Chapter 60: Return of the Hero
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 60: Return of the Hero
“Get up! Form ranks, now!”
At my command, Dreng, the mercenary captain, began to hound his lounging comrades. They rose to their feet, their faces clearly showing their annoyance.
At a glance, they might have looked like a disorderly mob, but I knew from our last battle that once the fighting started, they were well worth their pay.
As the camp stirred with activity, a figure moved across the formation, hiding in the barracks like a thief.
The person was in full armor, their face completely concealed by a helmet with a face guard.
Despite their efforts, the mercenaries recognized the figure instantly. It was the expensive equipment, something mercenaries could rarely afford, that gave them away.
“Whew-whit—”
The mercenaries whistled, grinning slyly. When the fully armored figure trembled and glared at them, they feigned ignorance and moved away as if they’d done nothing.
More than a few of them acted the same way. By the time the figure finally reached me, they were grinding their teeth.
“I’m going to kill them all. Every last one of them.”
“They’re just teasing you more because you’re being so sensitive. Act natural. What’s so shameful about lovers sharing a night of passion?”
“Sharing it for all to see is plenty shameful!”
“For someone who says that, you were moaning so loudly last night…”
“Agh! Shut up!”
Piole shrieked to stop me from saying more. The sly grins on the mercenaries watching us only deepened.
“See? This is why they keep teasing you.”
“And whose fault is that…!”
Through the eye slits of her helmet, her eyes narrowed. I pulled Piole into an embrace. The watching mercenaries whistled again, and Piole struggled to break free from my arms.
“Wh-what do you think you’re doing!”
“If you just say the word, I can make it so they can’t even look this way.”
“What, by killing them to shut them up? Don’t.”
I looked down at her with a dumbfounded expression.
“Do you think I’m some butcher who kills for a hobby? I was just going to pluck out an eye or two as an example.”
“Are you crazy? We’ve known these guys for years!”
“It’s a joke. A joke.”
After calming Piole down, I turned to look at the mercenaries. The smile I had when dealing with Piole was gone.
I understood they were close with her, but my gaze was a silent warning to respect the line.
“Ahem…”
The ones who had been smirking feigned ignorance and moved away as if they’d done nothing.
They were recalling my skills they had witnessed in the last battle, and the notoriety that had spread throughout the region. As they relayed my intentions to their comrades, the commotion died down in an instant.
Soon, the mercenaries were in formation. Piole and I mounted our horses and took the lead.
On the main road before the village, Melbourne’s militia was arrayed, waiting for us. Their numbers looked to be double what they were yesterday.
“Have reinforcements already arrived?”
“The guy on the horse is wearing a gambeson. They just dragged out all the men in the village.”
“They must think they have a chance since our numbers are small.”
“Fools. To think a mere militia could stop us.”
It seemed they didn’t know that a single knight could take the heads of several clumsy militiamen. And we had two knights, plus a force that included twenty elite mercenaries.
“What’s the plan?”
“Minimize casualties.”
“Why? If we’re going to be looting, making an example of them would make things easier later, wouldn’t it?”
Piole argued for engraving fear into their bones to facilitate a smooth plunder.
Though she had been so coquettish in my arms, moaning endlessly, once on the battlefield, she was as belligerent as any knight.
Perhaps that was why holding her gave me such a profound sense of conquest.
“Why… why are you looking at me like that? All of a sudden?”
Piole suddenly covered her chest with her arms and backed away. The eyes are the window to the soul, as they say. It seemed my inner thoughts had been reflected in my gaze.
“How am I looking at you?”
“With that same perverted look you had yesterday.”
“Then you see correctly.”
Piole glanced around nervously. Fortunately, the effect of my warning hadn't worn off, so no mercenaries were paying us any mind.
Only after confirming this did Piole whisper so that only I could hear.
“Don’t you think you get turned on a little too often? Let’s try to be mindful of the time and place. I’ll accept you anytime later, so…”
“So you’re not saying no?”
“Ugh…”
“Then again, around dawn, you were the one who pounced on me, weren’t you?”
“I-I’m going on ahead!”
