Malešov
The mood had sunk after the recent string of incidents. Joseph, however, was not particularly rattled — which, even to him, came as something of a surprise.
Maybe I've just gotten used to magic.
Not that it wasn't ominous. A crowd of people swarming in to scream that they'd watched him die in their dreams was a first. But the more he thought about it, the less reason there was to panic.
If anything, I should be grateful.
A warning in advance was better than nothing — far better than a disaster that arrived without notice. And the situation was clear enough. An entire group had shared the same dream. That meant someone had acted with a specific purpose in mind. They'd even told him what to watch out for. That alone dissolved most of his unease.
Looked at another way, they might even be trying to help.
If the intent had been hostile, they wouldn't have announced themselves like this. Instead, whoever it was had used the village's own traditions to deliver a message to Joseph.
"Derik. Bring Auk and Jiren. We leave today."
"Yes, sir!"
Derik ran off at once. But when he came back, only Jiren was with him. Auk hadn't come.
"Where's Auk?"
"Well... his family has him, apparently."
It was almost certainly because of the rumors circulating about Joseph.
He said he was the third son, didn't he?
At first, they'd probably been happy enough to let him go off on his own. A mage's private soldier wouldn't starve, at least. One less mouth to feed — a win for everyone. But now Joseph was being treated like a plague in the village. Send your own child to a man like that? You'd have to be the kind of parent who threw their children away.
"How did you manage to come? Your family didn't say anything?"
"No, sir. They just told me to take care."
Either way, Auk wasn't coming back. All that training, and it had amounted to doing someone else a favor. A few of the soldiers argued they should go after him and drag him back, but Joseph shook his head. What he needed wasn't just another body with a weapon. Force a man to pick up a shield, and he'd still run the moment it counted — and then he was useless.
Besides, tearing a son away from his family wasn't something Joseph particularly wanted to do. His family probably wasn't even holding him against his will. A man who couldn't bring himself to leave worried parents — that was only human.
I'll find another way to recruit private soldiers later.
Joseph packed up with the soldiers, Derik, and Jiren.
"The schedule hasn't changed. We head straight for Malešov."
If they delayed any longer, winter would set in for real. Once the cold hit, leaving the village would become nearly impossible. Camping outdoors in the dead of winter was a good way for everyone to freeze to death. Better to reach Malešov before that happened.
The soldiers looked uneasy after the dream incident, but they didn't push back. From the villagers' perspective, strange things had started happening after Joseph arrived. From the soldiers' perspective, the strangeness had started after they arrived in the village. None of them were particularly eager to linger. And more than anything, Joseph himself seemed calmer than they'd expected.
"Let's move."
And so the wagons rolled out of Doran Village. One mage, five soldiers — plus Joseph's two new private soldiers.
Once they were clear of the village, Derik and Jiren's faces visibly brightened. For natives of Doran, even the most ordinary sights along the road would look new. The two private soldiers' smiles didn't last long, though. This world had nothing resembling infrastructure. Nothing but forest as far as the eye could see. It took less than an hour for the romance of travel to evaporate. If anything, their expressions only grew darker.
I can barely keep up!
The truth was, they were traveling with two wagons and a mage. The pace wasn't that fast. These two simply didn't have the stamina of the others. It was the first time in their lives they'd marched any real distance in armor. Of course it was hard.
The soldiers snickered at the pair gasping for breath, but they didn't ride them too hard. They remembered well enough how brutal a first march could be. Joseph, watching them, let out a small sigh. The clumsier his private soldiers looked, the more the Castle Regular Soldiers stood out in comparison. The thought of those veterans going home and leaving him with only Derik and Jiren was enough to make him uneasy.
Can they even fight bandits like that?
They already knew Joseph hunted bandits and demonic beasts. They'd steeled themselves for it, in their own way. That didn't make them any more reliable. They'd never fought anything that fought back. They could die easily — or worse, they could run. And that would leave Joseph exposed.
I could use a bit of live practice for them.
Joseph found himself hoping a few stray bandits would show up on the road to Malešov. A small gang targeting the wagons would make for decent experience. Unfortunately, with winter right around the corner, no one blocked the road. Few lunatics traveled in winter. And with fewer travelers, there were fewer bandits looking to prey on them. No prey, no reason to come out.
There was also the rumor of a deranged mage who burned every bandit he saw on sight — but that particular thought didn't occur to Joseph.
I'll just have to hope there are still bandits left in Malešov.
They were following the road when a campsite came into view in the distance.
