I'm Not a Knight-Errant. Not Even a Knight (2)
"...Who's badmouthing me?"
Lee Han flicked his ear as if brushing something off. A little grit came away. He shook out his hand and gave a small nod.
"No wonder it itches."
Today was a day for learning that you shouldn't go suspecting people for no reason.
"You think so too, don't you?"
"......"
"Answer."
"Th-that is—I—I haven't the faintest idea what my lord is saying, not at all..."
Smack!!
"What's the use of a man with no sense? All any of you know how to do is talk back."
The bandit folded.
"What? What's wrong with this guy?"
He had only tapped the back of the head, and lightly at that, yet the bandit foamed at the mouth and passed out. Lee Han tilted his head. He really had hit him very gently.
"Pretty frail, for bandits."
"......"
"Got something you want to say?"
"N-no, sir! Absolutely not! Nothing!!"
"Your comrade drops and you don't even show a little resentment? Faithless bastards!"
Smack! Smack!
The two bandits who had been chiming in like sycophants blacked out just like the one who had talked back. The quiet only deepened after that, and Lee Han's voice rang all the clearer.
"Come on. Anyone with the spine to be angry over a comrade's death and fight me, step up. Land even one hit on me, and I'll forgive you. No questions asked."
A sneer soaked in provocation. For proud, hot-blooded men, a jab like that was nothing short of a rake across the pride. And these were bandits—men who reigned like kings of the mountain, living off raids on slash-and-burn hamlets and every other kind of village. Surely at least one of them would bristle and stand, no matter what.
"......"
"...What kind of reaction is this?"
Contrary to expectation, no one flared up or voiced a complaint. They only bowed their heads to the dirt and trembled.
He had been thinking they were a spineless lot, when a merchant who had been held by the bandits spoke.
"...No fool would charge in after seeing a sight like this, my lord."
Crack. Craaack!
A dreadful sound rose from the bodies of the bandit chief and his lieutenants. Arms and legs, knees and waists—all of them bent in directions they were never meant to bend, and the muscle had twisted past twisting until it lay flat as meat pounded with a hammer. A horrific sight.
Worse still was that the bandits were alive. Still not dead, after more than two hours of torture like that. Death would have been kinder. No one would want to die looking like that. Even the most ignorant, brutal bandits, once they had seen torture that hideous, would have no wish to die—so in a way, it was only natural that no one stepped forward.
So this was Tendon-Splitting Bone-Dislocation, was it?
The merchant clicked his tongue. He himself had been taken by the bandits, and he was angry, but looking at them like that, a little human sympathy tried to stir.
Only—
"Caravan Master, it doesn't seem we were the first these bandit bastards kidnapped. There are signs they took children..."
Steel whispered free.
"Hah!"
The report from a subordinate captured alongside him made plain that even a scrap of sympathy had been a luxury, and before the merchant knew it the man had drawn his sword. Seeing that, the merchant drew his own.
"Don't let blood stain the knight's hands. They're too filthy to dirty those hands. And we have a blood-price of our own to collect."
"Yes, sir!!"
Merchants. They were the sort who reckoned profit down to the last coin, and reckoned favors and grudges just as thoroughly.
...Though when it was a grudge, they collected it at double.
There's a curse waiting everywhere I go.
Haa...!
He had nodded at the merchant's request—let us pay our own blood-price ourselves—and come down from the bandit stronghold, only for a sigh to escape him at once.
The past month. Somehow, every village and city Lee Han stopped in, he got tangled up with strange people.
Why the hell are demons this common?
Not only did he run into demons everywhere he stopped; he kept meeting mages and witches trying to summon them, and every time a fight was unavoidable. He wasn't even looking for demons or spell-slingers on purpose, yet he kept getting mixed up with them, and it was enough to make anyone irritable. The number of demons he had killed must already be past a hundred.
...Or had he killed more than that?
I stopped counting exactly a week ago, so I wouldn't know.
Once the tally passed three digits, he could no longer remember how many demons he had sent to Hell. Stranger still, people were beginning, little by little, to recognize him whenever he visited another village. Well, his build and his face were hardly difficult to pick out.
And so—
"Y-you—don't tell me?! Th-there's a demon in this place too?!"
The village chief suspected his own village of harboring a demon before he suspected anything else.
"I knew it! I thought there'd been a strange woman around for days! She really was a witch!"
There was also a man slandering a beautiful woman as a witch because she wouldn't accept his confession. (For the record, the man was a stalker, and Lee Han did him the courtesy of neatly removing both legs and both eyes.)
"Are you that famous Demon Slayer? A Monk by training, perhaps?"
A city's noble went so far as to mistake him for a Monk, and even showed an interest in recruiting him.
And Lee Han, whether he admitted it or not, was growing tired of it.
I've picked up an awful lot of nicknames.
Demon Slayer. Monk. More than ten aliases, the Temple's weapon among them, had sprung up in a single month. Quite a spectacle.
...But the one that had spread the farthest of all—
"Thank you! Thank you, Sir Knight!"
"I heard the rumors. Honestly, I thought a knight-errant was the sort of nonsense that only shows up in knightly romances, but they really exist!"
Strangely enough, the nobles simply took him for a demon hunter or a Monk, but the common citizens did not. They called him a knight, and sometimes a Knight-Errant. Each time he said he wasn't a knight, and even when he denied it they kept calling him one to the end.
Hm. Impersonating a knight is a crime, though...
