Chapter 38

Chapter 38: Chapter 38

The silver coins on the table scattered everywhere with a loud clatter.

Like a tiger pouncing upon its prey, the Nameless Man charged at Hasphil with a battle-axe in one hand.

For an instant, everything seemed frozen in time—the startled faces of the onlookers and Hasphil just as a scream was about to burst from his lips.

But time inevitably resumed its flow.

"Aaaaagh! Agh!"

Crunch!

The axe, driven by vengeance, buried itself in the enemy’s head. Naturally, Hasphil’s skull split apart like a watermelon. They were supposed to bring back his head, but this was hardly the time to worry about that.

The Nameless Man became entangled with the already dead Hasphil, and the two tumbled noisily to the floor. Hasphil’s bodyguards had no time to react. They could only recoil in shock.

The spectators needed a moment to comprehend what had happened. Then a piercing scream rang out.

"Aaaaaaaaaah!"

That was the signal.

Everyone rushed to escape the gambling den at once. But the exit was narrow, and with so many people pushing and shoving, they quickly became tangled together, nearly crushing one another to death.

"Stop pushing!"

"I said stop pushing!"

Tables and chairs overturned, sending coins spilling everywhere.

Ah, the sound of money scattering across the floor. Even in a situation like this, it was enough to drive people mad.

Despite someone having just been killed, more than a few people began gathering the coins from the floor. Boribori was among them. He looked around like a startled rabbit while frantically stuffing money into his pockets.

The tavern descended into chaos within moments. The members of the Thieves’ Guild belatedly drew their weapons, but they stumbled around without knowing what to do.

They, too, had been overwhelmed by the pandemonium. They were so confused that they could not even spare the attention to care that Hasphil was dead.

His bodyguards tried to seize the Nameless Man at close range, but beneath his cloak, his body was clad in heavy armor.

Just as the Nameless Man raised his bloodstained axe once more, Rickart leaped onto the table and shouted.

"Everyone!"

Rickart’s voice pierced their ears like the tip of a freshly sharpened spear. The chaotic scene instantly came to a halt, and everyone looked up at him with startled, wide-open eyes.

"What happens when someone cheats at the gambling table?"

Rickart shouted passionately, as if appealing to the crowd. Then he held the shattered bowl and the three dice high in the air.

"This man was just caught cheating! You all saw it for yourselves!"

In truth, everything had happened so quickly that no one had gotten a proper look.

But the dead could not speak, so naturally Rickart’s voice carried more weight.

He turned toward the members of the Thieves’ Guild and shouted.

"Of course a man gets his head split open when he’s caught cheating! Are we in the wrong, or are you? You’ve got mouths, so answer me!"

Rickart’s commanding voice overwhelmed the entire room. With justification firmly in his grasp, he pressed his opponents relentlessly.

As a result, even though Hasphil was the one lying there with his skull split open, it was the members of the Thieves’ Guild who shrank back.

"We merely upheld the ironclad rules of gambling! And this is a little tip for all of you!"

Rickart swept up the great pile of money before him and scattered it like snow.

He flung some here and some there.

The people were showered in a rain of silver. Their eyes immediately went wild, and instead of fleeing the scene, they dropped to the floor and began scrambling for the coins.

Taking advantage of the distraction, Rickart shouted to the Nameless Man. The circumstances left no time for politeness.

"Let’s go!"

The Nameless Man instantly understood his intention. With a single motion, he overturned the heavy tables with a tremendous crash, opening a path. Wherever people still blocked the way, he simply plowed through them like a bull.

Rickart jumped down from the table and followed him. Boribori hurried after them, his pockets swollen to the point of bursting with coins.

The three of them had nearly walked straight out of the gambling den when someone shouted from behind.

"Catch those bastards!"

A little farther, and they could have concealed themselves in the shadows of the night.

It was unfortunate, but it did not matter.

As though he had been waiting for that exact moment, Rickart turned and drew his longsword. He swung it horizontally at the first man charging toward him.

Shing! Thud!

Rickart’s precise slash took the man’s head clean off. The headless corpse collapsed near the entrance, causing several of the enemies behind him to trip over it.

The entrance was narrow, so those farther back could not see what was happening in front. They continued pushing forward, causing more and more people to tumble over.

The Nameless Man raised his axe again and began smashing the Thieves’ Guild members’ heads as though playing whack-a-mole.

Thud! Thud! Crunch! Thud!

The bodies piled atop one another, twitching and jerking. Soon, a mound of corpses nearly as tall as a person completely blocked the entrance.

