Chapter 30
Chapter 30
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 30
Chapter Title: Rewarding Merit (2)
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The citizens were moving about busily.
“Heave-ho!”
“Watch out over there!”
They cleared the rubble of collapsed buildings, and in the empty spaces, they raised the frames of new ones.
Everyone, regardless of age or gender, was involved.
All the citizens of Comrat were hard at work on the restoration.
Among them was Gunther.
“Hmph!”
Watching Gunther effortlessly lift stone blocks that three or four able-bodied men couldn’t budge, the children squealed with delight.
“My goodness. With the knight helping out, the work is going so much faster.”
“He’s doing the work of ten strong men all by himself.”
Even the men who had been nothing but uncomfortable at first now seemed to secretly hope for Gunther to show up at the site.
It was all thanks to Gunther silently focusing on his own work.
“He's like a dwarven construction machine.”
I sat in a sunny spot and quietly watched the scene.
As a squire, it wasn't right for me to just watch while my master worked up a sweat.
But what could I do?
My body was in a terrible state.
Just once. And only for a moment.
Borrowing the witch's power had truly been for an instant.
But the price for that brief moment was being laid up for over a week.
“Yawn.”
Sitting around with nothing to do, a yawn escaped me.
“See, you should be resting in your room.”
Seeing me, Gunther clicked his tongue and urged me to go back to my room right away.
It seemed he was quite concerned about a kid who wasn't even fully recovered just sitting around like this.
But I wasn't here by choice either.
After that day, Gunther had become a celebrity.
The commander of the Relief Knights who had slain the Grendel brothers.
The holy knight who helped Greta Giftrang defeat the fearsome sorcerer.
In a short time, Gunther had accumulated incredible achievements, and his reputation skyrocketed.
“I can't even rest properly in the room.”
“Tsk. It seems the lord of the castle came by again while I was away.”
To the point that even the lord of Comrat, who hadn't shown his face at all before, was now visiting so often he was wearing out the doorstep.
“Don't even mention it. He comes by every chance he gets to ask about you, Master. Phew.”
“If he's that curious, he could just come find me himself.”
He wasn't just saying that.
The lord frequently came to me to ask about Gunther.
Unless I was a fool, there was no way I wouldn't know the lord's true intentions.
It seemed he was very anxious now that the city was in such a state.
Unlike the castles in other regions where knights or knightly orders dispatched by the Empire were stationed, the western castles had virtually no knightly forces.
Comrat was fortunate to have the Giftrang family, even if they were a branch family.
The problem was that the Giftrang family had been thoroughly decimated this time.
In a situation where another terrifying sorcerer could attack at any moment.
It was only natural for the lord of Comrat to be trembling with anxiety.
Of course, Ingna would never visit this unremarkable city twice. Her position within the Blue Tower was too high for her to be deployed so carelessly.
But I couldn't just tell the lord the full story.
It was obvious he wouldn't listen even if I did.
“Then get some rest. I'll be back after helping out a little more.”
While I was lost in thought, Gunther disappeared into the distance to help with the restoration work again.
“Esquire Yan.”
And not long after, Anton arrived.
I had been waiting for him.
In truth, the reason I was out here at the dusty restoration site despite my unwell body wasn't just because of the lord's pestering.
After that day, the lord had semi-forcibly moved Gunther's and my lodgings to the VIP quarters of the inner castle.
It was an incomparably comfortable place compared to the inn we had been staying at, but it was a terrible spot for hearing news from the outside.
The threshold of the inner castle was too high for the guild's mercenaries and Anton to come and go as they pleased.
I had no choice but to force myself to come out here, if only to hear the news.
“The workers dispatched from other cities will arrive by tomorrow.”
“And the cost?”
“As you said, Esquire, we've billed the entire cost to them. Since they have sins to atone for, getting their cooperation wasn't difficult.”
“Still, it couldn't have been easy…”
“They were about to have the fact that they vouched for those sorcerer scoundrels reported to headquarters. What choice did they have?”
Seeing his vile smile, it seemed he had used the Grendel brothers' case to properly extort them.
“More importantly, what about the thing I asked you to look into?”
I asked casually, watching Gunther clearing rubble in the distance.
“About that…”
Anton's voice immediately lowered.
“As you suspected, Esquire, it seems the Giftrangs were the target from the beginning.”
His face was filled with near certainty as he said this.
“From the city gate to the Giftrang family estate. They broke through in a straight line. Other places suffered damage, but the enemy forces committed to that path were on a different level.”
I nodded at Anton's opinion that there must have been something in the Giftrang estate that drew their attention, though I didn't know what it was.
I had been thinking something similar.
“We are speculating that this whole bandit uproar might have been a conspiracy to lure the Giftrangs out of the city.”
It was a reasonable guess, but there was no way to know if it was true.
“Oh, right.”
As I was lost in thought, Anton spoke as if he had just remembered something.
“As you instructed, I passed on the information about the Chimeras to headquarters and the Empire.”
It was about the guild headquarters and the Empire.
“If Esquire Yan's information is all correct, the Imperial Family will make a move. The Blue Tower might even become subject to Imperial supervision, just like the Black Tower.”
That was what I wanted.
Wasn't that why I had spent days and nights wracking my brain, despite my poor health, to pull out every memory from my past life and relay it to Anton?
The completion of the Chimeras had to be stopped, no matter what.
To do that, the guild's power alone was not enough.
The guild's main strength was its knights.
They were skilled at fighting enemies out in the open, but they weren't suited for dealing with those who schemed in the shadows.
