Chapter 7
Chapter 7
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 7
Chapter Title: Freelance Knight Guild (3)
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Knights, as a breed, have an atrocious sense of money. If only it stopped there, it would be one thing, but they don't even understand the value of a coin.
Yet, they are obsessed with maintaining their dignity, so their coin purses are always leaking.
After all, maintaining one's dignity is an expensive affair.
That’s where squires came in.
A squire had to step in and handle the minute details a knight would overlook for the sake of appearances, scrutinizing every coin.
The problem was that these squires were often cut from the same cloth as their masters, so their intervention was rarely of any real help.
Generally, that was the case.
“This is as far as I go. Absolutely no further.”
Hearing the employee’s desperate plea, as if he were coughing up blood, I smacked my lips.
Trying to haggle the commission down any further would only breed resentment.
Judging by the way he was trembling, it probably already had.
I ignored him, took the contract, and went to wake Gunther, who was sleeping soundly while leaning against a corner.
*Scratch, scratch.*
The way he signed without even knowing what it was made him the perfect mark for a scam.
It was a good thing he was flat broke.
“You have a fine squire, sir. He is certainly worthy of the trust you place in him.”
Gunther stared blankly at the employee, who spoke through clenched teeth, then gave a small nod.
*The contract must have gone well.*
With that thought, he said nothing more about the contract.
As expected, he had no intention of hearing the petty details.
That was the way of a knight, after all.
Instead, it was the mercenaries who appreciated my efforts.
If only the rookie were half as sharp.
Turns out our accountant is a moron.
I’ve never seen Anton get played like that before.
Their faces were filled with admiration and goodwill.
If not for my status as a squire, they looked ready to rush over and offer me a spot in their company on the spot.
Come to think of it, mercenaries had always taken a strange liking to me, even in my past life.
Especially ‘him.’ He had been particularly relentless.
He would offer me a spot in his company at every opportunity and act overly familiar, earning me the nickname ‘the money-grubbing squire’ and the reputation of ‘a classless failure who consorts with vulgar mercenaries.’
It was only natural that my already poor reputation plummeted even further.
*Sigh.*
I let out a short breath and looked at the guild staff member, Anton.
He was muttering about how he might be reprimanded by the guild for this contract, constantly biting his nails. He didn't look well at all.
“H-How about this?”
Anton proposed abruptly as our eyes met.
“Since you’re already allowing the squire to gain experience, why not use this opportunity to help him develop an eye for weaponry as well?”
In other words, he was suggesting that the choice of arms and armor be left entirely to me.
He must have figured a clueless child would never pick out a proper weapon, and this would be his way to recoup some of his losses and avoid the guild’s censure.
*Grunt.*
Anton, who had disappeared for a moment, returned and dumped a pile of swords and armor on the floor, hauled from who knows where.
He repeated this several times until a mountain of weapons was piled on the floor.
“Seeing the widest possible variety will surely help him develop a discerning eye, wouldn’t you agree?”
He had likely brought out all sorts of equipment to confuse me.
*Heh.*
I just chuckled.
In the mental registry I kept, I added a new line for Anton, the clerk at the Freelance Knight Guild’s Komrat office.
*Anton, an expert at digging his own grave.*
***
The boy’s hand, which had been sifting through the mountain of gear, paused before a shabby-looking sword.
“I’ve picked one.”
The moment the words left his mouth, the mercenaries, who had been holding their breath, erupted in cheers.
“Whoa!”
“Incredible! How did he spot that?!”
Amidst a sea of flashy fakes, the boy had picked out the genuine article.
“I can’t believe he picked ‘Blood Tears’!”
“Wow. I was on the edge of my seat, thinking he’d grab one of the pretty pieces of junk next to it.”
The mercenaries, thoroughly excited, chattered away.
Blood Tears—or, to be precise, [Sachsen’s Blood Tears].
It belonged to a locally famous mercenary named Sachsen, who, in his later years, had been drowning in gambling debt. The despicable Anton had used all sorts of sweet talk to convince him to put it up as collateral.
When Sachsen later tried to reclaim the sword, an absurd amount of interest had been tacked on, making it impossible for him to ever get it back.
Afterward, whenever Sachsen drank, he would weep for his beloved sword, and in time, his story gave the blade its name.
“I-I can’t believe it. How in the world…!”
Looking at the utterly dumbfounded Anton, it seemed the sword might soon be renamed Anton’s Blood Tears.
“Maybe he’s from a smithy? You see that from time to time.”
“Look at his age. Even if you’re right, he’d have only been running errands. And he can recognize Blood Tears?”
The boy’s ability to recognize the true value of Blood Tears, which looked like nothing more than a cheap sword, was nothing short of miraculous.
It was a feat that would have been difficult even for seasoned mercenaries who had lived by the sword.
But it was too soon to be surprised.
The boy continued to pick out gems from the heap of junk.
[Plague’s Aegis] - A suit of high-quality leather armor reinforced with a steel plate over the heart. Despite its excellent defensive properties, a mistake during the tanning process left its color uneven and extremely unsightly.
[Half-Life] - A large shield made of an unknown wood. It possessed incredible durability, but about a third of its top had been torn off by something, making it look like a piece of scrap.
One after another, the boy selected items whose true worth could never be known without being used, their true value hidden behind a shabby exterior.
The mercenaries were in awe; Anton was in tears.
The gear the guild had agreed to provide consisted of armor, a shield, a sword, and a bow. Only the bow remained.
A look of anticipation spread across the mercenaries' faces.
They were all excited to see what masterpiece the boy would choose this time to make Anton’s stomach churn.
“Huh?”
But it didn’t take long for their anticipation to turn to disappointment.