Unable to bear the embarrassment, Piole spurred her horse forward. I chuckled, raised my sword high, and shouted to the soldiers.
“It’s time to plunder!”
No speech was needed. The soldiers cheered and followed me.
Piole, who had charged first, was already piercing through the enemy’s formation. The fifty or so militiamen had formed a line ten men deep, but they couldn’t stop her, and their formation was collapsing.
This was the power of a knight. The very idea of trying to stop a knight with a mere militia was deeply flawed from the start.
“Hiyah!”
I didn’t stay idle. First, I created an opening by throwing a few stones—a new hobby of mine—and charged in. When a crude wooden spear came for me, I parried it with my sword and then severed its owner’s head.
A flail aimed at my horse’s head was deflected with my sword, and I cut off the man’s arm to ensure he wouldn’t try that again.
“Aargh!! My arm!”
The enemy soldier collapsed, clutching the stump of his arm as blood gushed out. My horse reared and trampled him with its front hooves. The screaming stopped.
Meanwhile, I steadied my tilted body by grabbing the pommel of my saddle and swung my sword horizontally. The head of an enemy soldier wielding a club fell to the ground.
With three men neutralized in an instant, the enemy soldiers couldn’t help but waver.
“I-I don’t want to die!”
When one man turned his back, the unrest grew. The enemy soldiers exchanged glances and began to slowly back away.
“Hold the line! Reinforcements are coming if you hold on!”
The enemy commander raised his voice, trying to rally their morale. It didn’t last long. Hearing his voice and identifying him as the commander, Piole swiftly rode over and cut off his head.
“The enemy commander is dead!”
Seeing their commander’s head impaled on Piole’s sword and held high, the enemy soldiers began to drop their weapons one by one and prostrate themselves on the ground.
The battle was over before the mercenaries, who had been hurrying on foot, even arrived.
It was an anticlimactic victory.
The looting began soon after. As expected of a wealthy village, every house we searched overflowed with goods. We even had to unload some of the less valuable plunder from the previous village to make room.
Even after commandeering the village’s carts, we couldn’t fit all the loot. Thanks to this, the mercenaries didn’t treat the villagers too harshly.
Still, we’ll be their sworn enemies, I thought.
Piole, who had gone out to scout immediately after the battle, returned just as the looting was nearly finished.
“Reinforcements?”
The dead enemy commander, who turned out to be Baron Debussy’s tax collector, had shouted that reinforcements were on their way. If that was true, we would need to drastically alter our plans, which was why I had sent her to scout.
“Didn’t find anything. We’re safe for today.”
“They said a messenger was sent two days ago on Baron Debussy’s orders.”
A moment later, Dreng the mercenary captain approached and reported.
“Did you interrogate a villager?”
“Yes. I thought it might be necessary… I apologize if I overstepped my bounds.”
Having acted without orders, Dreng watched my expression and bowed his head.
His attitude had become much more serious since the incident with the escaped prisoner. Now, he was proactively seeking out tasks, which was unlike a mercenary.
Was he trying to keep his oath to repay me with loyalty? A mercenary like this was one in a hundred. Still, I’d have to watch a little longer to see if he was genuinely earnest or just an opportunist.
“Report before you act next time.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Dreng withdrew, Piole spoke up.
“Then we should probably get out of here soon. The carts are slowing us down, so if we delay even a little, they’ll catch up to us.”
If that happened, we would not only lose all the plunder we had gathered but also have to worry about losing our lives.
“We leave in a day. But before that, I need to meet with Sir Powell.”
“Ah, finally going to collect the ransom?”
“No, I’m just going to let him go.”
“What…?”
Piole was stunned, and the man himself was no different.
“You’re going to release me?”
Powell Osborne, who had been summoned to the command tent, had a look of disbelief on his face.
“Isn’t that what I promised?”
“That was in exchange for my subordinate taking care of your political rival. But I haven’t even met my subordinate or given the order yet…”
“On second thought, it seemed unnecessary to go through another person.”
Powell Osborne’s eyes narrowed.
“Arrogant. Does it not occur to you that I might not keep my promise?”
