Chapter 187

Translator: Willia

If they had already gotten a campfire going, that might have been one thing, but the strangers appeared before they could light one, and visibility was limited.

But it did not matter. Sometimes hearing or smell revealed what was really there more reliably than sight. Ricardt could not speak for anyone else, but that was how it was for him.

From breathing and footsteps, the slightest movements, even the way someone stood, Ricardt could sense what lay beyond them.

Whether the other person was tense, excited, or calm, how well trained they were, and whether they were prepared for what might come.

For now, the man was calm. A calmness steeped in wariness. If things went wrong, a sharp blade would probably spring straight out of that calm.

Was he imagining it? Ricardt almost thought he could hear the man’s heartbeat.

“We’re from Benzinen village. Why are you looking for Sally?”

Unexpectedly, the man revealed where they were from. Ricardt had expected a fight to break out at any moment, but apparently that was not going to happen.

It was not exactly a letdown, but the word Benzinen caught Ricardt’s ear. Hadn’t Dunkel and Sally been from the Benzinen Brotherhood? So Benzinen was the name of a village.

It was not quite what one would call taut tension, but there was a sense of walking a tightrope. Ricardt, of course, had no interest in tightrope walking.

“First, tell the two sneaking up behind us to come out.”

Ricardt spoke without even looking back. The man did not show it openly, but he seemed slightly surprised.

He glanced back at the four or five people waiting behind him, then turned again and signaled to the two who had been approaching Ricardt and Roy from behind.

The two changed course and stepped into view. They were women, both dressed plainly. Like the others, they had scarves covering their noses and mouths, but they were not dressed like assassins or anything of the sort. They were barefoot, however, probably to deaden the sound of their footsteps.

“Will you tell me why now?”

The man asked again. Since he had made the first concession, Ricardt answered without hiding anything.

“An old woman I didn’t know came to see me. She asked me to avenge Sally. Then she died. We came to grant her request.”

“Why?”

“Who knows? They’re people I used to know. Sally and Dunkel both. The Beringen Adventurers' Guild. I used to belong to it.”

“......”

The man facing Ricardt looked back at his companions again. They seemed to exchange a few simple hand signals before he turned back to Ricardt and spoke.

“What does knowing them in the past have to do with avenging them?”

“Call it a lukewarm old attachment. To be honest, once I find out what happened, if I don’t feel like doing it, I won’t take revenge. I agreed to the old woman’s request before I even knew who had killed Sally.”

“......A lukewarm old attachment.”

Still wearing the scarf over his nose and mouth, the man seemed to sink briefly into thought. The phrase ‘a lukewarm old attachment’ had stirred a small ripple within him.

Before long, he emerged from his reverie and stared at Ricardt.

“There are two roads. One is arduous, and the other is dangerous. Which will you choose?”

“The dangerous one.”

Ricardt answered immediately, without even considering it.

“You would do well to be humble in Esck, stranger. No one can be trusted except one’s own kin. And you have no kin here, do you?”

“He’s right here.”

Ricardt grabbed Roy by the head and pulled him against his chest. Roy’s eyes went round, his expression bewildered.

“Hmm. Very well. Then take the right road at the fork. Keep going until the sunlight breaks. Benzinen village lies there. Once you reach it, I’ll tell you where Dunkel is.”

With those words, the stranger turned and walked away with his companions. They had not gone far before their figures disappeared into the darkening fringe of night.

Even after they vanished, Ricardt could track their presence for quite some time. He considered simply following them, then sat down instead.

“Get a fire going.”

“Yes.”

Roy set down his axe and took out his flint. While he gathered tinder and started the fire, Ricardt went around collecting small branches. Before long, flames rose, cutting into the night.

“Weren’t you scared?”

Wrapped in his cloak, Ricardt asked Roy, who was sitting pressed close beside him. His eyes remained on the flames.

“Ever since my father died, there isn’t much I’m afraid of. What scares me is that I might end up acting like a coward.”

“I see.”

Ricardt did not bother comforting him. Consolation was for people who needed it. Roy did not seem to.

“I’ll take first watch. You get some sleep.”

“Yes.”

Roy drew his cloak tightly around himself and fell asleep leaning against a rock. To the lullaby of the stars. Once he was fully asleep, he unconsciously leaned against Ricardt.

The next morning, Roy opened his eyes. The campfire had already gone black and cold, and the sun had risen well above the land. Huh? I didn’t stand watch.

Ricardt had taken first watch, so he should have woken Roy sometime during the night. Opening his eyes to find that it was already morning left Roy flustered. But when he looked at Ricardt, Ricardt was asleep too. Then did we both sleep?

Still, they had not been quite that careless. Even in a deep sleep, someone as highly trained as Ricardt could wake almost instantly at the slightest unfamiliar sense that something was wrong.

Even so, Roy could not help feeling flustered.

Wanting Ricardt to sleep as long as possible, Roy packed their things while he slept. The rustling woke Ricardt.

No matter how skilled he was, sleeping outdoors still left his body stiff. Yet sometimes it was only after leaving a comfortable bed behind that he truly felt alive.

Ricardt stretched extravagantly, then worked his neck forward, backward, and from side to side. His body soon loosened up, but he could not completely shake the lingering mental fatigue.

The two took out bowls, poured in water, mixed in grain powder, and drank it. That served as breakfast. When traveling, it was easier to obtain fruit, vegetables, and other foods providing different nutrients wherever they happened to be.

In truth, both of them were thoroughly accustomed to sleeping and living outdoors. Roy had traveled the grueling road toward the Eastern Frontier from a very young age, while Ricardt was no newcomer to adventuring. Even setting aside the memories of his previous life.