Rickart returned his sword to its scabbard.

"Let’s go back to the inn, grab our things, and leave immediately."

The three concealed themselves in the shadows of the night and headed toward the inn near the city gate.

As they walked, Boribori clutched the waist of his trousers and shuffled along like someone desperate to urinate. His pockets were packed full of silver coins.

Their jingling echoed through the nighttime streets, but there was no danger of the sound giving them away. The people from the gambling den had also grabbed whatever money they could and were now fleeing in every direction.

The jingle of coins could be heard everywhere, and the members of the Thieves’ Guild began seizing people indiscriminately.

Rather than pursuing Rickart, those thugs simply killed people at the scene and stole their money. The Thieves’ Guild members were just as blinded by greed as everyone else.

What loyalty could thieves possibly have toward their organization or their dead leader? The entire situation was already a disaster, so they seemed to have decided that they might as well profit from it themselves.

The three of them stormed into the inn as though raiding it. The people sleeping on mats in the hall awoke with a start, but Rickart and his companions paid them no attention. They rushed upstairs, gathered their belongings, and immediately came back down.

When they stepped outside again, a fiery glow shone from the direction of the Mother’s Sorrow. It appeared that the place had caught fire.

It was quite a heartwarming sight on such a cold winter night.

However, because it was nighttime, the city gate was closed.

Rickart briefly wondered what they should do, but the Nameless Man, who had clearly been through situations like this many times, strode toward the guard barracks beside the gate.

He kicked the door open with a bang, startling the guards, who had been quietly playing cards inside.

"Wh-what the hell?"

At the sight of the large, heavily armed man in a dark, grimy cloak, the guards were too frightened and confused to confront him.

The Nameless Man seized the enormous, gear-like mechanism used to open the city gate. It normally required several men working together just to turn it, but he pushed it by himself.

The thick iron chains wound around the mechanism with a shrill yet thunderous grinding sound. Rickart and Boribori joined in to help, though they did not contribute much.

Once the gate was open, the three calmly left the barracks. The bewildered guards could only blink after them.

And so, they had succeeded in killing an opponent who, in some respects, had been even more difficult to deal with than the Ernberg Five.

They had failed to take his head, but the Nameless Man had achieved his revenge, so it did not matter.

The winter night air was bitterly cold, yet their inexplicably exhilarated mood left them with no time to feel the chill.

"That was easier than I expected," Boribori said, carrying his bulging pack.

"No matter how many of them there are, men like that are nothing but loose grains of sand. Give them the slightest push and they scatter. That’s how thieves are."

Of course, that was not true of every Thieves’ Guild. There were countless such guilds throughout the world—practically one in every city. Some were genuinely organized, secretive, and terrifying.

Even thieves had different levels of competence.

The Nameless Man suddenly looked back. Beyond the city walls, he could see the glow of the flames.

He felt something different from what he had experienced after his other acts of vengeance.

It had never been something he did merely to feel satisfied or vent his resentment. Still, perhaps it was best to say that he felt no particular emotion at all.

He did not know whether it was because of the boys beside him, but a strange sense of emptiness passed through his heart.

"That ended more easily than expected," Rickart said, looking at the other two. "Since we’re already here, why don’t we wipe out the bandits too?"

"Why?"

It was absurd for only three people to attempt the extermination of a sizable bandit force.

But that conclusion came from considering only the numbers. If they possessed enough skill and wisdom, it was hardly impossible.

Had they not just proven that?

"Sounds good. What about you, Dad?"

Boribori turned toward the Nameless Man.

Dad?

Had he really decided to call him that from now on?

In any case, the Nameless Man silently nodded.

With the decision made, the three crossed the bridge spanning the river in the middle of the night. Then they openly began climbing the mountain path.

It was so dark that they could see almost nothing, but they could still identify their destination. Torchlight shone from the bandit stronghold.

When they drew near, Rickart hid behind a tree with the other two and surveyed the place.

Several men stood atop the wooden palisade, but rather than keeping watch, they were staring at the fire in the city. Rickart could hear them talking, though he could not make out what they were saying.

The Nameless Man quietly drew a throwing axe, but Rickart reached out and stopped him.

"Let’s inspect the surroundings first."

They circled the stronghold.

It had been crudely constructed, leaving numerous gaps and weak points. There were also plenty of places where they could simply grab hold and climb over.

Bodies lay scattered around the stronghold. Some had been reduced to skeletons, while others had died more recently.

Most of the bones were not very large.

They probably belonged to children.

Among the people abducted for ransom or to be sold, children often died because they could not endure the harsh conditions.