“Would the man called the Fox of the Battlefield really turn away an opportunity to make up for his prior defeat and significantly cripple the enemy’s strength?”
And that wasn’t all. If I revealed that he had instigated the deaths of Bolton and his other vassals, I could sow discord among our political factions.
It was an offer Powell Osborne absolutely could not refuse.
“What are you plotting?”
“Am I obligated to tell you that? Decide. Will you accept, or not?”
“And what happens if I don’t?”
This was the problem with smart people. They trusted their own intellect too much, deluding themselves into thinking they had options even in the worst situations.
I had framed it as a proposal, but I made him understand that it could never be one.
“I suppose I’ll have to make the same offer to Djak.”
If Djak managed to recover from the situation where Powell Osborne had suffered a major defeat, he would gain the power to threaten the position of his young great-grandson.
Furthermore, if I dragged out the return of the prisoners, that threat would only grow larger. Powell Osborne knew that as well.
“You…!”
“Now, choose.”
It was a proposal—no, a threat—that Powell Osborne had no choice but to accept.
“Bolton’s forces will be lying in ambush on the border between our two territories.”
It was an ambush set up in case I returned alive. Thanks to Muel, who had followed Bolton and regularly sent me intelligence, I was aware of their every move.
“If you deceive me, your death will not be a clean one.”
Powell Osborne departed, suspicious of my motives to the very end.
After seeing him off, I didn’t return immediately but moved to a nearby forest. I took out a pouch that I had never let leave my side.
Inside was the orange-glowing crystal I had taken from the ancient ruins.
When I placed the crystal on the ground, the earth turned into a swamp and swallowed it. In a brief moment, the crystal vanished, and the ground returned to its normal state as if nothing had happened. I stood up, turning my back to it.
I don’t know if the timing will be right.
When the number of goblins generated by the relic exceeded its limit, they would begin to spill out of the dungeon.
I was thinking of the next war. Powell Osborne was not a man who would back down like this. He would surely try to avenge his recent defeat.
This was a provision for that time.
#
The forces of Bolton and the other vassals were lying in ambush in the forests on both sides of the road connecting the two territories. Deeper in the woods, several carts were gathered, piled high with mountains of plunder.
There were only three or four territories in this area that sided with Ailgar, yet the amount of loot was substantial.
That alone was enough to guess how relentlessly they had been plundering.
Despite this, their expressions were not bright. It was because there had been no news of Powell Osborne defeating Allen.
“Damn it! What in the world is that Powell fellow doing? If things go wrong…”
Just as one of them was complaining anxiously, the soldier sent out for reconnaissance returned.
“He’s on his way back!”
At the news of Allen’s return, the vassals’ faces grew even darker. The thought of actually facing Allen filled them with fear.
Hadn’t they seen with their own two eyes how well he fought?
“His forces? How many men does he have?” Bolton asked calmly.
“Fewer than twenty, and it looked like they lost all their carts.”
“Is that so…?”
Only then did the vassals’ expressions brighten. Bolton’s tense face also relaxed.
“He must have been crushed by Sir Powell and is now fleeing.”
“Still, he has a lot of men left.”
Even including the vassals, their own forces barely numbered over twenty. With Allen and Piole on the enemy side, victory was far from certain.
“That’s why this is an ambush. As defeated soldiers, their morale will be low. Once they realize they’ve been ambushed, they’ll scatter and flee.”
“Hmm…”
“Don’t get any funny ideas. The only way for us to survive now is to kill him and pin all the blame on him. Does everyone understand?”
As Bolton was reining in his comrades, the scout who delivered the news silently withdrew.
Muel was waiting for him, positioned at the very edge of the ambush formation so he could slip away at any moment.
“What’s the situation?”
“Thirty elite soldiers. There were three knights at the head of the column. Moreover, they didn’t look like they had been in a battle at all.”
It was a completely different report from the one he had given the vassals.
“Hah. To think it would turn out exactly as Sir Allen planned.”
Muel’s expression grew complicated. Thirty elite soldiers and three knights was a force that far surpassed their own.
Moreover, if Allen’s plan was proceeding as expected, they would already know about the ambush.
They had no chance of winning.