, searching for signs of wild animals or people.

How far had they climbed through the trailless hills? One of the knights called out to Ricardt.

"Commander, over here."

Ricardt turned to look. A knight holding a torch was staring down at the base of a tree. When Ricardt approached, he could see a single corpse hidden in the underbrush.

The eyes were gone. Maggots writhed in the empty, blackened sockets. The lips were gone too, and the inside of the mouth was packed with maggots. They always ate the soft parts first.

But the rest of the flesh was only somewhat bloated and otherwise relatively intact, which, judging by the recent weather, suggested the person had been dead for roughly three or four days.

Given a little more time, birds and beetles would have swarmed in to feed on the maggots, but none had appeared yet.

"Sword wound."

Ricardt stated the cause of death in a single, clipped phrase. The blade had pierced the heart with precision, slipping between the ribs. There were no other injuries. Whoever had done the killing possessed considerable skill with a blade.

A search of the surrounding area turned up two more bodies. And from the distance and direction between where the corpses lay, it was clear that whoever killed them had chased down fleeing victims and cut them down.

"The swordsmanship is far too skilled for a common robber. More importantly, where did these people come from? Where were they running from?"

Ricardt spoke as though thinking aloud, yet also as though addressing the knights around him. The people were dead now, but the fact that they existed at all meant there had to be a settlement nearby. That was his reasoning.

Their current objective was not to track down the killer but to find a location that could house the soldiers.

"What about heading in the opposite direction of their escape route?"

"Or we could go the way they were fleeing. They must have been heading somewhere."

By connecting the locations where the three bodies had fallen, one could roughly determine which direction they had been running.

After a moment's thought, Ricardt spoke.

"Let's go the direction they were fleeing. With swordsmanship like that, the killer could have cut them all down at once. But the fact that they were allowed to run means the killer wanted to know where these people were headed."

It was not certain, but Ricardt's reasoning was sound enough.

And that reasoning gave them a direction for their search. Ricardt and the knights headed southwest.

As they walked, they found more bodies. These were in considerably fresher condition, untouched by insects or animals, the white of their eyes and the bluish tinge of their lips still intact. No fewer than five such corpses lay scattered in the vicinity.

Staring down at bodies by torchlight in the pitch-black forest was an eerie affair, but Ricardt and the knights were simply impassive. And it was precisely because they were impassive that they could assess the situation with a clear head.

"It's not just pursuit. It's more like... hunting."

One of the knights said. Men accustomed to death could tell at a glance. They were every bit as sharp as Ricardt.

"It does look like they were being whittled down. But the question is whether one person did all this, or several."

"The method is identical. I'd say it was one person."

"That's true, but something about it gives me the feeling it could be several people trained in the same method. In any case, let's keep the possibilities open and not jump to conclusions."

The knights nodded. Exchanging opinions over corpses, what a heartwarming conversation.

Meanwhile, Ricardt felt a strange sense of déjà vu. It was not just the swordsmanship. Rather than mindlessly chasing and killing, the perpetrator seemed to be using cunning to gradually thin the numbers.

It looked remarkably similar to the methods Ricardt himself had used back when he was an adventurer. The way each kill was cold and calculated yet seemed almost improvised, that was what struck him.

Ricardt and the knights pressed on. Before long, they discovered a mountain village. No, to be precise, it was not a mountain village but a bandit stronghold. Home to a bandit gang of considerable size. It had originally been a mountain settlement, then repurposed, the kind of feeling one got from looking at it.

It was cleverly concealed by the mountain's terrain, and being nighttime, it was surprisingly inconspicuous. Tiny points of light seeped out here and there.

A stronghold of this scale would not be easy to root out, even for a count. It seemed to be a group with quite a fearsome local reputation.

Yet even a group like that had been lying low, quiet as mice, upon hearing news that the Order of the Steel Knights was passing through.

But Ricardt and the knights, as though the clouds on a dark and overcast day had finally broken, broke into broad grins and turned to one another. Without a word, every one of them shared the same thought. Found it. That's where they'd rest.

Come daybreak, they would raid the place, kill or drive out everyone inside, and shelter there until the monsoon passed before continuing east.

Ricardt and the knights were so elated that their spirits soared and the laughter would not stop. And amid that easy mood, they discussed their plan of attack as naturally as if they were making idle conversation.

"How about flanking them to the south to cut off the retreat, then applying pressure from the main gate?"

"Do we really need to go that far? Let's put together a small detachment, infiltrate, and open the main gate from the inside. The goal isn't to kill them; it's to take the place."

"Leave them alive and it could come back to bite us."

"Herding them into a barn and setting it on fire would be the fastest way."

"We can't risk that. We need every bit of shelter from the rain we can get."

"What about disarming them first, then executing them all at once?"

But in the middle of this conversation, something foreign snagged on Ricardt's keen senses. Before his brain could even process a thought, his head turned precisely toward the source.

"Shh. Someone's watching us."

Ricardt said. The knights fell silent at once. Ricardt's eyes were fixed on a spot slightly above them in the pitch-black dark where absolutely nothing was visible.

"I think they're the ones who made the bodies we found. And it's not just one."

"Sir?"

"Remember we couldn't tell if it was one person or several? It's not just one. One, two, three, four... at least five. Maybe more."

He could see nothing, yet Ricardt had pinpointed their number with near-perfect accuracy.

"Should we douse the torches?"

A knight asked. They could not see the other side, but thanks to the torches, the other side could see them. The rain still fell, pattering against their upturned hoods.

"No. I don't sense any hostility yet."

"What sort of people are they?"

"Beats me."

The knights showed not a hint of tension. That was how confident they were.

Then lightning flashed. For a single instant the entire world split into nothing but white and black, then plunged back into darkness.

Rumble......

The sky groaned. It was only a brief moment, but this time the knights saw them too. Four or five figures standing on the slightly elevated ground above, looking down at them like reapers.

Both sides now aware of the other, yet no words were exchanged. No one so much as slid a hand toward a sword hilt.

Then a voice called out from beyond the darkness. A young man's voice.

"Are you people from House Lothar?"

"No."

"We were already handling things here. After all this time with no interest, I'd appreciate it if you didn't interfere with our work now."

"I said no."

"Then who are you?"

"Who are you?"

"We're......"

Just as the young man was about to reveal their identity, someone else spoke. His voice was a low baritone, and strangely, it was familiar to Ricardt's ears.

"Seeking shelter, traveler?"

Ricardt felt a flash of recognition at the familiar voice. Huh?

When the voice's owner surfaced in his mind, a smile naturally spread across his lips. He could not see the other man, but he could feel that he was smiling too.

"Come to me, you who are weary and burdened. I will give you rest."

With that, the figure dropped down from the slightly elevated ground. Footsteps crunched closer through the undergrowth, until at last the torchlight reached him and revealed his form.

His hood was pulled low, showing only the hint of a gentle smile around his mouth, but then he pushed it back and bared his face entirely.

He was the kind of handsome that could make even another man's head spin. His rare silver hair was slightly damp, which only made him look all the more alluring.

Ricardt's smile deepened.

"Swordsmanship Instructor of the Miquella Sword Monastery, Ice."

Ice introduced himself as though to a stranger, a small jest.

Ricardt let out a quiet laugh. It was a sign of gladness, a kind of ironic expression.

"You've gotten even more handsome......"

The march had stalled and rain pattered ceaselessly in the dark forest, yet the heaviness in his heart lifted considerably.

A long-absent friend's smile held that kind of power. Nothing surprising, nothing deeply stirring, and yet, it was like coming home.

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