The Empire's agencies specialized in dealing with such people.
In my past life, I had failed.
By the time the Chimeras revealed themselves to the world, most of the Empire's agencies had already been dismantled.
As a result, in the midst of a raging war, we were massively backstabbed by the mages of the Blue Tower.
Countless knights lost their lives in vain, and an incomparably larger number of Imperial citizens met a terrible fate.
But now, I could stop it.
Unlike in my past life, the Empire was still standing strong.
If the Imperial Family acted decisively, the Blue Tower's mages and the Chimeras wouldn't be able to run rampant like they did in my past life.
“Oh, right. When you made the report, my name…”
“As you instructed, the information provider was listed as Knight Gunther.”
After replying, Anton hesitated for a moment before asking me.
This was about exposing the dagger the Blue Tower had been hiding to the entire world, he said.
A chance to achieve something this great might never come again in my lifetime, he added.
“You could form a connection with the Imperial Knights. You might even earn the right to enter the Cradle of Stars, the goal of every squire.”
His tone suggested he couldn't quite understand why I would refuse such an opportunity and step back, giving all the credit to Gunther.
To this, I replied.
I told him not to argue about it since it was already done.
It would only make me feel worse to hear any more.
I felt the same way about the wasted opportunity.
If I had my way, I would have proudly put my own name on it.
But I couldn't.
My damn age was the problem.
It was by no means natural for a young squire like me to know about the Blue Tower's secrets.
Nine times out of ten, I'd be interrogated.
When, where, how, and so on.
I'd be asked countless questions, but in the end, there would be only one thing they'd want to confirm.
Whether the kid in front of them was a spy for the Blue Tower.
I couldn't withstand that interrogation.
It couldn't be helped, but it was an undeniable fact that I had received help from the witch.
Barisada.
The grotesque bow had completely merged with the Knight-slayer.
No, to be precise, it was closer to that thing having devoured the Knight-slayer.
The inverted bow limb, sitting right on top of the Knight-slayer's body, was the very proof of my treasonous act (?).
“Anyway, the credit is unconditionally my Master's.”
I had to hide carefully behind Gunther.
If I didn't want my neck in a noose.
“Aha. So this is unconditional for you too.”
“…?”
Looking at me, Anton had a strangely moved expression.
“How can you two be so alike?”
“What do you mean?”
When I frowned at his cryptic words, he hurriedly added another sentence.
“They say a knight and his squire grow to resemble each other, don't they? I was just trying to say that. Hahaha.”
After that, Anton, who had been muttering to himself, also left, and a sweat-drenched Gunther returned.
“Let's go.”
The place we arrived at after following him was a shabby barracks.
“Oh, dear…”
“Ughhh.”
As soon as we entered the barracks, moans of pain could be heard.
Patients who had suffered injuries, big and small, in the recent turmoil were lying everywhere, groaning.
“Knight Gunther.”
“Knight.”
Those who were tending to the patients stopped what they were doing and bowed their heads.
Gunther gave a solemn nod and immediately began to examine the patients.
Thanks to Gunther's efforts over the past few days, there were no critically ill patients.
The remaining patients were all just lightly injured, with scrapes and tears to their flesh.
“Thank you. Thank you so much.”
“We will never forget this kindness.”
The patients whose wounds were healed in an instant repeatedly expressed their gratitude to Gunther.
I sat on an empty cot, swinging my legs, and watched the scene.
The despised beggar knight no longer existed.
There was only a holy knight, respected by the people.
“Hmm, hmm.”
Watching him, my chest felt ticklish for some reason.
It was an indescribable feeling.
“You're having arrogant thoughts again.”
In the meantime, Gunther, who had finished treating the patients, frowned at me.
“Arrogant thoughts? I was just thinking that my master really is a true knight after all… Ouch!”
“Hmph. The things you say.”
I got a flick on the head for no good reason after saying something unnecessary.
But I didn't feel bad.
“Knight.”
“Knight Gunther.”
“Commander of the Relief Knights.”
All the way from the barracks back to our lodgings, people recognized Gunther and greeted him.
A scene that was unimaginable before.
I stopped a little ways away from Gunther and watched with a pleased smile.
“Yan.”
A sudden call of my name brought me back to my senses.
“Aren't you coming?”
Gunther was gesturing to me.
“Yep. Coming. I'm coming.”
* * *
Just as Anton had said, workers dispatched from other cities arrived, and Gunther no longer had to go to the restoration site.
He immediately entered a state of meditation.
“Don't go anywhere.”
He sternly warned me not to wander around with my unwell body for no reason.
“I'm bored. So bored.”
Thanks to that, I was stuck in the room, writhing in boredom.
“Hello?”
“Is anyone there?”
“Stars?”
Hoping the stars might be watching and could serve as conversation partners, I spoke to the empty air, but no reply came.
Damn stars.
It seemed they had no interest in the affairs of the mortal world, aside from war.
It had been like this ever since that day.
I couldn't hear the voices of the stars, let alone the witch's.
“Little squire.”
Greta found me just as I was about to leave the castle, planning to get some fresh air behind Gunther's back.
“About the reward for your merits we promised.”
She looked much more haggard than she had a few days ago when I ran into her in the corridor leading to the inner castle gate.
Then again, with her family in such a state, she couldn't possibly be at ease.
“It seems we'll have to do things a little differently.”
Greta said, bending down to meet my eyes.
Given the circumstances, I had expected this.
But I couldn't help feeling a sense of disappointment.
I tried my best to act nonchalant and quietly waited for her to continue.
Finally, she opened her mouth to speak.