Chapter 591: Lawless City
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 591: Lawless City
"A cult?"
When Encrid asked the question nonchalantly, the one-eyed man’s brow furrowed in confusion.
"What the hell are you talking about?"
So, they weren't cultists. It didn't seem like it, anyway. If they were, they wouldn't have acted this sloppily. Besides, Krais had mentioned that any cultist handling matters of importance would surely recognize him.
"Think about it. If someone keeps stepping in to ruin your plans, it’s only natural to find out who they are. It would be stranger if they didn't try to assassinate you."
Those had been Krais’s words. Upon closer reflection, there actually had been assassination attempts; these thugs simply weren't aware of them. Sachsen had even been offered a contract on his life. Other attempts had been intercepted or dealt with by Sachsen along the way.
The Apostle of Curses had come for him once before, though the full story behind that encounter remained murky. How could anyone have known that the hideously deformed person who suddenly dropped dead was an Apostle?
Regardless, the cultists were said to grind their teeth at the mere mention of his name. If an attack was only of this caliber, the chances of them being cultists were extremely low. That was Encrid’s conclusion.
"Human trafficking, then?"
When he asked again without even drawing his weapon, the burly men felt the atmosphere shift.
Did we pick the wrong target?
Should we back off?
But they couldn't. Though Encrid didn't know it yet, Cross Guard was rapidly devolving into a lawless city. The mayor and the administrator held little sway, while the thieves' guild and various brotherhoods wielded the real power.
The group currently surrounding Encrid was a gang with the ridiculous name of the Awl Brotherhood—a name meant to signify they would stab anyone who crossed them. They were a criminal guild famous for always avenging their "brothers," but their current problem was that they had no idea who they were facing.
Even though they had seen a rare traveler arrive under the administrator’s guidance, they only had eyes for the krona he carried. Their leader was an absolute idiot; it was a miracle they had survived this long.
"Kill him!"
At the one-eyed man’s command, the thugs drew their sharp, awl-like daggers and rushed forward.
The hallway was narrow, making it a poor environment for drawing or swinging a longsword. Accordingly, they used hand-span-long daggers. At the very least, their teamwork was decent. Instead of rushing in as a disorganized mob, they charged in pairs, advancing simultaneously down the cramped corridor.
But even if there had only been a squire of a knightly order here, these men wouldn't have stood a chance. In fact, a skilled soldier from the Border Guard’s standing army would have been more than enough to handle them.
Encrid didn't even reach for his sword. He simply stepped side to side, his hands blurring as he reached out. His speed was far beyond anything they could react to.
Under the flickering lamplight, shadows surged like a tide to the left and right before abruptly receding. It looked as if an evil spirit made of black soot was devouring the men's shadows. From the perspective of the Awl Brotherhood, that was exactly how it felt.
Encrid grabbed and twisted a wrist at a speed they couldn't track.
Crack!
"Argh!"
A scream erupted instantly. The moment he snapped the wrist, Encrid dislocated the man’s jaw. It was Audin’s specialty—pressing a finger just below the cheek and jerking downward to pop the joint out of place.
"Ugh—aaargh..."
With his jaw hanging uselessly, the pain was clearly indescribable. The man couldn't even scream properly, drool spilling from his mouth as tears welled in his eyes.
The one-eyed man, who had been looking for an opening to strike, froze. Realizing the situation was utterly hopeless, he spun around to flee, but Encrid had no intention of letting him go.
The dagger dropped by the first man was already in Encrid’s hand. He hefted it to gauge the weight and threw it in one fluid motion.
With a sharp thwip, the blade sliced through the air and buried itself in the back of the one-eyed man’s thigh.
"Aaargh!"
Thump, crash!
Mid-flight, the man tumbled down the stairs. Encrid hadn't intended to kill him, but he figured if the man died from the fall, so be it.
The entire sequence concluded before a single breath could be drawn.
The remaining, unharmed thugs froze. Those who had been clumsily trying to thrust with their blades rolled their eyes in sheer panic.
Meanwhile, Luagarne had finished off the two on the roof and made her way down. She had jumped straight outside and was now coming up from the first floor. While she knew Encrid wouldn't let anyone escape, she had moved to intercept anyone trying to flee using tricks like sleeping incense.
Of course, even if they had tried, they wouldn't have escaped. Analyzing the terrain and the situation before a fight was Luagarne’s habit. Encrid had learned that well from her, which was why they had split up in the first place. It was all about cutting off every possible escape route.
Even without words, the two understood each other through intuition.
There were still two men standing unharmed. Though both held daggers, they didn't dare move a muscle.
"Did you kill them?"
Ignoring the men in front of him, Encrid called down. Luagarne replied as she climbed the stairs.
"Yeah. We only need to keep one or two alive, right? The kid doesn't seem to have anything to do with this, but the innkeeper looked like he knew. It seemed like someone threatened him."
Luagarne was incredibly sharp. In the brief moments of the skirmish, she had already read the innkeeper’s face.
Encrid nodded nonchalantly.
Did he turn a blind eye just to survive? That, too, was a form of complicity. If one witnesses a crime and profits from it, they are guilty. If one looked at the world that way, everything was a sin, but he had no intention of pressing the matter. People had to adapt to their environment to survive. For thugs this determined, threatening a mere innkeeper would have been child's play.
"Want to keep going?" Encrid asked in a friendly tone.
The two bandits holding daggers immediately dropped to their knees. To them, these two were monsters. And they weren't wrong. To ordinary people, a Frok and a knight were indeed monsters.
They had relied entirely on their sleeping incense, but since it hadn't worked, this was the natural outcome.
Encrid shrugged and carried the brazier burning the incense outside. "Get another brazier."