What made it even more tragic was that many parents sold their own children because they could not repay their debts or withstand starvation.

After observing the stronghold from the rear and roughly grasping its layout, Rickart climbed over the palisade. The Nameless Man and Boribori followed.

Torches and bonfires illuminated the interior. Following the layout he had already memorized, Rickart headed toward the building where the bandits were likely sleeping.

When he opened the door, he saw around a dozen bandits sleeping soundly inside.

"Let’s burn it."

When fighting a large number of enemies—or slaughtering them—it was more efficient to lock them inside a storehouse or barn and set it on fire. Stabbing and cutting every single person to death was hard labor.

Rickart, Boribori, and the Nameless Man each brought over armfuls of dry straw and carried an entire brazier between them. They hurled the straw throughout the bandits’ sleeping quarters and overturned the brazier inside.

Then they barred the door from the outside.

"Ah, fuck! What the hell is this? Huh?!"

"What’s happening?"

"Cough! Cough! What the hell? Hey, this isn’t funny!"

"Help! Someone help us! Hey! Let us out!"

The bandits awoke to find the entire building ablaze and filling with smoke. They were too disoriented to understand what was happening.

When the commotion erupted, the men on the palisade and those sleeping in other buildings came out to investigate.

Rickart and his companions had already concealed themselves behind another building. They ambushed the bandits who rushed over to save their comrades.

The Nameless Man charged out first and brought his axe down repeatedly. One person fell with every strike.

Thud! Thud! Crunch!

His axe work was frighteningly precise. The difficulty of wielding an axe was that failing to hit one’s target properly could leave its wielder in serious trouble.

But the Nameless Man never missed.

The startled bandits floundered in confusion. The Nameless Man raised his throwing axe and hurled it at an enemy holding a bow in the distance.

As always, it buried itself squarely in the man’s head.

Thud! Crack!

Those who had rushed outside after being awakened had not even managed to put on their equipment properly. Many did not have weapons in their hands.

Boribori hacked them apart, while Rickart calmly surveyed the battlefield, identifying and killing any potential threat the moment it appeared.

The three worked together so perfectly that, despite being vastly outnumbered, they practically massacred their enemies.

The remaining bandits could not comprehend what was happening.

Realizing only that this was far beyond anything they could handle, they opened the gate of the stronghold and fled.

And once a single person began running, the rest were inevitably swept along and fled as well.

Meanwhile, the flames continued to spread.

Finally, Rickart opened the building where the captives were imprisoned. He had already noticed the smell somewhat from outside, but once the door opened, the stench of excrement and urine assaulted him in full force.

Women huddled together in a corner, clutching one another as they stared fearfully at Rickart and his companions.

They had heard people dying outside and smelled the smoke, so they were already terrified.

"Come out. We’ll escort you to the city."

"Wh-who are you?"

It had never even occurred to the women that they might have been rescued.

After all, things like that did not happen even in legends.

Legendary heroes slew wicked dragons or vanquished demons. There were no stories about them rescuing ordinary people.

"Hmm... the Nameless Man X and the Kids, perhaps? Anyway, hurry up and come out. The place is on fire," Rickart said.

Even then, the women were too frightened and confused to move.

So the Nameless Man entered and forcibly dragged them outside.

Only then did the women emerge. Their eyes widened when they saw the burning stronghold and the bandits’ mangled corpses scattered everywhere.

"I told you to hurry."

Rickart spoke casually as he strode out of the stronghold. The women followed behind him.

Only after descending the mountain and reaching Lunenberg’s city gate did the women finally collect themselves enough to express their gratitude.

"Th-thank you."

"Thank you, brave heroes."

The fire in the city and the flames consuming the stronghold cast light from both directions. It was not especially bright, so they could see one another only dimly.

The heavy smell of smoke hung in the air.

The women appeared to range in age from their teens to their early twenties.

To them, however, Rickart and his companions looked like beings who had transcended humanity, wrapped in the reddish veil of the night.

Rickart stared at the women for a moment, then tossed them a purse of money so they could recover and pay for their journey.

"Live well."

Then he simply left with Boribori and the Nameless Man.

Was it sympathy? Goodwill? Compassion?

It certainly did not seem to come from any sense of justice.

They simply acted that way.

Not even they knew what emotions had inspired their actions.

Before long, dawn arrived and the city gates opened. The rescued women began spreading the tale of the three travelers’ deeds.

And from that moment onward, people began calling them by a new name:

the Heroes of Siegfringer, who vanquished villains and rescued the innocent.