Once they finished eating, the man and the boy rose without a word. They were not the sort to fill the silence with pointless chatter. They joked around occasionally, but even then it was usually Ricardt who started it.

In any case, the two set off again. The mountain capped with permanent snow in the far distance never seemed to draw any closer no matter how far they walked. Yet a little stream born from that mountain had made its way all the way to Ricardt and Roy, murmuring softly past them.

The water was clear enough to seem transparent and reached only to their calves. Every minnow swimming through it was plainly visible.

The flowers blooming across the wide-open fields made them feel, for a moment, as though they had been cut off from the rest of the world. Wind, stream, flowers, and fields. Yet they were not merely beautiful. All of them held secrets.

Before noon, the two reached a fork in the road.

“He said the right road was the dangerous one, didn’t he?”

“Yes.”

Without hesitation, Ricardt turned onto the road to the right. Their pace was as leisurely as the sun moving slowly across the sky. There was no sense of danger or tension whatsoever.

“You know too, right?”

Ricardt asked.

“Yes?”

“They’re watching us. From far away. If they were close, I’d know how far away they were. Since I can’t tell, they must be quite a distance off.”

“The people from yesterday?”

“Who knows? I can’t tell that much.”

“But how do you do that?”

“Do what?”

“Know that someone’s watching.”

“A sense. Just a sense. Or maybe a subtle feeling that something’s out of place. For example, if the movements of wild animals like rabbits or foxes suddenly change in an unnatural way, that means people are around. Things like that tell you.”

“That sounds hard.”

“Easy if you think of it as easy, hard if you think of it as hard. Sword fighting’s the same.”

Ricardt turned his head toward the direction from which he felt the gaze. All he could see was a vast field swept by the wind. No one was in sight.

Before long, however, he sensed the watchers drawing closer. First from behind. It was a tactic just about anyone would use, cutting off the escape route first.

Next came some distance away to the left of the road. A field might look flat at a glance, but here and there the ground dipped slightly or rose in shallow swells.

Places like that could hide someone even if they were right beside you, unless you got close enough to see them. Excellent terrain for an ambush, though not for concealing a large force.

Ricardt felt human presences closing in from every direction. Now he could judge their distance, and their numbers as well. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven...... Around fifteen in all.

Yet Ricardt neither quickened nor slowed his steps. He simply stopped without warning, frowned, and looked up at the sun. He was checking whether the sunlight was breaking or not. It did not look particularly close to breaking. Had that been a figure of speech?

“What’s wrong?”

Roy asked, having failed to notice the presences around them.

“An attack is imminent.”

“From where?”

“Everywhere.”

Roy did not doubt Ricardt’s words for even an instant and immediately started to take off his pack. Ricardt stopped him.

“Keep the pack on. If an arrow comes from behind, it can stop it. You can take it off once they get close enough.”

Ricardt lowered his gaze from the sun and dipped his head as he spoke. The wind blew. The grass and flowers swayed across the field. A butterfly fluttered lazily through the air, and Ricardt let out a faint chuckle.

That was when it happened.

Whizz!

Crack!

An arrow flew in from the right. Ricardt whipped his arm upward from below, and somehow a sword was already in his hand. The arrow, split cleanly in half, flew away in two different directions. The fluttering butterfly was cut in two as well and fell like flower petals.

At the same moment, someone nearby sprang upright and threw something with both hands. Ricardt sharply twisted his upper body aside. His red cloak snapped violently through the air.

Only then did enemies reveal themselves from all around, charging with daggers and short swords. But when they saw Ricardt straighten again after twisting aside, they could only stop.

Because of the five daggers in Ricardt’s hand. Holding them by the blades, Ricardt fanned all five out like a hand of cards. A smile rested on his lips.

Splitting an incoming arrow in two with a sword was already hard enough to believe. Faced with another feat that looked like magic, the enemies’ eyes widened.

This time, Ricardt snapped his hand forward and hurled all five daggers at once. Each streaked straight out at unbelievable speed and buried itself precisely between the brows of five different people.

Thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk-thunk!

Those struck by the daggers had their heads snapped backward before collapsing to the ground.

“Hahaha......”

Whether he was feeling sheepish or simply found the whole thing laughable, Ricardt laughed at his leisure. The survivors froze stiff, unable to move. What had that just been?

Roy, gripping his axe in both hands, could only look around in confusion, unable to tell what had happened or how. There had been a rapid burst of impacts, and in the next instant five people were down.

Ricardt spoke.

“Doesn’t seem all that dangerous to me. If that was just a probe, losing five people is quite a price to pay. So, what now? Will you keep testing me, or shall I test you instead?”

Ricardt spoke while lazily twirling the sword by its hilt in his hand.

Instead of answering, the enemies turned and fled. They were not running away pell-mell in blind panic. They seemed to have somewhere specific in mind, as though there were some kind of rally point.

Ricardt did not chase them. He simply stood and watched them go. Five corpses lay in the grass.

Ricardt approached one of the bodies and removed the cloth covering the face. It was an utterly ordinary-looking face. So ordinary, in fact, that it was almost strange. The other four were much the same.

Ricardt thought in silence for a moment, then said,

“Next time, I should take at least one alive.”

He searched the bodies, but there was not a single coin among them. He considered taking the daggers, but they were not particularly good either. He could have made a little pocket change selling them to a blacksmith, but he left them behind.

Ricardt lifted his head and looked up at the sun again. Then he said to Roy,

“It’s lunchtime.”

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