"Isn't that Baron Auger's banner?"
What?
One of the soldiers pointed at the flag hanging from a wagon. A shield and a fish on a field of blue. That was unmistakably the banner of House Danoa.
Why is he here?
Joseph frowned. He'd been told Auger was coming down to Malešov from the east. There was no reason for him to be camped along this stretch of road.
As they approached the camp, a man tending a fire on one side stopped Joseph's party. Big, with a rough-looking face — Arke, Auger's squire.
"Who goes there— wait, huh?!"
Arke seemed more startled by the soldiers' faces than by the wagons themselves. Hardly surprising — these were the same men who'd trained them for the northern demonic beast hunt, now driving a pair of wagons. Arke sent another soldier running into the camp, then came straight to Joseph's wagon.
"Arke."
"Mage!"
Joseph leaned out of the wagon, and Arke grinned in recognition.
"We were actually on our way to find you..."
"Me?"
"Yes... Ah, you'd better hear the details from the Baron."
Arke nodded and led the wagons in. Then, from beside him, came the sound of someone swallowing hard. Joseph glanced over. His private soldiers looked terrified.
Ah.
Fair enough. They'd just run into a noble without warning. For commoners, a noble was someone you might see once in a lifetime, if that. Not being tense wasn't an option.
"Relax. Just stay quiet and you'll be fine."
The two of them, frozen stiff, let out a small breath. They had no idea how to conduct themselves in front of a noble. One slip — even an accidental one — and they could hang for it. Or, failing that, Joseph might dump them at the next village. Not that Joseph would do any such thing to untrained private soldiers unless he'd lost his mind.
"It's been far too long!"
"It has, Baron."
Joseph climbed down from the wagon, and Auger — having heard from the soldier — came running to greet him. Derik and Jiren's eyes went wide at the sight of a noble bounding toward them so unceremoniously.
"What... happened to you?"
Joseph couldn't help but stare. A large scar now marked Auger's face.
"Ah, this. It's a bit embarrassing, actually."
Auger coughed awkwardly and scratched his cheek. It was only then that Joseph noticed the shift in his bearing. The callow country knight he'd first met now carried himself like a soldier who'd actually seen a fight.
The two of them sat down to a meal and caught up.
"After seeing that northern demonic beast, I realized the battlefield isn't a place I'm ready for yet."
A monster that tore through armor and flung men several meters through the air. Even a creature like that was a low-priority target compared to what waited on the northern front — they'd sent Joseph, a wandering mage, not even a castle knight. And all Auger had done during that hunt was scream himself hoarse. The memory still seemed to shame him.
"Do you remember? The day we first met. We talked about demonic beasts."
"I finally understand why you looked so uncomfortable."
Back then, Auger had asked Joseph if he'd ever seen a demonic beast. Watching Auger's soldiers fail to handle even a single boar, Joseph had hesitated to answer. Apparently Auger had remembered that awkward reaction all this time.
"So that's why you went after the bandits?"
"That's right."
He'd dreamed of hunting demonic beasts and making a name for himself in war. Not a noble in title only — a knight of real renown. But the wall of reality had been higher than he'd imagined. He'd realized that charging onto a battlefield would get both him and his private soldiers killed like dogs. He hadn't given up on the goal, though. Instead of slinking back to his own fief, he'd gone to help Folmers with the bandit suppression.
More grit than he looks like he's got.
Joseph found himself warming to Auger all over again. A rare sort of man, in a world this rotten.
"At first nobody came near us. Then they figured out I was a half-baked knight, and the ambushes started coming from every direction."
Joseph nodded. He'd been jumped by bandits himself in Kutna. If they'd been willing to go after a mage, they certainly wouldn't hesitate with someone of Auger's caliber.
Auger pointed to the scar on his face.
"This one came from a midnight ambush. Nearly died in my sleep."
He said it with a bitter little smile.
"So the eastern suppression is finished, then?"
Auger nodded.
"Hunting down the ones hiding here and there took some time, but it should stay quiet for a while."
They talked a while longer before Joseph finally got to the point.
"Then why are you here, Baron?"
According to Folmers, they were supposed to meet in Malešov. And yet here Auger was, camped on the road leading there. Auger went quiet. The easy atmosphere of a moment ago drained away. Joseph felt it too — something was wrong.
Auger let out a small sigh and spoke slowly.
"We couldn't enter Malešov."
"What? Why not?"
A village a noble couldn't enter? Joseph had never heard of such a thing. Auger paused, then continued.