Kutna: Bandits and Beasts
After some time, the group arrived at the village of Kutna.
Half of the village's outskirts was enclosed by a fence, while the other half had a stockade.
Neither the fence nor the stockade showed any signs of being broken or leaning, as if they had been erected not long ago.
As they approached the village, a group of people was seen heading toward the carriage.
Each carrying farming tools, their slow approach did not seem welcoming at all.
As the distance closed, the people's appearances became clear.
Everyone had a face covered in sweat, making them look more like beggars than farmers.
Perhaps they hadn't bathed at all, and despite the distance, a foul stench wafted over.
“Halt!”
At that moment, an old man in the middle shouted.
It was the same warning they had heard several times on the way here.
“There is nothing left to eat here! Turn back!”
Then, the people around them each voiced their agreement.
“Yes! Get lost!”
“If you come in, we'll really kill you!”
However, those voices trembled slightly.
Clearly, the fear was on their side.
“We are not bandits!”
But the carriage did not stop.
Instead, it approached them even closer and shouted.
The villagers shrank back at Rphen's voice.
“We are soldiers from Valois Castle! Lay down your weapons!”
Rphen took out a flag from the carriage with the Valois count's emblem drawn on it.
It was a thing they had hidden to lure bandits.
“How can we believe that?”
Someone retorted to Rphen's words.
Actually, it was unavoidable not to believe it.
Even with the flag, it was hard to trust.
It wouldn't be strange to think they were bandits rather than soldiers.
“I will say it again! Lay down your weapons! Those who do not will be hanged!”
But Rphen pressed them even more strongly.
It was only natural.
What else could they do if they didn't believe?
They were clearly farmers who hadn't fought properly before.
Whether Joseph and his group were bandits or soldiers, resisting would mean death.
It would be better for them to hope they were soldiers and obediently listen.
“... Did you really come from Valois Castle?”
Eventually, one by one, they set down the farming tools on the ground.
Some had been gripping hoes tightly for a long time, but when it didn't seem like a real fight would happen, they finally set them down.
Soon, a man who seemed to be the village chief approached the carriage.
“Are you really people who came from the castle?”
“Yes. It is the lord's order. We are subjugating bandits or demonic beasts.”
Rphen nodded and continued.
“A mage is with us.”
At the word "mage," the chief's eyes widened.
He then finally met eyes with Joseph, who was sitting in the carriage.
“O-Oh, please come in!”
He immediately bowed his head to the ground and stood up, leading the group to his house.
The village residents were puzzled by the chief prostrating himself in front of the carriage, but as soon as they heard "mage," they quickly avoided the place.
Especially the women held their breath.
“...”
“This way! Mage!”
The chief respectfully welcomed Joseph. He brought all the food he could scrape together and filled the table.
Seeing that, Joseph's mind briefly flashed with the face of the Bari village chief.
That man must have been like this when dealing with nobles.
Joseph did not touch the food and immediately got to the point.
“It seems there is a problem around here.”
The people here were all on guard against outsiders, but this time their attitude was excessive.
It was evident they were openly afraid of unfamiliar faces.
The chief nodded decisively as if he had been waiting for it.
“Indeed! The village surroundings are not safe right now!”
“Are there bandits?”
“Not just bandits. Demonic beasts have settled along the river, making everyone starve to death!”
Kutna is a village built beside a river flowing down from the nearby mountains.
After Count Valois started the war, not long after, bandits began appearing near the village.
Moreover, not long ago, it seemed demonic beasts had appeared near the river.
“What kind of demonic beast?”
“They are smaller than wolves but extremely savage! They come running from far away just to see a person's shadow and try to tear off their necks!”
They sounded more like a pack of wild dogs than demonic beasts.
Yet, they were called demonic beasts rather than wild animals because of the demonic beasts' characteristic of fierce nature.
“Moreover, there are rumors that bandits are roaming the passage leading to the castle...”
The chief trailed off and let out a small sigh.
For them, it seemed they had been trying to endure by cutting off contact with the outside until things calmed down.
Now I understand why everyone looked so wretched.
With demonic beasts already at the river, it would have been hard to get food or water.
Perhaps water to drink was more urgent than water to wash with.
But since life was more precious, they must have endured somehow.
In such a situation, when the carriage led by soldiers entered the village, they must have been startled.
“We haven't seen any bandits nearby.”
“They are probably hiding in the mountains to the north of the village. There was someone who said they heard distant human voices at night.”
They must have passed through just as the villains had vacated the area.
“It would be good to catch the beasts first.”
Upon hearing that, it seemed best to first address the water shortage.
Hygiene was important, no matter what.
The chief facing them was at the point of stinking.
If a plague started spreading, Joseph wouldn't be able to handle it.
Moreover, Joseph himself was starting to want to bathe.
