The Land of Rot and the Priest of Abundance (2)
“These guys?”
At Raul’s words, the burly mercenary captain’s face twisted in irritation as he strode toward him with heavy, stomping steps.
The man was a giant—at least two heads taller than Raul, who was of ordinary height. The moment Raul appeared, the mercenaries who had been harassing Sam and his family all turned their attention to him.
Even so, Raul only swept his gaze slowly from left to right, as calm as ever, taking in the tavern interior.
“Hey, you idiot. You calling the Red Talon Mercenary Company ‘these guys,’ huh? Hah?”
The giant captain thrust out a tree-trunk arm and seized Raul by the collar.
“Country bastards never know anything about manners, do they?”
“Manners?”
Raul reacted as if he’d just heard something absurd, and the captain bared a thin, ugly smile.
“That’s right. Mercenaries who take orders from a noble are practically inheriting that noble’s authority, you know! And you dare refuse our command? You idiot, don’t you see it too? Refusing a noble’s order—consider yourself lucky we’re not killing you, huh?”
With that sneer stretched across his mouth, the captain looked down at Raul as if waiting to see how he would respond to having his collar gripped.
“What order did you give?”
Even then, Raul’s voice didn’t so much as tremble.
His fearless response made the corner of the captain’s mouth rise even higher.
“We asked to borrow his daughter and wife for a bit. I mean, we were only going to use them for a while and then give them back. It’s not like they wear out or anything, right? You idiot, you think so too, don’t you? Huh?”
It was a ludicrous load of bullshit, but the captain shoved a fist right up in front of Raul’s face, clearly expecting a willing agreement.
Raul’s answer, however, went beyond anything he’d expected.
“So you were just a piece of shit.”
Instead of agreeing or getting angry, Raul only looked up at the captain with an expression of pure disgust.
“Huh?”
It took one second for the captain’s voice to turn cold and for the veins in his forearm to begin standing out.
Then he opened his mouth wide and shouted, “See? I knew you were one of those idiots who need a proper education in manners!”
He yanked the hand gripping Raul’s collar upward, then drove a fist straight toward Raul’s solar plexus with not even the slightest hesitation.
At the same time, faint white light gathered at Raul’s fingertips.
Something pure white flew toward the captain’s head faster than the fist he had thrown first.
Whoosh—crack!
In the next instant, something massive was flung aside and slammed into the inn wall.
“Kraaagh!”
The black figure that screamed as it smashed through the wall was, no matter how many times you rubbed your eyes, not Raul but the mercenary captain.
“I may not know much else, but I do know one thing.”
Step, step.
Raul smoothed the wrinkles in his crumpled robe and walked toward the captain.
The stunned mercenaries could only blink, as if they still refused to accept reality.
Standing before the captain, Raul clenched his fist again and said, “The one who needs an education in manners is you.”
Thwack!
“W-wait!”
The mercenary captain belatedly tried to raise a hand, but Raul’s fist did not stop for even an instant.
“Wait my ass.”
Crack! Thud!
“P-please spare me…”
That one-sided beating continued until the captain lost consciousness.
“Anyone else want some?”
Raul turned back with complete nonchalance after turning the man into a lump of blood and pulp.
Every mercenary who met his eyes promptly dropped flat to the floor.
“What a bunch of pathetic thugs. Not even a little guts among them.”
Tsk.
At the sound of Raul clicking his tongue, the mercenaries all flinched at once.
***
“I truly am sorry. I, Rembrandt Michael, shall apologize on behalf of those louts.”
The “knight” who had been put in charge of this gang of lawless mercenaries arrived sometime after midnight.
He wore splendid armor and spoke with polished, lofty diction. The moment he stepped into the inn, Rembrandt had identified Raul as an enemy and immediately drawn his sword.
Given that the captain was a bloodied mess and the other mercenaries were kneeling with both hands raised high over their heads, it was hard to call that a misunderstanding.
Still, true to his knightly devotion to honor, he had bowed his head the instant he heard the full story.
He had apologized.
That aristocrat-born knight who was so proud of his pedigree.
His first impression had been awful, but Raul had at least thought, Well, this guy’s character doesn’t seem all bad.
And it took remarkably little time for him to change his mind.
“By the way, you appear to be quite a capable mage, so you can fill the vacant position left by that captain there.”
That was what the knight said the very moment he raised his head after that sincere-looking apology.
“Vacant position?”
