Chapter 289

For Krys, this was the most obvious thing in the world.

Why stake your life on a fight you can’t win?

Why fight here with death in mind?

‘Unless reinforcements come.’

Looking at the situation before and behind, the odds were low. Low, not nonexistent.

But even to glimpse those reinforcements, they had to give up what needed giving up.

Green Pearl, the Border Guard fortress—things like that.

There were watchtowers they’d raised and a fresh-cut moat, but if they were struck from front and rear, all of it would be useless.

‘What we have now means nothing.’

Promising themselves a later time was also a wise stance. Endurance wasn’t always the answer.

Having reasoned thus to his conclusion, Krys had spoken.

Let’s run.

Encrid stared at the big-eyed man and thought.

‘This time his peepers look fine, at least.’

He didn’t look seized by fear and devoured by unease.

Then he was asking straight, clear-headed—asking what would happen if they ran here.

Encrid widened his gaze and looked around the tent.

Aside from the big-eyed one, the eyes of every member were fixed on him.

Whatever he chose here, they would follow his word.

So it seemed.

Even One-Eye, peeking about in front of the tent, would do the same.

Esther went without saying.

And Rem—wherever he’d flopped down to sleep—would chase them somehow if Encrid wasn’t there when he came back.

Ragna, too, even if he split off and got lost and lost again midway, would find his way back.

Why? What was he to them?

What did they see in him that made them follow like this?

He couldn’t force his will on them.

He couldn’t compel what he himself had sworn to guard.

Encrid couldn’t do that.

“You can go.”

So he said. Krys brightened, but waited for the next words.

“And you?”

Jaxson—whose words got short when he was out of sorts—asked, just like that.

That bastard seemed to lie in wait for an opening, then drop honorifics the moment he felt it.

“I’m not going.”

“Why? You’ve done enough as it is.”

Krys let formality slip as well. Encrid didn’t nitpick.

He simply said what he had to say.

“If you sell your sword for gold, you’re a mercenary.”

It sounded like nonsense, but they watched in silence. Seeing them wait for the next line, Encrid realized that as much as he had learned from them, they had learned from him.

A stance of listening.

All ears were open. Even with closed ears, he could still speak—but if they listened, that was better.

“And I’m going to be a knight.”

He swallowed. The thoughts he’d had on ordinary days, on some day in the past, had been shaved and honed into a solid pillar.

Encrid sat up at an angle. Pain surged in shin and right arm.

It wasn’t agony. It was bearable. Better than dying, at least.

A steady pain did no more than remind him he was alive—that he hadn’t wasted the day.

“Say that a lot, don’t you.”

Jaxson put in like an aside.

Encrid drew up his legs and shifted into the least uncomfortable seat he could.

“If you won’t sell your sword for a handful of coins, you have to sell it to duty and responsibility. And this, right now, is my duty—and my responsibility.”

What is a knight?

A guardian.

What must he guard?

In legend and myth, in the shining past like the sun, knights said:

Protect the weak.

Uphold justice.

Keep your oaths.

Which comes first? Encrid reached his conclusion alone.

Chivalry.

Is it chivalry to lay down your life for a lady?

If that is what he swore, yes.

If that is his chivalry, he would readily acknowledge it.

Only, he would not sell his sword for mere gold.

Nor would he become a murderer who delighted in killing.

Intangible worth. Guarding what you believe.

Those who swear to that and keep those oaths.

To ordinary folk, nothing but the most stubborn fools.

That was Encrid’s dream.

It was the road he’d watched and walked till now.

He had died and died again, yet never gave up; he hadn’t settled for today.

If Encrid ran as he was, how many inside the Border Guards would die?

Children, women, elders, youths—all without distinction—perhaps a massacre in the triple digits.

It could be fewer.

Or many more could die.

One of the foes was the cultists. A mad group was among them.

Of course, even accounting for all that, you could say that, for now, withdrawing was more efficient.

Give up for the moment and take back later might be the better line.

But he would not do that.

Encrid’s emotions didn’t waver.

This wasn’t that sort of thing.

He would do as he had meant to do.

Behind his back was the Border Guards, and Encrid had sworn to protect them.

Though he wasn’t a knight, Encrid had kept that oath since the day in the past when he swore to live that way. He had lived so to this day. That was the man called Encrid.

Krys’s face went pale again. The corners of his eyes drooped. It plainly didn’t please him.

“Foolish.”

“Agreed.”

Answering Krys, Encrid recalled some day in the past.

—

Ssshhhhhh.

“Damn, that rain’s coming down nasty.”

The mercenary captain didn’t particularly hate rainy days, but slogging through a sticky marsh for a contract had his temper rising.

At least they weren’t cutting straight through the marsh’s heart; the path pierced the small woods along its side. That was something. But that didn’t make this pleasant.

The little wood by the marsh had a habit of gifting long bugs past the gaps in one’s armor, and fearless mosquitoes even bit the backs of walking mercenaries’ hands.

“Son of a—!”

Smack!

A mercenary who had swatted his own hand back cursed.

With rain dumping, where the hell were the mosquitoes coming from?

“How much farther!”

A sharp-eyed mercenary shouted.

The guide brushed back dripping black hair and said,

“Soon.”

“You’ve been saying ‘soon’ for a while now.”

The captain came up. Big-framed, a rough face that radiated intimidation. Even so, the guide’s blue eyes were unruffled as he met them.

“The rain’s slowed our feet.”

“Hoo. Fine. Move. Move.”

Tock.

The captain tapped the guide’s occiput and shook his head.

Then he soothed his mercenaries.

“Stuff it, you bastards. Run your mouths and I’ll pitch you into the marsh.”