"Huh?"
"I said, swap the brazier."
There was no need to change rooms yet. Judging by the atmosphere, moving elsewhere wouldn't make much of a difference. The fact that they had tried something despite seeing the administrator bring them here meant one of two things: either the esteemed administrator was turning a blind eye, or he was the one backing them.
Encrid cut off that train of thought and searched the bandits' pockets, finding a thick coil of rope.
So it was human trafficking.
He figured they would have something to bind people with if they planned to kidnap and sell them. He was right. They hadn't intended to kill. Encrid tied the two bandits' hands and feet and sat them down in front of his door.
"Wake me if anyone comes."
He had essentially created a makeshift bandit doorbell.
"When it's time to sleep, you have to sleep," he said.
Luagarne nodded in agreement. It was an absolute truth that one must rest well when given the chance. And the two of them truly went to sleep.
For the two bandits, the tight ropes were one thing, but they didn't even dare think of escaping. They endured the night, fighting off terror amidst the corpses of their companions. They felt as though those monsters could walk out at any moment and plunge a blade into them.
Only when dawn broke did the source of their terror emerge, untying the ropes.
"Clean it up."
The two bandits thoroughly scrubbed the remnants of the night. Naturally, the bloodstains couldn't be completely erased. The inn already smelled musty, and now a metallic tang of blood hung in the air.
Encrid dragged a backless stool from the room, placed it in the hallway, and sat down. Luagarne rubbed her eyes, wrapped her whip around her waist, and leaned against the wall by the stairs. She had taken a position that allowed her to react to anything.
"Who ordered this?" Encrid asked.
"No one ordered us, sir," one of the bandits said, swallowing hard. "We just target travelers or peddlers when they come by, threaten them for krona, and rob them."
The bandit didn't seem to be lying.
Unluckily, their leader, who had tumbled down the stairs, was dead. But the cause of death was peculiar. He hadn't died from a broken neck; instead, he had died with crumb-like specks appearing in the whites of his eyes.
Even accounting for rigor mortis, the corpse was strangely stiff and heavy. It was as if his body was turning into solid stone—or perhaps his internal organs had petrified. Because the corpse was so heavy, the two burly men had to groan and strain just to carry it away.
Encrid found it bizarre, but he had no one to ask. Luagarne had looked at it too, but she had merely commented that it was strange.
"The administrator brought us here. What were you planning to do about the aftermath?"
When he asked the two "doorbells," they replied that the administrator was a useless nobody, a complete pushover they didn't care about at all. They said the city was already plagued by daily murders due to guild wars, and the administrator was barely keeping his own head on his shoulders.
Internally, Encrid wondered if that was true. He had met the snake-eyed administrator, and the man hadn't seemed like someone who walked on eggshells.
The remaining two bandits added that the truly powerful figure was someone named Wind Blade, and that story sounded more interesting. Apparently, he had killed a famous knight somewhere and was now hiding out here.
The two babbled without pause, neither wanting to cross the Black River with a single slash of a blade. Amidst their frantic chatter, Encrid managed to glean a few useful pieces of information.
The conclusion was that, cultists aside, this city was rotten to the core.
So, what should I do now?
First, I should eat breakfast.
Encrid did exactly as his heart desired. He stood up and ordered a meal.
"Are you really planning to eat here?" the innkeeper asked. He held a large kitchen knife, but he showed no intention of fighting. His face was a mask of anxiety and worry.
"If I don't eat at the inn, where else am I supposed to eat?"
"You could go outside and catch grasshoppers," Luagarne chimed in, but Encrid merely tapped the table.
The innkeeper let out a deep sigh and turned away. Then, the child employee scurried over and whispered, "U-um, you should run away."
"Why?"
A child viewed the world through a child's eyes. For a boy who had never left Cross Guard, what was the most terrifying thing? The people who threatened him daily. Those who were never punished, no matter what they did. To this child, the criminal guilds were the Grim Reaper.
"Scary people are going to come."
The child didn't think Encrid was a bad person. That was why he had summoned the courage to speak, but Encrid didn't even pretend to listen.
The first floor of the inn doubled as a dining hall. Though it was early morning, customers began trickling in. Among them, two men with menacing expressions approached Encrid.
Screeech.
One of the men grabbed the back of a chair, dragged it noisily across the floor, and placed it next to Encrid’s table. He sat straddling the chair, resting his chest against the backrest, and stared intently at Encrid.
"Who the hell are you?"
Encrid turned his gaze and sized up his opponent. The first thing he noticed were the two short swords hanging from the man’s waist. That was his primary armament. Judging by the worn leather wrapped around the hilts, they were weapons he had used for a long time.
Despite sitting in what looked like a relaxed posture, he was ready to draw his swords at any moment. Encrid could tell just by his demeanor.
"A customer waiting for breakfast," Encrid said.
"Not wrong," Luagarne added.
Cross Guard was ruled by three criminal guilds. A lot had happened for the city to end up like this, but in short, a few criminal guilds had suddenly grown too large, and the authorities had failed to control them. There were incidents where the commander of the garrison was killed in a guild war, and rumors circulated that another commander was practically a guild member himself.
As time passed, it had transformed into a lawless city centered around these guilds. Consequently, gambling and drugs ran rampant, and it was common for people to die in their sleep on the streets. Every alleyway reeked, and because waste wasn't managed, filth was scattered everywhere. Naturally, rats swarmed, and disease followed.
The man who had approached Encrid was a member of one of those three guilds.
"Oh, is that so?" The man smirked. He didn't have a friendly face, but to Encrid, he seemed almost amusing.
Despite the relaxed tone, the man was so tense that his toes and fingertips were tightly clenched. His intentions were glaringly obvious.