When Raul asked, looking as if he had no idea what the man meant, Knight Rembrandt looked at him with heated eyes and replied, “I’m offering you this because I think highly of your strength. Be grateful and obey.”
What the hell was he talking about?
Raul barely swallowed the curse that had risen to the back of his throat.
“Be grateful for what, exactly?”
“What do you mean? Can’t you see that fellow over there, beaten to a pulp? That man may not know a thing about honor, but his brute strength was decent enough.”
“How is that fool being strong supposed to have anything to do with me?”
“Since you rendered him unable to act, you should take his place.”
Ah.
Only then did Raul understand what Knight Rembrandt was saying.
No, actually, he’d understood from the beginning. He’d just asked again and again because he couldn’t believe anyone was truly serious about saying something like this.
“So after causing this mess, that’s what you’re saying?”
He asked without hiding the disbelief in his voice, and the knight’s answer was even more ridiculous.
“The damaged inn will be compensated in my lord’s name, and I just apologized for their rudeness, did I not?”
“You’re telling me it ends with an apology?” Raul shot back. “If I hadn’t been here, you would’ve been too late. These people would’ve been left with wounds that never heal.”
Raul glanced back and forth between Sam and Rembrandt, both of whom were now flushed red with anger. For the record, Yuna and Sam’s wife were not here.
The mercenaries kneeling over there were still terrifying to them, after all.
They had already inflicted this kind of harm, and they had almost let something far worse happen—yet they were just going to compensate the victims and call it done?
It was a scene that made it impossible not to think of certain powerful people back in Korea.
And yet the knight remained calm as he said, “I sincerely do regret that matter. Have I not already bowed my head?”
“I’m asking if it’s over just because you bowed your head and said sorry.”
Raul had now dropped all pretense of formality.
The other man was a noble, so this might become a hassle, but so what?
If they wanted to start tallying rank and dignity, Raul was a Saint.
And yet Rembrandt, on the contrary, looked at Raul as if he were the unreasonable one.
“When a noble bows his head, that means something. Must I explain even that to you?”
Wow. Incredible.
Raul let out an outright sigh.
These noble bastards really couldn’t communicate at all.
Just when Raul was feeling like he’d swallowed a hundred sweet potatoes, Rembrandt went on, “Let’s set the trifles aside and I’ll tell you the assembly time.”
“What?”
“Tomorrow’s search, man. I already told you: in place of that fellow you beat to pulp. You understand now? Stop dragging this out and listen carefully. Tomorrow morning—”
Raul briefly considered sending this idiot flying too, then forced his rage down with remarkable restraint.
Be rational. Yes, rational.
He steadied himself and first reviewed his current goal in a cool, detached way.
Now that it was more or less certain the First Holy Land lay within elven territory, there was something Raul had to do before making contact with the elves: something he absolutely needed to do in order to “win their favor.”
But to pull that off, I need a fair amount of money.
As things stood, even his immediate travel expenses had run dry.
Maybe this jerk, Rembrandt, really was a good opportunity for Raul, and not just some joke.
“How much is it?”
Raul cut off the knight’s endless nonsense and asked flatly.
Rembrandt once again looked at him as though he were some exasperating barbarian, but soon enough he answered in a composed tone.
“How much, you ask?”
“This request. Since it came out under the lord’s orders, the support budget should be generous, no? If I cooperate, how much comes my way?”
What mattered to Raul was the number.
Anyway, once they reached the next city or the one after that, he planned to refill his pockets at the Adventurer Guild.
But the knight’s answer was so far beyond Raul’s expectations that he almost had to laugh.
“How much comes your way? Are you talking about money?”
“Of course I am. If I’m joining the request, then I’m talking about the payment.”
“Ha. I thought you were a man of honor, since you helped the weak without expecting compensation.”
What exactly is he trying to say?
Raul narrowed his eyes at Rembrandt, who kept circling the point.
Then Rembrandt continued, “There is no payment. Instead, while carrying out this request, the magnanimous lord will cover travel expenses, meals, and lodging.”
At that absurd statement, Raul asked, “Then what do you and those mercenaries get out of it?”
“The honor of standing on the battlefield beside a knight of noble birth such as myself. And the honor of resolving the lord’s difficulties. What do you mean, what do we get? There is no lack of rewards when such brilliant honor is involved.”
Rembrandt looked almost giddy as he spoke, so much so that color had risen to his cheeks.
Raul said, cold-eyed, “I don’t feel even a little sorry, but I’m refusing the cooperation.”
