Private Soldiers
A few days later, one of the soldiers fell ill. Winter was closing in, the air turning sharp and cold, and the man burned with fever while diarrhea wracked him without relief.
Flu, or something like it...
Joseph watched him grow deathly pale in the span of a single day, but there was nothing to be done. Nobody here possessed any real medical knowledge. They had packed some medicine for the bandit-hunting expedition, of course — but it was all for treating wounds. Nobody had anticipated anyone falling sick.
This world's medicine was so primitive it barely warranted comparison to the modern era. The priests of the Church doubled as physicians, but finding one meant traveling to a major city. Catching a disease here was as good as a death sentence. The other soldiers felt sorry for their comrade, certainly — but sympathy was as far as it went.
I can't just leave him like this, either.
Under ordinary circumstances, the sick man would have been left in the nearest village while the rest of the party moved on. Once he recovered, he could catch up on his own, or else return to the castle. That was standard procedure. They had bandits and demonic beasts to hunt; there was no other choice.
But Joseph couldn't bring himself to do it. He knew just how rotten this world was. Leaving a sick man in some isolated village was no different from telling him to die there on his own. Even if you paid the villagers to look after him, without anyone to keep watch, proper care was a fantasy. They'd pocket the money, then shrug and say, "Unfortunately, he passed away." Nobody would ever know the difference.
The sick soldier knew this too. His face was grim. He kept trying to force himself to his feet, insisting he could keep going.
"Don't move. If it gets worse, you'll actually die."
Only then did the man crawl into the wagon and lie down.
These were men who had traveled with Joseph for months. He wasn't the type to cut them loose knowing they would die. In the end, he decided to find the nearest village and wait there until the soldier recovered.
And if he doesn't recover... well, then there's nothing I can do.
It was the least Joseph could offer.
The village chief of Doran Village was less than thrilled to see a party arrive with a sick man in tow. But the moment Joseph and the soldiers handed over some of the stolen goods, his face lit up. Fortunately, Doran Village saw enough traveling merchants that they didn't refuse the loot. They'd likely stash it through the winter and trade it for food come spring.
"We'll rent two houses."
On top of that, Joseph requested two dwellings. One for himself and the healthy soldiers; the other for the sick man to occupy alone.
Joseph may have lacked medical knowledge, but he was a man from the modern world. His fear of disease ran several times deeper than anyone else's here. He already knew a single epidemic could turn the world upside down. Isolating the patient was the only sensible course — and the soldier's symptoms looked uncomfortably similar to something Joseph already knew.
I finally became a mage, only to die of some disease? There'd be no more pathetic way to go...
"Keep a fire going in the sick man's house at all times, and boil the water."
Temperature and humidity. Joseph applied what little knowledge he had to create an environment that might aid recovery. Whether it would actually help, he couldn't say — but it was better than leaving the man exposed to the dry, transitional weather.
The villagers found Joseph's behavior puzzling. Renting an entire house for a single sick soldier? Was he simply a kind man, or did he have some other motive? They couldn't understand it.
The soldiers, on the other hand, were in awe. They already knew Joseph was different from other mages. He never hurled the abuse or unreasonable orders you'd expect from a man of power, and he never treated them as expendable. He'd even shared the loot taken from the bandits. That alone put him in the top one percent of employers. And now he'd gone and rented a house just for a sick soldier.
He's really not an ordinary man...
In this wretched world, Joseph was a genuinely rare kind of person. Sure, people grew attached when they spent time together, and looking after each other came naturally. But the moment it started costing them money, most people looked the other way. That was just how things were.
"Is he actually a man of the cloth?"
"Come to think of it, he was on familiar terms with the Church priests."
The soldiers recalled that Joseph had stayed with the Church before the northern demonic beast subjugation. Perhaps he was a mage affiliated with the Order. But either way, it didn't much matter to them. He was looking after them far more than they'd ever expected. That was what counted.
When people feel they are being treated with respect, goodwill follows naturally. By this point, they trusted Joseph more than even he realized — and that trust soon translated into action.
"I was thinking we might go hunting, to prepare for winter."
It was Refn who spoke up first. In a month or two the weather would turn bitterly cold, and he wanted to have dried meat ready. There was no telling when the fallen soldier would recover. They couldn't keep paying the villagers for food indefinitely — and even with money, the village wouldn't sell them that much.
"Shouldn't I come along as well?"
Joseph offered, but Refn shook his head.
"You have your own work to attend to, Mage."
Refn knew nothing of magic, but he could tell Joseph had been concentrating on something the entire time — and that it was important to him. The soldiers didn't want to interrupt.
"We'll sell the hides and dry the meat immediately."
From then on, Refn reported every little matter to Joseph before acting. His manner was so excessively deferential that Joseph found it a little startling.
It's good that they've warmed up to me... but it's a shame.
