Chapter 565: The Field Where the Holy Mother Stayed
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 565: The Field Where the Holy Mother Stayed
“A child who has entered my land is crying; there is no reason not to save them.”
That was the justification provided in Krang’s letter.
To be more precise, it meant he simply could not turn a blind eye to an injustice occurring right before his eyes. As proof of this conviction, Krang never tolerated the rise of bandits anywhere within the kingdom’s territory.
Of course, there were those who resorted to banditry because they struggled to make a living. There were surely those forced into such a life by the hand of a tyrannical lord. But such people were few and far between.
In fact, it was more accurate to say they barely existed at all.
Living as a bandit in a land crawling with monsters and demonic beasts was impossible unless one was exceptionally confident in their own skills. Therefore, choosing to work as a criminal rather than a mercenary or a guard in modern-day Naurilia meant one thing: they did it because they preferred stealing and plundering.
It wasn't as if high-ranking nobles used underhanded tricks like backing bandit groups to invade rival territories anymore, either.
“I’ll just become a bandit or a highwayman and plunder my way through life!”
Saying such a thing was equivalent to praying with all one's heart: I want to die, so please hurry up and chop off my head.
In reality, if Krang caught even a whiff of bandit activity, he would mobilize the troops of the royal demesne to crush them. If that wasn't enough, he would even dispatch the Capital Security Force. As a result, highwaymen and bandit groups roaming the vast lands of the kingdom had become a rare sight. All that remained were the criminal guilds parasitizing the cities.
Even then, if those bastards were caught in human trafficking, they were executed. No excuse or bribe could save them.
And yet, someone had kidnapped a child and crossed into Naurilia? Could they really let such a bastard slide?
It felt as if Krang was asking Encrid that very question.
“Agreed.”
Encrid readily decided to follow Krang’s will. That had been his initial reason for taking on this task. In truth, that was all there was to it—the guests from the Empire and the great nations had already faded from Encrid’s mind—and Audin’s past was merely layered on top of it.
He had been motivated from the start, but now that motivation had hardened into active determination. Encrid extended the train of thought he had been harboring throughout the journey.
Everything begins with a question.
What is needed to swing a sword properly?
A certain level of physical strength. So, he had built up his strength first. He asked the question, found the answer, and acted. It was the same now. To resolve the matter, Encrid posed a question.
Where should we start?
It wasn't as if this was his first time doing something like this.
It's been a while since I did bounty hunter work.
They were pursuing a kidnapper, but in truth, it wasn't much different from hunting a criminal with a bounty on their head. Once a situation reached the point of a chase, the two were practically identical.
Did they have to move while avoiding the public eye? Yes.
Should no one recognize them? Yes.
Did they have to run if they met suspicious glances or if their intuition flared? Yes.
Did they have to eliminate all witnesses and move on if things went south? Yes.
See? It was exactly the same. Encrid just had to approach this task with that mindset.
“So, what I’m thinking is... Hm.”
Encrid stopped mid-sentence and looked back at Audin and Sinar. Since they might have better ideas than him, it was only right to gather his companions’ opinions.
“If you have any thoughts, feel free to speak. We don’t know who the kidnapper is, nor do we know what the Saintess looks like. It’s the worst possible condition for a pursuit, but if you have any ideas, let me know.”
Audin answered first.
“I am waiting for the Lord Father to guide us.”
He spoke with his hands clasped together, wearing a gentle smile in a prayerful posture. There was no need to ponder the meaning behind those words.
He’s telling me to handle it myself.
Encrid accepted it immediately. Having heard a part of Audin’s past, Encrid now knew the truth. Audin had experience catching heretics, but he had never traversed the continent tracking a single target. His heretic hunting had consisted entirely of finding bastards hiding in the corners of cities. His main duty had been to locate them and interrogate them to confirm their heresy.
In other words, while he might be a master of beating people up, he could hardly be considered a master of tracking or hunting.
“And if there’s no revelation, we just leave it?” Encrid asked once more, just in case. It was always better to be sure.
