Chapter 9

Chapter 9: Chapter 9

Even the sharpest sword in the world varied in power depending on who wielded it.

In the hands of a child, it would only injure its wielder. In the hands of a master, it might cut an entire era short.

Ricky, the Empire’s first Sword Master from more than a hundred years ago, had unquestionably possessed an invincible level of skill, unparalleled before or since.

However, those who focused solely on his martial prowess knew only half of what there was to know about him.

Ricky knew how to use his abilities as a tool. Whether fighting an individual or an entire group, he could formulate the most effective plan for inflicting a fatal blow upon his opponent and execute it with machine-like precision.

It was something he had naturally learned after repeatedly crossing the line between life and death, both in the unbearably brutal war and in his furious struggle against the world.

Win or die. The more he employed those gamble-like tactics and fighting methods, the more refined they became—until, at some point, they were no longer gambles at all.

Therefore, despite his body not yet being fully grown, killing a few third-rate bandits was hardly a challenge.

"They’ll gather here again. They’ll probably come back one or two at a time, so we can kill them in order. There were eight of them in total. There may be a few more if some were assigned to block the escape route, but there still shouldn’t be many."

How had he possessed the presence of mind to count them in that situation? In any case, Rickart spoke while calming the carriage horses amid the chaos.

Judging from his appearance, however, Arno seemed so completely stunned that Rickart’s words were not even reaching his ears.

"Pick up a weapon. You don’t need any special skill to kill bandits. Don’t swing it around. Stay calm and stab them in the stomach. Not the chest—the ribs might stop the blade."

Arno merely gasped for breath as though he were hyperventilating. He was completely out of it and showed no sign of calming down even as time passed.

Daisy was doing slightly better, but she was hardly acting normally either. She had pressed herself right up against Rickart and was staring fixedly at his face.

Without a word, Rickart unfastened the sword from the dead bandit leader’s waist and brought it to Arno.

Arno stared blankly at the sword Rickart held out to him, then belatedly flinched in surprise.

"I-I-I... I..."

"Pull yourself together. Didn’t you make some sort of courier’s oath?"

It had been an oath not to drink, not to cause trouble, and to deliver every parcel to its intended recipient. It had said nothing about fighting enemies.

Still, it was not as though Arno had never seen blood in his life. The world was already overflowing with cruel punishments for criminals. Public beheadings in the town square were standard.

Thus, the sight of blood was not what had shocked him.

It was Rickart who terrified him to the bone.

Arno finally managed to collect himself and accepted the sword Rickart held out with trembling hands.

Only then did Rickart move to the side of the carriage, crouch down, and hide. He intended to kill the bandits one by one as they returned.

Arno and Daisy crouched on either side of him. Rickart watched Arno for a moment and decided that the man’s hands were shaking so badly that he probably would not even manage to draw his sword in time.

"Draw your sword now. The first time is difficult, but you’ll get used to it quickly once you start."

"...D-D-Did you receive training as a knight?"

Apparently, Arno needed some sort of explanation—something that would allow him to accept how a ten-year-old could kill people without batting an eye.

Otherwise, he could only see Rickart as either a child possessed by an evil spirit or a demon in the flesh.

"Yes. Let’s just say that I did."

Rickart gave him a vague answer and then spoke to Daisy as well.

"Don’t cling so close to me. It makes it difficult to move."

"Okay, darling."

"...Unbelievable."

Having to take care of one child and one adult while doing this made Rickart sigh inwardly.

Even then, intermittent screams and laughter could be heard from near and far. Among them was someone shouting, "My baby! Please, at least spare my baby!"

Before long, someone came back up the mountain pass.

Just as Rickart had predicted, it was a bandit returning with a captive.

The captive looked wretched, her expression filled with resignation and despair. The two bandits escorting her were snickering among themselves.

When they reached the carts and carriage, they discovered the two corpses Rickart had left behind. Their snickering immediately stopped.

"Did those two fight each other?"

"What should we do?"

They showed no sorrow whatsoever despite the death of their leader. They merely assumed the two men had gotten into some kind of dispute and killed each other.

At that moment, Rickart crept up behind them, suddenly lunged forward, and slashed deeply into the back of one man’s knee.

"Argh! What the hell?!"