Joseph welcomed their attitude, yet felt a pang of regret all the same. After all, they were soldiers of Valois Castle. Once they reached Malešov and the mission was over, they would part ways. No matter how close they became, they were not Joseph's men.
I'm going to need soldiers of my own going forward.
Ever since entering Valois Castle, Joseph had come to realize that what he possessed was on an entirely different scale from before. The heavy pouch of gold coins from Folmers. Several volumes of magic texts. The staff with its Holy Relic. The Artifact discovered in the demonic beast cave. The loot taken from the bandits.
This was enough wealth to force even the disinterested to sit up and take notice. Protecting it with his own power alone wouldn't be enough. If Joseph were some fantasy-novel protagonist who could wipe out dozens with a single spell, it might be a different story.
Protagonist, my ass...
This was a cesspit that merely happened to have fantasy in it. And he was nothing more than an ordinary citizen wading through that cesspit.
Recruiting them as private soldiers would be difficult.
Joseph considered it briefly, then shook his head. Joining him would mean leaving this region. These men already had proper jobs as castle soldiers. Their pay wasn't even that bad — why would they follow a wandering mage?
"Why not recruit private soldiers here instead?"
"Here?"
He'd asked Refn on the off chance, and the man offered a different suggestion. Refn seemed to understand exactly what Joseph had been driving at.
"Yes. In a village like this, there are bound to be plenty of men who'd like to become soldiers and leave."
Refn and the other soldiers had become soldiers that way themselves. Joseph knew well enough that young men itching to escape some backwater village could be found anywhere.
"But they won't have any training to speak of."
This wasn't simply a matter of hiring people. Joseph needed men who could protect him and his property. He couldn't just hire anyone. He'd be lucky if they didn't take the money and run.
But Refn didn't understand Joseph's concern. What's he talking about? That was the look he gave him. And reasonably so — unless they were complete idiots, nobody would stab an employer of this caliber in the back.
When Joseph continued to hesitate, Refn spoke up again.
"Then what if we trained them?"
"Trained them?"
"That's right. We'll be traveling together as far as Malešov, so until then we can teach them the basics of combat and proper conduct."
He added that they could draw up a contract: if Joseph wasn't satisfied by the time they reached Malešov, he'd dismiss them there.
"Once they understand what a decent employer you are, Mage, they won't even think of anything else."
He declared that he would also make sure the private soldiers knew just how good an employer Joseph was.
Isn't that just gaslighting...?
When this was relayed to the other soldiers, they agreed readily. Joseph wondered if he was taking advantage of the castle's men, but the soldiers seemed delighted, as if something interesting had finally come along.
The truth was, ever since arriving in Doran Village, the soldiers had been bored out of their minds. No bandits, no demonic beasts, and Joseph spent all day researching in his room. Aside from the occasional hunting trip with Refn, there was absolutely nothing to do.
And so, the next day, Joseph announced that he would be hiring private soldiers in the village.
"Have the men gathered by this afternoon."
Word that a mage was recruiting private soldiers spread, and the village men flocked in. As Refn had said, most were young, and every last one of them claimed to be confident in a fight.
"We'll see what you're made of, starting now."
At Refn's word, one of the soldiers stepped forward with a shield and a club. Seeing the man wearing no armor at all, one of the village youths strode out confidently — and didn't last more than a few blows before his face hit the dirt.
"Next."
Oh...
Joseph watched with leisurely admiration as the soldiers beat the young men into the ground. They'd been riding Joseph's firepower all this time, but they were still properly trained castle soldiers. They were on a completely different level from country boys who'd scuffled a few times in some backwater.
After ten men in a row had their noses broken, some began to slink away, reading the room. They wanted to succeed and leave the village, sure — but they didn't want their faces smashed in. Joseph paid them no mind whatsoever. This was about finding soldiers. Anyone who got scared off by this much was useless.
"Hm?"
During the testing, one particular youth caught his eye — a kid who came at them with feral desperation. He looked a little younger than Joseph, and his eyes burned with a peculiar venom. Blood ran from his head where the club had struck him, yet he foamed at the mouth and hurled himself at the shield anyway.
"They say he's the village orphan."
Joseph asked Refn, who had gotten the information from the village chief. The kid's name was Derik. His parents had died when he was young, and he'd been working under the village chief ever since.
Ah.
Joseph nodded at that. Of course there was venom in those eyes. He'd been in the exact same position, once.
In this world, you needed money or connections to survive. But with no parents to pass those things down, a child like him had no choice but to live like a slave. That was why he was so desperate to seize this chance and escape his circumstances.
Desperation matters.
It was no exaggeration to say that the will to claw his way out of the gutter was what had made Joseph who he was today. What the boy needed was a single opportunity. Just as Joseph had been given the chance to become a mage, this kid needed the chance to become a private soldier.
Derik, huh...
Joseph watched the youth rolling on the ground, his gaze lingering.