“I’ll take this one.”
The item the boy chose was neither a hidden gem nor a piece of flashy junk. It wasn’t even a bow.
It was a misshapen crossbow, half the size of a normal one, the kind a dwarf might use.
“Ah. Just when he was on a roll…”
“Of all the things to pick, he chose the Finger-Cutter.”
A cumbersome thing that would leave even a strong man exhausted after drawing the string just once.
A vicious weapon that had claimed the fingers of countless men who had tried to test their strength against it.
“Th-Then that’s your choice. No take-backs now.”
Anton, looking as if he’d been brought back from the dead, shouted hastily.
The fact that the boy, who had been on such a roll, had stumbled at the very end was incredibly disappointing.
The mercenaries had suffered much at Anton’s hands and had been feeling a vicarious satisfaction watching the boy get the better of him, so their disappointment was all the greater.
Still, the value of the items the boy had already claimed was considerable. And it went without saying that Anton had suffered immense mental anguish because of it.
*Clap, clap, clap.*
“A fine eye! Esquire!”
“Little squire! That was amazing!”
The mercenaries paid their rough respects to the young squire’s impressive performance.
***
The mercenaries’ cheering felt out of place.
“The last one was a shame, but you did well enough.”
“As for the Finger-Cutter, whatever. Take it as a souvenir!”
Their words of consolation and encouragement, about the last pick being a shame, felt even more misplaced.
I tilted my head for a moment, then looked down at the small crossbow in my hand.
It seemed the mercenaries called this thing the Finger-Cutter.
It wasn’t an inaccurate nickname, considering you were likely to lose a finger if you tried to draw it with brute force.
But I much preferred its other nickname.
[Knight Slayer]
The monster that had devoured countless knights during the Great War.
Even considering the name was a bit of an exaggeration—earned against the lowest-ranked knights, many of them improperly armored—the Knight Slayer was still a devastatingly powerful weapon.
The problem was that, in its single-minded pursuit of power, any consideration for the user had been tossed in the gutter.
But that wasn’t much of a problem for me.
I gazed at the Knight Slayer.
It was still an unfinished prototype, so only a few should have been out in the world. How one had found its way here was a mystery to me.
For now, I was just happy to see it.
“Long time no see.”
My beloved weapon, one I never let leave my side in my past life.
Of course, unlike the one I had favored back then, this was a prototype with unresolved issues. But what did that matter?
I already had the solution in my head.
I had obtained a weapon that could take down a half-decent knight in a single shot.
Nothing else mattered.
***
It was a good deal.
Leaving the generous Anton, who gave freely until the very end, I exited the office.
I breezily ignored the groans from behind me about writing a letter of resignation.
Leaving the office, I headed straight for the street of inns.
There, I found a suitable inn and deposited Gunther inside.
Though I did have to break a sweat persuading the beggar knight, who stubbornly insisted, “The sky is my roof and the earth my bed, so why waste money on an inn?”
In any case, I went straight to a smithy.
“I was wondering who managed to get one over on Anton, Komrat’s public enemy. To think it was a young lad like you.”
The loose-lipped mercenaries must have already spread the news, because the old blacksmith cackled the moment he saw the weapon I handed him.
“Blood Tears, Plague’s Aegis, and Half-Life. We could call the whole set ‘Anton’s Despair.’”
I offered a noncommittal reply to his silly joke and began listing the items I needed.
The old man, who had been listening with a bored expression, found his mouth slowly falling open until it was hanging agape.
“W-what? Are you off to war or something?”
I tilted my head.
The items I’d ordered were nothing more than the basics: a dagger, throwing knives, a handaxe, a shield, gauntlets, boots, crossbow bolts, and so on.
Light on my feet, but heavily armed.
The basic equipment of a ‘Shield Bearer,’ meant to provide support in both close-quarters and ranged combat.
I couldn’t see what was so unusual about it to warrant such a fuss.
*Do they not have squires in this town?*
“Hmph. It’ll take four days to get everything you asked for ready.”
I nodded and presented the Knight Slayer I had slung over my back.
“Why the Finger-Cutter? So that bastard Anton managed to slip in one piece of junk after all.”
The old man clicked his tongue and said with a deceptively kind expression.
“Consider it a reward for giving Anton what he deserved on behalf of all of Komrat. Leave this here and take a decent bow instead.”
“…”
*Just what did he do to earn the resentment of the entire city?*
I mentally revised my assessment of the ever-generous Anton and spoke to the old blacksmith.
“I appreciate the offer, but I prefer this.”
The old man tried to persuade me several more times.
If I let him continue, I’d be listening to a lecture on how useless the ‘Knight Slayer’ was until nightfall, so I cut him off at a suitable point.
“Can you make this for me?”
I held out a single schematic I had prepared back at the inn.
“The schematic itself is simple enough, so it won’t be difficult, but what is this for…?”
The old man, who was examining the crude schematic I’d handed him, suddenly snatched up the Knight Slayer.
“If you fit this piece here, and that one like this…!”
“According to this schematic, this useless piece of junk will instantly become a treasure!”
“To think I never came up with something so simple… I’ve wasted my life. I’m a disgrace as a blacksmith!”
He looked like a madman, muttering incessantly as his eyes darted between the schematic and the Knight Slayer.
“You’re truly incredible, lad!”
After a long while, the old man snapped out of it and, as if determined to waste more time, began to endlessly praise my idea and genius.
It would have been strange not to feel a pang of guilt.
But since things had come to this, I decided I might as well sell off a bit more of my conscience.
“Hypothetically speaking.”
Holding the Knight Slayer in one hand and the schematic in the other, I looked at the old man.
“If I were to sell this schematic, how much would you pay for it?”