“You didn't try to directly subjugate the beasts, did you?”
A thought suddenly occurred to him, and he asked.
If they were in such a hurry that they couldn't even bathe, wouldn't they try to gather strength to drive away the beasts?
But the chief shook his head.
“There are few left in the village who can fight.”
“There were some who tried to block us?”
Of course, Joseph said it that way, but he wasn't really blaming him.
He knew how burdensome it was for ordinary villagers to try to subjugate demonic beasts.
Joseph himself wouldn't have thought of confronting the beasts without magic.
It was just that he was troubled that they hadn't even attempted to subjugate them.
“They are all elderly men. The ones who truly knew how to fight had mostly left the village to subjugate the bandits.”
Before the demonic beasts appeared at the river, the young men of the village had all gone together to catch the bandits who had settled near the village.
“But...”
“No one returned?”
“Yes...”
It seemed they had no courage to ask the remaining ones what happened to the young men.
Suddenly, the desperate faces of those who had blocked Joseph at the village entrance came to mind.
One side with beasts... the other with bandits...
For some reason, a hollow laugh escaped him at the familiar situation.
Joseph decided to check the river where demonic beasts were said to appear at dawn.
The chief gave up his entire house, so they stayed there for a day.
Normally, they would have prepared meals from the village, but given the situation, it didn't seem possible.
It's fortunate if it hasn't gone bad.
Joseph decided to make do with the food they brought for that day's meal.
Rphen claimed they didn't need to relieve the villagers' burden, but Joseph didn't back down.
“How many women should we prepare?”
“... What?”
Before the conversation ended and the chief left, he suddenly brought up an out-of-the-blue topic.
At those words, Joseph's brows furrowed.
“What do you mean?”
Joseph was bewildered, and the chief continued with a glance.
“I heard that the mage sir has taken a woman from the village he visits as his wife.”
“...?”
Confused, Joseph looked at Rphen, who whispered softly.
“It's the story of the mage Zalier.”
“... The old man's strength is good too.”
Suddenly, Joseph's mind flashed back to the village women who had swallowed their breath and hidden when he revealed he was a mage.
Insane bastard...
“Not needed. It won't be needed in the future either, so don't ask.”
Joseph immediately sent the chief away.
Honestly, if he said he wasn't interested in that, it would be a lie.
But this was a problem from before.
Would a lustful person come to a human who hadn't bathed for a long time and was filthy?
Insane world, insane humans...
Joseph felt relieved, sensing that some modern habits still remained in him.
At dawn, Joseph and the soldiers headed to the river with the chief.
More precisely, with the chief and one resident to use as bait.
During the night, a hungry village resident had secretly hidden in Joseph's carriage and was caught.
No fear at all.
It was an era where instinct took precedence over reason.
As long as they weren't caught, it was fine. That was the natural value.
Their way of thinking was different from Joseph's.
Anyway, it was true that they had touched the lord's carriage.
The soldiers insisted they should be killed.
Do we really have to kill them...?
It was absurd that they would kill someone for stealing a little food, but he didn't stop them.
If they let one go, another might hide the next day.
The world expressed sympathy as "soft."
The soldiers were about to be hanged immediately, but Rphen came up with an idea.
Since things had come to this, let's use this guy as bait.
Using a living human as bait for a demonic beast felt a bit repulsive, but Rphen's thought seemed a bit different.
“If you perform the mission as bait and survive, we will spare this matter.”
The demonic beast would rush in and bite the neck in one go, he said.
In other words, if you avoid that one go, there is a chance.
It seems okay.
It was giving a chance to someone about to die.
After all, if rejected, they would be hanged immediately.
Since Joseph knew how painful hunger was, it was better than just killing.
Along the river, reeds and such sprouted up along the water flow.
It was the perfect height for a beast to hide.
“Normally, they fetch water from over there.”
The chief's hand pointed to the only place where the water looked shallow without reeds.
“The last place the villains attacked a person was here.”
And he pointed to the dense reed area nearby.
“They hide in the bushes and bite those who come to fetch water to kill them.”
Joseph, hearing that, climbed onto a nearby rock to check the reeds.
As expected, nothing was visible.
“I don't know when the villains appear.”
“I don't know that either.”
It happens during the day and at night.
There was an incident where a man fetching water in bright daylight was attacked, and when a child who couldn't bear thirst came to fetch water, he was safe.
It really sounds random.
That meant the demonic beast was unlikely to have settled here.
It was probably one of the areas the villains passed through.
Since there were several, they would have attacked humans passing by.
It would have been better if there was even a hunter.
Even as a demonic beast, they showed behavior close to wild animals.
If there had been a professional hunter, they might have been able to search for their traces.
Of course, Joseph had been a hunter before, but all he did was catch small animals with mana orbs.
Bari Village was a small place that could be called the village's hunter with that level.
What to do...