Chapter 61: The Elf's Joke
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 61: The Elf's Joke
Encrid piled the corpses in one spot and waited for the patrol.
"This is a chore in itself," he muttered, tending to the half-elf’s body.
As he reached down to move the assassin, his fingertips brushed against something unusual near the chest. He traced the sensation with his fingers, feeling it extend down toward the flank.
Peeling back the vest, he found a sheath for throwing daggers strapped to the torso. Inside were four remaining whistling daggers. These were no ordinary weapons.
I almost forgot.
They were high-quality tools. More importantly, he had just learned the technique to throw them. Keeping them would undoubtedly prove useful; after all, he had experienced the sheer lethality of the whistling daggers firsthand.
He took the entire sheath. While he was at it, he thoroughly searched the other bodies, pocketing some crona and miscellaneous items. Aside from the whistling daggers, he found a strange powder and a leather pouch filled with unknown contents.
A pungent odor wafted from the pouch, warning him not to handle it carelessly. If it contained a contact poison, he wouldn't be able to find an antidote in time. Besides, he had always detested using poison; it was a burdensome thing to carry in more ways than one.
Encrid left the poison pouch where it lay.
Naturally, the patrolmen who eventually found Encrid were utterly horrified. The squad leader—a known troublemaker who had vanished during his shift—had suddenly reappeared with five corpses in tow.
"What in the world is this?!"
Startled, they instinctively leveled their spears at him.
"Spies," Encrid explained briefly. That was all that needed to be said.
"I recognize that one. He claimed to be a peddler's errand boy who arrived four days ago." One of the patrolmen, armed with a crossbow, pointed at one of the dead men.
A peddler—a merchant who traveled light, carrying only what they could shoulder. It was a perfect disguise.
"Didn't you check his identification tag?"
"We did. It was a sophisticated forgery."
A high-quality fake. Was such a thing easy to come by? Unlikely.
Soon, one of the soldiers searching the half-elf's belongings with the tip of his spear grimaced at the sight of the corpse’s split skull.
While Encrid waited off to the side, the 4th Company Commander—the Elf Company Commander—arrived. After examining the dead assassin's gear, she spoke.
"He carried poison. He is indeed an assassin."
It was a conclusion reached not just by the poison, but by the man's lean, conditioned physique.
Encrid calmly recounted the encounter. That was it. Though the patrolmen watched him with suspicious eyes while they waited, the misunderstanding didn't last long.
"You took down five? One of them looks like he was quite the fighter."
"These three are Jack, Bo, and Rotten," one of the patrolmen chimed in, recognizing the faces. Jack was skilled with a spear, Bo was agile, and Rotten was considered highly capable even among the veteran soldiers.
Three trained soldiers, a half-elf assassin, and a crossbowman. He had faced them all at once and emerged without a single major injury. A few scratches were the only proof of the struggle.
"...All by yourself?" the patrolman asked, completely forgetting the presence of the company commander beside him. He was that shocked.
"Somehow."
Encrid replied and glanced at the commander. The Elf Company Commander said nothing, her expression unreadable. She merely stared at Encrid with her usual jewel-like green eyes.
"Understood. Return to your post."
"Yes, ma'am."
He saluted and turned to leave. As he did, the Elf Company Commander spoke again.
"Since you abandoned your post, you must make up for the lost time later."
Sharp as a blade. To bring up a disciplinary infraction in a situation like this...
The three patrolmen exchanged awkward glances. Encrid, however, simply nodded.
"Yes, I understand."
The company commander was his superior. Arguing would be a waste of breath. There were those who adhered to military law and regulations to a terrifying degree. The Elf Company Commander didn't seem like the type, but... if she said so, it was a subordinate's duty to obey. There was nothing to gain from being stubborn.
"Well then."
With that, Encrid strode away from the scene.
*
Two days later, two members of the Border Guard came to see Encrid again. Since internal audits within the territory fell under their jurisdiction, they had come to conduct a formal field investigation. Encrid cooperated fully.
"They attacked without warning."
"Did you abandon your post because you knew something was coming?"
"No. Their behavior was suspicious, but I simply wanted to get some fresh air."
"So abandoning your post just happened to lead to exposing spies? These two look like they were killed with a single strike."
"They tried to kill me out of nowhere."
"And yet you subdued them without a single scratch?"
The guards' questions were sharper than expected, but Encrid remained calm. It was only natural, as he was the sole survivor of the encounter.
"Yes, I was lucky."
