Horse Thief (2)
Though I'd unintentionally bruised Selene's pride, the situation resolved without much misunderstanding. I asked her about the mystery of this request.
"Strangely enough, there was no stream or anything in the middle, but the horse and thief's footprints just vanished at one point. As if they'd flown away or evaporated. Can you track something like that?"
"I can't guarantee it, but if those who searched before missed even a little something, it might be possible."
Selene explained that while humans might overlook it, she could track if even the smallest trace remained. With her consent secured, I headed back to the guild to draw up the request contract. That's when I heard a new detail.
"By the way, after you left, the conditions changed a bit."
"The conditions changed?"
"Oh, no worries. It's for the better. Since no one's been taking the request, the lord's providing two knights under his command, plus horses. And no cut to the reward."
Selene and I alone had felt a bit precarious for the job, and I didn't want to work with other mercenaries anyway. Right on cue, we were getting two combat experts—knights. Sure, their higher status might make them prickly, but the security of their martial prowess outweighed that.
Even if they get uppity, knightly honor won't let it get too bad... This is a total steal.
Meanwhile, at the same time, Baron Noden of Iron Valley addressed the two knights standing before him.
"Just got word from the guild... Someone's finally taken the request."
"...""
Despite the good news of the contract being signed, the knights remained silent amid the baron's utterly gloomy tone. Soon enough, they realized their silence was justified.
"It's been a whole week since Maximus was stolen. No ransom demand, no other news in all this time..."
Bam! The baron slammed his fist on the desk, trembling with rage from his dark imaginings. The two knights watched in stoic understanding—they had every reason to.
The stolen horse, Maximus, was magnificent enough to tempt even them, and it was a prized steed worth nearly 300 gold.
"If you find Maximus, bring him back safe. But if he's already hurt or dead... Kill every last filthy criminal. No distinction between man, woman, or child."
The next morning, we left the inn, stabled the carriage first, and I headed alone to the smithy district to pick up my ordered gear. There, I got Carlson's final adjustments and donned the new chain mail, layering on leather breastplate, spaulders, bracers, and greaves covering shins and the tops of my feet.
The boosted defense came with noticeable weight, but my increased stats from the blessing offset the burden. As I finished and stepped back, Carlson eyed me regretfully.
"Definitely... adding a cuirass would make it way more stable. Cuisses and faulds would be perfect."
It wasn't a sales pitch— it was the lament of a craftsman chasing perfection. Sensing that, I brushed it off with a bit of banter and left the smithy.
"Next time I make more money, I'll come back for those."
"You do that. Come back alive, and I'll give you a special 15% discount."
Clearly taking me as a regular now, Carlson had been offering discounts since yesterday. I nodded to him, left the smithy district, and headed back to the stables—where Selene and Kell waited, and where we'd meet the knights.
I linked up with Selene, who was playing with Kell using foxtail grass. About five minutes into waiting for the knights and trying to chat—maybe because I'm hopeless at romance, our talk never went beyond three exchanges—Selene let out a small sigh and turned to me.
"Hoo... Our speech is kinda stiff, so maybe we should drop the formalities firs—"
"You're Eugene, right?"
A thick male voice cut in just as Selene was about to make some big declaration. I turned toward the voice calling my name and saw two men mounted on massive warhorses.
Unlike my shoulder and shin plates, these two knights were clad head to toe in full plate armor.
...An hour after the two knights—who rode horses provided by Baron Noden—headed east. The sun had passed its zenith and begun its descent.
The knights and their squires up front started slowing.
"Whoa, whoa..."
They came to a full stop in a clearing with faint traces of a campfire. Selene and I dismounted to match them. Sir William, who'd introduced himself earlier, recapped the incident and led us to where the trail had ended.
"Right here. This is where the baron's horse Maximus and the thief's footprints vanished without a trace."
As the guild clerk had said yesterday: in an ordinary field with no stream or broad rocks to hinder tracking, the trail just cut off. Even that was so faint after a week that it was barely discernible.
Even Selene might struggle with this.
A pessimistic thought surfaced just as Selene crouched low, inspecting the last footprint, and called out in surprise.
"Found it!"
She pointed to what looked like bumpy, featureless dirt. We knights and I strained our eyes at her claim, but to human vision, there was no trace at all.
Confusion clouded our faces—
"Hmm... They turned sharply here..."
Selene veered right at a 90-degree angle and began moving slowly.
We left the four squires at the clearing with the horses and began the real tracking. Selene focused on minute traces invisible to human eyes, advancing slowly as we followed quietly—about twenty minutes in.
The landscape had shifted from fields to dense woods. Selene halted abruptly, signaling stop, and pointed ahead while whispering.
"Village... more like a refugee camp."
"Refugee camp... Good work. We'll take it from here. You two head back, send our squires and horses here, and wait at the clearing."
The camp lay at the end of not just Maximus's tracks but several other horses'. As Sir William ordered us back, eyeing the place, I realized Baron Noden's intent in assigning two "human weapons" like these knights.
This goes beyond punishment—it's extermination.
"We tied cloth to branches along the way—follow those."
"Thanks."
I relayed Sir William's instructions to the squires, showed them the path, and watched the brigandine-clad knights vanish into the woods. About three minutes later, I turned back toward the forest, ignoring Selene and Kell's slightly worried looks.
I didn't want to miss any chance to tip Fate's Scale.