“Do we not have you, Brother Captain?”
Audin was brutally honest. In a way, he was an even more easygoing bastard than Ragna. To lay bare his past, put on a solemn air, and then dump all the actual work on Encrid... If he were lazy, Encrid could at least curse him out, but the man still prayed, trained, and did everything he was supposed to do while saying those things.
He seemed faithful to his own words about waiting for the right time. One could still glimpse his resolve to be the very first to step forward when that time truly came. In that resolve, there was a fleeting glimpse of a detachment that transcended worldly matters.
Just as his good-natured smile couldn't shrink his massive frame—which often got him mistaken for a bear beastman—a heavy heart still lay beneath his easygoing attitude. No one knew how this would end. It might end uneventfully with them beating up a single kidnapper, or there might be no need for him to step forward at all.
But if something did happen, Audin would do whatever it took for what he believed in, without weighing profit and loss. That was the kind of man he was.
Encrid accepted it with a nod and turned his gaze to Sinar.
“Are you asking me?” she asked, her voice completely devoid of laughter.
The autumn sunlight was pleasantly warm, the wind was cool, and the wildflowers blooming on the ground caught the eye. Even as Sinar walked while looking at those flowers, she felt Encrid’s gaze. Her highly developed five senses allowed her to feel his eyes on her even without looking back.
When it came to tracking and pursuing people, she was better than Audin. Far better.
“If it’s just a matter of finding traces, pursuing them wouldn't be difficult.”
Not all elves were swift and skilled in tracking, but Sinar was. The problem was that she had never thought about the process leading up to finding those traces. While Sinar was an excellent asset for short-term pursuits, she had no talent for long-term tracking, which began with estimating a target’s location.
After all, one had to know where to start chasing. If he could tell her to find traces starting from a specific forest, she would be a master of the hunt, but in their current situation, that skill was of little use.
Exactly as expected.
To be honest, he hadn't expected anything, so he wasn't disappointed. Encrid remained calm. If there was any saving grace, it was that he himself had handled this kind of work quite a bit.
Sinar looked at the wildflowers, mentioning their language and noting that they held nectar, while Audin remarked that butterflies and bees would fly day and night for that sweetness. In short, both of them had completely tuned out the mission and were just making small talk.
The surprising part was that Audin and Sinar seemed to connect on some level.
“It seems you do not desire the nectar,” Sinar said.
Encrid had been casually watching the two while racking his brain, but the content of their conversation lingered in his mind like a brand seared with fire.
“The nectar belongs to the butterflies and the bees. If a passing bear beastman tries to claim it, nothing will be left.”
“Bears eat wild honey from tree hollows rather than the nectar of wildflowers.”
Among those with faith, there was a type of dialogue occasionally exchanged called a 'koan.' It was a conversation used to seek truth; to the uninitiated, it sounded like nonsense, but to those searching for meaning, it brought enlightenment.
Encrid viewed their conversation as something close to a koan. Sinar was the one who started it, and Sinar was the one leading it. It was a rare sight. An elf who could easily rival Ragna when it came to apathy toward others' affairs was now trying to impart some kind of teaching to Audin. The Sinar who cracked elven jokes and the Sinar of now felt like two completely different people.
Amidst the blowing wind, a field of Holy Gold in full bloom came into view. Under a cloudless sky, the orange sunset seemed to settle upon the earth, carrying a brilliant warmth. The field of the Holy Mother’s flowers, literally blooming in abundance and filling their vision, was the very path they walked. Though there were occasional patches gnawed away by demonic beasts or wild animals, it was a beautiful view.
The nearby townspeople called this place the Field Where the Holy Mother Stayed. Standing amidst it, the two looked like a painting. One of the figures in the painting spoke while keeping his feet moving.
“Indeed. Bears eat the honey hidden between the trees.”
Audin stopped mid-sentence and looked at the flower field. His pupils seemed slightly unfocused, yet he did not stop walking. He seemed to be deep in thought as he muttered once more.