Even a former knight who was one in nothing but name knew the law: for a man who had thrown his knighthood away to be called a knight was a crime. So however grateful Lee Han was that they respected him, a strange reaction was inevitable whenever the word knight was hung on him.
And sure enough.
"Now that I look—my lord, were you the famous Sir Rihan, the knight-errant?"
"Wasn't it Rahan?"
"I heard it was Lee Han."
"Everyone but the last one got my name wrong."
Another strange misunderstanding seemed to be spreading, and before he knew it Lee Han was face to face with the merchants who had come down from the stronghold. Blood was dripping, drop by drop, and there was no need to say whose. The merchant, and the ordinary people who had been held by the bandits along with him, all looked at that blood with the same numbness.
Were wolves and hyenas the only creatures called beasts? Those who torment their own kind, take pleasure in it, and smash ethics to suit themselves are beasts as well. So that blood was not a human's, only a beast's, and there was nothing in it to mourn. The people were relieved instead, and showed only joy, as if a nightmare had finally ended.
"Thank you, Sir Knight..."
"We lived because of you."
"I'll tell people. So your fame can spread across the South—no, the whole continent!!"
"No... You really don't have to do that."
He didn't mind the thanks, but he told them they didn't need to go that far, and a sense of déjà vu came over him. Which was only natural.
Why do I seem to get the same greeting everywhere I stop?
Could an act of chivalry he had never intended still be called chivalry...?
He gave an awkward smile.
A hushed night. Thanks to turning the bandits' storehouse inside out, Lee Han, the merchant, and the rest of them could eat their fill. Those bastards had hoarded it all, greedy as squirrels. Well, thanks to that there was food to spare, and Lee Han himself could have a proper meal for the first time in a while, so he was glad enough.
"Sir Knight! Look at this! There's salmon and cured ham! It's so good!!"
"Please enjoy it, my lady."
"Yes! You eat plenty too, Sir Knight! Shall I give you more soup?"
"If you would."
"I'll give you lots!"
"No, a reasonable amount is—Aigoo, you're boiling enough for more than a hundred people..."
Before anyone could stop her, Layla was mincing mushrooms and frying onions, making soup. Her specialty: mushroom-and-onion soup. Delicious, but the problem was how generous her hand was.
This has to be a hundred servings.
There weren't even thirty people here. She must have decided to burst their stomachs today.
"Haha, don't worry. No matter how much there is, we can finish the soup."
"Keep that up and you'll regret it. More importantly, your body's better, I take it?"
"Thanks to you, I'm fine, my lord. To think you're versed in the healing arts as well—truly versatile!"
"I can't cure illness. I can only handle simple injuries."
As sure as he was at wrecking an opponent's bones and muscle, Lee Han was reasonably sure of putting them back together. Thanks to that, the wounded—who had taken plenty from the bandits, here and there—were recovering quickly.
"You're not fully healed. You'll need a good four days of rest before the bone sets properly. Same for the rest of you."
"Even being fully healed in only four days is a miracle. Whenever will I repay this kindness..."
"What kindness. I just happened to run into bandits, and I happened to save you. Don't load it with meaning."
"Then you only needed to defeat the bandits. You didn't have to save us as well."
"......"
"I am a merchant, my lord. I repay grudges, of course, but I always repay kindness. That is a merchant's faith."
"...Every great merchant I've known was a thug, every last one of them. In that sense, you're not fated for great success."
"Ahaha!"
Even hearing the abuse, the merchant laughed. Interpreted, those words meant he was not a thug like the bandits. That alone was already pleasing.
"Just wait and see, my lord. Within five years—no, within two—I will become a great merchant caravan in my own way. Then I will be your strength."
"Save it. I'll see you protected as far as the next city. Until then, just get me a bed."
"...Heh heh. Understood. Ah, come to think of it, you said you were looking for a high priest?"
"When did you hear that?"
Over the meal he had mentioned the next destination in passing to the maid, and it seemed the man had heard every word. Judging by that habit of always keeping an ear cocked and gathering information, he didn't seem like a merchant without ability.
"To be precise, I'm not looking for a high priest. I need a priest's wisdom."
"And so you seek a high priest. Among high priests there are many who rival sages, so I understand. ...But as you know, high priests have grown scarce of late. Because of the incident the other day, no doubt."
"Yeah..."
Of all times to have business with a high priest, seeing one had become difficult. Ordinary priests were already in short supply because of the Temple's corruption; a high priest would be harder still.
"No. It isn't difficult."
"Hm?"
"If what you needed was mighty Holy Power, I couldn't say. But fortunately, if it's a priest's knowledge you need, I happen to know just the person. Not quite a high priest, but a priest who has accumulated learning to match a sage."
"......"
"If I have been of help to you, my lord, I believe I would be glad."
"...I rather like you."
"Haha. Thank you."
So this was why a man was supposed to do good. Lee Han couldn't hide his smile, and held out his hand.
"Come to think of it, I never asked your name. What is it?"
"I am honored."
Thrilled by Lee Han's manner, as if he were being acknowledged, the merchant shuddered, bowed his head, and extended his hand with infinite courtesy. It was the moment of a handshake—a contract—carrying the wish that their journey together go well.
"Giovanni. Giovanni de Medici. I look forward to your favor, my lord."
"......The name."
"Yes?"
"Nothing. It's a good name."
"?"
"Don't change the surname. That one's gonna hit big."
"???"