With that, he hacked down a long curtain of vine blocking his path with a thick blade.

With a thump the severed vine split left and right and the way opened.

His words were rough, but they did quiet the grumbling. The guide—Encrid—watched and thought this was a decent company.

The captain, contrary to his looks, took care of his men, and the mercenaries—more or less—kept to certain lines.

At least they weren’t the sort to shove a knife into a comrade’s, friend’s, or client’s back mid-contract.

Without a nose for people like that, a guide would wind up as fodder for worms—or nutrients for trees.

If you didn’t want to die on the road, you had to choose people well.

He’d chosen well this time too, it seemed.

“So why use that fellow instead of a proper pathfinder?”

Did he know they could all hear and ask anyway? Or did he want them to hear?

One of the mercenaries sidled up behind the captain and asked.

Sssshhh, patter-patter-patter.

Even with the pelting rain, their conversation carried fine. Thanks to the canopy overhead, the rain hit them less.

“Cheap.”

“Sir?”

“I said he’s cheap. His guiding’s a bit lacking. On the other hand, he can swing a blade.”

Half fighter, half guide—handy that way.

So, for the price of a guide, you also got another fighter. The captain, weighing all of it, said Encrid’s price was cheap.

Of course the dull-witted underling blurted, ‘Doesn’t seem cheap to me.’

He babbled that he knew several guides cheaper than Encrid.

“Any of those actually find the way?”

A comrade behind him sneered.

“Want me to kill you? Acting real big, aren’t you.”

Then came the parade of sorry jokes.

Jokes about killing and sparing.

The rough talk of rough mercenaries.

The job was to stay in a village set in the woods and do what needed doing.

There were hardly any monsters or beasts nearby; it was a fairly safe village.

With the marsh about, you’d think a lizard colony might be there—but hadn’t some wandering swordsman come by a decade or more ago and cut them all down?

After that, when lizard monsters began to gather, the village hired mercenaries.

For a few gold coins a year, they were free of threat.

Ssshaa. Pouring rain. A shaking view. Clammy-wet clothes and armor—so soaked the gambeson he wore would have to be tossed.

Lucky he’d worn the cheap one today.

When the rain slackened, the bugs swarmed, and on top of that it was hot.

Whatever was wrong with the trees here, they seemed like totems for holding damp instead of giving clean air.

It was a usual sort of contract—driving off lizards and fixing up the outskirts.

Encrid, who had been holding out over half a year in villages around here training himself, was working as a guide to live.

“We’ve arrived.”

It was a village he led them to—awkwardly enough, along a route he more or less knew.

“Welcome.”

The middle-aged headman welcomed the company, then they cleared lizards drawn by the scent of the marsh.

They strung little ropes of tree-bark that carried a smell the lizards hated here and there on the marsh trees.

They’d driven stakes into the ground, too; to the eye, it was hard to believe they did anything.

“Wisdom handed down from the past.”

The headman believed in it like iron.

With so many little matters, a mercenary’s hand was often needed.

If an undriven lizard showed, you needed steel again, and hardly anyone but mercenaries would step up.

Some villagers could fight, but the majority looked far from battle.

He’d come along as a guide and had no particular reason to step up, so as ever, Encrid was swinging a sword in a bare corner of the village.

“Mister.”

A kid came up to talk. Soft eyes, pale skin.

At best, she was twelve.

He’d once been beaten by someone her size, so he didn’t look down on her for being young—but she didn’t look like someone who used a blade.

“Why do you work so hard?”

What followed was the obvious—idle talk, a kid who came by often; to be precise, a little girl. So Encrid grew friendly with a kid.

“I’m leaving the village in three years.”

“Dreaming of dying far from home?”

Calling dying outside the village a dream—she had gall.

Where did she think she was going alone at that age?

“No, jeez, not that! You saw the herbs that drive off lizards, right? You think this marsh is the only place in the world with things like that? The herbs from this marsh are different.”

He’d heard that herbs were the marsh village’s main income.

“Ah, so your dream is to die far from home?”

“Oh, come on! Really!”

Then what was she leaving for?

“I’m going to find truly amazing herbs. And I won’t go alone—I’ll tag along with some mercenary company that comes by later!”

A dream, she called it. Dressing up plants people didn’t know and selling them as herbs.

Encrid didn’t laugh at other people’s dreams. He did worry.

“So your dream is to die on the road looking for herbs, right?”

“Ugh, seriously!”

He didn’t think the bond was all that deep. A suitable acquaintance, a way to pass spare time.

When a body worn out from training rested, a way to kill time.

Maybe the little girl thought the same?

Among the mercenaries in the visiting company, the others looked fierce, but there was this one who seemed a bit gentler—the guy who swung a sword in a corner every day.

She’d tried talking and found him decent for banter. That was all.

The work went on for over a month, and the two traded idle chatter this and that way.

“Is your dream to be a guide, mister?”

“No. A knight.”

“A knight? The nightmare of the battlefield?”

“Yeah.”

“…I think picking herbs together wouldn’t be bad. You could come with me later.”

“Let’s not.”

“No, I respect you, really. I mean it.”

“Then look me in the eyes when you talk.”

Why was she talking at the far hills.

“Eh? What?”

“Oh, playing deaf now?”

An absurd little brat.

And crisis always came without warning.

“Hey. What’s left if you and us fight here? I’ll be clear. If you’ve got yours, get out. Clear off. You didn’t even take a contract.”

In Encrid’s mind, the mercenary captain was a decent man.

For a mercenary captain, anyway. Truly.

Fifty bandits had popped up from somewhere.

Some nonsense about a rumor of jewels hidden in the marsh village.

The captain had to choose.

The villagers had to despair.