He hadn’t expected to be forced into an exposure-for-experience deal in this world too, so he clicked his tongue. There was a brief argument after that.
In the end, the matter was settled by Rembrandt taking the mercenaries with him to find another place to stay.
Ha.
He felt like he’d sighed more often than usual today.
***
Two days later, Rembrandt and his gang of thugs returned from the forest.
He came back in high spirits, having supposedly hunted down a few strange-looking zombies in the woods, and settled himself into the tavern in Latina Village.
“At this point, the lair of the unruly must as good as be found. To throw away the chance to gain such brilliant honor so easily and with your own hands—will your stomach not ache over it?”
As soon as he saw Raul, Rembrandt said this in an openly mocking tone.
For the record, Raul had not so much as greeted him.
And yet the knight still came over, planted himself in front of him as though grabbing him by the trouser leg, and started bragging like this.
Ha-ha. What kind of knight was this?
Raul was so dumbfounded he couldn’t even find the words.
Rembrandt boasted that he would capture the black mage tomorrow, but Raul silently shook his head.
Because the place where he could actually feel the thick, clinging miasma was not the eastern woods, but the south.
Raul didn’t bother stopping the idiot from digging his own hole.
It’s not like he’ll listen now even if I tell him. He won’t even pretend to.
Instead, Raul decided to focus on something more important.
The rotten ground south of Latina Village.
Over the past two days, Raul had rested enough to examine that land repeatedly.
And in the end, he had become certain of one thing.
There was something beneath it.
Whatever’s set up there is buried pretty deep underground. But isn’t that strange?
He had searched the rotten ground thoroughly, but there was no visible passage leading underground.
No passage, but the miasma is gathered deep below.
Gathered?
That same miasma that always rushed to rot the earth and corrupt plants and animals?
It was as strange a mystery as the ownerless divine power of abundance in Latina Village.
And the question was finally resolved because of one encounter.
On the sixth day, after three and four and, by now, a return from the forest by Rembrandt once more, Raul walked through the dim night under the hoot of an owl, leaving the knight behind with his face all but ruined in misery.
The path was too dark to see even the moonlight on.
And yet Raul’s movement followed a certain rule.
That was because he was tracing the thick, sticky miasma flowing deep underground with the light of divinity held in his eyes.
What he eventually found, however, was a cemetery far removed from the miasma, though it carried a strange and unsettling feeling of its own.
“Who’s there?”
Inside it was an old woman.
She was diligently polishing the gravestones lined up row after row, as if they were treasures too precious to neglect.
Raul ignored the old woman’s question and slowly closed the distance.
Once he was close enough, he was able to realize something.
Having resolved every doubt, Raul asked, “Are you the village chief of this Latina Village?”
The village chief of Latina Village, a woman Raul had hardly ever had any reason to meet.
He had heard she’d been suffering from bad knees lately and could barely walk, but the old woman stood there on both feet as if nothing was wrong.
“I hear you’re a shaman of sorts… and yet there isn’t a speck of spiritual power on you?”
“You can relax. At the very least, I’m not your enemy.”
“Heh heh heh. Well, that figures. Why would you make an enemy of some old woman who’s just about done for? It’d only drain your energy.”
The old woman laughed, exposing teeth that were all but gone.
Her body was little more than skin stretched over bone, yet there was nothing restrained about her manner or her words.
Raul stared silently at the village chief.
He simply couldn’t understand.
After thinking it over, Raul decided to cut straight to the point.
“What are you after?”
“After?”
The chief asked back as if she had no idea what he meant.
Raul answered at once.
“Why are you leaving that miasma rooted beneath the ground alone when you possess so much divine power of abundance? That’s what I’m asking. Priest of Abundance.”
Priest of Abundance.
At those words, the village chief’s slit-like eyes, which had been narrow all this time, opened solemnly.
Given her age, they should have been clouded with age, but the eyes she revealed were endlessly clear and transparent.
Within them shone a deep jade divinity.
It was the unmistakable, unclouded brilliance of divine power of abundance.
The true identity of Latina Village’s chief was that of a Priest of Abundance.
And a rather seasoned one, at that.
By rights, a Saint and the Three Great Churches were enemies who, once they met, had to fight until one side died. But Raul did not avoid a one-on-one meeting with the priest at all.
On the contrary, he looked strangely excited.
Because this old woman was the first Priest of Abundance Raul had met in this world.
A chance to get a new skill.
Raul’s mouth curled up slightly.