"If you're lucky twice, you could topple a fortress wall. It just means there was that much of a gap in skill."
One of them made a dry joke. Neither of them spoke out of genuine suspicion; suspecting the victim of an ambush would be ridiculous. Above all, it helped that the Border Guard had already thoroughly vetted Encrid's background back when they had tried to recruit him.
"Good work."
"I heard you were promoted to Senior Soldier? Congratulations."
"Thank you."
Both of them outranked him. That was simply how the hierarchy in the Border Guard worked.
"Are you really not planning on joining us? It's a waste of your skills," the short-haired guard asked as they prepared to leave.
"No."
His blunt, razor-sharp refusal cut off any further conversation.
"Uh, right. Suit yourself."
Encrid returned to his quarters. As he opened the door, something suddenly swooped down toward his right shoulder. Instinctively, Encrid twisted his body to the side. He lowered his stance and rolled; because he had barely dodged in time, a few strands of his hair were sliced clean off.
He looked up to see what had just attacked him.
"Oh, you passed the ambush test!"
He saw Rem grinning. The culprit was the axe Rem had just swung.
"Rem, you crazy bastard."
The curse came naturally. Encrid's severed hair fluttered to the floor. A fraction of a second later, and he would have had a bloody "tattoo" carved into his neck by that axe blade.
"Don't worry. Even if you couldn't dodge, I was only planning to trim your hair."
"I won't even bother arguing."
There were many lunatics in the world, but some of the most deranged were in his own squad. Having realized this long ago, Encrid didn't even feel angry anymore.
"Since assassins are coming after you, shouldn't you learn how to handle an ambush?"
"Nice excuse." Encrid shook his head.
"It looks like it's about time you got a haircut anyway, isn't it?" Rem said, swaggering over.
Indeed, it was time for a trim. His bangs had begun to obscure his vision. When he was fighting the half-elf, he had been in a state of hyper-focus, so he hadn't noticed. But now, it had become an annoyance.
"I'll leave it to you, then," Encrid said.
But it wasn't Rem who stepped forward. Krais approached from behind.
"I've got this."
Krais was surprisingly dexterous. While the other guys could handle swords and axes flawlessly, asking them to cut hair usually resulted in a monstrosity.
"I'll cut your bangs short and trim the rest nicely."
A short dagger, scissors, and a horn comb were Krais's tools.
"That'll be ten copper coins."
"It's gotten expensive."
"My skills have improved. If you don't like the price, you can go to the territory's barbershop."
He didn't want to do that. The barbershop in the territory was overpriced, and the barber there was even less skilled than Rem. There was no reason to pay twice as much for a worse job. In fact, the territory's barbershop was better at treating wounds than cutting hair, so it had become a place for the injured rather than those looking for a trim.
"Alright, here we go."
Snip, snip.
The sound of the blades reached his ears. He sat on a chair he had pulled out right in front of the barracks entrance. Before he knew it, white flakes began to drift down from the sky.
Rem, watching from the side, grumbled.
"Damn devil's dung."
Once the snow fell, they would be busy clearing the training grounds and drainage ditches. That was a chore shared by everyone. It was labor that neither Rem nor Ragna could escape. If they didn't clear the snow, a mountain of headaches would pile up.
"I hate this," Ragna said, stepping out with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.
"It certainly is cold," Sachsen agreed, standing beside him.
"No matter how much one warms their body, this kind of cold is always a trial, brother," Audin added as he joined them.
Encrid wondered why everyone was coming out to watch. Usually, it felt a bit warmer when it snowed, but today the temperature had plummeted. Sitting outside, his lips were already turning blue.
"Ugh, my hands are shaking. If I slip, I might cut your ear off," Krais muttered.
"I can hear you."
"That's how you know I'm focused."
Krais warmed his hands with a heated stone from time to time as he worked. Watching the falling snow, Encrid’s thoughts returned to the spies.
How did they get in?
The one disguised as a peddler had a forged identification tag. The half-elf had sneaked in through a gap in the perimeter. The Border Guard territory was harder to infiltrate than one might think. Forging a tag was a capital crime. Neither feat was easy.
Above all, it was strange that Jack, Bo, and Rotten had turned.
Where did they say those three were from?
He felt like he had heard it somewhere.
"You know the three who died, right?" Encrid asked.
Krais nodded, then remembered he was behind Encrid and answered aloud. "Yes, I do."
"Do you know their backgrounds?"
"Jack was caught pickpocketing and served his sentence here. Bo... was it the Crime of Insulting Nobility?"