The man’s knee buckled on its own, sending him sprawling backward.

Arno then threw himself forward with the desperation of a man who had nothing left to lose.

He used far too much strength and tumbled to the ground, entangled with one of the bandits. Even so, he seemed to have successfully stabbed the man from behind.

Rickart had already slit the other man’s throat and finished him off, but Arno climbed on top of his victim, gripped the sword with both hands, and repeatedly drove it downward.

"Fuck! You bastard! You goddamn! Fucking! Bastard!"

He was far too worked up. The sword’s point was quickly damaged by striking bone, and after one badly angled thrust, it slipped from his hands.

Yet his excitement still did not subside. He picked up a nearby rock and began smashing it into the already-dead man’s face.

Thud! Crack! Thud!

"Stop. That’s enough. He’s already dead."

Only when Rickart restrained him did Arno flinch and stop. Blood had splattered across his face, and both his hands were drenched in it.

Breathing heavily, his expression flushed with exhilaration, Arno stared blankly at Rickart.

Seeing the boy’s astonishingly calm, nearly unchanging expression seemed to slow his heart, which had been pounding as though it might burst.

"I-I did it. I actually did it."

"Yes, you did well. Now pull yourself together."

Rickart had no idea how many times he had said those words, but perhaps Arno was experiencing the most exciting moment of his entire life.

The two women who had been dragged there stared wide-eyed in shock after seeing Rickart and Arno kill the bandits.

"Let’s move the bodies somewhere they can’t be seen from below, even if we can’t hide them properly, and then conceal ourselves again. Put the weapons out of sight too."

"Of course, young master!"

Arno answered vigorously.

They continued dealing with the bandits who returned with captives. Since the bandits invariably came up in pairs, they appeared to be operating in two-man teams.

By the time they had killed six of them, Arno began to wonder whether it was really supposed to be this easy. Once his fear had faded, the bandits seemed utterly insignificant.

I was afraid of scum like this?

He was also finally able to observe Rickart properly.

There were no flashy techniques whatsoever. Rickart’s movements were short and efficient, and he struck or slashed vital points without making a single mistake—the abdomen, the back of the knee, the throat.

It sounded simple, and Rickart even made it look simple, but it was not. With the body of a child, he would never be able to overpower an adult if his attack missed or his limbs became tangled.

Arno had only ever heard about the training knights received, so he simply assumed that this must be the sort of thing they taught.

Nobles really are terrifying. He looks like an innocent little child on the outside. Good thing I didn’t provoke him.

However, there was not a single man among the captives. They might have been killed, fallen to their deaths, or successfully escaped. There was no way to know.

The one fortunate thing amid all this misfortune was that Daisy’s mother and family were among those they had rescued.

The final captive brought up the path was a merchant, the only male prisoner. The bandits had probably kept him alive because they expected to receive a ransom for him.

"Of course! Absolutely, my lords! You’ll receive at least ten gold coins as ransom for me! The trading company can’t function without me! Hehehe."

It seemed he would spout any nonsense if it meant staying alive.

Ten gold coins, indeed. Aside from royalty or the highest-ranking aristocrats, even most nobles would struggle to command a ransom that large. His behavior was the very picture of servility.

"Do you take us for idiots? Ten gold coins, my ass. If your trading company offers less than five silver coins, we’ll just kill you."

As expected, the bandits were not completely ignorant of how the world worked. Then again, this could hardly have been their first time capturing and selling people.

"What?! B-But that’s...!"

"Shut up for a second. Why does it smell so strongly of blood around here?"

"The others must’ve killed someone for no reason again."

"Fuck. We all get punished together when they do that. Those bastards never listen."

The two bandits were nearly at the carts and carriage when they frowned at the thick smell of blood hanging in the air. They did all this to make money, but there were always a few among them who became so excited that they lost their heads.

When they finally reached the carts, they saw bloodstains scattered across the ground and marks where something had been dragged away.

There were no bodies in sight.

No—behind the carriage, a pair of feet could be seen sticking out.

Sensing that something was wrong, they approached the carriage. Suddenly, something burst from the bushes beside them. One of the bandits flailed his arms in surprise as someone shoved him hard.

"What the fuck?!"

Cursing, the bandit fell onto his backside. Only then did he feel a burning sensation in his stomach. Blood gushed out and soaked his clothes.