“If there is one who desires honey, give them that honey.”
It was likely a passage from the holy scriptures. His tone suggested as much.
“If there is one who monopolizes the honey, they are stained with evil; therefore, severely chastise that greedy one and send them to the side of God.”
'Going to the side of God' was synonymous with death. It meant to strike down and kill anyone who hoarded the "honey."
They say three years as a noble’s servant naturally instills table manners. Encrid was in exactly that position. Having heard Audin’s loud, passionate prayers so many times, he could roughly understand what the man meant.
“But that must be done by one who is qualified,” Audin spoke like an emotionless doll, completely devoid of feeling, and then fell silent.
Sinar probably hadn't spoken out of any sense of responsibility. She didn't care about Audin’s reaction. She simply let it slide without questioning it. Instead, looking at the flower field, she said:
“My fiancé, that flower field looks like a bed prepared for us.”
She had merely thrown out another elven joke.
“Go ahead and get some sleep then,” Encrid replied dryly, returning to his thoughts.
Pondering Audin’s state of mind wouldn't yield any answers anyway. He just needed to do what had to be done. He continued his thoughts as he walked, looking at the flower field.
The most important thing is information.
Yes, information. Where the target was, what state they were in, what they looked like. The request had come, but the pursuer from the Theocracy had not provided any such details. Well, that was understandable. To be honest, those people probably hadn't made the request out of a genuine desire for help anyway.
Then, how should they acquire information? The solution he devised was based partly on his own experience, but it also incorporated Krais’s opinion. It was something he had discussed with Krais right before leaving.
“I gathered some rumors through the Gilpin Guild. Do you remember that town we visited before? The one where you told me to put a sword to the throat of the village chief? The village that said they'd name their castle wall after you, Captain?”
Because he had repeated 'today' so many times, it felt like the distant past, but it was hard to forget. How could he forget a Gnoll Colony created by cultists?
“What about that village?”
“They say the kidnapper headed toward that village.”
Their first destination after leaving the Border Guard had been decided. However, Encrid still didn't know the appearance or even the age of the kidnapper or the Saintess. But did that mean there was no way? No.
Since he didn't know the target, he could just follow the ones doing the chasing. This was the first thing he had learned from a senior hunter when he worked as a bounty hunter.
“Hey, where do small-timers like us get information? Do you have Krona to burn on an information guild? Cut out all that half-baked nonsense and just memorize what the famous guys look like instead. And if you spot one of them? You just tail them.”
It was a revolutionary tracking method, so to speak. A target coveted by everyone always had pursuers attached to them. What if they hid perfectly? You don't chase those kinds of bastards in the first place.
“And if you chase them alone, do you even have the confidence to catch them?”
How skilled would someone be if they were being chased with a bounty on their head? Could someone who couldn't fight make their way through a place where bandits, monsters, and demonic beasts held hands and played nice? No. It was only natural. Therefore, anyone with a bounty on their head was highly likely to be a formidable expert.
“What we eat are the crumbs. If you want to live long, stick to the hunter's ironclad rules.”
There was such a teaching. Well, Encrid had never kept the hunter's rules, nor did he have any intention of doing so, but they went something like this:
Do not risk your life to hunt.
If you cannot win alone, work with companions.
Even if you see them bleeding profusely, fire a crossbow or throw a dagger first.
The rules were full of similar advice. The first senior hunter he met had been a decent person. The bastard he met after that, however, had no rules whatsoever, pushing Encrid forward to go first and promising seventy percent of the bounty if they caught the target.
That guy was a piece of trash who didn't know the first thing about tracking, relied solely on brawling, and constantly betrayed others. It had been a lie, of course. It was obvious the bastard intended to kill him the moment he stepped forward and got hurt.
“Sorry, sorry, I was in a bit of a hurry.”
Indeed, when Encrid actually got hurt, the bastard had muttered those words while pointing a dagger at him.
Encrid decided to put what he had learned back then to use. Since he didn't know the target of the pursuit, he would pursue the pursuers.