"Sounds like a decent fellow," Rem chimed in at the mention of insulting nobles.
"As if," Encrid scoffed.
Rem ignored him, and Krais continued. "I heard Rotten used to be a guard for some merchant guild."
"Which guild?"
"They said it was a guild that went bankrupt a while ago. What was it called..."
All three had arrived around the same time, about a year ago. True to his reputation as an information broker, Krais knew a lot.
If someone intentionally planted them...
A group that could forge identification tags, knew the territory's secret paths, and was intimately familiar with the criminal underworld. Would such a group be common? Within the Border Guard, there were only a few likely candidates.
If it was the largest among them...
The Thieves' Guild.
It was called a guild, but it was really just a syndicate involved in every crime imaginable. Besides, hadn't there been a massive purge about a year ago? He had heard that story somewhere. When he asked Krais, the man confirmed that such rumors had circulated, but even he couldn't dig up the specifics.
Encrid's gaze shifted to Sachsen.
"Do you know anything about the Thieves' Guild?"
It was an abrupt question. Sachsen stared at Encrid in silence.
"Why are you asking me?"
"Because I think you'd know."
Why else? From throwing daggers to training his senses, Encrid knew how to use his head. Even if he hadn't intended to, he could guess Sachsen's background. A profession related to thievery or assassination—or something very similar.
Sachsen fell silent. Rem was about to say something, but Encrid stopped him with a look. Ragna watched with his usual half-asleep eyes. Audin stood quietly with his hands clasped, waiting for an answer.
Snip, snip.
Krais broke the silence as he finished the trim. "I'd like to know too. You think the assassination attempt started there, squad leader?"
Krais was incredibly quick-witted. Anyone who had experienced the situation would have had their suspicions, especially those who knew how to use their brains. Krais's mind worked fast, and having lived among the lower classes, he knew how the world worked. He believed Encrid's suspicion was reasonable.
Finally, Sachsen spoke. Encrid thought he might demand a price for the information, but he didn't.
"They were purged about a year ago. I don't know anything about what happened after that. All the connections I had were severed."
It's worth looking into, Encrid thought.
"All done," Krais announced.
While his hair was being cut, the snow had begun to fall heavily.
"Ah, I really hate this."
"Me too."
"Agreed."
"Brother, this is a trial sent by God."
"It's coming down in a truly annoying way."
The complaints came from Rem, Ragna, Sachsen, Audin, and Krais, in that order. Encrid watched them and spoke.
"I'm thinking of proposing an operation under my authority as squad leader. Instead of shoveling snow, we head out on a mission."
At those words, five pairs of ears perked up. Five pairs of eyes stared at Encrid like hungry wolves. It seemed they would do absolutely anything as long as it didn't involve a shovel.
"First, I need to get the company commander's permission," Encrid said, brushing the loose hair off his face.
"Go on then!"
"What are you still doing here? Move!"
"Right this way, sir."
Everyone urged him to hurry. Encrid figured it was best to move while the iron was hot. He didn't want to go back inside the barracks and be pestered by their intense gazes. Washing the loose hair off his face with some melted snow, Encrid immediately headed to the commander's quarters.
"You cut your hair. What brings you here? Were you ambushed again?"
Was the mention of an ambush a joke? The commander's words made Encrid hesitate.
"No, ma'am."
"Then?"
"I suspect the Thieves' Guild. I want to investigate."
The Elf Company Commander stood with her hands clasped behind her back, watching the snow fall through the window.
"Which means?"
"I would like to initiate an operation at my own discretion."
"Hmm."
She continued to look out the window for a moment before asking, "It wouldn't happen to be because you don't want to shovel snow, would it?"
"Of course not."
It was half-true, but since the other half was also true, his conscience remained clear.
"Very well." The Elf Company Commander gave her permission. "But you must be careful. The criminal guilds in this territory are very good at currying favor with those above."
She pointed her index finger toward the ceiling. Although the military territory was governed by a battalion commander, he wasn't the only authority. There were also several nobles dispatched by the state to handle administrative affairs. They were the true power figures of the Border Guard.
"It won't go well for you if you get on their bad side."
Hearing politics come out of an elf's mouth felt incredibly surreal, but Encrid accepted the advice.
"Understood."
"When you leave, make sure to steer clear of the torch stand. This is my room, and it would be troublesome if you set it on fire."
A short torch stand sat in the corner, keeping the air warm.
"Yes, I'll be careful."
Even as he replied, Encrid thought he would never quite get used to the elf's sense of humor.