Encounter
Encounter
The mornings of the bandits tended to be slow.
It wasn't so much because they stayed up all night drinking and carousing in a life of debauchery, matching the common prejudice people had. It was more that, with a clear sponsor backing them, they lacked any real desperation when it came to making a living.
A decent village offering decent entertainment, a superb informant who enabled stable plundering, and hefty profits to boot. Occasionally, they had to go on expeditions far away to kidnap people according to their sponsor's conditions, but compared to the comfort they usually enjoyed, that much was easy enough to endure.
"Yaaawn. Can't seem to wake up."
"Sure it's not just the cold making you sleepy?"
"Ah, shit. Maybe that's it?"
The bandits on watch and guard duty at the hideout were the same.
When there was no work, the number of idle hands increased and everyone kept getting lazier, to the point that posting four or five men on watch at once had become routine. And because they'd recently scored big, even though the sun was well on its way toward high noon, they couldn't easily shake off their drowsiness and lethargy. Eventually, one bandit who couldn't take it anymore pulled out a pipe, and another bandit wrinkled his nose at him.
"Hey. Smoke that later. If the boss sees you, he'll throw a fit."
"The boss drank himself into a stupor last night. Probably won't get up 'til well past lunch, yeah?"
"For real? Then I'm smoking too."
"Dammit. I didn't bring mine on purpose. Anyone got a cigarette?"
The forest was dense, but their base was a spot made by roughly renovating the ruins of an old fortress. The area around the base was spotless, practically devoid of anything that could spread into a forest fire.
But their boss, who had bad memories of a fire from childhood, was extremely wary and pathologically hated anyone smoking on duty or just anywhere.
"Honestly, our boss is impossible. Going just by his looks, you'd think he bathes in bonfires."
"Hahaha! Ain't that the truth."
"What was it he said recently? Something about how when five beacon fires rise, death descends—said he got a revelation from some fortune teller, so he won't let anyone light more than five campfires, period."
"I mean, how can a guy that sharp believe in superstitions so damn well? So does that mean the cigarettes we're smoking right now count as beacon fires too, and death's about to descend on us?"
"That's fucking hilarious, for real."
That didn't mean they were dissatisfied with their boss, though. It was never easy to stay mad at the man who'd played a pivotal role in either rallying or scattering every bandit in the surrounding area.
Still, when they were absolutely certain he couldn't wake up, a little deviance like smoking wherever they pleased was doable. About ten minutes passed while they chattered noisily, using the tobacco to pull themselves alert.
"Huh? Hey. Something's coming."
Two strangers began approaching from the far side of the entrance they'd been guarding. A tall man and what looked to be a woman walked toward where they were with utter nonchalance, and the apparent man was even waving his hand cheerfully. The five bandits had no choice but to put their heads together in confusion.
"Did anyone say someone was coming?"
"I didn't hear anything."
"The boss isn't the type to forget stuff like this...?"
He was a man who'd gotten this far by being cautious above all else. Even if he had a tendency to get so excessive he blindly believed in superstitions, their boss was so meticulous he'd fit right into an actual army, not a bandit group. He wasn't someone who'd forget a visitor was coming and drink himself into a stupor.
Normally, the moment that thought crossed their minds, they would have threatened the unknown outsiders, but...
"Whoa, look at all that cigarette smoke. What, are you smoking out raccoons or something?"
The approaching man... shouted at the top of his lungs, so cheerful and friendly as he came near. A massive frame that was nothing if not threatening at a glance treated them so warmly that the bandits couldn't even bring themselves to act tough and cautiously tossed out a question instead.
"Who are you?!"
"Who else? Hunters, that's who! You got other folks coming here besides us? That'd change the story a little."
In an instant, all five snapped to full alertness. They were the ones who regularly threw work their way and came by. They'd never once come on foot before, let alone with just two people, so it hadn't even occurred to them.
"N-no way! It's just that, unlike usual, there's only two of you, and on foot at that, so we only thought someone had gotten the wrong idea!"
"Right? We've kept up such a good relationship for so long, I'd have been pissed for a second thinking you'd stabbed us in the back! Don't scare me like that, friends!"
He laughed heartily, but the bandits could feel beyond a doubt that the man's mood had soured for a moment there.
"Fuck. That nearly went to shit. That guy doesn't look like some nobody."
"What do we do? Shouldn't someone go wake the boss?"
"Ah, shit, if we bolt in now, he's just gonna think it's weird. Let's just explain. He's the one who showed up out of the blue, anyway."
It clearly wasn't the regular transaction date, so no matter how much sway the other side held, they couldn't very well complain about them relaxing comfortably. With that certainty, the bandit who was playing the role of squad leader raised his voice.