"What...?"

"Eek!"

"W-What the hell?!"

The merchant, the wounded man, and the other bandit stared with eyes as wide as saucers. Then they spotted the boy standing there with a bloodstained dagger.

While their attention was fixed on Rickart, Arno suddenly charged from the opposite side and plunged his sword into the remaining bandit’s flank.

"Gah!"

Just as before, the bandits were unable to put up the slightest resistance against the sudden ambush. Once they had been fatally wounded, finishing them off was easy.

Moving neither quickly nor slowly, Rickart practically placed the blade against the first bandit’s throat before driving it deep and killing him. Arno, now barely trembling at all, finished off the other one.

Warm blood surged out in pulses, drenching the ground.

Unable to make sense of what had happened, the merchant simply collapsed to the ground and trembled.

The women who had been hiding finally emerged, but the merchant still could not grasp the situation. He merely darted his wide eyes about in confusion. Meanwhile, the women grabbed the corpses by their legs, dragged them across the ground, and concealed them behind the carriage.

Rickart and Arno stood on either side of the seated merchant and stared down at him.

"Can you fight?" Rickart asked.

"...Pardon?"

"I asked whether you can fight. Where did your guard go? You still had one left."

"Uh... That’s right. Yes. Where did he go? Ah! H-He... He ran away. No, perhaps he died? I don’t know."

"I see. Then pick up a weapon. Not a spear—something like a sword or an axe. We’ll hide and ambush anyone who comes up the path."

"Uh..."

"Get up. We don’t have time. We don’t know when they’ll come."

Arno grabbed the merchant by the collar and forcibly hauled him to his feet. Still dazed, the merchant had no idea what he was doing and simply followed their instructions.

He picked up a weapon and followed Rickart and Arno behind the carriage. When he turned his head, he saw the bandits’ corpses laid out side by side.

The sight shocked him all over again.

What in the world happened here?

When broken down and analyzed one step at a time, what they had done was not especially difficult. But people tended to see only the result.

To the merchant, it appeared that Rickart and Arno had defeated all these men at once by themselves.

"I-I failed to recognize you as a great warrior and treated you disrespectfully."

After cautiously watching them for some time, the merchant finally spoke to Arno. It had never occurred to him that Rickart might have been the one who orchestrated everything.

"A great warrior? Me? The true hero is the young master here. He’s also the one who killed those two leaders over there."

The merchant looked at Rickart and then at the two corpses Arno was pointing toward.

It was difficult to believe, but he had personally witnessed the boy killing a bandit, so he had nothing to say.

Now that he examined the two leaders, who had died with their eyes rolled upward and their mouths hanging open, he felt as though he had seen them somewhere before.

Two men?

If there were two of them...

"These are the Bilton brothers. I heard they were on the run, but I never imagined they were hiding here. In any case, are you saying the young master killed both of them?"

"I saw it with my own eyes, and even I couldn’t believe it for a while. But it’s true. You saw him earlier too, didn’t you? He cut that man’s stomach open. Look at this one as well. His belly was split wide open, and while he was stumbling around with his entrails spilling out, the young master cut his throat."

Rickart himself said nothing, yet Arno excitedly recounted the events as though they were his own heroic exploits.

The merchant looked at Rickart once more.

The boy was wiping his dagger with a cloth, and the blade gleamed as though it were brand new. When the image of the boy killing the bandit flashed through his mind, goosebumps rose across his skin.

"Um, young master, if it would not be too presumptuous of me, may I ask where you are from?"

"Stormherz."

"Stormherz... Ah! Are you perhaps the young hero said to have beaten a wild boar to death with his bare hands?"

Rickart did not know how far the rumor had spread, but it seemed to have been somewhat exaggerated.

"I didn’t use my bare hands. I killed it with a spear."

"That is still remarkable. I had no idea you were so young. You are indeed a scion of House Stormherz, renowned for its martial prowess. Ah, perhaps twelve years ago, I accompanied the army to the Battle of Briden as a war merchant. That was where I earned my initial capital by supplying prostitutes to the soldiers. Your banner has a white cross on a red field, does it not? When your lord charged on his brown horse, it was like something from a painting. Ah, the enemy scattered in terror!"