"W-well, what business brings you here? I understood it wasn't yet time for you to come."
"That's talk for your boss, isn't it? He's here, right?"
"W-well, he is here... but he drank quite heavily and..."
"So you're saying he's still passed out sleeping. So what? It's not the army. I'm in no position to bitch about your boss getting some good rest when there's no work, am I?"
Contrary to his threatening physique, the man was quite reasonable. At his dismissive reaction, the bandits let out sighs of relief, but they also began to feel the pressure of the man's size growing ever larger as he drew nearer.
And so, by the time the two of them arrived at the fortress, the bandits were completely cowed by the giant of a man who looked a head and a half taller than them, without a spare moment to even notice the beauty beside him.
The man, wearing an earring on one ear that gleamed the same shade as the hair of the beautiful woman beside him, swept his gaze over them once before baring his teeth in a grin.
"That said, I'm not in a position to wait around either 'til you go wake your boss. Where is he?"
"Ah, further inside..."
"Just like it's your first time seeing me, it's my first time here too. How am I supposed to know where 'inside' is? Someone mind guiding me?"
"I-I'll guide you."
Normally, they'd thought the squad leader post was nothing special, but for him to step up so readily. The bandits looked at their squad leader with somewhat new eyes as they watched the slave hunters follow him inside.
"What the hell do you have to eat to get a build like that?"
"Maybe it's not about eating, maybe it's something else?"
"More importantly, did you see the beauty next to him? She was no joke."
"You crazy bastard. You had time to notice that when she might be that slave hunter's lover and could get your eyeballs ripped out?"
The bandit, who'd brought up the woman on his own only to be treated like a lunatic no one wanted anything to do with, dejectedly resumed his watch.
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"I can't believe it. We got in that easily...?"
"I told you. Acting brazen works surprisingly well."
I smiled and whispered back to Asilie, who was muttering in disbelief.
The decision I'd made the moment I saw the bandits' hideout, which looked to hold well over thirty men at a rough glance, had worked perfectly.
Even in modern armies, stupid shit like 'Uh, it's the battalion commander.'—some fraudster pulling a 'trust me, it's me' bluff and getting through the guard post, happened all the time. You think bandits are gonna be any different? Hell, I'd even confirmed the rough details through documents, making it a surefire con. No need to force my way in the hard way.
Asilie and I casually scanned our surroundings, meticulously cataloguing the positions and actions of every visible bandit.
"Their gear's pretty decent, huh?"
"W-well, of course. To fulfill our commissions, we always maintain our equipment in top condition."
The guiding bandit had fully accepted me as a slave hunter and began touting their diligence. That wasn't entirely empty talk either—for bandits, their scale was certainly large, and they even maintained something akin to military discipline.
Just the ones I'd spotted on the way to the so-called boss easily numbered over twenty, and the hideout they seemed to have renovated from ruins gave the feeling that there were more areas beyond my sight.
"Didn't you say you were twenty men? Seems like there's more than that?"
"Pardon? We always maintain thirty men, though..."
"Yeah? Maybe I misread. I'm a bit weak with numbers."
"Oh, sure. That can happen. Sometimes when I'm buying something in the village, I miscount by a coin or two myself."
Heh-heh-heh. A world where bandit bastards can sneak into a village and buy goods. The end is nigh, truly nigh.
The bastard, who had no way of knowing my thoughts, must've taken it as shared laughter born of camaraderie, and flashed a jovial grin along with me. Continuing my investigation disguised as conversation, we stopped in front of a two-story structure that was barely holding onto a form you could call a tower, and the bastard halted his steps.
"The boss is upstairs. He doesn't like having us around when discussing business-related matters, so I'll take my leave here."
"You must be busy, thanks. Catch you later."
As I smiled and waved at the guy bowing his head in a polite nod before turning back to his guard post, Asilie looked at me with a subtle expression and spoke.
"Seriously, how can you be this damn smooth?"
"Smooth? That's strategy befitting a civilized warrior."
"That answer is exactly what I mean by smooth."
Asilie shook her head side to side, but since we'd gotten in so easily there was no point in waiting around any longer. I gleefully bounded up the tower, and upon reaching the second floor, I drew my longsword and kicked the sole wooden door with all my strength.
—Bang!
"Gah?! W-what? What is it?"
"It's me!"
The wooden door, none too sturdy to begin with, shattered into splinters and turned to firewood with a crash. Startled, the bastard bolted upright in bed, his eyes still heavy with sleep as he looked around. His gaze quickly fixed on me, but the alcohol clearly hadn't worn off either, since he just stood there with a dumb, dazed expression.
"What? Who the hell are you?"
"Death!"
I swung my longsword with all my strength straight for the bastard's neck.