Perhaps it was because he had narrowly escaped death, or perhaps because he believed his life depended upon this young boy, but the merchant began showering Rickart with flattery as though his tongue had been coated in oil.

Rickart had no idea how he was supposed to respond, so he merely answered vaguely.

"I see..."

"I am a pigment merchant. As a token of gratitude for saving my life, I will present you with a cloak once we reach the city. Would you prefer red or blue?"

"Hmm... My house uses a red field, so I’d prefer red."

"Ah, as expected of a young nobleman, you have an excellent eye. Originally, only the commander-in-chief of His Imperial Majesty’s armies was permitted to wear a red cloak. And not all shades of red are the same. There is a reddish mineral known as cinnabar, and the pigment created by grinding it is truly as red as blood. They say those who mine it either go mad or die before long. That is why prisoners and slaves are made to extract it, and why it costs more than gold."

What is he talking about?

The merchant was excessively talkative. Apparently, he was the sort of person who talked more whenever he became nervous.

"...Although the custom of assigning different colors according to one’s rank has largely disappeared these days, purple is still reserved exclusively for His Imperial Majesty—"

"Wait a moment."

"Yes?"

"If we hadn’t encountered the bandits, how long would it normally have taken us to cross the pass?"

"Since we set out in the morning, we would have crossed it by late afternoon."

"Then we should get moving."

"Pardon?"

"We killed the leaders, and even if there are bandits left, they’ll be fewer in number than us. It should be safe to leave now."

Now that he heard it, Rickart was right.

There could be only one or two surviving bandits at most.

"Before that, shouldn’t we cut off their heads?"

"Whose heads?"

"The Bilton brothers were fairly notorious wanted men. Rheinfort isn’t far away, so we should be able to carry their heads there without preserving them in salt. If you take them to the Adventurers’ Guild, you’ll earn a considerable sum."

Was that so?

Rickart had not considered it. After briefly wondering what to do, he decided to cut off their heads.

In truth, "saw off" would have been more accurate than "cut off."

Once the heads were placed inside a cloth sack, the bottom was quickly saturated with blood, which dripped steadily from it. They placed the sack in a basket and loaded it onto the carriage.

The horses and donkeys were fed plenty of carrots. They had worked hard, after all. When everyone joined forces to push the carriage, it finally managed to climb over the rocks.

Bloodstains and eight corpses lay side by side at the scene. Two of the bodies were missing their heads.

No one buried them.

After reaching the highest point of the pass and beginning their descent, the men who had hidden themselves or fled started emerging one by one and rejoining the group.

Although the men had abandoned their families and run away, the women accepted them back.

The women themselves had also abandoned even their children and fled, and rejecting the men would make it difficult for them to survive in the future. They had no other choice.

Besides, they were accustomed to living that way.

When they counted those who had died or gone missing, there seemed to be six or seven in total. The victims’ deaths were tragic, but the survivors had survived. They would simply have to grit their teeth and keep living once again.

Daisy remained in high spirits, while Arno walked proudly with his chest thrust out, evidently feeling immensely pleased with himself.

As for Rickart, he felt that the world had not changed much between a hundred years ago and the present.

There had been bandits back then too. There had been powerless people, and living had been painful for everyone.

By the time they finished descending the mountain pass, the sun had set. The travelers lit campfires and prepared to spend the night outdoors.

With Daisy clinging to him like a leech and refusing to let go, Rickart sat beside the fire and warmed himself.

As he did, he thought about the things his father had told him—honor, salvation, family, and all those matters.

He would not allow himself to be overly bound by his father’s words, but neither would he simply let them pass through his mind and disappear.

Rickart sank into contemplation, allowing thoughts to blow in and out of his mind like wind passing through a house whose front and back doors had been left open.

The travelers kept stealing peculiar glances at the boy.

Some seemed to be looking at a hero.

Others seemed to be looking at a chilling demon.

He had certainly saved them, but a boy who could casually split open a man’s belly and cut his throat was far removed from a prince riding a white horse.

As the night deepened and darkness swallowed their surroundings, the croaking of frogs newly awakened from hibernation, the cries of scops owls, and the crackling of the campfire grew increasingly distinct.

And in the night sky, just as they had a hundred years ago, the stars continued to shine.